Innehållsförteckning för April 2013 från Car and Driver

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com LETTER OF THE MONTH After reviewing all the information in the Data Central portion of the 10Best feature, I wanted to inform you of the correction needed in the 10 Best/Worst Performers of 2012. The 77-dBA interior sound level gloriously emitted by the Chevrolet Corvette 427 convertible and Porsche 911 were mistakenly listed in the "Worst" column. Just a simple oversight. KURT HOFFMAN, AUBURN HILLS, MICHIGAN FORD'S THEATRE John Phillips's column, "Now It Gets Interesting? No, Now It Gets Difficult" [January 2013], is a masterful piece and a true insight into the desperate state of the Lincoln Motor Company. It has to be, hands down, one of the best-written articles I have seen in a long time.…

Ferrari's home market is in a shambles even as the company records massive growth in the U.S., China, and India. Italy accounted for only 248 of the black stallion's sales in 2012, half the number sold there the year before. Maserati's sales have fallen 80 percent since 2009, but it's not just Fiat brands that are hurting. Lamborghini president Stephan Winkelmann can count Italy's monthly sales on one hand. The cause for the collapse goes far beyond the European economic meltdown. Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo slammed the government in Rome: "Once again, the exception is Italy, where we have witnessed a drop partly due to the economic crisis, but also to a hostile environment for luxury goods which have long been, and continue to be, an important resource for…

The new Mercedes S-CLASS DUE THIS FALL turns the page on more than a century of incandescent lamps in cars. Totally rid of hot filaments, the sixth-generation S-class sedan will instead be fitted with 490 LEDs filling all lighting, signaling, and interior-illumination roles. The auto industry is shifting to light-emitting diodes because their expected life is three times that of the average car. They also improve mileage by consuming a fraction of the energy required by conventional headlamps. At the rear, their quicker response adds 15 feet at 75 mph to the warning distance provided to cars behind. Unlike high-intensity discharge (HID, or xenon) lamps, LEDs contain no mercury, so they're also environmentally benign. Essentially specks of doped silicon on a circuit board, LEDs are frugal because they convert electricity…

Car Jousting: It's not just for glue-huffing Holsteiners anymore. Listen: I am an idiot. ¶ It's important that you remember this simple fact going forward. It's important that you keep it in mind when I say the following: You know what I think is a very, very good idea? Car jousting. ¶ It is exactly what it sounds like: people jousting with cars instead of horses. People holding pointy lances, leaning out the sides of automobiles, and driving at various objects and each other as fast as they can. I think that's a brilliant idea because I am an idiot. And to be clear, I am not making it up. Car jousting is real, and it looks like this: As with many staggeringly stupid tales, this begins with a couple…

FERRARI F70 ALL HAIL THE SUCCESSOR TO THE 288 GTO, F40, F50, AND ENZO. Hybrids were once considered the painfully slow and socially responsible tortoises of the highway. Now, even revered sports-car brands are prepping irresponsibly powerful, lethally fast, porpoise-sleek hybrids. As with Porsche's 918 Spyder, Ferrari's Enzo successor will run on a complex blend of electricity and internal combustion. Ferrari will probably name its car the F70 at its 2013 Geneva auto-show debut. The Fazz's carbon-fiber body shapes F1–influenced aerodynamic efficiency into muscular Italian automotive art. The underbody will be made of a debris-resistant Kevlar-and-carbon-fiber composite. Befitting a Ferrari, the two-seater aims to be the most visually exciting of this new generation of hybrid supercars. The car's technical equipment will make good on the design's promises. Ferrari started the…

Assumptions fly with the arrival of a driver in a two-door coupe: The driver has no young children. The driver pays others to deliver the new furniture and television sets. The driver does not spend long weekends at the lake, or shop for an orphanage at Costco, or rebuild old Mopars, or venture into rainy nights to walk a malamute. Of course, you can own the new Honda Accord coupe while defying all of these assumptions, except maybe the one about the dog. But because people tend to buy cars they believe mesh perfectly with their busy lifestyles, rather than ones that might just do in a pinch, former rivals to the Accord coupe have steadily become stuffed pelts in the museum of automotive evolution. The Toyota Camry Solara is…

I've done bad things. I have committed crimes beyond incessant speeding. I have stolen. I have lied. I have cheated. I may have forgotten to put any of it on my résumé. But I haven't transgressed enough to earn a new S8. This is a villainous luxury car, one so wicked that merely hopping behind the wheel should make you a person of interest to Interpol. Yes, for the 2013 model year, Audi has recast the S8 as a sedan mastermind, dumping the old model's 450-hp V-10 like a disloyal henchman. The replacement 4.0-liter V-8 is twin-turbocharged and features cylinder deactivation that allows it to run as a V-4, just like in the A8. But here it's making 520 horses and 481 pound-feet of torque. That's 100 more horsepower and…

