Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2015 i Automobile

“THE WHOLE IDEA OF RACING TO BE UNSAFE AND GET AWAY WITH IT.” — STIRLING MOSS Six decades ago, Sir Stirling Moss risked life and limb racing here at Italy’s Autodromo Nazionale Monza, and now the driver—85 years old and as feisty as you’d expect a legendary ex-racer to be—asks reigning Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton how he makes sense of the 30-some buttons on the steering wheel of his Mercedes-AMG Petronas W06 Hybrid. Later, the exchange reverses: After lapping the high-speed banked oval in formation with Moss, Hamilton is so enraptured with a raucous, bullet-shaped 1955 Mercedes-Benz W196 that he begs for one more lap in the car. Without a helmet. This curious generational mash-up has been orchestrated by Mercedes-Benz on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of…

THE SPECS PRICE: $93,350 (as tested) ENGINE: 6.2L supercharged OHV 16-valve V-8/627 hp @6,400 rpm, 610 lb-f @ 4,400 rpm RANSMISSION: 7-speed manual LAYOUT: 2-door, 2-passenger, front-engine, RWD coupe EPA MILEAGE: 17/29 mpg (city/hwy) L x W x H: 176.9 x 73.9 x 48.6 in WHEELBASE: 106.7 in WEIGHT: 3,532 lb 0-60 MPH: 3.6 sec TOP SPEED: 186 mph (est) It’s 6:40 a.m. and the photo team isn’t due until 7. Twenty minutes to play. I arc the long, black hood of Pacific Coast Highway and onto the foot of a canyon road, the narrow tarmac ahead steep and sinuous and, in the hazy yawn of a seaside sunrise, all mine. A few turns to find a rhythm, feel out controls and conditions, and then, on a long uphill straight,…

WE GUESS AT THE FUTURE— how it will look, how it will feel—in hopes of understanding the scope of change it will bring. But the truth is we can’t know all that lies ahead. Mankind can only make decisions and then watch as they endlessly and unpredictably mold the landscape in front of us. The automotive industry’s commitment to sustainability, renewability, and autonomy means the choices manufacturers make today will have far-reaching implications for the car buyer of tomorrow. In the next several years we’ll see more automakers swap steel for aluminum and other lightweight materials. They’ll dump gas-gulping, large-displacement engines in favor of smaller, more efficient forced-induction versions, as well as hybrid and electric powertrains. They’ll also more widely embrace semi-autonomous features given that autonomous vehicles aren’t simply feasible—they’re…

Automakers are slowly beginning to roll out vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications systems, which could potentially become a big part of the suite of safety technologies for semiand fully automated driving. Cadillac, for example, has announced it will offer a V2V package as an option for its 2017 CTS. V2V technology is designed to allow any connected vehicles within a certain area to talk with one another anonymously through the use of a basic application known as a “Here I Am” message that can be communicated via devices such as GPS. By monitoring each vehicle’s position, speed, and location relative to the others, connected vehicles would then be able to calculate risk from a 360-degree perspective, allowing for pre-emptive action in the form of a warning alert when the system determines a…

When automobiles first appeared, they were called horseless carriages because nobody recognized their transformative potential. Similarly, most people think of autonomous vehicles simply as driverless cars when in fact they potentially represent a revolutionary new form of transportation. “Don’t think of them as cars; think of them as computers on wheels,” Brad Templeton says. “They’ll be a service like your phone, which you throw out every few years even though it’s perfectly good.” Templeton, a Silicon Valley software engineer and serial entrepreneur, believes driverless cars—if they become commonplace—will transform not only personal mobility but also the world we live in by creating a powerful system of on-demand transportation. “Today, when a person walks into a dealership, the basic question is, ‘What kind of car do I need for my life?’…

