Innehållsförteckning för October 2016 från Car and Driver

COVERED The front-cover fold-out advertisement in your July 2016 issue might be the most irritating thing ever. Well, right behind left-lane squatters and check writers in the grocery store. Keep up the good work otherwise. —Darren DuKate St. Louis, MO The 2017 Chevy Corvette Grand Sport is not simply the best Corvette ever, it is the best f**king car General Motors has ever made. —Tom Nelson Somers, WI Wouldn’t fit on the cover—Ed. FONT OF DESIGN Again with a design change [“Gleaming the Cube,” July 2016]? Looks like you went with the ADHD theme. You have to be the most insecure periodical on the market. Would you like me to send you a Car and Driver from the 1980s to remind you what a carenthusiast magazine should look like? —David…

The leap that street tires have made in performance since we started Lightning Lap is staggering. At the inaugural event in 2006, the hottest tire was the Dodge Viper SRT10’s Michelin Pilot Sport, which hung on in Turn 1 at 1.01 g’s. Last year, the Chevy Corvette Z06’s Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 ZPs pulled 1.20 g’s in the same corner. Michelin has been at the tip of the performance spear for the last decade [see “Grip Leader Board”]. According to Lee Willard, the tire designer responsible for the Corvette’s Pilot Super Sports and Pilot Sport Cup 2s, Michelin has broken traditional tire compromises, such as the head-butting between wet and dry grip, with the use of advanced computer modeling. How advanced? Michelin’s mathematical model of a single tire,…

There was a Ghostbusters movie in 1984, and there’s one this year. Game of Thrones is really just Falcon Crest with more dragons and beheadings. The Libertarians didn’t stand a chance then and don’t now. Just look at these two seven-seat minivans, both driving out of Chrysler’s Windsor, Ontario, assembly plant and into the North American zeitgeist. They’re completely different vans, and yet exactly the same. It’s a mind-blowing paradox. The old one is Magic Wagon No. 1, the actual preproduction 1984 Plymouth Voyager that Chrysler’s then CEO, Lee Iacocca, used at press unveilings, dealer meetings, and general cheerleading sessions to drum up enthusiasm for the new “T115” minivans. Stray badges shoved into a rear cubby indicate that it sometimes also appeared as a Dodge Caravan. There are about 12,000…

[+] Gorgeous, lavishly retro, 12 drummers drumming. [–] Useless back seats, the existence of speed cameras. THE V-12 IS A VERY OLD, very antiquated answer to a very old, enduring question: How do you make a lot of power smoothly with a reciprocating engine? Nowadays, with balance shafts and miniature-marvel computers, a turbo four does a pretty good job, and more than one company makes a buttery V-8 that wouldn’t tip over a standing nickel. Add direct injection and turbos and you have V-12 power without the size, weight, and moving parts. But there’s just something about sitting behind—or in front of—two inline-sixes married at the crankshaft. The V-12 is the triple-axis tourbillion of an increasingly quartz engine world, and it delights us precisely because of its excessive parts count.…

[+] More power. Finally. [-] A difference, to be a difference, has to make a difference. OUR BLAST DOWN Fuji Speedway’s nearly mile-long front straight in the new Subaru BRZ takes longer than figuring out how to get a can of cold Calpis from a Japanese vending machine. As a blanket of fog descends from the Mount Fuji foothills, the track surface becomes damp, the racing lines slick, and the visibility limited. Braking hard into the Turn 1 hairpin, jerking the wheel, and stomping the throttle, one thing becomes obvious about the new Subaru BRZ: It is more drift-capable than ever. Not that the outgoing model wasn’t a tail-happy machine itself, but, for 2017, Subaru’s engineers went opposite to convention. The BRZ has less electronic intervention than its predecessor. The…

