Car and Driver July 2016

PROPELLERHEADS Reading your story on BMW’s M2 [“Pouring It On,” April 2016] made me feel that BMW may finally begin to rectify its recent reputation as the “Ultimate Flaccid Machine.” Audi has been beating it at every turn, until now. By returning to its roots, BMW now challenges C/D to the ultimate comparison: M2 versus Audi S3. Ed., what are you waiting for? —Greg Wolley Portland, OR Retirement—Ed. So you guys got the chance to drive the amazing new M2, yet seemingly spent most of your time behind the wheel enthusing over State Route 190 and entertaining wandering thoughts about the 1-series M and the Porsche Cayman. That’s like obsessing over the restaurant décor and an old high-school ex while on a dinner date with a smokin’-hot girl! —Dixon M. Ho Ottawa, ON Like you’d know, Ho—Ed. FAMILY AFFAIR I…

In a TFT—or thin-film transistor— display, a tiny transistor controls each pixel and the color it emits. TFTs are able to quickly switch the colors put out by the pixel, which makes for realistic images and motion. Pack in a lot of the pixels and you’ll get a high-definition display, such as the ones used by Audi, BMW, Cadillac, Jaguar, Lamborghini, Land Rover, McLaren, and Mercedes-Benz. Each manufacturer that uses a TFT display instead of real gauges provides multiple configurations, from simplified numerical digits that might please older drivers to multiple analog-gauge designs that correspond to different driving modes. Carmakers also make it possible to display map, navigation, and trip-computer data. According to Audi, one of the major challenges of the virtual gauges is getting the sweep and the shadowing…

The new, somewhat-affordable Tesla Model 3—here in just two years’ time! Put down your deposit now!—should open up a new triumphalist chapter in the company’s hagiography. It ought to bring Tesla’s disruptive EV and automateddriving technology to a broader swath of the driving public. Maybe. By then, Tesla’s cars could very well be done. Exanimate. Kaput. And other terms for dead. Until now, Tesla has been the only carmaker to understand that most drivers care more about style and performance than about what’s under the hood. Elon Musk has given the world sporting machines that are stylish, fast, nimble, and quiet as tombs, with an added sprinkling of holier-than-thou. But if recent reveals are anything to go by, Porsche and GM, among others, have started to figure out that EVs can…

SALUTATIONS, READER. You look a little different. Have you been working out? Just eating more? Maybe you had cat-whisker implants or gender-reassignment surgery? You might have noticed that we, too, look different, and it’s not entirely due to the shellfish buffet on the Jaguar F-Pace launch [see page 094]. Like the automakers, we like to update our look and content to keep things fresh and improve the presentation of information. In addition to new fonts, layouts, and page furniture, the model-year 2016.5 Car and Driver improves its passing time by 0.2 second compared with the outgoing model. You’ll find a back-page essay that takes the place of the “What I’d Do Differently” interview that has been there since August 2009. This new feature will sporadically sub in for WIDD on the…

CHRYSLER’S GOVERNMENT BAILOUT and subsequent rescue at the hands of Fiat in 2009 wasn’t the first time the company teetered on the edge of extinction. It wasn’t even the second. The brand’s long flirtation with insolvency dates all the way back to 1955, when then-president L.L. “Tex” Colbert saved the company by securing a loan of a quarter-billion dollars from Prudential Insurance. In today’s dollars, that’s more than $2 billion. Since then, the company has oscillated between boom and bust at a higher frequency than most of its contemporaries. Where it is in that cycle today will only become clear in time, but CEO Sergio Marchionne’s aggressive courtship of another partner suggests that he sees trouble ahead. He’s stated publicly that, going forward, automakers will need to sell at least 6…

LIKE ANY RED-BLOODED KID growing up in Pasadena, California—hometown of that famous little old lady—Eddie Van Halen had a taste for hot cars. After his band’s self-titled debut album went platinum in 1978, he cycled through a collection nearly as exceptional as his guitar playing, from a succession of 12-cylinder Lamborghinis and Ferraris to his current favorite, a new Porsche 911 GT3 RS. C/D: Are there any similarities between the stage and the track? EVH: Practice, obviously. The adrenaline rush is similar. You’re always pushing the edge, on stage live and driving on a track. But improvising at the drop of a hat is the biggest thing. There are no do-overs. If you spin out, you spin out. If you mess up live, you smile your way through it or improvise quick,…