Never underestimate an experienced woman driving a Porsche
[[[‘[[CUTLINE:
Drivers were encouraged not to pass at the Porsche test-drive at Texas World Speedway’s road course, although every once in a while one might encounter another and elicit a wave to pass. ]]]]]
FORT WORTH, TEXAS—Test-driving cars, and even test-driving them on a closed race track, is not the same as racing them. Nor should it be. At the same time, competition brings out the best in people, and in cars, it turns out.
While attending various and assorted new-vehicle introductions, I have become acquainted with Denise McCluggage, a legendary automotive and auto racing writer and columnist, now at Automobile magazine, who has been at the top of the art of writing for a lot of years. She also is a driver of no small reputation, and has driven hot cars and race cars around some of the great tracks of the world. Somebody said she was in her 70s, and I don’t know that. Not that age matters, because as an automotive journalist, she is a charming elder statesman, and one of the most-sought conversationalists, whenever auto folks gather.
We renewed acquaintances at Texas World Speedway last week, when Porsche assembled 25 or so selected automotive writers to test the five varieties of sports cars wearing the Porsche crest. We all drove 10-lap segments and then changed cars. On my second turn, I was driving a silver Boxster, and having a great time sashaying around the nine turns of the little road course set up inside the speedway’s oval.
Suddenly, in my mirrors, I spotted a yellow Boxster S, which had 250 horsepower to my base Boxster’s 217. Obviously, the S could catch me on the straight chutes, so I had to hit the curves perfectly to protect the integrity of my lead. Not that we were racing, mind you (wink-wink). With a couple laps to go, I thought maybe I should pull over and wave the yellow car past, but I hit every turn just right on my last lap to stay just enough out front. When I slowed down to enter the pit area, I was both surprised and impressed that Denise McCluggage was driving that yellow Boxster S. I was impressed that she had reeled me in, albeit with a faster car.
A few minutes later, I was in the yellow Boxster S, and having great fun, sailing through the turns. Pro driver Richard Spenard, accompanying me, gave me a great little tip. I was cutting Turn 3 wide purposely to set up for a sweep through the quick 4-5 left-right combination, and Spenard said: “Cut in closer to the cone on Turn 3, all the way to the fringe.” So I did. And to my amazement, I came out of the turn so much faster that I zapped through the 4-5 combination and startled myself as I headed into Turn 6 with how much more speed I was carrying. I would guess 20 miles per hour more.
That’s the magic of road-racing. If you take one turn right, it can allow you to go much quicker through the next sequence of turns. But you might have to experiment — or get expert advice — to learn it. Halfway through that run, I was gaining ground on a green Porsche Carrera Cabrio ahead. That Cabrio was a classy car, but I had noted its twitchy handling, so it didn’t surprise me that the less-powerful but superb-handling Boxster S could run up to challenge it.
I didn’t try to force a pass, but when we pitted, again I was surprised — but also quite satisfied — that Denise was driving the green car. This time she had more power but I had the livelier-handling car, and reeled her in.
At the end of the session, with all drivers rotating through all five cars, I finished in the most powerful monster of them all — a dark red Porsche 911 Carrera Turbo with a 6-speed manual transmission. I had started the day in the similar silver-grey Turbo with the Tiptronic automatic, and been greatly impressed with its upshifts but also with its downshifting capabilities on auto-pilot. I went down the straightaway and hit about 110 miles per hour in that one before hitting the brakes and diving into the turn, but the automatic was always already a shift or two ahead of me.
Still, the 6-speed was almost a full second quicker in acceleration to 60, and I love stick-shifts. So I had been looking forward to the 6-speed finale.
With about five laps remaining in my stint, however, I botched a shift, going for third and finding fifth, and Spenard said that happens when you try to shift with the car careening through a tight turn. The car slowed abruptly, and as I accelerated again, I noticed the silver-grey Turbo closing up behind me. So I got back on it, hard, and the car fairly leaped ahead at every urging. But the silver-grey car kept closing in. “Hmmm,” I hmmm’d.
I can’t believe that car can beat THIS car, no matter who is driving, because we’re flying. I was coming around on my next-to-last lap, and I downshifted into second to sweep around Turn 7, then accelerated across the track to the far right side, upshifting as I clipped Turn 8. I was headed toward 9 and my final lap when Spenard said, “You hit fifth again.”
