Even high-tech cars need proper tires to handle on ice
[[[[[[[CUTLINE STUFF:
#1/ The Toyota Celica returns for the year 2000 with a bold, new look and a high-winding, high-performance engine as a departure from the company’s reputation for ho-hum vehicles.
#2/ Saab has added the Aero model to its 9.5 near-luxury sedan line, with various aerodynamic body panels to give it a proper Euro-performance image.
#3/ The Celica GT-S includes comfortable leather seats, an attractive instrument layout and an exceptional audio system. ]]]]]]]]]]
Driving a car is a challenge, and driving a car in foul weather is an extreme challenge. When a winter storm hits, you want to be driving a superb winter-driving car. But when you don’t, it might not be the car’s fault.
For true driving enthusiasts, the fun of having a vehicle perform as if attached to your innermost instincts is a true pleasure in life. Sports cars, sporty coupes, and more recently sports sedans have cut into that market — particularly European sedans with their high-performance capabilities, and others who have, thankfully, copied their assets.
But we here in the Up North region have specific needs in our winters. And sometimes the best performing cars simply can’t live up to our requisites, regardless of their pedigree. I recently had the chance to test-drive two new vehicles, the Toyota Celica and the Saab 9.5 Aero, both with impressive performance characteristics and pedigrees. Both were dazzling at their best, but were reduced to something completely different when a little snow showed up.
Both the Celica and the Saab are front-wheel drive, and both handle extremely well when it’s dry, or wet. But not when roads are icy, or snow-covered. When you skid or spin, first and foremost, look at the tires.
The Celica is all new and stunning in looks and performance. Toyota mounted Yokohama all-out performance tires on those stylish, 16-inch wheels. When I saw them, I flinched, recalling the last time I drove a car with Yokohamas in a Minnesota winter. My worst fears were reinforced.
Saabs, from Sweden, are among the great legendary winter cars in the world, and the fact that General Motors has bought out the company shouldn’t affect that. The Saab 9.5 is the costlier, near-luxury model, and the new Aero is the sportiest of those. To enhance the lowered stance and the firmer handling, Saab mounted Michelin Pilot tires all around. Michelin tires are known for being the best for long wear, high speed and durability, but they, too, have a hard tread compound that loses its flexibility when it gets down around freezing. I’ve gotten so that whenever I’m driving a car that skids or spins too easily, I make a quiet prediction — “Must be Michelins” — and then I pull over, climb out and check. I haven’t been wrong often.
Both these Pilot (pronounced “pee-LOW” for Michelin’s French heritage) and the Yokohamas are among the best in dry or wet conditions. Hard and firm on a race track. But when it gets cold, they get harder and firmer and their stopping ability on icy or snowy roads goes south. On skis, you’re allowed to swerve abruptly to the side and stop; imagine instead doing the downhill bit on skis with the rule that you COULDN’T swerve to stop. That’s what hard-compound tires are like.
So don’t blame the cars, and don’t pass up the urge to buy the car of your dreams. If your dealer isn’t sharp enough to switch and supply better all-season or all-out winter tires, then buy your own, mount them on separate wheels, and just switch ’em in November and switch ’em back again in April. You’re not wasting anything, because both sets will last twice as long as if you left them on year-round.
TOYOTA CELICA GT-S
Go back a decade, and the most enjoyable and satisfying cars to drive in the world might have been the fleet of Japanese-named sporty coupes. The Honda Prelude, Toyota Celica, Mitsubishi Eclipse (and its Chrysler cronies, the Plymouth Laser and Eagle Talon), Acura Integra, Mazda MX-6 and Subaru SVX all had produced the compact but sleek modern-era sporty-coupes.
New-era sports cars have regained a chunk of that segment, sport-utility vehicles have attracted astounding amounts of disposable income that might otherwise have gone toward sporty coupes, and almost all of that generation of sporty coupes have gotten bigger, fatter, more expensive, or disappeared. The Prelude has become more eccentric, and the Eclipse has come out all new.
But now for 2000, Toyota steps boldly to the front of the class with a Y2K version of the Celica — the seventh remake of that popular “2+2” sporty coupe. I always liked the Celica of the ’80s, the one that was offered with an all-wheel-drive option. But the new one is the best, by a mile.
The styling is love-it or hate-it, and it doesn’t dazzle me as much as the rest of the car. Toyota went along with its California design studio folks to come up with a very chiseled, angular wedge that is truly eye-catching, from every angle. The interior is every bit as attractive, with good ergonomics for the air-heat switches and the audio system, neatly styled orange-on-charcoal instruments that have attracted some criticism, but are certain to be easier to live with as time passes.
And there is the trendy idea of making the pedals of unpadded aluminum with holes drilled, which race-car guys used to for the sake of making a car lighter by every possible ounce. The Celica is comparatively light, weighing in at just over 2,500 pounds. That makes it lighter than everything else in its class, and 500 pounds lighter than some. That helps with the cornering agility and the braking, which are both exceptional. (It is less than agile and exceptional when you try to make the Yokohamas do anything on ice or snow, however.) And it also helps the performance.
Toyota is painfully aware that while its reputation has been bolstered by its mainstream Camry and worry-free operation, chief rival Honda has become the real-world’s technology leader with its extremely high-revving Integra GS-R, Acura NSX, Civic Si and now the new S2000 sports car.
Consider the Celica GT-S a breakthrough to Toyota’s high-tech age. The GT-S engine is an all-new 1.8-liter 4-cylinder, comparatively small by standards where the Eclipse has gone from 1.8 to 2.0 to a 3.0-liter V6. Toyota went to Yamaha, the superb motorcycle maker long known for innovative engine design technology. The two worked together to come up with a gem — an engine that I included in my recent list of my top 10 favorite engines in the world. It has dual-overhead camshafts operating 4 valves per cylinder, with an all-aluminum block and head, and a variable-valve-timing system similar to Honda’s, which has a secondary camshaft that comes in to supply a whole new arc of power.
