Car and Driver May 2013

Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.comor join the discussion at: backfires.caranddriver.com COBALT BLUES So, let me get this straight. The BMW 335i, which you rave about, isn't as fast as a 2008 front-drive Chevy Cobalt SS that had 40 less horsepower and cost half as much? … DAVID DICKS ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI More from David and more letters about Lightning Lap, page 10. WANTS AND NEEDS "The Most Wanted List" article [February 2013] unfortunately calls out Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, as one of the "enemies of cars as we know and love them." To the contrary, enthusiasts should be thanking Mr. Ditlow. Enthusiasts might consider that the push for advanced safety, emissions controls, and improved fuel economy together have resulted in the weight-saving high-strength materials in all new cars as…

IT MAY BE THAT THE MOST INTERESTING PART of the Tesla Motors story isn't the recent range controversy with the Times, or that carbuilding is something founder Elon Musk does when not launching rockets into space. No, it's the brand's retail strategy. Tesla doesn't have any independent dealers; its stores are its own. Dealer organizations don't like this. They've tried to sue Musk for violating franchise laws, which vary by state but generally stipulate that big, powerful carmakers cannot compete with their little-guy retailers. Musk's retort? I don't have any franchisees with which to compete. I can do what I want. The reason he's so defiant should be clear to anyone who's bought a car in the past 50 years. On most people's list of Fun Stuff to Do, the car-buying…

PORSCHE RADICALIZES THE 911. REVOLUTIONARY LINGO FINGER-FOLLOWER VALVETRAIN: Instead of opening valves directly with cam lobes pressing bucket tappets, the finger-follower design does that job with pivoting beams. Finger followers use static hydraulic lash adjusters to diminish the mass of valvetrain components in motion. The new GT3 design provides a large contact area between each cam lobe and its follower. THE ENGINE'S UP HERE NOW! JUST KIDDING. Porsche's near-comical expansion of the 911 family—there were more than 20 derivatives of the last-gen car—makes it all but certain to capture every last potential buyer. It also guarantees constant attention over the 911's life span as the inevitable waves of redesigned variants roll in one after the other. We've already seen the convertible and four-wheel-drive models drawn from the 991 gene pool. Now it's time for…

WHERE THE PARTSMAKERS ARE It's been a LONG TIME since America's auto industry consisted solely of Clint Eastwood types hammering together Fords in greater Detroit. While our automobile-manufacturing base is spreading across the South, if you look one step beyond the automakers, their suppliers are even more geographically diverse. From a factory in Maine that makes suspension components to an airbag plant in Utah, the automotive industry draws on manufacturing in almost every state. We paired up with supplier-info clearinghouse ELM Analytics to make the map on this page, in which each state's size is proportional to its share of the 2.5 million or so Americans employed by automotive suppliers. NUMBER OF WORKERS: None 100–1000 1001–10,000 10,001–100,000 100,001–500,000 500,001–843,502 SOMIC AMERICA Brewer, Maine Toyota suspension components RöCHLING AUTOMOTIVE Duncan, South Carolina BMW interior trim HONEYWELL Torrance, California Turbocharger R& Oakland County alone is home to more than 300…

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RUN-FLAT AND REGULAR TIRES. Modern run-flat tires rely on strong, stiff sidewalls to carry the vehicle's weight when air pressure dissipates. Extracting 50 miles of use from a flat tire, however, requires more than strength. Driving on a deflated tire—run-flat or not—initiates a destructive cycle: As the sidewall collapses, increased friction generates more heat, which softens the rubber and causes the sidewall to sag even further. A run-flat tire must support the weight of the vehicle and endure this damaging heat buildup. To see what separates a run-flat from a conventional tire—and what justifies a $40 premium, in this case, or about 20 percent—we sliced into a Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS Pole Position [top] and its run-flat variant. Here's what the saw revealed. —eric tingwall APPLIES TO BOTH TIRES RUN-FLAT ONLY SIDEWALL…

NEW RESEARCH TIES THE LEADED-GASOLINE BAN TO THE DROP IN VIOLENT CRIME. Cars have been INDICTED in the court of public opinion for a multitude of offenses: global warming, rising obesity rates, urban decay, and more. Now add one more crime to the list: crime itself. Most know that violent crime skyrocketed in the '60s and '70s. But what's puzzled researchers for more than a decade is why, starting in the early '90s, crime rates began dropping. Criminologists have credited everything from three-strikes laws to improved policing tactics. But as crime continued to drop throughout the U.S.—and Canada, France, New Zealand, and the rest of the world—it has led to speculation that there might be an environmental cause. For decades, lead (chemical symbol: Pb) has been linked to impaired brain development in children.…