Innehållsförteckning för Jan-15 från Car and Driver

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com THE BIG COVER UP It's taken me a week to calm down to write this! A couple of weeks ago I saw this picture on Facebook of the October cover featuring the possible next Chevy Corvette (picture 1). I was excited to get such a beautiful car on the cover! What I got was this: (picture 2). I am livid. I want a three-month extension of my subscription to cover the retail cost of this issue with the right cover! MIKE PENNESI DULUTH, GEORGIA Well, we were going to give you the Porsche 918 Spyder for a weekend, but okay—Ed. LIGHTNING STRIKES I read that your long-term C7 Corvette Stingray suffered an engine failure.…

WHAT SEPARATES A PORSCHE FLAT-SIX from a Toyota Avalon V-6—aside from the bank angle, the power output, the engine location, and your interest in owning one? At full throttle, the Porsche belts out an aggressive mechanical rasp while the Avalon mutters a nonthreatening burr. How can two six-cylinder engines sound so different? Before we answer that, a brief primer on sound: It originates as vibrations that cause air-pressure disturbances that hit our eardrums. The frequency, or Hertz (Hz), of a sound wave—how many times the wave oscillates in a second—determines how our brain processes and interprets it as a distinct pitch. A higher frequency makes for a higher pitch, and vice versa. A car's engine under load plays a range of frequencies, but its root note—the pitch its musical chord…

Most visitors to Paris in October would rejoice in a forecast of bright sun and mid-70s temperatures, but not me. I looked at the weather report with dread. That's because 75 degrees on the Rue de Rivoli equates to 85 degrees in Klieg-lighted pavilions of the Porte de Versailles, where they hold the biennial Paris auto show and Life Without Air Conditioning symposium. This is a prestigious international event, so I prefer to wear a suit, which is a multilayered wool garment from another era, before the weather apocalypse or whatever we're calling sunny afternoons in Paris these days. Volkswagen Group, which now encompasses no fewer than eight passenger-car brands, three truck brands, and one cycle brand, holds a party on the evening before the press day dubbed "Group Night."…

Amid the industry's booming sales of compact wagonoids on stilts, domestic full-size SUVs stand out like the mountains of metal they are: truck-based behemoths capable of towing more than four tons while seating up to eight people. Despite their excesses, these giants remain indispensable for their vast range of capabilities. While both of the segment's icons, the Chevrolet Tahoe and the Ford Expedition, see a significant evolution for 2015, each applies its own formula for taking an entire homestead on holiday. The Tahoe follows the path of the latest Chevy Silverado 1500, borrowing its updated boxed frame and 5.3-liter small-block V-8 with aluminum block-and-head construction, direct fuel injection, variable valve timing, and cylinder deactivation. Its 355 horsepower and 383 pound-feet of torque motivate a stylish, if conventional, rig that stands…

THIS MONTH BMW ALPINA B6 GRAN COUPE / MERCEDES-BENZ GLA45 AMG / HYUNDAI SONATA SPORT / HONDA CR-V TOURING AWD Aluminum cans are currently all the rage in craft-brewing circles. Once a symbol of cheap and watery beer, cans seal more tightly than glass bottles, better protect against UV degradation, and reduce the expense and energy that come with dispatching a truck full of suds to your local depot. Get past the stigma imprinted by 40 years of Miller Lite and cans are the perfect vessel for high-end brew. In the light-duty-truck world, beer cans are either all the rage or the ammunition for all your rage, depending on which automaker's logo your Calvin decal is pissing on. The aluminum-bodied (but still steel-framed) Ford F-150 brings huge weight savings for…

+ Improved body control and steering precision. - Engine could use a shot of refinement and a dose of torque. The Hyundai Sonata's rise from an embarrassment to mediocrity to a truly competitive vehicle has taken, by car standards, a shockingly short time. Each generation made a meaningful stride over the one it replaced. Hyundai's Horatio Alger period might finally be drawing to a close. With the 2015 Hyundai Sonata, a retuned and restyled version of the last-generation car, Hyundai gets on with the less dramatic business of fine-tuning, which is nevertheless the key to lasting success in the industry. Less dramatic would certainly describe the styling, both inside and out, of the new car. The Sonata's face is now stripped of its rounded nose and flamboyant grille. The interior…

