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. ]]]]]
C-Class rates A-Grade as new Mercedes entry-level sedan
If you can’t remember exactly what the previous Mercedes C-Class sedan looked like, a picture of the new 2001 C-320 won’t help. There is absolutely no resemblance between the two, except for the compact, midsize body. Everything else is new, and, while the previous C-Class was a very good car, it becomes unfairly forgettable when compared to the new one.
The new C-Class comes in two forms, the basic C-240, which starts in price at $30,000, and the upscale C-320, which can be obtained with a bigger engine, more power, more amenities, and at a price that reflects it, bordering on $40,000. If this price shakes you up, you’re not alone. But in this world where we can all get by on ground beef, we must also be aware that prime filet mignon also exists, and to those who can afford it, the price isn’t all that bad. Besides, the C-Class is Mercedes entry-level sedan, with the larger E-Class and the large — and extremely costly — S-Class up above.
The C-Class lives up to the reputation Mercedes has established for automotive buyers the world over, for quality that makes even exorbitant sticker prices worthwhile over the long haul. Take a trip to Frankfurt, Germany, and you’ll notice that virtually all of the taxicabs are Mercedes, many of them diesel-powered, because the vehicles are basically indestructable for upwards of 200,000 miles. Quality, luxury and an understated level of class are the strong suits.
Having driven both the C-320 and the C-240 at the line’s introduction, I was anxious to try a more extended test, and I recently got a C-320 to live with for a week in wintertime. Heated leather seats, and by far the best windshield wiper system in the industry are under-appreciated until you get a chance to engage a snowstorm and temperature plunge with those assets.
The previous C-Class was impressive enough on its own, but with Mercedes taking off on sweeping aerodynamic styling ventures with the S-Class and E-Class, this is the C-Class’s turn to jump into the future, and the 2001 C-Class, to me, is even more stylishly attractive than its considerably more expensive siblings.
A steeply raked front end houses a sleek grille, with enclosed dual headlights housed within a glass cover that resembles a figure-8 — make that a snowman — turned sideways. The lights are very good, and are augmented by foglights housed below the bumper to help illuminate the shoulders.
Angling up to the windshield, which also is steeply raked, the C-Class lines then sweep up and over the passenger compartment, tapering away from the bottom lines of the side to form a slippery-smooth wedge. The uplifted rear houses a large trunk, and the entire package makes it, to my mind, the best-styled Mercedes sedan.
For size, the C-Class is almost a full inch longer than the car it replaces, at 178.2 inches, with an inch-longer wheelbase of 106.9, and a slightly wider body at 68.6 inches, yet it is lower, by almost a full inch. Front and rear head and leg room all are increased, alothough the front shoulder room is about an inch less. Trunk volume is 12.2 cubic feet, which is generous for a sedan of this size. The whole package rates a 0.27 coefficient of drag, in a world where anything as low as 0.32 is extremely impressive.
Under the hood, the C-320 has a 3.2-liter V6, with 215 horsepower at 5,700 RPMs and 221 foot-pounds of torque at 4,600 revs. It weighs 3,397 pounds, which is heavy, but feels light and agile because the balance of power allows for 7-second 0-60 times, and the impressively stable suspension provides the precise control of a sports sedan.
LIVING IN THE COLD
For Up North buyers, there are a couple of shortcomings. Everybody older than 40 can recall driving through the worst of winter storms with front-engine/rear-drive vehicles, maybe even on Duluth’s cliff-dwelling avenues. Yes, we made it, most of us without accidents. Duluth, in fact, probably has the best drivers in the world for being able to remain calm and poised while negotiating icy streets with their hearts in their throats.
Some still swear by rear-drive, but they are only those who haven’t tried front-wheel drive. Mercedes always has made front-engine, rear-drive vehicles, the conventional layout brought to near perfection. Up North, it snows, it freezes, and we get to slithering all over the roadways. Front-wheel drive is an obvious asset, outrun only by all-wheel-drive or 4-wheel-drive when it comes to dashing through the snow. Mercedes does offer a 4-wheel-drive system on some vehicles, although it’s only a partial redirection of power.
In the C-Class, a highly sophisticated traction-control system restricts power to the spinning rear wheel and apportions more of it to the one with better traction. It works very impressively, but Mercedes engineers, marketing types and the company’s sales force, all of whom insist that it conquers the worst winter has to offer, should try to sit, second in a line of four vehicles climbing Lake Avenue in Duluth after a sleet storm, waiting for the red light to change at 2nd Street. It is at times like that when you realize that the best traction control needs SOME traction to get going.
I had no trouble negotiating icy streets and snowy driveways, although the electronic stability system chattered now and then and switching it off made you realize how appreciative you were that it was available.
The 5-speed automatic transmission worked flawlessly, and you can manually put it in a lower gear for some snow conditions, or to assure optimum traction.
