Car and Driver January 2017

TRACK TIME In Lightning Lap 10 [October 2016], you claimed that “the 488’s 661 stallions went through the gears like a 1.0-liter sport bike.” Next year why not see if this is, indeed, true. C/D opened my eyes to the awesome performance of motorcycles in the early ’80s. Why not use the next LL as a forum to once again benchmark today’s fastest stock motorcycle against the automotive state of the art? Please pick someone other than Phillips to pilot the bike; I enjoy reading his columns. —JPN Doylestown, PA How did you calculate the Chevy Corvette Grand Sport’s price in the Lightning Lap article? It says it has a base price of $79,930 and with options it came to $92,060. But Chevy’s website says that the base price of the Grand Sport is…

Excess heat degrades the electrodes in a lithium-ion battery, reducing the amount of energy the pack can store over the long term. Tesla’s warranty covers battery packs for eight years, while a Formula E pack is designed to last one season. Given that each driver has two cars in Formula E (racers switch into a second fully charged car midway through each 50-minute competition), that’s roughly 20 hours of hard use over the course of the year, including practice and qualifying. The Formula E battery— 165 liquid-cooled pouch-type cells—is fundamentally similar to that of many production EVs, but the cooling strategy differs significantly. For production cars, engineers aim to operate the lithium-ion battery at about 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Williams Advanced Engineering, which supplies the packs for Formula E, allows a cell…

WINNERS: U.S. VW OWNERS The half-million U.S. owners of Volkswagen and Audi 2.0 TDIs affected by the company’s software cheat will get checks for somewhere between $5100 and $10,000, plus the chance to sell back their cars at the prescandal value. In Germany, the millions of owners of VW’s smoggy diesels will get bupkes, just a software update to periodically remind drivers that instead of lawyers, Germany has the autobahn and the Nürburgring. LOSER: BERNIE Formula 1 also suffered its own tribulations when Brazilian kidnappers nabbed boss Bernie Ecclestone’s current mother-in-law (who is 18 years younger than Bernie) and held her for nine days until police busted the ring and freed her. “All my friends know that I wouldn’t pay a penny for a mother-in-law,” Bernie told the Sunday Times, “although I’d say…

NO, $80,000 DOESN’T STRIKE many of us as particularly affordable, either. But we set the price cap for 10Best eligibility there because it does strike us as the upper limit for what people living in the fat part of the income bell curve would find attainable, leaving a comfortable buffer before a car’s price picks up a sixth digit. And beyond $80K, excellence should be pretty much assured. There are, however, plenty of cars above that threshold that do legitimately stand out. Those, we honor here: BMW i8 For $141,695, you get an EPA-rated 15 miles of electric range, plus the engaging back-road behavior of a mid-engined sports car and the most adventurous exterior styling anywhere on the market. A 3.6-second zero-to-60-mph sprint doesn’t hurt, either. Cadillac CTS-V It has a 640-hp, supercharged 6.2-liter…

[ A ] BUICK AVISTA In a world of ho-hum crossovers, several of them Buicks, the brand’s big coupe concept looks like a revolution. It’s a well-proportioned lozenge with careful sculpting and a gimmick-free body. A 400-hp twin-turbo 3.0-liter V-6 drives the rear wheels. But honestly, what company would sell a vehicle these days that doesn’t have bumper covers modeled to look like skid plates? [B] VISION MERCEDES-MAYBACH 6 You might ask what sense it makes that this electrically powered concept has enough distance between the front axle and the dashboard to accommodate a V-16. But don’t ask, because the Vision 6 isn’t about anything as boring as packaging or sense. The massive Vision 6 is a totem of space inefficiency rolled out for the swells at the Pebble Beach concours. It is…

SOMETIMES, INTERNAL-COMBUSTION GREATNESS doesn’t scream. Here, alongside the bona fide wailers, we call out those with hidden depths, the mechanical equivalents of everyone’s favorite winking girl next door, distractress Parker Posey. She’s an expert at braining you without even trying, and so are some of the mills below. It’s no accident that this list bears more than a passing resemblance to our last, created in 2010. Greatness begets greatness. Audi/Lamborghini 5.2-liter V-10 Output range: 540–610 hp, 398–413 lb-ft Available in: Audi R8, Lamborghini Huracán After letting this V-10 scream to an eardrum-eviscerating 8800 rpm, you’ll need new stirrups and anvils. It makes most engines sound like an embarrassment to internal combustion. BMW turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-4 (B46) Output range: 228–248 hp, 237–258 lb-ft Available in: X1, 2-, 3-, 4-series; Mini Clubman, Convertible, Hardtop Though it’s most at home running…