Innehållsförteckning för December 2011 från MotorTrend

Kia explodes onto the chart this month with its Share Some Soul campaign. Grabbing more than 5.4 million views, the campaign features the Kia Soul and oversized dancing hamsters. The Force continues to drive views with VW’s Super Bowl spot this month: 1.5 million for an increase of 75 percent from August. Luxury automaker Lexus debuts on the chart at third place with more than 1 million views for its Engineering Amazing campaign. * First appearance on chart Source: Visible Measures (www.visiblemeasures.com) The Motor Trend Top 10 Online Video Auto Ads Chart focuses on brand-driven viral video ads that appear on online video sharing destinations. Each campaign is measured on a True Reach basis, which includes viewership of brand-syndicated video clips and viewer-driven social video placements.…

THE MASERATI KUBANG concept at the Frankfurt auto show is only the first tangible evidence of a new wave of super-luxury sport/utilities from Europe. Bentley CEO Wolfgang Duerheimer is talking of one, too. The Maserati comes first, as it has been teased by the Frankfurt concept. It’s scheduled to launch at the end of calendar 2013, and the production design will look very much like the concept car. However, the concept’s interior, with its simplified dash-top surfaces of thick, almost plywood-like leather, will be made more conventional for production, and also acquire much more switchgear. Maserati is working on a new engine family, including a 450-hp-plus V-8. Ferrari will build the engine, though it shares very little with current production Ferrari engines. Its engine and a new ZF eight-speed automatic…

A FEW CURRENT GENERAL MOTORS designers, including studio chief Ed Welburn, own a ’69 Chevy Camaro, and it’s the inspiration for the current model of the musclecar. Still, best Chevy of all time? GM says the 1969 Camaro edged out the 1970 Chevelle SS with 25,058 out of 124,368 votes cast in an online contest for that title. Trend asked Motor Trend’s print and online staff which Chevrolets are their favorites, and which ones they consider most important (see the distinction, Chevy?). Here are the results: Most important Chevy of the past 100 years 1. “TRI-FIVE” 1955-’57 MODELS—“Because it introduced the Small Block V-8,” says Jonny Lieberman. “It’s more than the Small Block,” Mike Connor says. “The 1955 Bel Air took Chevy from being a dull, boring car you had…

AUDI called the A2 it showed at Frankfurt a “concept,” but the firm’s R&D director, Michael Dick, confirmed it will be built. There will be two versions: an all-electric and a plug-in version with an additional gas engine. It’s clear Audi is taking aim at the BMW i3. Audi design head Stefan Sielaff told us it is a megacity vehicle, the same term BMW uses. Dick explains the A2’s lightweight multi-material body can be built lighter yet cheaper than BMW’s LifeDrive aluminum and carbon-fiber structure: “We will achieve a breakthrough in price and volume for carbon technology on the A2.” The A2 is tall and has a very short overall length for a four-seater, at 149.6 inches. The electric concept is said to weigh 2550 pounds. With this light mass,…

Father Knows Best Your New Cars issue couldn’t have come at a better time (September 2011). My 8-year-old was constantly questioning what the most expensive car was and what the fastest car was. I handed him the magazine, opened to page 75, and said, “Here, you figure it out.” He did. For some reason, he has settled on the Lamborghini “Guy-r-doh” as his dream car. Maybe it’s because I spent hours obsessing over the Countach poster on my best friend’s wall when I was a kid. Anyway, he won’t believe the Lambo has a V-10 engine, because your magazine doesn’t say so. Please tell him I’m right. Zach Janssen Delavan, Wisconsin Automonotony While reading Mr. MacKenzie’s column from your September issue (“Driver Down”), the words“Thank you,” “Exactly,” “Here, here,” and…

EVERY SO often in this business, you drive a car that lets you know in the first hundred yards or so that it’s special—that it’s somehow greater than the sum of the numbers on its spec chart. The new Subaru BRZ is one of those cars. It’s not the fastest, the most powerful, nor even the sexiest two-door coupe in the business. But if you love driving, you’re going to love this Subaru. The Subaru BRZ is the result of one of the auto industry’s oddest joint ventures since Alfa Romeo and Nissan hooked up in the 1980s to produce the ARNA, a car that spectacularly combined the worst features of both: It had Alfa Romeo’s suspect reliability and Nissan’s boring styling and sloppy handling. This time, though, everyone looks…

