Car and Driver May 2016

CHANGES When the February issue arrived, I had to check the cover to be sure you didn’t send out the April Fools’ edition early. The caption “America, meet your new sportscar king” was just about as convincing as the Ford commercials of yore, proudly proclaiming that the Mustang was certified a sports car by the United States Auto Club. When you want to compare sports cars, the cars in the comparo should all BE sports cars. Your February cover and article only featured one. Hint: It was the blue one. RICH FRAYSIER CHARLES TOWN, WEST VIRGINIA Seriously? Four straight months of Mustangs on the cover? Did you hire that woman from Seinfeld who wore the same dress every day to choose your cover art? I almost missed my February issue when my wife came…

Have you ever replaced the exhaust system on your car in search of a little extra performance? Ever reflashed your ECM? Or worse, ever gone whole-hog and built a competition car out of a street machine? Congratulations. According to a recently proposed regulation, the EPA wants to make you an outlaw. Now the good news: This is nothing new. The EPA’s first amendment to the Clean Air Act in 1970 set out to restrict owners from altering t their cars’ emissions controls. And you’ll notice from all the aftermarket respiratory parts for sale that the EPA has been wildly ineffective in this pursuit. This past summer’s proposal seeks to expand that antitampering measure from “motor vehicles,” defined as “any self-propelled vehicle designed for transporting persons or property on a street or…

PARTY OF TWO — Its founder’s birth isn’t the only anniversary Lamborghini is observing in 2016. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Miura, the Lambo that started all the crazy. We hope it has another homage in the works. AT THE UPPER echelon of the auto industry, the most exclusive brands are increasingly cashing in on limited editions and one-offs. Few companies do it as often as Lamborghini. Its history with such cars has been hit-or-miss, but its latest, the Centenario, meaning the “centenary,” belongs in the former category. Intended to celebrate the 100th birthday of the brand’s founder, Ferruccio Lamborghini, it is faster and lighter than the Aventador LP750-4 Superveloce [see page 104] and packed with technology that will migrate to series-production cars. POWERTRAIN Lamborghini’s engineering team squeezed even…

BUICK CREATED ITS FIREBALL V-6 in 1961 by pruning two cylinders from a troublesome aluminum V-8. The engine did a stint with Jeep, and then GM refined it with a balance shaft and even firing. In the turbocharged 1987 Buick GNX, it made 300 horsepower. As the 3800, it powered everything from Chevys to Cadillacs and sold more than 25 million copies. Race versions landed four Indy 500 poles. Its final assignment was in the 2009 Buick LaCrosse. MANKIND’S ABILITY TO make things, sometimes out of practically nothing, is what distinguishes us from our knuckle-dragging ancestors. We can dig up ore, melt it, and ladle it into a mold, and out pops an engine block. Jaguar Land Rover’s AJ126 engine is a more economical form of human ingenuity; it’s a supercharged…

You build. You tweak. You soup up. And, in the process, you also discard. Herein lies the showdown of the trash container’s durability versus the owner’s physical strength. Knowing each task has the potential to crack a trash container —or, worse, ruin the man who attempts such a feat — even the garbage industry is innovating to make face-offs a thing of the past. Gone are the days of, “Will it or won’t it hold up? Will he or won’t he hold up?” Now every lift, drag, or drop isn’t a game of roulette. Today you can spend half the energy you used to when taking out the trash. The key: venting channels. BRUTE’s new container design creates air circulation that eliminates the vacuum effect, which occurs when lifting bags out of…

THIS GRAPH OF ANNUAL SALES SHOWS THE LONG, HARD CLIMB OUT OF 2009. ANALYSTS PREDICT THAT SALES WILL HOLD STRONG THROUGH 2018. THE NUMBERS ARE IN AND IT’S OFFICIAL: 2015 was the auto industry’s best year in history. Automakers sold 17,470,659 cars, light trucks, and SUVs in the U.S. last year, surpassing the record set in 2000 by more than 68,000 units. Between 2001 and 2007, sales had been on a gradual decline, and when the recession hit in 2008, they plunged into the abyss, hitting a low of 10.4 million units in 2009. Analysts say a variety of factors have coaxed the sales bull out of hibernation. The most obvious one has been low fuel prices. Gasoline averaged $2.52 per gallon in 2015 and is already lower this year. Sources such…