The sound you hear emanating from this page of the magazine is not that of Porsche's 4.8-liter V-8, which is bolted into this 2013 Cayenne. Too bad, too, because it sounds fantastic. No, we're talking about that high, reedy noise. That, friends, is the sound of Porsche's patented and highly precise hair-splitter at work. No other company has been able to create such a broad collection of highly specific models with such a relatively small pool of parts. The Cayenne GTS is the hair-splitter's latest achievement. It's a Cayenne powered by the same 4.8-liter V-8 as seen in the Cayenne S but tuned for an additional 20 horsepower and 11 pound-feet of torque to make 420/380. It wears a body similar in style to the Cayenne Turbo, meaning a domed…

WHAT WE SAID: "Surgeons cut people up and put them back together. Car salesmen read customers, negotiate, and sell. It's their job." — C/D, MAY 2006 1. UP Any potential buyer. 2. LAYDOWN A customer who offers little resistance and purchases a car at the list price or more. Also known as an "ace." 3. PAPERBOY A buyer who comes in with an advertisement or printouts from the internet. Also known as a "nerd." 4. STROKER A shopper who acts interested but has no means or intention of buying a car. 5. BE-BACK A shopper who claims he'll come back, but may or may not return. 6. F.D.R.S. These initials stand for "filthy disease-ridden swine." Used to describe a buyer with horrible credit. Often used as inter-salesmen code to name…

TURN TO PAGE 105 and you'll find a new section devoted to all the nittier and grittier aspects of buying and leasing that magazines such as ours typically avoid. And I'm not sure why we typically avoid them. That frozen hinterland between the printed (or web) page and the driver's seat is fraught with thin ice, but it must be crossed and guidance is essential. The initial car-shopping phase is all gauzy and dreamlike. You are emboldened by choice and visions of conquest. But then what? You can't just endlessly hunt for vehicles on our site or on eBay or Bringatrailer.com while you should be working, while your girlfriend's asleep, while the laundry festers in a pile. At some point, the people around you are going to complain. You have…

Gary Conley doesn't build model V-8s. He builds real engines that happen to be only 8.5 inches long and 8.25 inches tall. He manufactures them in his Glen Ellyn, Illinois, shop, churning out dozens at a time. The Stinger 609, his current production model, is a roughly one-quarter-scale version of a Viper V-10 with two cylinders lopped off. With a bore and stroke of 1.00 by 0.97 inch, the 6.09-cubic-inch powerplant develops a claimed 5.5 horsepower at 9000 rpm. It spins to 12,000 rpm. Putting together an engine this size involves more than just working with really small stuff. Physical properties such as fluid dynamics and surface tension don't scale, raising carburetion, cooling, and ignition issues. Conley modifies chain-saw carbs and feeds them from a tiny diaphragm-type fuel pump attached…

1. Alfa Romeo will return to the U.S. when: A Krakatoa erupts. B The Agnelli family names its next male heir "Prince Fielder." C Americans learn to pronounce the word "Giulia." 2. Ratan Tata just retired. His parting words were: A "How long can one man listen to every westerner say, 'Show us your Tatas?' " B "Cyrus Mistry will replace me. As you know, Mistry loves company." C "Ta-ta." 3. Google's Sergey Brin is pushing for autonomous cars in California because: A During his driver's test, he crashed his Plymouth Acclaim into an angry lesbian at Whole Foods. B He can never find a parking spot near Governor Jerry Brown's hot tub. C He lives in fear of his '89 Toyota Corolla "getting away from me during unintended acceleration."…

You've got mail. Over the next four years, we expect 25 of the decade's most exciting vehicles to land on our doorstep. They're coming from parts far-flung, but they've all been stamped first-class, with power, handling, style, and even fuel economy as part of the package. The way things are headed, this postman may not ring twice, so be grateful that parcels such as these are still coming. AUDI RS7 DELIVER BY: 2014 WHAT IT IS Audi's luxury hatchback steps into Superman tights with the big-kahuna RS badge and most of the factory speed gear standard, including a mega-horsepower engine, 20-inch wheels, adjustable shocks, and seven quarts of testosterone. A sport exhaust, 21-inch wheels, and a torque-vectoring rear differential are optional. WHY IT MATTERS Since Audi recently shifted…

