Inhoudsopgave van March/April 2018 - Automobile

SPRING MOUNTAIN’S PLAN—ALREADY IN THE CONSTRUCTION PHASE—IS TO EXPAND, INCREASING THE TOTAL TRACK DISTANCE TO 14.5 MILES. GERMANY’S NÜRBURGRING HAS for decades seen company after company chase blistering lap times to prove its product is the quickest in the world. Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Koenigsegg routinely take cracks at besting the renowned track and each other. Records fall as supercars get better and more like their racing counterparts. Now, Spring Mountain Motor Resort an hour outside Las Vegas is devouring land in an attempt to soon rival Germany’s torture test. Built by motorsports-lovers John Morris and Brad Rambo, the track Koenigsegg used as its base camp during its on-road record runs was founded in 2004. The idea was to not only create a place where the proprietors could unleash their…

A SUBCONTRACTOR HAD “ROBOT CALIBRATION ISSUES. ... WE HAD TO REWRITE ALL THAT SOFTWARE—20 TO 30 MAN YEARS OF SOFTWARE—IN FOUR WEEKS.” OUR CHOICE OF the Tesla Model 3 as Design of the Year does not mark the first time we recognized the design and engineering acumen of Silicon Valley’s “disruptive” car company. Our 2012 Automobile of the Year was Tesla’s breakout product, the Model S. In the six years since, Tesla has grown. The only issues holding it back from becoming a mass-market automaker are its struggle with actually manufacturing electric-powered cars and SUVs, and slipping demand for electric vehicles in markets such as Hong Kong after a government tax break or subsidy is eliminated. Tesla CEO Elon Musk appears to look at the battery-electric vehicle market only from…

 EACH YEAR WE get a selection of wondrous new vehicles that their proposers tell us are world-beating creations, the fastest, the most expensive, the most economical, the most beautiful, the most innovative, ad nauseam. And each year we see most of them are more of the same, truly of little interest to the automotive enthusiast or to the general public. Here are our brief takes on some of the things we really liked or disliked during the course of the past year. SCIENCE FICTION THE TESLA SEMI truck introduced at the end of November 2017 is by far the best-formed single vehicle the visionary electric-propulsion car company has announced. The truck’s cab, with its central driving position like the 1947 Wimille prototype and the McLaren F1, really does look like…

FOUNDED BY A British-raised Texan who fell in love with the gritty streets and cutting-edge design of Detroit, the Middlecott Sketchbattle Experiment is billed as the Fight Club of Design. But instead of a slumlord’s palace filled with lost men making soap, the Sketchbattle is a once-underground nexus of the future of automotive design. And it’s a party. Walk through the door of any of the Sketchbattle’s itinerant locations in Detroit, Las Vegas, or Los Angeles, and you’re greeted by thumping music, a cash bar, and Satori Circus, a Detroit-based performance artist who blurs the line between emcee and prankster clown. Chances are good you’ll also encounter some vintage sheetmetal to serve as inspiration and atmosphere for the design-off to come. The next thing you’ll notice is the boxing-style ring,…

JOHN MORTON BLIPS the throttle as he manhandles the Mustang’s large, thin wooden wheel. He sets up the car into the wide, right-hand sweeper traced by small orange cones with the nonchalance of a man who’s turned a car in anger hundreds of thousands of times. We hit the apex, and he pours on the throttle, unleashing all of the V-8’s 289 cubic inches and working over the four-speed manual as we barrel down the short front stretch of the Streets of Willow circuit. Morton prefers Big Willow, the track next door to Streets at the famed Willow Springs facility about two hours northeast of Los Angeles. It’s easy to understand why. It’s a much faster, longer circuit. It’s where years ago he tested a car just like this and…

PERUSE THE 2018 Ford vehicles website, and you’ll see a range of relatively affordable, fairly conventional wheels: Fusion sedan (“from $22,120”), C-Max Energi SE hybrid ($27,120), Explorer SUV ($31,990), F-250 Super Duty pickup ($32,820)—you know, normal stuff. But under the “Performance Vehicles” link, you’ll find a low, lean missile labeled Ford GT. Base price: $453,750. No, someone on Ford’s web team did not accidentally tack on a digit. The Dearborn, Michigan, automaker really does sell a two-seat supercar that’s more than 10 times the price of almost everything else the company builds. Way back in the fall of 2003, I had the opportunity to track test a prototype of what would become the 2005 Ford GT street car—a stunning, road-legal homage to the GT40 racing machines that conquered Le Mans…

OUR SELECTION OF the Tesla Model 3 as Automobile’s Design of the Year might come as a surprise, given some of the shots the company has absorbed when it comes to its unreal stock market valuation and founder Elon Musk’s penchant for overpromising. Yes, the Model 3s on the road now have been cobbled up with a lot of handwork making up for deficient manufacturing experience and skills. But ignore the commercial drama and the commentary from the Musk haters and naysayers and take a good look at the car itself. It’s neither spectacular nor shockingly innovative. It’s just a really nice-looking, clean design that is instantly acceptable, despite the total absence of a traditional grille or representation of the same—as seen on the first Tesla sedans. The Model 3…

MORE THAN ONE Automobile staff member voted for the Lexus LC500 as our Design of the Year—it is the most stylish production Lexus since Erwin Lui’s seminal wet-plaster-in-a-rubber-balloon LS 400 of 1991. The concept design was de-scribed in some detail in our June 2016 issue, but it’s well worth taking a closer look at the production model—so close to the concept car presented at the 2016 Detroit show that any differences don’t greatly matter—to see why it’s not quite Design of the Year material. If there is one thing all good car-body designers know, it is that proportion is king. Just as real estate agents insist that the three most important aspects of any given property are “location, location, location,” so “proportion” easily occupies the first half dozen or so vital…

