Inhoudsopgave van June 2019 - Automobile

2020 POLESTAR 2 1 Front 3/4 View I HAVE NO absolute ideas about how electric cars should look. Apparently, no one working in car design today has any more certainty than I do. But I can tell you that this Polestar 2, pleasant as it is in conventional terms, is far from any Platonic ideal of an electric car. Tesla is the world standard for electric vehicles at present, but so far all its products—like the Polestar 2—just resemble very nice gasoline or diesel cars. Tesla’s initial Model S had a disgraceful black oval on the front to suggest a radiator grille. That was finally expunged in a face-lift, and successive designs such as the Model 3 never suffered the indignity of false frontal air intake grilles, as Polestar does. This year’s…

CHEVROLET FANBOYS WILL have to get over the fact the Blazer sport utility is now a car-based, transverse-engine soft-roader and instead think of it as a Camaro crossover. Psychographically, to use a modern marketing term, the 2019 Blazer, like the Camaro, is an empty nester’s car, the sort of vehicle you buy if you’re bored with your fifth overly reliable Toyota or Honda sedan or if you’re tired of lugging around a three-row SUV or minivan after the kids have left home. To be clear, the new Blazer is no alternative to the enthusiast’s Camaro, and for now there’s no Blazer SS in the pipeline. Rather, the Blazer could be considered an alternative to the automatic-transmission-equipped, non-SS versions of Chevy’s pony car—especially in the Blazer’s top-tier V-6-powered trim levels. Both…

“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”—Dr. Emmett Brown, ‘Back to the Future’ RUMOR HAS IT the first time Karl Benz drove his 1885 Motorwagen—the world’s first-ever automobile—down a public byway in Manheim, Germany, a passerby exclaimed to a friend, “Wow! Look at that thing! Wouldn’t it be cool if it could fly?” For as long as automobiles have existed, it seems, drivers have wished their ground-bound cars could take to the air. In 1917, just 14 years after the Wright Brothers’ first powered aircraft flight, aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss unveiled his winged, rear-propellered Autoplane. It managed a few brief skips into the air but never really, uh, took off. Years later—following numerous aborted prototypes and several fatal nosedives by would-be flying-car pioneers—aerospace engineer Moulton “Molt” Taylor unveiled his…

JONATHAN WARD, founder and CEO of Icon, is curious to a fault. The 49-year-old incessantly asks questions to better understand his grossly disparate fascinations, and his offbeat, witty personality influences the design and funk of every Icon built. For the past 12 years, Icon has thoughtfully and artfully modernized classic cars and trucks. Each is meticulously finished with unconventional materials like LEDs from fighter jets because Ward enjoys researching new restoration techniqies and sourcing products such as textiles and fabrics from atypical suppliers. “I’m either dumb enough or audacious enough that I just figure it out,” Ward says of his approach to customization. He appreciates tradition but doesn’t follow it blindly, salvaging what’s worth saving and improving what’s not. “I’m constantly inquisitive and wanting to keep myself entertained, therefore authentic,…

IT WAS ALMOST five years ago when this column welcomed Johan de Nysschen to the Cadillac hot seat. After successful stints at BMW and Audi (including running its North American operations during a period of historic growth), the South African-born executive ascended to the global conductor’s chair at Infiniti worldwide in 2012, only to be plucked away from that company’s HQ two years later when he was handed the reins to Cadillac, General Motors’ serially confused but occasionally radiant crown jewel. His appointment came just as the world—and bankrupt GM—had started climbing out from the abyss that followed the Great Recession of 2008, and it was a hopeful time. Sensing the moment, de Nysschen, now 59, brought to the task intelligence, keen powers of observation, and genuine good taste in…

By the end of day one at the 2019 Grand National Roadster Show (GNRS) in Pomona, California, we had a pretty good idea of what the show’s famous AMBR award is not. It’s not America’s Roadster You’d Most Like to Drive Home. It’s not America’s Most Bad Ass Roadster, or America’s Roadster You’d Most Like to Own, or America’s Most Well-Restored Roadster. Every time, after explaining at least one thing that the AMBR was not, the person delivering the explanation—be it a judge, car owner, or fellow wide-eyed spectator—would look around at the 14 cars in the running for the 2019 competition and say, “It’s America’s Most Beautiful Roadster.” In one corner, a ’32 Ford the color of a Chesapeake Bay retriever, with a trim little fabric top pulled down…

WHETHER YOU BELIEVE in it or not, the concept of karma—which is central or important to many world religions—is at once simple and incredibly complex. In a way, it’s just the law of cause and effect operating on a moral level; in another, it’s the sum of every action undertaken by everyone who ever lived and the network of those interactions. Neither of those is an apt description of a car company, of course, but both ideas can be used to frame what Karma Automotive is doing today, and why. Born out of the ashes of the design-forward but business-backward Fisker Automotive and named after Fisker’s primary product, the Karma, Karma Automotive’s previous life is ever-present in the company’s collective consciousness. In its way, it’s both atoning for that past…

SHOULDN’T A CONNOISSEUR of mechanical novelty find solace in Land Rover’s charismatically imperfect off-roaders? Jonathan Ward doesn’t love them, but there is some nuance to the sentiment; Ward’s complicated relationship with the British brand has intrigued me for a decade or so. It wasn’t until Ward invited me to sample his latest Derelict project, a 1966 Ford Bronco Roadster, that I stumbled upon the opportunity to untie that philosophical knot. “Mind if I bring my ’63 Land Rover Series IIA?” I queried casually, aware that my weekend toy would distract from the main attraction. “Of course not,” he replied, an accession that speaks more to his pantheistic automotive enthusiasm than it does my potentially provocative intentions. Ward is drawn to wear and tear just as much as if not more…

Say what you want about President Ronald Reagan’s politics, but there’s no argument the man had style, especially when it came to his choice of off-duty vehicles. Among his favorites: a baby-blue Jeep Scrambler that he used to chauffeur friends, family, and occasional dignitaries—including, in 1992, cowboy-hatted Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev—around his California spread, Rancho del Cielo. We mention the Scrambler, of which Jeep cranked out about 28,000 copies between 1981 and 1986, because it is undeniably the spiritual predecessor of the splendid new 2020 Jeep Gladiator, which was almost called the Scrambler, just like the old stretched CJ-8 with a small pickup bed. The Gladiator name was a catchall moniker for the full-size Jeep trucks from 1962 to 1971 and was dropped when AMC took over the company. The…

THE FIRST WEEK of March generally means two things to serious car collectors: Spring is finally coming, and it’s time to shop in Florida. The annual Amelia Island auctions, held in conjunction with the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, are the traditional second stop on the Big Three collector-car auction weeks, the other two being Scottsdale, Arizona, in January and Monterey, California, in August. We saw strong results overall at Amelia. Bonhams and RM Sotheby’s increased total sales by more than $2 million and more than $10 million, respectively, with similar sell-through rates to last year’s auctions. Gooding & Company suffered a setback this year, selling nearly $14 million less than it did in 2018. Prewar cars featured strongly; Bonhams did particularly well, selling all lots from the pre-eminent Don C.…