Innehållsförteckning för March 2017 från Car and Driver

It’s a curious truth of automotive engineering that, in general, the lower the volume target for a new vehicle, the more effort is invested in perfecting it. Engineers seem to sweat the nuances of a Ferrari far more than they do those of a Fiat. The same goes for performance models of mass-produced vehicles. With the tedious stuff already taken care of—say, making the car come together as easily as a SnapTite model on the assembly line—the performance guys are free to spend months toying with bushing stiffness. Unburdened by trivialities such as radio reception or defroster performance, the go-fast department finds time to lap a track for 24 hours. Such is the back story of the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1. Development engineers fussed over seven iterations of their customized Goodyear…

Exactly what goes on under the carbon-fiber shell of a Formula 1 car is a matter of guesswork for observers, but they should know that it’s all about saving fuel. For a while last season, rumors persisted that Mercedes AMG Petronas, among others, was using homogeneouscharge compression ignition, or, essentially, combusting gasoline as if it were diesel under certain conditions and as a spark-ignited engine the rest of the time. Then it emerged that the team was actually onto something new, called Turbulent Jet Ignition, which extracts more energy from the fuel similar to Honda’s old Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion from the 1970s. For now, this is racing-only tech, since at the much lower speeds and power loads that road cars run, the combustion isn’t stable. Formula 1 peak fuel…

Long-Term Test: When the tires get worn and the factory warranty runs out, that’s where we come in. Car and Driver is your source for the 40,000-mile evaluation. And activity books. Arrival: December/2015 Departure: November/2016 When practicality is paramount, all other considerations sit even further back than usual, particularly style. Take three-row crossovers, a genre with space for all manner of considerations. Once you package three rows of seats, plump out the silhouette to maximize interior volume, and pull the beltline low for the sake of visibility, you’re left with a fairly bland template onto which to project your brand’s aesthetics. Not that buyers in the big-crossover class seem discouraged by their vehicles’ sameness— sales success in mainstream segments often requires automakers to color inside the lines. That said, the…

IN THE EARLY 1960S, Burkard Bovensiepen found escape from his family’s German typewriter-manufacturing business by affixing hotter carbs in BMWs. Stealing the Alpina name from the typewriter outfit, he earned racing success and developed a sort of clairvoyance, anticipating high-performance BMWs before BMW did, starting with the more powerful Alpina 1500 and 1600 sedans, which predated the factory 1800 and iconic 2002. Alpina left racing at the end of the 1977 season to begin its roadcar operations with mightier 3-, 5-, and 6-series models (again, effectively presaging BMW’s own M3, M5, and M6) just as BMW’s big new 7-series made its debut. BMW never built an M7, perhaps because Alpina built its own 7-based creations. However, they were never really what an M7 might have been; too calm and stoic…

PERVERSION IS THE ESSENCE of American culture. It’s taking something built for one purpose and supercharging the designers’ original intent, often literally. It’s a 1953 Studebaker Champion that goes 249 mph, or a 1975 Ford F-250 with flotation tires that crosses rivers and crushes cars. It’s taking a small country’s agrarian, 18th-century constitution and growing an industrial, transcontinental 21st-century superpower under it. So here, in the tradition of land-speed-record Studes, the Bigfoot monster truck, and Marbury v. Madison, comes Flyin’ Miata’s 2016 MX-5 with a stonkin’ V-8 in its nose. Cramming V-8s into MX-5 Miatas is now a classic American handicraft. Since way back in the early 1990s, Americans have been shoving Ford and GM small-blocks into the otherwise unassuming Mazda roadsters. The problem is that iron-block lumps designed to…

JAPAN IS A UNIQUE PLACE. Where the Japanese see a delightful bowl of raw sea urchin and salmon roe, most Westerners see a slimy pile of bug and guts. And for the really fancy meals, you take your shoes off and sit on the floor. It’s understandable, then, that Toyota strove for familiarity with the first-generation LS400, which introduced the Lexus brand to the world in 1989. It was, in the words of one company representative, an attempt to “out-German the Germans.” In pursuit of this goal, Lexus went so far as to mimic the processes and chemicals used to treat leather in European tanneries to ensure that its interior smelled “right.” However, 28 years later, Lexus is now intent on distinguishing Japanese luxury from its European forms, and it’s…

