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2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 V10 FSI Quattro – Video

Car and Driver — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:46:35 +0000

Watch the Video: 2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 V10 FSI Quattro – Video Related posts: 2011 Audi R8 5.2 V10 FSI Quattro Spyder – First Drive Review 2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 V10 FSI Quattro – Official Photos Leaked 2010 Audi R8 5.2 V10 FSI Quattro vs. 2009 Ferrari 430 Scuderia – Video

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2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 V10 FSI Quattro – Video

Coulda’-Been Concepts, Take II – Feature

Mark Quint — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:17:55 +0000

Pining for lost opportunities to color the automotive landscape. Mainstream concept-car theory is a pendulum perpetually swinging between concepts based in reality and those with no chance whatsoever for production. The period from the late ’80s to the early ’90s was a confusing era, a time when some of the wildest concepts—cars like the Dodge Viper and Plymouth Prowler—were actually making the move from show stand to showroom. Keep Reading: Coulda’-Been Concepts, Take II – Feature Related posts: Concepts We Wish Were Never Built – Feature

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Coulda’-Been Concepts, Take II – Feature

2010 Hennessey HPE700 Chevrolet Camaro – First Drive Review

Mark Quint — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:13:27 +0000

Hennessey’s hell-raisin’ Camaro is at once civilized and sinister. Of course, most of what we cover here at Car and Driver involves OEM vehicles rather than aftermarket specials. But we can always find room for stuff like the wicked wheels that roll out of Hennessey Performance Engineering of Sealy, Texas, stuff like the 2010 HPE700 Camaro. This is the super-Chevy that GM hasn’t (yet) built: a new Camaro SS with the supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 heart of the Corvette ZR1 . As we’ve long known and find to be the case yet again with the HPE700, Hennessey’s creations are way more than just chop jobs that void warranties—they’re real cars that withstand real abuse. So when we were offered to drive the HPE700 Camaro on the roads around Hennessey’s outpost in Lake Forest, California, we jumped at the chance. Keep Reading: 2010 Hennessey HPE700 Chevrolet Camaro – First Drive Review Related posts: 2010 Hennessey HPE700 Camaro – Car News 2010 Hennessey HPE550 Chevrolet Camaro – Car News 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS Automatic – Short Take Road Test

2010 Audi A3 TDI – Short Take Road Test

Jordan Brown — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:08:59 +0000

Audi’s new small diesel packs a not-so-pint-sized premium. If you’ve been paying attention, you already know that the Audi A3 and the Volkswagen Golf share a fair amount of subcutaneous hardware, as well as corporate cousinhood. The architecture is pretty much identical, and there’s also considerable powertrain-parts-bin commonality, as exemplified by this new addition to the A3 lineup. Keep Reading: 2010 Audi A3 TDI – Short Take Road Test No related posts.

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2010 Audi A3 TDI – Short Take Road Test

2011 Nissan GT-R Gets Pricing and Equipment Changes

Jake Holmes — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:49:10 +0000

Believe it or not, we’re entering the third year in which the comparo-winning and controversial GT-R has graced Nissan dealerships in the U.S. There will henceforth be just one trim level, equipped to match the former Premium trim, so the car’s entry price is now $85,060—about $1000 more than the 2010 Premium. Automatic wipers and iPod, Bluetooth, and DVD capability all become standard. There are also a few equipment changes for the 2011 model year: darker center caps for the wheels, a double layer of clear coat on front and rear fascias, extra cooling ducts for the rear floor, a retuned suspension, and stiffer rear suspension bushings. There are two no-cost options: the mutually exclusive cold weather package and the ultra-high-performance tire pack. For $3000, buyers can opt for “Super Silver” paint, while $280 nets floor mats bearing the GT-R logo. Related posts: Nissan Leaf Pricing Clarified (Somewhat) 2010 Nissan 370Z Roadster Pricing Announced 2010 Nissan Rogue Pricing Up Slightly, to $21,140

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2011 Nissan GT-R Gets Pricing and Equipment Changes

