Innehållsförteckning för Aug-15 från Car and Driver

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfres.caranddriver.com APRIL, COME SHE WILL You’re probably my FAVE car magazine. And I get the whole American thing with the Corvette and Mustang—props. But to put a Miata on the cover?! What has gotten into you? CRISTY Z. MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN SOFT SELL When you met with Mazda during your drive of the MX-5 [“Toy Story,” April 2015], I think they spun out on some of their marketing spin. Did they really say to your face that they’ve “purposely built a bit of initial compliance into the suspension to give the driver an awareness of load transfer during cornering”? You discovered this translates into body squirm during turn-in. Perhaps they should have instead said, “Customers seeking a boulevard convertible with…

In 1985, I worked for Jack Roush, writing press releases that I’m pretty sure no one ever read. My office, in Livonia, Michigan, hung by spindly supports above the screeching air guns in the fabrication shop. Whenever a Trans-Am Capri or IMSA GTO Mustang was started, my phone conversations ended. I shared that office with one of my lifetime heroes, Bob Riley. By then, Riley had designed more race cars than anyone could remember, especially Bob. He was already famous for his work at Kar Kraft—the Ford GT40 J-car and Mk 4s—and for Indy cars that eventually won 26 races. And the tube-frame chassis he had designed specifically for Roush—back then aborning below me on huge blue-steel chassis jigs—would go on to win 24 consecutive events. As a PR guy,…

2014 CHEVROLET CORVETTE STINGRAY 31,320 MILES 21 OBSERVED MPG Our long-term Stingray Z51 is still a wonderful sports car—on good days. It even averages a respectable 21 mpg. But all that joy has been tempered by one of the worst service records we’ve experienced in a long termer. As if a small-block V-8 that blew up at 6000 miles wasn’t enough, our car also required a new starter; new rear-axle seals; a replacement climate-control module; and a swap-out of the seat-mounted side airbags, which ruffled the driver’s-seat upholstery so badly that our dealer eventually replaced that, too. Expect a full breakdown of the breakdowns once the Vette reaches its 40,000-mile quota. 2014 MINI COOPER S 21,487 MILES 30 OBSERVED MPG Not to be outdone by the Corvette, our Cooper S…

C/D: How has the racing scene—F1, Indy, whatever—changed? PB: For photographers, mainly it comes down to access. One of the things that made me quit was when I went to Laguna Seca and wanted to do some headshots of Nigel Mansell, and his PR guy jumped in: “No, you gotta wait. You gotta make an appointment.” I put my cameras back in my car. It was just, “Screw it.” Also at Indy. I’d done 33 Indy 500s when I returned one year to find there’s a fence where I usually shot from at Turn One—NASCAR made them put the fence up, it was chain-link, maybe 12 to 15 feet high, and you couldn’t shoot through it. But the biggest change was that you used to be able to hang out…

I was in a Neoplan Cityliner bus, for one thing. There were 23 of us, not two. And my trip wasn’t a sprint. My family and I went to Eastern Europe to see my fatherin-law’s hometown, Érmihályfalva, Romania, and to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen, a quarry on the outskirts of Linz, Austria, that the Nazis turned into a concentration camp. Linz’s rolling and productive farmland, when viewed from inside Mauthausen’s gray stone walls or its pale-green barracks, only amplifies the quiet terror of the complex, a terror that was institutionalized and normalized. But nothing is left of the adjacent Gusen camps except a small memorial museum. There’s now a suburb where Gusen used to be. Buried under it is the Bergkristall secret-tunnel system, which we…

A FOUNDING MEMBER of the rap group NWA and successful actor and solo performer, O’Shea Jackson Sr. (Ice Cube to you) has always lived in Southern California, where everyone’s lives are rooted in cars and traffic. Now 46, Cube, who trained as an architectural draftsman, has a passion for the region’s design and automotive heritage. And he is one of the producers of a new film about NWA, Straight Outta Compton, which is set to open August 14. C/D: You’ve described Los Angeles freeways as each having its own personality. The 110, for instance, you say has “gangster traffic.” IC: The 110, they just drive aggressive. I don’t know if that’s because they’re coming from downtown or if it’s because it goes right through the ’hood. The 405 isn’t that…

Car television went plotz a few months ago with the sudden meltdown of Britain’s Top Gear. If only Jeremy Clarkson had first given a thought to old Woody Hayes or George S. Patton, two guys who accomplished a lot in life but are often remembered first (or second—certainly in the top five) for hitting an underling. You can scream and you can throw things, as Indiana’s Bobby Knight did, but as a leader in modern times, you can’t physically attack your people, a rule Knight helped a firm by getting himself fired for brutalizing kids. People got mad at the BBC for firing Clarkson; those people think life was better in the caves. As of this writing, rumors abound of Clarkson’s return on another show. In the meantime, TV land…

