Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2018 i Car and Driver

ONCE, GARGANTUAN INLINE-FOURS ruled the world. In 1909, a 200-hp 21.5-liter four-cylinder powered racecar driver Victor Hémery’s Blitzen Benz to a then-outlandish 125.9 mph at Britain’s Brooklands circuit. For a moment, it was the fastest car in the world. General Motors’ new turbo 2.7-liter inline-four, code-named L3B, isn’t that big. But when it makes its way into GM’s full-sizetruck lineup this fall, it will be one of the largest gas-fired, spark-ignited inline-fours sold in the U.S. (the Toyota Tacoma has a 2.7-liter four, too). And there aren’t likely to be many larger ones. An inline-four can grow only so big before losing its advantages over other configurations with more cylinders. “A lot of it is packaging,” explains Tom Sutter, GM’s chief engineer for small gasoline engines. “To make a big…

Newcomer 2018 MERCEDES-BENZ E400 4MATIC WAGON Arrival: May/2018 Miles: 7637 • Observed mpg: 23 AS WE SET FINGERS to keyboard to introduce our latest long-termer, we got a synchronous jolt of dread. We swear we could hear the awful crunch of glass and metal, could see the flash of fragments falling to the ground, though the incident was transpiring a mile away, improbably, at our local Buffalo Wild Wings. We should have known this was the wrong place to park such a sumptuous buffet of automotive virtue, and we will henceforth limit the E400’s appearances to Michelin two-star parking lots and above. But there, in the arid expanse of the BW3 lot, two jokers in a moving van approached—they weren’t even drunk yet!—and luridly slid their vehicle’s grimy back corner…

[+] High-rpm wail; simple, clean lines; an American legend. [-] Engine can be caught off guard, requires commitment to be quick. REV THE 2019 MUSTANG BULLITT to 7500 rpm or you’re not getting the full experience. Sure, it sounds good at 4000, chortling out an unmistakable V-8 purr. By 5500, it’s coming on song and making real yank. But beyond 6000 rpm, the latest version of the 5.0-liter Coyote V-8 shrieks a fervent American opus. On the press launch, we drove the Bullitt through Northern California Gold Country at high revs and high g’s and, of course, visited San Francisco, where the Bullitt legend was born 50 years ago. Ford will do a two-year run of this limited-edition Mustang for the 2019 and 2020 model years, distributing its American legend…

EVERY DRIVE IN A JEEP WRANGLER feels as if you’re getting away with something. How can it be legal to drive on public roads in a vehicle with removable doors and a windshield that folds flat? The closest thing to it is the feeling you got when, at age four, you drove your Power Wheels out of the cul-de-sac. Mommy is going to be so mad, and it’s going to be so worth it. Completely redesigned for 2018, the Wrangler is even more like a Power Wheels now that it’s available with an electric motor. It’s not the sole source of propulsion—a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder does most of the work—but a 22-hp motor does double duty as a starter for the stop-start system and contributes up to 71 pound-feet of…

THE RESURRECTED BUGATTI has had just two goals: speed and luxury. And it executes both superlatively. But when Stephan Winkelmann took the helm of the company in January, he found a team eager for the next challenge. “They were burning to do more,” he says. Winkelmann had something in mind. When he was CEO of Lamborghini, he helped create a number of sensational limited-production models, including the Reventón, Sesto Elemento, Veneno, and Centenario. All sold out rapidly and became instant collector’s items. To the satisfaction of the Volkswagen Group overlords, they turned a nice profit, too. Why not import the same concept to Molsheim? The product briefing took shape: It called for a unique but distinctively Bugatti design—a car sportier than the Chiron, with the emphasis shifted from flat-out top…

THE PANTHEON of humanity’s bad ideas is so full now that it takes a real blunder to achieve any measure of distinction. But it may be time for the Snapchat puppy filter to surrender its plinth. In its place, we submit the $1799 Onewheel+ XR, a motorized, self-stabilizing single-wheel skateboard. It was conceived by Santa Cruz, California–based personal-mobility company Future Motion and executed, we can only assume, in partnership with some otherworldly chaos agent. The Onewheel looks benign enough when you’re watching YouTube videos of expert riders effortlessly carving down mountain paths or grinding along curbs. When it’s powered on, a pressure sensor located under one of the footpads activates a gyroscope, and graceful users can step on, level out, and glide away under the power of a 2-hp motor,…

If you haven’t noticed, most 10Best cars find their way to Lightning Lap. After 32 titles, the Honda Accord is long overdue for a run on this fierce circuit. How well can the Sport 2.0T turn 252 horsepower, a manual gearbox, all-season tires, and zero track-grade equipment into a hot lap? Better than you’d think. The Accord barrels into Horse Shoe’s braking zone at 122.3 mph. By turn-in, the brake rotors are grumbling and the pedal has gone to putty. The brake system’s warning light is on before we make it out of NASCAR; for the rest of the lap, we’ll be braking early. The open differential makes getting back on the power a waiting game, but the Accord still shreds the Climbing Esses with a higher average speed than…

