Table of contents for September 2015 in Automobile

THE MOMENT I LAID EYES ON THE itinerary, the line “hot lap of Le Mans in an Audi RS3” jumped off the page. I figured I’d be rocketed around Circuit de la Sarthe by someone like Audi’s Tom Kristensen, the recently retired nine-time 24 Hours of Le Mans champ and the grand marshal of the 83rd running of the world’s most famous endurance race. That alone would have been sick enough. Instead, I’m standing in the Dunlop Bridge’s shadow, about to hop into the driver’s seat of a brand-new RS3 Sportback. Alone. My heart pounds in anticipation, and with more than a little trepidation. Please don’t let me spin it off into the gravel. As we told you in last month’s issue, the RS3 Sportback is Audi’s new devilishly fast,…

Some race cars inspire love. Others generate hate. Nissan’s GT-R LM NISMO does both. It couldn’t be more polarizing if it were a nuclearpowered, transgender cyborg engineered to perform Masses and abortions on alternating weekends. Created by the same team of contrarians who developed the equally provocative DeltaWing, the Nissan is an unapologetic “eff you” to a half-century of race-car convention, featuring a seemingly obsolete front-engine layout and relying on front-wheel drive. “When you do the same thing as everybody else, it’s easy to come up with reasons why a car didn’t work— not enough time, not enough budget,” Ben Bowlby, the car’s creator, said in early June, a few days before qualifying for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. “When you step outside the box, if you say you…

I really want to drive the 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata. But first, I need to catch it in my 1993 Miata. The new Miata’s tires fling pebbles at my windshield. My car’s 1.6-liter engine, which has turned more than 131,000 miles, revs past 6,000 rpm, momentarily drowning out the note of the new Miata’s 2.0-liter as I bound over a crest and cut a corner like Alex Zanardi in an effort to keep pace. Glancing for a split second at my rearview mirror, I see more old-school Miatas in pursuit. These are our cars, in both a spiritual sense— the MX-5 embodies Automobile’s “No Boring Cars” slogan—and a literal one, since several staff members own Miatas. And so, when a U.S.-spec 2016 MX-5 Miata Grand Touring arrives in Michigan on…

Everyone knows Playboy magazine spearheaded the sexual revolution of the 1960s and published some of the era’s best-known authors in its heyday. But what readers really go to Playboy for—let’s be honest—are the pictorials of some of the world’s most beautiful women. Beginning in 1964, the most beautiful of the world’s most beautiful women, the Playmate of the Year, was gifted a new car as part of her prize package. Donna Michelle was the first recipient, scoring a 1964½ Ford Mustang. In pink. And a tradition was born. This brings us to the 1968 AMC AMX in Playmate Pink you see in this pictorial, a car billed by many in the enthusiast community as one of the most historically significant cars produced by American Motors. At the time, American Motors…

MILES TO DATE: 21,356 1,905 The M235i’s chassis is supple and benign, balancing playfulness and predictability. 7,363 “I like BMWs,” senior editor David Zenlea says, “but I don’t love BMWs and am not one of those people who can reel off chassis codes like catechism. After spending time with the M235i, though, I’m beginning to get it. What other automaker builds a compact rear-wheel-drive coupe that can comfortably cover 1,500 miles and kick ass on a racetrack in one weekend? The F22 2 Series could convert me.” 9,120 With its aggressive stance and stylish brushed-aluminum caps for the outside mirrors, the M235i has understated sex appeal that whispers for your attention instead of screaming for it. 19,251 We visit TireRack.com to buy a set of wider, plus-one, 19-inch O.Z. Racing…

THE NEW CAMARO (“2016 CHEVROLET CAMARO,” July 2015) looks like the current one, which looks in turn just like the 1969 Camaro. Why? The Camaro chieftains either loved the ’69 car as kids or they just happen to own one now. A Caddy stylist submitted a design based on the second-generation Camaro, but it’s rejected as “dainty.” Is it just me, or is the best-looking car in your story the 1971 Camaro RS? And no matter which engine you choose, the 2016 Camaro will be around $3,000 more than the 2015 model and also more money than every Mustang model. Forgive me, but this Ford salesman (me) just can’t stop doing his happy dance. JEFF CLARK East Rochester, New York CAMAROS: YOU MISSED ONE It may be easy to overlook…

Miatas are typically bought by two types of people: those who want a fun, sporty convertible to drive around town and those who want a fun, sporty convertible to carve up back roads and racetracks. In the past, people in those two groups often bought the same car. At least some of the go-fast goodies, such as a limited-slip differential, were available only on fully loaded, top-flight Miatas, which were also bogged down with weighty nonessentials. With the 2016 Miata, Mazda differentiates the Club model from the base and top-spec versions by making it the only one available with a limited-slip differential, stiffer Bilstein dampers, sportier springs, and a front strut tower brace. Club model buyers can also select an exclusive $3,400 package that equips the car with Brembo front…

