Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i Car and Driver

JUST TRY TO MAKE IT TO THE END of this story without scouring the internet for an old Jeep. Such is the supernatural desire-stoking ability of the concepts that the brand designs each year for the Easter Jeep Safari in Moab, Utah. The tamer Moab concepts use widely available bolt-on upgrades that promise easy installation through local dealerships. Others, such as the M-715 Five-Quarter concept shown here, spill gasoline near the raging fire of Jeep worship, fueling envy and lust. [See “J6” and “Wayout” on page 018 for two more big-deal concepts Jeep brought to Moab this year.] On paper, this Five-Quarter’s birth was not unlike that of any other home-brewed, purpose-built off-roader: Jeep purchased a used truck off Craigslist, stripped it of nonessential bodywork, messed with the suspension, and…

CARS, LIKE POLITICS, ARE LOCAL. In Connecticut, the roads are full of German sedans and British SUVs. Whereas in Michigan, a Range Rover is a sure sign of someone who stalks his prey in loden green, not camo. And you won’t see many Foresters in Los Angeles or Aventadors in Peoria. Cars are also political: In its 2016 survey of more than 170,000 new-vehicle buyers, research firm Strategic Vision found that Democrats want their vehicles to be environmentally friendly, economical, and cool. Republicans, on the other hand, want something that is powerful, rugged, and prestigious. Using data compiled by industry-advocacy group Auto Alliance, we’ve taken a gander at how the car scene differs across these United States. GEOGRAPHY OF EXTREMES Some of Auto Alliance’s data is broken down to the…

Kia is no newcomer to the three-rowutility-vehicle market, nor is it a stranger to spinning the wheel of fortune. When its Borrego launched in 2008, it was an ill-timed wager on the body-on-frame, three-row SUV. Faced with soaring fuel prices, the Great Recession, and a shift to car-based crossovers, the star-crossed ute died after just one model year and 22,663 U.S. sales. That it looked like a copyright-dodging SUV avatar didn’t help. Ten years later, lower gas prices and the market’s thirst for large vehicles have Kia betting big again, but now it’s on a stylish, value-laden family cruiser. The geographic naming convention remains, but this time Kia is about 600 miles northeast, in Telluride. Of course, Kia hasn’t exactly been without a three-row SUV, just without a Grande-size one.…

If Korean carmakers were simply pumping out high-quality, value-packed vehicles, the rest of the car world might not need to worry. Hyundai and Kia are doing that, of course. But they’re also doing so much more. Hyundai’s premium brand, Genesis, is making beautiful and feelsome sports sedans, and critically, Hyundai and Kia have just released their latest takes on battery-electric vehicles. In our assessment, the Kona Electric and the Niro EV have jumped to the front of the pack of near-mainstream EVs. The Kona Electric soundly defeated the Chevrolet Bolt EV in a recent comparo by offering standard DC fast charging and greater comfort, practicality, and efficiency. Oh, and it was quicker and more fun to drive than the Chevy. Plus, the Hyundai boasts more range—258 miles—on a full charge…

1st Generation, 1986–1988 Powered by four-cylinder engines from Mitsubishi and using a front-engine, reardrive platform from the British Ford Cortina, this one never makes it to the United States. 2nd Generation, 1989–1994 Hyundai tries the same budget play with the Gen 2 Sonata that it previously used with the Excel. It drives the front wheels with inline-four and V-6 engines from Mitsubishi. Zero to 60 mph (142-hp 3.0-liter V-6): 9.9 seconds Best U.S. sales year: 1989, with 34,146 units 3rd Generation, 1995–1998 Slightly larger and far more refined, the third-gen Sonata earns a strong third-place finish in a September 1994 six-car comparison test, proving that Hyundai is learning—and fast. Zero to 60 mph (142-hp 3.0-liter V-6): 9.3 seconds Best U.S. sales year: 1997, with 22,128 units 4th Generation, 1999–2005 Sporting…

