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Payne: The comical, drivable Fiat Abarth
Posted by hpayne on June 7, 2015
As a wee motorhead cartoonist growing up in the 1970s, my favorite cartoon was not “Peanuts” or “Dennis the Menace” or “Beetle Bailey,” it was Road & Track’s “Cyclops.” Cartoonist Stan Mott’s brilliant, single-headlight, tin can creation (look it up) went into battle against the titans of Porsche, Ferrari, and Lotus at LeMans and Indy and gave me hours of grins. Run by the mercurial, fictional, Italian madman Piero Martini, Cyclops (powered by a 30cc engine running on olive oil) was the ultimate auto underdog.
Meet the Fiat 500 Abarth, the modern-day Cyclops.
The descendent of race cars conceived by mad, Italian genius Carlo Abarth, the Abarth (pronounced “Ah, Bart”) is a Fiat 500 on steroids. A real-life cartoon car. Complete with trademark scorpion badge (Scorpio was Carlo’s astrological sign), the turbocharged, 1.4-liter Abarth adds sting to the cute-but-molasses-slow 500 line. Abarth is the mouse that roared.
Turn the key and the little dumpling’s sport exhaust awakens with a growl. It makes you jump like the dog that explodes in a barking fit when you ring a stranger’s doorbell (then you notice it’s a Pekingese).
Abarth’s bark is worse than its bite. Behind the growl is the same 157-horsepower, 4-banger that inhabits the base Fiat 500X SUV. Sprightly, but hardly top drawer in a class that includes the 189-horsepower Mini Cooper S or Ford’s spicy tamale – the 197-horse, 1.6-liter turbo Fiesta.
Despite its raft of scorpion logos, Abarth won’t sting if stepped on. Stomp the accelerator pedal and the front wheels betray none of the torque steer prevalent on the Ford.
Though not as tight as class-pet Mini, I love the superb, tossable handling. The little ankle-biter’s bulbous shape seems to defy physics. For all its sporty touches – red stripes, scorpions – the Fiat looks like a toy that someone blew up in their garage. It’s as round as a newborn with wide-eyed headlights and a puckered mouth that looks like it should be sucking on a binky.
But this is a bambino with chin stubble. To feed the hungry turbo within, Abarth comes with a bigger air scoop around the front than its normally-aspirated, sibling 500.
Round back the taillights are round, natch. Door handles too. The door-mounted mirrors are blood red. Nice touch. Bright red calipers brake the rotors. Jam them and the little car skitters like a terrier on a kitchen floor.
The ovum theme continues inside where everything is round except the flat-bottom steering wheel (which should be round). The tach. The switches. The temperature dials. Volume controls (though pressed, not turned – weird). A turbo pressure monitor is round. And, new for 2015, an automatic shifter sticks out of a round bowl in the center console like you’re stirring a pasta dinner.
From the 500X ute to the auto Abarth, Fiat is keen about expanding its customer base in the US after a slow start. Authentic, manual-shifting Italian performance is great in theory – until you realize Americans are stick illiterate. “Accessible performance has always been a hallmark of the Abarth name,” said Fiat North American Brand Chief Jason Stoicevich, “Now, with the addition of an optional automatic transmission, an entirely new group of customers is able to experience the thrill.”
Automatic, but with an Italian manual accent. In addition to DRIVE you can move the lever to the southwest corner of the mixing bowl for SPORT. Toggle down for upshifts, up for downshifts. Upshifts are accompanied by a loud BLAAAAT – downshifts by rev matching usually associated with high dollar sports cars.
This kid has more attitude Baby Herman in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”
I prefer the manual tranny nevertheless. Nail the throttle and the auto-driven engine will bump its head on the 6-grand redline – a delay not present in the manual. Still, the engine’s perkiness reminds of its potential in the 500X – which inexplicably comes only in an auto tranny. Can’t we all share?
Abarth is a subcompact so the cockpit space is narrow with a handbrake on the floor and armrests the size of pencils. You can smell what your passenger had for breakfast. The seats are cloth, stitched with Italian red. The backseats are small but – thanks to the hatch layout – provide decent headroom and cargo versatility if folded flat.
Load the little Abarth up – Mrs. Payne is thrilled that a subcompact has optional heated seats – and my auto Fiat stickers for $28, 295. That’s a lot of coin for a shoebox. But this is no ordinary shoebox.
It’s a rolling cartoon that’ll make you grin like a kid again.
2015 Fiat 500 Abarth
Vehicle type: Front-engine, front-wheel drive, 4-passenger hatchback
Price: $ ($28,295 as tested)
Power plant: 1.4-liter turbocharged inline-4 cylinder
Power: 157 horsepower, 183 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: 6-speed automatic or 6-speed manual
Performance: 0-60 mph, 6.9 seconds (Car & Driver)
Weight: 2,683 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 24 city/32 highway
Report card
Highs: A smile-a-minute; Raucous exhaust note
Lows: Gimme the stick; Underpowered in class
Overall:★★★
Payne: New Miata’s old-fashioned fun
Posted by hpayne on June 4, 2015
It’s the simple things in life. The things you’ve always known. A Coca-Cola when you’re thirsty. A Snickers when you’re hungry. A Mazda MX-5 Miata when you crave sporty fun.
But staying simple isn’t simple.
In a changing world, there are always new pleasures. New tastes. Snickers? Why not a Kind fruit & nut bar? Sun-Maid raisins? A Pepperidge Farm Sausalito cookie (oh, I’m a sucker for those). The simple pleasures have to stay hip even as they can’t lose the recipe that made them must-haves in the first place. A tricky balance easily mangled. Take New Coke, the mother of all cautionary tales.
I cringe whenever a classic remakes the formula. Ford blew it with the Mustang II in 1974. Nailed it with the 2015. Now the 25-year-old MX-5 Miata — America’s sporty sweetheart — has arrived at its crossroads moment. Mazda has tapped out its Lotus Elan-throwback design about the same time it’s tapped out a boomer generation that still remembers what the heck a Lotus Elan looks like. The last MX-5 looked tired. Time to update the roadster for a new generation of motor heads and make it look like family (happily, Mazda’s current Kodo design is widely admired, unlike the jack o’ lantern face of the last generation).
But as it modernized Miata’s look, Mazda smartly stayed true to the badge’s lightweight roots. The Los Angeles design office could have gone all Hollywood with its makeover. More technical gee-whiz. Lustier exhaust note. Bigger front splitter. Instead, it kept it simple. The result is a Miata with the face of a Mazda and the spirit of a British sports car.
The verdict? Mazda hit the bulls-eye.
I got a hold of the 2016 MX-5 one fair day this May. When spring finally arrives in Michigan, muscle cars head to Woodward, sports cars go to Hell. Literally. To test the Miata’s capabilities I took the little roller-skate straight to the curvaceous county roads that surround the 266-population burg in southern Livingston County. Blind jumps, 90-degree right-handers, swift switchbacks. Hell’s roads are heaven.
Last July I drove a 2015 Miata GT over northern Michigan’s similar Route 66. The new gen is immediately familiar: tight, nimble, throwable. Once again, the roadster comes in three trims — base Sport, sporty Club, luxury GT — with the manual, $32,950 Club model I drove boasting similar grunt as the outgoing, automatic, 158-horse GT. Wallet alert: The new Miata is a $1,000 more expensive, and — properly equipped — should be thought of as a 30 grand car.
Every Miata I drive is like reconnecting with my first, wee sports car flame. Yet as we age, we gearheads feel compelled to want more and more power. Like the proverbial fish story, we sit on the porch and tell tales of bigger and bigger horsepower conquests. The latest 6.2-liter, 650-horsepower Corvette Z06, for example. A snarling, tornado of a car that demands all of GM’s massive Milford Proving Grounds to demonstrate its power.
The Miata doesn’t need a big canvas to strut its stuff. For the MX-5, Hell’s Glenbrook Road will do.
Even as the little, 155-horse firecracker loses 3 horsepower to the outgoing auto-driven engine — and 12 to the manual — the addition of direct-injection and subtraction of 150 pounds means the new car is peppier. Indeed, the boys at Car & Driver clocked it a full second quicker zero-60.
A driver’s car, the ’16 MX-5 has been engineered for greater pilot comfort. That means that, though the car’s length has actually shrunk by 2 inches, the cockpit has grown. Driver seating has been moved inboard for better visibility which is further enhanced by a 1-inch lower front hood. And the steering wheel and pedals have been raised to increase leg and foot space. A windscreen-mounted, aluminum piece stiffens the roof reducing wind noise by 40 percent.
Every little bit counts when you’re 6-foot-5-inches of elbows and size-15 loafers, I suppose, but I still need a shoe-horn to get into this little slipper.
The advantage of such close quarters is I can reach back and secure the soft top as easily as pulling a blanket over my head. Grab the shifter in the old Miata and — D’oh!Cup holders behind the shifter compromised box rowing. The new pup pushes clip-on holders out of the way to the firewall — which also opens the option (when passenger isn’t present) of moving a cup holder to a passenger side clip. Clever.
I enjoy all this even as I still prefer Miata’s competition, the Scion FR-S.
“The MX-5 has always been about the fun factor, not the numbers,” says Miata Development Engineer Dave Coleman. Which is another way of acknowledging the stiffer Scion is quicker in just about every metric. Better grip, better top end, better raw athleticism.
But I appreciate Mazda’s candor. They have purposely made the Miata softer and cuter because it is not a hardcore boy toy like the Scion, but a put-the-top-down, hit-the-open-road, bring-a-little-Heaven-to-Hell can of ZOOM! ZOOM! that attracts as many female fans as male.
It’s a formula that helped recapture a passion for pure driving fun and made Miata an affordable sports-car icon. For a quarter century it has seen competitors — Porsche 944, Pontiac Fiero, Toyota MR2, Saturn Sky — come and go. And as good as the Scion and its Subaru BR-Z twin are, the Miata is likely to outlast them too. Why? Because Mazda is essential to the Mazda brand. Despite annual sales numbers between 5,000 (2014) and 17,000 (2006), Mazda continues to pour millions into every generation of Miata.
Is the wicked-fast FR-S essential to a Toyota youth brand? Will the BR-Z last as the only rear-wheel-driver in a an AWD Subaru stable?
How did a Japanese company successfully launch a British retro sports car to American buyers? By making it a brand priority. “There’s a little bit of Miata in every car we make,” says spokesman Tom McDonald. At Mazda Raceway outside Monterey, California, weekend racers learn to drive on Miatas. SCCA racers enter Miatas more than any other car. Heck, engineer Coleman races his Miata in 24-hour endurance races.
The MX-5 isn’t a fad, it’s a fixture. An affordable, efficient, fun way to enjoy life’s simple pleasures. Once upon a time, motor heads bought a Miata to replace the dying English sports car in their driveway. Today, motor heads will flock to the Generation 4 Miata to replace the aging Gen 1 Miata in their garage.
Vehicle type: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, two-passenger sports car
Price: $25,735 base ($32,950 as tested)
Power plant: 2.0-liter, dual overhead-cam 4-cylinder
Power: 155 horsepower, 148 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Performance: 0-60 mph, 5.9 seconds (Car & Driver)
Weight: 2,332 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 27 mpg city/34 mpg highway/29.8 mpg under Payne’s lead foot
Report card
Highs: Distinctive new styling; simple-as-pie soft-top operation
Lows: Not for tall guys; you’re a sports car, growl a little
Overall:★★★★
Payne Q&Auto: How Honda got its mojo back
Posted by hpayne on May 30, 2015
This year Honda General Manager Jeff Conrad and his team are introducing reliable, new Honda Pilot and HR-V sport utes. Ho-hum. Sure, we Americans admire .350 batters. But we loooove .350 batters that hit with power.
And for much of its existence, Honda was synonymous with power.
A 1967 RA300 Honda Formula One car won its first race at the Italian Grand Prix. Jaws dropped when Honda’s mid-engine, aluminum-chassis Acura NSX supercar debuted in 1991. The 1999 Honda S2000 was the first-ever 9,000 RPM road car, producing an astonishing 240 ponies with just 2-liters. And the 2006 200-hp Civic SI in my driveway was one of its generation’s hottest hot hatches.
But recently, as ol’ reliable Honda ruled the retail sales floor with appliances like the Accord, Civic, CR-V, and Odyssey minivan, muscular Honda got locked in the basement. Honda withdrew from F1, ditched the NSX and S2, neglected its hot hatch.
Good news, kids. Honda’s got its mojo back.
With the unveiling of the 2016 OMG NSX at the Detroit Auto Show, Honda has launched a performance blitz that includes an F1 return and the insane, 300-plus horsepower Civic Type R (an SI pocket rocket on ‘roids). At Pilot’s unveiling in Cincinnati this April, I sat down with Conrad, a 33-year Honda veteran, to talk power, pioneers, and 1995 T-top NSXs.
Q: Is sporty Honda back?
Conrad: I don’t think it ever really went away. We went through a few tough years with the (Japanese) tsunami and flooding in Thailand. We had to make sure we took care of our core vehicles, but performance is part of Honda’s DNA. If you think back to our racing over the years a lot of our engineers cut their teeth (in) our F1 program. That spirit is always with Honda, and you’re seeing that with cars that are coming out – we have a new Civic which is the most aggressive that we’ve ever made. It’s a huge redesign and . . . will be in an expanded number of body styles with the sedan, coupe, five-door, SI, and ultimately the Type R.
Q: It’s not just production muscle, you guys are back in F1, too.
Conrad: We dominated F1 from 1985 until 1989. Got out for a few years . . . and just got back in. We’re happy with the way things are going. Takes time to get your sea legs. We have always been active in Champ car, now IndyCar.
Q: Is the step up in production performance coordinated with the racing? Win on Sunday, sell on Monday?
Conrad: It’s coordinated from the point of view that we know that sports-oriented cars build excitement among enthusiasts and enthusiasts influence other people. Everybody loves performance. You may not buy that particular high-performance vehicle, but everyone wants a little bit of performance in their vehicle.
Q: Honda doesn’t just “get” the U.S. consumer, it’s been a pioneer in U.S. segments like compact SUVs. Now you’re a pioneer again with the subcompact HR-V. How does a Japanese company understand American customers so well?
Conrad: You hit on it when you say “customer.” Lots of people talk about engineering things around the customer, some people give it lip service. We don’t. Everything we do is built around the customer. We do our research. We listen to the research. We try and build what they want.