In what the car’s instrumentation describes as “Insane Mode,” Tesla’s all-wheel-drive, 691-horsepower Model S P85D electric sedan can reach 60 mph from a dead standstill in just 3.1 seconds. Humiliated drivers of conventional sports sedans are left sucking, well, not exhaust fumes but clean air. Welcome to the new, eco-friendly paradigm of ass-kicking. No shifting of gears, no significant noise. Just bury your right foot and make the jump to light-speed. But can the Tesla P85D and its twin electric motors handle a genuine road trip? You know, romp for a few hours on winding country roads where there isn’t so much as a AA battery for 100 miles in any direction? To answer that worthy question, West Coast editor Michael Jordan and I departed Los Angeles in a new…

THE STORY BEHIND THE SALE: There are now four auctions held at the same time as the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, a mark of the event’s growth from a specialty concours focused on classic racing cars into a weekend full of activities for all kinds of classic cars. The three biggest auctions are Bonhams, Gooding, and RM Sotheby’s. The BMW M1 similarly began as a specialty car that has since achieved larger significance. Designed as one of the first highperformance mid-engine cars from a large-scale carmaker, the M1 derived its style from BMW design director Paul Bracq’s 1972 BMW E25 Turbo concept car. Lamborghini was hired to produce the car, but ultimately Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Italdesign built the tubular frame and fiberglass body and Bauer assembled the car in Germany. The…

As agile as a BMW 5 Series, as cosseting as a Mercedes-Benz S-Class, and as impeccably put together as an Audi A8, the forthcoming BMW 7 Series will topple the luxury segment’s hierarchy for a number of reasons. 1. An all-new, turbocharged straight-six engine, code-named B58, is part of a new engine family with three-cylinder (B38, used in the new Mini Cooper) and four-cylinder (B48, in the Cooper S) variants. 2. The I-6 in the 740Li makes 340 hp, the V-8 in the 750i makes about 450 hp, and the V-12 in the 760Li is good for about 545 hp. There will be two diesels—powered at 265 hp and 320 hp—and a plug-in hybrid, fted with a 2.0-liter turbo-four and a 90-kilowat electric motor. 3. The 7 Series uses light…

Imagine densely packed cities and suburbs thick with Google-developed, fully automated cars zipping silently alongside more conventional vehicles that become driverless at the touch of a button. They all navigate safely around pedestrians, pets, and bicyclists, while buses and trains avoid cars and one another thanks in part to a vehicle-to-vehicle communications network. Out on the highways, vehicles with varying levels of autonomous capability mix with older, owner-operated cars and trucks, except when lanes dedicated to autonomous-only vehicles open up. To some, these blue-sky scenarios might seem a long way off, but Google thinks this way right now. It’s working on its own part of the equation with such ferocity that having its electric-powered cars sans steering wheels and pedals on the road in droves any later than 2030 is…

Robotic drivers will behave much like their human counterparts: They will see the road (with sensors), plan their routes (using algorithms), and manipulate the brakes, throttle, and steering wheel to act accordingly (through the onboard computer). The third leg of this triad—physically driving the vehicle—will be the easiest to implement since virtually all controls are already linked electronically. Mimicking the eyes and brain of a human is a much more complicated proposition. Video cameras are the most obvious analog for the human eye. Cameras are cheap and simple. But the images they produce are compromised by weather conditions, and video isn’t very good at determining distance. So cameras are usually augmented by radar. Radar works best detecting metallic objects in motion, and it isn’t affected by weather, which is why…

IN 2012 WHEN THE TESLA MODEL S FIRST BEGAN TO ROLL OFF THE ASSEMBLY LINE IN FREMONT, CALIFORNIA, JUST 3,100 WERE SOLD. In 2013 some 22,450 examples of the Model S hit the street. In 2014 the number climbed to 31,623, and now monthly sales of the car have surpassed those of the Nissan Leaf. That’s a lot of cars, so it’s no wonder aftermarket companies such as Saleen are interested in making Tesla hot rods. Unplugged Performance (UP) has been developing a series of enticing add-ons for Elon Musk’s electric baby from its shop down the street from the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne, California. Order your new Tesla Model S directly through Unplugged Performance, and the company will add its own body pieces, including a redesigned front fascia, rockerpanel…