In the Celica, that cam comes in at 6,000 RPMs, which is about where some competitors’ engines demand you shift. The Celica redline is an eyelash under 8,000, up there where only Honda has dared venture. The engine hits 180 horsepower at full scream, 7,600 RPMs, and delivers 133 foot-pounds of torque at 6,800. That’s more than the Integra GS-R, and almost as much as the Eclipse V6, which, I would guess, the Celica would outrun on any road course because of its big weight advantage.
The GT-S also has a 6-speed transmission that is slick to shift and brilliantly defined, with close ratios from 1-through-5, and then a large gap to sixth. That means you can scream on up to every shift point, and still cruise on the freeway in comparative silence. That also helped achieve just over 25 miles per gallon.
The other major impression of testing the Celica GT-S is the price tag. The base price is $22,000, and you can load it up with options and still be barely up to $24,000. That’s a lot of car for the money, and an enormous amount of driving pleasure.
SAAB 9-5 AERO
Under General Motors tutelage, Saab has tried to return to its quirky roots. Thankfully. Saab always has been attractive to somewhat eccentric but intellectual buyers. The key on the floor, the safety-cage construction two decades before most other maufacturers “invented” it, and upright seats and visibility that defied the cushy tendency toward fatigue. In short, Saabs reflect their aircraft heritage.
The 9000 model augmented the 900 as a more luxurious model, and it met with indifferent sales. So the new models are redone and renamed, with the smaller vehicle the 9-3 and the larger one the 9-5.
The Aero model is lowered, and has subtlely flared front spoiler and side lower molding panels, but you’d almost like to see it side-by-side with the standard 9-5 to be sure of the differences. The suspension has stiffer springs and bigger brakes, with larger, 17-inch wheels. The performance upgrade, to keep up with the better suspension, is the same-old 2.3-liter 4-cylinder engine Saab has been using for well over a decade, but it’s a substantial engine with chain-driven dual-overhead camshafts and 4 valves per cylinder, with a turbocharger to inject more air-fuel mixture into the manifold.
The result is greater power than a 4-cylinder can normally achieve (unless it goes with the Honda/Toyota scheme of variable valve-timing). In the Aero version, the Mitsubishi-built turbocharger is cranked up to 20 pounds of pressure, which extracts 225 horses at 5,500 revs, and 243 foot-pounds of torque at only 1,900 RPMs.
The test car had a 4-speed automatic transmission, which detracted from its supposed sporty-car performance. Its acceleration was just OK until you got the revs up a bit, and it took longer to get them there with the automatic, and reports that the 9-5 Aero can go 0-60 in under 7 seconds sound pretty fictitious if you’ve only driven the auto. I was able to get 21.2 miles per gallon in combined city-freeway driving.
For comfort and cruising, the Aero lives up to traditional Saab standards. My only problem is that the 9-3 has aircraft-like ergonomics, while the 9-5 tries to simulate them. An example is the ignition key on the floor trick. The old 900, and the 9-3, have the ignition switch on the floor, between the bucket seats. After getting used to it, you could get in, blindfolded, drop your arm down to full extension, and chances are the key would be precisely aimed to fit into the ignition. In the 9-5, there is a console bulging up between the plush leather buckets. So the ignition is positioned on the “floor,” but the floor is a foot closer to your hand. So, yes, it meets the recollection of Saab zealots, but you have to grope for it at half-extended reach.
The base price of $40,000 and an as-tested tag of just over that, puts the 9-5 Aero up there with some serious all-weather sedans such as the Audi A6 and the Volvo S80. That’s steep company.
The biggest drawbacks are because of my feeling about Saab’s foul-weather tradition. Take the windshield wipers, which cleared the windshield perfectly if it was warm, but left large patches of untouched glass when it got cold. Guess what? Often, when it snows and you need wipers, it’s cold.
As for the hard tires, I had to switch the Aero in and out of its “W” (for winter) setting by pushbutton and work at it to back out of my own driveway after a 3-inch snowfall. And my driveway is so close to level you’d hardly detect a slope. So driving on an icy road was more slithering, and attempts to brake for a stop sign led to some serious chattering of the antilock braking system, and starting up automatically had your “TCS” (for traction-control system) light flashing madly at you from the tachometer.
For a car that is a traditional world-class winter driver, Saab needs to pay more attention to more cold-weather testing. And quit shipping cars you hope to sell to folks in California, Arizona and Florida to Minnesota in February.
Rise in gas prices could bring small car resurgence
[[[[CUTLINES:
#1/ Volkswagen’s New Beetle is economical and efficient even if it doesn’t have experimental alternative-energy power, although it can’t match the miles-per-gallon of a fast sled-dog team.
#2/ Ford chairman William Clay Ford Jr. and CEO Jac Nasser showed off the new “Th!nk” brand of the company’s alternative-energy restricted-use vehicles.
#3/ General Motors vice chairman Harry Pearce showed off his company’s new 80-100 mile-per-gallon concept vehicles which, at this point, are strictly far-off concepts. ]]]]]]
Do you remember where you were that day, when gasoline prices suddenly shot up to $1.50?
I was running around to several different locations in Duluth that day, and I had neglected to fill up at one of several inexpensive stations in town that I generally visit. No problem, because I had a quarter of a tank left, and even though it was cold, it was not extreme enough where keeping the tank full would be a priority.
So I swung into a station, but as I approached the pump, I saw the price board: “$1.49.9” Can’t be, I thought. So I drove right on back out and stopped, casually, at another station. Same price. Pretty soon, it had become a battle. I drove past several stations to get to one that I always have depended on to be among the least expensive in town, and that, too, was $1.49 for regular.
So I broke down and filled the tank for that price, because I was getting low enough to be concerned. A friend said that she simply couldn’t pay that amount, and was only putting in $10 worth every time she needed gas. Trouble is, at those prices, $10 gets you just over a half tank.