Q: Unlike its stable mates, Pilot sales have lagged its segment. How does it catch up?
Conrad: Two things. 1) It’s a very competitive segment. Everyone wants to be a major player in it. We have had some very big years with Pilot sales and we are targeting the 2016 Pilot to be #1 in retail sales. 2) We’re not going to get there overnight –we don’t have the (production) capacity.
Q: What defines Pilot?
Conrad: Modern styling, a high degree of sophistication, every piece of technology (customers) would want in a vehicle. Better fuel efficiency, improved handling . . . it’s the entire package wrapped up in a price point that our customer is going to find attractive.
Q: You’re into motorcycles. Still got a bike in your garage?
Conrad: I no longer have a motorcycle. My wife had something to say about that . . . but I do have my eye on a low mileage, 1995 Acura NSX. The ’95 was the first year (the NSX) got a bump in horsepower and the removable T-top. I like to feel the rush of wind going through my hair (laughs – because he is bald as a basketball).
Payne: Explorer and Pilot slug it out
Posted by hpayne on May 28, 2015
It’s lonely at the top, they say. Well, they haven’t been to the summit of the midsize sport utility segment.
The three-row, family-hauler space is as bitterly contested as a juniors soccer league. After dominating the segment it invented in 1991, Ford’s Explorer had grown fat and complacent by the turn of the century. Catching the lumbering veteran off guard, Honda’s Pilot — one of the first mid-SUVs to sport a car-like unibody — blew by into first place. Game on.
Explorer reinvented itself to claw back to the top of Hamburger Hill in 2011. The unibody Ford also introduced a dizzying array of tech and functional innovation: Versatile, three-way, third-row backseats, collapsing second-row seats, high-tech MyFordTouch infotainment.
Midsize frontier rediscovered. Explorer, indeed.
Now Honda is back with its best Pilot yet. Yet its extreme makeover is a reminder of just how good the Ford is. And with its own, mid-cycle refresh this year, the Explorer is hardly standing still. Good grief, don’t these all-stars ever get tired?
What’s better? Who’s stronger? Like a referee in a soccer scrum, I waded into this battle to see. Pilots vs. Explorers. Bring it on.
Ford Utility Marketing Manager Craig Paterson is known inside his company as “Yoda” for his endless knowledge of the industry. Yet when Patterson tells me that 65 percent of Explorer buyers don’t have kids, I am incredulous. I mean, c’mon people. The Explorer is a family vehicle. Three rows of seats to fit kickballers and their pals. Four-wheel drive to get them to the game. Command seating so Mom and Dad can negotiate the field of battle.
If you are young without kids, why aren’t you cruising topless in a Mustang? If you’re an empty-nester, shouldn’t you be exploring the Outback in your Jeep Grand Cherokee?
But maybe that’s the charm of utes. They are hip beyond the wonder years. Drive a minivan and you’re tattooed for life. Drive a midsize crossover and you shed the mom label without throwing away third-row cargo flexibility. Moms like Mrs. Payne who drove our comely, AWD Chrysler Pacifica crossover well after our rug rats had moved on.
With their chiseled exteriors and AWD capability, midsize utes like the Explorer, Chevy Traverse, and Toyota Highlander swagger with style. Honda’s homely, boxy Pilot had some catching up to do.
With the ’16 model, Pilot has car-like curves to go with its car-like chassis. Its exterior gains the sharp, forward look of little brothers CR-V and HR-V with tapered windows and a bold, three-bar front end right out of the, um, Explorer’s playbook.
But where the Honda catches up, the ’16 Explorer stands out as a segment icon.
Endowed with its trademark flying buttress c-pillar and sculpted shape, Explorer’s face nonetheless looked puffy, swollen. Like it had just driven through a swarm of bees. The new look is leaner with less calogen in the lips. New corner fog lamps echo the “c-clamp” headlights on the Ford F-150 pickup. Advantage, Explorer.
Americans live in their cars — midsize utes in particular. They’re family. Like the family dog, they have names — Explorer, Pilot, Pathfinder — rather than cold, alphanumeric badges like the Brother MFC-J5620DW printer sitting on my desk.
Their interiors fit like home. Explorer and Pilot are particularly distinguished.
No one can touch the Explorer’s rear-end versatility. This baby’s got back. It’s Swiss Army Knife third-row seats fold forward, independently, flat — even backward as tailgate chairs. To access them Ford has added its trademark kick feature found on the Escape and Edge SUVs. Stagger up to the tailgate with a load of groceries in one arm and a screaming hellion in the other, kick under the bumper with a spare leg and —voila! — the rear hatch rises.
While Pilot can’t match this show, its engineers have nonetheless invented a brilliant solution to the muddy cleat. Flip the floor aft of Row 3 to rubber-side up, and wee footballers can kick off their mud-crusted shoes, saving the seats from total annihilation.
Ford’s instrumentation remains a class leader. But from dash to moon roof, the Pilot has set a new standard for interior usability. Its console is no longer a dog’s breakfast of screens, shifter knobs and instrument stacks, but Ford-simple, with one touchscreen and a button shifter.
The sliding center console storage space is a Mom magnet. It’ll hold a handbag on top. Or within. Its slat-less construction won’t harbor crumbs.
Second-row captain’s chairs collapse forward with a single button mounted low so even Cindy Lou Who can reach it. Oh, and that third row! It fits adults and even gains sunlight thanks to a moon roof with its own sun shade, so even if the front passengers have been burned to a crisp, back-benchers can still worship the Sun god.
Ford’s excellent interior (its one-button trick buckles the second row seat like Rocky Balboa hitting Drago) feels dated only next to Honda’s Extreme Makeover. Advantage Honda.
But the Explorer’s real secret is under the hood where it offers three — count ’em, three — engine options: A base 3.5-liter V-6, 3.5-liter V-6 Turbo, and new-for-2016 2.3-liter turbo-4.
Pilot options? A 3.5-liter 6-cylinder. Honda being Honda (this is a company providing engines to both IndyCar and Formula 1), it dazzles with best-in-class V-6 fuel economy. But its choices come only in trannies: A 6- or 9-speed.
My Ford engine of choice is the turbo-4 — essentially the same engine that powers the Mustang. But whereas the four doesn’t quite fit a muscle car (ya gotta have a V-8) it’s a perfect fit for the ute.
This four-banger would make Europeans blush with its muscly 280 horses and 310 pound-feet of torque. It not only shames turbo fours found in, say, an Audi Q5, but also outpowers Ford’s traditional 3.5 six. What’s more, it is quieter than the six even at full throttle — a crucial advantage inside a cabin where Mom is on the hands-free phone with Dad at the same time she is hearing the details of Junior’s day from the backseat.
More? The turbo four rivals the Honda in fuel economy despite the Explorer’s considerable heft.
From a base price of $30,000 to premium packages upwards of $50K, the midsize Explorer and Pilot appeal to demographics well beyond the soccer mom. No wonder everyone wants to be at the top of the mountain. No wonder Explorer and Pilot are at the top of their game.
2016 Ford Explorer
Vehicle type: Front-engine, front or all-wheel drive, 7-passenger sport ute
Price: $31,595 (Base)-$53,495 (Platinum)
Power plant: 3.5-liter V-6; 2.3-liter, turbocharged inline-4 cylinder; 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V-6
Power: 290 horsepower, 255 pound-feet of torque (V-6); 280 horsepower, 310 pound-feet of torque (turbo 4-cyl); 365 horsepower, 350 pound-feet of torque (twin-turbo V-6)
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Performance: 0-60 mph, 5.9 (twin-turbo V-6) – 7.4 (V-6) seconds (Car & Driver)
Weight: 4,457 pounds (FWD) – 4,890 (AWD)
Fuel economy: EPA 16 city/23 highway (V-6); 18 city/26 highway (turbo 4-cyl); 16 city/22 highway (twin-turbo V-6)
Report card
Highs: Sculpted styling; Turbo-riffic
Lows: Porky
Overall:★★★★
2016 Honda Pilot
Vehicle type: Front-engine, front or all-wheel drive, 7 or 8-passenger sport ute
Price: $30,875 (Base) – $47,300 (Elite)
Power plant: 3.5-liter, direct-injection V-6
Power: 280 horsepower, 262 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: 6 or 9-speed auto
Performance: 0-60 mph, 6.2-6.6 seconds (Car & Driver est.)
Weight: 4,054 (2WD)-4,317 pounds (AWD)
Fuel economy: EPA 18 city/26 highway/21 combined (6-speed auto, AWD); 19 city/26 highway/22 combined (9-speed auto, AWD)
Report card
Highs: Innovative, roomy interior; Refined styling
Lows: Slow center screen; Another engine option, please?
Overall:★★★★
Payne: The auto is dead, long live the auto
Posted by hpayne on May 28, 2015
I’ve been knee-deep in Camaro-mania this month. On May 16, I drove a 2015 Z28 — the marque’s most capable cyborg ever — to Belle Isle to join 1,000 pony car owners from 38 states and Canada in baptizing Chevy’s latest blockbuster: The sixth-generation Camaro. The faithful crushing the stage around me roared when GM vice president Mark Reuss took the wraps off, calling it “wicked fast.” They gasped at its plush interior. Heck, if Reuss had auctioned the owner’s manual it would have fetched a king’s ransom.
This passion transcends Camaro. From the Dodge Challenger Hellcat to the Ford Focus ST to the Corvette Z06, Americans have never enjoyed so much auto performance. Forget the ’60s, Dodge CEO and Chief Motorhead Tim Kuniskis calls today “the Golden Era of the Muscle Car.”
How then, to square this rapture with the current media narrative that — to quote the New York Times’ Elizabeth Rosenthal — “America’s love affair with its vehicles seems to be cooling”?
From media to liberal academia to conservative P.J. O’Rourke, a consensus has hardened that we have reached “peak auto.” According to a pickup bed-load of statistics, the long trend of Americans driving more miles each year has stalled since 2007. We are telecommuting, sick of traffic, fearful of global warming, preoccupied with iPhones.
We are soooo over the automobile. Nonsense, I say.
But first, let’s give the statistics their due. Adjusted for U.S. population growth, the number of miles driven peaked in 2005 and has declined by 9 percent since, according to a study by investment research firm Advisor Perspectives. A recession-driven hiccup? University of Michigan professor Michael Sivak thinks not, citing demographic trends indicating a drop in driver licenses sought by 16-to-39-year-olds.
“Rates of car ownership per household … started to come down two to three years before the downturn,” Sivak told the Times. “I think that means something more fundamental is going on.”
Sivak’s research dovetails with sociologists’ observations of our brave, new digital world — and millennials in particular. You know the bullet points:
■ The Internet has enabled telecommuting.
■ Millennials would rather chat with friends online than cruise to Woodward and hang out.
■ Walkable inner cities are hip.
■ Smartphones are the new status symbol. Who needs cool wheels when an iPhone 6 says so much about you?
But these statistics are gnats on the windshield of America’s big, honking car culture.
In the 1900s, we were liberated by Henry Ford’s Model T. Historian Daniel J. Boorstin called the automobile the “great equalizer” of the 20th century because it enabled the poor man to travel where only rich men could go before. Post-WWII Detroit fed the imagination of an exploding middle class with affordable sports cars and chrome-caked sedans. The century’s end opened the floodgates to a world of cars from Hondas to BMWs to Volvos to Hyundais. Last year, Americans bought a near-record 16.94 million vehicles, the most since a recession so deep it bankrupted GM and Chrysler.
Americans have more choices of models — more than 130 — and many more nameplates. In the last four years, Fiats and Alfa Romeos have appeared in corner showrooms while America has birthed its first successful auto startup — Tesla — in decades.
Is the love affair over? The car permeates every corner of American culture affecting every age group.
Clubs for enthusiasts — Camaro, Dodge, Porsche, BMW, Viper and more — are nationwide. The Woodward Dream Cruise, just two decades old, attracts more than 1 million visitors a year. Car programs dominate cable TV. The Barrett-Jackson auction is practically its own channel.
Only football and baseball are more popular than NASCAR racing, according to Harris polling.
America is experiencing a racetrack building boom as love-struck Americans even want to spend weekends with their four-wheeled pets. Virginia International Raceway, Monticello in New York, Autobahn outside Chicago, Spring Mountain in Vegas and more have sprouted since the century’s turn.
Sure, the Dream Cruise is mostly populated by boomers trying to recapture their youth, but younger generations are also consuming all things auto. “Fast and Furious 7” — a car flick marketed to youth — just surpassed “Avatar” as the fastest movie to make $1 billion at the box office.
“Mad Max: Fury Road” — a two-hour orgasm of road thrills — has trumped box office receipts of the expected summer blockbuster, “The Avengers: Age of Ultron,” since its May 15 release. The Pixar kid-friendly “Cars” franchise has grossed nearly a half billion. My 20-something children share YouTube episodes of motorhead phenomenon “Top Gear,” the Guinness Book world record-holder for most-watched factual program.
The oracles of “peak auto” largely hail from the ivory towers of academia or coastal media journals where traffic is dreadful (see Los “Car-mageddon” Angeles) and Big Government elites have ulterior motives for the car’s demise.
Writing for TPM.com, Nona Willis Aronowitz embraces “peak auto” as just desserts for automakers who have sold America a sexist, climate-destroying “ball and chain.” The current rebound in sales, she says, is Detroit’s last gasp as “car companies are squeezing out what’s left of masculine paradigms, banking on our need to tap into a less complicated past.”
Reporting on the decline in miles traveled, Times reporter Rosenthal cheers that “it will have beneficial implications for carbon emissions and the environment.”
Such sentiments are echoed in Washington, D.C., which in 2009 mandated doubling fuel economy — a regulatory assault unseen since 1974 mpg laws that slowed ’60s-era muscle cars and affected a drop-off in miles driven.
That was too much for Libertarian author O’Rourke. “We’ve lost our love for cars,” he wrote in 2009. “Meanwhile, the pointy-headed busybodies have been exacting their revenge.”
Don’t look now, P.J., but automakers’ — and their customers’ — response to Washington’s diktat are perhaps the best evidence of America’s unsinkable auto love affair.
Today’s offerings are the most powerful, the most athletic, the most innovative products. Ever. Take Tesla’s Model S 85D. The tree-huggers’ favorite electric vehicle is also the envy of motorheads everywhere — it will out-drag a Corvette C7.
