Car and Driver March 2018

HEADS OR TAILS Why on earth did you choose the butt end of the ZR1 for the December 2017 [subscriber] cover? It’s like teasing an interview with a supermodel, then filming the back of her head. —Phillip Fosnot Chandler, AZ Nice pseudonym, Toback—Ed. TEXTBOOK Reading the Encyclopedia Vehicula [December 2017] under “Zimmer,” I noticed that two of the three C/D covers pictured had people on them. I guess, back in the day, attractive people were put on the cover to distract everyone from the unappealing cars. You must have stopped that policy because there should have been a crowd of fashion models around the green Honda Civic Si on the August 2017 cover. —John Poughkeepsie, NY The December 2017 issue was the first C/D in a long time that I couldn’t finish in one sitting. After wiping…

On that drive, I fell in love with the thing, but only on an intellectual level. It was a gracefully transitioned version of that shocking concept car from 1995, losing none of its aesthetic rigor in its journey to the street. Designer Freeman Thomas envisioned the TT as a neo-bathtub Porsche, but he and fellow designers Peter Schreyer, Romulus Rost, Hartmut Warkuss, and Martin Smith created something artier than even that, a collection of radii and circles that somehow coalesced into a fully resolved, indivisible design. Even the TT badge on the first cars looked like the symbol for pi. Alas, it drove sort of—how do I put this?—fine. It performed admirably for the era, but its driving character did not achieve the wholeness of its styling. Never intended to be…

AUTOMOTIVE DESIGNERS will tell you there’s nothing harder than redesigning an icon. Which is why Mercedes left the Geländewagen largely untouched for almost 40 years. The outgoing G wasn’t an icon because it was smartly packaged or drove well, though. Its on-road dynamics were decidedly Bronze Age. And while it may have been just the truck you needed if you were an overthrown dictator trying to get the hell out of one of the -stans during a military coup and you didn’t exactly use the money to build roads, it was glorious overkill for the Realtor of the Year getting the heck on the darn I-5 during rush hour. The extent to which the former scenario lends adventurous atmospherics to the latter is the essence of the modern-day G, and…

TWENTY YEARS AFTER PRODUCTION of the coveted F1 supercar ended, McLaren will again put drivers in the center seat with its new $2 million-plus grand tourer codenamed BP23. The British racing specialists weren’t the first to literally put their customers at the center of their work, but McLaren became synonymous with the central driving position due to the impossibly long shadow cast by the F1. When it shows the BP23 later this year, the company hopes to recapture some of that magic, thanks in no small part to the unconventional seating configuration. The Brits won’t be alone this time, though. Budding supercar constructor James Glickenhaus plans to place the driver front and center in his mid-engined $400,000 SCG 004S, and Tesla will offer road warriors a central seat in its electric…

“MOTOR RACING has been very kind to me,” wrote Dan Gurney for the New York Times in 1975. “It has exposed me and those around me to a wide spectrum of experiences, from utter tragedy to intoxicating joy and happiness. Tears at both ends—and a very worldly and interesting in-between.” Daniel Sexton Gurney died on January 14, 2018, at age 86, leaving behind a singularly impressive biography. Pretty much all the legends about him—from his brilliant driving to his winning cars and fearless innovations— are true. Gurney was born April 13, 1931, in Port Jefferson, New York. He relocated with his family to Riverside, California, in 1948, just as the region roared to life as the epicenter of postwar car culture. Gurney served in the Korean War as an artillery mechanic and,…

CHEVY DIDN’T TRADEMARK THE name “Suburban” when it introduced the industry’s first steelbodied, eight-passenger truck-based wagon back in 1935. Other marques subsequently used the term, and it didn’t officially become GM’s until 10 years after Plymouth discontinued its Suburban station wagon in 1978. Now, 83 years on, the Suburban is the longest-running nameplate in automotive history and is attached to the go-to hauler for people with big families and big needs. With a new Chevy Silverado just unveiled, a 12th-generation Suburban is imminent. Chevy first applied the name to a $675 (about $12,000 in 2017 dollars) depot hack, a basic truck used to ferry passengers and luggage to and from train stations and ship terminals. A heater and rear bumper were notable options, but the innovation came in using steel rather…