Innehållsförteckning för October 2009 från MotorTrend

More Best Driver’s Driving Ten challengers. One winner. Motor Trend’s Best Driver’s Car is an epic shootout between some of the finest four-wheeled machinery on the road today. When you’re done digesting all the words, photos, charts, and graphs, head on over to mt.com for more in video form. Follow along from Laguna Seca to our test facility as we put each player through a brutal set of tests. In addition, while at Laguna, we strapped the camera gear to each car with hired hot shoe Randy Pobst at the wheel. You can check out all the action here: www.motortrend.com/multimedia/videos/roadtests or at our YouTube site here: www.youtube.com/motortrend MOTOR TREND…

VOLKSWAGEN Group has spared no expense in its quest to vanquish BMW’s Rolls-Royce. While Rolls is going after the successful, critically acclaimed Bentley Continental with its upcoming Ghost, Bentley has responded with more than a thrust and parry. The 2011 Bentley Mulsanne gets a new-from-the-ground-up, exclusive V-8 engine. That’s all Bentley would reveal in its sneak peek of the Mulsanne ahead of its official Frankfurt show premiere in late September. Motor Trend has learned the new V-8 will share just two things with the Arnage’s engine: its 6.75-liter displacement and turbocharging. While there has been much speculation the Mulsanne is to share its platform with the Audi A8, it will, in fact, be built on an exclusive rear-drive Bentley platform. Structure will be mostly steel, though some body parts and…

MAKING at least 230 horsepower and at least 240 pound-feet of torque, Ford’s new turbocharged, 2.0-liter gas direct-injection four launches in 2010 in the Fusion midsize sedan. The Fusion is Ford Motor Company’s best-selling car, thanks in part to its ’09 facelift and optional hybrid powertrain. So the EcoBoost four could become Ford’s highest-volume engine in a short time. The automaker plans to double four-cylinder engine capacity (including non-EcoBoost engines for cars like the Fiesta and Focus) by 2011 and will offer four-bangers on most models by ’12. The EcoBoost four makes more horsepower and the same torque as the Mustang’s Cologne, Germany-sourced, ancient 4.0-liter V-6, so the 2.0 would make a good fuel-efficient rival for the Chevrolet Camaro’s 3.6-liter V-6. Expect the engine in the Edge, perhaps in the…

VOLVO’S 2011 S60 sedan will be “remarkably close” to the 2009 Detroit show concept in its outline and proportions, a company marketing executive told Motor Trend. While it loses the suicide doors and glass interior, there is much that can be inferred from the concept. Former design director Steve Mattin finalized the exterior, which means more curves and more flamboyant surfaces than we’ve come to expect from Volvo: It’s more XC60 than S80. and the concept’s “fourdoor coupe” roofline remains. This is the first Volvo to have dimensions placing it head to head with German premium makers. Previous Volvos were half a class between the Germans: The old S60 was smaller than the 5 Series BMW of its day but bigger than a 3 Series. The new one will tackle…

“THE HANDLING was inconsistent,” says Pobst of Jaguar’s all-new XFR. “The turn-in was pretty good, but then in the middle of the corner it wanted to understeer a lot, unless you were on the power and that could pretty quickly transition back to oversteer again. So the handling was ‘changeable:’ I didn’t always know what was going to happen when I turned the wheel entering a corner.” Thus, the XFR’s predictability was its unpredictability. Sure, a capricious personality can often make for a torrid love affair, but the Jag’s fickleness struggled to endear Pobst and our judges completely. “Did a lot of sawing at the wheel in this one,” harps Markus. “Much more pitch, roll, and dive than in the Caddy,” he adds, “making it very prone to brake oversteer…