CONTENDERS “Here are the sales numbers for the midsize segment through August,” said associate editor Benson Kong as he handed associate editor Nate Martinez and me a sheet of 2011 data while the three of us were downing a quick breakfast in smoky Tehachapi, California, where wildfires had been running rampant for nearly a month. The Toyota Camry, the best-selling car for the last nine years, sat comfortably in first place with sales of almost 205,000 units. “Wow, even in the final year before a new model, the Camry still sells the best,” observed Martinez. The Nissan Altima, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, and Chevy Malibu occupied spots two through five, selling as high as 176,000 and as low as 160,000. At nearly 157,000 sold, the Hyundai Sonata occupied sixth spot,…

YOUR NAME doesn’t have to be Andretti or Unser for your nuclear family to have a ferocious appetite for speed and power. Nor does it have to be Getty or Vanderbilt to afford a fast four-door that offers the requisite comforts and convenience of a modern sport/luxury sedan. In fact, for around $30,000, you can get into a powerful, speedy family-hauler that out-accelerates an early ‘90s 310-horsepower BMW M5 and 315-horse Mercedes-Benz 500E. Coincidentally enough, we have three of these bargain rockets right here with us: the 274-horsepower Hyundai Sonata 2.0T, the 268-horse Toyota Camry SE V-6, and the 280-horse Volkswagen Passat VR6. To the dragstrip! 3RD PLACE: HYUNDAI SONATA SE 2.0T UNFORTUNATELY FOR THE Sonata, it was the only one that wasn’t quicker than the aforementioned M5 and 500E.…

HOW WILL freshly independent Mazda survive the next decade? It must balance the MX-5 Miata’s sporty image with products that can appeal to more mainstream consumers. Get it right, and Mazda will be a successful boutique automaker, like Subaru. Get it wrong, and it’s the next Isuzu. Mazda’s first order of business is to replace its invisible, rebadged Ford Escape with a true Honda CR-V/Toyota RAV4 competitor. The new CX-5 is Mazda’s first all-SkyActiv model, and will slip into dealerships in the first quarter of 2012, slotting below the CX-7. SkyActiv is Mazda’s marketing term encapsulating all its new technology designed to make its models eco-friendly. Four CX-5 prototypes were offered for mountain road drives in spy photography-free Reykjavik, Iceland, prior to the CX-5’s Frankfurt debut. We had a front-drive,…

MICHAEL Showalter wants to sell you a car. The Toyota Yaris pitchman can be seen in Internet video ads plugging this runty car, sizing it up by flaunting such lavish furnishings as airbags, cupholders, wheels, and windows. Not sensing the humor? You see, it takes levity to survive in today’s World Wide Web, and Showalter’s deliberate deliveries fuse amicably with the Yaris’ all-digital marketing effort (a first for Toyota). The target customer should remember an agreeable, relatable fellow poking gentle fun at a dorky-looking car. But at least the Yaris doesn’t look as bulbous as before. In a push to attract the male buyer, the exterior sharpens up with rechiseled front and rear fascias and refreshed headlights and taillights. The wheelbase grows from 96.9 to 98.8 inches, and overall height…

GENERAL MOTORS is advancing the airbag art in a direction that can’t earn it any extra stars or crash-test brownie points. That’s because its new industry-first front-seat center airbag provides protection in a crash nobody tests for, one in which the side impact is on the opposite side of the car from the crash test dummy. This new bag, which deploys from the inboard side of the driver’s seat, aims to prevent the 11 percent of all deaths occurring in these so-called “far-side side impacts.” Developed with supplier Takata (with whom four pending patents are shared), this bag forms a rigid tube in the shape of a figure eight tethered to angle toward the driver. It inflates in 26 milliseconds using a combination of pressurized argon and pyrotechnically generated gas,…

“WHILE HONDA HAS LIFTED OFF THE TRAILBLAZING THROTTLE, HYUNDAI HAS PUT ITS PIONEERING FOOT TO THE FLOOR.” GROWING UP in Southern California in the 1980s, I used to ride along with my parents, staring out the car window and trying to spot the coolest automobiles the world had to offer. All the best wheels came to SoCal, from Ferrari 328s and Porsche Turbos to Lotus Esprits and BMW M1s. The cars that really grabbed me, though, were the ones I believed I could purchase by the time I had a license: the Toyota Corolla GTS, Volkswagen GTI, and Honda CRX and Prelude. I wanted Hondas the most, because, as I read in such magazines as Motor Trend, they offered the best blend of technology, reliability, and affordability. The CRX Si…