ACCELERATION TEST NOTES: Launching from 3500 rpm produces the quickest acceleration. The short, tight throws of the shifter make for fast, assured gearchanges through the first four cogs. HANDLING ROADHOLDING, 300-FT-DIA SKIDPAD .............. 0.90 g UNDERSTEER ....................... MINIMAL TEST NOTES: Limit cornering is met with ample body roll, bordering on excessive. The MX-5 responds to the smallest movements of the steering wheel but offers almost no weight until you’re a few degrees off-center. BRAKING, 70-TO-ZERO MPH FIRST STOP .................................. 158 ft SHORTEST STOP ....................... 158 ft LONGEST STOP ............................. 161 ft FADE RATING ................................ NONE TEST NOTES: Despite the ample body roll on the skidpad, brake dive is nicely controlled. The middle pedal remained consistently firm during our six stops, neither lengthening in travel nor softening in feel. WEIGHT CURB ........................................... 2309 lb…

ACCELERATION TEST NOTES: Launching with a brake-torque technique only overwhelms the rear tires. It’s quicker to just jump on the gas as you lift off the brake pedal. If the car is set to dynamic mode and you’re using the paddle shifters, the XE will hold its gear at the 6800-rpm fuel cutoff. HANDLING ROADHOLDING, 200-FT-DIA SKIDPAD ............. 0.96 g UNDERSTEER ................... MODERATE TEST NOTES: In steady-state cornering, the XE favors safe but manageable understeer. Changes in throttle position don’t do much to alter its attitude, though it will respond to trail-braking by bringing the rear around. BRAKING, 70-TO-ZERO MPH FIRST STOP .................................. 149 ft SHORTEST STOP ........................ 151 ft LONGEST STOP ............................ 155 ft FADE RATING ................................ NONE TEST NOTES: The sticky P Zero tires that help the Jag best its competition…

Sales are not always the ultimate arbiter of a brand’s outlook, at least not in the same way that failure is a certainty in their absence. Jaguar’s numbers, in free fall when Ford dumped the brand in early 2008 on India’s Tata Motors, seem to have plateaued. It sold 15,773 cars in the U.S. in 2014, just 90 more than during Dearborn’s final full year of ownership. Luxury-segment leader Mercedes-Benz did about 23 times Jaguar’s volume last year; Porsche moved as many Cayennes as Jaguar did of its entire product line. Yet there is reason for optimism in Coventry. With the XE sedan coming next year [see page 050] and the F-Pace crossover also on the way, Jaguar’s sales trajectory can only be pointed upward. Our esteem, however, is less…

SPECIFICATIONS VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, rear-wheeldrive, 4-passenger, 2-door coupe PRICE AS TESTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $27,700 BASE PRICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $24,625 ENGINE TYPE: DOHC 24-valve V-6, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection DISPLACEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . 227 cu in, 3726 cc POWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 hp @ 6500 rpm TORQUE . . . . . . . . . .…

Take a walk around an auto show and you’ll find that every car company wants to tell you about its great new in-car electronics, its apps, and its haptics. At the New York auto show, Jaguar gave a presentation on the system in the new XF, which, according to my notes, is called MeowConnect 10.5. It looks like a nice setup, and is surely a big improvement over the Pong console that powered the old system. The new XF will let you share your car’s navigation info, which sounds useful. That way you won’t keep getting texts that read: “ETA? The salmon’s getting cold and the gazpacho’s getting warm,” forcing you to reply, via speech-to-text, “You’re the one who wanted me to take this big promotion, Evalyn.” Which comes out…

Life is lived vividly in the Ariel Nomad, a vehicle that delivers a level of sensory experience unknown to the well-insulated drivers of cars that feature such fripperies as roofs and bodywork. Climate control, for example, is delivered by the actual climate. You feel the coldness of the air and the wetness of the rain. Agricultural aromas are sniffed unfiltered. And if you’re unwise enough to drive onto England’s Salisbury Plain during a thunderstorm, as we have just done, you quickly become aware of just how muddy this part of Blighty can become. Yet even with a face full of loam, and wearing waterproof clothing that has given up the struggle to keep out the elements, it’s practically impossible not to grin like an imbecile in the Nomad. This category-bending…

JARED GALL I could write an epic love poem to this exhaust system. How many words do you get for a long-term wrap? I’ll need all 1200 and more. MIKE SUTTON What a wonderfully childish automobile. Great for waking up the neighbors and upsetting cyclists. AARON ROBINSON My wife refuses to get in it. She says a car with square wheels would have a better ride. DAVID BEARD Aural fireworks on throttle liftoff almost started a shootout between the MS-13 and 18th Street gangs in South Central Los Angeles. CLIFFORD ATIYEH Say what you want about the Corvette being cheaper and just as fast, but the F-type is the car you want to be seen in. KIRK SEAMAN Impossible to refuel without the filler nozzle clicking off. I’ve tried more…