Timing of Escape SUV introduction couldn’t be better for Ford
My first feeling, after being exposed to the Ford Escape, was that it was a pert, functional, compact sport-utility vehicle. With front-wheel drive or four-wheel drive, and being smaller than an Explorer yet with the same interior capacity, and costing less, the Escape could take a mighty bite out of the Explorer’s marketplace.
Having driven one for a week recently, I feel even more convinced that, despite Ford executives’ assurances to the contrary, the Escape may meet more of the wants and requirements of the masses who have made the Explorer the top-selling SUV on the globe.
My feeling had nothing to do with the tidal wave of bad publicity about rollovers of Explorers, all of which might make Ford’s timing wonderful luck in bringing out an all-new sport-utility vehicle. Ford, of course, also will benefit from good timing in bringing out an entirely new, lower and more stable Explorer just after the first of the year.
There is some evidence that the Explorer problem, linked to Firestone tires, may be the tip of the SUV iceberg, which, when fully disclosed, might indicate an obvious but grossly overlooked fact: Medium to large SUVs are more top-heavy and therefore prone to serious and unpredictable handling problems when swerved.
Another contributing problem to SUV stability is that with front engines and rear drive, which usually involves four-wheel drive that functions only when switched on and not for highway cruising speeds, the steering is also lighter. That creates a situation where abrupt steering maneuvers are easy, but the vehicle doesn’t respond instantly, then, just about the time you turn the steering wheel more, it responds in a rush, and more than the driver anticipates. The top-heaviness of the SUV then sways, when the tires and suspension strain to answer the swerve, worsening the effect of the swift understeer-to-oversteer transition.
If an SUV was duplicated, but using front-wheel drive, there might still be some top swaying, but the steering response is far more instantaneous and, being the drive wheels, the front end is pulling the rest of the vehicle along, instead of the rear wheels trying to overtake the front.
The Honda CR-V has front-wheel drive that switches some of the power to the rear when the fronts spin. So it is no surprise that Ford set out to compete with the CR-V, Toyota RAV4 and Nissan Xterra when it chose to come out with a smaller, more compact SUV. The Escape meets those aims, with a price ranging from $18,000-$25,000, depending on how you equip it.
However, the path Ford took in coming up with the Escape is fascinating. Ford has the big SUV market covered, with the Explorer, the larger Expedition and the enormous Excursion. While smaller, less-expensive vehicles make far less profit-per-vehicle than the larger and more luxurious SUVs, the compact SUV segment is growing rapidly right now. About the time Ford was fiddling with preliminary designs, it found out that Mazda, a corporate partner now partially owned by Ford, was well along in the design of precisely the type of vehicle Ford was thinking about.
Since Mazda was well along in the design and planning for the new Tribute, Ford worked out a unique arrangement with Mazda. Using the Tribute basic design, Ford builds the Escape and Tribute at its Kansas City plant, while Mazda will build the right-hand drive versions of the vehicle for both companies in Japan. The body panels and styling of the two are markedly different, and the interior and suspension design also differs.
The Escape has a bold look to the front end, with a rectangular grille with upswept lines framed by a quite massive wraparound bumper, which houses lower foglights, underlines the headlights, and turns the corner to reach all the way back to the front wheelwells, which are outlined by more heavy, scratch and dent-proof stuff. From the side and the rear, there is a strong family resemblance to the Explorer, although, when you think about it, there is a certain boxiness to all SUVs that is pretty difficult to avoid.
There are some exciting features that the Escape brings to market. It has a unibody platform, which is a first for any Ford truck, straying from the normal body-on-frame design. The unibody gives the Escape an efficiency in design for packaging and roominess, and rigidity from a safety standpoint. The Escape also has four-wheel independent suspension, which also is a first for any Ford light truck.
The tight, cohesiveness of the unibody also has allowed Ford engineers to fiddle with the suspension, setting it more precisely for what it wants. Safety is built in, with reinforced front subframe, cross-member beams, side-door intrusion beams, and a large beam running from the doors to the front end. It also comes with front and side airbags.
The Escape has some of the capabilities and meets the tests required of a super-duty F250 pickup truck, and yet it also has the noise-vibration-harshness sensitivity of a car.
While the interior has, basically, the same volume as an Explorer, the Escape has a much lower step-in height. The test vehicle I drove had a neat little accessory, a tough-looking tubula “running board” that, for me, was useless. The Escape is so low that I can step into it easily, and a partial step onto that bar would only be useful if I was planning to hop onto the roof. It would, however, be useful for climbing up and securing something to the standard roofrack. Besides, it looks so darn good.
There is adequate room in the rear seat, which features a split-back fold-down arrangement where the single right seat folds down, and the double left-side seat operates independently. The 60/40 arrangement can be reclined or popped out, as well.
The tailgate swings up, although the glass opens separately. That’s handy, if confusing at first, because you can flip up the glass part only to put things in, or you can lift the whole thing for larger objects or for ease in removing them.