THE STORY OF the BMW M5 is a fascinating and iconic tale. It was born in 1984 when the fabulous M88 3.5-liter straight-six from the mid-engine M1 supercar was dropped into the shark-nosed, razor-sharp E28 5 Series. Its replacement, the E34, stayed true to the first car’s formula, with more power and a chassis honed to a deliciously sharp edge. Significant changes were applied to the third M5, the E39, specifically the addition of a 5.0-liter V-8. At first, the purists cried. Then they drove it, and those tears of sadness turned to sobs of joy. For the next generation BMW unleashed the wildest M5 of them all, the E60, with its howling 5.0-liter V-10 that revved to a heavenly 8,250 rpm. It had its flaws, but it was special.…

RM SOTHEBY’S MOST recent sale was among the last of the high-caliber collector car auctions of 2017. With a “quality over quantity” focus, just 49 lots of iconic items were up for grabs, including 29 full-scale automobiles (several children’s cars were also on offer), bottles of high-end wine and Champagne, and other mostly automotive-related items. More than $45 million was brought in by the sale, with an 84 percent sell-through for all lots (76 percent for vehicles alone). Overall, the Big Apple event proved a relatively strong sale that has us looking forward to the annual auctions in Scottsdale, Arizona, that kick off the 2018 calendar. 1952 CHRYSLER D’ELEGANCE BY GHIA $885,000 Based on a shortened Chrysler New Yorker platform, this concept was a joint design project between Virgil Exner,…

“I’M MOST WORRIED ABOUT THE TIRES,” NIKLAS LILJA SAYS, “BECAUSE THEY ARE THE MOST CRITICAL PART OF THE CAR. IT’S THE ONLY THING CONNECTING YOU TO THE ROAD.” EVERYONE WORRIES ABOUT the wind. They cast their glances out the open garage doors and into the early morning black toward the sound as it whips its way across the Nevada desert, a thin moon and a scattering of stars the only light to be seen. It’s quiet inside. Christian von Koenigsegg, owner, founder, and CEO of Koenigsegg, pries his eyes from those dark gusts and gets back to conferring with his driver, Niklas Lilja. The two aim to put their mark on history at dawn by claiming a record that’s stood for nearly 80 years: the fastest speed over a flying…

IN CASE YOU haven’t heard the news, the electric Chevrolet Bolt—with its official 235-mile range (or more, as I ran up 267 miles)—is great. In fact, it makes the best case yet for Americans to own an EV, starting with double the battery range of most its antecedents. The price—$37,495 before options and a $7,500 tax credit—is stiffer than we’d like but a hell of a lot cheaper than a Tesla and not beyond the means of most early-intender-type buyers. The cost is also likely to fall in years ahead with greater volume and advances in battery manufacturing. The Bolt is not, to be clear, a Tesla Model S when it comes to luxury, flat-screen fantasia, or top-end performance. But then it costs considerably less. And it stands up to…

WE TALKED WITH Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla’s chief designer, about the Model 3, his third Tesla car, and briefly about the Tesla truck and the new Roadster II—a surprise during the truck unveiling late last year. Von Holzhausen, a born American despite his Teutonic-sounding name, has deep industry experience, having created the Pontiac Solstice and heading Mazda design in California before being headhunted by Musk for Tesla. He is familiar with his company’s products, owning one of each model. “My kids love the Model X, especially the falcon-wing doors,” he says. “They’re 5 and 3 years old and think it’s fun.” What was the design brief for the Model 3? FVH: It was essentially customer-driven. They saw the Model S as a great car, but there was a desire for…

THIS WAS A moderately good year for concept cars—from Detroit through Geneva, Frankfurt, and Tokyo—but when all was weighed and considered carefully, there remained only two show cars of real significance, Honda’s Urban EV (Frankfurt) and Sports EV (Tokyo). The pair and their underlying all-electric platform clearly have a future, which is at best only partly true for most concepts. At Frankfurt, I really liked the Borgward Isabella concept designed by the protean ex-BMW creator Anders Warming, who was responsible for some of the best concepts of the Chris Bangle era and also helmed Mini design before joining the now Chinese-owned Borgward brand. But do I think there’s a big future for what is a very professional design? Not really. I liked the Japanese Aspark Owl electric supercar at Frankfurt,…

AS WE EXIT our hotel in the 123-story Lotte World Tower, four daytime running lights—the new Genesis signature—wink at us in the early dimness, as if advising us of the three-hour drive ahead. Our destination: Inje Speedium, a 2.4-mile circuit in the northeastern mountains outside the South Korean capital. Our ride: the all-new Genesis G70 Sport, specifically a twin-turbo 3.3-liter V-6 model with an eight-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive. After running our hands over the G70’s flared hood and creased sides, we climb into the driver’s seat. Like the body design, the G70’s interior is conventional but well executed with quilted leather upholstery and beautiful aluminum trim. An 8.0-inch touchscreen dominates from its perch atop the dash. Grasping the wheel and moving the stubby shifter into drive, we cross…

FLYIN’ MIATA MX-5 RF TURBO ALONE IN A good sports car, endless miles and unmarked hours ahead, the bonds of daily life start falling away. As you dance from canyon apexes to city on-ramps to the arrow of a modern interstate, the freedom of speed and the clarity of a mind not focused but emptied make you yearn for it never to end. Flyin’ Miata’s latest MX-5 masterpiece, the RF Turbo—or Rufus, as the prototype I recently spent several hundred miles in is known around the Flyin’ Miata shop—is a rare thing in the world of aftermarket tuned cars: It’s not different, it’s just better. That’s a strange thing to say and merits some explanation, so allow me to endeavor. A rather limited set of extra parts takes Mazda’s hot…