Innehållsförteckning för Apr-14 från Car and Driver

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com LITTLE RED CORVETTE I know readers like to accuse you of being on BMW's payroll, but I don't see it. Clearly Chevrolet has some sort of influence on your magazine considering that four of the last nine issues (including three out of the last five) have featured a red Corvette on the cover. I'm struggling to figure out why this car is considered so important to C/D. Yes, I understand it's a great performance value and American made, but I still have yet to see a new Stingray on the road. When I dream of owning a sports car, it's not a Corvette, and I know I'm not alone there. It can't be a marketing…

ONE TO IMPORT ALFA ROMEO SZ — The aesthetic of Alfa's so-called "Monster" was polarizing, but now that this Europe-only OG boxy wedge is 25 years old, it's legal to import into the U.S. for closer examination. The 1989 SZ's 207-hp V-6 is par for the era, but its handling is still revered among enthusiasts today. With only 1036 made for the 1989–91 model years, prices are already high. Euro transactions currently bounce between $50,000 and $80,000. "IT'S AN ARBITRAGE OPPORTUNITY," says Robert Ray. "The notion that the dealerships are being victimized or are not aware of what's going on is hard to believe." Ray, a New York–based attorney, is representing Unicorn Tire of Memphis, Tennessee, which had 47 luxury SUVs and trucks seized by the federal government. The vehicles…

As I shuffle into a sunset that promises daily crashes on my Hoveround while wearing orthopedic socks—all the while shedding body parts like a Lotus Europa—I'm at least watching less TV. These days, it's either car racing or Anthony Bourdain. But two years ago, my wife and I were drawn into the truTV reality show Hardcore Pawn starring Les Gold—a sinewy string bean of a man, shirt open to reveal prodigious chest hair as well as a gold hand grenade of a jeweler's loupe. At Sam's Loan in Detroit, Gold made his first sale—when he was seven. Today he operates American Jewelry and Loan in a 50,000-square-foot store that used to be a bowling alley. He's an over-revving slot machine of a salesman, alternately compassionate, profane, hysterical, generous, stingy, insightful,…

Jeep Cherokee Limited 4x4 No doubt the folks at Jeep want you to think of every new Cherokee as a Trailhawk model. Armed with a two-speed transfer case, a one-inch suspension lift, skid plates, three bright-red tow hooks, and Firestone all-terrain tires, the Trailhawk is the rock-crawling mascot for this otherwise soft-roading shopping trolley. You can see the Trailhawk in television commercials, splashing through a muddy trough and bobbling over boulders, burnishing this new Cherokee's image and upholding Jeep's sacred reputation. The Jeep pictured on these pages is not a Trailhawk. It is a Cherokee Limited, a crossover much closer to what people will—and should—buy from their local dealers. The approach angle, wading depth, and crawl ratio of this unibody, transverse-engine ute are unlikely to factor into anyone's commute or…

XV. 2016 FORD MUSTANG SHELBY GT350 What it is: Though it bears the Shelby name, this is the creation of Ford's SVT group. It's more the spiritual successor to the recent and beloved Boss 302 than the most recent Shelby, that ground-thumping supercharged beast known as the GT500. So why call it a Shelby instead of a Boss or a Cobra or a Mach (or a Sprint or a Ghia or …)? Because attaching the Shelby name allows Ford to charge more. Why it matters: Why it matters? Why it matters?! What's wrong with you—are you only reading this because you're waiting at the doctor's office? Platform: The GT350 uses the same "S550" platform that underpins the 2015 Mustang. We anticipate that this version will ride on a significantly stiffer…

We test 'em FIRST THIS MONTH 2015 JAGUAR F-TYPE R / VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE GSR / MITSUBISHI MIRAGE ES / LAND ROVER RANGE ROVER SPORT SUPERCHARGED With apologies to George Santayana and high-school history teachers everywhere: Those who can remember the past are the ones condemned to repeat it, at least among a certain segment of BMW 3-series cognoscenti. You know them by the tarnish on their roundels, the newest of which are now eight model years old and at least two generations obsolete. BMW knows them for their unwillingness to replace their beloved E36 and E46 Bimmers with the larger, and, in management's view, much-improved successors. This uniquely American cohort perplexes the Germans because such refusal to march in lock step with product planning comes despite, or perhaps because of,…

Way back in 1989, Mitsubishi scored a 10Best win with its Mirage Turbo. That delightful little compact led its class in refinement, performance, and design. Fast-forward 25 years to the 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage and it looks like things have gone backward—fast. If the new Mirage were sent back a quarter century, it probably couldn't return with a 10Best trophy unless it wrestled one away from the old Mirage and raced back into the time machine. But with 74 horsepower, the new Mirage isn't racing anywhere. Floor it, something you'll find yourself doing a lot, and the 77 decibels of ringing three-cylinder grittiness will make you wonder if there's actually a leaf blower under the hood. Even when idling, the little 1.2-liter sends quivers through the entire car. And should you…