The performance of the Escape comes from two well-proven Ford engines. The base engine is a 2.0-liter Zetec 4-cylinder, with dual-overhead camshafts and 16 valves. It turns out 130 horsepower at 5,400 RPMs and has 135 foot-pounds of torque at 4,500. The test Escape came with the 3.0-liter V6, the Duratec engine that also has dual-overhead cams and four valves per cylinder. It produces 200 horsepower at 6,000 revs, and 200 foot-pounds of torque at 4,750.
The V6 gives the Escape the kind of acceleration and punch that far outdistances the other compact SUVs, although at a penalty. If you want to cruise swiftly on the freeway and drive it hard in town, you’ll be hard-pressed to reach 20 miles per gallon. Funny, though, that we can complain about 20 miles per gallon when many other SUVs struggle to reach 15.
The suspension has been tuned to be compliant, not harsh, and to accommodate buyers who will be pulling trailers. With a 3,500-pound tow package built-in, the Escape remains comfortable with a full load, and much attention was given to reducing road noise and vibration.
While the Ford engineers admit the Escape is softer riding and less sporty than the Mazda Tribute, the Escape is plenty firm in cornering. The aim is to be good on the road, with the capability of going off-road. While there is a switch on the instrument panel that will allow you to lock it into four-wheel drive, there is no low-range lock for serious off-roading.
However, 99 percent of the driving of 90 percent of SUV buyers never go off the road. And the Escape has the added benefit of being firm, stable and secure-feeling when on the road all the rest of that time.
[[[[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ Ford’s new Escape has an aggressive, uplifting front end but manages to maintain a family resemblance to Ford’s traditional larger SUVs.
2/ The Escape has 133.1 cubic feet of interior volume, 33 cubic feet for storage with the seats up, 64.8 with the rear seats folded flat.
3/ Escape’s frame shows off its unibody construction, safety cell design, and the side-impact beams to optimize safety.
4/ Efficient and ergonomic, the instrumentation and controls are all logical and within easy reach. ]]]]]]]]
Hyundai completes image makeover with impressive Santa Fe
A while back, we discussed a Hyundai XG300 sedan, and how that all-new near-luxury car could change forever the image of Hyundai in particular and Korean manufacturers in general. Now I’ve had the chance to test-drive a Hyundai Santa Fe, and I’m looking through all the fine print to make sure this is all-Hyundai, and not some sophisticated import, rebadged by Hyundai.
To say the least, the Santa Fe is impressive. And if the XG300 was a stride beyond the Hyundai Accent, Elantra, Tiburon and Sonata, then the Santa Fe is a giant leap beyond those comparatively mundane appliances.
Sport-utility vehicles tend to be boxes. You can adorn them however you wish, but you are still dealing with a box on wheels. Hyundai, however, has drawn up something close to Coke-bottle curves and designed the Santa Fe with that in mind.
At this late stage of the jump-into-the-SUV segment, Hyundai had the benefit of going to school on 50-some competitive brand names with SUVs that could scale Mount Everest, high-tail it to the North Pole, crash through the tangled off-road regions of Nairobi, or take a suburbanite to the shopping mall.
Hyundai decided to go for the masses. The Everest or Nairobi seekers are few and far-between, and 90 to 95 percent of the SUVs being gobbled up by U.S. consumers don’t venture farther off-road than a gravel driveway now and then. So the Santa Fe would start on a Sonata platform, which is a nice, midsize car. Since Honda based the CR-V on the Civic, and Toyota based the RAV4 on the Camry, that makes good sense.
The plan was to design a workable family wagon that could also scale the challenges of the worst foul-weather handling, and if you wanted to do a little hauling up to the cabin, fine.
Planted on a 103.1-inch wheelbase, the Santa Fe is 177.2-inches in overall length and 65.9 inches tall. That equates to 101 cubic feet of interior volume for passengers, plus 30 more cubic feet of cargo. That also puts the Santa Fe right there between the smallest CR-V and RAV4 types, and the mainstream Ford Explorers.
The inherent problems with building such a vehicle is power to weight. The Santa Fe comes in at 3,494 pounds, so Hyundai installed a 2.7-liter, dual overhead camshaft V6, producing 181 horsepower at 6,000 RPMs and 177 foot-pounds of torque at 4,000. It can be bought with a 2.4-liter 4-cylinder in 2-wheel drive form, but the serious customers will want the 4-wheel drive and the V6. That’s the way the test vehicle was equipped, and it had sufficient acceleration and performance, adequate though not approaching exciting. Still, it’s an SUV, not a hot rod.
Aiming the vehicle at the SUV-crazed U.S. market, Hyundai used its California design studio for input, and the result is a combination of utility and seating height and room, and the security of fulltime 4-wheel drive. A viscous coupling transmits power with 60 percent to the front and 40 percent to the rear
Hyundai put its 4-speed automatic into the Santa Fe and offers a sporty Shiftronic feature to allow clutchless manual gear changing. That’s a good feature for sporty cars, and might seem to be overdone on an SUV, but the Santa Fe doesn’t have a low-range lock for off-road driving, so the Shiftronic could be a useful feature there, as well as making normal driving more fun. While it might not be designed for rugged off-roading, it does have 8.1 inches of ground clearance.
