Innehållsförteckning för May 2013 från Car and Driver

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com COBALT BLUES So, let me get this straight. The BMW 335i, which you rave about, isn't as fast as a 2008 front-drive Chevy Cobalt SS that had 40 less horsepower and cost half as much? … DAVID DICKS ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI More from David and more letters about Lightning Lap, page 10. WANTS AND NEEDS "The Most Wanted List" article [February 2013] unfortunately calls out Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, as one of the "enemies of cars as we know and love them." To the contrary, enthusiasts should be thanking Mr. Ditlow. Enthusiasts might consider that the push for advanced safety, emissions controls, and improved fuel economy together have resulted…

WHERE THE PARTSMAKERS ARE It's been a LONG TIME since America's auto industry consisted solely of Clint Eastwood types hammering together Fords in greater Detroit. While our automobile-manufacturing base is spreading across the South, if you look one step beyond the automakers, their suppliers are even more geographically diverse. From a factory in Maine that makes suspension components to an airbag plant in Utah, the automotive industry draws on manufacturing in almost every state. We paired up with supplier-info clearinghouse ELM Analytics to make the map on this page, in which each state's size is proportional to its share of the 2.5 million or so Americans employed by automotive suppliers. NUMBER OF WORKERS: None 100–1000 1001–10,000 10,001–100,000 100,001–500,000 500,001–843,502 SOMIC AMERICA Brewer, Maine Toyota suspension components RöCHLING AUTOMOTIVE Duncan, South…

THE MIRACLE OF FRICTION STIR WELDING. The typical images of welding—a robotic arm burping sparks or a masked Jesse James hovering over a glowing metal puddle—don't apply to friction stir welding (FSW). The metal-joining technique was developed in 1991 by The Welding Institute, an industrial research center near Cambridge, England. In the mid-1990s, two Scandinavian aluminum-extrusion companies became the first to use the technique commercially. Since then, it has been widely adopted by the aerospace industry and has slowly trickled into the automotive realm. Sparks and eye shields are part of fusion welding, where an electric current heats two pieces of metal to a molten state. When the metal pool cools, a single, solid joint results. In contrast, FSW is a solid-state weld involving no molten metal. Heat generated by…

If you think about it, a car without a roof is a real wonder. As in, "I wonder why they did that." The cycle is predictable. A manufacturer produces a perfectly good automobile, waits a couple years, then chops its top to buoy further interest. But it's just as often the death knell. Think Buick Reatta convertible here. Think Chrysler PT Cruiser convertible. We'd ask you to think Pontiac G6 convertible, too, but that presupposes that a sentient human being ever saw one. Like syphilis, convertibles have been known to cause insanity among automotive engineers. Consider how severely one's cerebrum must be damaged before he could create a Dodge Dakota convertible. What stunning mental-health issues might surround the invention of the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet? Upon viewing a Bugatti Veyron for…

"Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." John 2:10. Lamborghini's Aventador Roadster, arguably the best varietal ever bottled at Sant'Agata Bolognese, is the perfect way to celebrate the company's 2012 global sales being up by 30 percent, the healthy backlog of Aventador orders, and Lamborghini's 50th birthday. While the rest of the car world frets over electrics and hybrids, Lamborghini is toasting its middle age with a $448,295 magnum of dolce spumante. This is hardly the first time a manufacturer has popped the cork on a coupe to woo sun worshippers, but there's more to this Roadster (which is actually a targa) than solar-heated seats. To minimize the loss of structural…

Ettore Bugatti once called Bentleys the world's fastest trucks. We can just imagine the Twitter war it might have inspired had Ettore's life not ended 59 years before tweeting began. But trundling though a Sierra Nevada snowstorm in the 2014 Continental GT Speed convertible, it seems a particularly apt description. Over dozens of miles of sloppy stuff, the 5600-pound, four-wheel-drive Speed convertible didn't place a single winter tire wrong. We could have fixed a plow to the front of this open-air quasi-SUV to clear the way for all the pickup drivers inching along at a snail's speed. Of course, driving a Bentley in a California blizzard happens about as often here as prudent fiscal management. As for the car's $238,700 base price, there's nothing to say about it except that…

