Innehållsförteckning för March 1982 från MotorTrend

Aerodynamics isn’t just for the birds. It affects everything that moves through the atmosphere. The better the shape, the better the performance. And, the better the efficiency. Especially true for the 1982 Scirocco. Using a wind tunnel, VW fine-tuned their sportscar’s outline to slice through the most formidable headwinds with greater ease. Its 1.7-1 iter fuel-injected engine rips from 0 to 50 in 8.5 fleet seconds. In the process, VW reduced front-end lift by 30%. And increased rear-end road huggability (with VW’s patented spoiler) a whopping 60%. So the front-wheel drive Scirocco now has greater stability on open roads and surer handling to weave through tight curves. Forward visibility has been improved with a lower nose and a more sharply raked windshield. And you can see more of what you…

SCOOP: ALL THE POOP ON FIAT’S UNO! Code-named the Uno, this prototype of Fiat’s upcoming replacement for the 127 slips into the Italian auto maker’s model lineup between the Panda and the Ritmo (Strada in the U.S.). As the photo shows, the Uno is a contemporary design in the same style as Honda’s recently introduced City (February ’82) or BL’s Mini Metro. The car has a long wheelbase for its overall length, allowing an extremely large passenger envelope. The hood slopes away at a severe angle, improving aerodynamics and affording a clear view of the highway. Overall, the Uno owes more of its appearance to the wind tunnel at Centro Ricerche Fiat than any of the firm’s previous products to date. The Uno will be offered with a variety of…

The X1 Rabbits were never meant to become cult cars. Kamei, a German automotive aftermarket firm, simply wanted to dust the cobwebs off the appearance of mass-produced cars by showing what could be done with spoilers and flares. But the idea took off. “We used the Rabbit as our base because it’s the most popular with our customizers in Germany,” says Detlef Schadel, Kamei’s export manager. “They [the XI Rabbits] were designed to be show cars for our agents around the world, but the public response has been overwhelming.” Each of the X1 vehicles—four sedans and two convertibles—is fitted with a deep bib spoiler, revised radiator grille, and scoop-type headlight surrounds that combine to give the docile Rabbit snout a distinctly carnivorous look. A brace of air intakes sits on…

If you’ve seen one J-car, or two, or even three, you haven’t seen ’em all, because this month, two more join the family: the Olds Firenza (see story on page 60) and the Buick Skyhawk, each with its own approach to the concept of a 2500-lb., 5-passenger front-drive compact car. Because they are the last two to hit the showrooms, both benefit from the production experiences and running changes of the Chevrolet Cavalier, Pontiac J2000, and Cadillac Cimarron families while bringing some new ideas and equipment into the family fold. At the same time, each division gets a new fuel economy leader and a healthy jolt to its corporate average fuel economy numbers for the balance of the ’82 model year. The Skyhawk, taking its name from the late, unlamented…

Science marches on. At 45 mph. Coast-to-coast, combusting such weird and exotic potions as peanut oil, corn likker, hardwood cords, Snickers bars, cherry pits, shrimp shells, cacao bean hulls, mint sludge, cooking oil, biomass (a nice word for you-know-what), methanol, ethanol, and who knows what other brands of goofball elixirs designed to make the OPEC mullahs go face down on their prayer rugs. We of course speak of the unforgettable “Future Fuels Challenge Rally,” which recently meandered, amidst considerable steaming and wheezing by vehicles and entrants alike, from Los Angeles to New York, leaving in its wake noxious odors and several dozen thoroughly confused spectators. Your humble correspondent, after a life of profligacy on the highways, was introduced to his first economy run thanks to the invitation of the folks…

Turbocharging has been widely proclaimed as the panacea for the ills of the post-energy-crisis performance car. With an exhaust-driven supercharger, it has been argued, a 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine can be coaxed into behaving like a 2.8-liter six. Naturally, this kind of magic has made turbocharging a successful engineering and marketing tool, one that’s added years to the production life of more than a couple of cars. So with all the emphasis placed on this trendy horsepower source, it seems very strange that the BMW 745i, the Munich-based company’s only production Turbocar, carries neither “Turbo” badge nor Babylonian prayer disc mag wheels to identify it as an exhaust-boosted vehicle. The 745i is BMW’s top of the line offering—what you call your serious sedan, designed to take Herr Karlheinz from his house…

