Volvo S-80, Saab 9-3 carry on Swedish traditions
Sweden has traditionally been known for its pair of safe, substantial, sturdy cars, whether you choose Volvo or Saab. But now, as we hurtle along toward the year 2000, Sweden will be known for its two American cars.
There are those who believe the automotive world is headed for a world-car scenario in which there are only about 10 manufacturing conglomerates, and with the recent Mercedes-Chrysler combine, it’s hard to argue the point. In Sweden, as it is anywhere else in the world, it is extremely expensive to build safe, solid cars, and both Volvo and Saab were feeling the financial pinch of their efforts. So General Motors bought out Saab, and, just a few months ago, Ford bought Volvo.
GM has done some interesting things with Saab, which has shared a platform with Opel, a European affiliate of GM. But with the release of the new Saab 9-3 vehicles, GM has clearly — and wisely — merely provided support and let Saab build its own vehicle in the tradition that has made Saab a cult-favorite.
Ford comes into Volvo at an interesting time, because Volvo has just launched the most progressive and revolutionary cars in its rich history. The S-80 sedan is a stunning breakthrough that proves Volvos don’t all need to be square in both design and image.
While the Volvo S-80 and the Saab 9-3 don’t compete with each other — the Volvo is a mid-$40,000 luxury sedan and the 9-3 is Saab’s $30,000 entry-level sedan — recent test-drives in both vehicles prove they may be all new, but they haven’t abandoned the Swedish heritage that has made them favorites, particularly in the Up North regions.
VOLVO S-80
Ford’s takeover of Volvo is intriguing. Having recently carried out plans to separate its Lincoln-Mercury divisions from Ford in the U.S., the corporation also is projecting recent acquisitions Jaguar and Aston-Martin. And, of course, Mazda is a Japanese outlet controlled by Ford. But Volvo’s models can clearly be assets, and might wind up united with Lincoln, or between Lincoln’s most-luxurious models and Mercury’s top sedans.
The S-80 is something all-new for Volvo, newly acquired or not. Since the late-1960s, Volvos all took on a boxy shape, when the always-safety-conscious company decided to switch from unbendable vehicles to boxy styles that had crash-absorbing front and rear sections, while isolating the passenger compartment. It got to the point where it appeared Volvo simply would never again make a vehicle that WASN’T boxy.
Same was true for its stubborn adherence to front-engine/rear-drive, where it appeared Volvo would never agree to follow the trend less-expensive Swedish rival had pioneered and developed. In Sweden, where winters are a lot like Up North in Minnesota, that seemed particularly strange. As years passed, Volvo tried front-wheel-drive, and now, with the S-80 luxury car, all Volvos are front-wheel-drive.
The S-80 is on an all-new platform, which is fitting, because the shape and contours of the car are a complete departure from anything Volvo has ever built before. Sleek contours line the car from its hood to its spacious passenger compartment and onward to the integration with the taillights. Even the Volvo press brochure calls the S-80 “decidedly unboxy.” That rounded-off front end, rising from the stylish grille and headlight fixtures, gives the S-80 a coefficient of drag of only 0.28, where anything under 0.32 is excellent.
The test model was the T6, which comes with the standard 201-horsepower 2.9-liter six-cylinder replaced by a 2.8-liter six with twin turbochargers, turning out 268 horsepower. It also had Volvo’s new Geartronic transmission, an automatic four-speed that can be shifted manually, if you pull the gear lever down and over toward you, locking it into a little bracket that allows you to upshift or downshift at a tap of the lever.
That gear knob is like the steering wheel, stylishly crafted out of real wood and leather, in classy touches that enhance driver appreciation. The car zooms 0-60 in about 7 seconds, and it handles well, even with four or five occupants. At $45,000, the S-80 not only can transport a family swiftly and smoothly, but with as much or more safety emphasis than any other vehicle on the planet.
Seats are, typically, excellent, with firm, adjustable support and a distinct, no-fatigue feeling of driving control. The built-in safety includes not only the structural rigidity but front side-impact airbags to supplement the usual frontal airbags, and an inflatable curtain that fills in along the windows to protect in side impacts. A whiplash-protection system that drops the front bucket seatbacks backward in the event of a rear-end collision further set safety standards.
The only glitch in the S-80 test car was that when it came, the “check-engine” light stayed on, with a warning to check on the transmission. There are seven different computers controlling the S-80’s systems, and a dealership in the Twin Cities spent a day replacing the sensor, which was believed faulty. About three days later, the warning light came on again. Assuming the sensor was faulty the first time, I drove it for a time with that light on, then I got very nervous about the odds against the new, replacement sensor, also being faulty. I returned it, knowing it would then be the factory’s problem.
