Innehållsförteckning för October 2017 från Car and Driver

If you are old enough to have a teenager living under your roof, you would recognize the Western Electric 500-series telephone in an instant. And yet, you’d also need to explain what it is to said teenager, notwithstanding the phone obsession of the current crop of adolescents. As wagons become subsumed and superseded by crossovers—SUVs built on carlike unibodies instead of on separate body and frame structures—we imagine soon running into similar problems with Ford Country Squires and Oldsmobile Vista Cruisers. Indeed, it is growing harder to differentiate between wagons and crossovers. And then there is the slippery slope that is the butch wagon. The popularity of the original, the Subaru Outback, has led Volkswagen Group to follow suit with the clad-and-lifted Audi A4 Allroad and Volkswagen Golf Alltrack. Volvo’s…

+ The antithesis of the stereotypical wagon. - Only marginally more practical than the regular Panamera hatch. The first rule of modern wagon marketing: Do not talk about wagons. You sell an Outback, an Allroad, or a TourX because it’s easier to sell surf culture, canine companionship, and boundless adventure than the ability to shove two extra suitcases in the back. In naming its new long-roof Panamera, Porsche abided by this unspoken industry protocol. The ambiguous Sport Turismo moniker says nothing of the car’s longer roof and larger cargo hold but speaks to its emotive payoff: looking fast and moving swiftly. A near clone of the 2012 Paris auto-show concept car, the Sport Turismo is low slung and beautifully sculpted, and after hustling both Turbo and plug-in E-Hybrid versions over…

PANNING THE VAST ARRAY of compact crossovers in search of the golden high-rise hatch returns muddy results. Even so, consumers continue rushing to dealerships to purchase mini-utes from factory mines at record rates. Subaru’s all-new Crosstrek, which we drove in South Dakota’s Black Hills, offers not only practicality but some oft-missing functionality, too. As with the first-generation Crosstrek, Subaru lifted its Impreza to create the new ute—ground clearance rises to 8.7 inches from 5.1 in the hatchback—and wrapped its lower edges in blastic to provide a rugged look. Like its low-riding sibling, the Trek uses the Subaru Global Platform, a solid architecture that increases rigidity by more than 70 percent over the old bones. Despite the Crosstrek’s height, body roll is adequately managed. Minor road imperfections in western South Dakota’s…

[+]The price is right, Bob; 6.4-liter V-8 thrust and concert. [-]Only six seats, thirsty engine. ANYONE WHO THINKS HOT-ROD SUVs are just big-engined and aggressively styled versions of their civilian counterparts should have a chat with the folks at SRT. They strive to make complete packages. Case in point: When developing the Durango SRT, engineers ran the ute around Virginia International Raceway (yep, the same one we visit every year) with and without an intake in the lower-left corner of the front fascia. The difference was 1.2 seconds per lap in hot conditions. Having an intake positioned close to the ground on an SUV removes considerable utility from the proceedings. We’re fine with that in this case, and we’re guessing most owners will be, too, because they probably don’t have…

YES, THE ROADS YOU DRIVE ON PROBABLY ARE THAT BAD. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issues a quadrennial infrastructure report card that covers everything from aviation, rail, and seaports to drinking water and public parks. This year, America’s infrastructure earned a D+ overall, with roads rating a D and bridges meriting a C+. The backlog of urgent projects across the country is immense. The ASCE cites a $2 trillion funding gap as a major cause of decay. A cornerstone of that gap is our federal fuel tax, 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents on diesel, which hasn’t been raised in nearly 25 years. Several states—most recently California, Indiana, Montana, South Carolina, and Tennessee—have increased their own fuel taxes. But how much of that revenue is…

For a few days every year, Car and Driver turns the best American road course into our southern White House. We drive from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Alton, Virginia, in a platoon of editors, photographers, videographers, and assistants and set up shop at Virginia International Raceway (VIR). We spend the prior four months procuring the hottest new cars and making sure we have all the timing gear, helmets, water, food, and adult beverages we could possibly need. We then give ourselves three days to distill every car on hand into a single number: a lap time of VIR’s 4.1-mile Grand West Course. To lap VIR quickly, a car must be able to expertly navigate every kind of corner imaginable. Fast sweepers and tight hairpins, inclines and declines, and one terrifying…