FOLLOWING OUR EXPERIENCE with the Shelby GT500 KR in last year’s Best-Handling test, we were skeptical of a strong showing from this still-live-axle, albeit significantly reworked 2010 GT500. But just as the ZR1 gave us surprises we didn’t like, the GT500 offered up ones we loved. “The car manages to feel lighter than it is,” says Markus of the 3903-pound ponycar. “A huge upgrade over last year’s romper-stomper KR,” notes St. Antoine, adding, “This GT500 is simply way more poised and driver-friendly.” Much of that driver-friendliness comes from the beautifully executed cockpit, which St. Antoine describes as “gorgeous, with appealing shapes, cool wheel, racy seat trim, and the excellent Sync system.” Compared with archrival Camaro, the Shelby offers far and away the better-looking cabin. And by better looking, we mean…

“OH, MY GOODNESS,” says Pobst. “It’s my second car today and I think, well, let’s just not drive anything else.” A reaction like that from a man who pushes fast cars to the limit for a living is bad news for the competition. Now, we knew Audi’s mid-engine exotic would once again be a favorite, given its victory in last year’s Best Handling test. But with this year’s shift to Best Driver’s Car, in which the racetrack element is significant but not paramount, we knew anything was possible. Camaro in last place? Shelby ahead of ZR1? Anything. Okay, by “anything,” we mean that the R8 didn’t win. No, for 2009, it will just have to live with the title, “Second-Best Driver’s Car.” Which, within this formidable field, translates to comments…

“I STILL can’t wait to get to the track.” Randy Pobst looks forward to each race as if it were his first. And to think, he could’ve been an accountant. This Dayton, Ohio, native earned his college degree in accounting. Fortunately, for the good of motorsport, he chose another path after attending his first autocross at age 19. “I went and watched the first two events, then I ran my Datsun 510 in the third and won, beating the class champion.” In the ensuing three decades, Pobst has forged a solid career up and down amateur and professional sports-car racing ranks. His first national championship came in 1990, and he’s added seven more since then, including 2008’s SPEED World Challenge title in the GT category. He’s raced and won in…

THE LAST TIME we did this (“Mirror, Mirror,” July 2009), the American vanquished the mighty Bavarian with a brutal one-two combo of power and balance. But that was something of a hollow victory, merely a warmup bout between a surly young whippersnapper and an aging fighter past his prime. Sure, the BMW M5 once stood uncontested atop the luxury sport sedan field, but that was years ago. In the interim, fitter, more ferocious combatants have stepped into the ’Ring. Like the new challenger from Britain, the 2010 Jaguar XFR. Coventry’s younger and more powerful bruiser outpoints the SMG-equipped M5 in nearly every one of our instrumented tests. On numbers alone, the XFR is clearly a more formidable opponent to Cadillac’s CTS-V. In physical and historical context, the new Jaguar also…

OVER THE COURSE of his legendary career, Babe Ruth held two baseball records: the most home runs and the most strikeouts. The point is that he was up there swinging, with the hopes that the four-bag struts would be more remembered than the times he was fanned. Motor Trend has now published more than 720 monthly issues. That’s 720 cover stories, plus tens of thousands of stories, scoops, predictions, road tests, and assorted bits of news, rumor, opinion, and innuendo. In all that, we’ve smacked our share of home runs—and been called out numerous times too. Some of those predictions, road-test wins, and Car of the Year choices seemed like the proverbial Good Idea at the Time. Upon others, we can only reflect in puzzlement. Here’s a look at some…

DINNER with Scotland’s 10th Duke of Roxburghe was the prize at the end of a day of mud-slinging and rock hopping in Land Rover’s LR4 (a major freshening of the LR4), and naturally we approached Floors Castle via the route taken by carriages back in the days of Dukes 3-5 or so: by fording the River Tweed. It runs deep enough to submerge the door seals and the Surround Camera System’s forward sensors (affording us a salmon’s-eye view) and swift enough to nudge three tons of truck downstream a bit. We arrived dry and in plenty of time to regale His Grace about our adventures on his back 1200. We lauded the new Terrain Response programs to launch in sand without digging in, tiptoe over rocks without rolling back, and…

