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.
Eclipse, Sunfire offer two views of open sky
You walk out of work, enjoying the bright sunshine, and you climb into your car. Let’s say your car is a sporty coupe, such as a new Pontiac Sunfire, or a new Mitsubishi Eclipse. You climb in, turn the ignition key until it starts up, buckle up your shoulder harness, and take off.
What’s wrong with that picture?
Just one thing. You forgot that before you drive off, you were supposed to flip a switch and turn a handle and wait a couple of seconds while the top goes up, back and down — freeing you of all your more mundane earthly responsibilities for the moment, and letting your hair flutter in the open air, against that all-blue sky.
Convertibles: If there were more of ’em, we could get by with a lot fewer analysts and counselors in this world.
And yes, you can get such mainstream, normal sporty coupes as the Eclipse or the Sunfire in convertible form, which proves you don’t have to spend over $40,000 to get a convertible, but you can have the best of both worlds for $20,000 or $30,000.
When you think of convertibles, you often think of them with the top down, in southern scenarios, with palm trees waving in the background, maybe along the Gulf Coast. You often don’t think of convertibles Up North, where the weather is is simply unsuitable for half the year, and, at best, changeable for the other half.
Both of those stereotypes are inaccurate, however.
First, whenever I’ve been in those southern areas, people spend most of their time trying to get out of the sun, either into air-conditioned apartments, hotels or shopping centers, or into cars with the air cranked up — or into convertibles with the tops up!
Second, while we northerners may grumble now and then when we get those 50 or 60 degree days in what is supposed to be midsummer, but then along comes one of those days like last Tuesday or Wednesday, mid-70s, bright sun, stunning blue sky, no clouds — absolutely perfect. When we get days like that, we tend to do everything in our power to capitalize.
Because of those realities, I believe northern folks enjoy and appreciate convertibles more than southern types.
In the past two weeks, I got a chance to drive both the Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GS-T convertible, and the Pontiac Sunfire GT convertible, and both serve their clientele in different, but effective, fashion. Both have some similarities, such as in safety equipment, where both have airbags and side-impact braces.
MITSUBISHI ECLIPSE
Mitsubishi’s Eclipse always has been personal sporty coupe that outperforms many sports cars but has the manners of a more docile coupe when the need arises. Mitsubishi used to share the Eclipse with Plymouth as the Laser, and with Chrysler as the Eagle Talon, but even though Chrysler dropped its versions, Mitsubishi still assembles Eclipses for itself as an American car in Normal, Ill.
The Eclipse is front-wheel drive, with the option of all-wheel drive, and you can make it perform tricks with only the basic four-cylinder engine by choosing the turbocharged version.
The test car was the GS-T version, with the turbocharged 2.0-liter Mitsubishi engine, with dual-overhead-camshafts, four valves per cylinder, and the turbo, to make the 2.0 feel like 4.0 liters.
Sleek and slippery as the shape of the Eclipse is, the car takes on a completely different personality when you take the top off. On the Eclipse, all you need do is make sure the power is on, the car is in neutral and the emergency brake is on, then you hit the dash switch and in about five seconds, the top is down and stashed behind the back seat, just ahead of the trunk.
There is some shakiness, typical of cars converted to convertible duty. It is heavy, because it takes reinforcement to replace the structural solidity the roof contributes to the coupe frame, but it doesn’t interrupt the Eclipse’s great stability and hard-nosed cornering attributes.
The 1999 Eclipse Spyder GS-T is the last one before Mitsubishi thoroughly restyles the Eclipse, going to a larger car with a larger V6 engine; no more high-revving four, no more turbocharger. Instead of scaring off customers, this time losing such a mini-classic might cause a rush to get the current model.
The test car came in a color called Sundance Plum Pearl, a rich, dark reddish-purple. It lists for $26,960, with an as-delivered sticker of $27,395, but before deciding that’s too expensive, consider that the car comes completely loaded.