The Porsche 718 Cayman S proved that even greathandling cars suffer greatly in the wet. Aside from being 7.1 mph slower down the front straight, the soaked 718 could brake on the back straight at only 0.87 g versus 1.07 g’s on its quickest dry lap. And cornering in a wet Turn 1 was 0.93 g to the dry’s 1.06. Predictably, little if any time was lost on the straights, but corner after corner the 718 in the wet lost time, owing big chunks of the 8.0-second delta to the braking zones for Oak Tree (A) and Bitch (B).…

Lap Time, Min:Sec (Class, Event) 3:37.7 (Econobox, No.9) 2015 Honda Fit EX 3:29.3 (LL1, No.1) 2006 Mazda MX-5 3:27.3 (LL1, No.6) 2012 Volkswagen Jetta GLI 3:27.3 (LL1, No.7) 2013 Fiat 500 Abarth 3:26.6 (LL1, No.3) 2008 Volvo C30 Version 2.0 3:26.5 (LL1, No.1) 2006 Honda Civic Si 3:25.1 (LL1, No.1) 2007 Volkswagen GTI 3:24.8 (LL2, No.3) 2008 Honda Civic Si Mugen 3:24.1 (LL1, No.6) 2012 Honda Civic Si 3:23.0 (Cop Car, No.7) 2013 Chevrolet Caprice PPV 3:22.9 (LL1, No.2) 2007 Mini Cooper S 3:21.8 (LL2, No.3) 2008 Volkswagen R32 3:21.4 (LL1, No.7) 2013 Ford Focus ST 3:20.9 (LL1, No.1) 2006 Ford Mustang GT 3:20.8 (LL1, No.3) 2008 Dodge Caliber SRT4 3:20.8 (LL1, No.9) 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata Club 3:20.6 (LL1, No.1) 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Supercharged 3:20.4 (LL1, No.8) 2014…

2018 Audi A4 Allroad VEHICLE TYPE: frontengine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback BASE PRICE: $45,475 ENGINE: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 2.0-liter inline-4, 252 hp, 273 lb-ft TRANSMISSION: 7-speed dual-clutch automatic with manual shifting mode DIMENSIONS WHEELBASE: 110.9 in LENGTH: 187.0 in WIDTH: 72.5 in HEIGHT: 58.8 in PASSENGER VOLUME: 94 cu ft CARGO VOLUME: 24 cu ft FUEL ECONOMY EPA COMBINED/CITY/ HWY: 25/22/30 mpg Once the purveyor of “Avants” in many sizes, Audi now offers a U.S. wagon lineup of one: this high-riding A4. (The company does sell a plug-inhybrid A3 hatch.) 2018 BMW 3-series Sports Wagon VEHICLE TYPE: frontengine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback BASE PRICE: $45,445–$46,945 ENGINES: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 2.0-liter diesel inline-4, 180 hp, 280 lb-ft; turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 2.0-liter inline-4, 248 hp, 258…

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. Arrival: Oct/2015 Departure: May/2017 Rants & Raves The Miata is the only modern car to make 70 mph feel fast. I love that. –Eric Tingwall This car is 21 years newer than my ’95 Miata, and it earns a drink for preserving its predecessor’s magic. –Alexander Stoklosa Lust, admiration, appreciation, familiarity, pity, longing, nostalgia, resignation, fear. Mazda Miatas (okay, MX-5 Miatas) have been a part of our lives for so long that, at one time or another, we’ve felt nearly every way about the world’s most familiar roadster. But we would never say that we felt nurturing of a Miata. Or protective.…

+ 840 horsepower, fender flares. Need we say more? - Not rain friendly, convoluted launch sequence. YOU DON’T DRIVE A NAIL with a screwdriver. You don’t change a tire with a blender. Victorinox would have you believe that a single device can do the work of 33 or more, but have you ever tried to trim a tree with a Swiss Army knife? Truly effective tools are purpose-built. So when Tim Kuniskis, Fiat Chrysler’s head of passenger-car brands, declares, “It’s not a [Mustang] GT350R or [Camaro ZL1] 1LE” as we’re staring down a wide-body Dodge Challenger SRT Demon sporting street-legal drag radials and a host of proprietary drag-strip bits, our inner monologue can’t help but say, “Yup.” Then it starts to rain. Water plus drag radials plus 840 horsepower is…