Leather seats, antilock brakes, and electronic traction control are options, while such items as 16-inch alloy wheels, a roof rack, power windows, air conditioning, an AM-FM-CD audio and privacy glass are all standard. With all that, the Santa Fe costs about $23,000, which is remarkable considering all the features.
The most striking feature of the Santa Fe is the appearance. Hyundai has been guilty of going overboard on styling, with the Tiburon sports coupe featuring large hood scoops that are carved into the hood at weird diagonal angles, meaning they couldn’t possibly serve a function, and the company tends to paint plastic knobs for aluminum-look appearances. But that sort of thing seems to have been restrained on the Santa Fe.
The exterior is distinctive without being overly weird. The massive front bumper wraps under the grille and headlights and houses foglights, and the rear has a flip-up glass window in the tailgate. The steering wheel is comfortably chubby, good for gripping, and the gauges are simple and businesslike, while the audio and heat-air controls are straightforward instead of gimmicky.
Same with the performance. It handles smoothly and comfortably on the road, and while its weight means its strong little engine has to work, the performance is at least adequate, and fuel economy of about 22 miles per gallon — rated up to 28 highway only by the EPA — is exceptional.
[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The Hyundai Santa Fe is a visually striking new SUV, proving that it is possible to add meaningful curves to what is, essentially, a box on wheels.
2/ The Santa Fe also looks good from the rear, with the glass capable of being flipped up independently of the tailgate.
3/ Seats and interior appointments are very good, and complete a well-designed and executed SUV from Hyundai. ]]]]]]
Minor differences can’t hide Stratus, Sebring as talented twins
Sometimes you want to work out or go to a sports event, other times you might want to dress up and attend some formal function. It’s the same with your choice of automobiles: Sometimes you might feel the urge to drive a sporty car, other times you might wish you had a more stately, luxurious vehicle.
Chrysler Corporation has all-new Dodge Stratus and Chrysler Sebring models just out for 2001, with the obvious intention of having the two model lines meet the wants and needs of anybody and everybody at the highly competitive midsize level. We can say Chrysler is doing that, because its complete modification of the design, production and marketing the new Stratus and Sebring were well along before Chrysler merged with Mercedes. Now that it has become evident the “merger” was more a takeover by Mercedes, into DaimlerChrysler, the project has blossomed, handsomely.
In the recent past, there was a Dodge Stratus and a Chrysler Cirrus sedan with Sebring coupe and convertible siblings. For 2001, the lines have been streamlined. There is no more Cirrus, with all Chrysler models now called Sebring, while the Dodge remains all Stratus. The significant difference is that Chrysler worked well with affiliate Mitsubishi, which will build the coupe models of both the Sebring and Stratus, with very good Mitsubishi engines and transmissions, in Normal, Ill., while Chrysler will build the Sebring and Stratus sedans at its Sterling Heights, Mich., plant, which has been renovated as part of a $985 million project.
Because of that, it is more valid to combine the evaluations of the Stratus and Sebring sedans, and separately combine the coupe models of both, rather than to examine either the Stratus or Sebring as companion sedan and coupe. So we can leave the coupes till later, and look closely at the sedans.
The factory test Sebring and Stratus I drove were markedly different, as if to underscore the marketing variations, but they both had the similar advantages of strong hearts, even if their souls are aimed at different folks.
For obvious reasons, the Stratus is aimed at Dodge’s performance image, while the Sebring is intended to be more luxurious, in light of Chrysler’s identity.
For starters, we can debate the differences. The name “Sebring” is a famous race course, while “Stratus” has an extraterrestrial tone, which might mean the names would better be served by switching, with the Sebring the more performance oriented. For another, the Sebring nose has that stunning, Ferrari-inspired low oval grille, which is about as sporty as you could get, except that the Stratus has the Viper/Ram inspired cross-hatch grille that also is ruggedly sporty, so it probably works.
Both sedans have a striking, concave rear, borrowing liberally from the Dodge Intrepid or the Chrysler 300M. So regardless of whether you prefer the nose of the Sebring or the Stratus, you are quite certain to be taken by the rear look of both. Same with the silhouette, which is refined and smoothly aerodynamic.
When Chrysler came out with revised and computer-tightened upgrades of the Dodge Intrepid and Chrysler Concorde or 300M, both were visually beautiful, but both also were large. Too large, maybe, for most couples or young families. Those who like the looks of those larger cars but would prefer something more in the Honda Accord/Toyota Camry size, the new Sebring and Stratus are direct hits.
Both the Stratus ES and the Sebring LXi come standard with the Chrysler 2.7-liter V6 engine. While the base models (Sebring LX and Stratus ES) have the strong-enough 2.4-liter, dual-overhead-camshaft 4-cylinder engines, the 2.7 V6 is a jewel. It, too, has dual-overhead-cams, with four valves per cylinder, and the camshafts are chain driven, which means no concerns about belts, which can break without warning anytime after 60,000 miles. The 2.7 dishes out 200 horsepower at a power-peak of 5,900 RPMs, and a strong dose of torque, peaking at 192 foot-pounds, at 4,300 revs.