Standard equipment includes the convertible top, turbo engine, four-wheel intedpendent suspension, four-wheel disc brakes with antilock, front and rear stabilizer bars, galvanized steel body panels, air-conditioning, security system integrated on the keyless entry system, cruise, power door locks, windows and mirrors, leather seats with 6-way adjustable driver’s seat, adjustable steering column, Infinity premium audio with eight speakers and a separate amp for the radio, tapeand disc players, 16-inch chrome-plated alloy wheels with locks, and 205/55 V-rated tires, rear window defroster, halogen headlights and foglights.
It’s also got a Homelink transmitter computer built-in.
With all the technical and performance stuff, the Eclipe still delivered 29 miles per gallon.
As for complaints, the 5-speed shifter was a bit balky, but that could be because of the newness of the car. The other thing is that while the trunk is deep and spacious, it is rounded off to meet the stylish tail, which means you can haul your set of golf clubs — but only in the back seat. They simply won’t fit in the trunk.
PONTIAC SUNFIRE
The Sunfire is Pontiac’s version of the Chevrolet Cavalier, which is an entry-level car that is a cut below the Eclipse in sophistication, and therefore is a comparative bargain at a sticker of $21,850, which includes $180 for a sport interior package that includes seat side support and lumbar adjustment and seatback pockets on the cloth seats.
I was prepared to kiss off the Sunfire as a pretender in the sporty-car convertible niche, but the more I drove the car, the more impressive it was.
It had susprising power, even with a four-speed automatic that tended to surge when it shifted, but the power came through because the car had a 2.4-liter twin-cam engine with 16 valves. That’s big, for a four-cylinder, and despite General Motors’ reluctance to switch its mainstream engines over to overhead camshafts, engines such as this one should show the General the benefits of overhead cams. It also should show that with more refinement it could become as smooth and quiet as the Mitsubishi gem.
Along with all the power, the Sunfire delivered over 32 miles per gallon on one tankful, and averaged 29.7 altogether in combined city/freeway driving.
The top on the bright red Sunfire was also easy to operate. You grasp a handgrip on the center-top of the windshield, push a thumb button and rotate the grip downward, then pull it back and the roof goes away. When you want to raise it, you grab the grip the same way, and push forward on it, and the top comes up. Simple.
For the price, the Sunfire GT offers a lot, including antilock brakes, like the Eclipse, but with rear-wheel drums complementing the front discs, instead of discs all around. It has cast aluminum wheels with 195/65 15-inch tires. The handling was good, although not as all-out sporty feeling as the Eclipse.
Air-conditioning, power locks with remote switchwork, power windows and mirrors, and a Delco stereo radio with compact disc player and an equalizer add to the pleasure of driving.
It also has the typical shakiness that comes with turning a coupe into a convertible, but it is not obtrusive, and is an easily acceptable trade for the sheer enjoyment of open-air driving. The rear deck spoiler adds to the sporty appearance of the Sunfire, which falls into place well in Pontiac’s lineup.
With each GM branch trying to establish its own niche, Pontiac seems far ahead of the pack, with the Bonneville solid among big sedans, the Grand Prix one of the most stylish big cars either in sedan or coupe mode, the Grand Am as an impressive compact, and now the Sunfire falling in as the bottom rung — but a very impressive car for an entry level weapon.
BMW 740, 540 and 323 all stand as instant classics
[cutline stuff:
The BMW 323, redesigned a year ago, has adequate room and exceptional performance.
Clear headlight lenses give the BMW 540 a distinct hawk-like look.
The flagship 740 BMW provides an enormous rear seat and trunk.
(for the accent shots…)
Optional Xenon gas-discharge headlights light up the night with bright precision.
The simplest cupholders of the 323 hold any size cup firmly in place better than more elaborate devices in the 540 or 740. ]
“Beemers,” they call them, a catch-phrase to denote any vehicle made by BMW. That includes the 3-Series sedan and coupe, the 5-Series sedan, the 7-Series sedan, and, more recently, the Z-3 sports cars.
