Car and Driver September 2017

DEMON DROP I am curious: Is the 2018 Challenger SRT Demon [“Quarter Pounder,” June 2016] considered Dodge’s “halo” car? —Mike McPherson Swartz Creek, MI Hang on—I’m asking my pastor—Ed. Demon is spelled similarly to Lemon, yet pronounced differently. Neither is pronounced like LeMons. —Norm Girndt Toronto, ON Right. Now why can’t Canadians pronounce Mazda?—Ed. If you’re going to strip a car down enough to take the passenger seat out, why is the infotainment system still there? Dodge could have shed tons of weight by getting rid of it. Same thing applies to the center console. If Dodge really wanted a pure drag-racing car, there would be no fancy gadgets or anything like that. —Sebastian Larsen Vienna, VA After reading the article on the new Dodge Demon, I thought: I bet that the 200 or so people who…

It may seem strange to kick off our annual new cars issue with musings about an old car, namely my just-acquired 1971 Porsche 911T coupe with the original carbureted 2.2-liter flat-six. But there is a point to this prideful boast, and it lies in what I’m learning about new cars from my old one. To wit: 1. Everyone follows too closely. Nobody pays attention. The late Martin Swig, he of California Mille fame, used to say this about the erosion of safe following distances: “The world started going to Hell with the advent of disc brakes.” Throw the efficacy of today’s multi-piston systems onto a fleet of behemoth trucks and SUVs, and it’s no wonder everyone feels perfectly comfortable at stoplights doing the old Lewis Hamilton late-braking maneuver to within millimeters of…

I swear nobody can do basic math—except me. I refer to the Chrysler Pacifica hybrid review in the June 2017 issue [“Shock Box”]. How did you calculate that it would take more than eight years to recover the $2100 price difference in fuel savings? Let me educate you. With an estimated fuel price of $2.40 a gallon at 20 mpg, it costs $0.12 a mile. At the same $2.40 a gallon at 28 mpg, it costs $0.085714 a mile. That is a savings of $0.034286 a mile. If you divide the $2100 extra cost by 0.034286, it equals 61,249 miles to recover the extra cost. At your proposed 12,000 miles a year, it would take just over five years to break even. Any questions? The math isn’t as basic as you…

01 IS OUR FEARLESS LEADER REALLY GOING TO TURN BACK FUEL-ECONOMY REGULATIONS? FUEL-ECONOMY REQUIREMENTS through the 2021 model year were set five years ago and are as impervious to change as German dietary preferences. Model years 2022 through 2025, on the other hand, are at risk. The Environmental Protection Agency pulled its final decision for that period ahead by more than a year during President Obama’s last months in office, but, in March, President Trump ordered the EPA to review the regulation and potentially cut back from the 54.5-mpg fleet-average goal set for 2025. Despite the EPA concluding in January that current rules would become permanent, the agency also has the authority to, well, backtrack. Those opposed to rolling back regulations will point to the EPA’s 1217-page technical report from July…

It’s possible I belong to a car club. Well, maybe. The club has no name besides “Thursday Nights in Lolo,” and here is its constitution: “Article 1, Section 1: Drink beer and talk about cars on Thursday nights.” There is no Article 2. I believe there’s one amendment, though: “Bring beer, not Old Milwaukee.” We meet in the garage of Gary Meuchel, who restores muscle cars, heavy on the Mustangs. His garage is appealing because, first, it stinks of fresh paint and stale Castrol. Second, it always looks as if it might have been a Jegs outlet that’s recently been bombed. Our man Gary is dogged, so when he learned via rumors that a nearby wealthy collector owned nearly 100 cars, he begged for a viewing on behalf of the club and…

My friend John Lacey’s lovely little 1967 Lotus Elan was burning gas beautifully right up until it wasn’t. At the notoriously clogged interchange of L.A.’s 405 and 101 freeways, which actually has its own Yelp rating (amazingly, 2.5 stars), the purring little blue-bonneted four-cylinder went “brrrrrdup!” and the tach needle fell limp. We managed to coast up the very off-ramp we were heading for on our way to the annual Queen’s English car show in Van Nuys and then downhill into a fuel plaza offering blessed shade. I was optimistic. In my experience, which includes two cantankerous Lamborghini Espadas, the more sudden and calamitous the failure, the easier it is to fix. And it wasn’t as if we’d thrown a rod; the engine just went “dup!” The tank had vacuum-locked,…