Innehållsförteckning för Jul-14 från Car and Driver

editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com CAN'T BEAT 'EM, JOIN 'EM The "25 Cars Worth Waiting For" [April 2014] featured the 2016 Mercedes-Benz GT AMG with the cover line: "The car that's making Porsche nervous." I put my thumb over the hood and, lo and behold, it's a Porsche 911! Seems the iconic, half-century-old design isn't too stale after all. JOEL COOK DANIEL ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA LETTER OF THE MONTH Here's my reply to the article "Get … Smart?" in the April 2014 issue. On almost any given night as I commute home from work, I see some fool driving one of these new vehicles with its headlights off. Some may have the DRLs on, but otherwise no exterior illumination. But its pretty, new electronic dashboard is lit…

Evening rush hour IN Fresno, California, can get ugly. On January 5, 2012, Steven Spriggs was stuck in it, fully stopped in his 2006 Toyota Highlander on the construction-clogged Route 41. Waiting as darkness fell, he looked for a route around the congestion on his iPhone 4's navigation app. A California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer saw the phone's glow light up Spriggs's face, and Spriggs was soon staring at a $165 fine for violating California Vehicle Code section 23123(a). Enacted in 2008, the law reads: "A person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving." "The California law was badly written," asserts Orin Kerr, a law…

In March, William Clay Ford Sr., 88, died of pneumonia. Pneumonia? How could that be? The man was stubbornly loyal to his "studies in mediocrity," the phrase Detroiters affixed to coaches for the Lions, a team Mr. Ford owned. He thus often felt the fans' fury, and I figured he'd be found in Hamtramck, a casualty of torture designed to kill but not on the same day. But I always admired Ford for his role in conceiving the most beautiful Lincoln that was never a Lincoln: the 1956–1957 Continental Mark II, with its so-called "modern formal" styling. "Continental" wasn't the model, it was the brand, though it quickly got folded into the Lincoln division. About 3000 Mark IIs were created, each losing money. That the car remains such a vivid…

Sitting 80 miles north of the Mexican border, in the epicenter of America's pepper-growing belt, is the village of Hatch, New Mexico. A small farming community of 1648 inhabitants, Hatch is famous for the chile peppers that bear the town's name. In fact, Hatch is the "Chile Capital of the World." It's possible that this title might be self-administered. The town even has an annual Labor Day festival to celebrate the mouth-numbing power of its chiles. Based on more than just spelling, rest assured that the little town of Hatch does not consider the Chili's restaurant chain an authentic outpost of Tex-Mex cuisine. But chiles, the peppers, are everywhere in Hatch. They're growing in the fields just outside downtown and drying in clusters called chile ristras at roadside stands. This…

ALL MYTHS ASIDE, THE GOLDEN STATE IS A LONELY, HARD PLACE AT THE EDGE OF THE CONTINENT, LOW ON WATER AND HIGH ON STRETCHES OF DESOLATION. Little is preserved here; it falls into disrepair and uselessness and it's either left behind to rot or it's razed and replaced—sometimes with something better, sometimes not. Space isn't what's at a premium here; California's got plenty of it if you prefer to live somewhere inconvenient and desperate. The high costs come because 32 million people are trying to squeeze as closely as possible to the verdant coastline, where the weather is much better. A long-running outfit from England has produced a machine that promises to up the quality of anyone's lifestyle. You won't be shocked to learn that it's also expensive. On…

While GM's flacks were handing over the keys to new Escalades, their boss was getting grilled about defective ignition switches on Capitol Hill. To summarize the interrogation: "Who in the hell is running your company?" Our drive in the Caddy provided one possible answer: It's still Sloan. Of course, Alfred P. Sloan Jr. was the guy who devised GM's ladder of brands, a strategy that helped build General Motors into the world's largest automaker. Current CEO Mary Barra was just four when Sloan died in 1966. But Sloan's brand hierarchy lives on, which is why GM's utilitarian K2 platform, aside from serving as the basis for a quartet of new pickups, has now spawned a half-dozen full-size, body-on-frame SUVs. This overhaul has improved the dynamics of the excellent pickups enough…

HIGHLIGHTS MOST EXPENSIVE Lamborghini Aventador $412,015 LEAST EXPENSIVE Nissan Versa Note S $14,800 HIGHEST TOP SPEED Lamborghini Aventador 217 mph* LOWEST TOP SPEED Smart Fortwo ED Cabriolet 78 mph QUICKEST 0–60 MPH Porsche 911 Turbo S 2.6 sec SLOWEST 0–60 MPH Mitsubishi i 13.0 sec QUICKEST 1/4-MILE McLaren MP4-12C 10.7 sec SLOWEST 1/4-MILE Mitsubishi i 20.3 sec SHORTEST STOPPING DISTANCE Porsche 911 GT3 135 feet LONGEST STOPPING DISTANCE Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn 4x4 197 feet MOST GRIP Porsche 911 GT3 1.12 g LEAST GRIP Mercedes-Benz G550 0.64 g BEST FUEL ECONOMY Honda Fit EV 132/105 city/hwy MPGe WORST FUEL ECONOMY Lexus LFA 11/16 city/hwy mpg ACCELERATION: Elapsed times from zero to 60 mph and through a quarter-mile distance. Tests are run in two directions and corrected to standard…

