Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i MotorTrend

“The historian,” wrote Frederich Von Schlegel, “is a prophet looking backwards.” We certainly made more than our share of predictions in the ’90s; we were right about some, wrong about others, and downright embarrassed by a few. Here are a half-dozen of our 1990s projections and their eventual outcomes. 1990: Volkswagen Should Bring Back the Beetle In his June 1990 column, MotorTrend editor Jack Nerad recounted a chat with a Volkswagen PR rep who fretted about the company’s sinking market share. Nerad’s suggestion: Bring back the Beetle. “Volkswagen has lost its reputation for low-cost, reliable ‘transportation’ cars to the Japanese and Koreans,” he wrote. The PR man scoffed—surely Nerad didn’t mean the Beetle? “I wasn’t proposing the reintroduction of a several-decades-old model,” Nerad said. “I was suggesting fresh, modern mechanicals…

As the 20th century’s final decade began, Tom Cruise felt the need for speed in a Chevy Lumina, the coolest new music came from Seattle, and NikeTown was the next big thing in retail therapy. The Berlin Wall had fallen, and with it the Soviet Union began its collapse. The Cold War was over. The good guys won. This was, declared political scientist Francis Fukuyama, the end of history. Except it wasn’t. The 1990s would see the usual catalog of war and misery and political intrigue that has plagued humanity since the beginning. It would also see the invention of a technology that would reshape global culture—the world wide web. And it would be the decade that remade the auto industry. For carmakers, the ’90s delivered a decade of unprecedented…

Some objects require a generation or more to pass before they achieve Citizen Kane Rosebud status in a population’s collective consciousness. Most material items never get there at all. Porsche’s 993-series 911 needed only a few years to achieve predictable heights of reverence and desirability—not only from Porsche acolytes but also a significant cross-section of car enthusiasts who recognize a classic, or a classic in the making, when they see one. The 993 went on sale in the U.S. in early 1994 as a 1995 model, replacing the 5-year-old 964. It brought many overdue upgrades to a relatively ancient platform that dated to the early ’60s. If you were around at the time and cared about cars, you know a sighting of this “new 911” was something to get excited…

“Maybe we were led to expect too much.” Even on the first page of the first test of GM’s all-new Saturn in our November 1990 issue, the sense of disappointment was palpable. For years, we’d been told Saturn would be a wondercar built in a factory of the future, something that would show the world Detroit could build a better small car than the Japanese for less money. GM boss Roger B. Smith insisted in 1985 that Saturn would be “a complete, radical change from anything going on anywhere in auto manufacturing.” But from behind the wheel of the early-build sedans and coupes we sampled at the GM Proving Ground in Milford, Michigan, in the fall of 1990, it certainly didn’t feel that way. “We came away from the experience…

No other version of the VW Golf is more emblematic of 1990s style and hues than the Harlequin, a car with a backstory as wild as its quad-color paint job. Diehard VW fans and retro car enthusiasts are familiar with the Harlequin, but the wacky hatchback only recently has enjoyed renewed appreciation. Volkswagen originated the idea for a multicolored car in a 1964 print advertisement. The ad showed off the brand’s year-to-year interchangeable parts, represented by a Beetle with mismatching body panels and fenders. The vision was actualized as a production car in the form of the Europe-only 1995 Mk3 Polo Harlequin hatchback, which wore mishmashed body panels painted Tornado Red, Chagall Blue, Ginster Yellow, and Pistachio Green. Intended as a small batch of 20 cars, consumers expressed enthusiasm for…

Debate continues about when and where the tuner scene began, but like the hot-rodding and lowriding movements that came before, it’s now a deeply ingrained part of the automotive landscape. The culture, largely centered on compact cars, is today catered to by a massive apparatus consisting of automakers, aftermarket parts houses, events companies, and media industries to keep passions burning—and cash flowing. But it wasn’t always that way, and it was during the 1990s that tuner culture went from largely underground to far more mainstream. By the ’90s, American consumers had been buying a variety of “imports” (a term now largely passé) and small cars in large numbers for 20 years. That provided an ample stock of affordable used—and easily customized—machines for an enthusiast population increasingly influenced by motorsports, grassroots…

Long-term tests aren’t new. Putting a vehicle through its paces over several months had long been a car magazine staple, but it wasn’t until the ’90s that MotorTrend’s program began to look like the Garage you know today. The shift began in September 1991, when we began publishing monthly updates on our fleet. We aspired to drive real cars the way real people did so we could provide useful info on the ownership experience. We covered maintenance costs, common problem areas, and vehicle idiosyncrasies. Unlike today, though, we also relied on you. Each verdict we published in the ’90s included information gleaned from reader surveys. In the following article, you’ll find two such verdicts covering vehicles in niche segments. The Mazda Miata of the early ’90s resurrected the open-top roadster.…