Creating the 200SX’s speaker satellite was a considerable challenge, even for professional installers. It had to be cosmetically right, easy to remove, and able to house a half-dozen speakers in four separate compartments. The basic box was constructed from ½-in. plywood. Its form-fitting fiberglass back was cleverly fabricated by molding it directly from the 200SX’s plastic rear trim panel, which had been covered with several layers of masking tape. The wiring harness was routed out the center of the back, and fitted with a pair of foolproof male/female quick disconnects. Each section was silicone-sealed, insulation was added, and the speakers were wired and mounted using self-tapping wood screws. The speaker bezel was made from ¾ -in. particle board. Required recesses were routed out, and the new surfaces covered with a…

Lush valleys lie amid Northern California’s coastal mountains. This cool and sunny region produces some truly exquisite wines, and its rolling terrain has capricious wiggles of pavement to satisfy a thirst for driving thrills. John Butler is a local resident who appreciates both attributes of the area. And his automotive requirements led to a car we appreciate as a fine example of the Adult Toys concept. Butler needed a 40-mpg econobox for his commute to work and frequent sojourns south to San Francisco and Los Angeles. But he also wanted to enjoy fast Sunday excursions over the winding foothill roads that connect the wineries’ tasting rooms. His answer was a modern, small-sized efficiency car with toned-up muscles and quickened responses. A garden-variety 1978 Honda Civic provided Butler with his starting…

THE “CAR BOOK” LIVES-SANS NHTSA OKAY Since all of the great volumes of print cranked out by the federal government are public domain and not copyrighted, it is not unusual for enterprising—if not entirely scrupulous—publishers to reprint for profit the best of this material. It was no great surprise, then, that when one of the Fed’s most popular consumer booklets, “The Car Book,” was discontinued by the Reagan administration, it was guickly reprinted privately. Nor was it surprising that the publisher in this case should turn out to be a leftover loyalist of Joan Claybrook, who championed the original “Car Book.” “I would have much preferred to accomplish this task as a member of NHTSA,” said John Gillis, who resigned his $40,000-a-year job as a marketing expert with NHTSA the…

Throughout the course of automotive history the racetrack has been the midwife of automotive legends. There are, of course, a few notable exceptions, the most significant of which pertains to the world’s most revered marque—Rolls-Royce. This grandest of automotive endeavors ascribes its reputation not to feats of performance, but to its founders’ passion for supreme quality. The original goal was to simply build the best car in the world, and this effort struck with such resounding success that mere ownership of a Rolls confers an air of unmitigated quality upon the person behind the wheel (or behind the chauffeur, as the case may be). Considering the personalities and backgrounds of the Honorable Charles Stewart Rolls and Frederick Henry Royce, the company might more appropriately have been called Rogue-Rough. Rolls, the…

LINCOLN MARK VII Contributing artist Duane Kuchar risked life and limb recently to sneak into Ford’s Dearborn design studios, and returned to L.A. with this sketch of the 1984 Lincoln Mark VII. Designed to be a sister car to the new Thunderbird (which debuts a year sooner), the Mark VII is actually slightly larger than the ‘Bird and uses its own specific L-car platform with MacPherson strut front suspension and 4-link rear suspension with electronic level control. This sportiest Mark yet will be the first car to use the German import Steyr-BMW diesel engine in injected and turbocharged form. A 3.5-liter inline six and two other powerplants are possible. The Mark may use the current 302-cu.-in. V-8 with electronic fuel injection for its introductory year, but the 3.8-liter Essex V-6,…

It wasn’t all that long ago when a comparison between any Pontiac and any Datsun would have been a classic confrontation between an apple and an orange. Beyond the basic commonality of iron, steel, glass, and rubber, there was little else to compare in size, price, performance, and accommodation. But markets have a way of changing, and things have now changed to the point where a Datsun Maxima and a Pontiac Bonneville can compete for the very large middle ground of the American market. Pontiac and Datsun have been sneaking up on autodom’s middle ground from opposite ends of the playing field for about five years now. For some time, Datsun had nothing larger than the 510 to sell in this country and did quite well with it until the…

Any time now, Pontiac and Buick will. be offering a new imported overhead cam engine as an option in J2000 and Skyhawk J-cars, respectively, with either 5-speed manual or automatic transaxles. The high-technology 1.8-liter cammer engine is called the Opel Family Two engine and is already used in Opel Manta, Ascona, and Kadett models in Germany, Vauxhall Cavalier and Astra models in the U.K. (in 1.6-liter form), and will be used in Australian Holden products as well as the GM do Brasil Opala J-car. It’s currently manufactured in Kaiserslautern, Germany; San Jose Campos, Brazil; and Fisherman’s Hook, Australia, though U.S. versions will be sourced from the Brazilian plant. The Family Two engine is as versatile as the GM worldwide J-car program itself. It will eventually be built in 1.6, 1.8,…