IT’S HANDY FOR CADILLAC that the name of its latest concept car, Escala (or “scale” in Spanish), sounds a lot like Escalade. There’s a nice link there to the brand’s best-selling SUV, plus it slides off the tongue more easily than, say, CT8, which is what the Escala might be called in the very likely event that some version of it reaches production. This concept, which made its debut at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in August, is the latest in a string of Cadillac show cars (see Ciel and Elmiraj) hinting at a large flagship to compete with luxury icons such as the Mercedes-Benz S-class and the BMW 7-series. The Escala’s dimensions confirm those targets and would make it the biggest car in Cadillac’s stable. The brand’s upcoming…

Turning down a drive in a race car is proof of insanity, so when Mazda kindly offered to persuade Copeland Motorsports to “volunteer” its fully prepped MX-5 Miata Cup car, we pounced. At the time of Lightning Lap, this Miata driven by Dean Copeland was leading the standings at the halfway point in the 12-round Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Presented by BFGoodrich. So the pressure to not bend it was heavy. All Cup cars are built by Long Road Racing and are sold at Mazda parts counters for $53,000 without a seat or driver restraints. The 155-hp engine and six-speed transmission are factory sealed with an aftermarket ECU to expedite spot checks, and the suspension attachment points must be factory. Everyone runs the same BFGoodrich 215/610R-17 g-Force…

We can’t classify this thing as a real car because it’s not. Yet. This special RC F is a one-off prototype vision for a track-only toy like the Aston Martin Vulcan. Lexus plans to sell it in Japan to rich folk who would rather do playtime in local products than in imports. With carbonfiber bodywork, polycarbonate windows, and 721 pounds of Lexus luxury scrubbed from its curb weight, the RC F GT concept is pure track rat. For example, there’s a bare interior, just metal painted black, with a full roll cage and, instead of a center console, there’s a carbon-fiber switch plate with aircraft-style toggles and a bank of push fuses. Twist the big red master power handle and throw a switch; the fuel pump behind you fires…

[+] DRIVES LIKE AN ACCORD, QUIETER THAN A MERCEDES, FULL OF CLEVER FEATURES. [–] INFOTAINMENT SYSTEM NEEDS REAL BUTTONS, WIMPY TOW R ATING, CONVENTIONAL LOOKS ARE TOO CONVENTIONAL. [=] A TRUCK FOR PEOPLE WITHOUT REASON TO BUY ONE.  As any erstwhile Bernie Bro will happily mansplain to you, Canada is already the superior nation to our own, which is why moving there is the only reasonable course of action once President Trump turns the White House into a casino resort with 36-hole minigolf on the front lawn. Canadians have socialized medicine, lower rates of gun violence, and even a new carbon pricing initiative. And no pennies. That’s right; as of February 4, 2013, the Royal Canadian Mint stopped distributing the useless little pocket weights as part of Canada’s Economic Action…

Arrival: Jan/2015 Departure: Jul/2016 Long-Term Test: When the tires get worn and the factory warranty runs out, that’s where we come in. Car and Driver is your source for the 40,000-mile evaluation. Mazda is an unusual car company. Its engineers just spent eight years developing a system called G-Vectoring Control that effectively trail-brakes for the driver, ever-so-slightly cutting engine torque on corner entry to transfer load onto the front wheels, thereby improving steering response. They hope and expect that nobody will notice. When developing its new CX-9 crossover, Mazda made the smart decision on behalf of its buyers to install a turbocharged four instead of a V-6. Then it optimized that engine for the user profile of large-crossover buyers, sacrificing power at the top end—where few three-row pilots/parents will…

[+] Stylish form, agile handling, reasonable performance. [-] Compromised visibility and space in the name of vanity, expected price premium over the standard GLC300. AS WITH SKINNY JEANS, which put the emphasis on shape rather than utility, the 2017 Mercedes-Benz GLC coupe is a stylish cut of otherwise broad cloth that leaves far less room for your junk. At 63 inches high and 186.2 inches long, it measures 1.5 inches lower and 2.9 inches longer than the standard GLC300 crossover. The split rear taillamps and a sharp spoiler lip are said to echo those of the S-class coupe. Squint and you can sort of see it, but the GLC coupe definitely resides in a different tax bracket. Even so, the standard equipment includes a sunroof plus powered driver’s seat,…

