Innehållsförteckning för September 2016 från Car and Driver

—Blaise Pascal THE AIR UP THERE There is one quality of a turbocharged engine you didn’t mention that influenced the car my wife and I recently bought [“To Blow or Not to Blow?” June 2016]. I had a Subaru WRX and found that there was no discernible power loss at high altitude. We regularly travel between Texas and New Mexico. I can always feel the difference with a naturally aspirated engine. So when my wife was in the market for an SUV, we went with a turbocharged engine, knowing that it would still be strong at 7000 feet. —Richard Wheelus Austin, TX To sum up your naturally-aspiratedversus-turbo showdown: 1. Observed mpg: no difference in the match-ups 2. Three-quarters of the wins went to the naturally aspirated vehicle Remind me again…

A little more than 10 years ago, when Audi trotted out the first A5 at the Geneva auto show, jaws dropped. It was a subtle yet undoubtedly lovely car, its soft curves suggesting rather than shouting. It was fine to drive, too, especially in manual-transmission S5 trim, where it took on the character of a quietly brutish assassin. The new 2018 A5 and S5 coupes lose much of that nuance. The A5 seems as if it’s trying too hard to get noticed, its aggressively furrowed hood pulled down over its squat grille. From the side, the original car’s fine character line has been exaggerated into a wavy crease. Out back, the Audis’ LED taillights look to be the victim of a hard kick to the rump. In short, the cars…

That the 2017 Ferrari GTC4Lusso is at least one second faster around Ferrari’s Fiorano test track than the wagonoid FF it replaces is rather meaningless. Partially this is because it’s largely the same car. But it’s also because, according to Stefano Varisco, the man responsible for the Lusso’s vehicle dynamics and control systems, improving lap times wasn’t a target for the Lusso. More to the point, the all-wheel-drive Lusso is very clearly a GT car, a machine made for triple-digit sweepers and deserted highways more than for Alpine paper-clip passes. Hot laps? They’re in the Lusso’s target range but certainly not in its cross hairs. So it matters little when we find ourselves in a parade of tour buses, cyclists, and even sport bikes operating with churlish disregard for velocity…

2017 Jaguar F-type SVR Spain is Europe’s Southern California, home to a temperate climate and lumpy topography. Luckily for both us and the world’s automakers, Europe’s motorsports fanaticism has also littered the country with racetracks. And if you’re going to properly exercise a car with a claimed 200-mph top speed, a controlled environment is a must. So there we were on Teruel’s Motorland Aragón, a 3.3-mile circuit about three hours southwest of Barcelona, eyes up the track, scenery blurring, right foot and supercharged V-8 urging the new Jaguar F-type SVR toward 180 mph on the mile-long back straight. Which feels even faster when you’re staring down the braking point for a 35-mph hairpin. SVR is Jaguar Land Rover’s recently christened ultraperformance label, akin to AMG’s Black Series. Confusingly, the cars…

At the launch of the AMG C43 coupe and convertible, Mercedes dropped a bomb. Not that the AMG Sport line, introduced just last year, has been scuttled and the junior models elevated to full AMG status—that’s a months-old post for Mercedes likers. So, too, is Benz’s awkward admission that tucked in the nose of these new cars will be assembly-line sixes, mass-produced to blaspheme the AMG sacrament of “One Man, One Engine.” No, the real shocker was a triumphant promise that by year’s end, the Mercedes-AMG family will have grown to 48 models, an impressive number of offspring even by the standards of fundamentalist cult leaders. Mercedes has since clarified that we’ll only be seeing 38 of those AMG models in the U.S., which is still a pretty crazy number…

After Ford sold Volvo to Chinese automaker Geely in 2010, the Swedish brand’s first order of business was to fashion a new product lineup that would update its aging fleet of vehicles and help it catch up to other luxury brands, which were surging. The impressive new XC90 three-row SUV was the first vehicle to emerge from this process last year. This S90 luxury sedan is the second new product of the Geely era. The S90 is designed to do battle in a mid-size luxury-car class against a raft of fine products including the Audi A6, BMW 5-series, Cadillac CTS, Genesis G80, Jaguar XF, and Lexus GS. At 195.4 inches long and riding on a 115.8-inch wheelbase, the S90 is smack in the middle of these cars in size. It’s…

To lead off our coverage of all that’s happening in the new-model marketplace this coming year, we figured we’d put some numbers to the sheetmetal. Not surprisingly, those brands with the most utility-heavy lineups get the most real estate here. Color-coded and clustered by corporate ownership, this mall map of manufacturers should provide good guidance to next year’s vehicle market. Not depicted on map: The location of the Orange Julius. 2017 U.S. SALES FORECAST: 18.2 M These fun shapes represent the anticipated sales volume in 2017 for each brand in the United States, according to IHS Automotive.* *Does not include the following low-volume brands: Bugatti (12) and Lotus (192).…

Although updated, the 2017 Bentley Mulsanne reassures the world’s elite with its constancy. For the really rich, what’s truly scary is the prospect of not being rich anymore. Thus the attraction to things that suggest permanence: diamonds, houses that look as if they’ve been around for centuries, hair implants. The Bentley Mulsanne is like a manor house on wheels, a whiff of British peerage that no doubt appeals to people whose greatest fear is becoming a regular schmo. Regular schmoes don’t buy Mulsannes. The least expensive version starts at about $310,000, and the car can top $400,000 with extras. The Mulsanne’s solidity, heft, and constancy convey a sense of immutability, despite some revisions for 2017. The biggest among them is the addition of the Mulsanne Extended Wheelbase, 25 copies of…