Or the brawny Mustang. It is now sold to women and men in equal measure — car lovers all.
And then there is the connected car. A KPMG study released last year found young drivers don’t believe “texting is getting in the way of their driving,” they believe “driving is getting in the way of their texting.” With features like 4G making, say, an entry-level Chevy Trax a rolling smartphone, cars have never been more youth-friendly.
The love affair rolls on.
Payne: Mad Max, your Z28 is here
Posted by hpayne on May 23, 2015
If Mad Max drove a Camaro Z28, he would dominate Fury Road.
With its massive front cowcatcher – er, splitter — it would punt bad guys from its path like a 19th century locomotive scything through a herd of steer. Its jackhammer-like, 427-cube pistons would crack the earth. Its narrow, windows would deflect explosives. Charlize Theron and her fetching crew would be home free.
When Chevy introduced its new, sixth-generation, 2016 Camaro at Belle Isle last weekend, Camaro faithful from around the country came to witness it. But they also lined up to experience hot laps in the already legendary Z28.
Harking back to the original, 1967 Z28 that homologated Camaro for SCCA racing, the 2015 is a purpose-built track weapon. It really has no peer. Though its 580-horsepower, supercharged 6.2-liter ZL1 stablemate is more powerful, it can’t stay with Z in the zig-zags. So too Mustang’s muscular Boss 302 Laguna Seca. The Z28 has its sights set on other prey.
“We actually want to be in conversations with the 911 GT3 Porsche and Nissan GT-R,”says Chief Engineer Al Oppenheimer. Mission accomplished. In Car & Driver’slegendary Lightning Lap competition around Virginia International Raceway, the Z28 is – wait for it — five seconds faster than the Porsche and just a second shy of the GT-R.
This 505-horsepower monster goes. Like. Stink. Zero-60 in 4.4 seconds. G-loads of 1.06. It is the fastest thing Chevy makes outside of the 650-horse Corvette Z06, but it’s meaner than its gentleman cousin.
Like the death machines that roam Mad Max’s movie landscape, the $72,705 Z28 is a Frankenstein hybrid. Beautiful black trim package, but no trunk lining. Blue-tooth phone connectivity, but manual seats. Alacantra and leather-stitched thrones, but no air conditioning. A heater it has – though with its slick, track-ready Pirelli P-Zero tires (more on these gumballs later), the grizzly hibernates in winter. Its part bin includes the elegant, rimless, rear-view mirror found in ‘Vettes and Caddies. Not that it’s any use. I needed a spotter to back up.
I drove Chevy’s weaponized Camaro for a week. It’s like living with a pet tiger. You learn to respect it because it could kill you. Its raw power must be learned. I fed it raw meat for breakfast.
The beast under the hood is so ravenous, Chevy even carves out the middle of the grille-mounted, bowtie logo to give it more air. Or maybe I was supposed to feed it small rodents through there. I don’t know.
I do know it’s hungry. Driving hard around Metro Detroit I got 14 mpg. It has a 19-gallon fuel tank, and requires 10 quarts of oil for its dry-sump engine.
It struggles outside its natural track habitat. Turn the key and it wakes up like a tiger from a bad dream. The earth shakes. Trees bend. Neighborhood car alarms go off. Loping around town, I had to remember to keep the big front splitter away from curbs.
But given a little room the Z28 handles like a big cat in tall grass.
Through aggressive light-weighting, Oppenheimer’s team has reduced the Z28’s weight 300 pounds from the 4,100-pound ZL1. Diving into a 90-degrees right-hander (my computer bag flying around the unlined trunk like a sneakers in a clothes dryer), I felt the old Zeta chassis flex beneath me. But Chevy has screwed it down with stiff springs and Formula One-inspired, valved shocks.
Banging down through the gears, the clutch is too sensitive. But the Alcantara-wrapped shifter is a delight with its positive, short throws. The real stars here are the massive brakes and tires.
The drilled, 15.5-inch front/15 rear carbon ceramic rotors are the size of manhole covers. Paired with Brembo calipers they stop the hurtling beast like a brick wall. With the 427 boat anchor up front, the Camaro’s bias is to understeer, so Chevy equipped it with 12-inch front P-Zeros – the widest front production tires in existence.
The gummies briefly protest, then bite. G-loads are massive, yet passengers have nothing to hold onto in the spartan interior. No “oh, crap!” handles like a “Vette. During Belle Isle hot laps – OH, CRAAAAAP! – Chief Driving Instructor Rick Malone had to warn passengers against grabbing the passenger-side-located emergency brake for stability.
Exit the corner and it’s all engine. Armed with titanium connecting rods and intake valves, the liquid-fuel rocket revs freely to 7000 RPM. Houston, we have liftoff.
Now imagine the next generation Z28 on the Gen 6 Alpha platform. Stiffer. Another 200 pounds lighter. Holy Mother of Pearl. Alas, the 427 V-8 will likely not survive. But it’ll make the ’15 Z28 a collector’s item.
So get one now. Before Mad Max buys up the whole fleet.
2015 Chevy Camaro Z28
Vehicle type: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, four-passenger two-door sedan/coupe
Price: $72,750
Power plant: 7.0-liter V-8
Power: 505 horsepower, 480 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Performance: 0-60 mph, 4.4 seconds; 172 mph top speed (Car & Driver)
Weight: 3,8200 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 13 mpg city/19 mpg highway/15 combined
Report card
Highs: Athletic looks; Neck-snapping handling
Lows: No AC; The visibility of a tank
Overall: ★★★★
Payne: Porsche Boxster is chip off the ol’ GTS
Posted by hpayne on May 21, 2015
Porsche’s mid-engine, 2015 Cayman/Boxster GTS twins (Boxster is the convertible one) are the best pure sports cars under $100K. Razor-sharp handling. Howling 6-cylinder power. Quick tranny.
How to test a car that has no peer?
I jumped into a time machine and went back 50 years to grab Stuttgart’s original mid-engine GTS: The 1964 Porsche 904. Despite being separated by a half-century, the two GTS models share an uncanny family resemblance.
I grew up in the right hand seat of my father’s 904 GTS.
The 904 was conceived as Stuttgart’s entry into world racing’s GT category, which required that manufacturers produce a production model — thus the term Gran Turismo Sport — for public sale. A street-legal race car in other words.
While the 904 dominated GT racing from LeMans to Watkins Glen, my father used his GTS just as Porsche intended. He drove it to work during the week and tracked it on weekends. Boy, did he track it. We were constantly on the road from our domicile in Charleston, West Virginia to SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) events in North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio … I especially remember Ohio.
Imagine driving a mid-engine, lightweight race car through the notorious police state. Ohio is synonymous with radar trap. Cops in the trees waiting to pounce on you. Half of Ohio’s state budget must be funded by speeding tickets.
My childhood was one long “Smokey and the Bandit” movie.
After a Sunday afternoon autocross in Columbus or Bellefontaine or Dayton, we would have to haul the mail to get home for school and work on Monday morning. My father and his racing buddies had a system. He would drive point with a radar detector in the 904 while his pals would follow at a distance keeping an eye on the backdoor.
I vividly remember one night in Eastern Ohio in the early ’70s. I was maybe 9 years old. After a successful day of racing, it was late and we were trying to get home. Flying low. Suddenly an officer’s siren exploded behind us. Our backdoor buddy had been napping. We had been nabbed. For doing 80 in a 50 zone. Eighty is loafing in a 904, but all the cop saw was that we were 30 over. He was furious and hauled us to the nearest station in Middle-of-Nowhere, Ohio.
My father eventually emerged from the station and came around to my door. “Unless we have exact change to pay the ticket, they’re keeping us in jail overnight,” Dad the Bandit said. “I have enough large bills to pay the fine, but I need $1.73 to make it exact. Do you have it?”
I dug in my pockets. I had just enough. Whew.
As the years went by I graduated to the left seat of the 904. We made a lot of memories. So when the new, 330-horsepower, flat-6 Boxster GTS arrived in my driveway this month I took it across Ohio for a weekend. Just like the old days (without the trip to the sheriff’s station, of course).
The reborn GTS — the first mid-engine Porsche to boast the badge since the 904— is a weapon that pays admirable homage to the original. While Porsche did not design the Boxster/Cayman as all-out GT racers, it does make ferocious, track-ready GT versions (the Cayman GT4 and forthcoming Boxster Spyder) equipped with 385-horsepower, 3.8-liter engines and spring rates that will shake loose your dental filings. The GTS versions, then, are a bridge between the street S model and the GT.
The 904 is one of Porsche’s legendary designs. Like its elder, the Boxster is simple, purposeful, timeless (though the convertible lines aren’t as crisp as the Cayman coupe). Its bullet shape is interrupted only by scalloped air scoops aft of the driver door to feed the beast within. The 904 bears two intakes — nicknamed “elephant ears” for their placement on the B-pillar — for the 317-horsepower IROC flat-6 my father had stuffed aboard (the original, 1.8-liter 4-cylinder was universally panned as a dog). Both cars sport minimal rear storage (the 904 fits a briefcase and the bigger Boxster doesn’t offer much better) and a roomier “frunk” in front. A massive, 30-gallon fuel tank occupies the entire space in the endurance race-spec’d 904, but the Boxster’s frunk is surprisingly roomy, easily fitting my small suitcase, computer bag, and camera case.
Inside, the cars are dramatically different. The 904 is analog, the Boxster digital.
On cold spring nights, I would often cuddle under a blanket in the 904 which lacks heating or cooling — much less a radio. The 21st century Boxster is a limo by comparison with everything from plush leather and Alcantara seats (exclusive to the GTS) to Bluetooth connectivity. Heck, it even has cup holders — though of the flimsy, fold-from-the-dash variety. Still, the Boxster manages to echo its racing heritage. Like the 904 its steering wheel is devoid of buttons. The seat is manually adjustable. It starts with a turn key.
The new car’s refinement comes with a price. My Boxster tester stickers for $79,855 (though still cheaper than a base 911). The ’64 904 in today’s dollars? $54,856.
The Boxsters’ comfy quarters were welcome on my Ohio adventure because the entire state is under construction. I saw more orange barrels than homes. The slow slog gave me little opportunity to provoke the plentiful police despite my ticket-me-red livery. Ohio hasn’t changed a bit. But neither has West Virginia.
Once across the border, the horizon opened — free of barrels and police. On long, lonely stretches I was easily able to hit 100-plus mph just like dad’s quick bursts years ago.
On a private test track, the two machines clinically carved up turns. Rejoice, 50-year-olds. The pair turned remarkably similar times. Porsche’s first fiberglass-bodied car, the 904 weighs a mere 1,600 pounds, making it a rocket ship out of corners. The aluminum-skinned, 2,965-pound Boxster is significantly heavier. Throw it into the twisties, however, and its modern suspension, giant brakes and wider rubber make it more nimble than the 904.
As a kid I loved the roar 904 engine behind my head. The Boxster GTS is no different.
Despite the cabin’s significant sound-padding over the thin 904, Porsche has equipped the Boxster with a SPORT exhaust option activating baffles in the system. Toggle SPORT PLUS Mode and the feature is augmented by rev match.
Stomp the Boxster and all flat-6 hell breaks loose with a wail over 6000 RPM that will wake the dead. And every Ohio cop in the county. Just like the old days.
2015 Porsche Boxster GTS
Vehicle type: Mid-engine, rear-wheel drive, two-passenger sports car
Price: $74,495 base ($79,855 as tested)
Power plant: 3.4-liter, water-cooled, flat 6-cylinder
Power: 330 horsepower, 273 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: 6-speed manual (7-speed auto PDK optional)
Performance: 0-60 mph, 4.7 seconds (manufacturer)
Weight: 2,964 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 19 city/26 highway/22 combined (PDK)
Report card
Highs: Razor-sharp handling; Tight gearbox
Lows: No easy access to engine; Don’t pull Gs with these cupholders
Overall: ★★★★
Payne: Honda’s clever HR-V appliance
Posted by hpayne on May 14, 2015
Last week I reviewed the Cadillac ATS-V. This week I’m reviewing the Honda HR-V. These two “V” variants are proof of the confusion the auto industry’s obsession with alphanumeric badges has wrought. Despite their similar nomenclature, ATS-V and HR-V occupy opposite ends of the vehicle spectrum.
If they had proper names, they’d be called the Cadillac Velociraptor and the Honda Beagle. The former will eat live Priuses for breakfast, the latter will cuddle with your children. One is a ferocious performance coupe. The other a precocious mini-ute.
Got it? Good. But even if it doesn’t have a performance bone in its body, Honda’s V is a fascinating device in its own right.
Like an accountant who plays in a rock band at night, Honda has been living a double life. The company makes its living crafting best-selling appliances by day — the reliable, functional CR-V ute, Accord sedan, and Civic compact. But in the subcompactsegments, the Japanese maker explores its creative side with the niche-ey, stylish CR-Z sport hybrid and versatile Honda Fit.
The HR-V crossover debuts as a welcome fusion of both personalities.
Outside, HR-V is CR-V Junior: A pleasant toaster with a lovely, ski-slope crease in the side panels that gives it a car-like stance. But hold on — have you seen the face on that appliance? The V gets all CR-Z-stylish with wrap-around headlights, a plunging grille line, black chin cladding, and pedestrian-protection fangs running along the skirt. Add a slit under the hood and it’s the busiest face since Snoop Dogg donned a backward baseball cap with sunglasses, mustache, and a goatee with a braid at the bottom.
Hip-hop look, but hardly hip-hop performance. This V is a droner.
Stomp on the accelerator pedal and the standard, continuously-variable-tranny mates with a 141-horsepower, 1.8-liter four-banger (the only engine offered) for a truly snail-like experience. Starting a garden tractor stirs more emotion. Fortunately, the snail is as quiet as, well, a snail — thanks to adequate sound deadening. Note: Wind noise is noticeable at highways speeds over 70 mph — assuming you ever get there.
Other mechanicals check the appliance boxes. Excellent fuel economy (I managed 29.1 mpg despite flogging the foal like a Derby contender). Fine, all-wheel disc brakes. Electronic steering. Push-button start. An all-wheel-drive system essential for Midwest blizzards but that nicely rotates this tiddler around corners when you’re feeling frisky in spring-time. It’s not as playful as the Fiat 500X micro-ute (a decidedly non-appliance personality) — but neither is it as unwieldy as the segment’s macho dude, the Jeep Renegade. Despite its recent, sporty forays back into Formula 1 and IndyCar racing, Honda seems willing to concede the class-handling award to the forthcoming Mazda CX-3.