Both also have added safety and stability from the frame, which has 13 percent greater rigidity and 33 percent improved resistance to bending. That provides a noticeable benefit in quietness, and great attention was aimed at isolating road noise with chassis insulation and redesigning the cowling, windshield and pillars, plus eliminating wind noise from the outside mirrors and the leading edge of the power windows. It’s not like you noticed the old one being particularly noisy, but you do notice the new one being particularly quiet, whether during conversation or listening to the CD player on the audio system.
The more-rigid frame also aids safety improvements in the crash-worthy design, and both have multi-stage airbags and optional side curtain airbags, and 4-wheel disc brakes, 10.1 inch front and 11.1 inch rear, with thicker, longer-lasting pads, is a welcome element of standard equipment on both. Double-wishbone suspension is also the same on both, although the shock-tuning is aimed at being firmer, and sportier, than the Sebring.
For various marketing reasons, even though the Sebring and Stratus have just been introduced, Chrysler is pushing some amazingly reasonable deals, and I have seen the V6 versions of both cars priced at around $18,000, which should put a well-loaded version at somewhere around $23,000. If the cars prove to be as impressive over the long haul as they are in test-drive form, those will be bargain prices, indeed.
DODGE STRATUS ES
The ES is Dodge’s upscale model, but it falls a bit short of the sportiest-tuned R/T model. As standard equipment, the ES not only gets the 2.7 V6 but it also gets the AutoStick version of the 4-speed automatic transmission. That provides the best of both worlds, because you can simply put the shift lever in “D” and drive with the automatic doing the shifting, but when you feel the urge, you pull the lever down to the bottom, activating a side-to-side gate, which lets you bump it to the right to upshift, and to the left to downshift.
In that mode, you can run the revs up to the 6,500-RPM redline before hitting second or third, and, maybe even more usefully, you can come off a freeway by downshifting a gear or two to slow down without depending totally on the brakes. Automatic drivers may turn up their noses at such moves, but all drivers are better-tuned to their task of driving with each bit of added control they have, and downshifting is among those.
Good drivers always use their engines and gears for decelerating, for several reasons. One, it gradually slows you down; two, it puts you into a more efficient gear-ratio for whatever speed you may want to maintain on residential streets or for accelerating again; and three, it obviously prolongs brake life.
Chrysler’s AutoStick has worked well for years in larger cars with larger engines, but there has never before been an application on the 2.7. So if you read car magazines, you may notice a certain mention of the AutoStick in the Stratus (or Sebring) but with a sort of cavalier dismissal of it being anything special. That shifter, with this engine IS special. When you run the 2.7 up above what would be automatic shift points of around 4,000 RPMs, you will notice a sweet, singing smoothness to the engine, sort of like listening to a true racing engine when it gets up near full song.
I got 23.6 miles per gallon, admittedly driving it aggressively. When compared to the previous 2.5-liter V6, the 2.7 is 35 pounds lighter, produces 32 more horsepower and has 10 percent better fuel economy.
As a quibble, another step Chrysler made to offer more for the money is to equip the ES with Michelin all-season tires. I love Michelin tires, because they are the world’s standard for long wear, high-speed, long life and smooth performance. However, one of the long-standing compromises Michelin has always made to achieve those top levels of wear and durability is that the tread compound tends to be hard — so hard that it loses flexibility when it gets cold. In Minnesota, it gets cold, and we have snow and ice, and the Stratus, while always predictable, wanted to “spin-and-go” instead of just “go” in wintry driving.
That’s not a major problem, in fact some might see it as an asset. It just would be wisest to buy some serious winter tires, such as Nokians, or Blizzaks, for the November-March half of the year, and put the high-performance Michelins back on for April-through-October.
The Stratus was white, which was snow-like, and had bright silver alloy wheels. Inside, the white-backed gauges made a striking — and sporty — package, and the leather seats are firmly supportive and have a very effective lumbar support that can be turned to four different settings to relieve lower-back fatigue on long trips.
The design of the exterior pays some interior dividends, as well. Designers wanted to draw the sheetmetal around the frame in a tight-appearing sheath, lower in the front and upraised at the rear for dynamic styling appearance, so the beltline is 2 inches higher than its predecessor, and the body is 3 inches higher at the rear. Those design features coordinate to provide greater interior headroom in the rear seat and a large trunk. A glass tilting sunroof was also a nice touch on the Stratus ES.
CHRYSLER SEBRING LXi
As an interesting contrast, the test-drive Sebring was the upscale LXi, but it did not have some of the upscale features that were on the Stratus, such as the sunroof, and the AutoStick. Removing the AutoStick may reduce the sportiness a bit, further separating the Sebring from the Stratus, and the AutoStick is standard on the Stratus and an option on the Sebring.
Without the AutoStick, maybe I drove slightly less forcefully, and I got 24.5 miles per gallon in combined city-freeway driving.