Subarus remind us a lot of sensible shoes. They’re about as glamorous as turnips, but the people who buy them aren’t thinking high profile. They’re thinking long, unobtrusive, reliable service, the kind of basic transportation virtues that also helped make the Toyota Corolla the best selling car in the world. You recognize the ethic here, of course. It’s the automobile as appliance, and Subaru of America—the only American-owned automotive importer—has made a solid living with this car’s schoolteacherish image over the years. Subaru currently stands fifth in the import derby, trailing Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Mazda, but leading all the Europeans, from Volvo right on down the list. As automotive appliances go, Subaru makes interesting ones—horizontally op-posed engines, front-wheel drive, pickup trucks that can go almost anywhere, and the only…

Last August, Fred Gregory took you through the procedures involved in transforming a Honda Civic into Motor Trend’s rolling sound stage. With the assistance of the experts at Jonas Miller Sound and Audiomobile, Fred was able to turn his modest little station wagon into a chamber of delights for aural fetishists. But even the multifaceted Dr. Gregory freely admits that his task was made appreciably easier with inside help. So what about the average guy who faces doing the entire job himself? How successful can he expect to be in a similar situation? During the buildup of our Datsun 200SX project car, we watched as Ian Burnett and Jim Thomson of Installations Unlimited (2920 W. Sepulveda Blvd., Torrance, CA 90505) added a complete Alpine sound system to the vehicle. Their…

1-Alpine 7307 AM/FM/cassette deck 1-Alpine 301 15-band equalizer 2-Alpine 3002 65 + 65-watt power amps 4-Alpine 6202 4-in. tweeter/mid-range speakers 4-Alpine 6204 6-in. woofers 2-Alpine 4002 extension cords The biamped system has four 4-ohm tweeter/mid-ranges wired in series on the right-side amplifier and four 8-ohm woofers connected in series, one pair for each channel of the leftside amplifier. A tweeter/mid-range unit is carried in each of the standard 200SX doormount locations. The rear satellite contains the remaining speakers. Amplifiers are mounted…

Throughout the course of automotive history the racetrack has been the midwife of automotive legends. There are, of course, a few notable exceptions, the most significant of which pertains to the world’s most revered marque—Rolls-Royce. This grandest of automotive endeavors ascribes its reputation not to feats of performance, but to its founders’ passion for supreme quality. The original goal was to simply build the best car in the world, and this effort struck with such resounding success that mere ownership of a Rolls confers an air of unmitigated quality upon the person behind the wheel (or behind the chauffeur, as the case may be). Considering the personalities and backgrounds of the Honorable Charles Stewart Rolls and Frederick Henry Royce, the company might more appropriately have been called Rogue-Rough. Rolls, the…

The left side of your brain, recent investigations tell us, is the logical side. It figures out that 1 + 1 = 2. And, in a few cases, that E = mc2. On a more mundane level, it chooses the socks you wear, the cereal you eat, and the car you drive. All by means of rigorous Aristotelian logic. However, and a big however it is, for real satisfaction, you must achieve harmony with the other side of your brain. The right side, the poetic side, that says, “Yeah, Car X has a reputation for lasting a long time but it’s so dull, who’d want to drive it that long anyway?” The Saab Turbo looked at from all sides. To the left side of your brain, Saab turbocharging is a…

Beneath the sleek, highly distinctive styling of GM’s newest family of front-drive cars is a world of automotive technology that was practically nonexistent only a lew yeais ago. It is the General Motors world of robotics, where computer-controlled automatons with laser eyes measure door, window and other body openings to help provide precise fit. It is a world where gamma rays have been harnessed to inspect parts concealed behind solid body steel. And it is a world where the latest generation of robots weld body components into strong unitized structures that meet precision tolerances. Now while all this sounds a bit like science fiction, the purpose in using this technology is much more down to earth. It is to help us continually improve the quality and value of your General…