The teaming up of Toyota and Subaru is intriguing, but not unprecedented. Back in 2008, both shared a desire to brighten their somewhat dim sports car portfolios. Toyota would take the lead in planning, designing, and bankrolling the new two-door, dubbed AS1, while Subaru offered its proven high-performance engineering and production capabilities. The companies would split sales and marketing duties. Automotive history buffs will enjoy learning the BRZ isn’t Subaru’s first rear-drive vehicle. That title belongs to the 1953-’54 Fuji Heavy Industries Prototype 1 sedan, later known as the Subaru 1500. P-1 employed the first Japanese-made monocoque body and paved the way for brand icons such as the Subaru 360 and 1000.…

SPEED SENSATION At right are five, freeze-frame data readouts as the 911 GT2 RS barreled around a medium-speed corner. About all that’s missing is the level of adrenaline in the driver’s bloodstream. How is this done expertly? That, friend, is another story. Speed 56 mph Longitudinal Acceleration -0.04 g Longitudinal Force 135 lb Lateral Acceleration 0.99 g Lateral Force 3333 lb Steering Angle 55 deg Apparent Understeer 26 deg Chassis Slip Angle 5.5 deg Roll Angle 1.5 deg Pitch Angle 0.1 deg 4 Speed 59 mph Longitudinal Acceleration -0.06 g Longitudinal Force 202 lb Lateral Acceleration 0.95 g Lateral Force 3199 lb Steering Angle 82.8 deg Apparent Understeer 55.3 deg Chassis Slip Angle 1.3 deg Roll Angle 1.5 deg Pitch Angle 0 deg 3 WHEN I THINK OF THE PORSCHE…

NORWAY We went where? THOSE OF US who bring you the automotive news log infinitely more air miles than road miles. Over time, this unhealthy seat-time imbalance makes editors cranky and irritable at best, and downright postal at worst. The cure: an epic road trip. Kim Reynolds drove our Volt from Detroit to Los Angeles; Edward Loh and Todd Lassa tag-teamed a drive from Tokyo to L.A. in a Suzuki Kizashi; Ron Kiino raced Europe’s Orient Express in a Hyundai Genesis; and boss Angus MacKenzie’s crazy travel schedule requires such frequent rebalancing that he participated in those last two trips, drove a Challenger on one lap of Europe, and conquered Australia’s Outback in the Subaru named for it. When the tedium of fact-checking buyer’s-guide issues from airplane seats threatened to…

IN THE ENTHUSIAST’S dream, all sports cars have manual transmissions and all SUVs are body-on-frame. But as so often is the case, reality does not intersect with our fantasies. Ferraris—save for one—no longer have manual transmissions, and car-based crossovers are rapidly pushing traditional SUVs to the brink of extinction. In a world that appears increasingly hostile to an all-SUV brand like Land Rover, adaptation is the only option. Some adaptations are failures. Others are Motor Trend Sport/Utility of the Year winners. The Range Rover Evoque is most certainly the latter. But how? The Evoque is, after all, based on the Land Rover LR2, a vehicle many of you would be surprised to learn is still on sale today. Just as the LR2 was an impressive improvement on the Freelander, the…

WHEN IS a Mini not a Mini? It’s a question that has garnered significant discussion around the office since the Mini Countryman reported for long-term test duty. Is the Countryman too big to be considered a Mini, or does being one of the smallest vehicles in its segment rationalize the Mini name? More important, does its size have any bearing on how good a car it is? To find out, we’ll be driving a True Blue Metallic Countryman for the next 12 months. While the debate continues over classifying the car’s size, what’s decidedly un-mini is the price, a hefty $36,000 even. That was our doing, though, as we spec’d a car with more than minimal content. Included on the tab are the Sport package with its big wheels, the…

OUR 2011 xDrive28i has not one, but three sport modes. There’s one for the transmission, which is accessed by pushing the golf club-shaped shifter to the left to activate a more aggressive shift program, making the transmission eager to kick down a cog or two and sustain high revs. Then, there are two buttons to the left of that shifter: One of these points rearward to text that reads Normal; the other one points forward, to Sport. The other two modes hide here. These buttons are the only visual indication of the $1400 Dynamic Handling Package, an option I was surprised to see offered in a sport/utility vehicle. Why? Among other things, the package adds controllable electronic dampers, a variable steering ratio, and multiple stages of stability/traction intervention, throttle responsiveness,…