SAAB 9-3
When Saab came out with its new models, the 9-5 replaced the 9000 luxury sedan and the 9-3 replaced the entry level 900. I test-drove a 9-3 SE model most recently, and came away impressed with the feel and stability of the new Saab. The uninitiated might think Saabs are just weird. Those who have been able to appreciate them are firmly entrenched in the Saab cult. And those who study the car’s construction, realize the connection and expertise shared by Saab, which makes high-tech jet fighter aircraft as well as these cars.
The extremely efficient, cockpit-style driver’s position indicate that connection further, although I must say the new-fangled heat-air controls are more complex than the old rotating knobs of the old 900 models, which were perhaps the industry’s best, ergonomically.
While the bigger 9-5 has a V6, the 9-3 is powered by the familiar 2.0-liter four-cylinder, with an intercooled turbocharger integrated into the engine design. It produces 185 horsepower, but U.S. drivers need to be patient to learn to appreciate it. The test car came with a slick, 5-speed manual transmission, but even with that, the car doesn’t launch like a typical American big-engine, low-end-torque sedan. You stay with it, let the revs build, and all of a sudden you realize this is really a swift performer.
You wouldn’t enter it in a drag race, but once up to about 30, hang on and go for it.
In a much-appreciated connection with the past, Saab has installed the ignition key switch on the floor, right by the power window switches. That has been a safety element for Saab for about three decades, too, to put the key where it can’t possibly tear up an occupant’s knee in the event of a crash.
Saab, like Volvo, has always built safety into the car designs, and side airbags supplement the frontal bags and that whole scheme fits in with the automatic seatbelt tensioners and the energy-absorbing front and rear.
It also has exceptional seats. Those who might be used to the softer, more cushy seats of big U.S. sedans may require a learning period, but when they take a trip and realize they aren’t cramped or fatigued, they’ll appreciate the seat firmness, visibility angle, and ergonomic coordination with the rest of the car.
Other manufacturers work hard to coordinate various features in their cars, and some are more successful at it than others. But Saab pulls it off on the 9-3 and makes it seem routine. Hopefully, General Motors will not only continue to let Saab do its thing, but might copy some of those features onto a dozen of its domestic models.
New Beetle gets new punch from 1.8 Turbo engine
If it looks like a Beetle, draws attention like a Beetle and feels like a Beetle, it must BE a Beetle, right?
Not necessarily.
Neat as the Volkswagen New Beetle is, you now can get what amounts to a GTI-version of the cute little coupe, armed with the highest of high-tech Audi engines — a smallish 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine, but one with five valves per cylinder (where four are the usual sign of high-tech) and a turbocharger that provides amazing amounts of power all the way up the RPM scale on the cute little tachometer.
Volkswagen’s continuing marketing brilliance in packaging and promoting the New Beetle has been a study in effectiveness throughout the U.S. over the past year. First, the New Beetle came out with the overwhelming support of the campaign that asked “Drive it? Hug it? Drive it? Hug it?” Everyone melted down at the opportunity to look at, touch, sit in and drive the New Beetle, and the car would be instantly surrounded whenever and wherever you parked it.
To all who remember the first Beetle, that little air-cooled, underpowered, and very cold predecessor of the 1950s and ’60s, the clear question was: Is it the same? The answer was a resounding “No!” The New Beetle is, essentially, a new-generation Golf platform with that totally appealing Bug body on it. Front-wheel drive with a front-mounted engine, instead of light-steering rear-engine with rear-wheel drive, and a high-tech, 2.0-liter 4-cylinder water-cooled engine, complete with a real heater. Not only that, the New Beetle tested higher and better than any previous small car in crashworthy tests, another departure from the original, because the new Golf is a solid, substantial and safe vehicle while the old Bug provided all the protection of a metal manila envelope with only the fuel tank between occupants and front-end collisions.
So the New Beetle was a huge hit from its introduction, but Volkswagen was clever. The first New Beetles had that well-proven and solid 2.0-liter engines, and shortly after that the car came out with a 1.9-liter Turbodiesel, which could reach nearly 50 miles per gallon and had the usual starting lag of the diesel hopped up by the turbocharged fuel-feed.
More success. But now comes the coup-de-gras. Or, maybe, the coupe-de-gras.
The New Beetle I recently tested looks a lot like the others. It was black, it had neat wheels, but nothing stupendous. It had foglights faired into the lower front molding, and they are the neat little projector-beam style that are so effective. Inside, the tan leather seating surfaces were no tip-off of anything unusual, and, in fact, the automatic shift lever gave indication that this was a commuter-style version, if anything.
About the only thing that tips you to anything out of the ordinary is a little seam that runs along the rear roofline, outlining the top of the rear window.
Aha! A real-life spoiler, which may have very little actual value in stabilizing an already-stable little car, flips up automatically whe you reach something over 90 miles per hour — if you’re tempted to do that sort of thing. You also can reach way, way down low on the left of the steering column and find a switch that while activate the spoiler if you want to adopt a racy look, or, flip off another driver, so to speak.
