Innehållsförteckning för June 2018 från Car and Driver

For nearly 30 years, my preferred eccentric at C/D—among many—was always staff photographer Aaron Kiley. The two of us shared adventures in at least 30 states. As you perhaps recall, Aaron was killed in an inexplicable glider crash in France two years ago. It’s taken me that long to think of him without blubbering. Aaron was the funniest guy I ever met. His jokes alighted spontaneously, à la Robin Williams’s, in machine-gun blasts. Without a comical comeback, he’d sing contralto refrains from the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever. His imagination spurted free of any personal self-control. He once climbed atop his roof to leer monsterlike through a skylight, scaring the Goldfish crackers out of son Joe. At GingerMan Raceway, I watched him scavenge junk tractor parts to fashion a camera…

“SPEED KILLS” IS AN OLD TROPE trotted out by those well-meaning souls who probably haven’t ever actually gone fast. It’s a dictum intended to guilt drivers into socially responsible behavior. We went 183.3 mph in Chevy’s new Corvette ZR1 at the Texas Mile. Not once did we feel guilty. Truth is, going fast, especially beyond the 150-mph mark, requires you to act responsibly. The activity is fraught with exponentially increasing risk. Accelerating through speeds previously only experienced on the fastest road courses, then keeping the throttle pinned, is particular to the struggle that is the Mile. Started in 2003, the Texas Mile, now held in Victoria, is a standing-mile acceleration test for those seeking a long-term relationship with blurred scenery. Endurance drag racing, if you will. Combining NHRA-like accumulation of speed…

U.S. Sales of Turbocharged Vehicles Until recently, the preferred method to get a lot of air into an engine without a significant compromise in packaging, cost, or refinement was to have a lot of displacement in that engine. But if you compress the air, you can cram more of it into less space. Fuel-economy mandates now squeeze gas engines hard enough that whole cylinders have disappeared in the shift to smaller displacements. Four-cylinders now do the work of six-cylinders, which have widely replaced V-8s. For all the cubic inches lost, though, forced-induction strategies have come to the rescue, inflating torque curves, preserving performance, and generally saving us from sliding back into a power-starved malaise. The downsize-and-turbocharge drift began about a decade ago in the lead-up to the stringent Corporate Average…

// 2018 Ford Mustang EcoBoost PRICE AS TESTED: $30,070 BASE PRICE: $26,580 ENGINE: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve inline-4, aluminum block and head, direct fuel injection DISPLACEMENT: 138 cu in, 2261 cc POWER: 310 hp @ 5500 rpm TORQUE: 350 lb-ft @ 3000 rpm TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual CURB WEIGHT: 3556 lb // C/D Test Results ZERO TO 60 MPH: 5.1 sec ZERO TO 100 MPH: 13.2 sec ROLLING START, 5–60 MPH: 6.0 sec TOP GEAR, 30–50 MPH: 18.6 sec TOP GEAR, 50–70 MPH: 9.8 sec 1/4-MILE: 13.7 sec @ 102 mph FUEL ECONOMY EPA COMBINED/CITY/HWY: 25/21/31 mpg // 2017 Chevrolet Camaro LT 1LE PRICE AS TESTED: $41,890 BASE PRICE: $37,395 ENGINE: DOHC 24-valve V-6, aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injection DISPLACEMENT: 223 cu in, 3649 cc POWER: 335 hp…

2018 Models That Offer at Least One… Turbo Engine Supercharged Engine Forced induction is an increasingly necessary means of getting more out of an engine. But in 2018, forced induction increasingly means turbochargers, not superchargers. According to the data specialists at IHS Markit, some 220 cars and trucks on sale in the U.S. today offer at least one turbocharged engine, compared with just 30 models with supercharged offerings. Both means of forced induction have their drawbacks, but turbos are winning because engineers have been better at mitigating the turbo’s many issues. While superchargers have traditionally been more responsive at the low end, turbochargers have benefited from numerous recent improvements in engine design. Hot-V setups place the turbos closer to the exhaust valves for faster spool-up times. Twin-scroll turbine wheels harness…