“I HAD THE MAXIMA for the July 4 weekend and decided to escape the confines of Los Angeles and make the 7500-foot climb up Highway 330 to beautiful Big Bear Lake,” says video producer Mike Suggett. So how did Mad Max do? “The stiffer suspension and heavier steering (which can be taxing on crowded L.A. streets) actually made tackling the twisty mountain roads quite a bit of fun. And the 290-horsepower V-6 managed to haul four passengers and a trunkful of luggage and groceries up the 18-mile pass without a sweat. In fact, the drive up was so rewarding, I couldn’t wait to see how she’d do going down the hill.” As things turned out, Suggett would have to wait a bit longer than he expected. “Unfortunately, some rocky debris…

FERRARI calls it “a massive leap forward” from its previous mid-engine cars. The 2010 458 Italia replaces the F430 and its 483-horsepower, 4.3-liter V-8 with what Ferrari describes as an all-new engine, a 4.5-liter direct-injection V-8 making 562 SAE net horsepower and 398 pound-feet of torque, yet with lower fuel consumption. The car’s weight is part of this equation: The 458 Italia’s dry weight is just 3042 pounds—expect at least 3250 curb—with 48/52 weight distribution. Backing the updated V-8 will be the Ferrari/Getrag seven-speed dual-autoclutch transmission which made its debut last year in the front-engine California. Suspension is control-arm front, multilink rear, and the 458 features a new traction system using the anti-lock brakes. Seven-time champion Michael Schumacher provided product-development input for the 458 Italia project. One feature that came…

INFINITI revealed a powerful hybrid system in its 2009 Geneva show concept, called Essence (shown here). Although this coupe remains strictly a design study, its powertrain architecture will find its way into Infiniti showrooms soon. The company is preparing to put its first hybrid into production, destined for the all-new M sedan. The M will be launched as a 2011 model, with 3.7-liter V-6 and 5.0-liter V-8 power, plus a diesel for Europe. The hybrid bows the following year. The 2011 M will have a more assertive and curvaceous design than the current model’s. Changes include a bigger, bolder grille and a pronounced shelf below the window line. The Essence used Nissan’s 3.7-liter V-6 with direct gas injection and twin turbos for 434 horses. It seems unlikely the production engine…

WE WERE expecting more from the Bow-Tie bunch’s all-new hot rod, what with it dismissing the Ford Mustang GT and the Dodge Challenger R/T in a June comparison, not to mention being on hiatus the last eight years (surely that’s enough time for Chevrolet to develop a great driver’s car). Alas, in this obnoxiously competitive field, the rear-drive, 426-horsepower Camaro SS could muster only…last place. Why? Well, for starters, it’s big and heavy—as in 3888 pounds big and heavy. While not as cumbersome as the 3903-pound GT500, the Camaro manages to convey every one of those pounds; the Shelby does not. We’re not talking about the feel during straight-line acceleration—0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds and the quarter mile in 12.9 at 110.7 mph mean the SS can actually come…

BASED ON objective test numbers, Nissan’s most wicked two-seater, the all-new NISMO 370Z, appeared poised to secure a top-five finish in this competition. Peruse its specs—350-horsepower V-6, track-tuned suspension, Yokohama ADVAN tires, lateral grip of 0.93 g, and weight-to-power of 9.6 pounds/horsepower, the last better than that of the Cayman S—and picking it for seventh would seem, well, foolish. Plus, all our editors, not to mention hot-shoe Pobst, loved nearly everything about the NISMO, most notably the handling. What hampered the NISMO? Before we delve into that, let’s start with what placed it ahead of three formidable challengers. Per Markus, “Very aggressive chassis tuning; bites into turns with little or no slop, roll, or pitch. You need to get the trail-braking just right, or you’re drifting the whole corner.” Which…