After all, who throws an appliance around corners? Most of the ute drivers I follow these days drive with all the aggression of a baby stroller.
Settle into the front seats of my $26,720 EX-L-trimmed tester and the generic interior appears straight from Honda’s appliance department. The driver’s side is a bit uncomfortable, with little bolster support. Only a pump control is offered for moving the seat up and down.
Even the console looks like a microwave — devoid of rotary buttons, its instruments operated entirely by illuminated buttons on the black plastic interface. Still, it’s a happy advance from recent, confusing Honda split screens that surely had focus groups screaming expletives. Both the HR-V and the forthcoming, mid-sized Pilot ute have returned to a single console screen. Climate controls are nestled below with available heated seats, you are getting sleeeeepy, you …
… should check this out, dear!
Honda has an inspired pouch — mimicking the clever Chrysler 200 and Volvo XC60 — below the shifter which offers excellent storage for e-devices, two USBs, a power outlet, an HDMI cable, and partridge in a pear tree. Indeed, the larger center console is more functional than anything in class — including two adjustable (up and down for smaller/larger drinks) cup holders and a center storage compartment rare for a class where cars are narrow (see the cramped Chevy Trax).
Thank the wide Fit platform on which the HR-V sits.
More Fit DNA resides in the backseat. Magic backseats to be exact — which open acres of room by folding and tumbling just like in the Fit. Preferably not with me in them, of course. I can easily sit behind my 6’5″ self in the second row. Thank the V’s 169.1 inches in length — a good 2 inches longer than its competitors.
You won’t get much sunburn back there — Honda doesn’t offer a full sun roof like Fiat — but the headroom is excellent. That Fit influence again. The 60-40 rear seats offer extended cargo space that can reach all the way to the dash if you flatten the front passenger seat.
The dashboard itself is as sexless as a bread crisper — though thoughtfully functional. An adjustable air vent runs the length of the dash for those steamy summer trips, and there is an analog push button — hooray! — to zero-out the odometer.
The HR-V doesn’t offer a mirror-born blind spot assist package like the Fiat and Renegade — but something more creative. Flick the turn signal and the entire center console screen illuminates with the image from a camera hidden under the passenger mirror. The view complements the mirror itself — offering a more expansive field of vision behind you. Mrs. Payne, frustrated by the inherent, C-pillar blind spot in most crossovers, wanted to hug the engineer who thought of this.
But perhaps the sub-$20K, base HR-V’s most ingenious feature is that, like the CR-V years ago, it is one of the first mainstream micro-ute offerings in a segment long populated by misfits like the Kia Soul and Nissan Cube. Customers who buy Hondas rarely stray to anything else given their appliance-like reliability.
And by allowing itself some Fit-like cleverness and CR-Z-like fashion, the HR-V may offer buyers enough personality to resist the sexier — if reliability-cursed — products from Detroit automakers.
Too bad that personality doesn’t extend to another powertrain. Like, ahem, a 200-horsepower SI option. I mean, I know no one is going to confuse the HR-V with an ATS-V. But if you’re using a “V” in your name shouldn’t you offer just a little “VROOM”?
2016 Honda HR-V
Vehicle type: Front-engine, front or all-wheel drive, five-passenger sport ute
Price: $20,875 base ($26,720 AWD as tested)
Power plant: 1.8-liter, single-overhead cam inline-4 cylinder
Power: 141 horsepower, 127 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: 6-speed manual (FWD only); Continuously variable transmission (CVT)
Performance: 0-60 mph, 8.4 seconds – manual; 9.5 seconds – CVT (Car & Driver)
Weight: 2,888 pounds (base); 3,109 AWD as tested
Fuel economy: EPA 25 city/34 highway/28 combined (manual); 27 city/32 highway/29 combined (CVT AWD)
Report card
Highs: Versatile interior; Clever blindspot assist
Lows: Pep-challenged tranny; Another engine option, please?
Overall:★★★
Payne: Caddy ATS-V rivals BMW M3
Posted by hpayne on May 8, 2015
Tiger Woods is more than a great golfer. He’s a legend who redefined his sport, raising the bar for power, fitness and all-around performance.
In his first Masters tourney in 1997 he blew the doors off the field, romping to an unheard of 18-under-par, 12-stroke victory. He dominated the sport for years after. A man among boys.
Twenty years later, Tiger is no longer the hunter but the hunted. The benchmark for a new generation: Spieth, Johnson, McElroy. As powerful as Tiger (everyone hits it 320 off the tee now). As fit as Tiger. As rounded as Tiger. Sure enough, two decades after 21-year old Tiger’s Masters Blitzkrieg, 21-year old Jordan Spieth shot a record -18, equaling the legend. The field has caught up.
The BMW M3 is the Tiger Woods of performance sedans, and the 2016 Cadillac ATS-V is Jordan Spieth.
Since its intimidating, track-torching, 240-horsepower E36 BMW M3 launched here in 1995, the BMW has stood astride the performance luxury market. Its power, comfortable interior, and all-around performance set a new bar for a sedan you could drive to work weekdays — and flog at the track on weekends. Its success forced rivals to raise their game. A new generation of Tigers — Mercedes AMG, Audi S4 — are better than ever.
But now, the M3 has a true contender: The 2016 Cadillac ATS-V.
Like the Tiger wannabes, V engineers admit that the M3 (its four-door option is an M4) was their benchmark. They even bought one to dissect like a lab frog. And if Spieth proved he belonged by tying Tiger’s Masters’ course record, then Cadillac would prove its claim by inviting the motorhead press to test the new Caddy on one of the plant’s premier race courses: Circuit of the Americas outside Austin, Texas.
This monster is not for the timid. Designed for Formula One, it is 3.4 miles in length with neck-wrenching ess turns, brake-boiling hairpins, 145-mph straightaways, and a Turn One as iconic as the Masters’ 12th hole.
“You want to be King of the Hill? You’ll have to climb me first!”
At the end of the front straight, the road rises three stories into a left-hand hairpin like an asphalt version of Cedar Point’s Top Thrill rollercoaster. Insane. I row the V’s gears — third, fourth, fifth. A sprinting, 3,750-pound pole vaulter. Four-hundred-forty-four foot-pounds of twin-turbocharged, V-6 torque pins me to the seat.
As the road rises, the beast compresses on magnetorheological shocks at 120 mph before I stomp six-piston, front Brembo brakes that pull the eyeballs out of my sockets. Bang. Bang. Bang. My lightning manual downshifts are assisted by electronic rev-matching. Forget heel-and-toe, the machine does it better. I rotate the rear-engine missile hard left. No squall from the meaty, sticky-soft Michelin tires.
And then as suddenly as the road rose, it drops away. For a moment, the ATS-V feels suspended in space. On top of the world, its V logo stretched skyward like Sylvester Stallone’s arms as he dances on the top step of Philly’s Museum of Art — the Rocky theme song blaring.
Powerful. Fit. All-around athlete. An M3 fighter.
Car & Driver track testing found the V (.97 g) the M’s peer in cornering grip (.98 g). Try that in the ATS-V’s predecessor, the CTS-V. The big car was Thor’s hammer. Powerful but heavy. To continue our golf analogy: John Daly on wheels.
The V comes by its athleticism naturally. It sits on the base ATS chassis — the so-called Alpha platform that I whipped hard on Connecticut back roads last year — and which I (and more than a few of my colleagues) attest to be the best chassis in luxe-dom. Caddy’s engineers take this choice DNA and team it with the twin-turbo cyborg from Hell: the 3.6-liter, 464-horsepower LF4 V-6, the most powerful engine in its class.
And this is where Tiger-like, M3-inspired fitness really shows.
American muscle cars like the Ford Focus are laugh-out-loud fun until its hand-wrenching torque-steer reminds you it’s not as well-engineered as, say, Germany’s VW GTI.
Not the ATS-V. The car is weaponized to the teeth with the same tricks that make the M3 so deadly: Extensive bracing in the front end. Huge front cooling ducts (“Ichey vents” for Inter-cooler Heat Exchangers the engineers call them. Cute). And titanium-aluminide turbochargers that even the M3 can’t match, resulting in a turbo that spools more smoothly even as it delivers jaw-clenching power.
But perhaps the ATS-V’s greatest attribute is that it’s easier on the backside than Bavaria’s finest.
Unlike the stiff, growly M3, the V is a better daily driver — a hybrid between the Bimmer and Audi’s less-track focused, 333-horsepower (that’s it?) S4. That’s a good thing because the V won’t leave you much padding in the wallet. A track-ready V stickers for $74 grand, just shy of the M3’s eye-watering $81k. Benchmarking to top talent doesn’t come cheap.
Still, it’s worth noting the difference is BMW’s $8,150 ceramic, brake fade-fighting rotors, while the V gets away with steel Brembos that never dimmed in our day-long test. Credit a Cadillac development team of track jocks — led by two-time SCCA national champ John Buttermore.
So Caddy’s Spieth can match BMW’s Tiger in performance. Can he match him in personality?
The crucial brand question. And this is where the V comes up short. The M3 exudes emotion, its iconic kidney nostrils giving way to sexy, fluted eyes and sculpted lower air intakes. The V by contrast is more brutish, less elegant. Hulk next to Ironman. Its armored, chain-mail grille fronts a blunt face compared to the M3’s handsome curves.
Style matters and the ATS-V won’t make the girls coo like the M3. Until they get inside, perhaps. The V’s interior is elegant, its micro-fiber seats marvelously micro-adjustable. Even the Caddy’s oft-derided CUE system beats Bimmer’s difficult rotary dial. Better to jab at CUE’s touch screen than to fumble for a knob.
Clever touches abound like a phone charger behind the console screen and multiple drive modes that make the ATS-V easier to drive on the limit. But all this digital wizardy adds heft and both the V and M3 are big cars. Indeed, many customers will prefer the Bimmer’s bigger back seat even as it chases away the purist.
For those customers there is the new BMW M235i which your loyal scribe reviewed last fall. Smaller, simpler, cheaper — still blindingly quick. Alas, another benchmark for Cadillac to meet.
As good as the V is, it’s a reminder that Caddy is always chasing BMW. When will Cadillac set the benchmark? Maybe someday. Maybe when Jordan Spieth beats Tiger’s 14 major titles.
2016 Cadillac ATS-V
Vehicle type: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, four-passenger two-door sedan/coupe
Price: $61,460 base ($74,325 sedan and $$74,355 coupe as tested)
Power plant: 3.6-liter, twin-turbo V-6
Power: 464 horsepower, 444 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: Six-speed manual (optional eight-speed automatic)
Performance: 0-60 mph, 3.8 seconds; 189 mph top speed (manufacturer)
Weight: 3,750 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 16 mpg city/24 mpg highway (auto transmission); 17 mpg city/23 mpg highway (manual)
Report card
Highs: Track-worthy handling; street-worthy ride
Lows: Blunt styling; claustrophobic back seat
Overall: ★★★★
Payne: Ford gets Focused
Posted by hpayne on May 6, 2015
The Ford Focus must feel like Luke, the third Hemsworth brother,at a New York night club. Attractive, but not as visible as his taller, sexier, mega-celebrity brothers, Chris (“Thor”) and Liam (“Hunger Games”).
The compact Focus, you may have heard, is having trouble landing dates.
A small sedan in a sport ute world, it has seen sales slump leading to 700 layoffs at its Wayne Assembly plant. Meanwhile big brothers Escape and Fusion are to die for. Escape is the best compact SUV in autodom’s hottest segment, with torrid box office sales that even have the blockbuster Honda CR-V looking over its shoulder. The Fusion, meanwhile, is the sultriest midsize sedan on the planet. With its pouty mouth, muscular torso, and fastback it is the family hauler Aston Martin might have built.
But size doesn’t always matter. If your taste is for a smaller, cuter, more maneuverable companion, let me introduce you to the new, refreshed 2015 Focus. You’ll know it by the facelift.
Already possessing signature “boomerang” taillights and an athletic stance, the base Focus gets the family’s “Aston” grille, making it as good looking coming as it is going. I emphasize “base” because Focus’s performance hatch, the ST, possessed a fearsome maw that made this pint-sized predator look like a Mako shark feeding on a school of tuna.
Indeed, considering the relentless advance of functional/affordable/attractive utes, I’ve been of the opinion that hot hatches are the best reason to buy compacts these days. Utes are that good. Small crossovers have the C-segment sedan cornered. Interior room? Check. Cargo flexibility? Check. All-wheel drive? Checkmate.
Only on performance could vehicles like the ST and VW’s Golf GTI survive. The ST misses out on my 2015 Car-of-the-Year GTI for one reason: Ferocious torque steer that wants to rip the steering wheel out of your hands on hard acceleration.
Keep a firm grip, however, and the ST’s 252 horsepower – 32 more than the GTI – is a trip. Despite the V-dub’s more refined FWD engineering, Ford’s Tasmanian Devil out-dueled the German Schnauzer at Car & Driver’s famed Lightning Lap of VIR raceway.
But with the refreshed, 2015 Focus, the ST is no longer the most interesting Foci variant.
The lineup now possesses some serious engineering that rivals the VW – and should make buyers reconsider the C-sedan segment. Take the extraordinary, turbocharged, 1-liter engine now available in the Focus. King Kong in a can.
I first wrote about this overachieving three-banger in the Ford Fiesta – a briefcase-sized power plant with the fuel economy of a Geo Metro and the kick of Ronaldo. But how would it work in the bigger Focus? Surprisingly well.
The three-holer barely squeaks off the line (the poor thing has less than 1/6th the piston heft of the 6.4-liter dodge Challenger I just reviewed!), but as soon as the turbo kicks in near 3,000 RPM this mouse wants to roar. Freeway merging? No problem. Cruising at 90? Easy. Pick on BMWs out of a stoplight? Whoa, fella, don’t get your hopes up.
As in the Fiesta, Ford treats the turbo 1L like an intern (“bring sales, maybe we’ll keep ya'”) that gets the desk by the coffee machine. It only gets a manual tranny, not the more-coveted 6-speed auto. But with its class-leading 35 mpg (I got 33 mpg around town driving it like a madman), this worker bee should get noticed.