While sharing all the power, structural, safety and roominess features with the Stratus, the Sebring offers a more formal look inside. It has burl walnut (fake) woodgrain and leather, as does the Stratus, and it seems to be a smoother leather than the Stratus. The gauges tell the same information, but they feature more formal numerals, and are circular, ringed with bright silver.
The test car was black, and the dark grey instruments and the light color of the grey leather seats blended nicely. You can, however, get the same formal gauges with white backing. One thing I noticed is that designers paid such attention to detail that they put a sloped lens over the instruments, tilted to pick up only low reflections in order to reduce glare. If you happen to wear light-colored pants, however, you actually increase glare because of the angled lens.
The bucket seats have the same lumbar settings and comfort, and the power driver’s seat will fully recline, for those long trips where you need to find a rest area for a catnap. The passenger bucket is manually operated. The door pull-grips, the inner edge is contoured into four vertical grooves, perfect for your fingertips to fall into. On the center dash panel, there are round knobs to operate the 4-speed fan, temperature and direction of airflow, and there are similar large knobs to operate the audio system, just below it. Other nice detail touches are struts on the trunklid, to better hold the lid open for access to the 16-cubic-foot storage area.
Both cars had a little horizontal readout on the center of the dashboard with direction and temperature. The surprise is that a switch allows you to change that to trip miles per gallon, distance to empty, instant miles per gallon, an additional trip odometer, or a clock.
During the time I had the Sebring, I was on a freeway trip on I94 from Fargo to the Twin Cities during and just after a wind-blown snowstorm. I was able to stop and offer assistance to both a minivan driver who had dozed off and spun off into the center median, and a couple of young men who may have overdriven their 4-wheel-drive compact pickup truck and spun off the freeway and wound up upside down. While I was constantly aware that the Michelin tires might not give optimum bite, I had no problem keeping the Sebring on a smooth and stable course.
The most intriguing difference between the Sebring and Stratus might be that someone who wants the sportier version but prefers the look of the Sebring can overcome the corporate intentions and order the AutoStick. If it’s impossible to get the sportier Stratus suspension settings, don’t worry. The Sebring handling is firm enough to qualify as sporty, just as the sportier Stratus has more than enough luxury features to satisfy that end of the scale. That pretty much takes it right down to subjective preference, because objectively, neither one could be a mistake.
[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The Sebring front is aimed at luxury, but the Ferrari-inspired grille has a sporty flair of its own.
2/ Silver-ringed gauges set off the leather and woodgrain luxury look of the Sebring interior.
3/ The Dodge Stratus look reflects the sporty Viper and even Ram heritage on the redesigned sedan.
4/ From the rear, the Stratus appears wind-tunnel designed with a distinct concave style.
5/ White-backed instruments and the AutoStick shifter provide the intended sportiness to the Stratus.
Demise of Oldsmobile leaves question of GM’s technology
Five years ago, I was traveling to East Lansing, Mich., to cover the West Regional NCAA hockey playoffs at Michigan State, and I seized upon the opportunity to also arrange a visit at the Oldsmobile headquarters and production plant over in Lansing. It was an interesting and educational experience, because there were rumors that Oldsmobile might be phased out of existence by General Motors. That would be sad, I thought, because Oldsmobile is the oldest U.S. auto manufacturer, and second-oldest only to Mercedes in the world.
Instead, I found a rejuvenated operation, looking ahead at the opportunity to become GM’s technology leader. The Aurora had just been introduced as a reasonably priced near-luxury sedan, and it had bargained hard to get a slightly smaller and unique version of Cadillac’s NorthStar V8 engine. That seemed only fair, because Olds had long been a technical leader for GM, so it designed a 4.0-liter version of Caddy’s 4.6, and it worked very well.
Saturn, also, was new and impressively popular with a new buying public, giving GM an alternative brand within its own house to compete with the excellent vehicles from Japan and Germany. In my discussion about Oldsmobile’s future, an Olds executive repeatedly said advancing the brand would be by “the Saturnization of Oldsmobile.” They caught themselves, each time, and asked me to avoid using that, but it was clear from the number of times I heard it that Olds was planning to modernize itself and head toward the New Millenium by reclaiming its role as GM’s technology leader.
Now we’re into the New Millenium, and the word just hit on Tuesday night: General Motors will phase Oldsmobile into oblivion over the next four or five years. Sad news for Oldsmobile, but also sad for GM, and for consumers. Olds was, more than any other, the advanced-technology arm of General Motors.
Years ago, when GM’s divisions each did their own thing, developed a V8 and called it the “Rocket,” a name that became synonymous with Olds as a high-tech outfit, dating back even back to the 1950s. In the 1960s, Olds refined that concept into its 350 cubic inch “Rocket” V8, while Chevrolet also built its own 350 cubic inch V8. Both had lived long and distinguished lives, with the Chevy more plentiful, and the Olds engine more advanced, with a neat little rotating-valve technique that would ratchet each valve to rotate with every revolution of the engine.