IN CORONA, CALIFORNIA, there’s a massive, wooden, camel-humped building that Sunkist erected during the 1920s in which to squeeze lemons. There, on the lower level of the old citrus-processing plant, Lucas Oil Products now manufactures many of its 272 different additives, fuel treatments, and lubricants. But upstairs are the offices and studios of the Lucasowned I-10 Race Promotions and MAVTV, likely the widest-spread motorsports and motorsports media organizations in America. “We were sponsoring tractor pulls and late models long ago. Both series fell apart,” explains Indiana-born Forrest Lucas, 75, who incorporated Lucas Oil in 1989 and, with his wife, Charlotte, owns the interconnected enterprises. “One guy got to doing dope, and the other guy—I don’t know what happened to him. We picked the series up, cleaned them off, and put…

3:07.6 2017 BMW M760i xDrive Base Price: $156,495 • As-Tested Price: $171,895 601 hp • 5058 lb • 8.4 lb/hp Tires: Michelin Pilot Super Sport F: 245/40ZR-20 (99Y) R: 275/35ZR-20 (102Y) Despite riding on air springs, adaptive dampers, and electronically adjustable anti-roll bars, the M760i doesn’t offer a single driving mode that can rein in the abundant squish in its suspension. This is Veuve Clicquot ride quality, wafty enough that drinking from a champagne flute in a moving car seems like a perfectly reasonable proposition. But VIR’s turns aren’t the graceful sweepers of Germany’s autobahns, and we’re not paid chauffeurs. Driven without regard for the tycoon in the rear, the M760i is softly sprung, underdamped, and prone to large roll heaves. Venture too far up the curbing as you blaze…

“The good news,” we explained to Mercedes’ tireless public relations man, “is that we can guarantee you a comparo win.” So there it is, angry letter writers: We do rig these things. Or at least we did in this apples-to-pears contest, launched with a preconceived notion. It would be a stretch to call it a theory, as that might suggest the application of scientific method. At the onset, though, we hypothesized that pitting an E-class wagon against a similarly sized utility vehicle, the GLE-class, would result in a victory for the former. And it did. But this comparo is not so much about determining a winner as it is about explaining why the wagon won. Why, indeed? In the hope that we might convince you, the car-buying public (and maybe…

October 12, 2015 508 miles: MX-5 Miata Club begins its longterm test. November 18, 2015 2265 miles: We fit Bridgestone Blizzak LM-60 winter tires. December 7, 2015 2589 miles: We refit the Bridgestone Potenza S001 summer tires for initial testing. December 28, 2015 2996 miles: With initial testing completed, we refit the winter tires. February 20, 2016 5431 miles: Already tired of winter, the MX-5 heads to Southern California. February 23, 2016 7800 miles: Upon the car’s arrival in the Golden State, we refit the summer tires. March 24, 2016 10,300 miles: Dealer performs oil change and inspections, including rebalancing the tires to address a vibration issue, $207 July 3, 2016 13,273 miles: We replace the right taillight after it was punched out by a Los Angeles hooligan, $269 July…

SHOEHORNED BETWEEN SPAIN AND FRANCE, the tiny landlocked principality of Andorra is draped over 181 square miles of Pyrenees mountains. Fewer than 90,000 people call it home, but many more enjoy its duty-free booze, myriad ski resorts, and friendly income-tax code. While winter sees the peaks blanketed by skiers, summer finds them laced with lush green scrub, and they encourage a different type of frolicking: exploring the ribbons of asphalt that climb up from the valleys and back down again. It was here that we drove the latest Audi RS5 coupe. The all-new RS5 packs a twin-turbocharged 2.9-liter V-6 in place of the previous model’s thunderous, naturally aspirated 4.2-liter V-8. Horsepower sits unchanged at 450, but the turbos increase torque from 317 poundfeet to a far more fulsome 443 and…

THE CAMRY HAS BEEN MARCHING FORWARD in a zombie-like trance for decades, devouring huge chunks of the family-sedan market—it’s been the best-selling mid-size sedan in the U.S. 15 years running—fueled by a combination of indefatigable reliability and relentless, boring sameness. We’ve long thought the Camry needed a massive jolt of personality to bring it to life, but with hordes of customers snapping them up—in some years more than 400,000—Toyota didn’t see any reason to fix what wasn’t broken. Until now, that is. Toyota’s C-suite car enthusiast, CEO Akio Toyoda, is on a quest to reanimate the company’s products. So the 2018 Camry got hauled into the laboratory, shocked with high-voltage engineering, and emerged on an all-new platform, restyled inside and out and, well, surprisingly alive. Three powertrains, including inline-four and…