But, Payne, isn’t a three-banger as buzzy as a cloud of Lake Michigan mosquitos?
More engineering braggadocio: The Focus is whisper quiet with all three engines. So quiet, in fact, that I wished the snarly ST had its own audio app to pump in more exhaust sound when I really got into the throttle.
The premium, tech-savvy Titanium model that I drove for $26,710 could be mistaken for a luxury car. Its silent interior makes blue-toothed phone conversation a cinch on Ford’s SYNC system. Its crisp console gauges are Audi-like, its steering wheel heated, its interior loaded with detail (note the ATM card-slot next to the leather-stitched shifter).
Mrs. Payne marveled at the Titanium’s auto high-beam feature which dims when it senses oncoming traffic. Got that on your $45k luxe sedan? Heck, Focus will even park itself.
Handling, fuel economy, cargo utility, build quality. The Focus is in the Golf’s league while looking sexier than its more conservative Euro competitor. But is it enough to attract attention from bigger brothers that also boast the family’s good looks and high-tech? The Foci small backseat, for example, just can’t compete with the taller Escape.
It’s tough being a short Hemsworth sibling. But he’ll turn a few heads in a Tangerine Scream-painted Focus ST.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.
Vehicle type: Front-engine, front-wheel-drive, five-passenger compact sedan
Price: $17,995 base (As tested: $21,035 1.0L Ecobbost SE; $26,710 2.0L Titanium; $29,475 2.0L Ecoboost ST)
Power plant: 2.0-liter, inline 4-cylinder; 1.0-liter, turbocharged 3-cylinder; 2.0-liter, turbocharged, inline 4-cylinder
Power: 160 horsepower, 146 pound-feet of torque (2.0L 4-cyl); 123 horsepower, 148 pound-feet of torque (1.0L turbo 3-cyl); 252 horsepower, 270 pound-feet of torque (2.0L turbo 4-cyl)
Transmission: Five-speed manual with optional six-speed automatic (2.0L 4-cyl): Six-speed manual (1.0L turbo 3-cyl and 2.0L turbo 4-cyl)
Performance: 0-60 and top speed numbers not yet available
Weight: 2,907 pounds (1.0L turbo 3-cyl); 2,920 pounds (2.0L 4-cyl); 3,223 pounds (ST)
Fuel economy: EPA 30 mpg city/42 mpg highway/35 mpg combined (est. 1.0L turbo 3-cyl)
Report card
Highs: Best-in-class styling; Turbo-riffic
Lows: Tight rear quarters; ST torque-steer
Overall: ★★★★
Payne: Spring fever, Challenger Scat Pack Shaker
Posted by hpayne on April 29, 2015
I’ve seen the first blue bird of spring.
It has eyes that burn white, nostrils the size of basketballs, and a song like King Kong snorting jalapeno peppers. Upon closer inspection it’s a Blue Pearl-coated, 6.4-liter, 2015 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack with a shaker hood scoop. But its April sighting is just as refreshing.
Congratulations, Detroiters, our tribe has survived another Arctic winter, the thaw has come, and muscle cars are awakening from their loooong hibernation. Right on cue, Dodge is bringing another variation of its wicked Challenger lineup. Dodge, of course, is the King of Muscle cars these days, sporting more sinew than any other pony car in history.
The flock is led by the insane, 707-horspower SRT Hellcat, a car that sprints the quarter mile as fast as a Lamborghini Diablo. I cruised the Woodward Dream Cruise in a brooding, gray model last year, the monster under its hood betrayed only by the tiny, side-mounted Hellcat logo and three hood scoops rather than the twin openings found on its V-8 R/T brothers.
The Scat Pack Shaker is for muscle car enthusiasts who find the Hellcat too subtle.
The shaker rises out of the hood like a cobra summoned from a snake charmer’s basket. Carbon black racing stripes stretch nose to tail. A black splitter curls along the Challenger’s chin like Beelzebub’s beard. Turn the key and wake the dead.
I rumbled down my neighborhood street in the Shaker on a sunny April Saturday and kids came out of their homes like Dickens orphans who had just seen an ice cream truck. This car should be an amusement park ride at Cedar Point. I buckled in four boys and they were shrieking with joy before I was even out of the cul-de-sac. By the time we hit Telegraph Road they were chanting a chorus of “BURNOUT! BURNOUT!” I laid a 50-foot rubber patch out of a stoplight and it was bedlam. Eight cylinders and four kids roaring at the top of their lungs.
Ah, spring.
But it’s not just the kids that come running at the sight of this blue bird. This beauty is a cop magnet. In a good way. Not one but two police buddies took turns behind the wheel. Want to see a Challenger driven hard? Give it to men in uniform who have taken hours of pursuit training in Dodge muscle cars. These boys can drive. Foot-through-the-floor, lightning-shift, tire-smoking confidence behind the wheel.
I’m sorry, officer, but I’ll have to ask you to get out of the car.
I cruised the Woodward strip on a glorious Saturday Night. Everyone was there. Camaro ZL1s, Corvette C7s, Pontiac GTOs, Mustang GTs. The Blue Pearl Shaker still stood out. The boys at Detroit Area Modern Mopar club flagged me down as I drove by their Dairy Mat hangout.
They know what this bad boy represents.
The Scat Pack Shaker is muscle car legend after all. When the original Challenger debuted in 1968 to dropped jaws, Dodge promoted the Scat Cat Club featuring a newsletter (for Gen Yers that’s like a blog but on paper) – so owners could share their Dodge muscle tips. The Scat Pack even had its own logo — a hot-rodding bee on wheels — which members proudly displayed in their rear windows. When Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis unveiled the remade Challenger in 2014, he not only introduced the world to the ferocious Hellcat — he re-introduced the Scat Pack legend, complete with updated logo.
“If you missed the first muscle car era, don’t miss the second,” Kuniskis likes to say to anyone within earshot. He should know. The barrel-chested motormouth spits out Challenger facts faster than a nail gun and has just restored his own 383-cubic inch 1971 Challenger complete with shaker. If he weren’t running Dodge 24/7 he’d be cruising Woodward Saturday nights talking Scat trash.
“I’m amending my previous statement,” he says reflecting over his ’15 stable. “This IS the Golden Era of the muscle car.”
Forty-five years ago, a 7.2-liter hemi would trip the 0-60 wire at 6.2 seconds. Today the base V-6 Challenger with half the displacement will match that. Throw the Scat Pack’s 6.4-liter hemi under the hood and the 2015 car will get there in 4-point-4. Golden Era indeed.
What’s more, the Scat Pack Shaker offers an interior as plush as its exterior is aggressive. So while the huge, 9.5-inch tires melt the asphalt on the outside, you can relax in leather seat comfort (complete with orange Scat Pack embroidery, natch) inside. Surrounded by brushed aluminum accents and chrome-bezeled instrument panels that cradle the segment’s best, UConnect infotainment system featuring apps like iHeartRadio, Pandora, Travel link, and WiFi hotspot.
Oh yes, and a performance app that records your 0-60, 0-100, and ¼ mile times. I can see you might need a few cop friends.
But perhaps the most telling figure is the Scat Pack price. After all, few wallets can afford the $60,990 Hellcat. Where some performance cars measure horsepower per liter, the shaker sets the standard for horsepower-per-dollar. Few cars provide this much bang for the buck.
The Scat Pack starts at just $38,890, making it the top 400-horses-for-under-$40K on the market. The 426-horsepower, 5.0-liter Camaro starts at $39,295. The 435-horse Mustang at $37,750.
Dodge will yammer on about how affordable the Challenger is at the fuel pump too. Twenty-three mpg highway according to EPA. Balderdash. You won’t come close. It’s like marrying Kate Upton with a vow of celibacy. You drive the Shaker with a lead foot. I got 13.6 mpg during my week with this sexpot.
No one will mistake it for a sports car either. Sure it has the latest in 21st century, electronic stability wizardry, but the 4,100-pound behemoth’s chassis is dated. It’s a pig when the road turns curvy. Want to attack a twisty Up North country road? Drop your $40K on a sporty new ‘Stang. Want to snort Priuses through the shaker’s twin nostrils on Woodward? This is your pet. “The most outrageous car in our lineup,” says Kuniskis.
“I can’t remember when I had this much fun in a car,” said my buddy Tom after 15 fast and furious minutes behind the wheel.
The blue bird is singing. Spring is finally here. You’re welcome.
Vehicle type: Front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, five-passenger two-door coupe
Price: $38,890 base ($45,780 as tested)
Power plant: 6.4-liter, HEMI V-8
Power: 485 horsepower, 475 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: Six-speed manual (optional eight-speed automatic)
Performance: 0-60 mph, 4.2 seconds (4.4 sec. for manual, Car & Driver)
Weight: 4,082 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 14 mpg city/23 mpg highway/17 mpg combined
Report card
Highs: Volcanic acceleration; Heavenly blue wardrobe
Lows: Gas guzzler tax; A handfull in the twisties
Overall: ★★★★
Payne Q&Auto: Jeep and Fiat separated at birth?
Posted by hpayne on April 24, 2015
On Planet Auto, Fiat and Jeep brands are poles apart. Their customers wouldn’t mingle at the same cocktail party. Fiat owners would be inside at the wine and cheese bar while Jeep owners would hang outside quaffing beer and barbecue. Afterwards, the Fiat would take Woodward Avenue home. The Jeep the Rouge River bed.
So you’ll be floored to know that the new subcompact Fiat 500X and Jeep Renegade utes were separated at birth. They share the same skeleton: the “small U.S. wide 4×4” platform.
If that seems incredible, consider this: The two products are the result of Detroiters and Italians working together. Across an ocean. Speaking the same language.
Art Anderson is the Auburn Hills engineering vehicle line executive for Renegade and 500X. His Italian counterpart is Fabio DiMuro in Turin. As project leads, they molded the SUVs from the first global platform birthed by the marriage of Fiat and Chrysler. Its bones can shoulder 16 powertrain combinations, be built on three continents and spread the Jeep and Fiat gospels to over 100 countries. Renegades and 500Xs sail to the U.S. from the same plant in Italy. These twins are the face of a new global auto industry.
Andersen, 54, is a laid-back, graying, goateed Chrysler veteran. He could be your Uncle Joe. We sat down at the Fiat 500X launch in Los Angeles this month to talk utes, Telepresence and remote start.
Q: The 500X and Renegade are FCA’s first-born children?
A: The Auburn Hills and Turin offices have worked together on programs before like the Fiat 500L adaptation. But the Renegade and 500X platform is really the first time (FCA) did a global project together from the very start.
Q: What’s a global platform?
A: The architecture itself has 16 different powertrain combinations in it. It is configured to meet global requirements, including European pedestrian protection with aluminum hoods and all that. On top of that are customer features for different countries. For example, it’s against European laws to have remote start, while that is a price of entry in the NAFTA (North American) market. You can’t get there unless two teams get together and put all the cards on the table and say this is what the platform has to do.
Q: Why you and Fabio?
A: Fabio was part of the industrialization over here of the Fiat 500, so he was an ex-pat in Auburn Hills for a while. He understood the culture. I worked on several international programs based in Europe and so I had the understanding of how to do business that way.
Q: The 500X is a particularly important product for Fiat, isn’t it?
A: The fact that it is all-wheel drive … allows them to penetrate a market they have not been able to fairly address. A lot of Fiat dealers are located in the sunshine states. This will enable them to come into the Northeast and Denver and the Snow Belt.
Q: Will the 500X sell better here or in Europe?
A: The volume right now is in Europe (because) there is a higher volume of dealers and an embedded customer base. The thing we’ve noticed is that they sell Renegades and 500X in the same showroom, yet there is zero cross-shopping between the two cars. The 500X mission is on-road, all-weather capability. The Renegade is on-road comfort and off-road capability.
Q: How is 500X different here and abroad?
A: In Europe, the volume seller is going to be a 140-horsepower diesel manual, and in NAFTA the volume seller is going to be a 180-horsepower, gas-powered automatic. (The chassis is) set up with a stiff suspension by American standards, yet there’s capability in the platform to fit it with all-season tire and open damping to be able to handle the NAFTA potholes and roads.
Q: Does a global platform mean you are always traveling?
A: We started out 41/2 years ago with a lot of face-to-face travel going both ways. As we’ve come to know each other really well there are a lot of teleconferences — we have Telepresence, which is a video conference. The partners in the team are the most valuable things. If I call Fabio or Fabio calls me and we say we have a problem, we trust each other implicitly.
Q: Fix-It-Again-Tony and Jeep don’t have great quality reputations. Was that a development priority?
A: It’s at the top of the list of things we are keeping a close eye on. The amount of testing miles is unbelievable.
Payne: 500X Fiat fits U.S.
Posted by hpayne on April 23, 2015
When the White House Auto Task Force gift-wrapped Chrysler to Italy’s Fiat six years ago, hardly anyone seemed to notice that a full-line American automaker was being taken over by an econobox-builder whose products could fit in the bed of a RAM pickup.
They called it Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. It’s like Mini Cooper took over General Motors and called it Mini Motors.
In addition to gaining iconic brands like RAM and Jeep, Fiat’s brilliant, sweater-model-and-CEO Sergio Marchionne saw the chance to reintroduce his Italian brand to American tastes for the first time in a quarter century. Two years later, Chef Sergio’s Fiat cafes were popping up all over the country featuring … one menu item.
An appetizer. A tiny Italian meatball. The Fiat 500. Tasty. Bite-sized.
The elites inside Washington’s Beltway drooled at the menu, predicting the little meatball was just the kind of fuel-efficient, low-calorie diet obese Americans craved to cure them of their sport ute ways. (These same Washington elites also think pro soccer is going to take America by storm.)
But a cafe cannot survive on meatballs alone. Neither can a car company. The adorable 500 was a blast to drive and a bomb at the cash register. It fit Europe where a gallon of gas costs the gross national product of Greece and roads are as narrow as linguine. But in wide open, $3-a-gallon-gas America? Fiat was the mouse that bored. Cute as a tricycle and just as prone to being Chevy Suburban road kill. Meatball 500sales were half of predictions.
“We thought we were going to show up and just because of the fact people like gelato and pasta, people will buy it,” Chef Sergio told Bloomberg Business. “This is nonsense.” So he went about building a bigger menu.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in the U.S. … build utes.