2011 Ford Police Interceptor – Car News

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:51:43 +0000

After only 30 years or so, Ford’s Crown Vic cop-car replacement finally arrives. For some, it seems like Ford’s Crown Victoria has been the single car we most feared in our mirrors for our entire driving lives. While private sales of the Crown Vic ceased in 2008, sales to fleets—read “police departments”—continue through 2010. Keep Reading: 2011 Ford Police Interceptor – Car News Related posts: Ford Developing New Police Interceptor for 2011 2011 Ford Edge and 2011 Lincoln MKX Interiors Leaked – Car News 2010 Ford Taurus SHO – Car News

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2011 Ford Police Interceptor – Car News

Mitsubishi to Wind Down Ralliart Division

Jake Holmes — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:02:38 +0000

Monetary woes are forcing Mitsubishi to scale down operations of its motorsports wing, Ralliart. As of April 1, Ralliart will stop supporting motorsports customers and cease production of new Ralliart-branded products. The downturn won’t affect Ralliart-badged production vehicles, such as our long-term Lancer Ralliart , because the Ralliart name has been licensed and can still be used on current (and possibly future) Mitsubishi products. In fact, spokesperson Christine Jew said the announcement won’t have a huge impact on North American products: “It pretty much just shut down the high-performance parts in the Japan operations.” The official line is that the global economic downturn caused a financial pinch at Mitsubishi, meaning Ralliart had to be scaled back. The company had already pulled out of the annual Dakar rally—which Mitsu had entered 26 times and won 13 times—because of financial concerns. Related posts: 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback Ralliart – First Drive Review 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart: Shifting Expectations [Long-Term Logbook] 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback Ralliart – Long-Term Road Test Intro

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Mitsubishi to Wind Down Ralliart Division

GM and Opel’s Strange Love – Feature

Christopher Champion — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:41:56 +0000

Or, how the General learned to stop worrying and love its German brand. Early last year, on the verge of bankruptcy, GM was so cash strapped that it was looking to dispose of its European subsidiary Opel, a brand it has owned for 80 years and which played an important engineering role. GM managed to save the brand, but the dust has only just settled enough to see Opel’s path through the desperate hours and what its future will hold. But let’s back up a bit: As the full magnitude of GM’s vulnerability became clear this past spring, Magna, an Austro-Canadian supplier and auto assembler expressed interest in buying Opel. One of the largest automotive suppliers in the world, Magna teamed up with Sberbank, a Russian bank, and presented an ambitious plan to use Opel’s production capacity. Ironic, considering how Magna’s subsidiary Magna Steyr, which builds cars for various automakers, has failed to keep its plant in Graz, Austria, even close to full capacity. Keep Reading: GM and Opel’s Strange Love – Feature Related posts: GM Recommends Magna/Sberbank Bid for Opel Not For Sale: GM to Keep Opel/Vauxhall – Car News Opel Sale Stoking Serious Anger, Could Cause World War III (Not Really, But Close)

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GM and Opel’s Strange Love – Feature

Ford C-Max Spied Testing Around Town, But Why?

Christopher Champion — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:37:29 +0000

It was just a normal day in the Car and Driver offices when, during a (totally work-related) routine errand, I saw a fully diapered-up prototype car being led through Ann Arbor by a Ford Escape. “Gadzooks,” I said out loud, “that must be some sort of future Ford,” and immediately snapped the two photos you see here with my camera phone. Upon my return to the office, a couple of fellow editors and I determined that the covered-up car is the Ford C-Max . Basically it’s a tall version of the Focus wagon, and Ford’s plans to sell it here in the United States are still a bit vague. Could these photos prove otherwise? Is the C-Max destined for our shores? Maybe. Another scenario is that the car we saw was testing powertrain or chassis components for the slightly larger, seven-passenger Grand C-Max , which will be sold in the North American market. Related posts: 2010 Ford Grand C-Max – Official Photos Leaked 2011 Ford C-Max – Official Photos and Info Ford Iosis Max Concept – Auto Shows

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Ford C-Max Spied Testing Around Town, But Why?