A BEETLE WITH PUNCH
The New Beetle has surprisingly good punch in basic 2.0-liter form, but the addition of the Audi-built 5-valve engine is nothing short of phenomenal. The base car might go 0-60 in 9 seconds; the 1.8-turbo does it in under 8. But that’s just the beginning. Typically of German cars — all the New Beetles are assembled in a high-tech plant in Mexico — low-end acceleration means little compared to high-end power and sustained cruising speed.
The base Beetle has 115 horsepower, which is more than adequate for a 2,800-pound car, while the Turbodiesel has only 90 horsepower but goes very well. The 1.8-turbo Beetle has 150 horsepower, and it has this magical electronic control through the low-pressure turbocharger that gets you the engine’s 155-foot-pound torque maximum at a mere 2,200 RPMs, and holds that maximum level all the way to 4,200 RPMs. The horsepower peak is at a high 5,900 revs, but the torque gets you there swiftly, smoothly and with surprising ease.
The automatic transmission is smooth, and integrates well with the power of that engine. Now, I’m a confirmed stick-shift guy, for a variety of reasons, which include more-attentive driver control, better efficiency extracted from the engine, and, simply, more fun. Driving Up North, you have a lot more open spaces, where you can put a car through its paces better with a five-speed, but also you can find more situations where you’re in cruising gear, so it matters less whether you’re in fifth with a stick or in “D” with an automatic.
However, my preference for five-speeds is dulled further if your Up North driving includes a lot of driving in and around Duluth, where scaling cliffs can make an automatic genuinely better than a stick, particularly when your at a steep uphill red light with cars behind you. In winter, that advantage is simply more exaggerated.
With that all said, the VW New Beetle with the 1.8-turbo with an automatic is a wonderful combination. I spent a couple of short trips snaking up 6th Av. E., where the four-lane roadway curves around the hillside, and the car felt like it wanted to slalom around more docile traffic almost on its own.
Until now, Volkswagens have been dependable and fun, but for real fun, you’d choose the Golf GTI, which had beefed-up suspension and a stronger motor, formerly with a 16-valve 2.0-liter engine, and more recently up to and including the V6. It’s always been a blast to drive, and the term GTI has become synonymous with driving enjoyment.
I haven’t yet driven the 1.8-turbo with a 5-speed, but I’m eager to do so. With the automatic, it is as close as you can come to being a GTI-Beetle, as it is.
NOT WITHOUT COST
Getting a New Beetle with the 5-valve, turbocharged engine, means also getting several upgrades. The body is stiff, the suspension, with stabilizer bars front and rear, plus four-wheel disc brakes and steering are very good, and the 16-inch wheels are an upgrade that can be further stabilized with optional 17-inchers. Standard antilock brakes and self-tensioning seat harnesses, plus airbags, complement the structural rigidity of the car.
Some of the features of the basic New Beetle remain, although the flip-up spoiler and circular headrests are different. Among the great features of all New Beetles is the stunning blue instrument panel lights, and, of course, the little bud vase on the dashboard.
Standard, with the bud vase, you get a fake daisy. It’s an easy move to pour a little water in there and plunk in a daffodil, however. Nice touch. It fits in well with the whole fun quotient of the car, and assures that the car will retain that irresistable darn-cuteness that has made it such a whopping success.
So the same folks will gather around the car whenever you pull up to park. It’s just that they don’t need to know that you could, if the law allowed, climb in and zap your way up to 125 miles per hour or so.
There’s nothing that says a cute, irresistable New Beetle can’t also provide you with mind-blowing fun.
The cost, of course, is there. You can get a basic New Beetle well-equipped for $16,000. The upscale GLS with the 1.8-liter turbo starts at $19,000. I’d say the addition of the super-high-tech engine is worth the difference, but it’s subjective. The 4-speed automatic costs $875, the leather seats are another $850, the 16-inch wheels are $310 (but aid the sporty-car stability considerably), and a CD changer can be had for $295. That put the test car up around $23,000.
Still, the ingredients are worth the total package price.
Pontiac celebrates 30th anniversary of Trans Ams
If you’re a serious driver, and grew up driving cars in the U.S., there will be a part of you that admires high-performance cars. It is a part that has been nurtured over the years, ever since the U.S. automobile industry became enthralled with the concept of high-powered little coupes, back in the 1960s. As an example of the mind-blowing capabilities of that sporty-coupe-with-powerful-engine concept, we can bow to the 1999 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.
You don’t have to be over 35 years old to appreciate a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, but you’d have to be that old to be consciously aware of all that Pontiac has done with the Firebird over the years, because the car is 30 years old this year. To honor the history and tradition of the Firebird, Pontiac has come out with a 30th anniversay commemorative edition of the Trans Am.