Foreign Exchange Student THE ITALIAN KID TRIES TO MAKE A GO OF IT OVER HERE. THE FIAT 500, or Cinquecento, is not only the first Italian car to finish our long-term, 40,000-mile evaluation*, it's also the first new Fiat available in the U.S. since the company packed up shop here in 1984. Introduced as a 2012 model following the company's tie-up with Chrysler, the 500 is a frothy little cappuccino of a hatchback. And if the arduous 17 months it took to complete our test is any indication, the sheer vastness of what is the world's second-largest car market is the greatest challenge this car faces. In August 2011, when the 500 entered our fleet, it was available as a three-door only and came in Pop, Sport, Lounge, and designer…

Nobody wanted the last Lotus Elan except for Kia. In 1995, Lotus managed to sell the Koreans the rights to its overpriced, front-drive roadster, and when it resumed production the following year as the Kia Elan, it looked like it had gone on a Pep Boys' bender. A year later, Kia went bankrupt and collapsed into Hyundai's financial embrace. The point of this story is not to remind you that the final Elan was an automotive succubus. Rather, the point is that the Lotus affair may have been Kia's last big, dumb mistake. We haven't seen Kia roll snake eyes since hooking up with Hyundai. The product design and build quality have all improved radically, though the Buick-like Amanti was a close call. It's gone, but the 2014 Kia Sorento…

Lazy throttle, obtuse shifter. SEDAN Whether you walk into a bar and order a double, or double down at the blackjack table, or, for those opposed to vice, play a friendly game of mixed doubles tennis, doubling is a call to action. It's a catalyst for excitement and proof that you're packing more into your day. Why else would there be racing roller coasters or double-barrel shotguns? Doubling works in cars, too. Think of the Audi A8's new 4.0-liter V-8 as a double dose of Audi's spectacular 2.0-liter turbo four. Two 211-hp turbo fours fused into one 420-hp twin-turbo V-8 make for a very quick A8L. Audi assures us that the A8L's 4.0-liter is a depressurized version of the 520-hp engine in the S8. It doesn't really feel that way.…

IT MAY BE THAT THE MOST INTERESTING PART of the Tesla Motors story isn't the recent range controversy with the Times, or that carbuilding is something founder Elon Musk does when not launching rockets into space. No, it's the brand's retail strategy. Tesla doesn't have any independent dealers; its stores are its own. Dealer organizations don't like this. They've tried to sue Musk for violating franchise laws, which vary by state but generally stipulate that big, powerful carmakers cannot compete with their little-guy retailers. Musk's retort? I don't have any franchisees with which to compete. I can do what I want. The reason he's so defiant should be clear to anyone who's bought a car in the past 50 years. On most people's list of Fun Stuff to Do, the…

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RUN-FLAT AND REGULAR TIRES. Modern run-flat tires rely on strong, stiff sidewalls to carry the vehicle's weight when air pressure dissipates. Extracting 50 miles of use from a flat tire, however, requires more than strength. Driving on a deflated tire—run-flat or not—initiates a destructive cycle: As the sidewall collapses, increased friction generates more heat, which softens the rubber and causes the sidewall to sag even further. A run-flat tire must support the weight of the vehicle and endure this damaging heat buildup. To see what separates a run-flat from a conventional tire—and what justifies a $40 premium, in this case, or about 20 percent—we sliced into a Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS Pole Position [top] and its run-flat variant. Here's what the saw revealed. —eric tingwall APPLIES TO BOTH…