In spite of OUR HISTORY of doting on the BMW M3 as though it were an internal-combustion golden retriever, we wouldn't mind an American car making the BMW tuck its quad tailpipes between its legs. The previous Cadillac CTS-V came close, but the Corvette-powered special was always too big and heavy to feel like a true M3 rival. We've already praised the smaller ATS for having a more entertaining chassis than the basic 3-series, and now the 2016 ATS-V, in both coupe and sedan forms, is baring its teeth. POWERTRAIN The heart of the ATS-V is Cadillac's twin-turbo 3.6-liter V-6, an engine that has already distinguished itself in the CTS Vsport. For ATS-V duty, Cadillac engineers swapped so many parts that they renamed it the LF4. (It's known as the…

If you live IN ARIZONA, Louisiana, New York, or one of more than a dozen other states, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has bad news for you. Come January 19, your driver's license will no longer allow you access to certain federal facilities. Unless DHS changes its mind. Again. In 2005, Congress passed a bill called the Real ID Act, based upon recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission. Whether or not you've heard of the law depends largely upon how in tune you are with conspiracy theories. Where you live matters, too, because nearly a decade after the law's passage, only 19 states actually comply with its standards. Real ID's stated intent is to ensure that all jurisdictions issuing driver's licenses and other identification meet federal stand ards, "which…

If the War on Drugs gave us nothing else, it at least provided some enduringly quotable anti-drug ads. An entire generation fondly recalls the TV spot where a dad confronts his son over some wacky tobacky, asking, "Who taught you how to do this stuff?" The kid replies: "You, all right? I learned it by watching you!" As a kid, I totally embraced the message of that ad: When you're in trouble, consider that it might actually be your parents' fault. What a great idea! Of course, this concept also applies in the negative, and when it came to cars I could've yelled at my dad, "I didn't learn it by not watching you!" I think a lot of people with mechanical ability had some patriarchal influence during their formative…

There are roughly 150 new car models on the market today, many of them only narrowly distinguishable from each other. The sedans are flame-surfaced affairs with elongated rooflines, and even the sporty coupes rely on huge grilles to trumpet their brand lineage. Most emit the same muffled calls, so you can't reliably classify them by sound, either. This guide is intended to help you identify the 10 cars that, through a rare combination of strengths, stand apart. They reward close observation. We hope the following pages will tune you in to the attributes that mark the differentiation. Individual areas of noteworthiness are called out, but the assembled cars share the following traits: They cost less than $80,000, they excel at delivering value for the money, they have a strong mastery…

TESTED + Exclusivity, torque, a hint of fabulous retro-loucheness. - Not exactly soda-pop and Cracker Jack money, not quite M-speedy. To drive a 1980s M3 is to be amazed by its relative softness compared with today's hard-edged, dual-clutch asphalt scalpels. "Scalpel" might even be the wrong metaphor. Today's M cars often seem more like chisels: heavy, capable, rigid-feeling things. But what if BMW dialed that speedy numbness back a notch? Horsepower swapped for torque, and BMW's still-funky dual-clutch transmission traded for a tight eight-speed slushbox? To appease the snowbelt traction-philes, what if it came with four-wheel drive? You'd wind up with something like the BMW Alpina B6. You'll lay out a $1600 premium over the $116,650 M6 Gran Coupe for Alpina's version, whose snail-huffed 4.4-liter V-8 offers but 540 horsepower…

Tested + Improved road manners, high-tech features, nice-looking interior. - The best CVT is still a CVT, safety features enable inattentive driving. It's as if you went in for an eyelid lift and a chin tuck and emerged with a heart transplant. The refreshed Honda CR-V might wear the same basic sheetmetal as it has since 2012, but the ute's mechanical and interior changes are significant. Our tested example, in top-rung Touring trim with four-wheel drive, did have flashy new eyes (projector headlights and LED daytime running lamps). Inside, upgraded, richer-looking materials surround new features like the seven-inch touch- and swipe-sensitive screen found in Honda's latest sedans. The new heart is the "Earth Dreams" engine and CVT transplanted from the Accord. This direct-injected 2.4-liter i-VTEC four generates 11 percent more…