That was important back in the late 1960s and 1970s, because emission rules required engine eccentricities, and the valves often took the brunt of the lean-burning trend by getting scorched and causing large outlays of repair cash from car owners. Besides, it developed more power and became the company’s hallmark. It was so significant that when GM later combined the technology among its divisions, and some people bought Oldsmobiles just to get the 350 V8, they were able to successfully sue GM when it was learned the less-costly Chevy V8 was being installed instead of the Rockets.
In 1980, Rocket-powered Oldsmobiles commanded about 16 percent of all GM sales, second only to Chevrolet’s 49 percent, and better than Buick, and about equal to Pontiac and Cadillac combined. But as of the year 2000, Ward’s Automotive News shows Chevrolet has increased to 53 percent of GM’s share, Pontiac is second at 12.6, Buick 8.2, and then Olds, at 5.8 percent. One of the problems skewing those figures is the proliferation of trucks, which have padded Chevy’s percentage, and inserted GMC’s truck-only branch with 10.6 of GM’s total — more than all but Chevy and Pontiac.
As Olds was plummeting, rumors persisted about the division’s demise, but plans for advancing continued within the proud institution in Lansing.
A distinct problem was the historical perspective, where Olds and Buick — both a cut below Cadillac in luxury, but above Pontiac and Chevy in price structure — had become old-folks cars. The good side of that was that a lot of aging customers kept coming back to buy Buicks and Oldsmobiles instead of those “new-fangled” furrin’ cars. The down side was that as people age, they buy fewer and fewer cars, so the market segment dwindled. Buick has maintained its image among an aging segment, but Olds wanted to break free. Its new campaign was “This is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile.”
That ad campaign came on with the introduction of the Aurora, a new-age sedan with luxury and sportiness. I found it interesting, and from Olds’s sake a little disquieting, that the Aurora had this swooshy logo and the word “Oldsmobile” didn’t appear on the car.
In retrospect, it appears that the new campaign did not capture the fancy of a modern generation of buyers, and Olds lost some of its old-reliables at the same time.
Undaunted, Olds executives made more plans for the future, plans that included an all-new midsize sedan called the Intrigue, to replace the aging Cutlass, and a new compact named the Alero, a new name given to the replacement for the Achieva.
The same basic platform with different body trim and interiors made the Cutlass the same as the Pontiac Grand Prix, Buick Regal and Chevy Malibu. The Intrigue continued with the same basic platform when the models were redesigned, but the Intrigue was given the unique opportunity to use an all-new 3.5-liter V6, with dual-overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder, while all the rest of the branches had to use older-design V6 engines, such as the 3800 or the 3.1. The 3.5 was much more high-tech, and had more power than the larger pushrod 3800, plus it got better fuel economy and lower emissions.
In a similar vein, the Olds Bravada was its version of the SUV craze, coming off the Chevy Blazer platform. There also was a GMC version, but unlike its siblings, the Bravada had full-time all-wheel-drive — another technical difference from the switch-required transition from 2-wheel to 4-wheel drive.
In 1996, the average age of Oldsmobile buyers was 60. Now it is 48, a significant improvement. But there just aren’t enough 48-year-olds buying Oldsmobiles, apparently.
This year, Olds has come out with an all new Aurora, a little more compact but with great room, and with both the 4.0-liter V8 and the 3.5-liter V6 available, while the Intrigue is the only other vehicle allowed to use the 3.5.
When the powers at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway decided to start an all-new series, called the Indy Racing League, it went with specific body styles and limited engines to 4.0 liters. The Olds Aurora engine took over the series, in highly modified form, of course, with only Nissan entering as a competitor, and only a couple of Nissan Infiniti engines ran among the Aurora-dominated 33 starters last May at Indy.
Right after the first of the year, Olds was to unveil an all-new Bravada, which was displayed at auto shows last spring. It will have a new, high-tech, dual-overhead-camshaft in-line 6 cylinder engine. That engine will also power the other GM compact SUV lines, but it seemed significant that Olds was going to be able to unveil it first.
Now, we don’t know what will happen. Word is the existing models, including the Bravada, will be brought out and maintained, as long as sales are sufficient. If sales go south, we can look for Olds to die sooner; if sales hold for a while, the brand may continue for four or five years, until these new models run their course and need redesign. Some say people will gobble up new Oldsmobiles and stash them away as instant antiques. My guess is that prices will drop, and anyone looking for a good midsize sedan will jump at the chance to get an Intrigue, with its high-tech engine, or an Aurora, with its choice of two high-tech engines.
Surely those engines will find new life in other GM brands. Surely, by eliminating its high-tech division, GM isn’t going to also eliminate high-tech. Surely, the bean-counters can’t have taken over to that extent. Have they?
[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ A new Aurora sedan for 2001 advances Oldsmobile’s role as GM’s high-technology division, but Olds will cease to exist when current models run their course.
2/ An all-new Bravada, shown at auto shows, is about to be introduced with a dual-overhead-cam, in-line 6-cylinder engine and full-time all-wheel-drive. ]]]]]
Prius carries consumers, and Toyota, into automotive future
No other car-maker in the world has been as busy as Toyota in the last year. Not only has the Japanese giant come out with entirely new models for the Avalon sedan, Celica and MR-2 sports cars, Corolla compact, RAV4 compact sport-utility vehicle, and the Lexus LS430 luxury sedan, but Toyota also has introduced entirely new vehicles, such as the Toyota Echo subcompact, the Sequoia large SUV and the Lexus IS300 sports sedan.