Amazingly, the car had so much torque that it pulled smoothly in fifth as I started down the straightaway. However, the Turbo with the Tiptronic also had hit the turn properly and had much more velocity, so we waved it past. As it passed, I glanced over. It was Denise McCluggage, driving effortlessly, in her Porsche with the automatic transmission. And she blew me away.
I was totally impressed with the precision that makes Porsche such a sports car icon, expensive or not. And I was totally impressed with the Tiptronic’s performance in that other car, and realized the Tiptronic never misses a shift. But mostly, I was impressed by Denise McCluggage’s driving. But then, she’s older than I am, so she’s got a lot more experience.
2002 Explorer seems to have grown hefty since introduction
(Note to Sandi Dahl: I’m sending you just one column this week…Hope it’s enough. Photos too…here are the cutlines:
1/ The 2002 Ford Explorer looks the part of being a thoroughly redesigned version of Ford’s top-selling SUV.
2/ The tailgate opens and the third-row bench seat fold down for maximum storage capacity.
3/ Instrumentation is complete and well laid-out from the driver’s point of view, and audio/air controls are clearly set apart.
4/ The Eddie Bauer version Explorer takes the new vehicle’s upgraded looks to a fancier level, but the feeling is more massive and the anticipated good handling might be bothersome. ]]]]]
Before getting a new 2002 Ford Explorer to road-test, I must point out that I was totally impressed with everything Ford did when it redesigned the Explorer.
At the introduction to the Explorer and its sister ship, the Mercury Mountaineer, in Arizona, I drove the Explorer on the roadways north of Phoenix, and I later drove the Mountaineer on some handling courses in Phoenix, against some pretty impressive competitive sports-utility vehicles.
I came away thoroughly impressed with the Mountaineer’s handling, and I must admit, I wondered a bit why Ford didn’t have any Explorers available to also drive on the little road-course they had laid out to show off the new vehicles’ handling characteristics. The Mountaineer stayed remarkably flat through the tightest turns, although that is flat for an SUV, not for a sedan or sports car.
Recently I got a new Explorer to run for a week, and I was puzzled at first, and then a little curious.
The Explorer I drove was a fancy Eddie Bauer Edition, which is the loaded-up top-line version, with the 4.0-liter V6 jacked up to 210 horsepower, and the five-speed automatic transmission.
It also had all the Eddie Bauer goodies, which include trim items and upgrades to set off Ford’s relationship with the outdoor-equipment and clothing company.
The base price of an Explorer Eddie Bauer model is $34,655, and the way this one was decked out, it came to a sticker price of $37,325.
Along with the standard features that make the Eddie Bauer version cost more, the test vehicle came with chrome steel wheels ($245), side-curtain air bags ($495), the third-row bench seat, which folds down for expanded cargo room ($670), black running boards ($395), and the rear-seat auxiliary heating and air-conditioning with separate, ceiling-mounted controls ($610).
The vehicle was impressive, with a blue-green color called “Estate Green,” and “medium parchment” interior colors on the leather seats and interior touches.
The four-wheel drive can be changed from full-time (automatic), to 4WD high, and 4WD low-range at the touch of a button on the dashboard.
The challenge to the new Explorer is that, while it was well into development and the start of production when the problem with Firestone tires and frequent rollovers first came to light last fall, it had to try to overcome those problems even though it wasn’t specifically designed with that in mind.
What was a greater objective to Ford was to distance the new Explorer upscale from the last one, to make room for the all-new 2001 Escape, which is smaller and more compact, with the same interior room, however, as the previous Explorer.
The question, of course, became why would anyone want to pay extra for a heavier and less fuel-efficient SUV if a smaller, more agile and more efficient one could be obtained for less money from the same showroom?
Ford executives assured me the Escape would not intrude upon the Explorer’s impressive segment. And the Explorer is the No. 1 selling SUV in the marketplace.
So it was with all those things in mind that I experienced the new Explorer at its initial introduction. The most impressive feature of the vehicle is the redesigned chassis, which has an ingenious method of running a sleeve through the side chassis members to house the axle shafts carrying the power from the rear differential to the wheels. That allowed Ford to lower the new Explorer, and make it more stable.
