Innehållsförteckning för Nov-15 från Car and Driver

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com TURNOFFS In your August 2015 comparison test of the BMW M3/Mercedes-AMG C63 S/Cadillac ATS-V [“Radar Bait”], you lamented how many steps it took to shut down a “modern BMW.” As an owner of two such animals, I think I can help you out. This procedure is not very well promoted by the dealers but works every time. 1. After coming to a stop, just push the start/stop button to shut the engine off. The gear selector will move to park on its own. 2. Although the accessories are still on, just exit the car. 3. Lock the car from the outside and everything shuts off inside and the security system arms. Or, if you don’t want to…

It’s not the heaviest convertible, but Porsche’s 911 Targa has the most interesting (and undoubtedly most complex) means of introducing wind to hair. LAY THE OLD ROOSTER on the chopping block and he’ll be a little lighter after the hatchet falls. It’s a sad fact that the opposite is true of cars. Subtract the top and you’ve got to add a bunch of stuff back in. But, while convertibles consistently weigh more than their coupe counterparts, by how much is hardly a constant. Here, we’ve compiled their manufacturers’ quoted weights for 25 current coupe/convertible pairs. The true heavyweights are not the ones you’d expect. Clever automakers anticipate that both open and closed body styles will spring from a common platform and engineer their cars to minimize the convertible’s weight gain…

Growing up in Maine, there weren’t a lot of nice cars around. This was mainly because nobody had any money, but the dearth of zesty machinery was also a function of Yankee cultural mores, which dictate that a non-rusty Volvo 240 is the outer boundary of vehicular flamboyance. Put it this way: I still remember spotting a BMW M3 in 1995. It was in Boothbay Harbor. Avus Blue. That was the most exotic car I laid eyes on during my high-school years. Perhaps that BMW lodged in my psyche, because soon thereafter I sold my IROC Camaro and purchased a poor man’s M3. And by poor, I mean Greek government, Chapter 7, pawn-grandma’s-dentures poor. The car was a 1979 Euromarket 323i crammed with a 3.0-liter dual-carb six from a Bavaria…

Harold B., Houston, TX On my way home this afternoon I was following another detector user. I could see red blinking in his windshield as we went past the first radar. Thinking the danger was behind, Mr. Ordinary Detector User hit the gas. Uh-Oh. V1’s Radar Locator was showing two arrows, one pointing toward the trap now behind, and a second arrow ahead. The “2” on the Bogey Counter confirmed we were being double teamed. Sure enough, Mr. O. D. User cruised into the second trap up the hill at 15 over and got himself a blue-light special. V1 points to every trap. I trust it completely. Bill P., Phoenix, AZ Where’s the radar? An arrow lights up, pointing either Ahead, to the side, or Behind. And, amazingly, it’s never…

NEW FINDS We want our vehicles to do it all, to take the whole crew anywhere and through any kind of weather in safety and comfort, with plenty of space. The three-row mid-size SUV is arguably the best at filling that bill—it’s the ultimate family hauler, whatever the size or age of the family. With available state-of-the-art technology and a flexible, inviting interior, the Chevrolet Traverse is the very model of the modern family vehicle. this month: NEW ADDITIONS gearbox HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED a young family try to make it out of the house and into the car? It has the urgency of a pit stop, only instead of fresh tires, fuel, and a squeegee guy, you’ve got mom and dad relocating an apartment’s worth of toys, strollers, and…

There is too much engineering duplication against too many rising expenses, he said, even with all the common componentry in today’s cars. He claimed the industry is killing shareholder value with this “pure economic waste,” and the right way to fix it, for Fiat Chrysler at least, is to merge with another automaker. He’s mostly right, of course. All car companies’ profit margins are slim, especially Fiat Chrysler’s. The industry is a burial ground of inefficiencies. And the amount of capital, human and otherwise, required to keep making cars in today’s technical and regulatory environments is staggering. But here’s what Marchionne’s dispassionate look does not take into account: passion. The car business runs on it. We don’t actually need new cars every seven years, or different lease cars every three,…

Porsche 911s with rear-wheel steering— the Turbo and GT3—use a quicker rack up front to improve steering response, relying on rear steering to maintain high-speed stability. CADILLAC CTS-V GM CLAIMS THAT THE V’S STRUCTURE IS NEARLY 20 PERCENT STIFFER THAN THE REGULAR CTS’S. ATOP THAT, THE V’S BOSCH STEERING RACK IS SAID TO BE 14 PERCENT STIFFER THAN ITS NON-V COUNTERPART’S. THERE’S NO CONTROL in a car more central to driver involvement than steering. And there’s no control that juggles more variables to get satisfying feel—that just-right balance of how much force the driver has to apply to the steering wheel to change direction; how immediately and linearly the car responds to that input; and how much that effort and response change according to road conditions and grip levels. We…

In 1966, Gay Talese wrote a story for Esquire called “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.” You should read it. Talese was scheduled to interview Sinatra, but, when the time came, the singer refused to talk. So the story is an interview with no interviewee. Turns out, it was way more interesting than anything Sinatra might have revealed. I was thinking of Talese on July 22, the day that Alicia Knievel Vincent, daughter of Evel Knievel, explained that I wouldn’t be interviewing Robbie, son of Evel. Our back-andforth negotiations had spanned three weeks, and the plan was that I’d maybe ride around with Robbie in Butte, Montana— “The Richest Hill on Earth” and home of all things Knievel— just prior to the town’s 13th or 14th annual Evel Knievel Days (nobody…