The first Trans Am came out in 1969, and was white with wide, contrasting, medium blue stripes running from stem — up over the roof — to stern. The 30th Anniversary Trans Am resembles that look, with a bright white body contasted by two blue stripes. The new one is a stunningly beautiful car to look at, and it certainly has the power and performance to match.
The anniversary model comes with a 5.7-liter V8 under the hood, and this is an all-aluminum derivative of the Corvette engine — all aluminum block and heads, with Ram-Air intakes helping force a whopping 320 horsepower and 335 foot-pounds of torque. With super-wide high-performance tires mounted on 17-inch-by-9-inch wheels — which are a story in themselves — the new Trans Am blasts off like a rocket. Or, at least a race car.
Sure, there are problems with that aging style trying to compete in contemporary markets. You have to virtually fall into the bucket seats, and your feet stick straight out from those low-slung seats. You may or may not find the seating position comfortable over the long haul, although lumbar support controls help. There’s also very little useful rear-seat room, and the trunk is just OK.
But, for red-blooded American-car fanciers, one tromp on the gas pedal and all of those nitpicks fall away even more swiftly than the cars next to you get smaller in the rear view mirrors.
SPECIAL VERSION
A test-drive of the anniversary Trans Am came shortly after I had driven the “normal” Trans Am with the same powertrain. The difference, as I wrote about in a previous column, was that the first test car had a six-speed manual transmission and no traction-control, even though I was told it DID have traction-control. It was somewhat comical, how I got stuck in my driveway after a late-winter sleet storm when I boldly tried to test the traction-control.
At the time, I also predicted I would get the Trans Am with traction-control right after the last of the ice left us. That proved true. The anniversary car stuck to the road and had great traction, but there was no snow or ice to truly test the device’s merit.
The anniversary edition had GM’s Corvette-based four-speed automatic transmission, but it tells you how far we’ve come when you note in the corporate press release that “the four-speed automatic is standard and the wonderful six-speed manual transmission is available as a no-cost option.”
Of course, it used to be that the automatic cost you a thousand, and you could save a buck, as well as have more fun, by choosing the stick. The new trend, no matter how they fabricate the PR stuff, means you pay top dollar and they make the manual the same price, then boast of not making you pay MORE for it.
The six-speed, of course, is that maddening unit that skips from first to fourth unless you take off moderately hard in first. And, with all that power available, the automatic is just about as quick in acceleration, proving once again that the more power that’s available, the less-advantageous a stick shifter is.
The alloy wheels on the anniversary edition are bright silver, but they are then covered with a blue-tinted clearcoat, which is not only protective, but looks like polished blue steel.
Comparing the two vehicles further, the straight Trans Am 5.7 Ram-Air lists for $30,015, while the 30th anniversary version is $32,935. The $3,150 optional Ram-Air handling package gets you functional aqir sccops and alloy wheels with the bigger tires, plus a low-restriction exhaust system and a firmer tuned suspension.
The anniversary version requires a $1,575 option that gets you the special striping and paint, white leather seats with blue embroidered logos, which also appear on the hood, wheels, door panels, floor mats, and on a numbered interior dash emblem. On the test car, a remote 12-disc player in the trunk adds $595, the traction-control is another $450, and a high-performance 3.23 rear axle ratio costs another $300.
Overall, the anniversary Trans Am captures the essense of that first Trans Am, in that it has shocking power and acceleration, it just handles amazingly better. It has fuel economy ratings of 18 city and 24 highway, but if you enjoy pushing the gas pedal down as much as your purchase price would indicate, you might have trouble reaching that upper number.
PAYBACK AND FLASHBACK
Almost as if to repay me for some wisecracks at the previous Trans Am’s expense, this one paid me back by having a faulty security system.Then, the security alarm went off, for no apparent reason. I hit the remote switch on the key fob and it went off, but that pleasant little trick happened several more times before they came to take it away. When it happened at 3:30 a.m., I discovered that you can turn it off from your bed, by aiming the remote in the car’s general direction through the wall and hitting the switch.
Then there were the interior lights. A neighbor stopped by to tell me the interior light was on in the Firebird. I thanked him, and went outside, only to find that I could not find any way to get the interior lights to go off. After 30 or 40 experiments of starting, stopping, turning lights on and off, the lights suddenly went off by themselves. That trick also recurred several times, with the interior lights sometimes coming on by themselves long after the car had been parked and locked and left dark.
There were no such difficulties with the first Firebirds, which were far more simple 30 years ago.
Pontiac almost called the first Firebird a “Banshee,” until they deduced that a banshee was not a very pleasant creature, so it chose Firebird. The Trans Am nickname came from the Sports Car Club of America’s Trans-American road-racing series. Pontiac paid SCCA for the rights to the name, at $5 per car, which wasn’t much during its humble start but has since shot well beyond $1 million.