As we went about putting together this issue, I couldn’t help but to think about a subsect of cars from the ’90s—cars that are more than deserving of their reputations. The past 10 years might very well go down as the peak hypercar era—the Bugatti Veyron, LaFerrari, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Aston Martin Valkyrie—but the ’90s were peak supercar. Sure, ’70s (the Lamborghini Countach) and ’80s (still Countach, plus the Ferrari Testarossa and Porsche 959) supercars were cool, but the high-flying stuff from the ’90s was simply on another level. After what seemed like two decades of general decline, cars suddenly didn’t suck anymore. The Dodge Viper is the first car that comes to mind when I think about ’90s supercars. Before the Viper, it had been forever since…

The ’90s can conjure thoughts of an automotive dark age full of unsatisfying niche vehicles and evolutionary dead ends. It’s the decade that gave us the Suzuki X-90, after all. But it was also studded with gems, some of which have become bona fide collectibles and some that still await a star turn. 1991–1996 Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo The Z32 Z marked a triumphant return to sports car greatness, especially in twin-turbo guise. It looked sleek, and it packed 300 hp and 283 lb-ft of torque, wild numbers for the time. Nissan also included HICAS active rear steering for world-beating handling that helped it snap up our 1990 Import Car of the Year award. While the best examples have slipped slightly, an excellent 300ZX turbo is a $40,000 car as…

Today’s sociopolitical discourse can be ugly. In the automotive space, the us-versus-them vitriol frequently centers on electrification, pitting “eco-weenie coal-fired-EV lovers” against “selfish wingnut climate deniers.” Our pals at Emissions Analytics recently published a cogent theory about how we got here, pointing to emissions regulations of the ’90s that were ill-informed, disingenuous, or both. Given the theme of this issue, let’s look at how these ostensibly eco-minded 1990s policies might have helped sow the seeds of today’s EV/ICE discord while grievously contravening their noble objectives. Pull folks in either camp from their respective echo chambers, and most can agree on some established facts: Constructing and recycling different vehicle types produces differing levels of emissions. Certain scarce raw materials in EVs are sometimes unethically sourced, just as protection of national oil…

Perhaps nothing is more important to the Mustang story than the fans. This might sound like platitudinal BS, but it’s also true. At every turn when Ford could’ve either killed the famous pony car or made it worse, the Mustang’s wildly vocal and passionate fan base stepped in to save it from ruin (well, except for maybe the Mustang II). Everyone likes to wax nostalgic about the original “1964 ½” and Shelby Mustangs, but the truth is the two cars most responsible for keeping the model vital and setting it up for success into the 21st century are ’90s babies. In 1990, a divided Berlin was becoming one again. Soviet citizens in Moscow were lining up for the communist bloc’s first Big Macs. In America, Vanilla Ice was cruising in…

The scent hits you first, an undeniably vintage odor of tired adhesives outgassing their last vapors through weathered vinyl. This M3 has none of the rich olfactory effect you get when entering a new BMW, no luxurious animal hides, just a sliver of shiny, slippery leather wrapping the wheel and another bit on the shift knob. You won’t find gratuitous Alcantara inserts or garish seat belts, just simple black upholstery for a simpler BMW from a simpler time, a 1995 M3 Lightweight rolled out of BMW’s secret warehouse just for us. This M3 was something of a parts bin special in its day, but what a bin. Using the lightweight aluminum doors and adjustable front splitter plus the tiny wing mirrors from the European-spec M3 GT, this version earns its…

Kudos to Saturn: Those plastic body panels really do work. The pristine S-Series you see here—a time machine of a car if there ever was one—resides not in rust-free Arizona or California but in the heart of Chicago. Twenty-seven years ago, Barbara Schreiber custom-ordered this bright red SC2, attracted not only to the coupe’s Coke-bottle planform and pop-up headlights but also to Saturn’s new way of doing business. She used the car sparingly as her primary driver for 16 years, and if the roads aren’t too snowy or salty, she still exercises it weekly. With just 61,000 miles on the clock, her first-gen Saturn’s finish still glistens. The interior is showroom fresh thanks to seat covers and rubber floormats she bought the day after she took delivery. Everything except the…

In the 1980s, Chevrolet Corvette engineers received an assignment as ambitious as it was simple: Build the world’s best-performing production car. They delivered the 1990 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1, a monstrously powerful and furiously quick car that kept pace with exotic supercars costing tens of thousands of dollars more. Sound familiar? The ZR-1 transformed America’s sports car into a world-beating triumph of engineering for the first time—but definitely not the last. The same story has repeated with every subsequent Corvette generation. The ZR-1’s tradition lives on today in the 2023 Corvette Z06. General Motors bet big on electronics and advanced technology in the 1980s as it looked to put the energy crisis, performance-choking emissions regulations, and Japanese brands in its rearview mirror. Under chairman Roger B. Smith, the company bought Hughes…

I’ll never forget the 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme coupe I drove from St. Louis to Du Quoin, Illinois, mainly because in many ways it was staggeringly forgettable. Without the kitschy cladding added for the 1992 model year, the GM10-based W-body two-door didn’t look bad, with nice surfaces, decent proportions, and a rear window that seemed to wrap around invisible C-pillars. But the rest of it? Awful. The transverse-mounted V-6 driving the front wheels wheezed like an old wino reaching for his first pull of Thunderbird. It didn’t appear to have any shocks, the hood rising and falling like a freighter’s bow in a North Atlantic storm every time the front wheels hit a bump. Steering? Brakes? Fortunately, Illinois didn’t have many corners. The deep red interior was a petrochemical mélange…

