Marauder is Mercury’s 2003 corner of Ford ‘toy department’
It’s about time Mercury got to play in Ford Motor Company’s “toy department.” The 2003 Mercury Marauder, which was introduced at the Chicago Auto Show barely three months ago, met with such a strong response that it is springing to life as a 2003 production model.
It is low, long, heavy and powerful, and it is the latest in a lengthening line of throwbacks to the muscle-car era, while also fulfilling some interesting holes in our country’s automotive history.
The all-black Marauder is big (211.9 inches long and 4,165 pounds hefty), but it’s low (56.8 inches high), and it has tremendous power (302 horsepower and 310 foot-pounds of torque) from a sophisticated and free-breathing 4.6-liter V8. It handles as well as it goes, and it stops surprisingly well on its big, 4-wheel disc brakes. It will cost you $34,495 to get your hands on one of 18,000 to be built for the 2003 model year, with availability starting this summer.
We think we’re pretty sophisticated, here in the U.S. of A., pretending to care about global warming (those of us who are not in denial), about roadway congestion (those of us in compact-or-smaller cars), about fuel economy (those of us whose cars get more than 25 miles per gallon), and about effective traction (those of us with front-wheel-drive cars). But realistically, the heart of American car-buyers has been a craving for high performance. Some buyers are old enough to have experienced it first-hand, in the 1960s and early ’70s, while others have either heard about it, read about it, or found and fixed up old cars from that era to relive it, marveling at the power — if not the glory — of those giant old beasts with their big, up-front V8 engines and rear-drive platforms.
It may have been hard to detect, under the large shadow of giant sport-utility vehicles and $35,000 pickup trucks, but high-performance cars have made a stirring comeback. While U.S. manufacturers’ lobbyists continue to convince the government to not tighten fuel-economy or emission laws, those manufacturers then can make more powerful engines and larger vehicles, which are worth more at profit-margin time and don’t require totally new research and development costs.
This being Memorial Day weekend, we can all watch the Indianapolis 500, and notice that almost all the cars are powered by a “Chevrolet” V8 with dual-overhead-camshafts and 4 valves per cylinder. Interestingly enough, that exact engine has been running for several years at Indy, as the Oldsmobile Aurora V8, because that’s who built it. But with Oldsmobile phasing out of production, Chevrolet simply plunked its bow-tie on that advanced V8, even though Chevrolet doesn’t make an overhead-cam V8 for production.
Ford Motor Company has been ahead of the curve on all that, transferring its main power units to overhead-camshaft engine designs with the modular 4.6-liter V8 a decade ago. That engine is a workhorse in cars and trucks, and can be enhanced to dual-overhead-cam, 4-valve-per-cylinder status for application in such stalwarts as the Mustang Cobra.
So when Ford decides to make a retro-type hot rod for the street, it starts out with some higher technology. So the Marauder could give a giant boost to Mercury, which has spent the last couple of decades being little more than a slightly upscale escort — you should pardon the expression — for various Ford products. The brand has even been phased out of operation in Canada, where the only Mercury vehicles you can buy you must now buy through Ford dealers.
Building the Marauder wasn’t all that much of a stretch. Mercury already had the Grand Marquis, its version of the Ford Crown Victoria, a large sedan that saw most of its service seeming to go to police departments as large cruisers. Mercury builds over 100,000 Grand Marquis sedans, and it has gotten the go-ahead to carve 18,000 annual Marauders out of that total.
The sedan is already being built, with a companion convertible still ranking as a concept vehicle. I was invited along with a number of midwest automotive journalists to gather in the Milwaukee area to the MGA Research Corporation proving grounds and crash-test site for a preliminary wringing out of the Marauder. Located just southwest of Burlington, Wis., the site was originally built by Nash-Kelvinator to be near its Kenosha, Wis., plant, and it now serves various functions for MGA, located within an hour of Milwaukee, Chicago and Madison.
We had a blast with the Marauders. The name was resurrected from the 1963 performance models of the same name, built on the large Montclair/Monterey models. Parnelli Jones won the Pikes Peak Hillclimb in a 1963 Marauder. After a year, it went away, to come back in 1969 and 1970, the absolute peak of high-performance cars.
The new one is impressive. Painted all black, with a blacked-out grille, the Marauder’s true beauty starts at ground level, with flashy 18-inch chromed wheels shod with new and specifically tested BF Goodrich g-force T/A high-performance tires. The car rides on all-new suspension on an enhanced frame, with strengthened hyrdroformed steel front rails for safety up front, a second cast-aluminum cross-member, which serves as the location for engine mount, suspension control arms and the “rack” part of the new steering rack-and-pinion, and a steel cross-member designed to resist torsion and bending while helping transfer side-impact crash forces across the frame structure to the opposite rail.
In real-world terms, all of that stiffens the frame’s torsional rigidity 24 percent, and its resistance to vertical bending by 20 percent. That helps limit the noise, vibration and harshness — the good-ol’ NVH that engineers fight with every vehicle. It also allows the chassis dynamics guys to play with the suspension parts to enhance precise handling, instead of using shocks and springs to counteract flexing before thinking about handling. Coil-over-shock springs and Tokico tunable monotube dampers bolster the independent front suspension, renewed with steel upper and aluminum lower control arms. A 28-mm stabilizer bar takes the stiffness to another step, still without ever feeling harsh.