At Bavarian Motor Works, it seems that every model turned out is a classic on its way to being identified. As luck would have it, I recently had the chance to test-drive the 323 entry-level sedan, a 540 Touring sedan, and a 740i Sport sedan. Let’s clear up one thing right away. BMWs are loaded with technical advancements and always combine luxury appointments with spectacular fun-to-drive characteristics, but they are expensive. The 3-Series is BMW’s lowest-priced, ranging from $26,000 on up to the test car’s $30,000. The 540 costs about $54,000, and the 740 about $63,000. All are front-engine/rear-drive, which makes them a handful in Up North winter conditions, even though they are designed to be extremely close to 50-50 weight distribution, front and rear, and have a highly advanced traction-control system.
BMW’s formula goes by body style and engine displacement, with the first of the three letters denoting the body size and the second and third numbers denoting the engine displacement. Simple. No birds, beasts or fish, or computer-selected word inventions for its models.
740 means luxury
You can get a 7-Series BMW either as a 750, with a 5.0-liter V12, or as a 740, with a 4.4-liter (but formerly 4.0) V8. The V8 is plenty, because it comes with four valves per cylinder, pumped by dual overhead-camshafts on each bank, and all choreographed by BMW’s variable valve timing technology. Those four cams and 32 valves responded well to the 5-speed automatic Steptronic transmission, which adapts its shiftpoints to the way you drive it, and which can be shifted manually if you choose.
The 740 Sport has larger 18-inch wheels and tires and firmer suspension, and specially firmed up seats that are adjustable 18 different ways. With memory settings, it is about as comfortable as you can get in a car, and there’s room for a small convention in the rear seat. The test car had light grey leather interior with its real-wood walnut trim on the console and dash.
It would be the car any sane person might choose if he or she could pick any car in which to drive, or ride, cross-country in style, comfort, and with a sporty flair. I got 24 miles per gallon on mostly highway driving, and the always responsive V8 whipped the big sedan around like a lightweight, although it weighs 4,255 pounds. That engine delivers 282 horsepower at 5,400 RPMs, and 324 foot-pounds of torque at 3,700 revs. The V12 offers 326 horses and 361 foot-pounds, but the difference isn’t noticeable, unless you can feel the difference between 6.9 seconds for the V8 to go 0-60, compared to the V12’s 6.6 seconds.
The 740 is most recognizable by its extended rear end, where most of its longer, 196.2-inch length adds to the rear-seat room and trunk space.
There are useful little doors and pockets throughout the interior, and the test car steering wheel had remote audio on the left and cruise controls on the right.
The test car’s base price of $62,400 rose $2,600 with the Sport package, and, even though I got 24 miles per gallon, it had to assess a $1,700 “gas guzzler” fee, which seems pretty silly as legislation goes in this era of 11-miles-per-gallon SUVs. The sticker total was $67,270.
540 Sport is potent
Moving down in size, the 5-Series sedan is 3,748 pounds and 188 inches long, but the 540 gets the same dynamite 4.4-liter, four-cam, 32-valve V8. That allows it to reduce the 0-60 time to 5.8 seconds with the six-speed manual, which has a top speed electronically limited to 155 mph.
The silvery 540 had rich, dark grey leather inside, and more real wood, and the Sport suspension was the perfect complement to the sophisticated hot-rod engine and the stick shift for providing an all-out sporty feel.
The strong engine and the weight of the sedan, coupled with a heavy clutch, made the car occasionally a handful to run up swiftly through the gears. It was always breathtaking, if not always easily mellow.
With more than adequate room in the rear seat, the 540 sets a pretty high standard, and at the price difference, it may be difficult to justify an extra $10,000 or more to get the longer 7-Series, because other than the all-out aura of luxury, the 5-Series offers plenty of everything.
Style wise, the 5-Series also was just redesigned two years ago, with the sleek nose taking on a more hawk-like appearance with the eyelid covers on the headlights.
And the headlights on the 540 test car were the $500 optional Xenon gas-discharge units, which are absolutely the best headlights I’ve ever seen on a car. The light cast is a truer-light blueish hue that makes the foglights appear yellowish. The headlights look almost like gunsights, and they shine with an amazing cutoff that shows brilliant light up to a precise, optically cut horizontal line that leaves total darkness above.