There’s so much Miata in the 124 Spider that it’s just easier to run through the differences. Under the hood, the Miata comes with a naturally aspirated 2.0-liter four with 155 horsepower and 148 pound-feet of torque. The 124 has an Italian-made turbocharged SOHC 1.4-liter four with 164 horsepower in Abarth guise (160 in regular strength) and 184 pound-feet of torque. A close relative of the Fiat 500 Abarth’s engine, the 124’s has four more psi of boost than the Cinquecento and is adapted for life in a rear-drive car. Telling the two apart is easy. The Fiat is the one with the tacky Abarth badges that look big enough for a pickup. Longer by 5.5 inches than the Mazda, the Fiat has its own bodywork that borrows cues from…

The high-riding luxury hatch squats into a smaller, more affordable segment. Just as LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavalier forward, is far more likable than LeBron James, the Miami Heat forward, a hatchback called a crossover trumps a two-box vehicle by any other name. It’s a matter of selling perception as much as a tangible product, and Americans have fully bought in. With the crossover elbowing out the sedan as the vehicle of choice for the everyman, the smallest, most affordably priced premium utes now serve as the entrée to luxury-brand ownership. Simultaneously, the perpetual upward trajectory of vehicle sizes and prices has left a gaping hole for a class of tiny crossovers below the Audi Q5, the BMW X3, and the Lexus RX. These smallest crossovers start around $36,000, with…

It happened at Devil’s Playground. It was there, among the tightest hairpins of the 156-turn Pikes Peak International Hill Climb course near Colorado Springs, Colorado, that the 2017 Porsche Macan GTS revealed itself to be the sharpest SUV in the fourstrong Macan family. And yes, that includes the Turbo. Slotting between the midrange S and the 400-hp Turbo, the $68,250 GTS draws on more of Porsche’s spirit but at a base price slightly less than a similarly equipped S model, which starts at $55,450. The GTS transformation begins with the S model’s twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6, which gets stronger internals and revised tuning good for 360 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque—increases of 20 and 30, respectively. A standard sport exhaust gives a throaty warble when the butterflies in its quad…

ACURA MDX: Along with a mild exterior refresh consisting of new bumpers, headlights, hood, grille, and fog lights, the MDX also receives the RLX Sport Hybrid’s gas/electric powertrain as an option. Peak power for the hybrid is 325 horses, up 35 from the gas-only model, but the additional weight of the system might keep acceleration figures from improving. Acura estimates the hybrid will hike city fuel economy by 7 mpg, for a 25-mpg rating. The Technology and Advance package now comes with genuine wood interior trim, a heated steering wheel, and second-row captain’s chairs. All 2017 MDXs come standard with AcuraWatch, the brand’s suite of advanced safety features. NSX: Deep-sea octopuses have been known to brood their eggs for four and a half years. They have nothing on Acura’s gestation…

2017 Chevrolet Bolt Peel back the Chevy Bolt’s androgynous design and you’ll find a car with more than its share of electrons. In case you haven’t heard, this is a pure battery-powered electric with no combustion to drive you home when the juice runs low. But don’t fret; thanks to its ample electron supply, the Bolt offers a claimed 200-mile range. There’s also plenty of space for passengers and their stuff, and the Bolt’s attitude is highly congenial. We discovered that last item on a 50-mile drive with the Bolt’s chief engineer, Josh Tavel, riding shotgun, absorbing our barrage of questions. Jab the accelerator and the Bolt makes good on its name. Chevy says it reaches 60 mph in less than seven seconds, which is quicker than every other pure…

Saying “Infiniti Q50S 3.0t Red Sport 400” out loud makes us giggle. It’s a new Infiniti with the name of a NASCAR race. And if there exists an Infiniti dealer with a sense of humor, a grittyvoiced “SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!” ad must be in the works. This starts as an engine story. Late in the 2016 model year, Infiniti replaced the Q50’s aging 328-hp VQ-series V-6 with a new twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6. The so-called VR30 comes in two strengths: 300 horses for the entry model and 400 for the Red Sport. The two versions are fundamentally identical and share the same block, heads, and turbochargers. Along with higher-capacity intercoolers, the 400-hp unit’s turbochargers spin at up to 220,000 rpm, a speed Infiniti says is the fastest of any production V-6.…

We’re not sure about McLaren’s description of its 570GT. The brand claims it’s luxurious. That’s a word that conjures up images of sumptuous leather and a well-stocked liquor cabinet in back, or maybe even a boomerang antenna if your brain, like ours, is permanently stuck in 1983. But the GT is indeed a more useful and comfortable version of the 570S Sports Series coupe, a car that already scores well on practical attributes compared with the pricier, angrier 650S, which is part of McLaren’s so-called Super Series. The obvious change is the arrival of a new hatchback. Its rear glass panel has a carbon-fiber frame that, in a thoughtful touch, is hinged on one side or the other, depending on whether the car is for a left- or right-hand-drive market,…

Germans have long labored under the stereotype of being a little, well, buttoned-up, a little too serious. But, like all stereotypes, this one isn’t a good predictor of individual behavior. Take, for example, our experience driving the 2016 Porsche 911 R in the hills around the company’s Stuttgart headquarters. We’re bombing along a rural highway, marveling at the R’s delicious exhaust note, when we notice, off to the right, a pasture filled with naked animals. While they appear to be sizable creatures, they are not, in fact, bovine. These are naked humans, bunches of them, reclining on chairs and blankets, basking in the Friday-afternoon sun. Given the hue of their skin, which closely mirrors the pure white of the Porsche we’re driving, one would hope they are enjoying it responsibly,…