In the rear, the live-axle suspension has load-leveling air springs to help maintain ride height even when the trunk is fully loaded, which means 21.6 cubic feet of cavernous space, and a 21-mm stabilizer bar further improves the firm stance in cornering. All of that, and the new rack-and-pinion steering, make the Marauder surprisingly nimble, even around the special slalom course the Ford folks had set up at the MGA facility. Yes, the body leaned a bit when you truly pushed it, but the steering and cornering ability remained precise.
While Ford has adapted the 4.6 engine in various ways, from the basic cast-iron, 2-valve, everyday engine to the hand-built, all-aluminum, DOHC Cobra version, the Marauder engine is a bit of a combination. It takes the 4.6 and makes it all aluminum, with the DOHC and 4-valve technology. A low-restriction air intake and aluminum upper and lower intake manifolds plunge premium fuel through dual-bore 57-mm fuel injectors.
The 302 horsepower peak at 5,750 RPMs, and the 310 torque peak is achieved at 4,250 RPMs. And those numbers were also utilized by the engineers, who borrowed from their drag-racing history to come up with a reinforced 11.25-inch high-stall-speed torque converter on the 4-speed automatic transmission. The high stall speed allows engine revs to build up before torque is sent to the rear wheels. When you hammer the throttle on takeoff, the automatic upshifts from first to second at 6,000 revs, and from second to third at 6,200 — just under the 6,250 redline. That’s fun, because most engines would shift at lower revs, maybe even below the power peaks, unless you could hand-shift them.
Steve Babcock, the project engineer on the Marauder, said great attention to detail also was paid to the wheels and tires, with the 235/50 front and 245/55 rears on those 10-spoke wheels. “We wanted all muscle-car parts, so we started off with the Goodrich Comp T/A HR4, but they didn’t have quite the right rear tire. They developed this ‘W’ rated tire, which means its good for 168 miles per hour, and it’s great for traction in the dry, and very good in rain, while also being a 40,000-mile tire. We also went after a KDWS — which stands for Key: Dry, Wet, Snow — and they came up with a design that we found was 98 percent as good in snow as our all-season tires.”
Such attention to detail is impressive, and it gives the Marauder its final stick-to-the-road ability to complement getting all that power down. When you’ve got to deal with snow, ice and hills for a good part of the year, a front-engine/rear-drive muscle car might seem a little out of your realm. But returning to the realm of muscle cars, with modern technology complementing a retro look, who can argue with the Marauder’s potential?
[[[[[cutlines:
1/ The Mercury Marauder looks even sleeker next to a roadside military tank museum near Milwaukee.
2/ The rear shows off the twin chromed exhaust tubes that finish off the high-powered new Marauder powertrain.
3/ Even when pushed around the cones of an autocross circuit, the Marauder remained stable and precise.
4/ White-faced instruments and a businesslike interior complement the no-nonsense, muscle-car image. ]]]]]]]
Marauder lets Mercury get into Ford’s ‘toy department’
It’s about time Mercury got to play in Ford Motor Company’s “toy department.” The 2003 Mercury Marauder, which was introduced at the Chicago Auto Show barely three months ago, met with such a strong response that it is springing to life as a 2003 production model.
It is low, long, heavy and powerful, and it is the latest in a lengthening line of throwbacks to the muscle-car era, while also fulfilling some interesting holes in our country’s automotive history.
The all-black Marauder is big (211.9 inches long and 4,165 pounds hefty), but it’s low (56.8 inches high), and it has tremendous power (302 horsepower and 310 foot-pounds of torque) from a sophisticated and free-breathing 4.6-liter V8. It handles as well as it goes, and it stops surprisingly well on its big, 4-wheel disc brakes. It will cost you $34,495 to get your hands on one of 18,000 to be built for the 2003 model year, with availability starting this summer.
We think we’re pretty sophisticated, here in the U.S. of A., pretending to care about global warming (those of us who are not in denial), about roadway congestion (those of us in compact-or-smaller cars), about fuel economy (those of us whose cars get more than 25 miles per gallon), and about effective traction (those of us with front-wheel-drive cars). But realistically, the heart of American car-buyers has been a craving for high performance. Some buyers are old enough to have experienced it first-hand, in the 1960s and early ’70s, while others have either heard about it, read about it, or found and fixed up old cars from that era to relive it, marveling at the power — if not the glory — of those giant old beasts with their big, up-front V8 engines and rear-drive platforms.
It may have been hard to detect, under the large shadow of giant sport-utility vehicles and $35,000 pickup trucks, but high-performance cars have made a stirring comeback. While U.S. manufacturers’ lobbyists continue to convince the government to not tighten fuel-economy or emission laws, those manufacturers then can make more powerful engines and larger vehicles, which are worth more at profit-margin time and don’t require totally new research and development costs.