For all of Washington’s day dreams about small cars saving the planet, Sergio watched as the Jeep Grand Cherokee saved Chrysler. Not just Chrysler, but Fiat as well as Europe’s economy tanked and North America became FCA’s profit engine. The Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango and RAM pickup sold like hotcakes. Sergio embraced SUVs like black sweaters.
He built compact Cherokees. And subcompact Renegades. And Maserati SUVs. And then … get used to the oxymoron “Fiat SUV.”
It had been done before. Mini launched in the U.S. on the back of an iconic compact cutie, which then birthed a four-door and a crossover Countryman. So Fiat made a bigger meatball — the 500L — with the same chassis ingredients as the 500. Now comes a completely fresh, subcompact ute out of the merged kitchen of Fiat and Chrysler.
Hello, 2016 Fiat 500X. Meatball entree with all the fixings. A Fiat fit for the USA.
The adorable family features are all there. Big headlights so cute they should have eyelashes. Soft, baby-faced chin. Round Fiat logo smack in the middle like a child’s binky. ‘Round back a round behind that leans forward like a toddler eyeing a box of chocolates.
But in between the 500X is a grownup’s SUV. The interior dash bears Fiat’s signature plastic dash colored to match the exterior (oooh, I really like the red), but the ergonomics are Chrysler-esque — crisp and logically placed. No Euro-quirks like the 500L’s goofy center armrest. The center console rises from the floor providing cupholders, useful storage space for phones, and surprising elbow room in a segment where front seats can feel as crowded as Delta coach-class. Rear seats are roomy, the cargo hatch configurable, and a nifty, full-cabin moon roof for necking under the stars.
Turn the key and the voice is more grown up as the 2.4-liter Tigershark engine — more Chrysler hardware, thank you very much — barks to life. The X’s 184 horses deliver Fiat’s promised fun factor along with a much tighter suspension than its raw, off-road Renegade cousin. That’s X as in X Games. The AWD is LOL to drive.
The base, “Pop”-trim, 500X gets the spicy, 160-horse, 1.4-liter turbo four found in the raucous Fiat Abarth pocket rocket. But, oddly, Fiat kills the recipe by only offering the turbo in a manual and without the Tigershark’s suspension upgrades. It’s like cooking up a tasty veal cutlet — then smothering it in anchovies and lard. Sigh.
Base hiccup aside, this mouth-watering recipe is courtesy of a first, global, “Small U.S. Wide” platform jointly developed by Italian and American chefs to accommodate the 500X and Renegade (and future vehicles tailored to markets from Italy to China to Brazil to here). And as pioneers in the subcompact ute segment, the Renegade and 500X stand to make an impression on shoppers looking for some spice in their menu.
Want a burger? Buy a Honda HR-V or Chevy Trax. Want camp-fire barbecue? Try Renegade. Pasta? The 500X is your fashion plate.
Fiat will have to prove its quality, of course. But style, too, matters in metro markets where Fiat expects the 500X will be a hit. Fiat debuted the X in Los Angeles where owners wear their cars as a fashion statement. Thanks to the valley’s legendary traffic, Angelinos spend more time in their vehicles — 90 hours a week — than anyplace else. A fellow motor scribe flew into L.A. recently for a 44-mile drive down the 405 to Irvine. It took him four — four! — hours. My co-driver and I drove the 500X from Malibu to Beverly Hills — 25 miles — in 1.5 hours. It felt like a week and a half. We grew beards that would make ZZ Top proud.
All this time in the X means it has to work inside as well as outside. I climbed over the rear seats to the rear. Stretched my legs. Charged my phone in the USB port. Checked my luggage for a razor.
Fiat expects its new menu item to be its best-seller. Its natural competitor is the Mini Countryman crossover cutie. The 500X won’t touch the Mini for sportiness, but its taller stance, AWD and healthy cargo room will make it the practical choice for many. Practical in price, too. Fiat has smartly stickered the 500X from $20,900, which is in line with its mainline competitors — and well below the $22,550 premium buyers hand over for a Mini.
Utility. Room. All-wheel-drive. Oxymoron. Fiat. The Italian immigrant is building a tasty Yankee Ristorante.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.
2016 Fiat 500X
Vehicle type: Front-engine, front or all-wheel drive, five-passenger sport ute
Price: $20,900 base ($30,900 AWD as tested)
Power plant: 1.4-liter, turbocharged inline-4; 2.4-liter inline-4
Power: 160 horsepower, 184 pound-feet of torque (turbo 1.4L); 180 horsepower, 175 pound-feet of torque (2.4L)
Transmission: 6-speed manual (only available with turbo 1.4L); 9-speed automatic transmission (with 2.4L)
Performance: 0-60 mph, 8.7-8.9 seconds (Car & Driver)
Weight: 2,967 pounds (base)
Fuel economy: TBA
Report card
Highs: Lots of character; unique, functional interior
Lows: Sprightly turbo only comes in manual with less-refined chassis: The ghost of FCA quality past
Overall:★★★
Payne: Audi-tonomous A8L and the future of self-driving
Posted by hpayne on April 17, 2015
I’m writing this on my laptop while driving the state-of-the-art, semi-autonomous Audi A8L on my way home. Lane-keep assist keeping me between the lines. Cruise control set at 55 mph. Adaptive cruise control following traffic in front of me at a safe distance. Brake mitigation bringing me to a stop at stoplights. Ah, bliss.
Had you going there for a moment, didn’t I?
In truth my eyes are glued to the road. The Audi is a remarkable beast inside and out with the body of Adonis, the interior of Exxon’s board room, and on-board computers that would embarrass Hal in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” But unlike Hal, it’s not self-aware. Which might actually help.
Because the driver-assist features on the Audi are a glimpse of how futuristic autonomous cars work. Except when they don’t. A self-aware car would avoid hitting a cement dividing wall on the Lodge because its instinct would be for self-preservation. But when Audi-tonomous overshot a solid lane marking line, the system merely beeped at me and flashed a message in the instrument cluster: “PLEASE TAKE OVER STEERING.”
What the – ?!
I can see the future, but for now autonomous cars are like Bruce Wayne. Talented, but they need a butler to get through the day. To be sure, Audi doesn’t advertise its driver-assist features as “self-driving” – but its camera and radar technologies preview what self-driving cars will in part rely on. Google is testing self-driving cars. I’ve been a passenger in one. It worked flawlessly at low speeds in Palo Alto, California. It holds huge promise for empowering the transportation-challenged elderly and infirmed. It could transform shuttle services.
Rattan Joea, CEO of California-based, airport-focused Prime Time Shuttle, sees a future of Uber-like ride shares. “Driverless vehicles will change the game,” says the 20-year shuttle veteran. “It will streamline our service by taking the operator out of the equation. It will save on insurance by removing human limitations. Computers don’t get tired. They don’t get sleepy.”
Think of a fleet of autonomous limos. “A beautiful vehicle comes and picks you up,” Joea imagines. “We can send out shuttle like that at the click of a button.”
But no such vehicle yet exists for him to test. No affordable vehicle anyway. An analysis by techie mag Fast Company estimates that Google’s $24K Prius concept costs upward of $320,000 once optioned with necessary autonomous hardware like a $80,000 Velodyne LIDAR system, $10,000 visual and radar sensors, $200,000 GPS array, plus computer and software. Ouch.
It’ll take a lot of airport runs for Mr. Joea to recoup that investment. Which takes me back to butlers. The ever-innovative Tesla will introduce its “Autopilot” system in its Model S sedan later this year. Autopilot is inspired by Boeing’s in-flight system where the operator never leaves the controls but where the plane is programmed to reach a destination.
“It’s better to have an optical system, basically cameras with software that is able to figure out what’s going on just by looking at things,” Tesla boss Elon Musk recently told Bloomberg of his idea for a more affordable hybrid of Google car and Audi A8 technologies. That is, a front and rear camera watching the road. Grille-mounted radar watching vehicles. An array of 12 electronic sensors blanketing the car and watching for everything else.
I’d also propose a big, red “DISABLE” button for motorheads like me who enjoy cars.
Like the A8L. Consider Audi’s 3.0-liter turbo diesel-injection V-6 powerplant. Specs: 250 horsepower and a redonkulus 428 pound feet of torque. This thing has more thrust than Apollo 11. Floor the big German and it surges forward like Charles Barkley at a Shoney’s buffet. But where’s the diesel’s wokka-wokka-wokka thrum? So quiet is the Audi cabin — so buttery smooth its drivetrain — that I actually had to pull over and open the hood to make sure it was a diesel.
Exterior dress is Audi formal. Crisp shoulders creased like Brooks Brothers pants. Tuxedo black greenhouse cradling a moon roof with a gorgeous view of the stars for the rear lounge — er, seat – passengers. Which is where Mrs. Payne got comfortable. Caramel-smooth ride matched by caramel-soft leather thrones. Heated seat and climate controls in the center armrest. Wood-encrusted doors. Headrests fit for a beauty salon. Vanity mirrors drop from the ceiling. As do grab handles for when her husband dips into the neck-snapping torque and AWD handling.
At the wheel I’ve decided I hate autonomous technology. Why let machines have all the fun?
Only the telematics drives me nuts. I don’t know which is worse — Audi’s rotary dial or the mouse touch pad. In the time it takes to enter a nav destination I could be there. So here’s the deal, machine. You set the A8L to where we need to go. Then I’ll flog it like Secretariat’s jockey getting us there. Everybody’s happy.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne as he reviews the latest toys every week.
2015 Audi A8
Vehicle type: Front-engine, all-wheel drive, five-passenger sedan
Price: $85,100 base ($98,575 as tested)
Power plant: 3.0-liter, turbodiesel V-6
Power: 240 horsepower, 428 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: 8-speed automatic transmission with steering-mounted paddle shifters
Performance: 0-60 mph, 6.3 seconds (manufacturer)
Weight: 4,564 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 24 mpg city/36 mpg highway/28 mpg combined
Report card
Highs: Lounge-like comfort; Fuel-efficient stump-puller
Lows: Autonomous features need a butler; Frivolous mouse pad takes up space
Overall:★★★★
Payne: Mazda CX-5 gives zoom-zoom to ute-ute
Posted by hpayne on April 16, 2015
We’re back in the appliance aisle this week.
Looking for a reliable machine that will move family, haul groceries, get us to work, won’t pillage the pocketbook. The automobile equivalent of a washing machine. Used to be the aisle was dominated by midsize sedans, but the options have expanded as taller, five-door utes have come to market.
The brand names are familiar. Honda (CR-V), Toyota (RAV4), Chevy (Equinox). Durable. Bulletproof. Functional. What else do you need in a washing machine? Quite a bit, I’m happy to say. Midsize sedan appliances have suddenly gained attitude — like your fridge sprouted an exposed carbon-fiber handle or your washer spin cycle plays The Stones Greatest Hits. The Ford Fusion looks like an Aston Martin, the Chrysler 200 is a polished piece of rolling furniture, even Camry has grown a goatee. I like where this is going. Cars are more than appliances, after all — they’re public avatars for us.
Compact utes have also shed their toaster square image to stand out from the crowd. Ogle Jeep’s bullet-nosed Cherokee or Ford’s raked Escape. Or salute the GMC Terrain pickup-design swagger.
But what if you’re the athletic type? Got running shoes and compression pants in your locker? Break into a sweat at least once a day? Then you might like to try on the Mazda CX-5.
Mazda, of course, has made athleticism — they call it “zoom-zoom” — their calling card. The Miata sports car is the most outgoing example of a lineup of vehicles that invites you to have fun on your way to the ATM appliance. “There’s a little bit of Miata in every Mazda,” company spokesman Tom McDonald likes to say. Mazda goes so far as the put its name on race tracks like Mazda Raceway in Laguna Seca, California where it provides a school of Miatas to train new disciples in zoom-zoom.
But ask any Miata school attendee for weekend highlights and they will mention the van tour of the fearsome, roller-coaster-like Laguna, one of America’s most daunting tracks. After one door-handle-leaning, tire squalling, pro-instructor-piloted lap, you will never look at a four-row, commercial van the same way again.
The all-wheel-drive Mazda CX-5 is like that.
Make sure the eggs are out of the backseat and have a ball. The Mazda DNA is there. The crisp steering. Predictable chassis. Athletic good looks. That big Mazda grille is grinning for a reason.
Introduced in 2014, the 2016 CX-5 showed up for spring training this year looking fitter (tweaked face, LED tail-lights) and with more options than ever. It could be a contender for best all-around ute. Could be. Readers of this column know that I’m a fan of the Ford Escape. Its total package is the benchmark for the segment – a delicious confection of style, high-tech, innovation, and options.
The Escape doesn’t match the CX-5’s handsome face (where’s that signature Aston grille, Ford?) but, like the Mazda, its body is surprisingly toned for a ute. Aggressive stance, strong shoulders, car-like style. That panache continues inside with the class’s most sculpted interior. Dash instruments are artfully packaged in chrome and matte-black surfaces. The Mazda is sooo Honda CR-V-like. Practical but lacking in the unique appeal that attracted you in the first place. The interior is roomy in front and back for sequoias like me. Empty-nesters tempted by the growing subcompact ute class may reconsider once they have tried a wider, compact ute. Ample center storage space awaits and you aren’t wedged in so tightly with your seatmate that you can smell what kind of omelet they had for breakfast.
Mazda matches the Ford standard for fold-flat rear seats (others class entries are content with seats that ALMOST fold all the way down) and even introduces remote buttons so you can flatten the seats from the back hatch. But that assumes you weren’t already miffed that the Mazda doesn’t have the Escape’s nifty “kick to open” rear hatch feature — a must for egg crate-carrying grocery shoppers. Even the luxe Audi A8 has copied this Ford innovation.
But the engine bay is where the Mazda is curiously zoomless-zoomless.
Where the Escape offers a trifecta of engine choices — 1.6-liter turbo, 2.5-liter, and a punchy, 240-horsepower 2.0-liter turbo, the Mazda offers but two normally-aspirated mills: A 155 horsepower, 2.0-liter base engine and the 2.5-liter, 184-horsepower gas-burner found in the Mazda 6 sedan. Nail it and you’ll pine for a turbo’s quiet torque. The CX-5’s 2.5 is a buzz-saw — invading an otherwise quiet cabin. Rumored is a diesel option down the road …
The narrow power plant options are especially curious coming from one of the world’s most innovative engine makers. My ears are still buzzing from Mazda’s historic 1991 24 Hours of LeMans win in which a non-piston-powered sports car won for the first time in history. Mazda’s unmuffled rotary engine created such a racket off the front straight grandstands that a generation of Frenchmen now wear hearing aids.