IN THE LATE 1800S, AUSTROGerman psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing coined the word “masochism” after reading Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novella “Venus in Furs,” which centered on characters who derived pleasure from pain. Masochism, although widely considered taboo, still excites us. Why else would we want an Alfa Romeo 4C for a year? To start, you’ll find absolutely no acoustic insulation lining the 4C’s carbon-fiber monocoque. The turbocharged, 1.7-liter four-cylinder engine behind the passenger cell yowls and shrieks between each quick-but-coarse shift from the six-speed dual-clutch transaxle. The 4C’s 10.6-gallon fuel tank is tiny. Its rear window is smaller still. Its steering is hyperactive. Its infotainment system incompetent. Its seats wafer-thin. Its trunk barely big enough for one overnight bag. We had no illusions about the Alfa Romeo 4C when we named…

AS AN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER AND AUTOMOBILE enthusiast, I am always interested in improvements and advancements in the automotive industry (“Editor’s Letter,” June 2015). Te future of the automobile is upon us, and the way humans interact with their favorite mode of transportation is about to evolve. How about letting Automobile lead us—perhaps sometimes kicking and screaming—into an awareness of what we can expect in the near future with a department about electric automobiles? It might even tell us how to use autonomous cars. JAN SVENSON Brampton, Ontario Perhaps the future will not be so diferent after all. See our stories on page 44, page 66, and page 76. –Ed. WE GET REQUESTS I get four auto magazines a month and have for years. Sure, they all show the same new…

F 015, MEET PEDESTRIAN We motored around in the Mercedes-Benz F 015 in a big, empty lot not long after the concept car’s introduction at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show. It’s more transportation pod than car, and the interior space combines the ambience of a lounge with the utility of an office. But the F 015 also serves as a showcase for Mercedes’ vision of how cars and people will interact by 2030. As Mercedes sees it, in high-density urban and suburban areas, traffic barriers will fall and vehicles will literally occupy the same space as pedestrians. While shuttling people to their destinations, cars will feature onboard sensors that will read and interpret human gestures. Then, through the use of LED displays, the car will make its intentions clear to…

Automobile is in a committed Four Seasons relationship with two stellar sports cars. First, there’s the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, which we picked up in May 2014, and second, there’s the 2015 Jaguar F-Type S, which came along two months later. We love them both—the Corvette was our Automobile of the Year for 2014, and the F-Type was named an Automobile All-Star the same year. As we near the conclusion of our time with both cars, though, we feel compelled to decide which we’d prefer in a committed relationship. To settle things once and for all, we took both on a romantic vacation, heading south from our Michigan office toward roads in southeast Kentucky that Automobile editors have been tearing up since the tenure of our magazine’s founder, the late…

LOYAL AUTOMOBILE READERS know there are precious few cars in the 29-year history of this brand that have been more lauded, awarded, celebrated, and venerated than the Volkswagen GTI. On the Monroney window sticker, VW bills the car as the “Original German Hot Hatch,” and no one would dispute that claim. Though much has changed since it first arrived on U.S. shores, so far we’ve found the 2015 Volkswagen GTI remains true to its core attributes: engaging, versatile, affordable, fun. Call us homers if you want, but after flogging the all-new Mk7 GTI on the road and at the track, we once again dubbed it an Automobile All-Star for 2015. Like LeBron James, this car has become a perennial all-star, its greatness cemented through seven generations of refinement. But there…

In 1973, a paroxysm of brand-engineering ingenuity led General Motors to fashion more than a dozen nameplates off a single all-new platform called the A-body. Most of them were forgettable products of a dark era in American automotive history. But one of them, the Pontiac Grand Am, lives on as an intriguing artifact of a road not taken. Although the name suggested a synthesis of the luxury of the Pontiac Grand Prix and the performance of the Pontiac Trans Am, the Grand Am was designed as an American take on the poised handling and elegant interiors of premium European imports. So this Pontiac was equipped with radial tires, a sport-tuned suspension, bucket seats, a beefy steering wheel, and even a Euro-style high-beam switch on a stalk off the steering wheel…