All of that, I reasoned, were lucky strokes that would also conquer the top-heavy feeling that could enhance the inherent rollover qualities of all SUVs larger than compact.
And that is why I was disappointed with the extended road test.
When I first climbed aboard, the Eddie Bauer Explorer felt big. Very big. Almost massive. It felt more Expedition-like than Explorer-like.
But when I drove the Explorer, it also felt less-stable than the vehicle I remembered driving through the mountains near Prescott, Ariz., at intro time. In fact, it felt more top-heavy than I had recalled.
That puzzled me. Why would it feel stable and flat in the introduction drive, and top-heavy when I got it in my own familiar territory?
And then I remembered that the Explorer was not available on the handling course. Just the Mountaineer.
Now, I don’t know whether Ford decided to differentiate between the Explorer and Mountaineer, and gave the Mountaineer better, firmer handling for a more stable feel. But it seems that way, in my memory bank.
That flies against the usual logic, in which the Ford gets sportier handling and the Mercury versions — whether Sable to Taurus, or other companion vehicles — but it may be the case.
At any rate, I liked nearly everything about the new Explorer except the hefty feel and non-flat handling. The only other explanation that might bear investigation is whether Ford softened up the fancier Eddie Bauer edition, and whether you can select a more stable-feeling ride from the more standard, and less-costly, checklist.
From a looks standpoint, I think Ford designers did a great job in creating a new-look, flatter front end, with the headlights and grille integrated nicely. The Eddie Bauer contrasting color strip, which runs along the wheelwells and lower sides of the vehicle, also enhances the look.
Climbing aboard, I also thought the seats were supportive and comfortable, and the view from the driver’s seat is well-planned.
You have a complete instrument package, easily read and different enough to be attractive. It is amazing how many different vehicles can put the same old instruments together in an infinite number of ways to make them look fresh and new.
On the steering wheel, Ford has grouped the cruise-control switches on the left side, leaving plenty of room for the remote audio adjustments on the right. Overdrive on the five-speed automatic can be disengaged by a button on the tip of the steering-wheel-column mounted shift lever. That’s handy when you’re coming off a freeway ramp and want to be in fourth gear for city driving.
The center dash area is outlined in a greyish woodgrain plastic.
At the top are the audio controls, which include a 6-disc, in-dash CD player. Under that are the heat-air vents, and below those vents are the heat-air conditioning control switches.
On the left side of those controls there is a vertical row of three switches, with the top one an information switch to give you readouts of different things. Under it is a set-up switch, and below that is a reset button.
On the right side, symmetrically stacked, are the 4×4 switches, with the top one leaving you in automatic four-wheel drive for all-around driving, while letting the Explorer itself decide where most of your power should go. The middle one of the three buttons locks the 4×4 into high range for highway driving with both axles locked in tandem, handy for severe weather, or higher speed off-road or rough-road usage. The bottom button is for low-range, which serious off-roaders know is to allow steep hill climbing, and, more importantly, steep declines, without having the feeling the vehicle is going to run away from you.
The rear seats are also comfortable, and the back seat isn’t bad. One of the reasons — the best reason — for making the Explorer larger is to house that third row seat. And it folds flat to leave you all the stowage you need.
The engine is Ford’s tried and true 4.0 V6, which was upgraded several years ago to include a beefed-up lower end, and overhead camshafts atop each bank of cylinders. That allows for higher revving, and mates perfectly with the five-speed automatic transmission, which will hold itself in a gear while you run it up to near the redline.
Performance is quick and strong, all the way up through the revs.
An optional engine now available for the first time in the Explorer is an even stronger 4.6 V8, also with overhead cams.
The V6, along with its 210 horsepower peaking at a high 5,250 RPMs, has a solid 255 foot-pounds of torque, which peak at 3,000 RPMs, a good split, with low-end torque coming in for pulling power, and high-end revving to easily reach the horsepower peak.
Everything is in place to make the new Explorer a worthy next step up the technology ladder to sales success, and the price goes up commensurately.
But if I were to buy one, the first thing I’d have to do is lower it some more, put on lower-profile tires, and alter the suspension with stiffer, firmer shock absorbers.