AT 80 MPH, the new Lincoln MKX sails down the road as if it were built from 4664 pounds of bubble wrap, fiberglass insulation, and cotton balls. Acoustically laminated glass, lined fender wells, and active noise cancellation create a cabin so quiet that even in a rush-hour commute you can hear Matthew McConaughey’s soft drawl over your shoulder: “I’vebeendriving aLincolnsince longbefore anyonepaidmetodriveone. . . Ididn’tdoit to be cool . . . Ididn’tdoit tomake a statement . . . I just likedit.” It’s true, says the Oscar winner worth somewhere around $75 million to $100 million. “Now I have other cars, but I have driven a Lincoln and I nowhave aLincolninmydriveway,”McConaughey told real-lifeCryptKeeper LarryKing.Wetake that to mean he once commandeered a Town Car as part of an on-set prank and his…

WHEN THE LAST ORIGINAL BEETLE rolled down the assembly line in 2003 and they cued the band in celebration, it was a mariachi band. Volkswagen was still building its Bug in Mexico decades after emissions and safety regulations had rendered the car obsolete elsewhere, saying a lot about the Type 1’s enduring charm. But it also made a less flattering statement, one that cast the Mexican auto industry as a dumping ground for antiquated car designs. The situation today couldn’t be more different. Automakers have announced $24.2 billion worth of investment in Mexico since 2010, nearly a third of all new spending on North American factories according to the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Five new Mexican assembly plants have opened in that time, producing…

There’s an argument to be made that mankind should have stayed in the trees, because progress is a dangerous business. No matter how carefully you engineer a new invention and study the way test subjects use it and build in safeguards against accidental harm or malicious intent, if you start sales on Monday, by Wednesday there will be blood. The act of creation produces destruction, which produces improvement, which produces a different kind of destruction, which produces more improvement until, eventually, everybody accepts that even with things that have extensive instruction manuals and a wallpaper of warning stickers and that are widely considered perfectly safe, somebody always gets hurt. Were it otherwise, there would be no personal injury lawyers. Back in 2012, I wrote a column entitled “Google is my…

TOYOTA TACOMA TRD OFF-ROAD DOUBLE CAB 4X4 PRICE > $37,665 POWER > 278 hp TORQUE > 265 lb-ft WEIGHT > 4434 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 19 CHEVROLET COLORADO LT CREW CAB 4WD PRICE > $38,720 POWER > 305 hp TORQUE > 269 lb-ft WEIGHT > 4474 lb C/D OBSERVED MPG > 19 IT’S AN ON-THE-NOSE, OBVIOUS, LITERAL, AND, OKAY, SHALLOW IDEA: Pit the transmogrified Toyota Tacoma against the fresh-enough Chevrolet Colorado during a journey from Tacoma to Colorado. Get it? “It’s pointless,” mumbled senior editor Tony Quiroga as he was “volunteered” for codriving duty on this adventure. “It’s not an adventure, it’s a boondoggle,” he continued. “It has nothing to do with pickups. Neither truck is assembled in Tacoma or Colorado. Tacoma is a city and Colorado is a…

Detective Sergeant Allan Thompson, head of the Isle of Man Constabulary’s road unit, doesn’t like writing tickets, and indeed, often he can’t. “We’re unique in that we have roads without speed limits,” he says in his native Liverpool accent. “You can get off the boat and go up onto the Mountain course and be doing 180 mph within 15 minutes without breaking the law. That’s why we want to try and engage with people and talk to them. Treat them appropriately and make them behave better.” Thompson, 46, a 26-year veteran, has a team of five constables that increases to 22 during TT week. He meets us outside police HQ in Douglas in a new Ford Focus ST wagon, one of the island’s few dedicated interceptors. “You definitely need a…

Deep inside, we’re no different than your average motorhead. We live to thrash sports cars on challenging roads. And for those occasions when two seats won’t cut it, we grab the keys to sports sedans. So what’s up with spending 40,000 miles in an XXXL SUV that’s bigger than many NYC apartments? Fact is, our transportation needs run the gamut, just like yours. Boxsters and Miatas—vehicles of choice for two-person getaways—are misfits on family vacations. We occasionally move furniture, take camping trips, and shuttle visitors to and from the airport. Some of us avoid our families altogether by spending our weekends at racetracks. Which is to say, sometimes we need something big. Meet Big Den, a 2015 GMC Yukon XL Denali 4WD that casts a shadow twice as large as…

Former Formula 1 stalwart, Jaguar sports-car driver, and Indy 500 winner Eddie Cheever Jr., 57, talks about his broadcasting career and modern motorsports. C/D: How long does it take to prep for the Indy 500 broadcast? EC: When I was first asked to do it, I went back and listened to a good year’s worth of James Hunt on the BBC, doing his F1 stuff, just to understand how a driver can add to the equation. Then I went back to view a lot of races. To converse with two people for hours on TV, well, you need to add something that’s not right then appearing on the screen. And you don’t want to get too technical or you’ll lose 80 percent of the audience. So I guess it was…