A deuce-and-a-half, for those who didn't serve or grow up wearing G.I. Joe bandoleers, is a military truck. The big, six-wheel-drive kind. The name comes from its once-upon-a-time payload rating of 2.5 tons. And at Mil-fest, a fall gathering of military vehicles in Aniwa, Wisconsin, you can race one. Tom Zat hosts the gathering on the grounds of his museum, Alfa Heaven Motorama [see right], and provides the three racing trucks. They're stripped of their beds and fitted with four-point harnesses and bald tires, the latter so they'll slide around on the dirt road course Zat stakes out in his hayfield. Anybody who pays the $10 gate fee to Mil-fest can race. It's like go-karting, except that the karts weigh 12,000 pounds. And they have no brakes. Despite that, Zat…

In 1991, I wrote about a Top Fuel dragster that was homing in on the NHRA's first 300-mph quarter-mile pass, a velocity that many felt might teleport the driver so far into the future that he'd land in an era when Congress couldn't pass bills. The car's crew chief was Lee Beard, now 61. In the intervening 24 years, Beard has crewed for everyone from Kenny Bernstein to Whit Bazemore to Steve Torrence. Anyway, when I asked Beard in '91 to approximate how much power a Top Fuel engine might make, he whipped out a computer simulation. The answer: 4221 pound-feet of torque and 5465 horsepower. "Building an engine like that," Beard added, "it's like plunging your toilet with a Claymore mine. It will probably work, but it's hard on…

A few years ago, during the darkest hours of the GM bankruptcy, Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter found himself on a conference call with company execs and government overseers. A conversation on the bolts and screws of bailing out GM suddenly halted when one of the federales, a Corvette fan, wanted to know the plan for the C7. "At the time, there was no plan," recalled Juechter as we stood trackside at Road Atlanta this past October. "We were at full stop." So much has happened since then. Flash-forward to 2014 and the scene of our own technical director, Don Sherman, banging on the door of Juechter's home like some marauding zombie early one summer Saturday, intent on hand-delivering our October issue, which featured an exposé on the C8 Corvette.…

WINNER General Motors General Motors became the car industry's undisputed leader in 2014 by issuing 75-plus recall notices that affected something north of 30 million vehicles, or 28.7 million more GM vehicles than most people thought were actually still running. Counting a few Oaklands and LaSalles, more than 8 million were recalled because of their self-turning ignition keys or some other problem with keys. Other GM boo-boos include a transmission cable that can "disconnect, causing the vehicle to roll away;" a headlight switch that catches fire; and a bit called the "superhold" that, basically, doesn't. The one thing GM can't recall is why it's called the superhold. But it sure figured out a way to get people back into its dealerships. LOSER Takata Corporation Then there's Takata Corporation, the Japanese…

+ Potent turbo four, four-wheel drive, five-door versatility. - Brittle ride, can get silly expensive, garish aero canards. Car manufacturers sometimes stray from established paths in their quest for market growth, occasionally birthing creations that surprise us with vision, excellence, and healthy profits (see Porsche Cayenne and Cadillac Escalade). Other times, however, the process yields a dud, such as the BMW 5-series GT. While Mercedes-Benz's extra-strength GLA45 AMG is certainly more exciting than BMW's Quasimodo, it's no less confusing. The star atop the new-for-2015 GLA-class lineup, this AMG 45 is what Mercedes calls a high-performance compact luxury crossover. But it's really an anabolic hatchback perched on its tippy-toes, stewed in the same hot-rod sauce as its mechanical twin, the CLA45 AMG sedan. At just 58.2 inches tall, the GLA45 could…

C/D: What was your favorite year of drag racing? DP: Ah, geez, I had a lot of favorite ones. I would have to say 1965. We won the Winternationals when I was driving for Roland Leong in the Hawaiian dragster. And then we went to the U.S. Nationals and won. That's both Nationals events in one year, and that really kick-started my career. C/D: Did the world change when you and Tom McEwen got the Mattel Hot Wheels sponsorship in 1970? DP: I believe it was 1967, I went to Bowler's Shirt & Uniform in Los Angeles because at that time no one was making racing-team shirts. People had T-shirts and that was pretty much it. We were racing the Ford "Cammer" car, and I had them…