Innehållsförteckning för July 2016 från Car and Driver

WHAT PART OF OWNING A VEHICLE do you suppose costs the most? Fuel? Taxes and fees? Maintenance? Actually, what costs the most is selling your car, when you take the depreciation hit. Time marches on, miles pile up, and value slips away. On average, vehicles lose almost half their original value within the first three years. The two ways of looking at this figure are depreciation and retained value, i.e., glass half-empty or glass half-full. A vehicle that depreciates 35 percent retains 65 percent of its original value. Of course, not all vehicles depreciate equally. The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) tracks trade-in values to gauge which vehicles hold their value best—and worst. The data here depicts the retained values of three-year-old models. It may be just as critical to…

2017 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport Exclusive First Drive The 2017 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport is probably not what you think it is. It’s certainly not a ferocious factory racing machine, as the first blistered and vented Grand Sport was in 1963. And it’s not the wrapper in which a new version of the Chevy small-block V-8 is presented. That was true of the 1996 Grand Sport, the vehicle first to bear the LT4 engine that stoked the embers at the end of the C4’s life. One look at the new GS’s muscled glutes and you’ll know it’s something more than just a trim and paint job, but, despite the sincere wishes of some on our staff, it is not the long-awaited mid-engined Corvette. Tadge Juechter, Corvette chief engineer and our…

Wheel articulation that improves rock-crawling traction is at odds with the flat body control that aids on-road handling. To manage the competing priorities of off-road ability and handling competence, Bentley engineers split the Bentayga’s anti-roll bars in two and fit electric motors between the halves. Using planetary gearsets to multiply torque, the Bentley Dynamic Ride system can input up to 959 pound-feet of torque to each anti-roll bar. Given that the Bentayga’s natural habitat is paved, the system has the most effect on handling. In corners, the motors drive the anti-roll-bar ends to press down on the outside wheels and lift the inside wheels. The resulting equal and opposite forces counteract the vehicle’s body roll. The system also improves ride comfort. When the Bentayga encounters a bump while traveling straight,…

[+] Quick and sharp, sincere chassis. [–] Flat-six wail replaced by flat-four thrum. IT’S SUBTLE, BUT IT’S THERE. Listen carefully when chugging along at low speeds in Porsche’s new flat-four–powered 718 Boxster and you’ll recognize what you hear. Sure, it’s damped by water jackets and a turbo, distinctly lacking mechanical clatter and subdued by decades of internal-combustion progress, but there’s no denying its fundamental thrum. Under all the modern gloss is the undeniable lope of an air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle. This is probably not what Porsche wants you to notice first about the new Boxster, and it likely won’t be because you’ll be too busy caning the thing to be concerned with such nuance, but it’s there, the ghost of the old pancake. As before, the 718 Boxster initially comes in…

[+] Sporting looks, capable handler, spacious. [–] Mushy brake pedal. JAGUAR OFFICIALS KEEP STEERING the discussion of the company’s first SUV, the F-Pace, to its sporting credentials and its somewhat tenuous visual and mechanical (and nomenclatural) connection to the F-type sports car. And all this sporty talk almost makes it sound as if Jaguar wanted to build a road-ripping crossover, even if it compromised rear-seat and cargo space. But that’s not the case. The F-Pace’s slinky yet restrained brawn and its dynamic excellence are augmented with serious practicality. Its back seat, for instance, easily accommodates occupants more than six feet tall, with excellent rear legroom, ample foot space under the front seats, and, considering the standard panoramic sunroof, surprisingly reasonable headroom. The generous cargo hold is nearly twice as spacious…

CHRYSLER’S GOVERNMENT BAILOUT and subsequent rescue at the hands of Fiat in 2009 wasn’t the first time the company teetered on the edge of extinction. It wasn’t even the second. The brand’s long flirtation with insolvency dates all the way back to 1955, when then-president L.L. “Tex” Colbert saved the company by securing a loan of a quarter-billion dollars from Prudential Insurance. In today’s dollars, that’s more than $2 billion. Since then, the company has oscillated between boom and bust at a higher frequency than most of its contemporaries. Where it is in that cycle today will only become clear in time, but CEO Sergio Marchionne’s aggressive courtship of another partner suggests that he sees trouble ahead. He’s stated publicly that, going forward, automakers will need to sell at least…

CHEVROLET CRUZE LT Price: $25,035 Power: 153 hp Torque: 177 lb-ft Weight: 2944 lb C/D observed: 33 mpg NISSAN SENTRA SL Price: $25,545 Power: 130 hp Torque: 128 lb-ft Weight: 2951 lb C/D observed: 31 mpg MAZDA 3 i GRAND TOURING Price: $24,430 Power: 155 hp Torque: 150 lb-ft Weight: 2935 lb C/D observed: 33 mpg HYUNDAI ELANTRA LIMITED Price: $23,310 Power: 147 hp Torque: 132 lb-ft Weight: 2914 lb C/D observed: 32 mpg HONDA CIVIC EX Price: $22,875 Power: 158 hp Torque: 138 lb-ft Weight: 2793 lb C/D observed: 33 mpg There’s a popular myth that, outside of sports cars and exotics, all modern cars are essentially the same. Believers claim that quality, safety, and equipment levels have reached a plateau that makes the differences between a Honda and…