CARS AND COFFEE AT M1 CONCOURSE Summer 2016 Last summer, Car and Driver partnered with M1 Concourse, the new epicenter of automotive-enthusiast activity in metro Detroit, for a series of Saturday cars-and-coffee gatherings. M1 Concourse is an 87-acre site on Woodward Avenue in Pontiac, Michigan, on the grounds of GM’s old Pontiac West Assembly plant, featuring 250 car condominiums arrayed around a 1.5-mile road course and a 2.5-acre skidpad. We staged our events on the skidpad, and Detroit-area garages opened up to us in gratitude. Shown is a sampling of the machines we hosted there this year, and, as you can see, they weren’t all homegrown. We were as shocked as anyone to see a LaFerrari and a 959 in our midst. Thanks to sponsors Genesis, Hagerty, and, of course,…

The 10-speed automatics in the Ford F-150 Raptor and the Camaro ZL1 originate from the same base gearbox, the product of a collaboration between the two American automakers. While Ford led the development of the 10R transmission, GM engineers refined the Hydra-Matic 10R90 for use in the company’s high-output powertrains. Hydra-Matic–specific pieces include the torque converter, clutch components, planetary gear carriers, and bearing supports, all uprated to cope with the LT4 V-8’s 650 pound-feet of torque. All 10R transmissions get their 10 ratios from four planetary gearsets selectively controlled with six clutches—four that rotate and two that act as brakes. The transmission case slips into the same space as GM’s longitudinal eight-speed, which fits into the same space as the six-speed before it. You might expect the industry’s first 10-speed…

Electrifying racing Highlights in the brief history of modern electric racing • 1998: Panoz Esperante GTR-1 Q9 electric hybrid, nicknamed “Sparky,” finishes second in class and 12th overall at the Petit Le Mans. • 2006: FIA chief Max Mosley says F1 cars should adopt regenerative- braking systems. • 2007: Toyota wins the Tokachi 24 Hours with its Supra HV-R hybrid, which uses in-wheel electric motors and supercapacitors. • 2008: Peugeot shows a hybrid-diesel Le Mans prototype, the 908 HY, but abandons plans to campaign it in the 2009 season. • 2009: FIA permits use of kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) in Formula 1. It recovers braking energy and returns it as an 80-hp boost. Some teams use it, others don’t. • 2011: After 2010, in which no F1 teams used…

Fleet Files: Here’s how our other longterm vehicles are faring in their 40,000mile trials: Arrival: July/2016 Miles: 14,537 Observed mpg: 15 COLLECTORS OF VARIOUS and sundry crapheaps that we are, we recently welcomed a 2016 Nissan Titan XD into our fleet to help with the moving of said crapheaps (and other detritus). Not a crapheap but a curious tweener, the XD version of the secondgen Titan is technically a heavyduty truck, yet its 12,037pound tow rating is closer to a halfton rig’s. We opted for a massive crewcab Pro4X model, which nets four-wheel drive, additional off-road gear, and loads of standard equipment. The Convenience ($3310) and Utility and Audio ($1100) packages add leather upholstery, a booming stereo, and a raft of amenities, with a few smaller extras upping the MSRP…

SEDANS WITH SUPERCAR POWER are common enough now, but 30 years ago, making a road bullet out of a four-door was a novel idea. AMG further radicalized the notion by applying it to a prudish and sober W124 Mercedes-Benz E-class, which may be why the original AMG Hammer, a 355-hp supersedan that could hunt the supercars of the mid-to-late ’80s, hasn’t let go of any enthusiast’s imagination yet. Or, clearly, AMG’s: The madness of the original Hammer is alive and well in this over-the-top E-class. And while they aren’t called Hammers anymore, maybe they should be. “E63 S 4MATIC+” has all the romance of a Wi-Fi password. Mercedes-AMG made sure that its new E63’s credentials are in order, as it will only be fitting the 603-hp “S” version of its…

BERND SCHNEIDER DOESN’T CARE. He doesn’t care that every fiber of our being knows he should have started braking 100 feet earlier. He doesn’t care about road-racing conventions. But most importantly, he doesn’t care about physics. Because he doesn’t have to. Mercedes-AMG’s latest track special, the GT R, does that for him. Entering an off-camber, 180-degree left on the Algarve International Circuit near Portimão, Portugal, the five-time DTM champion grenades the brake pedal with his left foot, instantly sending the chassis into convulsive ABS fits. With the car writhing for longitudinal grip, he cranks the wheel in a seemingly vain attempt to dive for the apex. Somehow, though, it works, the ABS trilling in overtime. And with his right foot still partially committed to the throttle, the GT R turns.…