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, when muscle cars were the rage, huge engines were also in vogue. The firest Trans Am version of the Firebird came with a 400 cubic inch (6.6 liter) V8 stuff under the hood, with 345 horsepower in pre-pollution-restriction form.
When muscle cars disappeared, pony cars like the Mustang, Camaro and Firebird stayed alive, and ultimately found methods of getting performance back to where it once was. In 1989, the 20th anniversaty Trans Am had a 3.8 V6 with turbocharging and special pistons that turned out 250 horsepower and 340 foot-pounds of torque, which shot the Trans Am from 0-60 in the mid-5-second range.
The price, however, was stiff at $32,000, and that was 10 years ago. That car paced the Indianapolis 500, with one of only 1,555 produced Trans Ams going to winner Emerson Fittipaldi.
The newest, 30th anniversary Trans Am, passes all predecessors in technology. General Motors, straining to get the longest run out of the 40-plus year old 5.7-liter, pushrod V8, rebuilt the engine for 1998 when the new Corvette C5 was introduced. The aluminum version is lighter, stronger and faster. And putting all that into the new Trans Am makes Pontiac’s pride and joy a rational alternative to Corvette fanciers who might need even a small rear seat.
Fabulous A8, real-world Avants, guard Audi’s space
[Cutlne #1: Audi A8’s lofty price tag justified by all aluminum space-frame body, all aluminum 32-valve V8.
[Cutline 2: Rich leather, burled walnut cover inside of A8; polished aluminum houses Tiptronic shifter.
[Cutline 3: Audi A6 Avant may be best-looking station wagon, but doesn’t lose sports-car feel.
[Cutline 4: A4 cargo capacity works as family hauler — with quattro all-wheel drive and 5-speed.]
Car-buyers spend time both in the real world, thinking about both the vehicle their family needs, and in fantasyland, thinking about the car of their dreams if price was no object in the pursuit of excellence. Audi has been coming up with vehicles that satisfy both sides of such scrutiny, some recent examples of which are the A8 sedan and the A4 or A6 Avant.
The basic station wagon concept seems to be a lost art among many manufacturers who have welcomed the trend toward sports-utility vehicles to reap whopping profits. The majority of customers buying truck-based SUVs would probably be better-suited to buying station wagons, and Audi has provided not one, but two exceptional wagons in the A4-based Avant, and the A6 Avant.
Moving up to the top of the scale, the A8 has a staggering sticker price, but still must be analyzed against the absolute best luxury sedans in the world, where its outstanding virtues become obvious, even against the likes of the 7-Series BMW and S-Class Mercedes.
All three of the Audi models we’re talking about here have warranty coverage of three years or 50,000 miles, during which all scheduled maintenance is done at no charge from authorized Audi dealers. While finding dealerships Up North is impossible, the Twin Cities has two, and driving to the Cities is no chore these days — especially in an Audi.
A8 4.2 QUATTRO
Audi looked at the most advanced designs before setting out with Alcoa as a partner for a 10-year project to build the all-aluminum A8 with a body both lighter and stronger than steel. It took 10 years to perfect, has 40 patents and is made with seven new grades of aircraft aluminum alloys. The finished product is a smooth, subtle, practical sedan built with classic understatement, which reeks with class and avoids any semblance of being ostentatious. The skin is beautiful, but the beauty of the A8 is more than skin-deep.
The sticker price stands at $65,000 base price, with an as-tested flag of $73,600. We might agree that no car can be worth that kind of money, although once you consider the features of the A8 you might wonder how they could all be assembled in one package, even for that price.
The A8 has a revolutionary aluminum space-frame body, strong enough to make it the first and only car in the premium luxury class to earn the maximum five-star rating for safety for both the driver and front passenger in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s new car assessment. frame is 40 percent lighter than a comparative steel body, yet has 40 percent more structural rigidity than steel unibodies. It consists of various curves and varied panels thicknesses, basically resembling the structure of a contemporary jet aircraft. It all conspires to put the structural integrity off the scale for safety, but it also has an extremely low (0.29) coefficient of drag. The alloy frame also ignores the corrosion that can plague a steel body. Two front airbags, two side airbags for front-seat occupants, and two more side airbags to protect rear passengers, the A8 passes every safety challenge.
The interior is appointed with all sorts of premium leather and burled walnut, and the instrumentation and driver controls are all simple and efficient. And the seats are firmly comfortable, with 14-way power adjustment that includes control of lumbar support, headrest and shoulder belt anchor heights.
But, again living up to or beyond the German driveability test, the A8 comes with an amazing powertrain.
The test car’s engine was the 4.2-liter, all aluminum, dual-overhead-cam, 32-valve V8 engine, which puts out 300 horsepower at 6,000 RPMs and 295 foot-pounds of torque at a mere 3,300. The big car weighs 3,900 pounds, but it feels extremely light and agile, and will zip 0-60 in 6.9 seconds. (A lower-powered 3.7-liter V8 also is available, with 230 horses and a torque rating of 235.)