THE 2019 CULLINAN BREAKS a lot of new ground for Rolls-Royce. It is the first Rolls to have all-wheel drive, the first with a hatchback, and—in a more modest step forward—the first to use touchscreens for its infotainment system. Yet all that fades into insignificance next to the most obvious difference between this and every other vehicle Rolls has made throughout its 112-year history: This is the company’s first SUV. The production version is keeping its development code name, Cullinan being the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found. With V-12 power and a price that we’re told will eclipse al its obvious rivals’, that model name seems appropriate. In what we can only assume is a knowing reference to Get Shorty, company CEO Torsten Müller-Ötvös says it is the “Rolls-Royce…

AUTO INDUSTRY ADVOCATES warn that aluminum and steel tariffs imposed by the White House earlier this year could harm their bottom lines, affect workforce plans, and lead to higher prices for consumers. A federal rollback of fuel-economy standards, on the other hand, could ease the pressure OEMs have been under to spend billions on efficient vehicles that have thus far been duds with consumers, who overwhelmingly prefer trucks and SUVs. Those are just two of the recent story lines regarding the unpredictable interplay between the auto industry and the federal government. The Trump administration’s generally sour view of regulations is making for interesting times in the nation’s capital. Automakers sense both pitfalls and opportunity—and that uncertainty is prying open their wallets. The auto industry is spending more money on its…

In the long view, you are not defined by what you drive. You are not what you wear. You’re not even defined by how bad your taste in music is. “You are what you eat” is a bit closer to the literal truth but still doesn’t get at who you are on a metaphysical level. These are all passing phases in a person’s travels through life, buffeted by the winds of fashion. No, you are what you leave behind. Just ask any archaeologist. I didn’t ask one because I have watched enough cable television in my life to know a thing or two. Chief among the advantages of being a car enthusiast instead of an archaeologist is that rarely do car buffs ever have to study totally bogue stuff like coprolites…

The goal of the ZR1’s most aggressive aero setup, which is included in the ZTK Track Performance package, is to replicate the aerodynamic characteristics of the Stage 3–equipped Z06 at top speed but to do so more efficiently and with the increased cooling airflow needed to accommodate the LT5’s additional power. The Corvette team exceeded that goal. “Until now, the Corvette was limited to LT4 power levels by the available airflow,” says Alex MacDonald, vehicle performance manager for Corvette and Camaro. Accordingly the team needed to boost the cooling flow by widening the nose to increase the intake area, which also increased drag. But maintaining the Z06’s downforce and drag characteristics meant making other crucial changes, such as adding the free-standing rear wing. The switch from the Stage 3 Z06’s…

SQUARE CAR (1979–1991) 1979 – The first Panthers are the Ford LTD and Mercury Marquis, sold as two-doors, four-doors, and wagons. Power comes from overhead-valve, carbureted small-block V-8s, either a 4.9-liter making 129 horsepower or a 5.8-liter version rated at up to 142 horses. A 40-channel CB radio is optional. 1980 – Lincoln adopts the Panther platform. The Crown Victoria name arrives as the luxury trim of the LTD with a model-specific version of the half-vinyl roof. Buyers swoon. 1981 – A despicable 120-hp 4.2-liter variant of the V-8 is now standard on coupes and sedans. 1982 – Only cops can get a 165-hp 5.8. 1983 – A fuel-injected 4.9 becomes standard in the U.S., making a gooey 130 horsepower. All Ford-brand Panthers are now badged LTD Crown Victorias. 1984…

CARBON FIBER IS GLAMOROUS. It helps shed precious pounds from Ferraris and McLarens, and it’s increasingly applied as merit-badge splashes of décor for the sporty trims of myriad other vehicles. Its use is forecast to grow by 11 to 18 percent each year. But for all its potential, it also has a dark side: Producing carbon fiber is by no means an eco-friendly undertaking. Carbon fiber’s large ecological footprint is related to acrylonitrile, its base material [see “Clean Socks”]. Acrylonitrile is traditionally made from petroleum by way of an energy-intensive process that requires an expensive catalyst and yields hydrogen cyanide, a highly toxic byproduct. The acrylonitrile itself—two pounds of which are needed for each pound of finished product—accounts for more than half the production cost of carbon fiber, which then…