A vehicle this good should be able to handle– you should pardon the expression — all the responsibilities of being a new-age SUV for the future. To say nothing of the present.
If you don’t need the extra heft, and size, the new Explorer makes the new Escape seem like an even better vehicle.
Jaguar sends new X-Type into the intense sports-sedan scramble
[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ Jaguar’s just-introduced X-Type carries retro traces of historic Jag sedans into bold projections for the British company’s future.
2/ From the rear, the X-Type style completes its run, and drew a lot of looks on the streets of downtown Paris.
3/ Clear, straightforward instruments, a high-tech, 7-inch touch screen navigation and information system, and real wood and leather dominate the X-Type interior.
4/ A new X-Type paused alongside the Jaguar XJ on the lawn inside the castle of Chateau de Chailly. ]]]]]
Jaguar cars have established a lot of tradition in the automotive industry. The proud British company always has built Jaguar sedans and sports cars with so much style and class they seemed excessive, but with eccentric electrical and mechanical ills that are nearly as prominent as their assets in reputation.
When Ford Motor Company took over the faltering Jaguar company, the automotive world waited with interest to see what the result would be. The result, so far, has been impressive. Ford has realigned some of the archaic manufacturing and marketing concepts, but it also has left Jaguar a lot of leeway in developing and building its own vehicles.
The best examples so far are the XK8 sports car, with its fantastic new V8 engine, and the S-Type sedan that offers a middle-range luxury sedan this side of the larger XJ luxury sedan. All of them carried out Jaguar’s concept of luxury and class, and they have done a fair amount to erase the negative side of things by being strong performing and without the problems of decades past.
Now, however, there is an all-new vehicle Jaguar is just introducing, and it could well become the most important car in the company’s history. It is called the X-Type sedan, a moderately priced sedan, starting at under $30,000. The X-Type gives Jaguar a player in the hotly contested sports-sedan bracket, where the targets include the BMW 3-Series, Mercedes C-Class, Audi A4, and Lexus IS300, all of which are among the world’s best vehicles at combining sportiness and luxury.
The X-Type has plenty of room for four adults, and plenty of power from either the 3.0-liter or 2.5-liter V6 engines, and plenty of sporty handling from full-time all-wheel drive. Jaguar calls its AWD system “Traction4,” which may not have the ring of Audi’s “quattro,” but if it works as well, it could be a huge hit in North America, where Jaguar figures the confidence of having all-wheel-drive is what motivates our fascination with trucks and SUVs.
“Back in 1998, said Mike O’Driscoll, head of Jaguar North America, “Jaguar sold 50,000 vehicles worldwide, with 25,000 of them being XJ or XK models to North America. In 2000, we sold 90,000, with 47,000 to North America. Our plan is to grow to 200,000 by 2004, and we project selling 75,000 to 80,000 X-Types, with 30,000 of them to North America.”
That means more X-Types sold in North America than all Jaguar models sold in 1998, and approaching the worldwide number. That seems energetic, but the X-Type’s performance, after brief rides around the twisty roads and small-town ambience of eastern France, seems to support that optimism.
It is always interesting and often exciting to attend the introduction of an entirely new vehicle, and companies have tended to compete with each other in finding unique sites with which to introduce their latest prizes. But Jaguar may have reached a new plateau with the X-Type. I was invited among a group of selected automotive journalists to the media launch of the X-Type, which was conducted in Paris, France, and across the country to Dijon, a large city that might best be known as the name of spicy mustard.
True, Jaguar is based in Coventry, England, but the English know where to go to find liveliness and sportiness as well as class. So off to France we went. It was an educational trip, and the Jaguar engineers were among the teachers, starting with Wayne Burgess, the principal designer of the X-Type.
“The X-Type began with a series of sketches on my desk,” said Burgess. “When you design a new car, your practical objectives include proportion, form, and stance. Of the three, proportion is the most important. If the proportions are right, the car will be a thing of beauty; if the proportions are wrong, no amount of features can make it attractive.”
Interesting. While I long have believed in “form follows function” — meaning everything has to function first, and then add the styling — a week in France, both with and without the X-Type, convinced me to completely accept a new philosophy. That is: When building a functional car, there is no reason why it can’t also have style. Burgess offered another axiom worth remembering when he said: “This is the performance of art, rather than the art of performance.”