A five-speed automatic transmission is standard, with the precise Tiptronic clutchless manual built in, for optional use from a separate gate on the polished, brushed aluminum shift-lever housing. Audi’s flawless quattro system — a full-time, all-wheel-drive unit that seamlessly transmits power to the wheel that can best use it for cornering or foul-weather stability — also is standard. That feature, alone, sets the Audi above its competition.
Suspension is another Audi specialty, and the four-link unit gives the steering a precise, sports-car feel.
Great attention also has been paid to creature-comforts. A Bose music system, dual-zone heat/air controls, a trip computer and an anti-theft alarm that includes interior motion sensors are all standard. On the option list, there are 17-inch polished wheels and high-performance tires, a premium leather-all-over interior package, plus both a cold weather package — with heatable front and rear seats and a heated steering wheel — and a hot-weather package that features a solar sunroof and extremely neat rear and side sunshades that rise to darken the windows without eliminating visibility.
Once again, $73,600 is too much for reasonable people to consider spending for a car. But if you had it and were willing to spend it, the Audi A8 represents what might be the uncompromising choice as the all-out best sedan on the planet.
AVANT ADVANTAGE
The A4 may be the platform from which Audi’s success (and cousin Volkswagen’s application of the Passat) sprung, and was expanded for the more spacious A6, but Audi didn’t rest on its sedan laurels, and has added two of the world’s slickest station wagons.
The A4 Avant has an overall length of 176.6 inches to the A6 Avant’s 192, and the A4’s wheelbase is 103 inches to the A6’s 108.6, and that spells out the major difference between the two — the A4 has a lot of interior room, and the A6 has more of it.
I was able to put the A4 to a supreme test, hauling a definite carload of stuff from the Twin Cities to Duluth, and I was flat amazed at how much I could slide into the spacious rear compartment. The A4 Avant’s cargo capacity is 31 cubic feet with the rear seat upright, expandable to 63.7 if you fold the rear seat down.
The A4 Avant came equipped with Audi’s high-tech 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine, and a 5-speed manual transmission, proving you can have your station wagon and your sports car, too. Engine technology has gone from the conventional two-valve to the much more efficient four-valve design recently, which allows four valves to encircle the top of the cylinder with more breathing room. Audi has built the new 1.8 with five valves per cylinder — three intake and two exhaust valves — and it has worked so well Audi is expanding it to also use on the V6 and, ultimately, that aluminum V8.
Audi couples the free-breathing valvetrain with a low-pressure turbocharger that electronically measures its boost to give you full torque from barely over idle speed to over 5,000 RPMs, and it gets you up into the engine’s 150 horsepower swiftly. The Avant handles just as well as the normal A4 sedan, which is outstanding, and the 5-speed simply makes the whole package feel sportier. The test car also came with the quattro all-wheel-drive system, standard.
The test A4 Avant had a base price of $26,440, which means it’s about in the class with a lot of pretty mundane sedans. The option list shows an audio (Bose) package, an all-weather package and a sport package with upgrades in tires, wheels, suspension and a thickly padded steering wheel. That boosts the price to $30,360, still reasonable for what you get.
The A6 Avant doesn’t look as tightly compact as the A4 Avant, but it has a classy flair nonetheless. Along with more cargo capacity, the A6 version offers more luxury options and standard equipment. The test car was a stunning black with a rich, brown leather interior that was the “Advance” version of Audi’s three available interior attitudes. It also showed off the third major member of Audi’s engine family, the 2.8-liter V6. This is an iron-block workhorse that has been increased in the technology department by the addition of five-valve heads, which allows it to produce 200 horsepower.
It started at a base of $36,600, complete with quattro and the five-speed automatic and Tiptronic, and rose to $41,025 with oversized wheels, a cold-weather package that includes the heated steering wheel and seats, and packages that include a glass sunroof, auto-dimming inside and outside mirrors, memory power seats and leather interior.
Those features, and even the extra cargo capacity, may not be worth the $10,000-plus premium that puts the A6 Avant beyond the A4. Unless you want them. No question, Audi could have chosen to go for a compromise between the very good but more basic A4 Avant, or the more spacious and more luxurious A6 Avant. But Audi is riding one of the automotive world’s great hot streaks, so it made sense to offer both of them.
AUDI’S MARKETPLACE
When you think of German cars, you think of sporty with Porsche, utility with Volkswagen, and luxury with BMW and Mercedes. Meanwhile, Audi may not directly plug in to any such niche, but might do a better job of providing vehicles that cross the boundaries and provide a little bit of everything to its customers.