TO THE 8271 AMERICANS who bought a BMW 7-series last year: You’re being blamed for this, but it’s not really your fault. BMW says that the massive grille on the 2020 7er is a response to customer demand from the car’s two largest markets. Yes, you people made America No. 2, but approximately 20,000 buyers made China No. 1. So when BMW says it was responding to those customer groups, the Chinese were about 150 percent louder than the Ameri cans—and restraint is apparently not high on the list of Chinese automotive priorities Which is how the grille on the new 7-series came to be 40 percent larger than the same feature on its predecessor. At nearly a foot high, it’s so tall that it crests the leading edge of…

I LOVE THE VOLKSWAGEN GTI. I’ve owned three of them. Last year alone, my sister became a GTI owner and my friend Rudy bought one because he asked me for a recommendation, and unlike everyone else in my life, he actually listened. No one ever listens. Anyway, the GTI is an easy car to recommend because it never disappoints. It is the singularly perfect balance of practicality, performance, refinement, and price. That’s why it has won 16 10Best crowns, and that’s why a C/D staffer bought our last long-term GTI at the end of its service. And that one’s not the only GTI in our office parking lot. But we were initially less enthusiastic about the GTI’s mechanical twin, the Jetta GLI, even if we must admit that our ambivalence…

THE ELECTRIFICATION OF THE automobile isn’t limited to hybrid and battery-electric powertrains. From power steering to air-conditioning compressors, engineers are on a crusade to electrify the car’s subsystems and accessories, too. Their next campaign? Brake-by-wire systems, which decouple the brake pedal from the calipers and use an electric actuator to pressurize the hydraulic fluid. Already in production on vehicles such as the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Cadillac XT4, these electrohydraulic systems improve response and control of automated braking and don’t require a vacuum source, making them a boon to active safety systems, electrified powertrains, and high-efficiency combustion engines. Continental says its MK C1 brake-bywire system reaches lock-up twice as fast as conventional systems that use the stability-control actuator to generate braking pressure during automatedemergency-braking events. In an Audi Q5 test…

AS OF MAY 1, 2018, every car built for sale in the United States must have a backup camera according to NHTSA regulations. While the requirement mandates that each camera system meet certain criteria for durability, response time, field of view, and more, NHTSA hasn’t set minimum guidelines for image quality. High-definition 1080p screens have been the stand ard for smartphones and televisions for years, but they’re rare in all but high-end cars, and the quality and feature availability of rearview systems varies widely. “Automotive electronics are generally more conservative and progress slower than consumer electronics,” says Kevin Lu, chief engineer of cameras for OEM supplier Magna Electronics. Magna builds backup cameras for cars and trucks across the price spectrum, from the Ford Edge to the Acura NSX. Lu divides…

Genesis G70 For Korea’s nascent luxury brand, the third time’s the charm. Following the G90 and G80, this 3-series-sized sports sedan is the one that should make the Germans sweat. Armed with the optional twinturbo V-6 and Sport package, the G70 mixes 365 horsepower, adjustable dampers, Michelin summer rubber, and quilted nappa leather with the deft touch of an automaker that’s been in the luxury game for decades, not less than one. It’s a sublime ride at any price, which makes it that much sweeter at the usual Korean bargain ask. Hyundai Veloster N A brisk drive in this hot hatch from Hyundai’s new performance subbrand is as memorable as that “Gangnam Style” earworm. The optional Performance package is a must. It lifts output from 250 to 275 horses and…