2,191,019 GM RECALLED NEARLY 620,000 CARS ON FEBRUARY 10, ADDING ANOTHER 750,000 TWO WEEKS LATER. IT EXPANDED THE TOTAL TO 2,191,019 IN LATE MARCH. Bankruptcy purged crippling legacy costs from General Motors' operations, but it couldn't wash away history. In February, GM issued a recall to address faulty ignition switches from last decade that, if bumped or jostled, can rotate into the "accessory" or "off" position. The defect has been blamed for airbags that didn't deploy in 31 crashes that resulted in 13 deaths. The recall became a full-blown fiasco when internal documents revealed that GM engineers knew the torque required to turn the switch was too low as early as 2001, before any of the affected cars went on sale. A new switch was swapped in starting with 2007…

Americans bought 15,603,518 new cars and light trucks last year. Let that number roll around in your head for a minute. Fifteen million, six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and eighteen. That's one vehicle for every man, woman, and child in the cities of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Austin, Texas, combined. (But none for anybody in Topeka. Sorry, Kansans.) It's nearly 30 vehicles sold every minute. While Americans bought a new car or truck every two seconds, though, people worldwide bought 2.6 vehicles per second. An astonishing 12 percent of those were Toyotas. Including Daihatsu and its Hino commercial line, the Japanese giant's 9.98 million sales are a New York pizza slice out of the 83.23 million new vehicles gobbled up in 2013. According to IHS, which…

GM's ignition-switch crisis wore out my patience in a few days. Of the 13 fatalities repeatedly cited as indictments of GM's badly designed, self-stalling cars, nine of them also involved alcohol, drugs, or lack of seatbelt use. If GM is a pack of murderous skinflinting bastards, at least some of its victims have served as able accomplices to the crime. Particularly repellent are the congressional hearings, whereupon the esteemed members fulminate for the cameras at the same supposedly incompetent regulators that only yesterday they were castigating as heavy-handed, antibusiness, and unworthy of funding. It reminds me of the old joke about a restaurant where "the food was so bad … and there was so little of it." Disgusted by the news, I went out to the garage, where the devil…

30 UNDER $30k BASE PRICE: $18,225 2015 HONDA FIT EX If the personal-transportation choices of Americans were based solely on need and practicality, we'd have a much narrower spectrum of vehicles on our roads. From the hundreds of models available now, we'd need just four: 50-cc mopeds for single people, bitty five-door hatchbacks for couples, minivans for larger families, and pickups for those who pack nail guns or pilot a Ditch Witch. In fact, we're pretty sure this is how they do it in Europe. If they ever put us in charge, the Honda Fit will be mankind's hatchback. Since it appeared on the scene in 2006, the fun-size Honda has been our reflexive recommendation for pretty much everybody on a budget, including the old lady in the shoe.…

(SEVERAL THOUSAND STEPS OMITTED FOR THE SAKE OF BREVITY.) How the three guys on these pages became the undisputed masters of the Hooniverse. DAN GURNEY? BLANK STARE. MARIO ANDRETTI? SHOULDER SHRUG. AYRTON SENNA? BEFUDDLED HEAD TILT. For a generation raised on YouTube, lost in Minecraft, and baked in Snapchat, those names don't mean anything. American kids have a hazy notion that Jeff Gordon is some old NASCAR guy and Dale Jr. sells Mountain Dew. Beyond that? Nothing. But they know Ken Block. His six (so far) "gymkhana" rally-car mayhem videos are what fun-with-cars looks like in the age of Oculus Rift: jumping, sliding, and tire shredding mixed with goofball humor and almost subliminal marketing messages. Sometimes, not so subliminal. The Big Bang Theory is the top-rated show on prime time.…

Few are more desirable. Jaguar had it easy when it created its last great sports coupe, the E-type. Had the company's Brylcreem-smeared virtuosos from way-back-when been forced to wade through the sludge of modern vehicle regulations, they probably would have committed seppuku with their slide rules. Instead, they were free to draw a stunning body, uncork some 100-proof engineering inspiration, and launch a masterpiece for which they asked just $5895 ($47K in today's money). So it's mind-boggling that the new F-type coupe has emerged from the current gantlet of stifling requirements—pedestrian protection, headlight height, and so on, ad infinitum—stunningly gorgeous and pitched at a price you'll have to sell only one organ to afford. Yet, Jaguar didn't just create automotive art. It also produced a coupe that's fantastic to drive.…