After getting a preliminary look at the X-Type parked in front of one of the most sytlish hotels in downtown Paris, we were whisked by private jet to Dijon, where we paired up two to a car and headed off on prescribed courses through the countryside all afternoon. Another journalist and I drove two X-Types. First we chose one with the 3.0 V6 and a 5-speed manual transmission, then we tried the 2.5, also with a 5-speed. Both cars had the Sport package, which nicely balanced the steering feel and upgraded suspension with the power.
Both also were fun to drive, whether hurling them around the tightest of curving roadways, with no shoulders, or cruising through some charming tiny towns where the street picked its way between buildings that were so close together you wouldn’t want to meet an oncoming car at some points. We ended up at the Chateau de Chailly, a fabulous restored castle in the Bergundy region, and the next morning we drove some more, ending at a small race course near Dijon. That, too, was fun, although the course was nowhere near as demanding as the roadways we had taken to get there. The track had nicely defined turns, and was flat, while we were zipping around all manner of turns while going up and down hills and into valleys.
“Jaguar must never be boring,” Burgess added. “In the X-Type, we broke from the long, linear look by designing a lot of wedge-shaped drama into the car. The high tail, rather than the conventional low tail, helps aerodynamically as well as vastly improving the trunk space. Moving the wheels out to the corners changes the proportions of masses and volumes above the wheels. With the X-Type, the body is nestled down amid the wheels, rather than sitting up on top.
“The XJ-style grille works, and the twin elliptical headlights accentuate the width. If it seems I use a lot of aircraft terms, it’s because I love aircraft. The intake fluting on the X-Type has been copied from the DeHavilland Comet jet aircraft intakes, for example. We had tremendous collaboration between designers and engineers. We worked so extensively with computer-aided design, and many, many iterations of the design, that when we finally built a model, we had very few detail changes.”
The result is a stylish sedan that looks too luxurious to be called sporty. That’s another bothersome thing to Jaguar executives, who claim that in recent years the tendency toward luxury has caused auto buyers to forget that Jaguar once was a standard of high-performance driving. The challenge was to build a vehicle that could take on the sportiest German sedans, keep the price reasonable, and still retain what everybody at Jaguar calls “Jaguarness.”
Incidentally, in South America, where jaguars roam, they are called “JAG-wars,” as far as I know; but the British, when describing the car named after the leopard-like animal, the name is “JAG-you-are.” Sounds classy, indeed.
Both engines have dual-overhead-camshaft design with four valves per cylinder. The 2.5 has 194 horsepower at 6,800 RPMs and a peak of 180 foot-pounds of torque at 3,000 RPMs; the 3.0 has 231 horses at 6,800 revs, and 209 foot-pounds peaking at 3,000 revs, and variable intake valve timing allows 90 percent of peak horsepower to show up all the way from 2,500-6,000 RPMs.
More subtlely, Jaguar acknowledged that both engines for the new X-Type are built by Ford, off its Duratec line in Cleveland. That’s the engine Ford built for the Contour, and which it sends to Germany for use in the Mondeo, and to Coventry as a base engine in the S-Type, both of which prove it can run at ease on the autobahns.
The Traction4 system is permanent all-wheel drive, with a 40-front/60-rear torque split until slippage of any wheel causes the spinning wheel’s torque to be transferred elsewhere for optimum traction.
Another touch that sets Jaguars apart, in concept and in class, is the wood and leather of the interiors. Those two items mean a lot to the Jag folks. “We use wood in an architectural way,” Burgess said. “The air vents and gauges are held into place by the wood, and if you removed the wood, they would fall out. In the competition cars, if you took the wood out you’d find it was just trim. We are careful to always use wood in an architectural way, and wood doesn’t like compound curvatures. So we design our interiors to be very simple, straight, and symmetric.”
In the base car, you get dark-stained maple. In the Sport model, you get walnut. In our test cars, the walnut was stained an interesting dark grey, which I found unnatural, and I suggested to a Jaguar fellow that I might have to describe it as “barnwood grey.” He got the point, and I could tell from his reaction he preferred a more woodsy color, too. The leather is Connolly leather, a rich and supple fabric that is real, even if you select the comparatively odd red or dark green. We can only presume that those colors aren’t the result of hoof-and-mouth medication.