I may even be missing a vehicle or two, and I know a couple more are coming. But you get the picture. With all these new and improved vehicles hitting the showrooms, one that might — but should not — slip through the promotional cracks, is the Prius. I finally got my hands on a Prius for a week-long test drive, and it just happened to be that week when fall turned to winter with a thud Up North. That produced an interesting sidelight, as well.
When I first read about the Prius, I was impressed, and in my mind’s vocabulary it was pronounced “PRY-us.” I quickly learned that the proper pronunciation is “PREE-us,” and that the word comes from the latin word, meaning “to go ahead.” Toyota has either gone ahead or been right with the industry leaders for a couple of decades now, and the Prius passes that test by being the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle in the world.
Of course, we in the U.S. didn’t know that, because the Prius first went to market in Japan, a year ago, while Honda came out with its hybrid Insight in the U.S. before the Prius reached our shores.
Both of them must be heralded for showing us the future, and making it available right here and now.
Car-nuts everywhere love engines and power and driving, but only the most stubbornly myopic cynic can’t recognize that we’re using up the world’s energy sources at an alarming rate and generating pollution that seriously threatens our future environment.
I’ve always believed that while we needn’t panic about automotive pollution, and we still have to get to work and fulfill our free-wheeling (so to speak) lifestyles, we also cannot allow our auto-makers to sneak around pollution laws just for the sake of producing low-tech/high-profit vehicles that we continue to buy. I love fast cars, with high-performing engines, but the best engines are highly efficient, which not only allows high-performance but also thorough burning and improved emissions. To get great gobs of power while dumping copious amounts of pollution out the tailpipes is irresponsible, and to lobby for lowered government standards to insulate car-makers from being responsible is outrageous.
Every manufacturer is fiddling with electric vehicles, but none has proven logical or efficient, simply because electric motors have tremendous power, but need to be recharged frequently and for long expanses — to the point where a large changeover to electric cars would cause coal-burning power plants to make so much more power that they would pollute a much greater amount than the electric cars would save.
So the new trend is toward hybrids, which combine gasoline engines and electric motors. That trend has escalated tremendously in the last year, ever since Honda and Toyota have come out with their cars for the real world, and for sale at $20,000. U.S. companies have whined that those cars are being “dumped” in the U.S. at a price cheaper than it must cost to build them, but we might suggest they should quit with the whining and get with the development of something similar.
Nobody in the world is better at making small but extremely high-tech gasoline engines than Toyota and Honda. So both the Prius and the Insight work with small but extremely efficient gasoline engines, linked to battery-pack-powered electric motors. The difference is that the Insight uses a tiny 3-cylinder, 1-liter motor for basic power, with the electric motor coming in on demand, when you need more power, and then cutting out when cruising, to be recharged by the gas engine.
The Prius has a similar but different approach. The Prius uses a 1.5-liter, 4-cylinder gas engine with 70 horsepower at a 4,500-RPM peak and 82 foot-pounds of torque at 4,200 revs. Those RPM peaks are limited only because Toyota has lightened the components considerably and curtailed the rev limits to assure longer durability. The engine has variable valve timing to alter valve timing and create more power over a longer curve.
The battery pack runs an electric permanent-magnet motor with internal components that never wear. It develops a separate equivalent of 44 horsepower from 1,040-5,600 RPMs and 258 foot-pounds of torque at everywhere from 0-400 RPMs.
Unlike the Insight, which uses the electric motor for boost, the electronic controls in the Prius can operate on either the gas engine or the electric, or a combination of both, with the ratio controlled by speed and load, which coax the computer into selecting the most efficient blend. The crossover between the two is almost completely unnoticeable to the driver, because a power-split gadget uses a planetary gear that divides up the output from the power sources and delivers it to the front wheels.
The clear winner in either case is the consumer, because the two cars are both low-emission rated and are fuel-economy champs. The Insight is the winner, rated at over 70 miles per gallon on the road (I got 50+), while the Prius is listed as 52 mpg city and 45 highway. Think about that. It is so efficient, it gets better fuel economy in town than at cruising speed. I got 44 miles per gallon on a highway trek.
The Environmental Protection Agency has different categories, such as LEV for low-emission vehicles, SLEV for super low-emission vehicles, and ULEV for ultra-low-emission vehicles. The Prius ranks as an SULEV — for super-low-emission vehicle — which means it burns 75 percent cleaner than a ULEV and 90 percent cleaner than an LEV, when it comes to smog-forming exhaust.
The Prius also uses regenerative brakes, which gain power boost from the electric motor whenever the vehicle is decelerating. The brake itself operates on a wireless, computerized system which notifies the regenerative system as soon as you touch the brake, then blends in the hydraulic system as you continue braking. What you notice is when you slow down for a traffic light, the engine turns silent and when you step on the brake, you get immediate slowing, and if you hold your foot constant, the car slows at an ever-increasing rate.