This being Memorial Day weekend, we can all watch the Indianapolis 500, and notice that almost all the cars are powered by a “Chevrolet” V8 with dual-overhead-camshafts and 4 valves per cylinder. Interestingly enough, that exact engine has been running for several years at Indy, as the Oldsmobile Aurora V8, because that’s who built it. But with Oldsmobile phasing out of production, Chevrolet simply plunked its bow-tie on that advanced V8, even though Chevrolet doesn’t make an overhead-cam V8 for production.
Ford Motor Company has been ahead of the curve on all that, transferring its main power units to overhead-camshaft engine designs with the modular 4.6-liter V8 a decade ago. That engine is a workhorse in cars and trucks, and can be enhanced to dual-overhead-cam, 4-valve-per-cylinder status for application in such stalwarts as the Mustang Cobra.
So when Ford decides to make a retro-type hot rod for the street, it starts out with some higher technology. So the Marauder could give a giant boost to Mercury, which has spent the last couple of decades being little more than a slightly upscale escort — you should pardon the expression — for various Ford products. The brand has even been phased out of operation in Canada, where the only Mercury vehicles you can buy you must now buy through Ford dealers.
Building the Marauder wasn’t all that much of a stretch. Mercury already had the Grand Marquis, its version of the Ford Crown Victoria, a large sedan that saw most of its service seeming to go to police departments as large cruisers. Mercury builds over 100,000 Grand Marquis sedans, and it has gotten the go-ahead to carve 18,000 annual Marauders out of that total.
The sedan is already being built, with a companion convertible still ranking as a concept vehicle. I was invited along with a number of midwest automotive journalists to gather in the Milwaukee area to the MGA Research Corporation proving grounds and crash-test site for a preliminary wringing out of the Marauder. Located just southwest of Burlington, Wis., the site was originally built by Nash-Kelvinator to be near its Kenosha, Wis., plant, and it now serves various functions for MGA, located within an hour of Milwaukee, Chicago and Madison.
We had a blast with the Marauders. The name was resurrected from the 1963 performance models of the same name, built on the large Montclair/Monterey models. Parnelli Jones won the Pikes Peak Hillclimb in a 1963 Marauder. After a year, it went away, to come back in 1969 and 1970, the absolute peak of high-performance cars.
The new one is impressive. Painted all black, with a blacked-out grille, the Marauder’s true beauty starts at ground level, with flashy 18-inch chromed wheels shod with new and specifically tested BF Goodrich g-force T/A high-performance tires. The car rides on all-new suspension on an enhanced frame, with strengthened hyrdroformed steel front rails for safety up front, a second cast-aluminum cross-member, which serves as the location for engine mount, suspension control arms and the “rack” part of the new steering rack-and-pinion, and a steel cross-member designed to resist torsion and bending while helping transfer side-impact crash forces across the frame structure to the opposite rail.
In real-world terms, all of that stiffens the frame’s torsional rigidity 24 percent, and its resistance to vertical bending by 20 percent. That helps limit the noise, vibration and harshness — the good-ol’ NVH that engineers fight with every vehicle. It also allows the chassis dynamics guys to play with the suspension parts to enhance precise handling, instead of using shocks and springs to counteract flexing before thinking about handling. Coil-over-shock springs and Tokico tunable monotube dampers bolster the independent front suspension, renewed with steel upper and aluminum lower control arms. A 28-mm stabilizer bar takes the stiffness to another step, still without ever feeling harsh.
In the rear, the live-axle suspension has load-leveling air springs to help maintain ride height even when the trunk is fully loaded, which means 21.6 cubic feet of cavernous space, and a 21-mm stabilizer bar further improves the firm stance in cornering. All of that, and the new rack-and-pinion steering, make the Marauder surprisingly nimble, even around the special slalom course the Ford folks had set up at the MGA facility. Yes, the body leaned a bit when you truly pushed it, but the steering and cornering ability remained precise.
While Ford has adapted the 4.6 engine in various ways, from the basic cast-iron, 2-valve, everyday engine to the hand-built, all-aluminum, DOHC Cobra version, the Marauder engine is a bit of a combination. It takes the 4.6 and makes it all aluminum, with the DOHC and 4-valve technology. A low-restriction air intake and aluminum upper and lower intake manifolds plunge premium fuel through dual-bore 57-mm fuel injectors.
The 302 horsepower peak at 5,750 RPMs, and the 310 torque peak is achieved at 4,250 RPMs. And those numbers were also utilized by the engineers, who borrowed from their drag-racing history to come up with a reinforced 11.25-inch high-stall-speed torque converter on the 4-speed automatic transmission. The high stall speed allows engine revs to build up before torque is sent to the rear wheels. When you hammer the throttle on takeoff, the automatic upshifts from first to second at 6,000 revs, and from second to third at 6,200 — just under the 6,250 redline. That’s fun, because most engines would shift at lower revs, maybe even below the power peaks, unless you could hand-shift them.
Steve Babcock, the project engineer on the Marauder, said great attention to detail also was paid to the wheels and tires, with the 235/50 front and 245/55 rears on those 10-spoke wheels. “We wanted all muscle-car parts, so we started off with the Goodrich Comp T/A HR4, but they didn’t have quite the right rear tire. They developed this ‘W’ rated tire, which means its good for 168 miles per hour, and it’s great for traction in the dry, and very good in rain, while also being a 40,000-mile tire. We also went after a KDWS — which stands for Key: Dry, Wet, Snow — and they came up with a design that we found was 98 percent as good in snow as our all-season tires.”