It just show how spoiled we had become. We got so used to prices fluctuating, gently, between $1.19 and $1.30, that we had taken for granted that fuel prices would always be reasonable, and they might even go down from there.
Meanwhile, another friend of mine was discussing how much she liked her new, huge, SUV, and that evidence of that was when she recently backed out of a parking spot and drove away, only to return later and find an agitated fellow who stopped her and said she had mashed his car when she backed up into it, before driving away. She apologized, and told me she hadn’t even heard or felt anything, even though she caved in this fellow’s car. Her overview of the situation was how glad she was she had such a huge vehicle, because the incident made her realize how fortress-safe she was.
Is this where we’ve gotten? Has our quest for security gotten to the point that we measure our safety by how little we feel it when we crush a smaller, normal-sized car? And what happens if there are some little kids in that normal-sized car who get injured by the unfeeling truck?
Those two scenarios entered my consciousness the same day, and they’re related. Maybe those of us who don’t need huge trucks, with their 11 miles per gallon, will realize that when gas prices get closer to $2, we might be better off if the pendulum of popularity swung back to strong-but-smaller cars, with 30 or more miles per gallon. Maybe it will take the chunk out of our budgets becoming painfully large, but it almost seems as if the OPEC decision to hold back our fuel supply to bolster prices coincides with the automotive industry’s timing in creating some smaller vehicles that might help us out.
I recently had the chance to drive a Volkswagen New Beetle, a 2000-year model with foglights and some fancy upgrades, which was wearing a radioactive green paint job that resembled a lime that had been left too long in a microwave.
The New Beetle has been a whopping success, joining the flashy new Jetta in sparking Volkswagen to a 44 percent increase in sales in 1999 over 1998. Over 260,000 New Beetles have been sold in less than two years since it was introduced., and the reasonable prices of Volkswagens have seen it command over 26 percent of the market in Mexico, where one of Volkswagen’s most successful new plants is located. The Puebla plant built a record 410,000 cars in the last year.
While the New Beetle has been a breakthrough of reasonable/retro, it also has spurred other companies to go the same direction. The new Ford Focus, and the Toyota Echo, are prime examples of a trend toward under-$15,000 cars that might return our consumerism to normalcy. And the fact they can achieve well over 30 miles per gallon is perfect timing.
NEW ANSWERS
There are other indications that the industry is going to provide real-world answers to the challenges of economy, ecology and suddenly-surging gasoline prices.
On the current auto show circuit, executives from Ford and General Motors have unveiled huge displays to promote their plans for the near-future (we can hope). They include some concept cars, and some alternative-fuel vehicles that could unlock the mysteries of efficient transportation in a country that has been positively gluttonous in reckless consumption of gasoline. Chrysler Corporation, or, more accurately DaimlerChrysler, has more recently joined the battle with a similar alternative-energy vehicle of its own.
Ford Motor Company has organized its worldwide tentacles into a new global brand it has named “Th!nk,” with an exclamation point instead of an “i” in the middle. Clever, those Ford folks. The Th!n k brand was unveiled a month ago at Detroit’s International Auto Show, and it was quickly pointed out that Ford is unique in dedicating an entire brand to building “e”vironmentally responsible products,” including electric power and fuel cell/electric technology.
There will be a Th!nk Neighbor, a low-speed vehicle for personal mobility, and Th!nk Fun and Traveler, a pair of electric bicycles, at one end of the scale, and a Th!nk City.
The Neighbor is electric-powered and looks more like a golf cart. It is, in fact, designed for golf courses, private roads, industrial sites and closed communities or resorts. It comes in either two-seat or four-seat design and is built to meet U.S. government standards for low-speed vehicles. As if we had any idea there WERE government standards for low-speed vehicles. It will be available in the U.S. by the end of the year.
The Traveler bikes have electric motor assistance when the rider needs added power. The Fun is fixed frame, and the Traveler has a folding frame, to stow in your trunk.
The Th!nk City is an innovative battery-powered electric urban car that already is being sold in Norway, and will be available through the rest of Scandinavia later this year. It is a two-seat vehicle built of recyclable thermoplastic with a driving range of 55 miles before recharging is necessary.
Th!nk Technology is a branch of the new brand that will be responsible for fuel cell power, which is one of the more promising alternatives to the good-ol’ internal combustion engine. The fuel cells make electric power and the only waste material is harmless water.
Ford also has the Prodigy out as a concept vehicle, and it looks far more realistic, like a futuristic Taurus, or maybe more like a Volkswagen Passat. The Prodigy has a 1.2-liter Ford diesel which is combined with an electric motor system. It delivers 80 miles per gallon. And the Prodigy is a separate vehicle — apparently done without Th!nking.
GM’S PLANS
General Motors vice chairman Harry Pearce put the Precept on display at Detroit, and later at other big shows around the country. It is a concept car powered by a combination turbo-diesel and electric battery pack. The front wheels are driven by an electric engine that launches the vehicle and aids the braking, while the rear is driven by an Isuzu direct-injection diesel engine, combined through a unit that charges the battery pack for the front and provides cooling and braking coordination.
General Motors also has a new concept in addition to that one, which is a Precept powered by a fuel-cell which he called a ninth generation fuel stack. In that motor, hydrogen is captured in a chemical hydride, and while it creates electric energy, its only byproduct is water.
Pearce boasts that prototypes can go 0-60 in 9 seconds, with a top speed of 120 miles per hour and “lab data” indicates it might get 108 miles per gallon.
“It’s a step in the long journey we see for automobiles, to take the auto out of the energy-efficiency debate,” said Pearce. “It potentially has zero emissions, with the only byproducts heat and water.
“We believe we can ride the price curve down, and we want to be there first.”
At that, GM will have to keep working because competitors already have similar cars out on the market, most notably Honda, with the Insight hybrid, and Toyota, which is coming out with its Prius.
