Car and Driver October 2017

“NOBODY IS GOING TO PAY $450,000 FOR A BEAUTIFUL CAR THAT SOUNDS LIKE AN APOPLECTIC MALT MIXER, NO MATTER HOW FAST IT IS.” THREE-CAR MONTE As a simple man, this is simply what I see when I look at the July 2017 cover. Ford GT: man; McLaren 720S: woman; Porsche 911 GT3: frog. —Rick Roach The Woodlands, TX JOY DIVISION I enjoyed reading about the “power trio” [“Feel Lucky, Punk?”] in the July issue. I love the styling of the Porsche GT3 and the Ford GT, but the McLaren is hideous. While outward visibility may be improved with the carbon-fiber A-pillars and translucent C-pillars, the car itself suffers from a chronic case of walleye vision. —Tom Stevens Fort Gratiot Township, MI Your headline for the Ford GT should have read, “Ford Aims at Ferrari, Hits Nissan GT-R.”…

The fix is not in! In your detailed reporting on Dieselgate [“The Fix Is In,” July 2017], you did not mention the ongoing 3.0-liter V-6 diesel issues of the Generation 2 engine. It appears to me that you also were very political in minimizing references to Porsche and Audi. Was that because they spend tons of advertising dollars with your magazine and you do not want to ruffle their feathers? As a Porsche Cayenne Gen 2 diesel owner, I find this whole process frustrating. Why was there no discussion of the likely outcome for VW, Porsche, and Audi to successfully get Gen 2 diesels into compliance? Inquiring minds want to know. —Hilton Geartner, Maitland, FL We didn’t dive into the 3.0-liter issue because the story was about testing the effects of the…

10% Rolls-Royce sold 4011 cars globally in 2016, 389 of which were Phantoms. ROLLS-ROYCE’S PHANTOM ENJOYS the longest-lived model name on the market today, but new versions of the spectral range topper don’t come along very often. The first arrived in 1925, and, with fairly substantial furloughs between some generations, this new version is only the eighth to bear the name. Its design sticks close to the shock and awe engendered by the previous iteration—the first produced under BMW’s control of Rolls-Royce—but the car is almost entirely new. The mission, too, is hardly changed: Appeal to those for whom even a Bentley Mulsanne is a little common. CHASSIS The Phantom is the first car to sit on Rolls- Royce’s new aluminum spaceframe, officially and unselfconsciously called the Architecture of Luxury. Rolls sunk a…

BECAUSE A 1998 PLYMOUTH BREEZE no longer turns heads as it once did, used-car salesmen are masters of countless attention-grabbing gimmicks. Among the tactics, no shtick is simultaneously as eye-catching and absurd as the spastic flail of a perky nylon tube with vaguely human features. Known as a Tall Boy, Fly Guy, AirDancer, or, more commonly, “that ridiculous thing,” this used-car-lot staple might be the pinnacle of lowbrow marketing, right up there with “buy a car, get a gun.” But there’s a load of no-nonsense science behind the tube man’s random yet seemingly unending pop-and-flop routine. There’s also some brilliance in the simplicity of the thing. A conventional fan turning at a constant speed blows air up through the lightweight nylon sleeve, resulting in pressure fluctuations inside the tube sufficient to…

YES, THE ROADS YOU DRIVE ON PROBABLY ARE THAT BAD. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issues a quadrennial infrastructure report card that covers everything from aviation, rail, and seaports to drinking water and public parks. This year, America’s infrastructure earned a D+ overall, with roads rating a D and bridges meriting a C+. The backlog of urgent projects across the country is immense. The ASCE cites a $2 trillion funding gap as a major cause of decay. A cornerstone of that gap is our federal fuel tax, 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents on diesel, which hasn’t been raised in nearly 25 years. Several states—most recently California, Indiana, Montana, South Carolina, and Tennessee—have increased their own fuel taxes. But how much of that revenue is…

IN CORONA, CALIFORNIA, there’s a massive, wooden, camel-humped building that Sunkist erected during the 1920s in which to squeeze lemons. There, on the lower level of the old citrus-processing plant, Lucas Oil Products now manufactures many of its 272 different additives, fuel treatments, and lubricants. But upstairs are the offices and studios of the Lucasowned I-10 Race Promotions and MAVTV, likely the widest-spread motorsports and motorsports media organizations in America. “We were sponsoring tractor pulls and late models long ago. Both series fell apart,” explains Indiana-born Forrest Lucas, 75, who incorporated Lucas Oil in 1989 and, with his wife, Charlotte, owns the interconnected enterprises. “One guy got to doing dope, and the other guy—I don’t know what happened to him. We picked the series up, cleaned them off, and put them…