It was five years ago that Audi came out with the A4 sedan, the car that changed everything. It immediately shot to the top of the charts of midsize family sedans, with a surprisingly low price tag in the mid-$20,000 range, but with style, sportiness, luxury and the safety and usefulness in all conditions provided by the quattro all-wheel-drive system over and above the very good front-wheel drive format.
The A4 singlehandedly thrust Audi into the mainstream of consciousness for discerning U.S. car-buyers, and also raised it from the lower depths of resale value to the top in the U.S. marketplace in the matter of about three years. Audi hasn’t looked back, in design, technology, or efficiency. With the upscale A6 following, and the super-luxury A8 flagship, the only thing missing was an all-out sports car, and Audi recently solved that with the new TT sports car.
One of the prime characteristics of all German cars is strength and durability, and there is also a more subtle pride factor in having better technology than the competition. In Germany, where there are no speed limits on the autobahn network of freeways, cars must run strong at high speeds and be able to withstand accidents which, at unlimited speeds, can cause substantial damage. They also must last for a long time — often 150,000 to 200.000 miles, and they must get decent fuel economy, because gasoline costs over $4 or $5 a gallon.
Audi meets all those tests, and at sticker prices that set it apart from its German competitors, and, at the bottom end, challenges U.S. and Japanese rivals, considering what goes into each car. And in the case of the A8 and the A4 or A6 Avants, Audi offers things you can’t find from competitors.
Ford, GMC wage 4-door pickup battle in BIG way
In the beginning, there were cars, and then there were pickup trucks, vans, minivans, larger pickup trucks, and smaller pickup trucks. It used to be you owned a car, and you bought a truck because you needed it for work. Or else, you wanted a car, but you bought a pickup because you could get it for half the price of a car.
Trucks, trucks, trucks — they’ve taken over the automotive market segment with baffling pervasiveness. Everybody heard that the top-selling vehicle in the U.S. was a Ford pickup, and second-leading was a Chevrolet pickup. But that’s because all models of pickups were lumped together in those numbers, while the number of car variations continued to expand. But, last year, for the first time, total trucks outsold total cars in the U.S.
Where will it end?
I think we’ve just about found it.
I got a chance to test-drive a whole group of different pickup trucks recently, and most recently I got a chance to drive a couple of monsters. One was a Ford F250, with the crew cab and a huge, 6.8-liter V10 V8 engine. The other was a GMC Sierra 2500, also with what we shall call a crew cab, powered by a large, 7.4-liter V8. Both of these beasts carry stickers of over $30,000.
These are the middleweights, on a pickup scale that goes from compact to midsize to full size half-tons, then to oversized 3/4-ton. The only things bigger are specific dump trucks or semi tractors.
These two are the 3/4-ton babies, and they are both more than full-size. In fact, they are definitely bigger than the extended-cab versions, because they’ve got two full-size rows of seats, with four full-size doors.
In the pickup truck business, the progression has been curious, but odd. First there were 2-doors, then Ford and GM raced each other to see which could be first out with a third door, opening backwards, in the manner that used to be called “suicide” doors, because they opened into the face of oncoming traffic. Both Ford and GM insisted they were smart by putting the third door on the driver’s side of the compact pickups, and on the passenger side of the full-size trucks. Reasoning was that smaller truck drivers would use that extended-cab space for storing stuff, and would prefer to open it from the driver’s side, while the bigger rear of an extended-cab full-size pickup would be more likely used for passengers, so let ’em get in curbside.
Dodge, caught without a third door, did what was exceedingly logical the next year, and put those little suicide doors on BOTH sides. Ford scrambled to come up with the equalizer a year ago, but GM has seemed unaware of all that, and is still stuck with a third-door only, and on the passenger side. You don’t realize what a nuisance that is until you’ve enjoyed the luxury of two full doors and two suicide doors, then go back to find you have to circle a Chevy or GMC to access that rear section.
Anyhow, while all that door-adding was going on, it occured to me that going to four doors on pickups. Sure enough, as was exposed at the Detroit auto show, the next trend in the ever-proliferating (and extremely profitable) truck battle is to come up with hybrid vehicles — either Sports Utility Vehicles with the third seat chopped off and replaced by a small pickup box, or a pickup truck with a full rear seat.
But before those hybrids can hit the market, Ford and GM dusted off the little-used heavyweight worker-bees — the old crew-hauling trucks, which, for decades, have had full double-cabs, with real-world room in the back, and full-size, normal-opening doors for easy access. They were primarily used for hauling work crews out to the jobs, which caused them to be named, cleverly, “crew cabs.”
That concept is what I recently drove, and by coincidence, I got one from both Ford and GMC.
Both of these are huge, with the Ford being the bigger of the two. Both of them are right at home hauling or towing enormous amounts of weighty objects. And both of them are attractive enough and so filled with creature comforts that you could take the boss and his wife out to a formal dinner and let them sit in the back of your truck. OK, not way in the back, but the back seat.