The driving position is classy, with a large speedometer and small tachometer, and wood and leather everywhere you see or touch. Some Mercedes engineer looned out on the heat/air controls, however. Mercedes tradition calls for basic simplicity, but you need a ride-along guide to help you fiddle with the heat and defrost. A system with two knobs, surrounded by optional items, is needlessly complex and virtually impossible to work without stopping, studying and experimenting a bit. It obviously would get easier to operate with time, if you were the owner, but it seems impossible that you would ever feel comfortable enough, ergonomically, to reach over and change things without looking hard at it.
Rear seat room is adequate — not enormously roomy, but good for 6-footers to ride a long way in comfort. The front bucket seats are impressive, also, and have all sorts of electric and manual controls to let you find the perfect settings.
There is one problem, which I laughed at first, but which became a nuisance as the week went along. The front doors are positioned well for your feet and legs, but the pillar between front and rear doors is so far forward that you tend to whap your shoulder on it virtually every time you climb in. Maybe someone smaller than 6-feet tall wouldn’t have that problem — and Mercedes says about half of the C-Class sales might be to the new and widening female customer base — but I had far too much contact with that pillar.
It’s a good thing that once inside, the pillar becomes a firm compatriot in the safety structure. Dual-stage front airbags, door-mounted front and rear side-impact airbags, and a head-protection side curtain airbag all make the C-Class one of the world’s safest vehicles.
Dual controls for heat also are pleasant, especially if your spouse happens to like a different climate than you do (don’t they all?). A 10-speaker Bose stereo system also is impressive.
C-CLASS DEVELOPMENT
Mercedes had the idea of building a compact, entry-level sedan back in 1983, and the 190 model sold well in Europe. It never caught on well in the U.S., where it was sold for 10 years before the nomenclature changed to the letter C-Class designation. The so-called entry-level uxury segment now accounts for over 70 percent of the luxury car market, and Mercedes is hoping to 30,000 C-Classes in its first year of revision, then move upward when production catches up to demand.
Mercedes doesn’t aim at any specific U.S. cars as its targets, although the Cadillac Seville STS might be one. The main targets are the Audi A4, the BMW 3-Series, the Lexus ES300, and the Volvo S70, which are all new either this year or in 2000, and which are formidible targets.
Standard leather interiors, upgraded safety and stability, and the technical touch of the 3-valve-per-cylinder, dual-spark V6 engine allows the C-Class to run with sportiness, and to meet low-emission vehicle standards. Mercedes also has upgraded the warranty to four years, and now has a plan to do all scheduled maintenance in that time — much like Audi’s impressive warranty.
That should soothe the concerns of buyers who recoil when they learn that oil changes might not be required for spans as long as 10,000 or 15,000 miles. The oil not only is constantly monitored electronically, keeping you informed on the instrument panel, but it also is evaluated by how you drive and alerts you when to change the oil by calculating impurities and wear factors. If that seems bold, the warranty proves that if it’s a problem, it will be Mercedes’ problem.
[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The dramatic front end of the new Mercedes C-Class knifes through the air with a coefficient of drag of a mere 0.27.
2/ In silhouette, the C-Class might be the most stylish of all Mercedes sedans, even though it is the least expensive.
3/ Rich leather and polished real wood highlight the interior, although you may bump the pillar on the way into those comfortable bucket seats.
4/ The high-rise rear decklid helps aerodynamics, and also helps a spacious trunk stowage area.
Year 2000 shows how far we’ve come, and how far to go, in 2001
Our family’s Christmas Day had been thoroughly enjoyable and mellow, possibly highlighted by my two sons scattering some catnip in a gift box on the living room floor. The family cat, KC — who actually owns the house but allows us to continue inhabiting it — went crazy in the stuff, cavorting and thrashing until little shreds of it were everywhere, throughout the living room.
So on the day after Christmas, I got the mail. After some extensive vacuuming had occupied most of my wife’s morning, there I was, sitting on the couch, opening a nice little white box that had just arrived. It was about the size of a half-pound box of candy, and while I had no idea what it might contain, I must admit that visions of chocolate danced in my head. I popped open the box, and without warning, hundreds — thousands — of tiny little silver shavings, resembling a box of tinsel that had been exploded into confetti by a hand grenade, flew in every direction.
Combining Christmasy tinsel with New Year’s Dayish confetti, the whole thing sheltered a small box, which contained a neat set of cufflinks, with “100” emblazoned on each one. Turns out, it was to commemorate the historic 100th auto racing victory of the Marlboro-sponsored Roger Penske race team, achieved last summer. Maybe Marlboro was trying to get even with me for having never smoked a cigarette. Maybe it was some marketing whiz’s idea of a memorable promotional gimmick. Maybe somebody knows an automotive or racing journalist who wears cufflinks to work.
To me, it goes down as the absolute worst promotional idea of the Year 2000.
The automotive world is already well into the 2001 model year, even though the calendar says 2000 is just ending. In fact, several companies are eagerly waiting for about one more week, figuring that as soon as we’ve reached 2001, they can start introducing 2002 models.