“I LIKE THE WAY you button-on this car, settling deep into the well-pocketed bucket, the thick Alcantara-trimmed wheel in your hands, the good pedal placement, the boom of a blown V-8 underfoot,” says St. Antoine. “The CTS-V feels neat and tidy,” he continues, “not like a big four-door sedan. And it drives tidy. Amazing front-end bite, with tons of max g in corners and easy modulation of cornering attitude with the throttle. Fine steering feel too.” All of this from just-out-of-bankruptcy GM? You bet. Not even the ungodly ZR1, the General’s most expensive car ever, could muster this kind of response from our discerning crew. “In fact, keep this quiet,” says Pobst, “but, in terms of handling, I like it better than the Corvette.” Wait, the professional racer prefers the…

IN TECHNICAL EDITOR Kim Reynolds’ first-drive story of the Porsche Cayman S PDK (March 2009), which marked Motor Trend’s initial experience with Stuttgart’s mid-engine seven-speed-dual-clutch sports car, he made a very bold declaration. “It’s now, in my humble opinion, very simply the best sports car in the world.” Since most of you don’t know Kim, allow us to inform you that he is quite possibly the most humble man on the planet. So when the humblest editor states a humble, albeit audacious opinion, his fellow MT staffers perk up and heed the call. Still, the best sports car in the world? Rightfully so, Reynolds had his skeptics. Well, after flogging the Cayman S around track and twisties, we have only one thing to say to Sir Kim:You were absolutely right.…

I’M BARELY three turns into my first lap, and already my brain has automatically activated its auxiliary data logger, the one reserved for “extra-special events.” Partly, it’s a result of the venue. I’m driving on Germany’s 13-mile-long Nürburgring Nordschleife, aka “the Green Hell,” the most fearsome, challenging, and dangerous racetrack in the world. But my highly elevated pulse is also due in large measure to the screaming, whirling vehicle at hand. I don’t entirely know what it looks like—the prototype’s bodywork is masked by tape and cardboard camouflage—but if these first few blitzkrieg corners are any indication, the all-new Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Gullwing (a modern reinterpretation of the 300SL Gullwing that dazzled the 1950s) is going to rock the supercar pantheon when it hits American roads next spring. The SLS…

BACK IN THE late 1980s, before performance tuner AMG became an official branch of Mercedes-Benz, the Affalterbach-based personal trainer of three-pointed stars took an off-the-showroom 300E sedan, stuffed it full of massaged V-8 (first a 5.6-liter, later a 6.0) and a catalog’s worth of track-tuned chassis bits, and dubbed the hugely fast and expensive result “the Hammer.” So if that was the Hammer, what do we call AMG’s latest, far more powerful and formidable tool? Maybe “the Cannon”? AMG is really on its game. Whereas the original tuning company was best known for building mostly one-dimensional sedans (fast in a straight line, clumsy and unbalanced in corners), the 21st-century AMG, now officially the hyper-performance division of Mercedes-Benz, has of late been cranking out full-bodied supercars with all rough edges smoothed…

ACURA calls the new ZDX “a provocative new four-door sport coupe,” but it’s hard to feel shocked or outraged that anyone would attempt to pass off an SUV as a sports car. In the context of vehicles like Cadillac’s Escalade, Porsche’s Cayenne, Infiniti’s FX, and BMW’s X6, trying to define exactly what an SUV is these days is like trying to explain to a caveman the differences between a Corvette and a Camry. The reality is the Acura ZDX is as sporty as you’d expect a 4400-pound AWD truck with 300 horses, an automatic transmission, wide tires, and a relatively high center of gravity to be: A well-driven V-6 Camry SE sedan will blow its doors off on a winding back road. But with the ZDX, sportiness has nothing to…