Last Sunday, my wife and I drove our website's long-term Mazda CX-5 to Blue Joint Creek, about 30 miles southwest of Conner, Montana. Julie's goal was to photograph a troupe of bighorn sheep that hangs out there, initiating little rock slides that dissuade viewers below, although not Julie. My goal was to pit the Mazda's new Blizzaks against the snow-packed forest road, an entertainment that causes Julie to utter almost inaudible vowels of alarm, the "oohs" and "aahs" of the Pillsbury Doughboy. And that's how I got the Mazda stuck, well shy of the sheep. The snow had an icy one-inch crust, with four inches of powder beneath, and the Mazda was sinking through slowly, like a spoon atop oatmeal. After a spell, the slow sinking was replaced by fast…

The arrival of a convertible version of the Corvette is as inevitable as the accompanying gibes about the midlife crises of its buyers. And so the cycle continues with this seventh-generation droptop, unveiled at the tony Geneva motor show. On average, 25 percent of Corvettes sold in a given year are convertibles (actually "roadsters," by our reckoning), making it a healthy business in a market where barely more than 1 percent of new cars are droptops. Chevrolet predicts that when the C7 convertible hits late this year, it will again account for about a quarter of Corvette sales. But even that figure doesn't get at the importance of the open-top version to the Corvette mystique or, for that matter, the American one. The Corvette was conceived as an open runabout…

THERE'S A STRONG CORRELATION between the warmth of your locale and how likely you are to drive a convertible. In Alaska, where even the bear farts are cold, only 0.34 percent of vehicles are droptops. Convertibles make up 3.92 percent of balmy Hawaii's car fleet. But check out the fun-lovers of the Northeast. And what's up, West Virginia? Your convertible take-rate is the same as North Dakota's. North Dakota! THE REST OF THE STATES: South Carolina, 1.04%; Tennessee, 1.04%; New York, 1.03%; Georgia, 1.01%; Virginia, 1.01%; Maryland, 1.00%; North Carolina, 0.94%; Illinois, 0.90%; Massachusetts, 0.87%; Texas, 0.87%; Pennsylvania, 0.82%; Michigan, 0.81%; Washington, 0.79%; Indiana, 0.78%; New Hampshire, 0.78%; Alabama, 0.77%; Ohio, 0.75%; Kentucky, 0.71%; Oregon, 0.70%; Missouri, 0.69%; Louisiana, 0.69%; Kansas, 0.68%; Colorado, 0.68%; Arkansas, 0.68%; New Mexico, 0.67%; Wisconsin,…

LONG LIMBED AND SLIGHTLY POISONOUS, the yellow sac spider (Cheiracanthium inclusum) is a North American native whose looks are as terrible as you'd expect from anything with "sac" in its name. The little creature fell hard for the previous-generation Mazda 6, and for reasons unknown outside the arachnid world, the eight-eyed webmasters started shacking up in the 6's evaporative canister vent line at some point between the plant and dealerships, prompting the recall of 65,000 cars. However, while spiders voted with their feet for the 6, Mazda always struggled to get actual humans into the car. On average, Toyota sold more Camrys in one month last year than Mazda 6s sold all year. That overly large, personality-deprived 6 is gone, left to the arachnids. With the introduction of the new…

MERCEDES-BENZ SLS AMG GT / 2014 KIA SORENTO SX / 2014 MERCEDES-BENZ E63 AMG / ASTON MARTIN RAPIDE S / AUDI A8 4.0T / HONDA Why was the old Acura RL so firmly nailed to dealership floors, with just 379 sold last year? That's easy: It was too small. Its back seat was so tight that rear riders could practically adjust the stereo, could possibly even drink from the front cup holders with a long-enough straw. Too in thrall to Honda's minor-key virtues of frugality and modesty, the RL couldn't compete with the chest-thumping, lane-filling champions of the mid-size luxury-car segment. Repeat: It was because it was almost Civic-sized in back, and not because it had a six-cylinder engine or was based on a front-drive chassis. In fact, you could…