C/D: In the first Bad Boys movie in 1995, was that your personal Porsche 911 Turbo? MB: Yeah. The studio didn't want to rent a car and we didn't have the money to rent one. And Porsche didn't want to support the movie. The funny thing is, at Porsche, when they saw the movie in Germany, they threw us a Bad Boys party. It's funny how they didn't initially believe in it. C/D: You used your Ferrari 550 Maranello in Bad Boys II. MB: And I bought the Aventador from the new movie. Why? It's just so beautiful. Lamborghini gave us one and I bought one. It's this pea color that I had them pull out of retirement because that was the color my bad boy needed to be. My…

When the new F-150 LANDS in Ford showrooms later this year, we're betting it will be more expensive to buy, insure, and repair than its predecessor. That's because the cab and bed are made from aluminum to trim weight and boost mileage. And replacing steel with aluminum always costs more. While F-150 prices are still secret and insurers are loath to quote premiums, large dollar signs are already hovering over repair shops. Aluminum bends and dents differently than steel does, so before Ford starts selling its nonferrous pickup, it has to train and equip its collision-repair army. We've done some digging to see what it will cost for shops to become aluminum compliant, and it won't be cheap. This is no trivial pursuit. Only 20 percent of Ford's 3100 dealers…

AMERICANS SPEND MORE than $30 billion a year on fast-food breakfast, annually dropping about $40 million worth of sausage, egg, and cheese between the front seats. Taco Bell would like to be responsible for more of those crumbs, so it rolled out its own breakfast menu this spring. Just as we do with the latest Chevys and Hondas, we lined up a few of these newcomers against the standards in their class. Taco Bell's dominance of the niche stoner market means that few regulars may turn up for the morning feed, but those who do will undoubtedly wonder if they're still high. EVEN BY THE CATEGORY'S LOOSE STANDARDS, THIS IS BARELY SAUSAGE. UNNATURAL CONSTRUCTIONS The Waffle Taco is as bizarre as it sounds—a quasi-Belgian pastry enfolding a sausage patty (or…

First, the bad news: The average new-car transaction price in the U.S. has crept above $30,000, which is about two grand more than it was five years ago, and enough to make inflation look like it's not even trying. But these escalating MSRPs aren't solely due to carmaker greed ; they are the cost of meeting increasingly tough safety, performance, and fuel-economy targets. Now the good news: If the average is $30,000, that means a whole lot of new cars cost less than that. And most benefit from those same safety, performance, and economy advances. More and more, it seems like under $30K is the place to be. Here are 30 vehicles that prove it. BASE PRICE (estimated): $27,000 PONY RIDES, TWO CENTS WE TAKE THE SHOTGUN SEAT IN A…

THE WORD "TARGA" HAS A FEW MEANINGS IN Italian. It's a tablet, a ceremonial shield or plaque, and also what Italians call their license plates. And, most relevant to our topic, it's in t he name of Italy's second-most-celebrated road race, the Targa Florio, which Porsche dominated in the 1960s before the rapidly rising body count finally ended the fun. When Porsche revealed its first open-top 911 at the 1965 Frankfurt Motor Show, it bore the name Targa ostensibly as a tribute to the company's Targa Florio victories but also, no doubt, because an Italian saying the word sounds like a cheetah growling. "TAR-grrr!" And Pontiac had already—perhaps criminally—pilfered the name "LeMans." Outside Italy, Targa means first and foremost a Porsche 911 missing part of its roof. And "missing" is…

THIS MONTH 2015 CADILLAC ESCALADE / 2015 JAGUAR F-TYPE COUPE / INFINITI Q50S 3.7 we test 'em FIRST Once a starting point, now, perhaps, the turning point. The first-generation Genesis sedan lived and died by the same code as every other Hyundai: more features for fewer dollars with only the slightest pretense of handling, steering, and ride quality. While that approach earned Hyundai headlines, it was only moderately successful in capturing the luxury buyers the Genesis was targeting. To move the second-generation luxo-Hyundai beyond the realm of the Chrysler 300 and Nissan Maxima, the Koreans called in outside experts to address its most glaring shortcomings. What used to be the worst-handling and -riding car in middle luxury now features chassis tuning by Lotus, constructor of some of the best-handling cars…

TESTED Improved steering feel and driver confidence, loads of grip, less cabbage. Pricey wheel-and-tire upgrade, few optional frills available. Infiniti's new Q50 is more advanced and mature than the G37 sedan it replaces, but that's not to say it's better. Our previous tests have shown it to be wayward and lacking in feel when fitted with the optional by-wire Direct Adaptive Steering (DAS) system. While the company tries to make good with a new performance-tire package and the first of what will surely be many software updates for the innovative helm, simply opting for the car's conventional steering clears the electronic fog from the drive. DAS's electric motors, control modules, and steering-force sensor in the column can only synthesize forces acting on the Q50's front tires' contact patches (a mechanical…