Such attention to detail is impressive, and it gives the Marauder its final stick-to-the-road ability to complement getting all that power down. When you’ve got to deal with snow, ice and hills for a good part of the year, a front-engine/rear-drive muscle car might seem a little out of your realm. But returning to the realm of muscle cars, with modern technology complementing a retro look, who can argue with the Marauder’s potential?
[[[[[cutlines:
1/ The Mercury Marauder looks even sleeker next to a roadside military tank museum near Milwaukee.
2/ The rear shows off the twin chromed exhaust tubes that finish off the high-powered new Marauder powertrain.
3/ Even when pushed around the cones of an autocross circuit, the Marauder remained stable and precise.
4/ White-faced instruments and a businesslike interior complement the no-nonsense, muscle-car image. ]]]]]]]
Lincoln-Mercury trucks on coast
Ford Motor Company wasn’t kidding when it announced it was going to separate its Lincoln-Mercury division off from Ford. First, it moved all the corporate Lincoln-Mercury folks in Detroit to a new office, and not in downtown Detroit. Instead, it was to Southern California!
So the perfect way for Lincoln-Mercury to introduce its 1999 truck-side vehicles was to invite a dozen automotive journalists to — where else? — California, where the Lincoln Navigator, Mercury Mountaineer and Mercury Villager could be put through their paces.
We ran the Navigator, Lincoln’s humongous version of the Ford Expedition, through the mountainous countryside just east of Carmel-by-the-Sea, inland near Laguna Seca race track and on through the valley to Mission San Antonio.
The Villager van, thoroughly redone for 1999, carried us along the coast south to Big Sur. We cheated a little from the original plan, going south from Monterey on a stretch of roadway I knew to be spectacular from the only other time I had been to that region, two years ago.
We drove the Mountaineer, which is Mercury’s regrilled Ford Explorer, for a sunset vista on the ocean in Carmel, and later to San Jose, a couple hours inland, for our return flight. It was fun and the sightseeing was fantastic, but we can’t lose sight of our objective, to scrutinize the three vehicles.
Navigator power
Resplendent in black with lots of shiny chrome, the Navigator is massive, geared to challenge the biggest Suburban/Tahoe types from General Motors and to stake its claim as the best “luxury SUV” according to Ford marketing hyperbole.
It has several unique features, even setting it apart from the highly successful Expedition, with a major feature its an advanced engine. The original 4.6 and 5.4 V8 engines are strong, with single overhead camshafts for higher revving and smoother freeway cruising. The 5.4-liter V8 had 230 horsepower for 1998 in the Expedition and Navigator, and that’s been jacked up to 260 horses for ’99. But as of Dec. 7, the Intech 5.4 engine that will be exclusive to, and standard in, the Navigator will have dual overhead cams with four valves per cylinder, jumping up to 300 horsepower at 5,000 RPMs and 360 foot-pounds of torque at 3,000.
That will set the Navigator up for best-in-class figures for horsepower and torque, as well as for cargo payload and towing capacity. The Navigators we drove in the California mountains were all armed with that new engine, which, I proved under hard acceleration, pull smoothly and easily to 5,300 RPMs before the 4-speed automatic transmission upshifts.
With a new live front axle and full-time all-wheel-drive becoming standard, the refined efficiency of the DOHC 5.4 V8 improves fuel economy closer to 17-20 — which is about all you can hope for on such a hefty vehicle — while also qualifying as an “LEV,” a low-emission vehicle by EPA standards.
To bolster sales, which already have more than doubled original estimates, the Navigator offers what any self-respecting $40,000-plus luxury SUV should, and a few features beyond. Four-corner load-leveling suspension, for example, and leather interior with real wood console and interior trim are standard. The third-row bench seat, which boosts capacity to eight occupants, now has rollers for easy removal.
So is a neat concept, which is power adjustable pedals, movable in or out a total of 3 inches at the touch of a dash switch, even while moving. This feature goes beyond the infinitely adjustable seats to assure individually comfortable driving position. The 17-inch chrome wheels stand out, especially on the black Navigator, and other standard features are a new electrical system and an upgraded audio unit.
Navigators have remote locks, and also Ford’s push-button combination keyless lock system, which allows entry by tapping in the vehicle’s exclusive combination on buttons located just below the door handles. That’s fantastic for Up North winters — at least, normally cold-temperatures winters — because you can start and warm up the vehicle, leaving the keys inside, securing it with the combination lock so only you can reenter.
Villager versatility
The Villager was introduced as a joint venture with Nissan in 1993, with both the Nissan Quest and Villager designed around Nissan engines and chassis but assembled for both at Ford plants. The Villager was known for having the closest thing to car-like handling among minivans, and the only complaint was limited interior room compared to the Chrysler minivans, the standard target for the rest of the industry.
For 1999, that complaint disappears. The Villager (and Quest) are all new, 4.5 inches longer, with 2 inches of that in cargo room, and another added inch in second-seat legroom. It also has sliding doors on both sides, although only the passenger-side’s has optional power. The Villager is powered by a 3.3-liter V6 with overhead cams and a proportionate power increase to 170 horsepower and 200 foot-pounds of torque.