YOU CAN’T tell from looking at it, but the Flex has changed quite a lot for 2010. There are enough improvements that this nearly qualifies as a refresh: retuned suspension, updated transmission with paddle shifters, electric power steering, park assist, tilt/telescoping wheel, new wheels and tires, and the new engine—an optional 355-horsepower, 350-pound-foot, 3.5-liter EcoBoost twin-turbo direct-injection V-6. It puts out 93 more horses than the base 3.5-liter Duratec, with a 7.0-second 0-to-60-mph acceleration time. That’s 1.4 seconds faster than with the Duratec. EcoBoost is the premium option, and it’s pricey. Someone who wants a front-drive Flex can get a front-drive SE for $29,270, but the least expensive Flex with EcoBoost is an all-wheel-drive SEL, costing $36,890. However, you get that power with no fuel-economy penalty. Whether Flex buyers choose…

HONDA has been building the Accord for over 30 years, fine-tuning it with each generation to the point where it’s become the benchmark car in the midsize-family-sedan class. The Accord defines what Americans and in their midsize vehicle: reliability, comfort, performance, and affordability. This latest Accord has gone through some changes and, this time, some of those changes aren’t necessarily so good. For 2008, Honda made substantial exterior and interior styling changes to the Accord, going for a more modern, edgy look and feel, which some liked and others didn’t. Along with the styling changes came size changes: Everything on the 2008 Accord got bigger. The interior and exterior dimensions have grown significantly, and the new 3.5-liter V-6 is bigger and more powerful than the last generation V-6. For all…

THE LAST TIME Cadillac could properly be regarded as “the Standard of the World,” Elvis was still wearing blue suede shoes. Well, Elvis has been dead more than 30 years now, and for most of that time GM’s luxury division has been quietly motoring down a dead-end road to irrelevance while Germany’s luxury automakers raced past on the autobahn, en route to global domination. We knew the 2008 Cadillac CTS was a game changer from the moment we first drove it. The CTS wowed us with its edgy exterior design, classy interior ambience, and civilized road manners. Here for the first time was a Cadillac that attempted to combine the sassy style of America with the sophisticated demeanor of Europe—and made it work. The CTS was the judges’ enthusiastic choice…

GM’S corporate logo will not change from blue to green. It won’t move from its downtown Renaissance Center headquarters to the suburbs. And GM isn’t “Government Motors” any more than Citigroup is our central bank. “We expect to take the company public again as soon as practical, starting next year, and to repay our government loans as soon as possible,” Chief executive officer Fritz Henderson said after GM emerged from a Section 363, Chapter 11 in 40 days, three days shorter than Chrysler Group’s Chapter 11. Section 363 means the “old GM,” Motors Liquidation Company, managed by interim CEO Al Koch of AlixPartners, owns Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer, and Saab, 13 assembly plants GM is closing down, and other dead or near-dead assets. New GM, formally General Motors Company, includes core…

ALFA ROMEO’S new Milano will not be launched until 2011 in Europe, though it will be shown during Alfa Romeo’s centenary year, 2010. The engine range will include Fiat-Alfa’s MultiAir system, which dispenses with the throttle butterfly and controls the engine directly via electrohydraulic valve lifters. These give stepless variation of valve timing, lift, and even profile. The first engine of the type will be a 1.4-liter turbo developing 170 horses and about 180 pound-feet of torque. Alfa claims it consumes some 15 percent less fuel than a conventional engine of the same power and emits 60 percent less NOX thanks to internal exhaust-gas recirculation. It will be combined with an engine idle-stop system for further urban fuel savings. Initially it comes with conventional injection, but direct gas injection is…

WILL KIA get to use Hyundai’s rear-drive Genesis coupe/sedan platform? Yes, for the next-generation Amanti sedan, a senior executive in Seoul told Motor Trend. A photo of the car Kia flashed on screen in a presentation looked a bit short in the dash-to-axle department. Still, if that rendering had any accuracy, the RWD Kia will be a shorter, much sportier car than the Genesis sedan, in keeping with Kia’s brand DNA. Expect the Genesis coupe’s turbo four and 3.8-liter V-6, and not the sedan’s Tau V-8, to be offered. The RWD Amanti replacement appears in showrooms in late 2011, as a 2012 model. It’s part of a wholesale assault on the U.S. and world markets designed to lift consideration of the brand, which grew immensely for most of the 2000s,…