DRIVING THE PRIUS
Perhaps it’s typical of the basic differences between Toyota and Honda, but while the Honda Insight is a futuristic-looking 2-door coupe, the Prius is a more squarish 4-door sedan, not unlike the subcompact Echo in overall design, but with an interior that is large enough to be categorized as compact.
Once inside, the first thing you notice is that you look straight out and down at the road, unencumbered by any instruments! The instruments are very different looking, and they are mounted in the middle, between the two front bucket seats, and feature a digital speedometer at the top of the center-dash, and a video-screen-like display below it, with various designs on it, mainly one that shows the transmitting of power, how much is coming from the gas engine and how much from electric.
I’ve read all sorts of things about why the instruments are center-mounted, but it’s safe to say that it is not just to enhance backseat drivers, or passenger-seat input. But we in the U.S. must realize that in Japan, as well as Great Britain, they drive on the left side of the road, with the steering wheel on the right side of cars. By putting the instruments in the middle, Toyota doesn’t even have to redesign the interior and merely mounts the steering column on the other side to switch from Japanese to U.S. markets.
Prius also shows a preview of tomorrow-land with its automatic transmission. We’ve gotten used to 2-speed, then 3-speed, finally 4-speed, and now a few exotic 5-speed automatic transmissions, Toyota has placed a continually-variable automatic transmission, which keeps adjusting itself to provide the optimum gear-ratio, everywhere from low-end traffic to freeway cruising. You get no clunking, no lurching, none of the usual shifting feel. It just goes.
There is a different feel to the Prius and the Insight, which I drove last summer. The Insight, which comes only with a manual 5-speed, felt swifter in acceleration, and held highway speeds with ease.
Perhaps because it’s heavier and built for four occupants, and because it comes only with an automatic transmission, the Prius doesn’t feel as quick as the Insight, but it does perform as adequately as any subcompact with a small gasoline engine.
A modern interior design, with neat sweeping lines and high-tech switchgear for the heat-air and audio system. The seats are comfortably supportive, and the trunk is large for a subcompact-sized car, but you clearly could commute with four aboard without any problems of interior space.
When you drive, you might be unnerved at first that when you stop at a red light, the engine dies. When you step on the gas, it both whirs to life and you start moving, simultaneously. You get zero gas mileage, and you pollute some during all those minutes at red lights, but not with the Prius. It also has an internal fuel cell inside the tank that collapses as you use fuel, just to prevent the fumes from hanging around for possible emissions, too.
NITS TO PICK
In my week with the Prius, I was able to take photos of it with backgrounds of both green grass and snow because of the abrupt onset of winter. Then, as you might recall, the temperature threatened to plunge right out of the bottom of the thermometer. I was testing another vehicle briefly during the time I had the Prius, so it sat in my driveway for a cold night, then all day, then another night.
When I started it up, the instruments flared to life, and I was immediately warned to “check engine.” Those signals always give me a chill, so to speak, but often they go off after you warm the engine up a bit. It continued to run, and I drove it delicately up and down the street, but the warning stayed on, and the little “!” symbol, that means “get thee to a dealership’s service outlet” flashed on. It was 5-below zero actual, and I parked it and left it alone. Later, it got up to 20-above that day, and the Prius started up and ran just fine.
Without any further information, I developed a theory. Previously, I noticed the video screen that shows the flow of power had also indicated that the battery was fully charged by the energy from the gas engine. When it was cold, and warning me, that same instrument showed the battery to be extremely low on charge. Apparently it had lost almost all of its stored energy from the cold, and the gasoline engine, while competent enough to handle its duties, was complaining to the computer-control system that it was overworked by being expected to drive the car and recharge the battery pack at the same time.
Whatever, putting the Prius in a garage would solve that problem. Otherwise, Toyota is sure to be coming out with a cold-weather package to alleviate that problem.
The other nuisance was that there was no cruise control, and while trying to stay with traffic at 70 miles per hour or so on a couple of runs between Duluth and the Twin Cities, I continually found my speed fluctuating between 75 and 62, without feeling like I was changing anything in the throttle control. Maybe it was switching back and forth in power modes, or maybe the change was too imperceptible to feel. But I hate it when cars pass me on the freeway and then slow down, and all of a sudden I was one of them, unintentionally.
But those are small and correctible problems (hopefully) in a $20,855 car that doesn’t pollute, gets well-over-40 miles per gallon, and has everything standard, from alloy wheels, rear spoiler, climate control, computer display, power windows and locks, autio system with cassette, air filtration system, and a timed rear window defogger, with the only options being floor mats and a compact disc player.
[[[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ Toyota’s hybrid Prius goes well beyond the steam locomotive to carry commuters into the future.
2/ Instrumentation is centrally mounted, and includes digital speedometer above, with a map of power being used on the computer screen.
3/ The Prius interior is not chintzy, featuring state-of-the-art design and layout with comfortable seats for 4.
4/ A small 1.5-liter 4-cylinder gasoline engine is coupled to an electric motor to power the Prius to 50 miles per gallon.
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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