FORD F250
This big truck is called SuperDuty by Ford, and it comes equipped to do super duty. First off, the F250 fairly towers over the large F150, and I recall driving up to a stoplight and thinking how small that Ranger next to me was compared to the F250. Then I realized that the other truck wasn’t the compact Ranger, but a full-sized F150. The V10 engine also is huge, not only with 10 cylinders, but they measure 6.8 liters, or 412 cubic inches.
The engine is a single-overhead-camshaft device, part of Ford’s modular family of high-tech engines. It cranks out 275 horsepower and 410 foot-pounds of torque, which is clearly enough to tow your house around the block.
This beast weighs 6,300 pounds, and yet it looks reasonable in size because of its flowing lines. The Ford is tall, over 80 inches tall. What that means is, you walk up to it, open the door, and find that you have a long way togo and an agility drill ahead of you in order to enter. Thankfully, there is a running board, so you can get a foothold on your way to the summit, and, despite the thin air up there, you can vault into the seat.
It looks huge, but not as huge as it really is, because it is so long, with that long cab, and its full-size interior, that has all the room of the first two rows of a large SUV, such as the Navigator. It’s sort of like looking at Mount McKinley; alone, it seems enormous, but seen in the concept of an entire mountain range, it looks just a little big.
The base price of the F250 is $28,330, but when you add the light prairie tan leather interior, the 6.8-liter engine, the electronically controlled automatic 4-speed, and all the goodies, such as alloy wheels and a special 4.30 towing ratio that gives you an 8,800-pound haul rating, and 10,000-pound towing limit, the price climbs to $34,490.
It is a handsome pickup, with the new-look aerodynamics allowing the driver to have good visibility, and the seats are comfortable. The turning radius is enormous, however, so don’t even think about any u-turns on a normal street. You also want to consider long and hard before you drive past any gas stations, because pushing all that weight around takes power, and leaves you with down around 12-14 miles per gallon.
You’d have to have a working-class need for a vehicle like this, or you haul a heavyweight trailer more than just a few times a year. For example, if you had a small house trailer, this would be the rig to haul it, because you could stash the whole family in the seats-for-5.
GMC SIERRA 2500
The Sierra is identical to the new Chevrolet Silverado, except for the look from the front, where the new Sierra has a sleek, new look for 1999. The 2500 GMC model, however, sticks with the previous front end, which is attractive enough, until the corporation can catch up and make enough new fronts.
There are no overhead cams on truck motors made by GM, but this time they made up the difference with cubic inches. The huge 6.7-liter Ford V10 responds well, but the GMC engine is 7.4 liters — larger with eight cylinders than the Ford is with 10. The GMC engine is armed with pushrods and can produce large low-end power. It has 355 foot-pounds of torque, although you have to rev to 4,000 RPMs to get to that peak, while it also delivers 300 horsepower at 4,800 RPMs.
The GMC Sierra is very well refined, and has comfortably contoured seats, and they came with leather covers.
The new GMC had a base price of only $23,171.55, but fitting it with the options such as speed-sensitive power steering, power windows, locks and windows, air-conditioning, the six-way power seats, and others, jacks it to $30,827.55. Having driven several other Sierras, with various forms of normal cab and extended cab and all sorts of different engines, this is a very sophisticated machine.
Curiously, there was no alloy wheels, just basic truck tires and wheels. Out of six or eight GMC Sierra pickups I’ve driven, this was a simple one, and cutting out a few features can drop the sticker under $30,000. If you added in the price of the four-wheel drive and the special alloy wheels, you’d be up to about $33,000.
The GMC Sierra 2500 has a towing payload of 10,000 pounds,identical to the F250, and an 8,600-pound payload, only 200 pounds less than the Ford, although it weighs 800 pounds less than the F250.
Instrumentation is unexcelled on the GMC, although it seems there must have been somebody freaking out when he designed the cupholder. You pull down a trap door that approximates the size of the glove compartment, although this one is located right in the lower middle of the dashboard. That makes it easy to reach, but it doesn’t need to be enormous.
Interesting, but you tend to get used to things like that, although I must say that when I had a fast-food cup of pop in the little rubber housing, I thought all was well until I went around a corner and it somersaulted right out across the carpeting.
Overall, the GMC is quite easy to drive, and well-mannered in its handling and braking. To be a fair challenge, it takes some getting used to because of its size, which is so much larger than the normal “big” pickups. But everything is efficiently laid out, and easy to read.
Examining these two huge trucks makes you realize how competitive the truck business is. Both are very similar in a lot of ways, but different in the ways those two manufacturers always have been different. Mainly, though, they do the same thing in very similar fashion, and choosing one is simply a matter of preference. That’s the way car-buying should be.
And with these crew cabs, you can have your SUV, and your pickup truck as well.
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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