It was O’Driscoll who said this car is intended to recapture Jaguar’s sporty, performance image. “Because it is the most competitive segment, there is no leeway for error,” O’Driscoll said. “But there are many new customers who have no clue we were at LeMans, or that we are competing in Formula 1. There is a theory that you can’t sell an old car to young people, but you can sell a young car to everyone.
“When you compare price point, all the features, and the great performance, we think we are right in there with the C-Class, 3-Series and A4. We have features like the navigation system, with a voice-activated, 7-inch touch screen on the dash that is so sensitive, it actually responds to your finger before it actually touches the screen. People typically think Jaguars cost $20,000 more than they actually cost. We think the $29,950 base price will seed into the minds that Jaguars may not be priced as high as their perception. All the cars we’re targeting start at about the same price, and if you get them with equal equipment, they’ll rise to around $34,500.”
Jag-you-are intends to add about 25 dealers to the 145 it has in the U.S., which would bring the company up there near Lexus, which has 185 dealers. Jaguar also will do all the maintenance for the new car for a 4-year, 50,000-mile stretch — which should be the final indication of the confidence in X-Type’s excellence.
Small-car chaos of traffic in Paris might indicate future for U.S.
[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ Tiny cars zoom around the Arc d’Triomphe as if in some public mini-NASCAR race, with the Champs Elysees fading in the distance.
2/ You can pack a lot of tiny cars into the traffic congestion of Paris, which is handled swiftly, efficiently and economically. ]]]]]
“He went to Paris” might be my favorite Jimmy Buffet song, even though it documents the life of a fellow who went to Paris and then left, spending his lonely, final years fishing the pilings somewhere in the Florida Keys. I loved the song, even though I had never been to Paris, or to anywhere in France.
Until last week. I stretched the opportunity to spend two fast days in France at the introduction of Jaguar’s X-Type sedan into eight memorable days. Even for someone who’s use of the French language was mostly refined by the Monty Python troupe in its quest for the Holy Grail, or the late Peter Sellers in his cinematic pursuit of the Pink Panther.
Paris is a vast, bustling city, with wide boulevards such as the Champs Elysee, and extremely tight, one-lane streets where cars are parked on sidewalks on both sides. We had been informed that the people in France were rude, especially to Americans, but we found none of that. We found precious little in common, but perhaps some indications of what we — in our SUV-driving, $2-per-gallon gas guzzling freedom — might be headed for.
Fuel prices at French gas stations was about 8 francs per liter, which equates to something close to $5 per gallon for premium. More like $4.50 a gallon for regular. That makes you realize that we have little to complain about when our gasoline edges up toward $2 per gallon, perhaps on its way to projections of $3 by midsummer.
While we drive gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks, whether we need them or not, the difference in the approach to driving between the U.S. and France is startling. We spent days walking the streets of Paris — along the Seine to the Louvre, to the Arc d’Triomphe, to the Eifel Tower, to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and all points in between — and while looking at all the historic sights, I also kept looking to the streets.
In eight days, I noted three PT Cruisers, three Chrysler minivans (although with turbo-diesels, obviously not mere imports), three Jeep Cherokees, one Ford Explorer, two Cadillac Sevilles, and one Corvette. And that was it. Thirteen U.S. vehicles out of the approximately 10 million vehicles we saw.
In Paris, they drive small cars. Sure, there are some big BMWs, and Mercedes models, but mostly there are tiny cars. The Volkswagen Golf that we consider a small subcompact is more of a midsize car in Paris. VW builds a smaller Polo, and another tiny model, which are much more prevalant than Golfs.
Audi, which we know for its luxury A8, impressive mid-range A6, and the normal sized A4, also makes an A3 and A2, both smaller, much more compact. The A3 particularly was everywhere in Paris, either in 2- or 4-door hatchback fashion. Mercedes, too, has a slick, small subcompact that is very popular in Paris.
French cars also dominate, naturally, which is particularly intriguing to an American, because you simply cannot buy any of those French cars in the U.S.