That makes it great for oncoming cars, because the intensity of the light cuts off at about the grille and doesn’t shine in driver’s eyes. Problem is, the blueish light is so stunning that oncoming drivers tend to stare at the BMW headlights, then later complain that they’re too bright.
BMW 323i
The 323 cheats a little on the engine formula, because it has a 2.3-liter engine, but BMW had a “325” model years ago, and used “323” to give the car a new name.
Used to be, the base sedan got the 1.8-liter four-cylinder, but for 1999, BMW decided to go to the 2.5-liter in-line six. Since the 328 has the 2.8-liter in-line six, the move up from the 1.8 to the 2.5 in the 323 was a significant upgrade.
The 2.5 has dual overhead camshafts and 24 valves — four per cylinder on the straight six — with the same variable valve timing. In fact, if you didn’t know there was a 328, the 323 would be plenty hot-performing for anybody’s taste. It is now made with an aluminum block, another upgrade that reduces the weight of the powerplant by 51 pounds, and it delivers 170 horsepower at 5,500 RPMs and 181 foot-pounds of torque at 3,500.
Because BMW never has overlooked the importance of fun in the equation, it offers a manual transmission in its sedans. The test 323 was such a dark green that it almost looked black, with parchment-color leatherette interior — felt like real leather, but wasn’t.
It also had a 5-speed manual transmission that shifted smoothly and had an easy, positive feel. It was quick, agile and delivered 29.5 miles per gallon, no matter how hard I drove it or how consistently high I revved it. At 3,100 pounds, and with an overall length of 174.5 inches, the 323 doesn’t need as much power to zoom from 0-60, achieving it in 7.1 seconds. Rear seat room is not as vast as its two bigger siblings, but it still is adequate for 6-footers.
The 323 has sensational seats, with every form-fitting bulge you could hope for, including a little pull-out front pad under your knees. It felt every bit as comfortable as the 540 seats, and firmer and with better lateral support than the big 740, for my taste.
And there was one other amazing feature — the cupholders. Now, cupholders are alien to German car-makers, simply because when you’re cruising along at 135 miles per hour on the autobahns, you are so focused that you don’t even think about cupholders. So they are for U.S. market cars, specifically. In the 740, and in the 540, there were neat little pop-out or fold-out devices to hold cups or pop cans, and they worked…OK, but no better.
In the 323, there were two simple little indentations in the center console, with four spring-loaded little clips inside each of them. Whatever size coffee mug or pop cup or can you had, it plunked firmly down into those receptacles and was held precisely in place. The more expensive cars had much more elaborate cupholders, but none of them worked as efficiently as the 323’s, once again proving one of BMW’s most-basic concepts — simple is best.
Once again, BMW has done such a phenomenal job with its lowest-priced sedan, that at a base of $26,400 boosted to $30,545 — and with the same phenomenal seats and Xenon headlights as the 540 — there is no question that the 323 represents a tremendous bargain for any car, and particularly for a BMW.
The people’s choices
At the time I drove the three cars, BMW had a special charity promotion going, where it would match the number of media-test-miles with dollars of corporate donations. The charities did well by me, because it was difficult to NOT drive the BMWs during their assigned weeks.
While buyers would have to go as far as the Twin Cities to find BMW dealerships, that’s not a problem for enthusiasts, which include car-fanatic magazines.
Two of the more prestigious of automotive magazines, Automobile and Car and Driver, rank the 10-best cars in the world in various categories. Car and Driver conducts a readers’ survey, and for the best midsize luxury sedan it picked the 3-Series BMW; for the best sports sedan, it picked the BMW 540 Sport; for the best large luxury sedan, C&D readers picked the 7-Series BMW; and for the best coupe, the choice was the BMW Z3.
Automobile’s list of 10 didn’t go by such specific categories, more going for selections that disregarded size, and it included the 3-Series BMW, the 5-Series BMW and the Z3’s “M” coupe among its picks.
Hardly seems fair. To have three or four selections among the top 10 didn’t leave much room for all the other manufacturers in the world. But that’s simply how good BMWs are. They are, at every level of size and/or price, the standard of driving enthusiasts.
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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