If you had to pick one convertible to represent the 1990s, the Mercedes-Benz SL-Class would be the favorite based on its pop-culture profile alone. Cut to Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen fearlessly driving a Mercedes 500SL through a couple of warehouse windows in “The Rookie” (1990), with all parties apparently emerging unscathed. “Engineered like no other car,” says Clint. See also William Hurt’s cocky surgeon in “The Doctor” (1991), who indelicately describes his 500SL’s electronically triggered pop-up roll bar as an aphrodisiac: “my electric roll-in-the-hay bar.” Even doomed rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls were fellow aficionados of the SL-Class. This wasn’t merely crass product placement; it was art imitating life. In Hollywood during the 1990s, if you wanted a top-dollar convertible with equal parts performance, prestige, and engineering excellence,…

HOW TO MAKE BIOETHANOL The fermentation process uses the same yeast that helps produce bread and beer. Microorganisms eat sugar and excrete ethanol. Since these little guys can’t process sugar’s calories very well, the ethanol is chemically rich in energy. The conversion from sugar to bioethanol is straightforward, but sources of sugar can be hard to find. Starches such as corn are relatively easy to come by and convert into sugars, but bioethanol’s future could also lie with waste biomass, which uses cellulose from wood or grass clippings, or small algae ponds, which produce huge amounts of carbohydrates that can be converted. WHY YOU’LL (PROBABLY) NEVER PUMP BIOETHANOL The big problem with food as a fuel source is, as any bachelor knows, it rots if you try to store it…

SOME 1.5 MILLION PEOPLE ARE employed in the endeavor of designing, engineering, building, and selling new vehicles. It’s a Herculean effort, one we celebrate annually with our New Cars issue. Over the next 36 pages, you’ll find 83 cars that have either just come out or will debut very soon. This year, we’re also shining a spotlight on a few of the lesser-known folks who help make the cars you see on these pages. Look for them throughout the section. And as always, we’ve included our unvarnished opinions to aid your car shopping, because the person that matters most to us in this whole process is you. Without you, there are no new cars and there is no New Cars issue. CHEVROLET SPARK Chevrolet’s smallest car, originally cheap-feeling and gawky…

1. The all-new Miata shares the same basic 2.0-liter I-4 engine with the Mazda3, with a few key changes. It is tuned for premium fuel, providing improved throttle response, and its new intake and exhaust manifolds are fashioned for the change from front- to rear-drive duty. An electric vacuum pump replaces the Mazda3’s hydraulic pump, and the Mazda3’s plastic valve cover has been swapped with an aluminum one, purely for aesthetics. 2. Weight savings in the new Miata relative to the previous-gen car come from lots of places: the engine (18 pounds), suspension (26 pounds), transmission (15 pounds), and the body structure (46 pounds), which uses more high-tensile steel and aluminum than ever before. For the first time in a production Miata, the front fenders, convertible-top frame, and roll-over hoop…

WHEN WORD FIRST SPREAD through the ranks at Automobile that we’d be welcoming a 2015 Ford Mustang into our Four Seasons stable, daydreams of roaring down Woodward Avenue in Detroit and along Mulholland Drive in L.A. started to take shape. Some were filled with plumes of tire smoke, some cruising along the California coast at sunset, but all similar to scenes in the movie “Gone in 60 Seconds.” (Our more seasoned editors dream of the 1974 version; our younger editors know only the 2000 remake with Nicolas Cage.) Then, a thunderclap. We’ve decided that our fantasy’s soundtrack will not play to the tune of a Coyote V-8 but instead the whoosh and whine of the turbofour in the 2015 Mustang EcoBoost. Call us crazy, foolish, or maybe even sacrilegious, but…

1963 Chevrolet Corvette convertible Sold at $55,000 S/N 30867S12163 DAYTONA BLUE OVER dark blue vinyl interior. 250-hp, OHV, 5.4-liter V-8; three-speed manual transmission. Removable hardtop only. Correct exterior; decent chrome. Good interior with a factory AM/FM radio. Factory air-conditioning. Reported original 58,925 miles. The might-beoriginal paint is old, tired, and flaking, but it’s part of the appeal here, as this Corvette is being marketed as a survivor. THE STORY BEHIND THE SALE: It would be hard to explain the importance of the 1963 model year in Detroit without focusing on three all-new models, the 1963 Buick Rivera, the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette, and the 1963 Studebaker Avanti. Where the Buick helped define the personal luxury car for a generation, the Avanti was an attempt by a small American company to make…