Renault used to bring cars to the U.S., but they had problems in those days and were considered unreliable. Peugeot tried to come in, but a sparse dealer network and no marketing plan doomed it to unsellable status. Citroen was known for inventive but weird and eccentric cars in the 1960s, then vanished from our shores.
But look around Paris now. Peugeot makes a small 206 model, a still-small 306, then a really impressive midsize sedan called the 407, and the crème de la crème, you should pardon the expression, is a luxurious and stylish 607. Same with Renault, which has an armada of impressive vehicles, from mini to luxury size. And Citroen as well covers the entire spectrum from tiny to sporty full-size, which still looks a little eccentric.
All three of those companies make very impressive minivans, and they were everywhere, including in taxicab service.
My favorite is a tiny two-passenger thing called the “Smart” car. Tiny, but quick and with great performance when your objective is outright commuter transportation.
Traffic congestion, meanwhile, is amazing. Streets radiate out like wheel spokes from the Arc d’ Triomphe, and cars wheel around the street that circles the facility as if they’re trying for the fast lane at Proctor Speedway. They hurtle in what approaches reckless abandon, but they stop on a dime and swerve to make way for those entering at the next spoke, all the while picking their spot for darting to the outer lanes for their upcoming exit. It is amazing to behold.
Similar driving style is apparent everywhere downtown. Cars zoom this way and that, in swift bursts of acceleration.
And yet, all of them stop abruptly and wait patiently — no horn-honking or rude gestures or even Clusieau-like Peter Sellers-isms — everytime they approach any crosswalk where a pedestrian might be.
Downtown parking spots are at a premium, and the cars are so small they park three, end-to-end, in two parking spots. They also park on sidewalks and alleyways. Walk along many streets and you’re amazed at the huge wooden doors every once in a while. When the doors open, you realize that behind the storefronts at street level, there is a whole underworld of apartments, many of them very expensive, located behind the stores, and those huge doors lead to off-street parking for the residents.
Near the Louvre, a street crossing the Seine was clogged with an absolute gridlock situation one afternoon. What we noticed the most was how much more efficient the gridlock was. You can pack a lot of tiny cars into the same space as a couple dozen SUVs, when you have to.
The fact that you cannot even buy most of those neat, compact, fuel-efficient commuter cars in the U.S. may be the most startling evidence of our excessive tastes. I’m not saying everyone should have a tiny car, but if the world is turning toward more expensive fuel and more congested streets, which is more logical, having gigantic trucks or about twice as many tiny, economic commuter cars?
On top of that, Paris has a phenomenal light rail system, called the Metro. It also has an extensive train system, including a high-speed rail system that I rode back from Dijon to Paris in a flash. The Metro is so good and so extensively used that the Paris city bus system also is clean, swift and efficient and was recommended highly to us. It is incomprehensible to imagine how many more cars there would have to be packed into Paris streets if the city didn’t have such a great light rail or bus system.
That might be where our larger cities, such as the Twin Cities, are headed for.
But all of us might be wise to pause and consider a car that is as compact and fuel-efficient as we can get by with. And two-vehicle families could at least go for one such vehicle with the other being an SUV or a pickup or a van. If it isn’t obvious now, it might become obvious if the gas prices hit $3 and, this time, don’t come back down.
Volkswagen boosts Eurovan power, features, and slashes price
[[[CUTLINES:
1/ Volkswagen is relaunching the Eurovan, with significant increases in power, up to 201 horsepower, and a decrease in price, to the mid-$20,000 range.
2/ The high-opening rear hatch allows a middle shelf to separate the enormous 206 cubic feet of interior room in the Eurovan.
3/ The “Weekender” version has a pop-up roof that turns the Eurovan into a minicamper that can sleep four adults, with a refrigerator and table.
4/ The basic GLS Eurovan has forward facing buckets in the second row, and a three-seat bench in the rear.
5/ On the upgraded MV, the second-row buckets face the rear, and a fold-out table is secured on the driver’s side wall.
6/ The new extended snout of the Eurovan is still much shorter than a Ford Windstar, parked adjacent, increasing forward visibility.
“Our Eurovan was underpowered and overpriced,” said Frank Maguire, Volkswagen’s vice president in charge of North American marketing and sales.