Genesis isn’t the only company producing concept cars, but Hyundai’s upstart luxury brand and its roster of big-name designers has, for the last few years, been unveiling more-impactful auto-show eye candy than any other carmaker. NEW YORK CONCEPT For Genesis, designing concept cars is apparently much easier than naming them. Witness the New York concept, unveiled in, well, New York. This massive “four-door coupe” from 2016 defined the easy mix of aggression and elegance that’s becoming a hallmark of the brand. The styling themes are already evident in the handsome G70 production car. ESSENTIA Grand-touring coupes are typically more successful on show stands than they are on dealer lots. And the Essentia, with its streamlined shape, sweptback glass-canopy top, quasi–Kamm tail, and pursed-lips grille, is certainly a successful design exercise.…

kia’s toaster-shaped Soul is a car mimicking a crossover, with a self-image reverse-engineered from TV commercials featuring dancing hamsters. But given that “real” crossovers are just cars mimicking SUVs, there’s no use arguing about what you think the Soul is. It’s a crossover. Proof: We’ve named it to our 10Best Trucks and SUVs list twice. The Soul wasn’t born of a focus-group horrorscape à la the Pontiac Aztek. Instead, it owes its high seating, boxy profile, and tidy hatchback dimensions to the pragmatic tastes of the Asians and Europeans for whom it was originally designed. Kia sent it stateside in 2009, hoping to puppy-wrestle incremental sales from Scion’s similarly odd xB and Dodge’s tragic Caliber. It turns out that giving people characterful, efficient, high-value transportation works, even if it’s a…

YOU COULD CLIMB A MOUNTAIN while protecting yourself from the elements in a $2800 Gucci jacket, or dive to the maximum depth rating of a Rolex Sea-Dweller, but few buyers of such luxury goods do. Similarly, we doubt that many owners of the new Range Rover Evoque will find themselves off-roading in Greece’s rugged Peloponnese peninsula, scraping glittering bodywork against thorn bushes and grinding the sump over rocky trails that date from when the Parthenon still had that new-temple smell. But Land Rover was happy to let us confirm that its smallest model can successfully negotiate a level of wilderness that we suspect no other compact crossover could comfortably manage. In this regard, the second-generation Evoque sticks close to the brand’s core principle: go-anywhere capability. But it also adheres to…

THE ORIGINAL MAZDA 3 was among the first cars to suggest the idea that small and affordable didn’t have to mean cheap, that people might like to equip their economy cars with premium features such as heated seats and navigation systems. Now that all that stuff is de rigueur among compact cars, Mazda has been distancing itself from the pack with design, and it’s working. The new, fourth-gen 3 has outgrown its mainstream milieu. As we take in its sinewy lines and touch its plush interi or surfaces, we can no longer lump it in with the Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. It’s more like a Japanese version of the Audi A3 or Mercedes-Benz A-class. To help the 3 elbow its way into this clique, Mazda now offers an all-wheeldrive…

ON A UNIVERSAL SCALE, Earth is a speck, a smallish orb in the ever-expanding cosmos finished in azure blue with white-wisp landau-style accents. But an innocuous appearance belies its spectacular performance numbers. It’s the fastest vehicle we’ve ever tested, and the heaviest. It’s the only one big enough to cast a shadow across the entire surface of the moon. It doesn’t defy physics but is, in fact, the only known spot where sentient beings recognize that physics is a thing. It’s groovy without being retro. It’s Earth, and it’s home. It’s also expensive. In 2009, Greg Laughlin, now a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Yale, estimated the total value of Earth, its resources, and all the things that make it such a nice place to live at $5 quadrillion—dwarfing…

IN GREATER LOS ANGELES, THE BMWZ4 AND THE PORSCHE 718 BOXSTER ATTRACT AS MUCH ATTENTION AS A TOYOTA PRIUS. Drive three hours north to Lake Isabella, though, and you might as well be rolling a gold-plated M1 Abrams tank through the town’s ragged streets. People stare. They roll down their windows and want to know what they’re seeing. They holler from the liquor-store parking lot, or pull up shirtless in a car with mismatched all-season tires, tell you their life story, and challenge you to a $1000 race. Lake Isabella, with the nearby ghosttown remnants of a gold-mining boomand-bust, is no wealthy hamlet. The locals are, however, rich in great driving roads. Whether you head north, south, east, or west, leaving town means traveling on scribbles that look like a…