A more civilized rotary powered Mazda’s sensational RX for years (more sports car DNA), but Mazda’s recent green push — dubbed SKYACTIVE — has been largely one-dimensional. SKYACTIVE technology is green and sexy — but like Ford’s signature “Ecoboost” play to the green elites, it could co-exist with more horses.
Perhaps I protest too much. That buzzy four only temporarily distracts from a startlingly good value that starts a grand below the Escape.
The CX-5’s embarrassment of standard riches — cross-traffic alert, blind spot monitoring, collision-brake support, 7-inch touchscreen, full-body massage (just kidding about that last one) — can’t be found on a Porsche Macan crossover at more than twice its cost. My “Blue Reflex Mica” tester had a standard features list as long as a CVS Pharmacy receipt — plus moonroof — yet stickered for less than 29-grand. Its 22-grand base bests Honda and Toyota even as its Consumer Reports score is neck-and-neck with its better known Japanese rivals.
I’m grateful for the CX-5. The appliance aisle needs its special sauce. Not everyone wants Honda-Toyota-Chevy mayonnaise. The CX-5 won’t challenge Big Appliance for best sales numbers but it forces them — witness Honda’s lovely new CR-V — to add some nuts and fudge to its recipe.
Now if we can just entice Mazda into commercial vans. Zoom-zoom.
2016 Mazda CX-5
Vehicle type: Front-engine, front and all-wheel drive, five-passenger sport utility vehicle
Price: $22,465 base ($28,835 AWD as tested)
Power plant: 2.0-liter, inline-4 cylinder; 2.5-liter, inline-4
Power: 155 horsepower, 150 pound-feet of torque (2.0L); 184 horsepower, 185 pound-feet of torque (2.5L)
Transmission: 6-speed automatic transmission
Performance: 0-60 mph, 8.3 seconds (Car & Driver est. 2.5-liter); towing capacity as tested: 2,000 pounds
Weight: 3,550 pounds (AWD as tested)
Fuel economy: EPA 26 mpg city/35 mpg highway/29 mpg combined (2.0L); EPA 24 mpg city/30 mpg highway/26 mpg combined (AWD 2.5L tested)
Report card
Highs: Playful for a ute; standard is loaded with extras
Lows: Uninspired dash; sporty engine to match sporty chassis, please
Overall:★★★
Payne: For Taylors Detroit race is all in the family
Posted by hpayne on April 10, 2015
For most of us, a family weekend in the car means a quiet trip Up North with Dad at the helm of the Suburban and the kids buried in their iPods in the backseat.
It’s a little different for the Taylor family.
One of motor racing’s most prominent tribes, the Taylors spend their weekends in loud, cramped vehicles doing up to 200 mph. When the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship roars onto Belle Isle next month for the Chevrolet Sports Car Classic – sharing the show bill with the Verizon IndyCar Series – the Taylors will be a favorite to spray champagne in victory lane.
Dad Wayne Taylor, 58, is an endurance racing legend, a two-time Daytona 24-Hour winner. But these days, Pops is in the backseat (that would be a metaphor. There is no backseat in a 600-horsepower Corvette DP missile) balancing the books of Wayne Taylor Racing, while his hot-shoe sons – Ricky, 25, and Jordan, 23 – take turns at the wheel.
In motorsports culture family dynasties make the Clintons and Bushes look like pikers. Andretti, Unser, Rahal, Petty, Earnhardt, and more have dominated the pit lane over the years. But Ricky and Jordan are rare siblings who pilot Dad’s wheels. Only drag racing’s formidable Force clan – John and daughters Courtney and Brittany – compare.
The boys seem to have had a normal childhood. Which is to say, soccer was their first sport.
“We grew up (in Florida) around racetracks, but until we were 10 we weren’t really that interested,” says Jordan, the bespectacled one. “We’d be at the track but we would always have a soccer ball to kick around.”
But they had oil in their veins. Eventually, the track called. Beginning with go-karts.
“It was very low key at the start,” says Ricky. “Not until we were 12-13 did we get our own kart. My Dad started spending more time with us, and that’s how we got more serious about it.”
They climbed the podium fast. Barber open-wheel racing, Formula 2000, prototype sports cars. At the improbable age of 18, Rick Taylor joined his father to race a Sun Trust Bank-sponsored, Pontiac Riley prototype in the Rolex 24-Hours of Daytona. Sixteen-year old Jordan made the trip too – entered with a different team in the GT class.
Heady stuff. Goosebumps for Dad.
“Now, if we can just get my wife, Shelly, in the pace car, we can have the have the entire Taylor family in the race,” quipped Wayne at the time.
For the next few years the boys came and went like teenagers do. Rick left the team nest. Jordan came on board in 2013. Then finally, last year, Taylor racing was family. In a sport where team-mates often feud more than speak, the close Taylor boys are more like an Olympic two-man bobsled team. Teamwork. Teamwork. Teamwork.
“We’ve never been that competitive with each other which is good because you can take the ego out of it,” Jordan says. “On any weekend if Ricky is faster than me then we used that to our advantage. We‘re talking to each other.”
It didn’t take long to nab their first win. Right here in Detroit last May.
“For a street course it’s really good,” says Jordan of the twisty Belle Isle circuit. “It’s fast and wide, and compared to Long Beach its miles better. Not as bumpy.”
Detroit has better roads than California? Refreshing to hear.
“This is a big event for us, especially being the Corvette team with GM headquarters right here,” adds Ricky looking out over a barren Belle Isle when I interviewed the brothers in early March. The place looks different without the leaves of May. Or pit stalls. Or grandstands.
But the Taylors came here in winter because racing is about more than driving fast. It’s sponsor dinners, series promotion, and missionary work. The boys love the missionary work. They want other kids to know what a great career racing can be. This day they have proselytized to a rapt audience at Cody High School’s Detroit Institute of Technology.
“We were introduced to the sport really young,” says Ricky. “When we were in school other kids didn’t know what we were talking about. It’s cool . . . to share our experience with Cody kids and talk about the technology transfer between the school and what they can apply to the motor sports industry.”
They’re still learning themselves. Like how to run the family business someday. “Dad always talks about retiring,” smiles Ricky. “But I don’t think he’s anywhere close to that. It’s hard for him to keep busy outside racing right now.”
That, and he’s having too much fun on family road trips.
Payne: Four-door freaks, Porsche Panamera S vs. Audi S7
Posted by hpayne on April 9, 2015
Left-lane lollygaggers drive me crazy.
Americans take hours of driver’s ed classes with instructions to travel in the right lanes unless they need to pass. Then we get our driver’s license, develop instant amnesia, and spend the rest of our lives in the left lane driving like snails with a tail of road rage in our mirrors.
Say hello to the cures for the common lollygagger: The Porsche Panamera S and Audi S7 four-door coupes.
A brief sketch of the “four-door coupe” is in order. It’s a freak of nature. An oxymoron. A rare breed of sedan that includes the e-mazing — if distance-limited — Tesla Model S that I fell hard for last year. Or the achingly gorgeous, painfully pricey Aston Martin Rapide. Like Grace Kelly, it offers unmatched beauty afforded only by Monaco royalty.
At half the price of the Aston with twice the range of a Tesla, the Panamera S and S7 may be the best all-around athletes in the auto gymnasium.
The performance variants of the already potent Panamera and A7 models, the Panamera S and S7 share their siblings’ gorgeous lines and lush interiors. Just add steroids. About 420 horsepower will do.
These thoroughbreds were raised on the German Autobahn where they cruise comfortably in the left lane at 120 mph in a disciplined automotive culture where lollygaggers are locked away for life. On this side of the pond these lithe sprinters will find the fast lane clogged with obstacles — like Usain Bolt stumbling upon a pack of 1,500-meter runners mid-dash. One second you’re zipping along, then — bam! — your grille’s full of L.L. Lollygagger III talking to his broker at 55 mph.
Drive the Porsche and Audi home in heavy traffic and they will grow more impatient than Chris Christie at a vegetarian buffet. Cruising at 55 with the left-lane lollies feels like standing still. If the duo were sharks they would suffocate. No problem. Move to the right lane, punch the throttle, and surge forward like an F-14 shot off a carrier deck.
It’s hard to decide which cure I’d recommend more.
On the Lodge, the S7 ate traffic like a humpback whale feeding in a school of plankton. One gulp and they’re gone. The S7’s insane, turbocharged, 420-horse V-8 has more torque than anything this side of a Tesla. The electric car-like kick is enhanced by the high-tech, cocoon-quiet interior. Its heads-up display and Google Earth nav system are futuristic. Its pin-striped accents, chrome cupholders, and quilted seats are boardroom luxe. Even with the V-8 engine exhaust set to DYNAMIC (other options: NORMAL and COMFORT), the rocket’s thrust sounds distant, muffled. The landscape moves past your windows as if you had pressed a fast-forward button — dizzyingly fast, but silent.
The Panamera has other ideas.
This is a Porsche after all. Start button on the left side of the steering wheel. Instrument cluster with tac front and center. Quirky, fold-out cup holders. The Panamera is posh — but with 60 years of racing heritage at your fingertips. Literally. The Porsche has more buttons than an airliner cockpit. Want SPORT or SPORT PLUS mode? Hit the button. Want to hear the roar of your 420-horse twin turbo as it devours lollygaggers? Push the “dual exhaust” avatar and open the gates of Hell.
Springing to the right of a herd of lollygaggers on the Left Coast’s arching San Diego Coronado Bridge, my Panamera tester erupted with a roar that sounded like Cerberus gargling with razor blades. The speedo spiked as I launched up the five-lane span, the exhaust barking with each lightning-quick paddle shift. If I had kept my foot in it I surely could have hurdled downtown San Diego and returned to Earth near Palm Springs. And attracted every cop west of Vegas.
The 3.0-liter, twin-turbo V-6 replaces the previous gen V-8 — but, thanks to the exhaust special effects, it retains much of the eight-holer’s aural pleasure.
Porsche styling is behind the eight-ball compared to the S7, but Porsche if it cares. No. It’s about tradition.
A motorhead pal quips that the Panamera looks like a 911 stretch limo. The 911 sports car is Porsche’s signature. The iconic, fast-backed shape. The countless racing titles. Vehicle styling trends come and go, but the 911 is the Rock of Gibraltar, impervious to the winds of time.
Porsche might have called the Panamera the 911 sedan, but this is no 911. The Panamera kicks the engine from the rear to the front. The addition of two, surprisingly roomy rear seats interrupts the coupe-like greenhouse, making the sedan appear butt-heavy. It’s attractive like Kim Kardashian — if you don’t mind the caboose.
The effect is unmistakably Porsche, however, and — along with the Cayenne SUV — has hugely expanded the sports car maker’s consumer demographic from motorhead to luxe. In a Birmingham parking lot recently I asked a well-dressed gentleman emerging from his Panamera what engine he had under the hood — a question every 911 owner could instantly answer.
He had no idea — and admitted he didn’t know what was under the hood of his wife’sPanamera either. Porsche is smiling all the way to the bank.
The S7, meanwhile, reaches for motorheads beyond Audi’s core luxe buyer. Squint hard and an Audi A4 bears a family resemblance to the VW Jetta. The 7 is a breed all its own. Its sloping ducktail is revered. That pretty new Chevy Malibu unveiled in New York? Audi S7 inspired. Ditto the fast-backed Ford Fusion.
If you want the prettiest four-door coupe, buy the S7. If you want a four-door Porsche, the Panamera is your drug.
Allow me to recommend all-wheel-drive in both. Despite their slender lines, these coupes are heavyweights, tipping the scales over 4,500 pounds. Driven hard, my rear-wheel-drive Panamera could be a handful, its long front end in a different time zone from the rear. For $5,100, the Panamera 4S adds AWD. The S7 is the bargain with AWD standard.
Ah, handling. It makes these predators enjoyable even after you’ve left the expressway. After a long squawk up north on I-75, take a left at Gaylord and treat your S-of-choice to the S turns of Route M-32.
Just hope the lollygaggers don’t exit with you.
2015 Porsche Panamera S
Vehicle type: Front-engine, rear-wheel drive, four-passenger sport sedan
Price: $93,200 base ($116,140 as tested)
Power plant: 3.0-liter, twin-turbo V-6
Power: 420 horsepower, 384 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: 7-speed PDK automatic transmission with steering-mounted paddle shifters
Performance: 0-60 mph, 4.6 seconds (manufacturer)
Weight: 4,586 pounds
Fuel economy: EPA 17 mpg city/27 mpg highway/21 mpg combined
Report card
Highs: Comfy backseat buckets; engine special effects
Lows: Old-school European, fold-out cupholders; price
Overall:★★★
2015 Audi S7
Vehicle type: Front-engine, all-wheel drive, four-passenger sport sedan
Price: $82,500 base ($88,875 as tested)
Power plant: 4.0-liter, turbocharged V-8
Power: 420 horsepower, 406 pound-feet of torque
Transmission: 7-speed automatic transmission with steering-mounted paddle shifters
Performance: 0-60 mph, 4.5 seconds (manufacturer)
Weight: 4,508 pounds base
Fuel economy: EPA 17 mpg city/27 mpg highway/20 mpg combined
Report card
Highs: Gorgeous; liquid-smooth power
Lows: Tedious, rotary dial-operated infotainment screen; steering-stalk triplets can confuse
Overall:★★★★
Payne: How Gotham’s auto show is different
Posted by hpayne on April 6, 2015
New York votes as blue as California but it isn’t as green. New Yorkers like to think they are saving the polar bear — look, we have Prius cabs! — but when it comes to cars, they are as politically incorrect as we purple state, ute-addicted Midwesterners. California’s status symbol is Tesla, New York’s is Mercedes. As BMW North America President Ludwig Willisch said about electric vehicles: “(New Yorkers) couldn’t care less.”
These stereotypes play out on the U.S. auto show circuit.
The Detroit Auto Show is the All-American, muscle car and truck-palooza. Los Angeles preens green. New York showcases luxury.
We aren’t the Motor City for nothing. Cars are Michigan religion. We put the world on wheels and worship men like Ford, Dodge and Shelby. Green is California’s faith. Carbon is a sin and natives frown on gas-guzzlers like Puritans on Hester Prynne.