The base Villager will be $22,995, with a fancier Estate model, and a Sport model, which gets the Estate’s real-world improvements in suspension and larger wheels, plus some sporty trim items. The test-vehicle we drove was the Sport model, although it had optional digital instruments instead of the white-faced gauges standard for the sport. Firmer spring rates and larger wheels add to the Sport models’s handling, although the Estate gets the same firmer suspension, which aids cornering maneuvers but is far from harsh.
All kinds of seat configurations are possible. The model we drove had quad buckets in front and in the second row, plus a bench seat in the rear. The rear bench is on a roller track that can move 5 inches fore and aft.
There is one other minivan battle going on behind the scenes, and that is for cupholders. The Villager wades in, offering seven cupholders when seating for seven is in place. Ah, but when you fold down the second-row buckets, you get more cupholders in the now-flat backrests, and you get still more with the rear bench folded flat. An eager marketing type was enthusiastic as he demonstrated how you can, in fact, wind up with a maximum of 13 cupholders, by folding down enough seats so that only two occupants are on board. Hmmmm…seven cupholders for seven occupants, and 13 cupholders for two occupants.
Behind the rear bench seat there is a foldable parcel shelf that extends to the rear hatch. That proved handy for a picnic lunch in a Big Sur park, and also conceals stuff you’re storing in the quite-spacious area beneath the shelf.
The front-wheel-drive Villager does track well and handle very well, and the larger interior room plus the dual sliding side doors and power increase should make it a viable challenger to steal a larger segment of the minivan market.
Mountaineer upgrade
You can still get the old pushrod 5.0-liter V8 in the Mountaineer, but it would only make sense if you had to tow things too large for the V6. The available V6 is the best choice for normal duty. It is Ford’s German-designed 4.0-liter engine, reinforced two years ago and fitted with single overhead cams, which allow the same engine to turn out 210 horsepower, only 5 fewer than the 5-liter pushrod V8. It also has a very adequate 240 foot-pounds of torque, although the V8’s 288 is stronger at low-end for all-out tow jobs.
The SOHC V6 also runs through a highly efficient 5-speed automatic transmission, and it almost feels like a sporty car when you stand on it and let the revs run up to the shiftpoints. Like all Lincoln-Mercury trucks, the Mountaineer qualifies as a low-emission vehicle. The test vehicle had full-time all-wheel-drive with available ControlTrac, which can locked by a switch into high or low range for rugged terrain.
It is a body-on-frame truck-based chassis, and also has improved suspension, rear load-leveling and improved brakes. Safety has been enhanced by available side-airbags, housed in the side bolsters of the front driver and passenger seats, for incremental head and chest protection when hit from the side. I have never been an advocate of front airbags, simply because they only work if you are securely belted in, and if you are securely belted in, airbags might not only be superfluous but downright dangerous. That’s another column, but in the meantime, airbags might be far more useful in side-impact protection.
Among other new features is a reverse-sensing system that beeps when you get near an object while backing up. Activated by four ultrasonic sensors in the rear bumper, the beeps are at shorter intervals as you get closer to an object, and at 10 inches the beeps are continuous. Some costly BMW luxury sedans have that feature, and it makes even more sense for a square-backed SUV to help you realize your proximity to vehicles/walls/people while backing into a parallel parking space.
Both the Mountaineer and the Villager have the Homelink system that uses up to three remote transmitters to make you find yourself, and a new Travelnote system is an optional hands-free digital recorder on the driver’s sun visor, which is better than trying to remember or, worse, to jot down an important note while you’re driving. It’s particularly useful for encoding intricate directions, because you can play them back as you try to locate some site.
The Mountaineer is a more sensible size for an SUV, and I liked its form-fitting bucket seats best among the three test vehicles. The Navigator and Villager seats were fine, certainly, but the Mountaineer seems to envelop and grip your body better.
Honda’s Â’99 Odyssey raises Minivan bar to new standards
When Honda came out with its so-called minivan a couple of years ago, it was called the Odyssey, and it was pretty nice. It did most of the things minivans are supposed to do, which is to haul a few extra folks, particularly kids, to hockey or soccer games or practices and still be agenerally effective everyday vehicle for family use.
The Odyssey did those things, but no better than a lot of other minivans or even sport-utility vehicles. Based on the popular Accord sedan, the original Odyssey was cramped when compared to the Chrysler minivans, which invented the market segment and still command almost half of all minivan sales.
About the same time as that Odyssey was introduced, the sport-utility vehicle craze was skyrocketing. While minivans were thetrendy family machine of the 1980s, SUVs threatened to displace themin the mid- to late-’90s. A lot of people buy SUVs for the security ofhaving the family wrapped in a truck-like vehicle, and all-wheel-driveadded to the security image.
The strangest thing about the SUVs was that they were bigger, bulkier, less versatile and far costlier than the minivans, but their popularity underscored the importance of being the trendy way to avoid being trendy. If that makes sense.