No Snow Days Here: We Head to Team O’Neil Rally School to Get a Handle on Mitsubishi All-Wheel Drive

Jake Holmes — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:11:13 +0000

Dalton, New Hampshire, is about two hours north of Manchester, at the crossroads linking the Boonies with the Ends of the Earth. From Los Angeles in January, it takes two airplanes and a car with good snow traction to reach it. The only real reason to go to Dalton would make a pretty good reason to go anywhere: to learn how to drive rally cars. Up a steep hollow in the foothills of the windblown White Mountains, five-time U.S. rally champion Tim O’Neil has been running the Team O’Neil Rally School and Car Control Center since 1997. Classes range from a two-day quick hit for $1650 to a four-day full immersion for $4150. Sound expensive? Well, it’s their fully prepared cars that you’ll be sliding sideways, pounding over jumps, and fanning tree trunks with, many of which have already had their bark removed at fender level. The instruction is top notch. Such vivid experiences don’t come cheap. Rally cars at the limit live in a near-constant state of slip, the car continuously shifting torque among the four corners, sending it to wheels with grip instead of letting it bleed off through wheelspin by those that lack traction. Mechanical devices such as viscous couplings, which automatically respond to differences in rotation among two wheels or two axles, are one way. A quicker and more precise way is with computers. For a day, Mitsubishi took over the place to give media types the opportunity to experience its various all-wheel-drive systems in conditions that can’t be safely duplicated anywhere else except a remotely located rally school in the depths of winter. Starting us out on a simple cone slalom, the instructors eventually moved the small group to a short, high-speed forest stage with a few deep ruts and hairy off-camber turns to keep everybody’s attention focused. We fishtailed around O’Neil’s various training courses in snow-slinging all-wheel-drive Mitsus, and even got a few adrenaline-inducing laps of a rally forest stage with the Man Himself, Tim O’Neil, at the wheel. Lunchtime came late and the journalists didn’t even bitch or threaten an OSHA complaint. That’s when the public relations people know they’ve scored. What Once Was A long time ago in a market far, far away, Mitsubishis were thought of as cool by enthusiasts because of all the weird and wonderful gadgets the company fitted to otherwise ordinary cars. Remember the turbocharged Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 of 1987–1992? It was basically a homologated Group A rally car—way overpriced for a smallish sedan, lit up by a couple hundred too many LED indicators, completely invisible to cops, and soaking with go-fast hardware. The scrappy first-gen Eclipse, the 3000GT VR-4 with its movable wings and adjustable exhaust—Mitsubishi loved buttons and solenoids and hydraulic actuators, once upon a time. Thankfully, the Lancer Evolution has kept the lamps of innovation lit at Mitsubishi, and now the company is returning to those days, at least in part, with its three levels of all-wheel drive. They’re available in the Lancer Ralliart Sportback, Evolution MR, and Outback GT, a crossover SUV which, like that old Galant VR-4, hides a nifty handling widget under plain street clothes. Outlander GT’s “Super All Wheel Control” The Outlander GT has S-AWC or “Super All Wheel Control.” Nominally a front-driver, the Outlander shifts torque rearward via an electronic coupler on the rear differential that opens or closes on computer command. An electromagnetic coil spins a ball-ramp assembly which squeezes a clutch-plate stack to engage the rear axle. It’s an on-off switch, but it can pulse very quickly to “meter” torque as needed. Side-to-side torque distribution is handled as follows: the rear differential is open, meaning there’s no way to prevent wheelspin except by the traction-control system, which applies the brakes to the spinning wheel. However, the front differential has an electromechanical clutch pack similar to the fore-aft coupling. It acts like a limited-slip differential, preventing huge speed discrepancies between the left and right front wheels, but with the added benefit of computer control. The computer knows the car’s attitude, throttle, and steering position, and constantly adjusts the coupling to put the drive torque to the wheel with bite, which makes for sharper steering response. A rotary knob also lets the driver select from “tarmac,” “snow,” and “lock” modes, which shift the computer’s control maps governing the