Scientists scour the ever-expanding universe for liquid water in the hope that where there is water, there will be life. Well, turn the telescopes around, eggheads, and point them at Munich to see how BMW is injecting new life into its machines with water. Specifically, how H2O is squirted into the intake plenum of the M4 GTS’s S55 twin-turbo inline-six to make more power. Water injection, the process of introducing water into combustion air to increase engine output, isn’t a new technology. Military aircraft used it in World War II, and more than 50 years ago GM offered a water-injected turbo engine in the Oldsmobile Jetfire. It’s an effective way of cooling the intake charge of a boosted engine, and since cooler air is denser air, it’s richer in power-critical…

[+] A hard-core Boxster with a soul-filled loud pedal. [–] Good never comes cheap. A THOROUGH REDO of the Boxster is here, though after spending a week with the outgoing Spyder, we have to conclude that nothing needed fixing. A close kin to the Cayman GT4, the Spyder is a limited-production model that borrows the 911’s engine. The hand-me-down six comes from the older 911 Carrera S, not to be confused with the new turbocharged 3.0-liter flat-six that powers the refreshed 911. We love the old naturally aspirated 3.8-liter, even here, in its detuned, 375-hp state. It has just the right amount of snarl from the intake and a deep metallic rasp from the standard sport exhaust. This engine gives new meaning to talking behind your back. It might lack…

[+] Athletic, unique, still holds cubic cargo. [–] Would be more fun with a manual, dated interior, priced in cubic dollars. IF YOU SPOT THIS BLUEBIRD IN THE WILD, alert the Audubon Society. Only 1 percent of new cars sold in America are wagons, but this latest limited-edition V60 from Volvo’s Polestar performance division is rarer still. Polestar is racing in this year’s World Touring Car Championship (WTCC), and we snagged a drive in its 2017 streetgoing wagon and sedan models at and around the Circuit Paul Ricard in southern France, coincident with the season’s first WTCC race there. The chassis is much the same as when the model was introduced for 2015, but all is new under the hood. The former 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-six gives way to Volvo’s latest…

LIKE ANY RED-BLOODED KID growing up in Pasadena, California—hometown of that famous little old lady—Eddie Van Halen had a taste for hot cars. After his band’s self-titled debut album went platinum in 1978, he cycled through a collection nearly as exceptional as his guitar playing, from a succession of 12-cylinder Lamborghinis and Ferraris to his current favorite, a new Porsche 911 GT3 RS. C/D: Are there any similarities between the stage and the track? EVH: Practice, obviously. The adrenaline rush is similar. You’re always pushing the edge, on stage live and driving on a track. But improvising at the drop of a hat is the biggest thing. There are no do-overs. If you spin out, you spin out. If you mess up live, you smile your way through it or…

A distant thrum breaks the dawn’s silence, sounding for all the world like a C-130’s four huge props slashing the air high above the Utah desert. We scan the sky as the noise throbs nearer. When the source finally materializes, it’s actually ground-bound, a convoy of dozens of modified trucks jacked high on lift kits and oversized tires. What we thought were droning propellers is actually the burr of thousands of knobby off-road tread blocks hammering the pocked pavement. If a town can have its own theme music, this is Moab’s. Tucked among the red sandstone domes and spires of the Colorado Plateau, Moab is a mecca for all manner of outdoor activities, from rock climbing to mountain biking to BASE jumping. But during the days leading up to Easter,…

[+] Solidity, refinement, handling excellence. [–] Dull engine, can’t see daylight. THE CHEVY CAMARO offers three engine choices. Two of them lie on the spectacular side of the spectrum, but the third, the new 2.0-liter turbo four, isn’t quite up to the excellence of the rest of the car. It’s the engine with the faint turbo whistle, the one that moans like no Camaro should. A Camaro with an inline-four sounds about as appealing as a tofu salad at a Chicago steakhouse. Judged only by the numbers, though, it’s still respectable. The 2.0-liter four, maxing out at 20 psi of boost pressure, is good for 275 horsepower and 295 poundfeet of torque. It might have the lowest output available in a Camaro, but the 2.0 is also the lightest version…

[+] Indulgent interior, undeniable street presence, more nimble than you’d expect. [–] Ride can be firm, gauges wash out in bright sunlight, rear-seat space is limited. MERCEDES-BENZ HAS BUILT a two-door version of its range-topping S-class for years, but it hasn’t offered a convertible variant since 1971. Sun seekers could cruise palm-lined boulevards in an SL roadster or, for a time, an SLS AMG, but four-seat convertible options topped out with the E-class. Now, Mercedes is back in the high-luxe, four-place convertible casino with the 2017 S-class cabriolet. The reborn cabriolet is available in three models that mirror those of the largely identical S-class coupe: a 449-hp S550 with a 4.7-liter twin-turbo V-8, an AMG S63 with its 577-hp 5.5-liter twinturbo V-8, and an AMG S65 that features a twin-turbo…

[+] Newfound on-road refinement, classy interior, solid value. [–] That bizarre front end, efficiency claims fail to materialize. WE WON’T CALL THE REDESIGNED 2017 Kia Sportage ugly, but it is an odd-looking sort of Korean Peugeot. Leading with a Gallic nose, it’s handsome enough along the sides and in back and hardly forgettable. While such bold restyling does not always guarantee notable advancements underneath, this new model is another case of the Korean manufacturer making meaningful generation-over-generation improvements. Kia’s updated platform for the Sportage has grown slightly in length and wheelbase, which contributes to a more comfortable back seat and a modest bump in cargo volume to 31 cubic feet, five cubes more than before yet still on the small side for compact crossovers. Folding the second row flat nearly…