Of Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and AMGs. "Almost" rarely feels this good. The 49ers almost turned Super Bowl XLVII around. Commissioner Gordon almost saved Batman's girlfriend. The 2014 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG in its up-level S-Model versions offers 577 horsepower, which is almost an even 600. Anybody who can't live without those 23 missing horses should be forced to turn in their guns. With 590 pound-feet of torque also testing the traction limits on all four tires, it's hard to feel anything in this car but a giddy sense of awe. That's right, four tires. To route those 590 pound-feet to just the rear 285/30ZR-19s might not only test their grip, but also the boundaries of good sense. So to keep this 577-hp executive hauler halfway sensible, four-wheel drive is now standard,…

SEDAN For one regrettably long decade, the rolling stock of the midwestern United States consisted of Pontiac Grand Ams and Dodge Shadows. Seriously, the place was filthy with them. This seems to prove what we have long believed: A car's sales success often has a weak correlation to its greatness. And so, we arrive at the 2012 Honda Civic, which was an undeniable sales success for the company. Honda says it sold 331,872 of the then all-new Civics in 2012, making it the bestselling car in its class that year. We presume that most buyers are perfectly satisfied with their purchases. And yet, for the long-term health of the model's and the company's reputation, Honda has performed a thorough do-over of the Civic for 2013, modifying its look, its interior…

PORSCHE RADICALIZES THE 911. REVOLUTIONARY LINGO FINGER-FOLLOWER VALVETRAIN: Instead of opening valves directly with cam lobes pressing bucket tappets, the finger-follower design does that job with pivoting beams. Finger followers use static hydraulic lash adjusters to diminish the mass of valvetrain components in motion. The new GT3 design provides a large contact area between each cam lobe and its follower. THE ENGINE'S UP HERE NOW! JUST KIDDING. Porsche's near-comical expansion of the 911 family—there were more than 20 derivatives of the last-gen car—makes it all but certain to capture every last potential buyer. It also guarantees constant attention over the 911's life span as the inevitable waves of redesigned variants roll in one after the other. We've already seen the convertible and four-wheel-drive models drawn from the 991 gene pool.…

NEW RESEARCH TIES THE LEADED-GASOLINE BAN TO THE DROP IN VIOLENT CRIME. Cars have been INDICTED in the court of public opinion for a multitude of offenses: global warming, rising obesity rates, urban decay, and more. Now add one more crime to the list: crime itself. Most know that violent crime skyrocketed in the '60s and '70s. But what's puzzled researchers for more than a decade is why, starting in the early '90s, crime rates began dropping. Criminologists have credited everything from three-strikes laws to improved policing tactics. But as crime continued to drop throughout the U.S.—and Canada, France, New Zealand, and the rest of the world—it has led to speculation that there might be an environmental cause. For decades, lead (chemical symbol: Pb) has been linked to impaired brain…

In January, my pal Paul Grusche and I drove the 94 miles to Kalamazoo, Michigan, for the Kalamazoo Thunderbirds R/C Club swap meet at the Kalamazoo County Expo Center. I'm only being specific because I like writing "Kalama zoo." The large parking lot was jammed, and I was impressed until I learned that there was also a hunting show going on. It took us only 20 minutes to peruse the tables crammed with used radio-control buggies, boats, and airplanes, and I started to despair that I wasn't going to find what I had come for when, at last, I spotted it. The big old box, somewhat faded and shelf-worn, had nothing in it but some blueprints and a lot of sticks and sheets of balsa and plywood. Through patience and…