FORD MUSTANG DEARBORN'S PONY IS GETTING SPRAYED DOWN WITH A CAN OF RETRO-BE-GONE. Call it Ford's Declaration of Independents. After half a century of log-axle Mustangs with only one brief experiment with an independently suspended rear end (the 1999–2004 SVT Cobra), Ford will hang a split-and-jointed drive axle beneath the 2015 Mustang's hindquarters. Considering that both the Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger already have independent rears, it's not quite as revolutionary as "We hold these truths …" But even with today's outdated rigid axle, the Mustang is already our favorite in this class, and a new unibody platform with its wheelbase and front and rear tracks all cinched tighter should help keep the Ford ahead of its peers. While the current Mustang is slavishly, unimaginatively retro, Ford has pretty much…

We were impressed when Ford announced that the 2013 Fusion hybrid earned an EPA rating of 47 mpg for both city and highway driving. Here was a generously sized and relatively conventional-looking sedan rivaling the efficiency of the Toyota Prius. Then we racked up a mere 32 mpg in our road test [December 2012]. That's par for our foot-down driving style, but even when we drove more sedately, we had difficulty coaxing the Fusion's trip computer to show any number that started with a 4. It turns out we weren't alone. In early December, a California law firm filed a class-action suit against Ford, charging fraud and "widespread misleading and deceptive advertisements" for the fuel economy of the Fusion and C-Max hybrids. The complaint cited Consumer Reports's fuel-economy testing, in…

The last time we were wringing the scrawny neck of Ford's 1.0-liter turbocharged three-cylinder, the engine was in a Euro-market Focus hatchback. We found the little mill smooth, but the 2971-pound Focus moved like Fatty Arbuckle on the pony ride. We were unable to reach 60 mph in under 10 seconds. Well, 450 pounds makes a big difference. That's the claimed spread between the 1.0-liter Fiesta and the 1.0-liter Focus, and while the smaller car is no scorcher—we now predict 60 mph in a white-hot 9.8 seconds—the engine clearly feels freer to flex its 123 horsepower and 148 pound-feet of torque. The Fiesta is much more tractable, with usable low-end torque. You'll dent the floorboard with the pedal trying to get away with real verve, but in the canyons surrounding…

Most days, we live in a reality-based reality. Yet when we first caught sight of this BMW M5 test vehicle in our office parking lot, we secretly hoped that its warm, metallic-pumpkin color would somehow soften reality's grip and help thaw the car's chilly detachment. It was the M5's cadaver-cool character and elaborate array of complex complexity (81 possible settings for steering, suspension, throttle, and transmission!) that doomed a blue example we drove in Germany to third place in a comparo against the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG and the Audi S6. But here, awash in glowing autumnal paint, was the M5 with a conventional manual transmission. A manual-transmission car, in case you've forgotten, is one with that lever in the center console and the clutch pedal that, by forcing a driver…

1995–98 Porsche's version of the Goldilocks tale is the 993-generation 911, the one many Porschephiles agree that the company got just right. It's an ideal blend of technology and classic 911 air-cooled heritage. Today, a naturally aspirated 993 is a fantastic way to score a legendary sports car for V-6–family-sedan coin, but finding and buying a good one may not be just a roll in the edelweiss in lederhosen. — james tate ENGINE: The final version of the air-cooled 911 had a 3.6-liter flat-six engine. Most let out a puff of smoke on startup, which can point to worn valve guides. A good pre-purchase inspection (PPI) with a leakdown test should reveal the extent of any problem. OTHER PROBLEM AREAS: Leaky rack-and-pinion steering gear • Excessive oil consumption • Rust…

WORD TO THE WEALTHY DAMSON: An optional paint color for the Flying Spur. According to Bentley, it's "a rich hue inspired by the extremely rare purple diamond." Matching leather also is available. DARK FIDDLEBACK EUCALYPTUS: One of the two standard wood veneers. It's a stretch to call eucalyptus "standard"; dark fiddleback eucalyptus, on the other hand, is anything but. When you build cars that cost a quarter-mil, the phrase "striking gold" doesn't sufficiently differentiate a windfall from what happens on a normal day. Bentley, in a sense, strikes gold with every vehicle that rolls out of its marble-lined dealerships. But when it unveiled the Continental GT in 2003, it struck a gold artery. The model quickly became Bentley's most successful ever and spun off the Continental GTC convertible and Continental…

Carmakers go to INCREASINGLY WEIRD LENGTHS to capture every potential customer. Witness the explosion of available vehicle types and classes over the past 15 years (roughly two to three product cycles) as manufacturers have sought to fill every bit of white space between conventional segments. BMW has been a prime culprit here, giving us genre-benders such as its X6 "sports-activity coupe." Depicted here are the brands that added the most models to their lineups between 1998 and 2013. Yet, notice the market-share figures for each carmaker. Even if flooding the market with new models doesn't necessarily result in directly proportional share gains, there is a clear winner here: car enthusiasts. There are scads more performance models available today than there were two decades ago, from STs to RSs to AMGs.…