But at least these concepts show Ford and GM are thinking and working on something other than just the next biggest SUV with 11 miles per gallon. And as the gas prices of $1.50 for regular become not only commonplace, but acceptable, we as consumers would be smart to at least consider buying, if not demanding, reasonable alternatives for everyday driving.
Meanwhile, the New Beetle, and other new and smaller competitors are out there, at reasonable prices and delivering the kind of fuel economy that at least means you won’t have to stop and pay those exorbitant prices as often.
Redesigned Taurus ready to challenge for sedan supremacy
[[[CUTLINES:
#1/ The redesigned 2000 Ford Taurus has a more sharply-chiseled look to the front and a more contoured sleekness in silhouette.
#2/ The rear has an aerodynamic appearance to the concave trunklid, and the sharply defined taillights.
#3/ Even on the inside, the instruments and switches are straightforward, leaving behind the dreaded “ovoid” look that wore out its welcome on the previous model. ]]]]]]
When Ford decided to redesign the Taurus for 2000, it wasn’t just another attempt to make just another pretty face.
For a decade or so, Taurus WAS Ford Motor Company, providing the largest-selling sedan in the U.S., and therefore the world, and giving Ford a primary challenger for marketplace supremacy to go along with the hugely successful F150 and Ranger pickups, and the Explorer and later SUV additions.
The look of the original Taurus was a U.S. breakthrough in aerodynamics, even if it was a pretty obvious copy of some European sedans such as the big Audi of that era. After its first major redesign, the Taurus retained its popularity, but U.S.-built Honda Accord and Toyota Camry bypassed it in the three-way race for No. 1.
So this is the major league team making a big trade to get the big slugger who can regain the pennant. The all-new Taurus has gotten more sophisticated in design, even while it has become more mainstream in appeal, a pretty good combination. It’s good, but whether it is good enough to unseat Accord, or the more recent No. 1, Camry, will take awhile to prove.
Overall, I like the new look. More of a dart-shaped nose, a sharper wedge to the slope of the hood, much more clearly defined angular lines to the headlights, and a sleeker, and sharper silhouette, accented with a large concave curve along the upper ridge of the body. I particularly like the view of the rear, which also has more sharply cut lines to the taillights, and with a concave rear where the trunklid meets the bumper that looks aerodynamic from any angle.
If there’s something missing, an abrupt departure from the previous Taurus, it is the dreaded oval shape that was repeated everywhere in the design of the predecessor — headlights, grille, windshield, rear window, taillights. But the most appealing departure is that the interior is justÂ…well, simple. It was the interior where the ovals, which Ford promoted widely as the ovoid look, was most pronounced and therefore most tiresome. I mean, you might like your car enough to stand outside it or walk around it and just gaze at it, but if you’re normal, you spend most of your car-time inside it, driving places.
The seats in the test car, a loaded SE, were covered with dark grey leather, soft and supple to feel, and with good support in the cushion and backrest. The steering wheel has a good, firm feel to it, with the familiar cruise-control switches for on-off on the left and set-resume on the right. And the instrument panel is just straightforward, round gauges for fuel, speed, tachometer and temperature. The center dash area is also simple, tapering from wide at the top to narrower at the bottom, with audio controls for the radio, cassette and vertical-in-the-console 6-disc changer above, and heat-air below.
That makes sense, since most of us change stations and tune the radio more than we adjust the temperature, especially when there is a good automatic climate-control setting. However, as much simplified as everything is, I would prefer more ergonomic study, as well as maybe a psychological study to see why designers feel the need to make the symmetry of several tiny identical buttons more important than easily discernible controls.
The floor-mounted gear lever for the 4-speed automatic is simple too. In fact, a bit too simple. Nowadays, almost every manufacturer gives you the chance to manually shift their automatics. Many give you a separate gate, such as Chrysler’s AutoStick, to ease that option, but most at least give you four separate slots to shift to, or a button to disengage the overdrive. With the Taurus, you get 1, D and D with a circle around it, for overdrive. That’s OK, because once used to it you can shift to normal “D,” but it still looks more like the indicator choices I recall from a friend’s 1951 Ford than for a new-age, high-tech car.
UNDER THE HOOD
Once you open the hood, however, you are talking strictly high-tech. The test car came equipped with the Duratec V6, which is Ford’s 3.0-liter V6 with dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder. That engine is complete evidence of why companies — most companies, that is — have changed over completely from pushrod design to overhead cams. The higher-revving capabilities and the mechanical design itself allow greater flexibility in gaining maximum power at high revs, refining it for strong punch off the line, and for optimum efficiency and fuel economy.
If you compare, in fact, you might note that in a competing Chevrolet Impala, where the top engine you can get is the 35-year-old pushrod 3.8-liter V6, it delivers a maximum of 200 horsepower at 5,200 RPMs. The Taurus Duratec churns out the same 200 horsepower at a higher-revving 5,750 RPMs, and that’s with almost a full liter less in displacement, 3.0 to 3.8. True, the Duratec doesn’t quite have the torque of the 3.8 GM engine, with 200 foot-pounds to the Chevy’s 225, but while torque is an important number for calculating low-end pulling power, you won’t complain about the launchability of the Taurus.
In fact, Ford has set up the gearing of the machine so that you have to be sure to ease away from stoplights or parking spaces to avoid lurching forward with neck-snapping force.
The door has the familiar four buttons for the power windows on the front edge of the door armrest, and where the door angles to meet the front pillar, the power mirror and door lock switches are mounted separately. There is a switch to disengage the traction-control, located in a see-if-you-can-find-me spot on the flat part of the molding below the instrument panel, to the right of the steering wheel.
One neat thing Ford started on the Navigator SUV is adjustable pedals. Everyone has adjustable seats, and most have adjustable steering wheels, but Ford has now adapted the adjustable pedals. If you have short arms, for example, you can move the seat close enough to find the perfect range for the steering wheel, and if that moves you too close to the pedals, you can move them forward to find optimum comfort.