New York? New York’s creed is money.
If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. If you can’t, you commute from Jersey. New York is so expensive that, if I put an Escalade on blocks, I could rent it out for $8,000 a month as a penthouse apartment. One of my book editors at Penguin Random House — the world’s largest publisher, with its headquarters on Broadway — lives on Manhattan’s east side. Without children. She says only One Percenters can afford to raise kids in Manhattan. The middle class lives in north Jersey. Or Long Island. Space is simply too expensive.
Just down the street from the Javits Center (the sprawling convention complex that hosts New York’s show on Manhattan’s west side), a new development is rising with condos for sale between $2 million and $21 million. Twenty-one million for a condo? You could buy all of northeast Detroit for $21 mil. The Big Apple is choked with million-dollar cribs. With $1,000-a-month parking underneath.
So it’s no wonder that the Javits Center show floor caters to luxury. If you want to introduce a luxe sedan, sports car or SUV, New York is your bazaar. Walk onto Javits main floor and luxury chariots abound. There are Rolls Royces and Maseratis and Aston Martins. Acres of Astons. The classic Vanquish. The four-door Rapide. The track-pulverizing Vulcan. James Bond’s jaw would drop.
Surrounding the Aston corral is Porsche, Lamborghini, Koenigsegg, Bugatti, and McLaren. Heck, McLaren — which makes nothing under $185 grand — has its own stand. Last year it sold fewer than 500 cars in the U.S., probably to a block of $21 million condo owners. I wonder what you would do with a 1,200-horsepower, 268-mph Bugatti Veyron in Manhattan. In cross-town traffic it’s not going to get you to LaGuardia any quicker than a Chevy Tahoe. And it won’t have room for your luggage.
I haven’t seen these cars on Cobo’s floor in years. (They usually have an exclusive, off-site casino showing.) In New York the luxe divisions of mainstream companies — Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexus — split from their corporate parents to show off for the gold chain crowd.
“Ford? Never heard of it. The name’s Lincoln Continental III, Esquire. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Trump.”
The mainstream brands still share the palatial main floor — like coach sharing the same plane with first class. Indeed, the Ford GT and Chevy Corvette Z06 would stomp most Astons. But pickups are relegated to the basement. The only people who drive pickups in Manhattan are condo construction crews.
And then there’s third class. The North Hall.
Walk out the door from the main floor. Down the North Concourse. Through the connector to North Hall from North Concourse. Or you could take a cab. It’s as if Cobo’s Detroit show also used Joe Louis Arena for exhibit space. Four automakers are stuck in North Hall Siberia: Mitsubishi, Fiat, Scion and Subaru.
They make small, affordable vehicles. You know, bought by people who commute in from Jersey.
Payne: Kia Sorento is boffo bargain
Posted by hpayne on April 2, 2015
We are fascinated by identical twins. The Zuckerberg-suing Winklevosses. The adorable Olsens. The tennis-playing Bryans.
And we like twins with a bit of mystery. Did you know that gorgeous supermodel Gisele Bündchen is a twin? Did you see the twins twist coming in the magician film classic, “The Prestige”? Me neither.
We’ve watched the careers of autodom’s twins. Mercury and Ford. Dodge and Chrysler. Chevy and Olds and Pontiac and Buick (um, that’s actually quadruplets, isn’t it?) But the mystery duo of the moment are the Koreans, Hyundai and Kia.
The pair share a corporate parent (Hyundai), U.S. assembly plant (Georgia), and chassis — yet this is hardly a Bryan-like, high-fiving, doubles team. Indeed, they barely acknowledge each other. When I ask Hyundai and Kia about the other, they are curt.
“We view them as a direct competitor, just like Honda or Toyota,” a Kia rep says. Feel a chill, bro?
Yet, like the Bryans, parent Hyundai is proud of its kids. They are affordable. Reliable. Both are celebrating record sales as they slake America’s insatiable thirst for everything ute.
Take the Kia Sorento I’ve been flogging about town.
The Sorento is an all-new 2016 model following the all-new, 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe. Midsize utes are cargo haulers, so I was pleased my test mule was equipped with a V-6 engine and AWD. Want a 4-pot fuel-sipper? Buy a compact SUV.
Like its crib-mate, Sorento delivers family-friendly, midsize utility. Yet only theatrical parents would dress their twins the same after, say, their second birthday. Twins need a chance to breathe. A chance to find their own identities. Sorento and Santa Fe are no different.
Kia has traditionally been the more affordable brand, and — sho’nuff as they say in Georgia — the Sorento V-6 is the bargain buy at $31,890 base. That’s almost $2,000 less than sister Fe (I’m mixing brother and sister metaphors, so humor me). Similarly equipped Toyota Highlander or class-sales leader Ford Explorer will command another $500-1,000 above that.
Yet Sorento is no Cinderella in rags. It sports a striking wardrobe compared to stepsister Santa Fe. Leather seats. Nav system. Lots of digital bling like Bluetooth connectivity, blind-spot assist, rear-camera assist, and so on. In fact, the swankiest trim Sorento Limited stickers for $44,890 — six grand north of Santa Fe Limited. My steed stickered at $40,595.
Sorento is like walking into Pei Wei and finding the same decor and menu as upscale sister-chain P.F. Chang’s. Seems the sisters have similar tastes.
The names tell you something. Santa Fe gets its moniker from the chic New Mexico burg. Not to be outdone, the Kia borrows its name from Sorrento, chic Italian tourist trap (dropping one r for some reason). Kia likes the European market and its badge was conspicuous on my last trip across the pond.
Sorento’s European pretentions are more than just a subscription to Elle.
Kia hired Audi fashion legend Peter Schreyer to bring flair to the Korean brand. The result is a family of distinctive, “tiger-nosed,” grilles with sleek sheet metal. My Sorento greeted me with spreading mirrors and a chime upon entering the cabin. Red calipers wink at me behind the snowflake-shaped wheels like the trendy, red-bottom heels of Paris runways. Well, hello.
The charm offensive continues inside. The instrument cluster is right out of Schreyer’s VW/Audi stylebook — white on black dials, chrome accents. Pepper and salt interior decor, leather stitching. Nice.
I like to jump into a test car and test its ergonomics on the fly. Controls should be intuitive, and everything in the Sorento is where it should be. Here’s to you, interior design team. Sorento may speak with a European accent, but it’s fluent in American ergonomics. The console is shorn of the worst Euro bad habits (looking at you, Audi) of button acne or rotary screen controls.
Chrome-bezeled islands holding the controls like the Dodge Challenger. The upright touch screen is easy to reach (not all drivers have orangutan arms like your scribe). Radio stations, seat heaters, climate dials, gas cap release, USB and 12-volt plugs are all right in front of me. Kia offers a new eService called UVO that — among other things — will play nanny to your teen-driver on speed and curfew. Which they might find more annoying than the Olsen twins’ fashion line.
Mrs. Payne has embraced nimble hatchbacks in our empty-nest years, but the Sorento might have been tempting back in her soccer-mom days. Especially since it offers her essentials: AWD, heated seats, third-row seats. She’d prefer the roomy second row be captain’s chairs — easier rugrat access to the third-row — but credit an available, full-cabin length sunroof in making that last row seem less basement-like. Step ’round back and that third row can be flattened — together with the second — with clever switches that open up maximum, I-hope-this-big-screen-TV-fits cargo space.
Wrap all this in a quiet cabin and it’s no wonder that the Korean twins sell more midsize utes (210,000 in 2014 even before the new Sorento debuts) than any other car company outside Ford’s dominant Explorer and Edge tag team.
With its European style and car-like chassis, the Sorento is a reminder — not just in how far Korean vehicles have come — but in how far SUVs have come. Though not as firm as the crisp Edge, I drove Sorento around town with the confidence of a sedan. When your friends get all teary about the good ol’ days, remind them what land yachts SUVs used to be like.
Only the drivetrain betrays the Sorento’s discount price.
The 6-speed auto tranny has all of the finesse — YUMP! — of a garden tractor. The touchy accelerator doesn’t roll on so much as — YIP! — jerk the machine to life. Upshifts came as abruptly — YUNK! — as a mule kick. Happily, the 290-horse, 3.3-liter V-6 provides plenty of muscle to move the Sorento’s 4,343 pounds.
I wouldn’t want to be at the dinner table with the Korean twins. The brands are spending daddy’s money following the same business strategy: More high-margin utes, more brand-polishing, upscale, luxury cars. And while Hyundai attracts a higher income demographic, the Sorento’s youthful styling is turning more heads.
Naturally, then, Hyundai has appointed Kia’s Schreyer to be its designer as well. The twins are dating the same stylist? Let the fur fly.
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or Twitter @HenryEPayne.
2016 Kia Sorento
Vehicle type: Front-engine, front and all-wheel drive, seven-passenger sport utility vehicle
Price: $25,795 base ($40,595 AWD V-6 as tested)
Power plant: 2.0-liter, turbo inline-4 cylinder; 2.4-liter, inline-4; 3.3-liter V-6
Power: 185 horsepower, 178 pound-feet of torque (4-cyl); 240 horsepower, 260 pound-feet of torque (turbo 4-cyl); 290 horsepower, 252 pound-feet of torque (V-6)
Transmission: 6-speed automatic transmission
Performance: 0-60 mph, 6.8 seconds (Car & Driver est. V-6); towing capacity as tested: 5,000 pounds
Weight: 3,704 pounds base (4,343 AWD as tested)
Fuel economy: (all figures with AWD) EPA 19 mpg city/25 mpg highway/22 mpg combined (4-cyl); EPA 21 mpg city/26 mpg highway/23 mpg combined (turbo 4-cyl); EPA 18 mpg city/26 mpg highway/21 mpg combined (V-6)
Report card
Highs: Versatile, three-row player; intuitive console
Lows: Jerky drivetrain; looks chunkier than Santa Fe twin
Overall:★★★
Payne: The Jurassic toy designer who makes Fords
Posted by hpayne on March 31, 2015
If you loved Kenner Products’ remote control “Ricochet” toy car as a kid and covet the new Ford Edge as an adult, meet Kevin George.
He designed both.
George, exterior design manager for the 2015 Edge crossover, came to Ford through an unusual route: the toy business. For a dozen years, he designed some of the most beloved toys on kids’ wish lists — Ricochet, “Jurassic Park” movie figures, “Batman” vehicles, NASCAR models — for Kenner before he realized his life’s dream and crossed over to the auto industry in 2001 to sculpt cars.
Where he once worked closely with Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg on Jurassic Park vehicle designs, he now pens cars for the legendary Blue Oval.
“The passion that kids had for their toys — I want them to grow up and have that same passion for their cars,” says the 48-year-old, who has just completed a media tour for the Edge as it debuts in dealer showrooms this month.
Growing up in Kettering, Ohio, Kevin George’s passion for autos started young. His father, a General Motors engineer, brought home a steady diet of development vehicles. He learned the language of car design. The lights. The lines. His friends wanted to play baseball or soccer.
“I wanted to draw cars,” he says.
But when it came time to choose a university, the budding designer eschewed the traditional auto design factories of Detroit’s College for Creative Studies or California’sArt Center College of Design. He chose the University of Cincinnati. Once more, he learned from his father.
“He encouraged me to get an industrial design degree because he said I can always get a product design job,” reflects George. “He warned me that the auto business was very cyclical.”
After graduation in 1987, George took his “book” — portfolio — to Cincinnati’s Kenner, a little toy company once known for Play-Doh and Easy Bake Ovens that had struck pay dirt by landing the “Star Wars” contract to produce action figures. The Hollywood connection was a gold mine for Kenner as it became the go-to company for movie merchandise.
Nearly every movie project had vehicles and young George lobbied for the assignment. His first project: “Ghostbusters” in 1989. Then came Jurassic Park.
“We gave away free movie design work,” laughs George, because the lead time on making toys — design, materials, Chinese production, shipment to market — was longer than making a movie. So George and his team became de facto designers for Spielberg props like the park’s tour trucks.
George read Michael Crichton’s original novels. Worked with Hollywood designers. Spielberg came to Cincinnati.
“The trucks were initially based on the Ford Explorer. But I didn’t like the vehicles, so we did a different design,” remembers George, aware of the irony that he’s now a Ford designer. He changed the roofs to clear glass. Added numbers. Spielberg approved.
Other blockbusters followed. Batman. NASCAR. The game-changing, all-wheel drive “Ricochet” design that introduced a remote control car that would always land on its feet — saving kids the trouble of rescuing cars turtled on their roofs.
The Ricochet, as its packaging promised, was “virtually unstoppable.” But George’s toy design career was not.
Kenner was bought by Hasbro. The Cincinnati division was closed and George took a different job in Rhode Island. The “non-cyclical” product design industry had suddenly hit a cycle. George faced a crossroads.
“My wife asked me: ‘What is it that you want?’ ” he recalls. “‘Follow your dream.'”
Ricochet’s designer sent his book of toy vehicle designs to Ford North America Design Director Moray Callum — including a hot rod, ’32 Ford split window. “I think he liked that car,” smiles George.
He was hired. His first assignment: chief interior designer for the 2005 Mustang. Now that’s hitting the ground running.
“It’s great to have designers that come from a different background on our team,” says George’s boss, Chris Svensson, design director of the Americas. “They bring a different perspective to addressing a design challenge. It ensures we are evaluating every possibility.”
George never looked back. He worried that car design might be different, more high-tech. But he’s found that while the tools have evolved — CAD computer design, Oculus Rift virtual reality helmets — craftsmanship remains paramount.
“They do things the same way we did at Kenner,” he says. “With a movie toy you ask yourself: ‘What is the core fantasy of this film?’ With a car it’s the same. ‘What is it that people like about a ’67 Mustang?’ I knew what to do. I knew how to capture the essence of the Mustang.'”
The same principle applied to remaking the Edge, a pioneer of the crossover segment and one of Ford’s most familiar shapes.
“Just because you can change everything doesn’t mean you should,” he says of a design that integrates Ford sedan family cues like a Taurus-like grill and Fusion-like taillights — yet retains Edge’s signature, sculpted stance.
George says he particularly enjoyed working on Edge’s full-size clay model in the design studio, carving out big scoops of clay from the ute’s slab sides to give it a leaner look.
Playing with clay. Drawing cars. Just like when he was a kid. He’s living his dream.