Well, for the 1999 model year Honda has brought out a dazzling new Odyssey, and this one makes up for all the shortcomings of its predecessor, as well as hurling a significant challenge at anyone who is considering any minivan or an SUV-for-family-hauling purposes.
Where the previous one was a bit stodgy looking, the new one is angular and attractive, with the EX model I test drove from Honda’s factory test fleet showing 16-inch alloy wheels with five wide spokes, and neatly contoured lines that all seem to converge at the right places.
Where the previous one was too small, the new Odyssey is over a foot longer (13.6 inches) outside and more than 6-inches longer in wheelbase, with width and height also at least 5-inches greater. That means the Odyssey is on a new platform, all its own.
Where all minivans strive to handle like cars — even while most SUVs stress feeling like trucks — Honda has fitted the most advanced double-wishbone design to the independent rear suspension, also setting it apart from the Chrysler or Ford minis.
Where the previous Odyssey was underpowered, even with Honda’s tried-and-true 4-cylinder, the new one has an all-new engine, an enlarged V6 displacing 3.5 liters, with a single overhead cam driving four valves per cylinder, with variable intake-valve timing. That jacks power up to 210 horsepower and torque up to 229 foot-pounds.
That’s more horsepower than the 3.8-liter V6 in the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager, or the Ford Windstar, which also has a 3.8 V6. The difference is that the Ford and Chrysler V6s are pushrod, not overhead cam, with iron blocks, compared to the Odyssey’s aluminum. They can extract more low-end torque, at about 240 each, which is better for all-out towing, but those who need to tow more than the Honda will probably be going after SUVs with some degree of rationale.
In the first days of aluminum engine design, buyers were skeptical because flexing provided difficulties. In the modern-technology scheme, aluminum blocks are refined to be lighter and stronger as well as more durable than the cast-iron old-timers. For Up North drivers, the Odyssey’s front-wheel-drive offers excellent stability on slipperyroads — if, that is, we ever have slippery roads this winter.
The four-speed automatic transmission in the Odyssey is on the column and it revs freely to a 6,300-RPM redline, making the Odyssey scoot to 60 as quick as many sedans or compacts. And the suspension holds it stable and firm around tight corners.
If you were to cruise at 70-75 miles per hour, you’d be turning less than 2,000 RPMs, because of an overdrive that can deliver 400-plus miles on a tankful. The EPA estimates of 18 miles per gallon city, and 26 highway are definitely attainable.
User-friendly
If Honda has a standard feature to all its products, it is user-friendliness that equals its high degree of technology. And the interior of the Odyssey is merely the newest stockpile of evidence to support that tradition. Let’s walk through, front to rear.
While there is a keyless entry, if you use the key, you turn it once to unlock the driver’s door, and a second time to unlock the other front door and both (count ’em, two) sliding side doors. That’s ideal, both for personal security and group handiness.
The front bucket seats are comfortable and supportive. Driving position offers great visibility front and side, and the four-speed shift lever is on the column, not the floor. That allows front occupants to walk between the seats to access the second pair of buckets. A flip-up panel between the seats snaps into place with two cupholders and a little tray if you choose.
The air-heat controls are mounted above the AM-FM-cassette-CD player on the center panel, which is angled about perpendicular to the front occupant sightline.
The steering wheel is a four-spoke, with the side bars sloped down, so your hands can be at the “9 and 3” positions, with your thumbs locking onto the bars comfortably. Remote audio switches are in reach of your left thumb, with cruise-control reachable with your right thumb.
If you want to get into the middle-row bucket seats, Honda matches Chrysler’s industry best with two sliding doors, and it outdoes the master by offering power assists to open and close those sliders. Once unlocked, you just pull on the outside handle, and let go, and the door whirs itself back to full open. Another tug on the inside handgrip, and it closes up tight, same way. A switch on the dash panel, to the left of the steering column, also opens or closes the sliding doors.
The second pair of buckets are the same as the front for comfort, but there is an ingenious little trick. You can have the buckets in their standard position, or you can move the right-side bucket over to fit right alongside the left one, forming a small bench-type seat. Moving it over also makes for easy access through the right-side sliding door to get into the rear seat.
Ah, the rear seat. It’s a bench. Nothing fancy, unless you want it to do tricks.
Storage a-plenty
Behind that rear seat, there is luggage and storage space. Lots of it, measuring over 25 cubic feet. From the rear, open the hatch and you are at first surprised to see that the storage area starts out like a well, where you can store a tripful of luggage down in this cavernous area below bumper-level. The spare tire is mounted under the floor just behind the front seats.
If you aren’t hauling a trip’s-worth of luggage, you can indeed make the third row bench seat do tricks. For one, you can flip it down and completely over so that it faces rearward. That’s neat, particularly for watching the kids play in foul weather.
The Chrysler vans set a new standard by putting little rollers on the rearmost seat so you can leave it in the garage when you need extra storage space. If you come out late, you’ve got to challenge the best, and Honda struck again with the rear bench. If you remove the headrests (and all seven seat positions have headrests and harnesses), you can fold the rear bench over and into that deep storage bin, where it flat disappears and makes a flat floor. Then you can pop out the middle buckets, and gain over eight feet of flat floor space. Front-wheel drive is preferable to anything other than all-wheel drive in foul weather, although it is not the best for optimum towing, simply because a trailer is just something more for that engine to pull.