If you lived through the 1990s, you know it was a fascinating era. From cars to pop culture to politics and more, we can’t come close to reminding you of everything significant that occurred—but we can highlight some of the key cars, moments, and talking points that defined the decade. 1990 • MotorTrend Car of the Year: Lincoln Town Car • MotorTrend Import Car of the Year: Nissan 300ZX • MotorTrend Truck of the Year: Ford Aerostar 4WD • Best Picture: Dances with Wolves • Song of the Year Grammy: “Wind Beneath My Wings” (Bette Midler) New Vehicles and MotorTrend First Drives • Honda Accord (fourth generation) • Dodge Stealth/Mitsubishi 3000GT • Geo Storm • Acura NSX • GMC Syclone • Saturn S-Series Events • Smoking banned on domestic airline…

General Motors takes way more flak and gets nowhere near enough credit for the GM EV1, the most technologically advanced production vehicle of its time. It pioneered and/or demonstrated myriad features we either take for granted on today’s (electric and gas) cars or still regard as futuristic. And it’s worth remembering the first EV1 was built in 1996, just as another all-aluminum two-seater was rolling out: the Lotus Elise. Notably, that car’s rolling chassis would underpin the Tesla Roadster in 2008. Let’s review some of the EV1’s many innovations. A 137-hp, 110-lb-ft AC induction motor spun the front wheels via a single-speed transaxle. Tesla began with AC induction motors, and there’s been a move toward this motor type as the secondary motor in all-wheel-drive electric vehicles because it presents no…

A Bunch of Comedians Thank you, MotorTrend; your April issue could not have come at a better time. I was just about to plunk down $490,810 on a new McLaren 765LT Spider until I read your article comparing it to the Lamborghini Huracán Tecnica and the Corvette Z06/Z07. For the same money, I’ve decided to buy three of the $164,805 Z06s so I can use one as a daily driver, keep one for track days, and mothball the third as an investment. Win, win, win! Tom Timmins Via email After reading about all the mechanical issues that occurred during the 1000 Miglia Experience UAE (May) with countless pampered and well-cared-for priceless classics, I have only one thing to say to anyone who likes to proclaim, “They don’t make them like…

These two Ford F-150 Lightning pickups are nothing alike. Their worldviews appear to be diametrically opposed. The original seems antisocial—a flagrant corruption of the noble F-150’s puritanical work ethic, a hedonistic implement for transforming petroleum into muscle car noises and pre-Hellcat, tire-shredding burnouts. Oy, the emissions! The modern Lightning EV, by contrast, hugs the planet by swiftly and silently performing tasks without fouling its immediate environs with even a molecule of CO2 while selflessly offering to power homes, businesses, and disaster locations with its abundant onboard energy. Kumbaya, my truck, kumbaya. Then again, viewed through a historical lens, they’re eerily similar. Each truck was conceived to pursue a novel trend in the wider light-duty truck market—the high-performance “personal-use” pickup of the 1990s and the e-truck of today. Neither pioneered its…

It’s been three decades since we first met the Jeep Grand Cherokee, and back then we had a strong suspicion we were looking at the future: a sport-ute with the off-road ability of a truck (for trucks is what most SUVs were) and the driving characteristics of a car. Today we’re face to face with another Grand Cherokee, an 8,700-mile original from Stellantis’ heritage collection. We’re here to find out if we were right. Was the ZJ of the 1990s the SUV of the future? We are immediately struck by irony: Today’s automakers try to make cars look like SUVs, but the Grand Cherokee is an SUV trying to look like a car. Although its hulking presence belies its diminutive size—today’s Honda HR-V casts a bigger shadow—the Grand Cherokee looks…

It begins with the shifter. The visual connection is obvious—it’s the same shift knob, and not by accident—but it goes deeper, all the way to the transmission it operates. More than any other single part, though, the shifter in the 2023 Honda Civic Type R is the most tangible physical and spiritual connection to the legendary Acura Integra Type R. This new Civic Type R shares more conceptually with the Integra Type R than any Honda- or Acura-badged car in the preceding 26 years. The way it drives, the way it behaves when pushed to its limit, the way it makes you feel all channel the Integra in ways no other car has managed. So much effusive ink has been poured over the years in tributes to the Integra Type…

Fashion trends in the 1990s were brutal. The music was better than today’s, sure, but watch an old Seinfeld rerun—why is everyone dressed like an outcast from the Eddie Bauer catalog? Or what about the clothes on Friends? Or worse, the hair? That weird overgrown bob not only had a real name (The Rachel) but was also a real thing real people copied. Walking around the grocery store in 1995 was just weird, to say the least. (I have no room to talk, as my standard outfit from 1992 to ’97 was a tie-died Lollapalooza T-shirt under a pair of Dickies overalls and a matching flannel and/or beanie.) Of course, cars in the ’90s followed trends, too. Some were great, and some, well, have you seen anyone walking around rocking…