JAGUAR XKR-S PRICE > $138,875 POWER > 550 hp TORQUE > 502 lb-ft WEIGHT > 4144 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 14 PORSCHE 911 CARRERA S PRICE > $136,430 POWER > 400 hp TORQUE > 325 lb-ft WEIGHT > 3427 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 16 BMW M6 PRICE > $132,145 POWER > 560 hp TORQUE > 500 lb-ft WEIGHT > 4496 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 14 MERCEDES-BENZ SL63 AMG PRICE > $171,225 POWER > 557 hp TORQUE > 664 lb-ft WEIGHT > 4128 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 14 About halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, somewhere near the Piedras Blancas lighthouse where the sea otters bob and the elephant seals tussle in the slimy kelp just off the shoreline, the Santa Lucia Mountains take a step…

When the last of the fabulous E-types quit the market in 1974, Jaguar left the sports-car business to others and became the maker of wingback chairs on wheels. Now, however, the Tata-owned brand is back in the sporting trade with the new Jaguar F-type roadster and coupe. Under an X-ray, they will look like shrunken XKs, but they have the Porsche 911 Carrera in their sights. Is Jaguar too optimistic? Well, Jaguar's head of development, Mike Cross, doesn't think so. "We bought a 911 as a reference car," he said, "and I believe that our F-type is more than competitive." Not that he would be biased or anything, but to prove his point, he invited us along on an engineering drive through Wales, where Jaguar engineers were doing the final…

Twenty-five years ago, four GM Motorama show cars were disinterred from Warhoops auto salvage yard. Built for the 1956 Motorama, the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham Town Car was scrapped before the decade was out. We brought the now-restored Cadillac back to the site it left in 1989. AN OLD- SCHOOL JUNKYARD, Warhoops Auto and Truck Parts squats on 15.5 acres of dirt speckled with the detritus of our throwaway culture. A Cadillac propped against a tree exposes its Northstar to the sky. Bent buses and crumpled cop cars line up against a white fence. It's forgettable real estate except for one key attribute: location. Tucked out of sight in an industrial area in the working class Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights, Michigan, across the road from a Ford transmission factory and…

Headbangers ball. Some of us have never been exactly known for our grace, but that's no reason to be hitting your head on Mercedes-Benz's gullwing doors. Perhaps we were too absorbed in contemplating Mercedes' newest supercar to be aware of the overhanging doors. That's our story, anyway. For 2013, the GT becomes the sole SLS version sold in the U.S., featuring more power, a quicker-shifting transmission, and a somewhat firmer adaptive suspension. Mercedes is so enamored with the "6.3" designation that it calls its naturally aspirated, 6208-cc V-8 a "6.3-liter." You can understand why, too: The 1968–1972 Mercedes 300SEL 6.3 was Mercedes' first modern big-motor sedan, and AMG made its name racing a 300SEL with a full leather and wood interior. Either way, this dry-sump V-8 makes 583 horsepower, a…

Roars with Gryffindor daring, moves with Slytherin cunning and looks like Kate Beckinsale. Ergonomics as cruel as Voldemort, the prisoners WONKA'S GOLDEN TICKET Fall through the looking glass, pass through the wardrobe, hit all the buttons in the Wonkavator, or take the Hogwarts Express one stop past the wizard school and there's Aston Martin's updated, five-door Rapide S sports car. It's engineered for an alternate reality where up is left, down is sideways, rabbits wear top hats, and four-door exotic sports cars are the norm. It's an inverted universe where practicality is a burden, beauty always trumps convenience, and a 550-hp 5.9-liter V-12 is considered reasonable and ordinary. The car is a pain in the ass, and wonderful for it. First seen as a concept back in 2006, the Rapide…

Penske, whose teams have won pretty much everything in motorsports, muses on adding a 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup title to his roster and on his business philosophy. C/D: How does winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup owners' championship compare with winning at Indy? RP: Let me revise the question: Would I rather win the NASCAR championship than another Indy? My answer is that although each of these is special, the NASCAR championship is something I started going after back in the '70s with Mark Donohue. Then together with Rusty Wallace and Miller Brewing Company we almost won it several times in the '90s. So all I can say is that it's a goal that has eluded me for many years. C/D: Why has it taken so long? RP: Well, we were…