As neat as that is, the switch to control it is on the left side of the seat cushion. Just ahead of it you have the power control to raise, lower and tilt the seat cushion, and just behind it you have the manual arm to adjust the rake of the seatback, so I found the adjustable pedals while thinking I was fiddling with some seat adjustment, and was surprised to feel the pedals moving away from me. Ergonomics, again.
DRUMBEAT TECHNOLOGY
The Taurus stresses safety, and has some impressive elements to back that up. Dual-stage airbags that regulate the urgency of the airbag deployment depending on the force of the impact, and seatbelt pretensioners, plus side airbags, along with the more rigid, tight-feeling body and chassis design, all aid in crash-survival.
Ford also trumpets the four-wheel, antilock brakes, but it is less bold in pointing out that the Taurus SE does not have four-wheel disc brakes. It has front discs and rear drums. That’s the way cars were in the 1970s, and as technology rose, they went to four-wheel disc brakes because, simply, they are better. More efficient. Stop you in a shorter distance and with less tendency to fade. So register that as a surprise on the new Taurus, and while the difference in stopping distance might be unnoticeable to the average driver, I’ll bet if you compare statistics you’ll find the new one might take a tad longer to bring to a halt.
As for other nitpicks, I got 23 miles per gallon, but I accelerated hard — purely for test purposes, you understand — even though I anticipated getting around 30, or even the EPA estimated 28 highway. Turns out, even in this day of technology, fuel gauges can be misleading. The Taurus was still at half a tank when I had gone 185 miles, making me realize that even getting close to twice that would be over 350 miles on the full tank. Next thing I knew, the gauge needle was surprisingly close to “E.” Then the little fuel-pump icon lit up, and I pulled into a gas station running on the final fumes. The trip odometer read 257. So you can go 185 on the top half of the gauge, but don’t expect to even get 100 miles once the gauge drops to half.
Could that be on purpose? Car-makers claim consumers don’t care about fuel economy these days, so maybe the intent is to give you a lot of miles on the top half so you’ll go to work and rave about how you must be getting great mileage with the new Taurus. If you feel like you’re getting good mileage, that’s good.
At a base price of $20,895, the Taurus SE is a lot of car for the. But on the SE option list, adding a moonroof, traction-control, adjustable pedals and side-impact airbags, and leather seating boosts the sticker to $25,045. That’s not bad, either, but somewhere on that option list I’d like to find four-wheel discs, foglights and a sportier shifter. Especially if I were to compare it to the Accord or Camry.
Mazda revises 626, MPV for 2000 model run
[[[cutlines…
#1/ The Mazda 626 has grown up through the years, both in increased room and in sophistication as a serious challenger to
Honda Accord and Toyota Camry.
#2/ The sculptured rear look of the 626 is contoured to set its styling apart from a lot of “cookie cutter” lookalikes.
#3/ The MPV used to be as square as a breadbox, with rear-wheel drive; the all-new one is more van-like, with front-wheel drive.
#4/ Sometimes gadgetry gets in the way of ergonomics, as in the case of the column shift-lever, which blocks the view of the radio controls.
The Honda Accord and Toyota Camry are the top two automobiles purchased by consumers these days, and they seem to hold that claim despite some aggressive and excellent competitors. One of those competitors is the Mazda 626, which has been around since the start of the intermediate size market segment.
The Dodge Caravan continues to control the majority of the market for minivans, which aren’t so mini anymore, in case you haven’t noticed. There have been numerous challengers to that hold, including the Ford Windstar, Nissan Quest, Mercury Villager, the General Motors candidates from Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Pontiac, and the Honda Oddyssy. The Mazda MPV was never a challenger in that company, but Mazda has redesigned the entire MPV and has high hopes the new one will be more mainstream and yet still different enough to capture a larger share of the minivan segment.
I recently had the chance to test both the 2000 models of both those vehicles, and I found the 626 came through with dazzling success, while the MPV is vastly improved, but could use some more refining.
626 ES-V6 SEDAN
It was way back in 1979 that thre 626 first came to the United States, and it was a front-engine/rear-drive sedan or coupe in those days. It went to front-wheel-drive in 1983, and was a popular car through 1988, when Mazda opened a plant in Flat Rock, Mich., in which to build cars. In 1992, with Ford’s investment as part-owner, the plant became known as AutoAlliance International, and the 626 evolved to have over 75 percent domestic content, and a year later it became known as the first import-named car that was classified as a domestic.
It was 1998 when the most recent, fifth-generation 626 came out, and by then, the category had evolved into the most logical and most competitive segment of the marketplace — intermediate sized sedans that are big enough to haul four or five adults, and yet small enough to be economically efficient, and with agile maneuverability. With vehicles such as the Accord, Camry, Taurus, Lumina, Altima, Maxima, Legacy, Galant, Passat, Jetta, Stratus, etc., various manufacturers tried various ideas to carve niches in that segment. Some are more successful than others, and each has its following.
The 626 has always had some significant attributes, but it also has been one of the mysteries of the auto industry. Whether it was poor marketing, or being caught in between corporate planning as Ford increased its partnership, the 626 was always outsold by the Accord and Camry, although, feature-for-feature, it matches up very well with those best-sellers, and outdoes them in several aspects.
During the last makeover, Mazda, which has the larger and more luxurious Millenia and the smaller and hot-selling Protege, restyled the 626 until it more resembles the Millenia than the old 626. For 2000, some small-scale upgrades have fine-tuned the look. The test car was a darker grey than the more silvery color most companies use, and it has lighter grey leather seats. Larger headlights are styled to almost connect with what Mazda calls its “distinctive five-point grille,” which means it is a rectangle with the bottom flat surface pulled down to a fifth corner.
Distinctive? The five-point shape is virtually identical to the Accord, Camry, Acura 3.2 TL, and close to the Altima, Maxima, Galant and Subaru grille openings. Apparently some of the California design-studio guys must hang out at the same places.