WHEN I WROTE the 2.5GT’s Long-Term Arrival story well over a year ago, I wondered if Motor Trend’s staff would deem it “a WRX for grown-ups” by the time its tenure was up. You see, the midsize Legacy 2.5GT borrows the compact WRX’s turbocharged 2.5-liter, 265-hp flat-four engine and so-called Symmetrical All-Wheel-Drive system, but packages them in a bigger body designed more for the mature family man than the gung-ho rally fan. Some 26,740 miles later, we have answers: yes and no. First, let’s discuss the GT’s WRX-ness. Armed with identical output and all-wheel-drive technology, the GT comes across quick (0-60 mph in 5.3 seconds), surefooted (0.86 g lateral acceleration), and compliant—similar to its smaller sibling, just not quite as quick (we’ve seen as low as 4.5 in a WRX…

KIA HAS BEEN fighting for its own car off parent Hyundai’s RWD architecture, and with the Frankfurt GT concept, it may finally have one. No question Kia design chief Peter Schreyer was chomping at the bit to work with a RWD dash-to-axle relationship. Even showing a concept doesn’t guarantee Hyundai has approved the Kia GT for production. Pre-Frankfurt rumors had Kia doing a large, coupelike four-door off the 195.9-inch-long Genesis sedan. Instead, at 184.6 inches, the Kia GT concept is just 2.3 inches longer than the Genesis coupe. The GT’s package targets the BMW 3 Series, Lexus IS, and the 2015 Cadillac ATS, not the Audi A7 and Mercedes CLS. The GT concept was shown with a turbo 3.3-liter Lambda gas direct-injection V-6, rated 389 hp and 394 lb-ft. The…

WILLIAM CRAPO DURANT’S greatest failure led to the creation of Chevrolet. A year after he incorporated General Motors, he went after Henry Ford’s third, and most successful, car company. GM was to pay Ford $2 million cash, plus $4 million at 5 percent interest over three years. On October 26, 1909, GM’s board “gave Durant authority to purchase Ford if financing could be arranged,” Lawrence R. Gustin writes in “Billy Durant, Creator of General Motors.” Banks refused Durant a $2 million loan for the down payment, and during a financial panic in 1910, GM’s board kicked him out and let bankers take over his company. Durant began work on his comeback and set up retired Buick race driver Louis Chevrolet with his own Detroit shop in early 1911. Durant incorporated…

MERCEDES-BENZ’S all-new B-Class is launching in Europe before the end of the year. The Frankfurt show reveals provided enough details to assemble a pretty good picture of what the brand’s small, front-drive cars will look like when they finally arrive here. The company announced at the New York show last spring that it will bring a small, front-drive model to the U.S. by the middle of 2012. Such cars help meet new Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. Two gasoline and two diesel engines, each turbocharged and under 2.0 liters, were detailed at Frankfurt. We’ll no doubt be offered the more powerful variants, ranging from 135 to 155 horsepower. All European versions come standard with a new seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox and automatic start/stop. Pricing in Europe starts at the equivalent of…

THIS YEAR’S Texas State Fair was again the scene for the latest in pickup truckwear. The 2012 Ford SVT Raptor now has a Torsen limited-slip front differential for scrambling up obstacles or steep inclines and applying torque to the front wheel with the most traction. Ford’s Special Vehicle Team worked with Torsen to match the new differential with the Raptor’s brake-based traction-control system, and to specially modify the differential housing to cope with the prodigious torque requirements of the Raptor. Also new is an optional front-facing camera mounted in the truck’s grille, which allows drivers to get a clearer view of obstacles ahead that might be obscured by the truck’s big hood. When activated via the instrument-cluster menus at speeds below 15 mph, the camera transmits images to the F-150’s…

Once the Toyota/Subaru deal was sealed, engineers from both automakers made sure to agree on basic expectations. There weren’t many, but each was critical in crafting the coupe you see here. First, it had to be lightweight and fuel-efficient. Second, handling prowess, rather than all-out speed and horsepower, needed to be emphasized, with a low center of gravity. Third, there had to be enough room for four passengers and luggage space for a pair of golf bags. Engineering a mid-engine layout would negate the 2+2 seating requirement, while an AWD system would add weight and reduce fuel economy. A twin-clutch gearbox would also add unwanted mass, plus increase cost. According to Subaru’s engineers, a front-engine/rear-drive configuration with a boxer engine and a traditional gearbox duo was “ideal for [the BRZ’s]…