IMPENDING DOOM THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND "Companies have implemented some recommended practices, but the extent to which consumers' privacy could be at risk may not be clear." —GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE ON DATA-COLLECTION PRACTICES AMONG AUTOMAKERS THIS WIDE-VIEW NAV SCREEN ALLOWS YOU TO SEE MORE OF THE PLACES YOU'RE NOT GOING. AND HERE WE JUST SAID MMI WAS THE BEST IN THE INDUSTRY. Traffic cops can smell the baloney as soon as you roll down your window. In a few years, though, try hitting them with this one: "Officer, a computer ate my speedometer!" At this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Audi showed an interior mock-up that would lend that excuse some credibility. On its concept buck, Audi shifted all infotainment controls from the car's center console…

PARTICULATE PARTICULARS Diesels have an EDGE on gasoline engines when it comes to fuel economy, but compression-ignition engines need extra help to meet America's emissions regulations. Higher peak-combustion temperatures and pressures produce more oxides of nitrogen than gas engines do. And diesel combustion chambers have fuel-rich pockets that create particulate matter. To explore the varied systems and technologies that scrub diesel exhaust to the government's satisfaction, we crawled under a 2014 Audi A6 TDI and appropriated the expensive hardware. Then we commenced to slicing. THE CAT'S CERAMIC CORE IS MADE FROM ZEOLITE, WHICH ALSO HAPPENS TO BE A KEY COMPONENT IN NONCLUMPING CAT LITTER. COOLANT FLOWING THROUGH THIS CHAMBER DROPS THE RECIRCULATED EXHAUST GAS FROM 400 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT TO 250. REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE Exhaust-gas recirculation (EGR), ubiquitous in modern engines,…

Those of you still grumping into 2014 on the belief that the government should never have bailed out GM and Chrysler probably weren't terribly swayed by the video images of the vice president striding through the Detroit auto show in January with grateful car-company execs nipping at his heels. The man with the tawny skin and silver mane gave good photo ops, climbing up the side of the new F-150 and wedging himself behind the wheel of the Z06 with new GM CEO Mary Barra at his side. In a speech, he linked the government's profligate doling from the public larder in 2009—$51 billion to GM alone—to the supposed resurgence of domestic manufacturing, saying, "We bet on American ingenuity, we bet on you, and we won." Not mentioned in this…

AMID ALL THE BUZZWORDS, REAL BUZZ. 2015 Chrysler 200 Chrysler uses a pile of buzzwords to describe the all-new 200: "iconic," "industry first," etc. It's as if the Chrysler folks thought they were speaking at TED and not the Detroit auto show. Normally, the car media scoffs at such hyperbole, but buried in all the thought leadership, paradigm shifts, and needle moving lurks something long absent in the company's mid-size sedan portfolio: bravado. Or, at least, what passes for bravado when you're launching a Camry competitor with a base price of just $22,695. The 2015 Chrysler 200 rolls into dealerships some-time this spring. Ultimately replacing both the Dodge Avenger as well as its namesake (formerly known as the Sebring), the 200 comes off the old Chrysler platform and onto Fiat's…

THE SUV IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE CROSSOVER. The vehicular mastodons of the 1990s began flirting with extinction as manufacturers and buyers turned to better-behaved family vehicles. These modern, car-based utilities have dumped the off-road hardware, if not always the off-road look, in their attempt to satisfy the considerable "anything but a minivan" crowd. To that end, Nissan rebuilt its 2013 Pathfinder from the ground up, scrapping its body-on-frame construction, longitudinal powertrain, and available V-8 engine in favor of a unibody design derived from the Altima's. This brings standard front-wheel drive and a transversely oriented V-6 paired to a continuously variable transmission. Nissan wasn't blazing any new trails with this remade Pathfinder, though. It was following the Ford Explorer and GM's Lambda triplets (Buick Enclave, Chevy Traverse, and GMC Acadia)…

The F-type R coupe tops Jaguar's new sports-car range; it's the most powerful series-production Jag model ever. It responds accurately to even the smallest of steering inputs through an exceptionally stiff body. It is fearsome, loud, and fast. Does that description seem fitting for a Jaguar, which for decades has been the place you go for comfortable high-speed sitting rooms? Chief engineer Mike Cross replies: "It's time for a change. This car is more than just the coupe version of the F-type roadster. It's a high-performance sports car with a completely different character." "Completely different" might be overstating things a bit, but it did strike us as more intense than the already fully committed F-type roadster. The coupe has the same basic dimensions and proportions as the convertible and comes…

The late Charles Spencer "Spen" King loathed what became of his work. The father of the Range Rover resented that his creation evolved into a totem of wealth for city streets and suburban parking lots. "The 4x4 was never intended as a status symbol, but later incarnations of my design seem to be intended for that purpose," he said in a 2004 interview. King was no stranger to living well, and his 1970 Range Rover reflected that. Swathed in leather, with a V-8 engine and a novel coil-spring suspension, the original Range Rover was meant to tend the farm, blast to the country manor, and join in the ensuing pheasant hunt. The only flaw in King's plan was a misunderstanding of the market: Few people could afford such a lifestyle,…