*Participated in a program for low-volume carmakers that allowed a portion of its production to adhere to alternate standards **Calculations are weighted according to vehicle life cycle. Rounding may cause some discrepancy with totals. LOST AMID THE PRE-ELECTION furor over Pussygate, #podestaemails, Russian hacking, and all the fake news in America’s Facebook feed was the auto industry’s greenhouse- gas report card for 2015. Issued in early November 2016, it was unsurprisingly good. Carmakers are now collectively fourfor- four in exceeding the EPA’s de facto fuel-economy targets since they took effect for the 2012 model year. Then why, you might ask, did Auto Alliance, a trade group representing most of the automakers, fire off a letter to President-elect Trump just two days after the election, bemoaning its regulatory plight? Not to…

THE NAME ALFA ROMEO CONJURES UP GHOSTS. A brand that once ruled racing, gave a young Enzo Ferrari his start, and produced bubbly little macchine throughout the 1950s and ’60s is also a company whose cars earned a reputation for electrical malignancies and for dissolving with the speed of an Alka-Seltzer tablet. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Those ghosts define Alfa Romeo, simultaneously elevating and haunting the brand as it tries to launch its American comeback tour, attracting and repelling us in equal measure. We will not forget that, in the late ’80s, we had two very charming Milanos fail to complete long-term tests. Two. So it’s with equal parts skepticism and excitement that we approach the Alfa Romeo Giulia, the beachhead of Alfa’s return to America. Aimed squarely at the…

WE STILL THINK OF RACING as the pointy spear of automotive development, where new ideas are tested in a freewheeling, cost-noobject arms race. It’s a romantic notion, though, and somewhat outdated, as racing isn’t what it used to be. The age of rulebook tyranny has descended, in which the goals of improved safety and reduced cost take precedence over ever-higher speeds. Indeed, today’s rulemakers spend more time trying to slow cars down than speed them up, and they exert their dominion with picayune chassis and engine guidelines. The 2016 FIA technical regulations governing Formula 1 cars run to 90 pages; regulation 5.11.1 limits the number of spark-plug firings per combustion event to five, et cetera and so forth. The series then forces uniform electronic controllers onto the teams as embedded…

Tire Basics 101 teaches that as grip goes up, so does rolling resistance, which negatively affects fuel economy. Racers, however, like car companies, want more grip with less resistance. Michelin, the supplier of the Pilot Sport EV to Formula E, claims to have delivered just that, reformulating the grooved spec tire with new compounds and construction that should increase corner speed while reducing rolling resistance. How? Michelin won’t say, exactly, but hints can be found in the new Pilot Sport 4 S, announced last fall as a replacement for the Pilot Super Sport. The 4 S shares an almost identical tread pattern with the racing Sport EV2, which is unlike most racing tires in fitting an 18-inch rim and otherwise having road-car dimensions. A new type of construction strategically places…

When we heard that Domino’s Pizza was claiming its new DXP is “the ultimate pizza delivery vehicle,” we took it as a call to action. Those pizza suits in their fancy office park on the other side of our very own Ann Arbor might know a thing or two about tomato sauce, but making baseless claims about automobiles is encroaching dangerously on our turf. So we called Domino’s corporate with an ultimatum: We’d stay out of the pizza business if Domino’s would let us test the DXP, preferably one that’s delivered full of fresh product. Nothing short of a scientific evaluation would do. The DXP appears to be unprecedented. If there’s been a sort-ofpurpose- built pizza car deployed by another pizza megacorporation, C/D’s intelligence network is unaware of it. So,…

LEXUS IS CONSISTENTLY one of the best-selling luxury brands in the U.S., but its invisibility is as much a part of its identity as its ubiquity. The legions of Lexus buyers may be quietly satisfied, but by and large, they aren’t the type who buy the hat and join the owner’s club. Well, we’ve long subscribed to what Toyota president Akio Toyoda said recently, which is that the long-term success of Toyota and Lexus (and, really, any automotive brand) means making products that inspire passion, not just respect. Which is why Toyoda is willing to pour a ton of money into a car that won’t sell in high volume and is the antithesis of today’s SUV-everything world. Indeed, Toyoda-san makes it his personal mission to prevent the word “boring” from…

SUBARU IS AN ODD COMPANY in so many ways. One is its ratio of sedan to wagon sales; it is pretty much the opposite of every other carmaker. Take the Impreza, which sells at a rate of 30 percent sedans to 70 percent wagons—or, to use the preferred industry terminology, “five-doors.” Honda, for instance, expects the new Civic hatch to make up only about 15 percent of overall Civic sales. No doubt, Subaru has had some very good years. Annual sales zoomed up right through the recession to the current 600,000 mark, and Subaru hasn’t squandered the profits on booze and dice. Instead, it has plowed a significant pile into an all-new, soon-to-beubiquitous architecture given the sexy name of Subaru Global Platform. U.S. Imprezas will be built in Indiana. We’re…