The rear has been sculptured more, too, and while the car is attractive overall, those changes don’t necessarily improve the look in my opinion, and they aren’t significant in setting the 626 apart as much as they are in making it look more similar to some of its competitors. That may have been the intent, but the 626 retains some identifying differences, too.
The 626 comes four ways, as an LX and LX-V6, or as a top-end ES or ES-V6, with the difference being obvious. The ES has various upgrades in features, and both models either get a strong, 2.0-liter dual-overhead-camshaft four-cylinder or a stronger V6 that is only 2.5 liters but also has dual overhead cams and four-valve technology and kicks out 170 horsepower instead of the four’s 130.
The ES-V6 that I test-drove is the top of the top-of-the-line, with the leather that covers the comfortable front bucket seats and the very large rear bench seat, which provides the most rear seat room in its class. It has 16-inch alloy wheels, instead of the 15s on all other models. With 97.1 cubic feet of interior room, and a 14.2 cubic foot trunk, the 626 is at the top of the class.
It also had the standard 5-speed manual transmission, which Mazda always has offered and which also retains its sporty flavor. You can get 5-speed manuals in other cars in the class, although not in the Taurus or Lumina, and it clearly makes the comparatively small engines deliver the maximum driving pleasure.
The most significant change might be in stiffening the chassis, which is 24.4 percent stiffer than its predecessor, with front and rear suspension towers strengthened to also increase stiffness. Once sufficiently stiff, a platform’s handling can be made much more precise through the suspension tricks, and Mazda revised the suspension to improve steering and cornering, to keep the fun quotient high, as it always has been in the 626. With the right engineering, firmer suspension can also be made more comfortable, and refined steering gear and stronger stabililzer bars front and rear helps accomplish both ends of that challenge.
From a driving perspective, the seat adjustments are curious. You can move the seat cushion up, down, tilted and fore and aft by a power switch, and you can move the backrest rake by a manual lever, but there is no switch to increase the lower-back bolstering. However, I found that by moving the seat cushion around, you can alter where your back meets the backrest and get the proper feel.
I thought the restyling caused the hood to be a bit longer, and while not obtrusive, it is in your line of vision more than the preceding model, which afforded a bit more downward visibility out the front.
Safety touches included dual airbags that are depowered so as not to blow you aways with full force on a moderate impact, andyou can get side airbags that come out of the upper seat back. Optional antilock brakes and traction control round out the total package.
The base price of the 626 ES-V6 is $22,445, but it comes pretty loaded, with such features as four-wheel disc brakes and a powerful Bose audio system, power moonroof, cruise control and remote trunk and fuel door switches standard. The test car added dual side airbags, antilock brakes and traction control, plus a 6-disc changer in the dash, where you feed discs in one at a time and they are stowed, without having to deal with those goofy little plastic trays.
That raises the price to $24,070, but that still is not bad for all that the car delivers. It also maintains one of my favorite Mazda features, which has never been copied by competitors, and that is the “swing” vent on the center dash panel. Push a button, and the air or heat is sent swaying back and forth with the vent oscillating to help move the air.
MPV VAN
Mazda first tried to be different when it brought out the MPV in the 1989 model year. Chrysler owned the minivan market, so having something different might have worked. The original MPV was, however, as square as a breadbox, and while it seemed intriguing, it was, basically, a breadbox on wheels. Worse yet, for Up North buyers, it was front-engine/rear-drive, which meant that it was square, but it could become a spinning square if you made the wrong move on ice. Mazda countered by offering four-wheel-drive, which helped immeasurably.
But it still was a breadbox, and with a third row of seats offered, you could choose whether you wanted to haul extra people or luggage, but there simply wasn’t room enough for both.
For 2000, the MPV has, indeed, capitulated to the expanding minivan movement. Sure, SUV owners buy trendy SUVs because they say they don’t want the same-old minivan, but minivans make a lot more sense from the standpoint of simply hauling people, because you can get them with economical performance. Some may have scoffed at that before gasoline went to $1.55, but now that it’s headed toward $2, the scoffing may go away.
The problem Mazda faces is that just about every imaginable feature and option and trick has been done on minivans, mostly by Chrysler Corporation, which sells 40 percent of all minivans, but more recently by Ford and General Motors. Most recently, the two biggest new challengers for minivan market share might be the Toyota Sienna and the Honda Oddyssy, both of which have lively, overhead-cam engines and are packed with features.
The MPV has a comparatively small 2.5-liter V6, with dual overhead-cams and 170 horsepower. That’s enough to get it up there and stay up at highway speed with mileage estimates of 21 city and 27 highway — try that with your SUV — although the little engine downshifts liberally when you want instant power. It does have front-wheel-drive now, which is a requisite in Up North winters.
Built on an all-new platform, the MPV no longer is a breadbox on wheels, and no longer is it, arguably, the ugliest of ducklings. It now is a stylish, well-fortified, front-wheel-drive minivan. It has four sliding side doors, capitalizing on the latest trend. These sliding side doors also have power windows, which is one-up on the competition.
The seating arrangement also copies the best from the competitors. The second-row buckets can be shifted in what Mazda calls “slide-by-side,” which means you can put the buckets together, or separate, or take them out. And the rear bench seat copies one of the Oddyssy’s unique features. It can be tmbled flat into the floor, and it also can be flipped over to face the rear. The configuration also gives the MPV a lot of stowage space behind the seats, when they’re all upright and in use, and Mazda has put in enough cupholders to outnumber occupants. By being last to the aging minivan show, at least Mazda chose its features wisely to incorporate some of the best.
The MPV also copies the Nissan Quest (and Mercury Villager) and some others by putting the gear lever on the steering column. Mazda needs to go back to Honda to study ergonomics a little better. When you put the shift lever in drive, it sticks out horizontally just right so the driver can’t see the left half of the audio controls. That’s OK if you memorize them by feel, or if you just use the “4-5-6” settings for the radio, and don’t want to adjust the CD changer, but it’s simply not necessary from a design standpoint. You don’t want to give the driver distractions.