good cars, bad times As I read Angus MacKenzie’s column in the July issue, I found I was nodding in agreement with nearly every sentence. When I retired five years ago after spending 34 years in Product Engineering at GM, it appeared a corner had been turned and the product was finally getting the attention it deserved, and Bob Lutz, Jim Queen, Tom Stephens, and the other Global Engineering “czars” had steered the proper course for the products to be über-competitive. All that was needed was to get some customer recognition, which we all knew would take some time to earn back. Nevertheless, MacKenzie was spot on with his assessment of the potential for “financial engineering” taking over. I only hope the people (corporate and political) who are pulling the…

THE PAST TWO YEARS, we’ve engulfed and entertained you with Motor Trend’s “Best-Handling Car,” an exhaustive multipage feature replete with in-depth analyses and qualitative data on the year’s most imposing crop of high-performance machines. We’ve spent hundreds of hours driving an array of curve-carvers along challenging public roads and, with a little help from pro racers Max Angelelli and Randy Pobst, around the infamous 2.3 miles of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. We’ve not only recorded such standard MT stats as lateral g and figure eight, but also utilized a bevy of contraptions, sensors, and measuring devices to calculate such dynamics as step steer, swerve stability, and ride quality—all in our best efforts to quantify optimal handling. In order to narrow down the field to the Best-Handling Car, we examined, filtered,…

OKAY, SO FIRST the star of the Transformers movie finishes 10th, and now a small, rear-drive, 300-horsepower BMW wearing fat tires places ninth? We know, it sounds like complete heresy. But that’s the nature of Best Driver’s Car: a no-holds-barred contest that separates the best from the best. But how can a BMW—a bantam one at that—not be one of the best? Well, this pint-size 1 Series, which shares much of its platform and chassis components with its 3 Series brother—as in its bigger, heavier brother—is deceptively hefty. Not that the 135i is necessarily porcine: Its 3364-pound curb weight makes it neither heavy nor light by today’s automotive standards, but it is unquestionably bulkier than a sub-3 coupe should be. Add in its tall roofline, and the 135i is not…

WE STATED that Motor Trend’s 2009 Best Driver’s Car wouldn’t necessarily be the one that put down the quickest lap time around the racetrack. Well, what can we say, we’re true to our word. The almighty 638-horsepower Corvette ZR1, the quickest car around Laguna Seca by a full five seconds—an eternity, in race terms—was not voted Best Driver’s Car. It wasn’t even voted fifth-best driver’s car. Okay, if it seems the ZR1’s not-first-place finish was predetermined to prove a point, you couldn’t be more wrong. Quickest? Most powerful? Most awe-inspiring? Yes, yes, and yes. Most difficult to drive at the limit? That too. “What a workout!” says Markus, after running the 1.08g ZR1 through the figure eight. “No doubt this generated the quickest lap, but it’s also the only car…

IN THE 1986 MOVIE “Stand by Me,” a prepubescent Jerry O’Connell asks a barely older Corey Feldman, “You think Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman?” To which Feldman ponders a moment and replies, “Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman is a real guy. No way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.” Case closed. Coming into this 10-car battle, no one believed Mazda’s Mighty Mouse MX-5 Miata could “beat” Chevrolet’s Superman ZR1. The reasoning, like Feldman’s, was logical: The ZR1, with its blown 638-horsepower engine, ceramic brakes, and carbon bodywork, was a real car. And a seriously badass one at that. Meanwhile, the Miata, with its measly 167 naturally aspirated ponies and a cute, curvaceous shape that seemingly wants to sing “Beep! Beep!” all day, was not. Grown-up versus…