fore-aft and side-to-side engagement. We tried different settings and found the “lock” mode to be best in navigating O’Neil’s icy slalom exercise because it engages the rear axle best, which pushes the back end around to rotate the car under throttle. Lancer Ralliart Sportback’s “All Wheel Control” The Lancer Sportback Ralliart has AWC, or “All Wheel Control.” Mitsubishi considers this less sophisticated than the Outlander’s heavily computerized S-AWC, but on a performance basis, it’s one step up. That’s because the side-to-side torque is handled by a helical limited-slip differential up front and a mechanical clutch-type limited-slip differential in back (remember, the Outlander has an open diff in back). That means both axles have means for preventing engine torque bleeding away through wheelspin, instead sending it to the wheel that has grip (usually, the outside wheel). In the Ralliart, the fore-aft torque transfer is handled by the ACD, or active center differential. Instead of an electromagnetic coil clamping the clutch plates, as in the Outlander, the ACD uses an electro-hydraulic mechanism controlled by the computer for shifting torque forward or backward as needed. As in Outlander, drivers can affect the rear torque bias by selecting among tarmac, gravel, and snow settings. Lancer Evolution MR’s “Super All Wheel Control” It has the same name as the Outlander’s system, but the Evo’s is the most sophisticated (and most expensive). It has the Ralliart’s computer operated center differential for fore-aft torque transfer. Side-to-side torque shifting is done by a helical differential up front, also as in the Ralliart, but Mitsubishi’s AYC or “Active Yaw Control” differential in back. Similar to differentials offered by Audi and BMW, the AYC has a planetary gearset for stepping up the torque by about 10 percent to one wheel or another. In a corner, a wet clutch pack closes under computer direction to connect the planetary gearset to whichever wheel is on the outside. The clutches—there are two sets, one for each wheel—don’t lock, but through their slip, they impart just enough of the stepped-up torque to give the outside wheel an extra push, which turns the car just like a kayaker paddling harder to one side. This über -cool hardware, combined with the sophisticated yaw sensors and software to operate it, makes an Evo MR shod with Continental snow tires a fiend in the forest. As the cars continuously passed over the same tracks, brushed-aside snow revealed patches of glare ice. The Evo was still able to turn itself sharply, rotating gracefully when you lift off the throttle as the differentials adjust to provide engine braking to the best-connected wheels, and slinging out of corners with well directed thrust. Of the three systems, none responds better to minute inputs of throttle and steering. A rally newbie’s friend is S-AWC. The Ralliart is a comparative handful. Being mechanical, its differentials are simpler and reactive by nature, and they can’t react quite as effectively to your ham-fisted throttle and steering efforts as computers which constantly watch yaw, throttle, and steering inputs. Of the cars that went nose-first into the drifts, both were Ralliarts, though thankfully no serious damage occurred. You have to drive the Ralliart a bit more cautiously and anticipate its weaknesses, but its traction is still pretty solid at eight tenths. The biggest surprise was the Outlander. With its digital on-off diffs, it isn’t quite the extension of your wrists and feet as is the Evo and its constantly adjustable diffs. But the various traction aids give the Outlander a surefooted connection on the slick stuff. A smooth, even line can be carved if you’re careful on the throttle and fluid on the steering, and for a moment you can look like an ace rally driver competing in the school-bus class. For the spirited family-mover it strives to be, the Outlander GT is tuned just about right. The future, according to Mitsubishi, which built its first four-wheel-drive car, the PX33, in 1934, is hybrid all-wheel-drive systems which put gasoline power to one axle and electric power to another. Electric all-wheel drive places the computers in ultimate control. A good thing? It is if you’re just trying to be fast. Related posts: David E. Davis, Jr.: Convincing Chevy to Enter a Team of Corvairs in the 1961 Shell 4000 Trans-Canada Rally – Column Ken Block’s Rally Ford Fiesta Makes Debut at Sno*Drift Rally Fiesta Makes its U.S. Rally Debut at the X Games

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No Snow Days Here: We Head to Team O’Neil Rally School to Get a Handle on Mitsubishi All-Wheel Drive