However, the test Odyssey had a trailer-towing package and hitch already installed, and its power should haul a boat trailer or a light camper without difficulty.
The sticker price was not established on the test Odyssey, although estimates are about $26,500 for the EX model, fully loaded. That may seem high, if you recall the $18,000 or so the Caravan/Voyager used to be. But a fully loaded Grand Caravan or Windstar can easily top $30,000 these days, which means the Odyssey represents a bargain, as well as outdistancing many of the rivals it was designed to challenge.
It is the first minivan to not only challenge Chrysler’s over-achievers, but it may have overshot the target on various aspects, and practically reinvents the segment.
CRV, RAV4 needn’t be B-I-G
RAV4 and CR-V prove SUVs needn’t be B-I-G
Streets and highways are being overrun with Sports-Utility Vehicles (SUV) these days in what amounts to a national phenomenon. The image of crashing through the underbrush over a wooded trail to get to your favorite northwoods getaway is an appealing one to those of us fortunately to have UpNorth getaways.
But the hard fact is that about 90 percent of SUV buyers don’t ever venture off-road, and use their over-built and expensive SUV the same way famililes of the ’80s used minivans and families of the ’70s used station wagons — to go to the shopping center, haul the kids to soccer practice, and maybe take the occasional family trip. For those folks, out of about 40 different SUVs to choose from, the perfect SUV might be either the Toyota RAV4 or the Honda CR-V.
Only in the U.S. is there an overriding feeling that “bigger is better.” Given a choice of cars, houses or hot fudge sundaes, a majority of Americans seem to think that big is better than small, and bigger is better than merely big. In other countries, where gasoline costs $2, $3, or over $5 per gallon, there is an overriding theme of economy when it comes to automotives — economy in size, economy in purchase price, economy in operation, and the ultimate economy, which is durability.
When the fuel-shortage scare hit the U.S. in the 1970s, U.S. companies reluctantly downsized and strived for economy in order to not lose all the market share to the Japanese economy cars. That tendency, however, has subsided, replaced by a resurgent move toward bigness. U.S. companies build bigger and bigger cars and trucks, and the once-workhorse SUVs have graduated to become trend-setters. Along the way, public-relations workers try to convince us b igger-is-safer, while neatly obscuring the fact that bigger-is-more-obscenely-profitable.
People are climbing out of compact cars, full-size cars and minivans and buying $35,000-$45,000 SUVs because of the fact of 4-wheel-drive secutiry, and the illusion of feeling of ecurity from sitting higher off the road, where you can see over those shrimpy little cars down below. Of course, no SUV driver ever shows concern for how dangerously SUVs block the vision from the shrimpy little cars behind them. And if you can afford one of those SUVs, you can shrug off the social effect of guzzling gas at the rate of 11-15 miles per gallon.
Don’t mistake the value of big SUVs. I’ve enjoyed every one I’ve test-driven. If you truly charge off the road frequently, or if you are towing a hefty trailer with great frequency, then a larger SUV might be the perfect vehicle for you and your family.
But for city-country driving, with some work but mostly commuting as an objective, the RAV4 and CR-V do the job.
Similarities are many
Both the CR-V and RAV4 are smaller than the mainstream SUVs, which, out of hand, makes them more agile in traffic and more car-like in handling and performance. Both have similar looks from the front, although the VR-V is squarish on top at the rear while the RAV4 is contoured artfully, with a rounded off appearance that cuts into storage room a bit.
They share the 4-wheel-drive security of their bigger rivals, and are tough enough to handle some heavy-duty stuff and to haul most bulky objects, while they also are reasonably priced and quite economical to operate. By “reasonably priced,” we’re talking a range of $18,000-$24,000. The factory test-vehicles I drove listed at $20,645 for Honda’s CR-V and $24,285 for Toyota’s RAV4, which had several added options.
Both vehicles are compact, but have good to excellent room for four or five occupants, plus a surprisingly large storage area behind the rear seats. Both have high-tech, 2.0 four-cylinder engines, with dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder. How close are they? Amazingly, the RAV4 has one more horsepower than the CR-V, and the CR-V has one more foot-pound of torque than the RAV4. The figures: Toyota’s RAV4 has 127 horsepower at 5,400 RPMs while Honda’s CR-V has 126 horsepower at 5,400 RPMs; the RAV4 has132 foot-pounds of torque at 4,600, while the CR-V has 133 foot-pounds at 4,300 revs.
In size, the RAV4 is a tad shorter, with overall length of 163.8 inches (to the CR-V’s 177.6), and a wheelbase of 94.9 inches (to the CR-V’s 103.2). The CR-V also is slightly wider and has slightly more head and leg room front and rear, and considerably more storage room, with 29.6 cubic feet with the rear seat up, and 67.2 with the rear seat folded down, while the RAV4 measures 26.8 and 57.9.