WHAT’S MOST STRIKING about the Porsche Cayman SVehicle Dynamics Score is that it doesn’t appear to be remarkable at all. But we also scored all our contenders in six driver’s-car-illuminating categories, and when the results were compiled, we found a correlation between what our elaborate test equipment revealed and what we felt through our fingertips and the seat of our pants. Those cars whose lack of dynamic consistency was exposed in the numbers were also those that were judged less fun to drive and least confidence inspiring. And while the Audi R8 and MX-5 Miata—cars at virtually either end of the group’s performance spectrum—impressed us subjectively, the Porsche Cayman S scored even better. It’s as though the Cayman S simultaneously distills most of the R8’s intense performance and mid-engine balance…

QUICK! Grab your DVD of Steve McQueen’s epic film, “Le Mans.” Fast forward to the bit near the end where McQueen’s Gulf Porsche 917 is chasing down the No. 8 Ferrari 512, and crank up the volume. There! That shot where the No. 8 Ferrari passes the stricken No. 5 car on the last lap. Listen…. That’s exactly what the Lamborghini Murciélago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce sounds like at 7000 rpm in fourth gear. You’re traveling at a shade over 160 mph in the lowslung Lambo at those revs. And you still have two gears to go. Oh, lordy…. This is the supercar from central casting. Big. Loud. Fast. Lamborghini launched the Murciélago way back in 2001 on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily. The volcano was smoking gently as…

THE CALIFORNIA is a car filled with firsts for Ferrari: the first front-engine V-8, the first use of direct injection, the first seven-speed transmission, the first true launch-control system, the first retractable hardtop, and the first stacked exhaust. But fear not, all these firsts have not changed the purity of Ferrari; they’ve just expanded its range. There have been front-engine sixes and 12s, but this is the first front-engine eight and with it Ferrari has managed to make the entry-level California a true supercar in every sense of the word. The direct injection helps improve mileage and decrease emissions, but because the California is heavier than the F430 it shares its engine architecture with, the tuning is optimized to boost torque by 14 pound-feet at the expense of 29 horsepower,…

KIA HAS exorcized the Spectra, its Saturn Ion-beating compact of many years, for the sharply creased, ultramodern Forte. It ups the cool-factor ante with the handsome Koup, two inches shorter, 0.4 inch lower to the ground, and 45 pounds lighter than the sedan. They share no exterior sheetmetal save for the hood. Steering is slightly quicker, with a thicker torsion bar and “enhanced steering hydraulic rigidity” for heavier feel. It’s precise, with good feedback and none of the on-center vagueness described in our Forte sedan review. While a monsoon in greater Seoul prevented 9/10ths cornering for our first drive, the Koup proved a quieter, more refined Civic with handling and performance balanced between the Honda’s EX and Si. Suspension is stiff, not jarring, over washboards and expansion strips. As the…

IT WAS pretty hard to get much of an early read on BMW’s newest—and most controversial—M model, the 2010 X6 M. Our initial short stint featured a bit of highway driving and a quick run on slightly twisty roads, allowing us briefly to feel how smooth, yet powerful this 5300-plus-pound beast really is. You’re in touch with the road, but there’s no bounce or jounce in the X6 M, just smooth sailing—even in the more aggressive M mode. BMW had some real driving fun in store for us at our final destination: hot laps on the 2.54 mile, 12-turn Road Atlanta circuit. The massive elevation changes, fast sweepers, and blind, off-camber corners really show you what the X6 M is made of. The X6 M seems to shrink around you…

THE FIREBIRD Trans Am makes any Pontiac Top-10 list, and this photo shows two of the best. On left is the original of 1969. It shared its chassis architecture with the Camaro, but was powered by Poncho’s own and wonderful 400-cubic-inch big-block V-8. It proved a one-year-only model, as GM’s F-Body design changed completely for 1970. The 20th Anniversary, Indy pace-car edition at right wasn’t as much appreciated at the time, because it was powered by not only a turbocharged V-6, but a Buick V-6 at that. No matter, it was stinking fast—0-60 in about 4.6 seconds—far quicker than any of the late 1970s and early ’80s TAs. Pontiac rated the blown V-6 at 250 horses, another famous Detroit horsepower lie. It was at least 300. Just 1550 or so…