We seriously doubt that this handsome critter will ever find itself late for any important dates. It was built as a showpiece/R&D vehicle by Automotive Performance Systems (APS), Inc. (620 S. Flower St., Burbank, CA 91502; (213) 841-3911), a respected purveyor of aftermarket performance parts for imported cars. This little white wonder packs its own kind of lightning quick rabbit punch—one that’s guaranteed to kayo unsuspecting boulevard bullies. The prime motivating factor behind the car’s new-found Sturm und Drang is a 2.0-liter version of the basic VW four that has been fitted with the Oettinger 16-valve double overhead cam cylinder head first showcased in MT’s September ’81 issue. The engine is identical to the one found in Herr Oettinger’s own extensively modified Golf GTI, which APS proprietor Bill Neumann was…

You won’t hear anyone from Oldsmobile calling that division’s version of the GM J-car by its generic name, but scratch a Firenza and you’ll find a J-car lurking not very far below the surface. Like Buick, Olds is tiptoeing around the J-car identity—not surprising, considering the tepid public response to the initial round of Js offered last year: Chevy Cavalier, Pontiac J2000, and Cadillac Cimarron. The idea is to establish Firenza as a strictly Olds compact, not a re-cosmetized copy of a by-now familiar theme. However, there’s no hiding that 101.2-in. wheelbase, front-wheel-drive layout, and basic body shape. In fact, when you get past the various trim distinctions, there’s really only one piece of fresh engineering unique to this particular J. While plastic front and rear fascias—and even fenders—have become…

When Volkswagen came out with the Golf GTI five years ago few competitors believed in the success of this little 113-mph 2-door sedan. But as Golf GTI sales approach the 100,000 mark, it’s plain that this car has given Volkswagen a good lead over all its competitors. Renault was the first company to react, producing the Alpine R5 four years ago, but it was not a great success as it was no match for the GTI. Then Ford came out last year with the Escort XR3, a truly enjoyable car with many fine features. But again, the overall performance did not quite match that of the GTI. Although the XR3 rates as a success, it did not give its buyers what they really wanted, which is why Ford was forced…

Wiring is perhaps the most critical aspect of any car stereo installation. Preliminary work revolves around two basic areas. The first is the mechanical exercise involved in drawing up a wiring schematic. The second is the selection of the proper size and type of wire for each application. Generally, it’s best to choose the largest-diameter wire possible. This will help prevent unwanted heat buildup or burnouts, and make life easier for the system as a whole. While specifics vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and from component to component, most installers recommend that a high quality 8-12-gauge wire be used for leads that run from the amplifiers to the battery. A 12-14-gauge wire usually works best for connecting various audio components to the amp, and a 16-18-gauge wire is generally chosen…

The late William Fisk Harrah assembled the largest car collection in the world, drove faster and more competitively on the public roads than a speeding bullet, and probably knew more about automobiles than the curator of the Detroit Public Library. What’s more, he set a style and a tone for generations of car enthusiasts. How did such a man become addicted to the automobile? Why, given his mania for speed, did he never enter racing with the same energy and craze for perfection that he brought to everything else? In this section from a chapter entitled “Rounder Reformed,” Motor Trend’s Leon Mandel offers insights into the Harrah automotive character. —Ed. Harrah’s early car exploits in Nevada are submerged in tales of his drinking and general carousing. Only when he sobered…

No one likes to be told what to do, especially by some mysterious mechanical contrivance. But we all admit some things are better done by machine than man, and that can include making certain decisions. A fast-thinking electronic brain tied into the mechanical viscera of an automobile can be an invaluable aid to the human component in the driver’s seat. Not too many decades back, mixture and spark advance controls routinely sprouted from steering columns. Today, mercifully, microprocessors handle that fiddling—and do so better and faster than flesh and blood ever could. So there is some historical precedent for a device like Volkswagen’s Upshift Indicator, or “E” (for Economy) light. But this particular system is an automotive first, and part of its charm is that it doesn’t actively do anything.…

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IMS A RS Series: Front-drive arrives During its first decade, the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) has earned a reputation for being an innovative sanctioning body. This season, IMSA has made yet another decisive move. John Bishop and associates have placed their Champion Spark Plug-sponsored Racing Sedan series on a solid footing for the future by ruling that henceforth it shall be the province of compact and subcompact front-wheel-drive cars powered by small displacement 4-cylinder engines. IMSA has adopted a number of significant rule changes to reinforce that decision. The single most telling dictum stipulates that, while any individual can still win the RS driving title, only the new front-drive cars—dubbed ProFormance machines—are eligible to score points toward the manufacturers crown. All the mechanical changes mandated for 1982 have been…