Automobile的February 2017目录

PRICE: $359 WARRANTY: 1 year RESOLUTION: 1080p MEMORY: MicroSD, up to 64 GB TIME-LAPSE: Yes NIGHT VISION: Yes G-SENSOR: Yes GPS: Yes Thinkware F770 Dash Cam The Thinkware F770’s front- and rear-facing cameras record in full 1080p resolution, and both use Super Night Vision to record in the dark, meaning the F770 sees almost everything, all the time. BlackVue DR650S-2CH With BlackVue’s voice-controlled app and front- and rear-facing cameras, owners can activate a remote live view, giving them peace of mind if they’re forced to park in a shady neighborhood. PRICE: $379 WARRANTY: 1 year RESOLUTION: 1080p front/720p rear MEMORY: MicroSD, up to 128 GB TIME-LAPSE: Yes NIGHT VISION: Yes G-SENSOR: Yes GPS: Yes Garmin Dash Cam 35 The Dash Cam 35 shows a live view of the road through…

WE’RE NOT CERTAIN HOW long it took for the first “You paid $30K for a Golf?” crack to make the rounds after the 2004 Volkswagen Golf R32 debuted in the United States, but it couldn’t have been too long. More than a decade and three generations later, we’re hearing it again, only insert $40,000 where $30,000 used to be for the Golf R, which is now bumping up on that number in top-spec trim. Interestingly, though, when adjusted for inflation the $37,570 sticker of the 2016 Volkswagen Golf R we have in for a Four Seasons evaluation is roughly the same as the first R32, and that’s with the Golf R’s additional safety features, a slight weight reduction, and substantially improved performance envelope. Crack wise all you want, but Volkswagen’s…

S/N GL 640064/D YELLOW OVER BLACK leather interior. 327-cubicinch, 300-hp, OHV V-8. Four-speed manual transmission. One of 34 right-hand-drive examples made. In barn-find condition with original, non-running engine. Pretty much as rusty as a car can be before it becomes one with the dirt, this is a most ambitious restoration project. There were a few ounces of rust dropped on the floor beneath this car between preview day and sale day. It appears everything is there, but this is still a daunting project. THE STORY BEHIND THE SALE: What do this car, the BMW Isetta, and an Italian refrigerator have in common? No, that’s not a setup for a joke. In fact, Iso is an Italian company that made refrigerators before it developed the “bubble car” Isetta that was licensed…

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON THE CUSP OF doing something you think could be great, but you need more time or resources to make it happen? That’s basically the position Lincoln president Kumar Galhotra is in as he attempts to guide the once-proud American luxury brand back to prominence on the automotive stage. “The frustrating part is that we can’t make things happen quickly enough,” said Galhotra, who stopped by our Los Angeles HQ during the press launch of the all-new 2017 Lincoln Continental in Bel-Air. It’s a car that graces the cover of this issue. I was there when Galhotra and Ford CEO Mark Fields took the wraps off the Lincoln Continental Concept at the 2015 New York auto show. There were gasps from the crowd, stunned by what…

THE AUTOMOBILE AS WE KNOW IT— the thing with the internal-combustion engine that runs on gasoline, the machine we steer and brake ourselves, the vehicle whose pace and direction is for better or worse solely our own responsibility— is approaching its end days. While I accept change is coming, I intend to enjoy now what I know will be lost, and I mean to enjoy it as much as I can for as long as I can. For like the close of anything worthwhile—say, the last minutes in a hard-fought sporting contest, the final hours of a wild party, or a flower’s beauty before it begins to perish—the end is to be savored. It’s often that said thing’s greatest moment. For a glimpse of the peak automobile, look no further…

“Earns one?” I asked. “Yez. Earns one. ‘Ask ze man who earns one.’ Zat is what ze publicité for ze Packard automobile hused to red.” We went all the way to France to be reminded of one of the greatest advertising taglines in American history: Ask the man who owns one. By an affable Frenchman, whose broken English far outstripped our unintelligible French. A pinstriped, fedorawearing fellow driving the pastel yellow 1937 Packard 115C convertible with a rumble seat I found myself rumbling in. To be accurate, not rumbling—more like promenading rather smoothly. With a silent six burbling up ahead, photographer Tom Salt sitting on the front bench with our driver, and me in the trunk where the hideaway jump seat resides, we were traveling gently through the Finistère region…

This was the first year I can recall that photographer extraordinaire Martyn Goddard and I didn’t quibble over the car choice for our annual road trip. Martyn is a hardy Brit, totally fine with doing a thousand rainy miles in his Healey, top down all the way. I’m a soft American who’d prefer something like a 240Z with air-conditioning. But from our earliest brainstorming phone call, everything fell into line. “Hey, I’m thinking about maybe a Delta Integrale,” I said. “That’s fantastic,” he replied. “I was just talking with a friend the other day about borrowing his.” It was probably inevitable we’d settle on this car eventually. Philosophical differences aside, we’ve both had a lifelong thing for Lancias; Martyn even ran an Integrale as his daily driver for years. Like…

