Car and Driver June 2021

backfires

ALADDIN’S HELMET The February/March 2021 cover is absolutely the worst ever. I didn’t look closely and, thinking it was a women’s magazine, put it with my wife’s mail before she handed it back to me. —Doug Raver Leland, NC Aladdin Sane? More like Grateful Dead. —Greg Wojtusiak Kew Gardens, NY If you’re going to copy something, you might as well copy the best! David Bowie is gone but not forgotten. It made me smile. —Michael Dyer Livermore, CA A racing helmet on the cover of a car magazine? Is that a first? But more important, why do I suddenly have a hankering to drink Gatorade while watching old episodes of Speed Racer? —Bill Craft Fort Russell, IL IF 10 WERE 12 When did you announce you were no longer publishing 12 issues a year? —Alex Llorente Yorktown, VA Surprise!—Ed. Ten issues might be…

explained

These sidewall markings indicate a tire was developed for a specific automaker. For instance, you may see TPC (for tire performance criteria) on GM rubber. The tire may share a name with and look like its off-the-shelf brother, but the code means engineers have tailored the construction, tread pattern, or compound to deliver desired performance. If you want your car to ride and handle as intended, be sure to buy replacement tires with the manufacturer specification code BMW TPC GENERAL MOTORS FP FORD J JAGUAR N1, NA1, NFO PORSCHE L LAMBORGHINI MO1 MERCEDES-BENZ MC1 McLAREN SIC YOUR DOGS ON US AT: EDITORS@CARANDDRIVER.COM…

go the distance

Like many great adventure stories, the first successful American cross-country car trip began with a bet. After listening to a bunch of stuffy elites in a San Francisco clubhouse declare automobiles a passing fad and that they were good only for local trips, Horatio Nelson Jackson bet a man $50 that he could get to New York City in 90 days. This was in 1903, when we as a society still weren’t sure what to call drivers. Chauffeurs? Automobilists? Motorneers? Four days later, Jackson set off on the first epic American road trip. He’d hired a mechanic named Sewall K. Crocker to come along for the ride, purchased all the provisions he thought he’d need, and took off. The car blew a tire just 15 miles outside Oakland. Many more roadside…

choose your own adventure

PART 1: THE OPEN ROAD 1. Drive across the country. Slowly. It may not feel this way when you hop on a plane in Los Angeles at midnight and are enjoying brunch in Manhattan the next morning, but we live in a big country. Driving across it is the opposite of convenient, and at some point in Nebraska, you will definitely start to think you should have flown. But a road trip offers many possibilities that aren’t available in 16C. For one, you can pull into a campground late at night and wake up to views of mountains you didn’t know were there. Or maybe make a three-hour detour to pick up a snack from Federal Donuts in Philadelphia. And when you’re behind the wheel, you can sing at the top of…

the y2k bug

Each decade in the 20th century eventually developed a defined identity. And usually, a 20-year buffer provided a lens through which we gained perspective on the period. That was reflected on TV—Happy Days, The Wonder Years, and That ’70s Show all debuted 20 years after the decade they depicted. You could have a ’70s theme party in the ’90s because life was drastically, hilariously different. That’s no longer true. Sometime around the turn of the millennium, we all bought stainless-steel appliances and culture got stuck. I recently unearthed a song buried deep in one of my playlists: Groove Armada’s “Superstylin’.” It sounds like something you’d hear next to a pool in Miami now. It was released in 2001. One of the top shows on Netflix last year, The Office, was conceived…

interesting points

Car manufacturers know you’re stressed and bored. To calm and amuse you, some offer spa-like audio tracks and peaceful animations across their ever-larger screens, and at least one provides games, karaoke, and fart sounds. If repeatedly making it seem like your passenger just ripped one gets old—I suppose it’s possible—try entertaining yourself with the suggestions in the in-car navigation. Many modern nav systems have a list of points of interest (POI). I always assumed it was just restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and maybe major tourist stops that everyone already knows such as Disney World or the Everglades gator show, but internet connectivity means that infotainment systems can offer a broader, constantly updated list of nearby attractions. Recent exploration of the POI list in a couple of cars surprised me with quirky…