I have a theory for the differences in dimensions, and nobody at either Honda or Toyota has been able to convince me otherwise. Toyota makes three different larger SUVs, the 4Runner and the Land Cruiser for Toyota, and the RX300, along with a plush version of the Land Cruiser, for its upscale Lexus division, and therefore wanted to be sure the RAV4 was sufficiently smaller to not take away customers from the established bigger SUVs. Honda, meanwhile, doesn’t make its own SUV, but has a deal with Isuzu to rebadge the Isuzu Rodeo as the Honda Passport, so it could make the CR-V more spacious without concern for it being too big.
Differences are significant
There are other significant differences between the two. When they were introduced, the RAV4 came out first, as both a 2-door and 4-door, and with either a 5-speed manual or an automatic. When Honda followed, the CR-V was only 4-door, and only came with an automatic.
Those were two significant advantages for the RAV4, and various test reports noted that the Honda was pretty stodgy in performance. Even then, an experienced driver knew that by standing on the gas a little longer to get the CR-V up into the revs, its power was adequate. That became a moot point for the 1998 model year, because the CR-V I drove has the new Honda 5-speed manual, and the performance is much peppier.
A bigger difference now is the 4-wheel drive system. The RAV4 has full-time all-wheel-drive, meaning all four wheels pull all the time. If you get the RAV4 with the 5-speed stick, you also get a center differential lock to shift into low range for true off-road ability.
The CR-V doesn’t have the low-range lock, which is the RAV4’s advantage, but the CR-V comes back with a unique feature it calls “real time” all-wheel drive, which means it is in front-wheel drive all the time, and only when its sensors detect a tendency for the front wheels to spin do the rear wheels get power in a seamless conversion to all-wheel drive. That could be an advantage for the CR-V in normal street operation, but the fuel economy figures are, again, pretty even, with EPA estimates an identical 22 miles per gallon city and 26 highway. I got 22.5 miles per gallon in combined city-highway driving with the RAV4 automatic, and 25 miles per gallon with the CR-V 5-speed.
Honda has always been a leader in suspension, with race-proven double-wishbone systems at all four corners, supplemented by stabilizer bars front and rear. The RAV4 has double wishbones on the rear, with McPherson struts up front, also with stabilizer bars front and rear. From a handling standpoint, both feel precise, and it might be impossible to pick one over the other. You might well pick either one over any of the larger, full-size SUVs, however, which tend to wallow and lean in cornering.
In all-out features, the Honda CR-V gets my nod for three distinct executions. First, the rear windows roll down flush to the sill, while most SUVs, and cars for that matter, only go down two-thirds of the way. Second, how many times are you parked uphill or downhill and you go to close the door and you wish the inside door grip handle were in a better location? In the CR-V, the hand grip runs almost the entire width of the door; reach where you want, front or rear, and you will find the grip handle.
And third, when you open the rear door, you find a storage area under the floor to stow valuables you don’t want visible to passers-by. Ingeniously, Honda has made that floor panel with a heavy demeanor, and installed fold-down legs on it. Pop it out, and you have a picnic table! Brilliant.
Salesmanship
There is one more similarity, although maybe a difference as well. Both the RAV4 and CR-V are selling like proverbial hotcakes. Dealerships in Duluth, for example, claim they are both hard to find.
Rick Saylor, a sales manager at Krenzen Honda, indicates the CR-Vs might be even more scarce, because they haven’t been available long enough to satisfy initial requests. “The bottom line,” said Saylor, “is that every CR-V we’ve gotten is gone before they hit the lot. We have none in stock, and we haven’t even gotten any 5-speeds yet.”
Dave Solon, the boss at Kolar, likens the RAV4 to the late, lamented Toyota Tercel SR-5 4-wheel-drive station wagon. “When they quit making those, I went down south and got three semis full of them to bring back up here, because they were perfect for our winters,” said Solon, who is the son of the late Harvey Solon, the longtime public address voice of the Duluth Arena.
Mark Larson, a salesman at Kolar Toyota, said: “The RAV4’s have been unbelievable. Everything that’s coming in goes right out. It’s a great vehicle, especially for our area. I’d estimate we’re selling about three RAV4s to every 4Runner.”
Larson was the second salesman I talked to at Kolar. I didn’t identify myself when I first called, but a salesman named John flat refused to give me his last name. I didn’t realize I was that intimidating. Maybe he thought I was from the IRS.
On the Road/At a glance
Honda CR-V
Likes: Front-wheel drive that converts to all-wheel drive when needed; addition of 5-speed amplifies peppy DOHC engine; roomy interior bristles with common-sense innovations, such as door handle grips that run the width of the door, and rear storage area complete with picnic/tailgating table; everything from air, power windows and locks, and audio system is standard.
Dislikes: The CR-V meets every challenge of larger, costlier SUVs with the exception of limited towing capacity.
Bottom line: Base price $20,645 (EX with 5 speed); as tested $21,065.
Toyota RAV4
Likes: Full-time all-wheel drive enhanced with 16-inch wheels; low-range lock with 5-speed means RAV4 can keep up with costlier off-roaders; can be had in either 2-door or 4-door; engine matches CR-V for pep, performance and mid-20s economy.
Dislikes: Most SUV buyers don’t need the space of larger SUVs, but the RAV4’s tradeoff for its compact coziness is comparatively limited interior space.
Bottom line: Base price $18,708; as tested $24,285.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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