The base price of the MPV is $25,550, with the 180-watt, 9-speaker audio system, front and rear air conditioning, leather 7-passenger seating, power windows and all the sliding doors standard. Adding the in-dash 6-disc changer to the mix, plus the power moonroof and the four-seasons package with larger windshield washer tdank, an oil cooler, larger radiator, hevier battery and rear defogger and an additional cooling fan, boosts it to $27,730.
Not bad, for all you get. The new MPV is vastly superior to the old one, as it transcends from being a square breadbox to a sleek, front-wheel-drive breadbox. If it needs a bit more ergonomic refinement, and if a bit more power will help it be less buffetted when passing a semi, I’m sure Mazda will be quick to refine it. But it’s a very competitive marketplace, and time will tell if there is still time to cut in for someone coming late to the minivan party.
Chrysler cruises into unique niche with 2001 PT Cruiser
[[[cutlines:
1/ The tailgate tray of the new Chrysler PT Cruiser aids the beach party setting at Del Mar, Calif., near San Diego.
2/ The PT Cruiser is shorter than a compact car but with nearly as much interior room as a minivan or SUV, and it is priced from $16,000-$20,000.
3/ A youthful Bryan Nesbitt described his role as chief designer of the PT Cruiser, which has a unique future/retro style and versatility to satisfy families that can afford only one car.
4/ Seating for five is comfortable, easy to access through wide-opening doors, and can be altered 26 different fold-down, tilt-up and removable alternatives. ]]]]]]]]]
Despite having seen it at auto shows and written about it, the Chrysler PT Cruiser still represented fantasyland. Until this week. Now I have driven the PT Cruiser. It not only is real, it is real-world — a mainstream vehicle that touches all the bases for a society that wants cars, trucks and/or multi-purpose vehicles.
* Here’s what the PT Cruiser is: family-oriented with roomy comfort for five; government-agency categorized as a car, a truck and/or a multi-purpose vehicle; several inches shorter than a Dodge Neon, Honda Civic or Ford Focus, but with far more interior space than any of those; certain to stop traffic and gather a crowd with a uniquely combined retro and futuristic look; capable of plenty of performance while delivering over 25 miles per gallon; and, best of all, it costs $16,000 in base form,$20,000 in the loaded-up, top-of-the-line version.
* Here’s what the PT Cruiser ISN’T: It is not a retro-hot-rod, although some think it resembles one. It is not a race car but enormous after-market attention is anticipated, and a possible GT version is already in concept form. It is not a Neon, nor does it share any major components, including chassis platform panels. It is not a minivan or an SUV, but it offers all the versatility of those vehicles except brute-strength towing capability, at a fraction of the expense.
Because it is compared to the Neon in size, and Chrysler started out hoping to use the basic Neon components, the assumption is that they share platforms, but as the project evolved, fewer and fewer parts were shared until the Cruiser wound up with a unique platform, rigidly reinforced and with a patented rear suspension system. The front suspension architecture is the same as Neon’s, but even that has been built of different, higher grade materials. About the only thing the Cruiser shares with Neon is a bagfull of fasteners and switchgear.
The Cruiser will be built at DaimlerChrysler’s plant in Toluca, Mexico, which can make a maximum of 185,000 vehicles a year. It will be officially launched in about a month, and it will be exported in both left and right side steering wheel configuration to 40 countries.
If that all sounds like expecting too much from one vehicle, there’s more. The PT Cruiser joins a tiny segment of the market capable of evoking a passionate response from everybody, love or hate. The Volkswagen New Beetle is one of those, the new Audi TT Coupe is another,maybe even the new Ford Focus. The trait is the ability to draw emotional reactions from the mainstream, without ever being mainstream.
In addition, while it may be pure good luck, the Cruiser comes out with good fuel economy potential just as gasoline prices rise to disturbing levels. The “don’t-care” attitude about 11-mpg SUVs changes quickly when it costs $40 to fill a tank. By coincidence, during the introduction in San Diego, gasoline prices went over $2, hitting $2.03 for premium and $1.99 for regular. It’s coming our way, so Chrysler’s timing couldn’t be more perfect.
As the 2001 model year arrives, we will be encountering dozens of fabulous vehicles, but right now, I’d bet the farm that next January, we will be calling the PT Cruiser the 2001 International car of the year.
DIFFERENT BY DESIGN
If you’ve seen it, even in pictures, your reaction might be: “What the heck is it?” Imagine a minivan combined with a Prowler. Impossible? Not when you’ve checked out the PT Cruiser, with a Prowler-inspired nose and the square-back room and utility of a minivan.
The National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration is also confused. The Cruiser has the exterior length of a compact car, but 120.2 cubic feet of interior room, which is in the big-car category. It is classified as a car for emissions rules, as a multipurpose vehicle for safety, and as a truck for corporate average fuel economy. It works as a truck because all the seats can go down or be pulled to create a flat surface, and Chrysler can smile because its cars are well within the EPA car limit, so classifying the Cruiser as a truck for CAFE allows it to be combined with the big-engined pickups to give more leeway to less efficient gas-mileage engines.
Chrysler set up camp in San Diego and is bringing in waves of international automotive journalists for the introductory test-drive. It was the perfect location at which to prove the Cruiser fits in perfectly on the beach, on the freeway, in city or residential traffic, or on nearby twisty mountain roads.
Chrysler, more than any other manufacturer, brings its fantasies to life. This one began life by evolving from three concept cars, the Expresso to the Pronto and then to something called the PT Cruizer — with a “z.” That Cruizer dazzled everybody when it was first displayed a year ago at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit two years ago. Designer Bryan Nesbitt, who may be 30 but looks younger than that, was given the challenge.
