Car and Driver Nov-15

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com TURNOFFS In your August 2015 comparison test of the BMW M3/Mercedes-AMG C63 S/Cadillac ATS-V [“Radar Bait”], you lamented how many steps it took to shut down a “modern BMW.” As an owner of two such animals, I think I can help you out. This procedure is not very well promoted by the dealers but works every time. 1. After coming to a stop, just push the start/stop button to shut the engine off. The gear selector will move to park on its own. 2. Although the accessories are still on, just exit the car. 3. Lock the car from the outside and everything shuts off inside and the security system arms. Or, if you don’t want to lock the car, just walk away…

There is too much engineering duplication against too many rising expenses, he said, even with all the common componentry in today’s cars. He claimed the industry is killing shareholder value with this “pure economic waste,” and the right way to fix it, for Fiat Chrysler at least, is to merge with another automaker. He’s mostly right, of course. All car companies’ profit margins are slim, especially Fiat Chrysler’s. The industry is a burial ground of inefficiencies. And the amount of capital, human and otherwise, required to keep making cars in today’s technical and regulatory environments is staggering. But here’s what Marchionne’s dispassionate look does not take into account: passion. The car business runs on it. We don’t actually need new cars every seven years, or different lease cars every three, but we…

PROGRESS THROUGH CRITIQUE Bentley’s first shot at a crossover, the EXP 9 F concept, looked like a Mulsanne SUV and was met with widespread derision. So designers changed course and came up with this alternative. THAT BEGUILING SCENT wafting through the harvest air is familiar: Oh, yeah, it’s the smell of money. Markets are roiling, inflation’s down, and the great recession is a shrinking speck in the rearview mirror. The wealthy have itchy wallets. They’re amenable to freshening their fleets and sharing a whiff of their good fortune with the world at large. It’s the perfect time, then, for Bentley to expand its portfolio. On a mission to deliver the most power, exclusivity, and prestige ever seen in an SUV, Bentley’s new Bentayga will ensure that a sand dune never impedes a trip…

It’s not the heaviest convertible, but Porsche’s 911 Targa has the most interesting (and undoubtedly most complex) means of introducing wind to hair. LAY THE OLD ROOSTER on the chopping block and he’ll be a little lighter after the hatchet falls. It’s a sad fact that the opposite is true of cars. Subtract the top and you’ve got to add a bunch of stuff back in. But, while convertibles consistently weigh more than their coupe counterparts, by how much is hardly a constant. Here, we’ve compiled their manufacturers’ quoted weights for 25 current coupe/convertible pairs. The true heavyweights are not the ones you’d expect. Clever automakers anticipate that both open and closed body styles will spring from a common platform and engineer their cars to minimize the convertible’s weight gain and…

Porsche 911s with rear-wheel steering— the Turbo and GT3—use a quicker rack up front to improve steering response, relying on rear steering to maintain high-speed stability. CADILLAC CTS-V GM CLAIMS THAT THE V’S STRUCTURE IS NEARLY 20 PERCENT STIFFER THAN THE REGULAR CTS’S. ATOP THAT, THE V’S BOSCH STEERING RACK IS SAID TO BE 14 PERCENT STIFFER THAN ITS NON-V COUNTERPART’S. THERE’S NO CONTROL in a car more central to driver involvement than steering. And there’s no control that juggles more variables to get satisfying feel—that just-right balance of how much force the driver has to apply to the steering wheel to change direction; how immediately and linearly the car responds to that input; and how much that effort and response change according to road conditions and grip levels. We call this trifecta…

WHEN THE LAST ORIGINAL BEETLE rolled down the assembly line in 2003 and they cued the band in celebration, it was a mariachi band. Volkswagen was still building its Bug in Mexico decades after emissions and safety regulations had rendered the car obsolete elsewhere, saying a lot about the Type 1’s enduring charm. But it also made a less flattering statement, one that cast the Mexican auto industry as a dumping ground for antiquated car designs. The situation today couldn’t be more different. Automakers have announced $24.2 billion worth of investment in Mexico since 2010, nearly a third of all new spending on North American factories according to the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Five new Mexican assembly plants have opened in that time, producing Ford…