Thanks to the proliferation of forced induction, the Porsche 911 GT3 delivers an increasingly rare treat: a redline north of 8000 rpm. Here are some of the highest-revving naturally aspirated cars we’ve lapped: 8000 RPM 2007 Audi RS4, 2008 Honda S2000 CR 8250 RPM 2006 BMW M6, 2014 Ferrari F12berlinetta 8300 RPM 2009 BMW M3 8400 RPM 2007 Porsche 911 GT3, 2011 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 8500 RPM 2006 Lotus Elise, 2008 Ferrari 430 Scuderia, 2017 Audi R8 V10 Plus, 2018 Lamborghini Huracán Performante 8800 RPM 2016 Porsche 911 GT3 RS 9000 RPM 2010 Mazda RX-8 R3, 2012 Ferrari 458 Italia, 2012 Lexus LFA, 2015 Porsche 911 GT3, 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder, 2018 Porsche 911 GT3…

Time travel is not so difficult. Forget about paradoxes and the speed of light and parallel universes and all that other sci-fi blather. It does not require a TARDIS or Doc Brown’s DeLorean. Really, any old car will do. You just need to find the right place to drive it to, which is also not particularly challenging, as there are parts of this great-again country of ours that have not changed so much from the way they were a rather long time ago. Case in point: Bend, Oregon, where a Blockbuster video store stands in a nondescript strip mall just off U.S. Route 97. Its owners, Debbie and Ken Tisher, and the longtime manager, Sandi Harding, all got their 15 minutes of fame this past summer when the two other…

[+] Turns, brakes, and accelerates unlike any other Hyundai. [-] Firm ride, muffled exhaust note, cars aren’t supposed to be asymmetric. N STANDS FOR NAMYANG. Or at least that was Hyundai’s declaration when it dreamed up the N performance subbrand in 2013. It seemed a curious choice considering that Namyang, the South Korean home of Hyundai’s R&D campus, has neither the track record nor the actual track that might make the place synonymous with performance. There’s more elevation change over a typical Walmart parking lot than on Namyang’s handling course, and a simple autocross in said parking lot would be a better driving exercise for anything the N division would go on to build. To us, Namyang’s modest proving grounds are an apt symbol of why Hyundai’s cars have remained…

OUR DRIVING HABITS can reveal a lot more about us than simply our personalities. According to a recent study, how we drive may also indicate if we are exhibiting early signs of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. The study was conceived by Adriana Seelye, an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Psychiatry, and it explored whether people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI)—a decline in memory and cognitive abilities that is often a precursor to Alzheimer’s—drive differently. If so, medical providers could use data from cars’ computers to detect underlying conditions before other warning signs develop. The researchers’ theory panned out. Seelye and her co-authors tracked 28 drivers, average age 82, through their cars’ onboard diagnostic ports for 206 days. Seven of the participants had MCI. Seelye…

The Climbing Esses are the first thing drivers think of when they picture VIR. They laterally load the car to the limit of adhesion, and they’re over before you can remember to breathe. A Chevy Corvette Z06 set the bar in 2006; since then, the esses’ record has been reset six times, including this year. Vipers seem to be built for these four corners. The GT2 RS is so fast that it requires a brush of the brakes in the last turn to keep from going wide. Key: Event Number, Car, Average Speed in the Climbing Esses…

The first thing you do after you start a monster truck is turn it off. Actually, you don’t turn it off. One of the four guys watching you kills the ignition via a radio. You know how the Kool-Aid man used to crash through walls? They don’t want that happening at your local arena should you go unconscious with the throttle wide open. Safety first. “And what comes second?” I ask Tom Meents, the longtime driver of Maximum Destruction and the professor here at Monster Jam University in Paxton, Illinois. “Safety,” he says. You can take a guess at the third most important thing. (Hint: It’s safety.) “When do we get to the part about doing awesome stuff that looks supercool?” I ask. “That’s fourth,” he replies. I suppose that…

[+] New and improved engine character, same special handling. [-] Price creep with performance goodies, noisy on the highway. WE HAVE CARED DEEPLY about the Mazda MX-5 Miata for nearly three decades. So have thousands of loyal owners who attend Miata-club meets, autocross events, and open track days. But do you know who cares about the Miata even more? Mazda. This little roadster serves as the brand’s philosophical center, its pride and joy. And for 2019, Mazda turned its attention to the MX-5’s engine bay. Vehicle dynamics manager Dave Coleman admits that, for the U.S., Mazda originally designed the current-gen Miata (known as the ND) to use the same 1.5-liter inline-four found in MX-5s in other markets. By the time Mazda decided to install a bigger engine for our shores,…

[+] Forty more horses, massive brakes, a driver’s car. [-] Numb steering, no suspension tweaks. CARVED INTO THE ROCKY BAETIC MOUNTAINS of southern Spain, the 3.4-mile Circuito Ascari is a fast, technical, and sphincter-clenching driver’s track. Linking the chicanes with the off-camber bits that comprise its 26 corners takes patience and precision. And getting fast and comfortable on a course like this requires the right car. We’re here to find out if the BMW M2 Competition is it. Replacing the 365-hp M2, the M2 Competition dips into the BMW performance candy jar for a handful of go-fast sweets. It swaps the N55 turbocharged inline-six for the potent S55 twinturbo 3.0-liter inline-six from its big brother, the M4. Its M2 Comp–specific engine calibration lowers the output from 425 horsepower to 405…