RECENT CASES OF “MISSTATED” fuel economy involving Ford, GM, Hyundai, and Mercedes-Benz have this in common: All were caught by the EPA during audits of data submitted by the manufacturers for certification. That’s because the EPA—lacking the personnel, facilities, and funding to test every vehicle—lets the manufacturers largely certify themselves and just submit the data. All automakers follow the same set of procedures designed to generate comparable mpg numbers, but manufacturers have obvious incentive to exploit gray areas and loopholes to produce higher ratings. The goal is to net the best window-sticker numbers without netting ones so good that they raise suspicions. It’s a delicate dance, and engineers we spoke with described it as pervasive. These are a few manufacturer approaches: IT’S A DRAG The EPA-prescribed dynamometer tests incorporate calibration…

Last year, online editor Alex Stoklosa made a round-trip visit to Lightning Lap IX in our longterm 2015 Tesla Model S P85D. The internet declared us negligent because we didn’t lap the 463-horse electric surrey. To make amends, we had Stoklosa redo his road trip this year, with one alteration—a hot lap in the middle. The results were as expected. Knowing that the car would perform best with a max battery charge, we started full and didn’t mash the accelerator until we were coming into Hog Pen on our out lap. We had one shot to get a good lap time without having to recharge. Slamming the brakes after hitting 137.3 mph on the front straight resulted in the pedal— and our hearts—sinking to the floor. Fortunately the car…

A battle of grip versus power waged in the 2:47 club this year as a front-engined Chevy ( ), a rear-engined Porsche ( ), and a mid-engined McLaren ( ) all ended up within 0.4 second of each other. Power and minimal aero trickery allowed the 562-hp 570S to hit 162.8 mph on the straight, 9 mph faster than the 500-hp 911 GT3 RS and 16.6 mph faster than the 460-hp Corvette. But, without the wings, spoilers, and obese rubber of the Porsche and Chevy, the McLaren’s power couldn’t help it in high-speed corners. Zeroing in on the Climbing Esses shows that the McLaren lost 29.3 mph from entry to exit (139.4 mph to 110.1) as the driver fought to stabilize the car while searching for grip. In the same…

The original Ridgeline’s sloping buttresses weren’t a styling edict or a structural requirement. They were dictated by a basic Honda manufacturing tenet, which requires standardized build processes to the extent that any of the company’s final-assembly plants can build any Honda vehicle with minimal reconfiguration. One of the key commonalities (and universal to virtually all unibody construction) is the use of a single body-side panel from A-pillar to taillight. The 135-degree angle defining where the buttress met the top of the bed was as close as Honda could get to an L shape with a single panel and still ensure its quality. For the second-generation truck, engineers were forced to alter their approach when Honda decided to stretch the bed length by four inches. The previous body side, already the…

[+]Even quicker than before. Still borders on sports-car perfection. [-] Less aural enthusiasm than its predecessor. WE’VE GROWN USED TO DOWNSIZING in recent years, but this still feels like a personal insult. The new Porsche 718 Cayman replaces a car that came compellingly close to perfection, trading its predecessor’s endlessly charismatic flat-sixes for a pair of new, smaller turbocharged flat-fours. If this sounds familiar, that’s because it follows the lead of its 718 Boxster brother. In fact, Porsche now admits that the Cayman isn’t a separate model line so much as a coupe version of the roadster. All mechanical components are shared, meaning the same choice of engines: a 350-hp turbo 2.5-liter four in the Cayman S and a turbo 2.0-liter four producing 300 horsepower in the base car. The…

IT HAS BEEN A DECADE since C/D went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, to learn the fundamentals of operating NASA’s Mars rovers. That was back in 2006 when there was no iPhone; Barack Obama was Illinois’ junior senator; and Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn, and Mercury were all going concerns. It was a different world. Mars, however, hasn’t changed much. Back then, the solar-powered twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, had been on Mars for less than three years. Both were drilling into rocks, climbing hills, dodging boulders, and checking for water. In other words, doing science stuff. But this is 2016 and, incredibly, Opportunity still lives on to teach us a lot about Mars and a little bit about automated driving. Though if it breaks down, help is…