So whodunit? Who is responsible for the steady rise of the Korean car industry? Surely, there’s a high-riding, quasi-celebrity Korean exec who is getting the credit for this, right? But who? Ask Hyundai and the company will politely tell you that it is not the Korean way to single out an individual for spotlight treatment. Pressed, Hyundai will point to the big boss, executive vice chairman of Hyundai Motor Company Chung Eui-sun. At Hyundai Motor America (HMA), there was former CEO Finbarr O’Neill, the man who instituted the 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain warranty to assuage shoppers who were nervous about Korean reliability. Then there was John Krafcik, another HMA CEO, who raised the profile of the company with his mediafriendly demeanor and engineering focus. But beginning about a dozen years ago with…

Forbidden love is every hack playwright’s go-to theme for a reason. Distant and unobtainable are more intriguing than nearby and easily accessed. So naturally, the best cars must be those that never came to the U.S.—the stuff the feds wouldn’t allow the Japanese, Germans, Italians, Koreans, Britons, Aussies, Chinese, and whomever elses to sell to us. But while you can’t bring in just any car from a foreign country, you can import a car if it is 25 years old or older. That’s been true since the 1988 passage of the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act. For most of the last 31 years, however, it hasn’t mattered all that much. What noncertified 1975 vehicle was going to get anyone’s pulse racing in the year 2000? Maybe a factory-spec Ferrari Berlinetta…

“God, that thing is awful,” said senior editor Tony Quiroga as he exited the 1993 Nissan Skyline GTS-25 he had just parked along Mulholland Highway above Malibu. “The exhaust just drones, I hate shifting with my left hand, and the petrified tires are terrible. Who would want this thing?” Plenty of us, it seems. At least those of us who are parishioners at the Church of JDM. Even if it means dealing with righthand drive, owner’s manuals written in Japanese, and at least 25 years of wear and tear. That’s JDM as in Japanese domestic market: vehicles built for over there that were never sold over here. To get a taste of what we’ve been missing stateside, we went to TopRank International Vehicle Importers in Cypress, California, a dealer that…

Land Rover is introducing a forward-view system on the Evoque called ClearSight Ground View. The technology takes images with cameras in the side mirrors and grille and assembles them into a single composite image on the infotainment screen. The 180-degree view, which displays at vehicle speeds up to 18 mph, enables a perspective that simulates looking through the hood and the front of the car. JLR may have cribbed this idea from the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter, which allows its pilot—who wears a helmet estimated to cost $400,000—to see through the floor of the aircraft. In the Evoque, this tech enables drivers to accurately place the front tires, which are rendered in the composite image. The system is included in the 360-degree Surround Camera option package, which costs $800.…

THE VOLVO S60 R-DESIGN reminds us that the difference between the houses most of us live in and the luxury homes on the ritzy side of town is more than just the square footage, the number of rooms, or the ZIP code. It’s equally about the design details inside—the finishes, the materials, and the craftsmanship—that evoke a warm contented feeling when you come through the front door. The S60 R-Design is a lot like that: Simply sliding behind the wheel makes you feel, well, better. And that’s before you twist the jewellike starter knob. The R-Design may be the middle child in the S60 lineup, sitting between the base Momentum trim and the top-spec Inscription, but its interior feels as if it were designed by a fine-arts major. Beautifully sculptural…

WE HAD A TOTAL OF NINE MINUTES in Lexus’s 2020 RC F Track Edition. Nine. It’s not much, we’ll admit. It’s certainly not enough time to issue a final verdict on this special model, only 50 of which will come to the U.S. But it was enough to say with certainty that chief engineer Yuuichi Tsurumoto achieved his goal for this low-volume coupe. He wanted a car that could be steered with its throttle, and the 2020 RC F Track Edition is nothing if not fluent in the language of chunked rubber and billowing smoke. It asserts its character in broad black swaths at corner exit and speaks its mind through titanium mufflers. It is a driver’s car in the way that only a Japanese luxury coupe can be—sharp and…