EVERY SO OFTEN, a car comes along that has people scrambling for their cameras to snag a shot of it; drivers slowing down to steal a longer look; and kids young and old rushing up to it in parking lots, peppering the driver with questions. The all-new 2012 Hyundai Veloster is one of those cars. It’s got that reverse halo effect going on. Reverse halo? Of course, Hyundai has the Equus, its range-topping, super-duper luxury sedan wearing a properly affixed halo. But with the Veloster, Hyundai has created a car designed to wear a reverse shiny ring, a unique, front-driver neatly situated between the new Accent and Elantra at the other end of the Hyundai spectrum. And from what we’ve seen so far, ordinary folks young and old are digging…

Today, America needs fresh leadership to lead us as a nation out of this economic crisis. Leadership must come not only from our political leaders but also from the average citizen. The exporting of American jobs is a trend that must be stopped and reversed. When I walk into my local hardware store, I typically find 85% of the goods for sale are manufactured 7,000 miles away. Recognizable American brands have been forced by shortsighted management and buyers at large national chains to build factories overseas just to save a lousy $.50 on a tape measure. To these ruthless buyers, it is all about the money. Rarely are product quality, the political system, human rights, animal rights and environmental costs to the planet considered, not to mention the cost to…

THE NEW VERANO shares its Delta platform with the Chevrolet Cruze and Volt, and more closely with the Opel/Vauxhall Astra. It’s not far short of the Buick Regal and easily could have been a tarted-up, badge-engineered Cruze. But it dodges any overlap, and has even inspired a Chrysler brand version of Dodge’s upcoming Fiat-based Caliber replacement. The Buick’s most obvious distinction—its base engine—is the noisy weak link. The car launches only with a base 2.4-liter as Chevrolet prepares GM’s all-new 2.5-liter four, making about 10 more horses, for the 2013 Malibu. It’s just another case of bad GM timing, of an excellent new Buick launching with the wrong engine. Buick eventually will replace the 2.4 in the Verano with the 2.5, but not before the ’13 model year. Buick has…

IT’S TOUGH to resist the allure of a good European sport sedan, especially one as attractive as the 2012 Volvo S60. I mean, if this beauty showed up at your garage one evening, could you turn her away? I couldn’t either, opting instead to start a whirlwind 12-month affair with one of the best-looking bodies to be conceived in Sweden in a long while (even if she was born in Belgium). The S60 that landed in my driveway is no floozy, either. She’s a well-dressed machine with a heart to match her looks. Sure, she’s packing a 3.0-liter six-cylinder engine with a twin-scroll turbocharger and variable valve timing, good for 300 hp and 325 lb-ft of torque. But she doesn’t let it go to her head: A six-speed automatic transmission…

THE CAYENNE is a great way to see America. Though the seats are firm, you ride high, wide, and handsome, allowing for excellent views of epic landscapes, and when you venture onto the dirt, the Porsche quickly transforms from a buttoned-down road-runner to a relaxed trail cruiser. Simply set the air suspension to comfort mode, and adjust the ride height. We recently dialed up the full 10.5 inches of available ground clearance to negotiate some frozen, rutted snow 9000 feet up Hell’s Backbone Road in southern Utah, and 30 minutes later we were running hard through the twisties on Route 12 toward Bryce Canyon with the shocks in sport mode and the Cayenne riding low and flat over its 20-inch wheels. Better yet, the 5200-pound Porsche averaged a fraction under…

THERE IS a direct connection between this Subaru FF-I (Subaru’s first FWD car and first with a boxer engine), seen racing in a 1970s Baja event, and the BRZ STI concept on our cover. That connection is rally racing. Jack Coyle, who owned a Subaru dealership in San Bernardino, California, built a rallying Subaru FF-1 with help from his friends Koji Takaishi and Noriyuki Koseki. Initially, the car was raced by “Pete” Petrowski, a salesman at the dealership, along with Coyle’s son, Fred, and Everett S. “Judge” Penick. The team first drove this car in the Baja 500 in 1971, when rally cars were still quite competitive. The following year, Koseki entered the Baja 500 in a newer Subaru GL Coupe that had been built for rallies in Japan. Petrowski…