There's no shortage of racing-related trivia. From speeds and power outputs to longitudinal- and lateral-acceleration figures, there are countless ways to compare racing machines. Some corner at nearly 4.0 g, some accelerate that hard, and some subject their drivers to even greater loads as they tumble down the front straight before crossing the finish line on their roofs. But occasionally we find ourselves asking: What about the series in which these cars race? How do those compare? Like this. All figures come from each sanctioning body's respective top-level series for 2013: NASCAR Sprint Cup, ALMS P1, Grand-Am Daytona Prototype, IZOD IndyCar Series, NHRA Top Fuel, FIA Formula 1 and WRC, and FIM MotoGP. Never let it be said that we at Car and Driver don't do the big investigative work.…

More than a CENTURY AGO, Nikola Tesla studied high-power electromagnetic energy transfer without wires. Which raises the question: Why would Elon Musk, today's tender of the Tesla flame, be investing more than $100 million in a network of Supercharger stations that still require you to plug in [November 2013]? The answer is that Nikola's wireless concept isn't quite ready for electric-car use. The scientific principle he exploited, inductive coupling, uses the magnetic field surrounding a primary coil to produce an electrical current in an adjoining secondary coil with no physical contact between the two. This works fine in transformers, AC motors, and pads capable of recharging small appliances ranging from toothbrushes to laptops. Factoring in a second principle, magnetic resonance, allows inductive coupling to be scaled up to higher power…

BMW 435i PRICE > $57,225 POWER > 300 hp TORQUE > 300 lb-ft WEIGHT > 3621 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 20 Audi S5 PRICE > $59,220 POWER > 333 hp TORQUE > 325 lb-ft WEIGHT > 3846 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 18 Conspiracy theorists will tell you that BMW's payroll got a little lighter when the current-generation 3-series appeared. Our early reviews were tempered with disappointment because the car wasn't as involving as its predecessor, confusing those readers who believed our affinity for the 3 was based on monthly cash payoffs rather than the vehicle's intrinsic goodness. And then the 335i lost a comparison test. To a Lexus. Even so, the collective merit of the full 3- and 4-series family landed it on our 10Best list. A 3-series…

XII. 2016 FERRARI FF COUPE What it is: A more conventionally styled version of the clown-shoe-shaped FF. It will get a sloping roofline and lose its rear seat, and the front fascia and side air vents will change slightly. Traditional notions of beauty will thus be satisfied. Why it matters: The FF has put off customers who liked the classic proportions of previous executive Ferraris. It is easy enough for Team Maranello to rebody the car, and we expect both models to be sold concurrently. Platform: The FF coupe is just a restyled FF, so it will share everything with the current Cavallino Country Squire, from the engine to the trick four-wheel-drive system. Powertrain: This coupe should get the same naturally aspirated, 651-hp, 6.3-liter V-12 powering the current FF. Competition:…

Put aside for A MOMENT that if you are wondering how drunk you are, the answer is essentially always some version of "drunk." The precise level of your drunkenness is pretty meaningless. Further, let us say at the outset that if you feel compelled to test your blood-alcohol concentration (BAC), you should be immediately disqualified from driving. Nonetheless, the market is loaded with supposedly handy little devices of all shapes, sizes, and price tags to test the state of your buzz, ostensibly to make sure it's under the legal limit of 0.08-percent BAC. Could they possibly work? How about one that comes with an app for your phone? One that comes as a key chain? One that costs $15? We gathered up four popular devices priced from $15 to $150…

Car boys reflexively cringe at the sight of VW's girlie car, especially one in full bumblebee regalia, even though the Beetle, Golf, and Jetta all share the same platform. But before you studs flip the page, we suggest taking a closer look at the GTI's twisted sister. The GSR materialized 41 years ago when VW responded to customer requests for a driver's bug. It gave them a 1600-cc, 50-hp Super Beetle armed with wider tires, a double-toned horn (hey, it was the '70s), sport seats and steering wheel, and a flashy black-and-yellow paint job. Unfortunately, it never crossed the ocean. VW also provided a list of 10 approved tuning firms to the 3500 German customers who drove home the original Gelb-Schwarzer Renner (yellow-black racer). The Beetle GSR R-Line tested here…

C/D: You quit BMW in 2009. Any regrets? CB: Seventeen years in that job is a long time—three generations of most models. For this next phase, my wife and I started a design company in Italy. But, in truth, every design is a car design. There just aren't the old clay models around. C/D: You once said your cars don't look good in photos. Why? CB: If, for instance, you'd never seen a Porsche 911, then suddenly saw only a side view of the car, well, it suffers—one of the most unusually proportioned vehicles ever. For complex cars, you need to take that "memory walk" 360 degrees around the car, and then you see how the different themes are connected. C/D: Who most influenced you? CB: Giorgetto Giugiaro was a…