THE INFO YEARS PRODUCED: 1967-1970 I NUMBER SOLD: 14,450 (EST) I ORIGINAL PRICE: $2,796 I VALUE TODAY: $13,700* A Ask most enthusiasts what the first Japanese sports car of significance sold in the U.S. was, and the likely response would be Datsun 240Z. But you can make a compelling case for a series of two-seat Datsuns before the 240Z and its successors. Called Datsun Sports convertibles, they are better known as Datsun Roadsters though they were never officially sold as such. These were the first Japanese sports cars that could truly compete with the popular MGs, Triumphs, and Fiats of the day in terms of price and performance. We’ll ignore the first Datsun Sports model sold in America, the 1960 Sports 1200, an obscure, truck-based car. Jump instead to 1963,…

The track announcer’s words, delivered with a slightly Auto-Tune twang long before anyone will actually hear of Auto-Tune, hang in the air. Tensions are high at Fuji Speedway, where I’ve crashed countless times at more than 200 mph. Each impact—at any speed, in fact—sees my Formula 1 car vaporize in a fireball. I concentrate to dodge brutally slow-moving competitors (no blue-flag-waving marshals here), negligently unprotected trackside advertising boards, and strange pools of standing water. The latter is apparently one of the Japanese Grand Prix’s inherent hazards, though there is never a raincloud above. No matter; I have a healthy stack-of-quarters budget to repair the car and get back out there. My career record is filled with successes—and more than a few DNFs, usually the result of the local video arcade’s…

concept car? No way. Renault’s Trezor is a pure show car, something meant to startle and stimulate, but never destined to become a product. It’s what we used to call a dream car; its practicality quotient is nil, but it tells us a great deal about our automotive future. The lift-up-hood-frontfender-windshield-roof assembly makes no provision for doors on the side, so that’s not going to happen—seeing as how only athletic young people wearing futuristic Syd Mead clothing would be able to get into it. But its all-electric drivetrain is sure to be part of what will happen in the next couple decades. That certainty is problematic for designers and marketers. Just as classic cars of the 1930s and ’40s had long, tall hoods over long, low engines to convey the…

IAM WRITING YOU WITH AN URGENT REQUEST to refrain from publishing any more articles or editorials touting the hyped-up benefits of the allegedly soon-to-come self-driving automobile so I can continue my decades-long subscription to your fine publication. Why? Because each time you do so, I experience waves of profound dissonance and confusion. And that’s not just because you are acting as a conduit for a hype cycle that will trivialize all that came before in its bombast and prematurity, but also because the inception of self-driving automobiles means the end of Automobile magazine as we know it! You will need to change your tagline from “No Boring Cars” to “No Boring Interiors.” What reader will care if their electric self-driving car accelerates to 60 mph in 2.0 seconds and pulls…

Around the Nürburgring Nordschleife, the ultimate petri dish for testing the world’s most scintillating automobiles, the latest Alfa Romeo is quicker than Porsche’s 911 GT3 (997). And Lamborghini’s Murciélago LP640. And Nissan’s GT-R Spec V. Oh, and it seats five and has a delightful audio system. The new Giulia Quadrifoglio (often called the Giulia QV) isn’t simply the most powerful Alfa ever, it’s also the fastest production four-door sedan around the ’Ring. Its record-shattering lap time of 7 minutes, 32 seconds with Alfa test driver Fabio Francia at the helm even bested purebred two-seaters from the likes of Pagani, Koenigsegg, McLaren, and Ruf. The in-car footage is found easily on YouTube and will cause you to clench your gluteus maximus tighter than Charles Bukowski on St. Patrick’s Day. The Giulia…

reluctantly admit I wanted to hate Porsche’s new forced-induction boxer-four engine ahead of our head-to-head test of the new 718 Cayman S and Audi TT RS. And I’ve been critical of today’s breed of “let me do this for you” Audis. But personal preconceptions aside—and right from takeoff—the Cayman needs to catch up. Thanks to Quattro all-wheel drive, launch control, and more power, the TT RS beats the Porsche by a significant half-second from 0 to 60 mph. In order to better match the Audi’s specification, our Cayman S tester came with Porsche’s seven-speed PDK transmission instead of the available six-speed manual. At 1,900 rpm, its single-turbo, 2.5-liter dishes up its full 309 lb-ft of torque all the way to 4,500 rpm— augmenting its 350-horsepower punch. THE TT RS IS…

MUSTANG FOUR SEASONS WRAP / GOLF R DATSUN 2000 ROADSTER / AUCTIONS / MARGO OGE When Ford announced it would offer its new Mustang with a four-cylinder turbocharged engine for the first time since the mid-’80s, it struck some as a curious move given that things didn’t go so well back then—the Mustang SVO was unceremoniously dumped after just three years on the market. While there are those who believe the controversial SVO was ahead of its turbo time, most agree it was a misstep. So is the world finally ready for a fuel-efficient, turbocharged Mustang? We wanted to find out, so we ordered up a 2015 Mustang EcoBoost to join our Four Seasons fleet. Whereas the SVO looked out of place in the Mustang lineup, with its dual-tier rear…