“Chrysler is always looking at ways to bring out cars that are different, that might appeal to emotions,” said Nesbitt. “We call the Cruiser the duffel-bag concept, because it can become anything you want it to be. When I was designing this, there was no reason for car-buyers in this country to aspire to a smaller vehicle; bigger was better because gas was cheap, and there is a lot of great stuff out there, like huge SUVs, big garages, huge houses. Driving a small car meant you were obviously aspiring to something else. That’s ridiculous. A consumer should be able to get some style and passion in a reasonably sized vehicle for a reasonable price.
“My first sketches were decidedly hot-rod,” said Nesbitt, acknowledging that the finished product will appeal to those who like hot rods and street rods, but it has been defined into something far beyond that.
Nesbitt’s design wound up creating a vehicle that is small in length only. Because it is taller, he designed the seats for a higher view outward, and that created the benefit of sitting more upright, particularly when compared to the lay-down approach of sports cars such as the Viper or Corvette. That allowed the legs of all occupants to be more vertical than horizontal also, and they could be given more comfort room in less space.
Sure enough, the Cruiser will seat five in roomy comfort with all the seats in place, or 4-3-2 or 1 as you fold the seats into various of 26 configurations. The rear bench folds forward perfectly flat, rotates forward from there into a vertical position for hauling long things, or can be popped out, all in 65-35 proportions.
“If you could only have one vehicle, a hatchback is the smartest way to package the most versatility into it,” Nesbitt said. “The stance of the vehicle also was very important because it communicates the attitude of the car. The stance of the PT Cruiser is sort of like a bulldog, because there is very little overhang, so you have a long, stable stance, even though it is tall.
“When we were finished, we hadn’t compromised function to fashion, or fashion to function.”
COOL, MORE THAN HOT
Chrysler prefers “heritage” to retro, but because of the 40s-style retro street-rod influence, I anticipated the car would be a little harsh and pretty hot. It is neither.
It is powered by a 2.4-liter engine, a contemporary Chrysler motor that began life for use as the base four-cylinder in the Stratus, Cirrus and minivans about five years ago. In PT Cruiser form, it has dual-overhead camshafts with four valves per cylinder, and it produces 150 horsepower at 5,500 RPMs and 162 foot-pounds of torque at 4,000 revs. It has two counter-balancing shafts that spin opposite of the crankshaft to neutralize the harmonic vibration common to all in-line fours.
Now, I love fast cars that accelerate like dragsters and corner like Formula 1 cars, and I would gladly compromise cushioned comfort for the sake of such handling. But there are people buying cars who are at the other end of the scale, too, wanting a softer, cushioned ride and don’t care about precise handling. The majority of consumers is somewhere between the two extremes, and that is precisely where the PT Cruiser is parked.
The Cruiser frame is rigid enough to focus on safety, and allows great potential for firm, stiff handling, but the suspension is compliant enough to be comfortable. The tallish body leans a bit on hard cornering, but not much, so handling is very good without compromising comfort. The front suspension has a stabilizer bar for support and the rear has two stabilizer bars linked in unique enough fashion that Chrysler patented it.
The engine has good power, and while I was first disappointed there wasn’t more mid-range punch with the 5-speed manual downshifted to third, it was still adequate. The 4-speed automatic, meanwhile, felt snappier in some situations because a hard stomp on the gas produced a kickdown to second gear for passing. No AutoStick is available because Chrysler only offers that on cars that don’t offer 5-speeds, but the AutoStick might be the perfect compromise for the Cruiser.
If it is not as hot as I expected, it is still, as they say, way cool. I predict after-market tuners are going to go bananas with stiffer suspension parts and hotter-engine upgrades, and Chrysler can sit back, and take note, and possibly even incorporate some of the better ideas for a GT Cruiser version in a year or two. There already is a concept GT Cruiser making the rounds of auto shows, although Chrysler executives won’t say anything about its chances of being produced.
Seated tall in the driver’s seat, you get the same commanding view of the road as SUV, pickup truck or minivan drivers. The seats are comfortable, and when I suggested they could use more lumbar support, a Chrysler factory guy said a manual lumbar adjustment is coming in late summer. Safety is enhanced by the reinforced floor panels, oversized brakes with optional 4-wheel discs, antilock and traction control, and airbags that include optional side-protection airbags.
Rear seat comfort is good, and there is quite a bit of storage space behind the back seat, with a neat horizontal tray that can serve to prevent stowed stuff from being seen from the outside, or can be raised and bolstered to hold 100 pounds of food at the tailgate party, or clicked in as a lower table.
Ergonomics are good, although I didn’t like the power window switches high in the middle of the center panel rather than on the doors, but that’s something an owner would get used to in about 10 minutes. Less easy to accept are the rear power window switches, located behind the center console where a driver needs some contortions to reach them, and impossible to miss for the flailing feet of young kids in the back seat.
THE PUBLIC VIEW
Chrysler global brand executive Jay Kuhnie said: “There really isn’t a demographic profile for this car.” Our one-day experiences verified that. We got gawks from passers-by and pedestrians, and questions from everybody who could get close enough to be heard.
Cruising (so to speak) on the San Diego freeway, we got repeated waves and thumbs-up signals from drivers probably more accustomed to different hand gestures in traffic. A few blocks after exiting, I noticed in my rearview mirror a car zigzagging through traffic to catch us. It was someone in a New Beetle — the car the public has surrounded to ask about for the last two years — trying to overtake us to get a closer look.
After driving over some mountain roads, we pulled up to shoot photos along the Pacific Ocean as three kids hauling surfboard stuff to the parking lot paused to ask about the car. We explained what it was, then asked them what they thought about it. The youngest of the three, probably 10 or 12, said the thing he liked best about the PT Cruiser was: “It looks so futuristic.”
There you have it. Folks over-40 will like it for being retro, 20-40 types will like it for being uniquely versatile, teenagers will love it for being cool, and younger kids — for whom retro might be last year’s top 10 tunes — like it because it’s futuristic.
The PT Cruiser fits every niche.
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.
For those who want to keep up with John Gilbert's view of sports, mainly hockey with a Minnesota slant, click on the following:
Click here for sports