FOR US FLATLANDERS, surfing typically means slotting into the couch with a remote or wandering onto the internet. But Oregon-based GolfBoard offers a new way to surf—no pesky ocean required—with its electric all-terrain ResortBoard. The ResortBoard is a four-wheeled plank propelled by a pair of 0.5-hp electric motors, one mounted to each axle. As on a skateboard, the rider steers by leaning, his shifting weight causing the front and rear axles to pivot in opposite directions. The motors’ combined 24 pound-feet of torque sent through 18:1 gearing provides the strength to move up to 400 pounds, so long as the incline isn’t too steep. A rheostat thumb switch mounted to the handlebar modulates acceleration. A 1.3-kWh lithium-ion battery pack under the deck stores the electrons. With a full charge, our…

I bought a new car. Sort of. I guess it’s more accurate to say I set in motion a plan to eventually buy a new car. Some people think I’m foolish to pay $1000 to join the line for a Tesla Model 3. Well, we’ll see who’s foolish when I’m driving my sweet new Tesla, which is scheduled to be built in June. Of 2022. Okay, I’m kidding. It’s not scheduled to be built at all. It’s a little early for that, since the people who will build my car haven’t been born yet. Kidding again! Teslas aren’t built by people. They’re built by other Teslas that have learned to replicate. Everyone knows that. I’m willing to wait for a Model 3 because, unlike hundreds of thousands of people ahead of…

Data courtesy of Mustang MD-250 chassis dyno, LSX Performance Dyno Tuning, Victoria, Texas. In the bizarre and fantastic world of supercars, the cup of horsepower runneth over. Three years ago, when the Z06 hit the road, 650 horsepower was plenty. But time and power march on. We dyno-tested the two most powerful production Corvettes in history to document their power differences and discovered that, yes, in fact, Chevy’s claim of a 105-hp gap between the two is legitimate. Our dyno showed a 103-hp delta at the wheels. Drivetrain losses account for a 9 to 10 percent horsepower reduction between crankshaft and tire tread. Consider it your tax for putting power to the ground. Because we drove directly from the Texas Mile to the dyno, these numbers are from Corvettes running…

You’ve heard the hypothesis before: Turbocharged cars miss their advertised fuel-economy figures more often and by larger margins than naturally aspirated cars. It’s a notion repeated so often that it verges on truth by consensus, possibly because it so easily fits with an intuitive explanation: Turbocharged small-displacement engines may be parsimonious on the EPA’s feather-footed driving cycles, but keeping up with traffic in the real world requires spooling the compressor and uncorking the fuel injectors. That’s the theory. This is the test. To settle the matter once and for all, we mined two data sets captured from 730 real-world drives of turbocharged and naturally aspirated gasoline vehicles. The first database consisted of 340 vehicles from Car and Driver’s highway-fuel-economy test, a 200-mile interstate slog run at an average speed of…

Oldsmobile’s 1962 F-85 Jetfire injected “Turbo-Rocket Fluid”—a mix of methyl alcohol and water—just downstream of the carburetor to stave off catastrophic detonation as its turbocharger peaked at 6 psi of boost. Today’s performance cars routinely cram more than 20 psi into their cylinders—no Turbo-Rocket Fluid required. Here, turbocharging experts describe the advancements in recent decades that have allowed automakers to drive boost pressures higher while improving reliability and reducing lag. “The level of depth that we can get into in computational fluid dynamics simulations, in mechanical simulations, and then being able to run those many, many times to come up with an optimized design—we didn’t have this capability 10 years ago. It’s helped a lot in the turbocharger design, but our customers are also using this capability to design the…

C/D: The fact that you are gay has not been a particularly well-kept secret to racing insiders, but that’s a far cry from publicly announcing it. What happened? HH: Several things. I was approached to do a book [Hurley: From the Beginning, with coauthor Sean Cridland], and [actor and retired racer] Patrick Dempsey asked me if I was interested in doing a documentary on my life. And I wasn’t certain I wanted to do either. ■ Then a high-school student asked you for an interview for a school project, and it went in a direction you didn’t expect. □ Boy, did it. Halfway through, he put down his notebook and said he was gay, that he had been bullied his entire life over it and had actually considered suicide. He…