The year 2000 started or ended the millenium, depending on your point of view. We can assume those who claim the new millenium starts with the beginning of 2001 didn’t celebrate their 18th birthday until the day they turned 19. The argument also says the millenium can’t start until 2000 ends, because there was no official year 0 — as in zero. I haven’t heard what those folks have said about living B.C., when, I suppose, people said: “Well, Martha, here we are in the year 10 B.C. — only 10 more years before we hit zero.”
Personally, the year 2000 has extra significance because my dad was born on December 19, 1900. He died back when I was in high school, but I think about him every day. Two weeks ago, he would have turned 100, and in some mystical way, I feel like when 2000 ends Sunday night, he and I will have completed sort of a tag-team handoff of perspective covering the whole century.
He and I never got around to talking much history from his childhood, which I greatly regret. I still enjoy visiting about it with my mom, at Lakeshore Lutheran Home. She’s 98, and she’ll talk at length about the McKay family farm, near McGregor, which she and her family used to visit each summer back in the early 1900s. Sometimes they took the train to get there from Duluth, and she also remembers her brother having the first automobile on their block. Taking the trolley to work at the library back in 1920 was the norm.
Sort of puts things in a different perspective, as we take driving so for granted in the new century.
The Year 2000 brought me several revelations about driving. The most interesting is when, after spending a lot of time driving both in the Twin Cities and Duluth, and on Interstate 35 between the two, I decided to write a column on the maddening and outrageous trend of Minnesota drivers to qualify as the worst in the country because they insist on driving in the left lane, blocking the faster flow of traffic.
To amplify my views on the problem, I decided to venture out on the freeway where it passes through Duluth, and snap a few photos of these jerks driving in the left lane. To my amazement, very few locals drive in the left lane. I shot dozens of photos, and I drove back and forth, from the West End to 26th Avenue East, and it stayed the same — Duluth area drivers stay courteously in the right lane, clearing the left lane for faster drivers.
That was a remarkable thing to witness, and I have continued to notice it ever since, even after amending my column to point out that left-lane hogs were a major problem in the Twin Cities, an affliction that has not infected Up North drivers. Of course, I had long been aware that drivers Up North in general, and on Duluth’s hills in particular, are among the best in the world when it comes to driving on icy roads and streets in wintertime.
The biggest automotive story of the Year 2000 undoubtedly has become the Ford Explorer/Firestone tire controversy, where it has been found that a lot of Firestone tires had their tread separate and a lot of Explorers wearing those tires rolled over. Presumably the two are inextricably linked, although I am not so sure. The greater problem is that all conventional sport-utility vehicles, at least the midsize and large SUVs with predominately rear-drive switchable to 4-wheel-drive, have been found to be secure as fortresses when they crash into a smaller, lighter vehicle, but they are patently unsafe on their own if driven too aggressively.
The key phrase there is “if driven too aggressively.” Vehicles rarely if ever are unsafe on their own. It is when they are operated beyond their limits that problems occur. You can generate some pretty heated debates with SUV drivers who think that all little cars are unsafe and that all of us should be in huge, gas-eating SUVs. Every one of those big-SUV advocates also would swear that they’ve never over-driven their SUV, or driven too aggressively. Often, they will argue their superiority while cruising 85 miles per hour down the freeway.
Week after week, I drive between Duluth and the Twin Cities, and if you were to set the cruise control at 70, you would be passed repeatedly. If you inched it up to, say, 75, you would find that you still are routinely passed. And the majority of vehicles passing you, at 85 or more, are SUVs. Sure, they’ll go that fast, and faster. But you need to stop or swerve abruptly in an SUV, you find out what the limitations of handling are in a larger, more top-heavy vehicle.
I love to drive SUVs, both big and small. And, as I have written repeatedly, folks living Up North have more valid reasons for owning such trucks, because of towing and off-road necessities. But, some are better than others, some respond with more agility and safety than others, even though all of them have some assets that make their drivers feel secure and safe.
As a New Year’s resolution, and just for safety’s sake, let’s hope that all SUV and truck drivers rein in their aggressiveness and keep those beasts within the speed limits. Those speed limits are guidelines for the the pace of all drivers, but they also outline the limit for where SUV drivers become over-aggressive, and SUVs change from being safe fortresses to threats to their occupants.
With New Year’s Eve falling on Sunday night, it also will be interesting to note if there is a lessening in consumption of alcohol. That is another major factor in highway safety, of course. And that brings up one other fact of 2000. The attempt to lower the legally-drunk level from 0.10 to 0.08 has met with considerable resistance by the liquor industry as being unimportant in lessening the problem drunk drivers on the road.
However, if that lowered level causes just a few folks who have had a couple of drinks to decide against having one more for the road — knowing that the reduced limit is more easily reached — it could save a few lives on our highways.
Have a happy new year, and let’s make a resolution that EVERYBODY makes it through 2001 without meeting a tragic end on our roadways.
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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