Car and Driver June 2022

CURRENT AFFAIRS Just received the February/March issue and saw that Eddie Alterman is listed as interim editor. Please convince (pay) the man to come back full time and save the magazine. Thanking you in advance. —Cannonball Warthen North Myrtle Beach, SC Bravo! Bravissimo! Car and Driver issues may be getting thinner and less frequent, but every article was car-oriented. We got to read about 30 different vehicles! Now that’s progress, Alterman. You know what? Keep my subscription! —Marek Jamul, CA Okay, regarding February/March 2022: Wow, what a fantastic return to form. So pleased with the changes, and thank you for the vision and strategy. Everything is where it should be. Looking forward to what’s next! Goddamn, pal, excellent job! —Jim Macdonald Seattle, WA After picking up a copy of a rival, ahem, trendy motor magazine, I realized good writing is…

The maximum payload capacity for my 2008 Yukon XL is 1805 pounds, but the sticker in the doorjamb says 1520 pounds. Why is there this discrepancy? —Steve Wallerstein, Raymond, NH Payload figures are the weight of people and stuff that a vehicle is rated to carry. This important number is the difference between the curb weight and the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR). Manufacturers set the GVWR for a model, so every pound that’s added in options—oversize sunroof, power seats, etc.—is a pound subtracted from payload. The best way to know your vehicle’s is to do what you did and check the required doorjamb placard.…

At noon on a Wednesday, then C/D editor-at-large John Phillips appeared in the lobby at Automobile Magazine. I worked near the elevator and had become accustomed to the metal doors parting to reveal heroes. P.J. O’Rourke, Bruce McCall, Brock Yates, and even John Oates of Hall and Oates all stopped by, but it wasn’t until Phillips visited that I felt compelled to say something. Hired by C/D editor-in-chief William Jeanes after simply asking for a job, Phillips went to work, work that had him ingesting puppy dewormer while driving a Toyota Land Cruiser over the Himalayas to evacuate, well, worms and winning a Camel Trophy in the jungles of Borneo. He and a partner attempted a nonstop drive from New York to San Francisco locked in a 1997 Volkswagen Jetta diesel…

The Fast in the VinFast name is an acronym in Vietnamese, but it’s not lost on us, or the company’s founders, that in English it suggests something done quickly. The new Vietnamese automotive brand was announced in the fall of 2017, and barely a year later, VinFast had three gasoline-powered cars in development and an electric-scooter factory. By the summer of 2019, the company had built an 827-acre complex in Hai Phong and was delivering its first cars. In 2021, founder Pham Nhat Vuong announced that VinFast would begin pivoting to EVs. Now it’s selling electric scooters, electric buses, and the VF e34, a small electric SUV, with promises of two larger versions to come, the VF8 and the VF9. The mid-size, five-seat VF8 and the seven-seat VF9 will not…

We started testing vehicles’ acceleration way back in the 1950s, but it took us a decade to stop. That is, to measure the distance needed to stop. We initially conducted brake tests at 80 mph, but in the early 1970s, we settled on 70 mph. Back then, braking distances averaged around 200 feet, serious fade occurred regularly, and automakers had yet to implement anti-lock technology to optimize the braking force at each contact patch. Today’s hardware makes fade rare in our standard six-stop routine. And last year the average stopping distance shrunk to 168 feet, even as tested curb weights have ballooned by nearly 50 percent in the past five decades to almost 4400 pounds. Performance-oriented vehicles do even better and often cluster around 150 feet from 70 mph. To…

Warning: There’s a Hurricane coming. While new electric vehicles grab headlines, Stellantis is confident there’s a place for engines that suck, squeeze, bang, and blow. Its latest internal-combust ion offering is the Hurricane, a twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six that can slot into various engine bays across Stellantis brands. The 2023 Jeep Grand Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer L will offer a high-output version with 510 horsepower and 500 pound-feet of torque (buyers can swap out the 2022’s 471-hp 6.4-liter V-8 for the Hurricane for $2000). A slightly less stormy variant, with 420 horses and 468 pound-feet, will plug into the 2023 Wagoneer and Wagoneer L. Stellantis says the Hurricane will fit in place of any of its longitudinally mounted V-6s or V-8s, so expect it to replace the aged 5.7- and 6.4-liter…