America's second-longest interstate begins its 2900-mile transcontinental journey westward near Teaneck, New Jersey. Soon after, I-80 jumps the Delaware Water Gap and serpentines through the Allegheny Mountains. It skirts the Great Lakes and then fights the headwinds in a stair-stepped dash across the Great Plains. By running across the very tops of Indiana and Ohio, I-80 has also produced two different schemes by overdrawn state governments to raise cash from one of America's vital arteries. And both plans raise questions about the privatization of public roads. Last month I aired billionaire Manuel "Matty" Moroun's troubles with his privately owned Ambassador Bridge. This month I'll focus on one highway, two states, and their two plans for making toll payers foot the bill for roads and bridges elsewhere. It's a subject over…

CADILLAC ELR WALKS LIKE A VOLT, TALKS LIKE A VOLT, BUT IT SURE DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A VOLT. Looking very much like the Chevy Volt–based Cadillac Converj concept from the 2009 Detroit show, the chiseled ELR is, by and large, a reskinned Volt. But it's one that will seem right at home in Caddy showrooms, channeling both the gorgeous CTS coupe and the buttoned-down ATS sedan. Sporty proportions and 20-inch wheels hint at improvements to the Volt's chassis. These include swapping in GM's HiPer anti-torque-steer front struts, adding a Watt's link to the torsion-beam rear suspension, and fitting computer-controlled adaptive dampers. Let's hope Cadillac applied its newfound chassis-tuning prowess to the ELR, because aside from the suspension and styling, there's not much else in the ELR's spec sheet promising to…

The Volkswagen Beetle Turbo and the Mini Cooper S convertibles are built for the fashionable, for people who know they look great in linen pants and that denim makes their butts seem huge. They can tell a genuine Barcelona chair from a knockoff at 60 yards. Style counts. So does cute. Performance? Utility? Not really. But must fashionistas suffer to be chic? Both the Mexican-made Beetle and the Brit-built Mini convertibles are compromised by their self-conscious designs. They've got tiny, nearly useless trunks. Big, fluffy-white Samoyeds may look stunning sitting in the open air on either of the cars' rear seats, but human beings will be cramped. When the tops are up, an entire Lululemon store could hide in their blind spots, but neither car is available with a rearview…

2012 Volkswagen Jetta GLi Forty thousand miles with the GTI's three-box brother. HATERS OF THE "PEOPLE'S CAR" are always quick to point out Volkswagen's less-than-sterling reputation for reliability. What the Corolla-loving cranks always overlook is that a VW, even the lowest and cheapest version queued up at a Düsseldorf taxi stand, is engineered for the autobahn. Which is to say, it can sustain 100-plus-mph travel. Perhaps over-engineered for American roads, VWs have acoustic damping more than adequate for 75 mph and an overall sense of high-velocity refinement. The brand's loyalists know that there's more than one way to measure quality. Granted, the new-for-2011 Jetta is a car designed to generate more North American sales (which it did), and bucking the VW reliability reputation will take more than a bigger back…

Buick's new Encore sub-micro hatchback/crossover invites a lot of questions. First of all, what is it? Well, it's an answer to a question asked by buyers in China, where Buick thrives. It shares major mechanical pieces with the Chevrolet Sonic, which might, in the eye of a bigger-is-better American public, cast a pall of cheapness over it. So why is Buick offering America a crossover built in South Korea and based on a bite-sized Chevy? With that question, the lid on Pandora's box flips open. Why does anything unexpected happen in the auto industry? Why did the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet happen? Why does the BMW 6-series Gran Coupe—a sedan version of a coupe based on another sedan—exist? We can say with certainty only that every brand is looking for new…

A LONGER WARRANTY IS JUST ONE OF THE PERKS. After a seven-year hiatus, the Chevrolet Camaro reappeared for 2010 sporting a slightly retro but mostly modern superhero outfit and an up-to-date chassis with an independent rear suspension. It's heavier than we would like, and its sightlines were sacrificed on the altar of expediency, but the Camaro is quick and fun, if you're the type who enjoys bareback rides on greased boars. For these reasons, and also because a convertible followed the coupe in 2011, American buyers made the Camaro the class sales leader for 2010, 2011, and 2012. Those who didn't pick one up when it was new have a second shot in the used-car market. One of the best ways to do this is through Chevrolet's Certified Pre-Owned program.…