His refreshing candor might have been unique among automotive executives worldwide. Where most of them either gush promotional bilge about their vehicles, regardless of whether they are good or bad, or else they obscure shortcomings with a barrage of corporate doubletalk. Maguire, on the other hand, flat pointed out that Volkswagen had a couple of pretty good reasons for relaunching the Eurovan — too slow, and too expensive.
Remember back when Chrysler invented the minivan trend, back in the early ’80s? Maguire remembers the trend, and he had a little fun with the popular misconception, as well. He was addressing a group of journalists, some of them cynics, at the Lake Placid Resort, which is located in the scenic little Upstate New York town best known for the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” victory by the U.S. Olympic hockey team.
“Volkswagen has a long history in vans,” Maguire said. “In fact, we have 50 years in the van market. But of course we didn’t invent the minivan; that was invented by Chrysler in the early 1980s.”
He was only being partially facetious.
“What we invented was the passenger van,” Maguire added. “There’s nothing ‘mini’ about it. We brought out the Microbus in 1950, and I think we sold two, that year. What we did was to put a rectangle on the Beetle platform. But people didn’t understand, because vans were for delivering, not for hauling people.”
The Microbus became an icon of the 1960s, and is still popular in California, where surfers find its open-rear size perfect for hauling their equipment. VW is planning to bring an all-new version of the Minivan back, probably within the next year. For now, the company wanted to reintroduce its Eurovan, the vehicle that replaced the Microbus as a bigger, roomier van. The Eurovan has not been an item of high priority by U.S. buyers, since it came to our shores in 1992. In fact, it petered out and wasn’t even brought to the U.S. from 1994-97, then it was quietly reintroduced in 1998.
“It was a stealth launch,” joked VW public relations director Tony Fouladpour.
Maguire remained flippant as he discussed the relaunch of the new Eurovan. The key, as he indicated, was what to do about it being too slow and too expensive.
Easy. Volkswagen, which had streamlined production of its Passat, Jetta, Golf and New Beetle in the last couple of years, did a great job of reducing production costs and tighting up production of the Eurovans in Hanover, Germany. The reduced cost in production, even with improved structural rigidity and improved engine, transmission and interior amenities, has been passed on to consumers. It was evident that a good Caravan, Voyager, Honda Odyssey, Ford Windstar, Toyota Sienna, Nissan Quest or Mercury Villager could be obtained for somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000.
But a Eurovan, in all its squareness, listed at $31,000 for the GLS, and $32,800 for the upgraded MV. As the 2001 models roll into showrooms, those prices have dropped to $26,200 for the GLS and $27,700 for the MV. Who ever heard of a company dropping its price by 15-17 percent without compromising ingredients?
However, no matter how good the revisions are, and even how much the price drops, nobody is going to buy a “slow” minivan, which is the other project the Volkswagen engineers took on. They found a unique way to conquer it.
Volkswagen has built virtually bullet-proof motors for a lot of years, going back to that tough little flat-opposed job in the original Beetle. It moved on to a four-cylinder block that has been used for all sorts of different engines. And then it came out with a six. And not just a V6, but a unique V6 caled the VR6. When you look at a V6 from the end, if it were a cutaway you would see that most of them have the two banks of cylinders in the form of a V, which might be at a 60-degree angle, or even 90-degree. VW engineers built the VR6 in an unusual, serpentine fashion, so that the two banks were very close together.
Picture an in-line six, then push the second, fourth and sixth cylinder to one side, just a bit. The narrow angle VR6 has its cylinders aligned almost in serpentine fashion, alternating left, right, left, right, left, right. In this way, they put one cylinder head on top of both close-angle banks of cylinders, and the vehicle went well.
Except, it didn’t go well very quickly. Even though the VR6 is fast in Passat form, it only delivers 140 horsepower to the Eurovan. And the low-end was pretty feeble, with only 177 foot-pounds of torque setting the Eurovan in motion.
Ah, but that was the old Eurovan. The new one, just now being relaunched, has a revised VR6 engine — same displacement, different plumbing, starting with dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder, plus variable valve timing. My reason for liking overhead cams is it allows a manufacturer to extract maximum power and efficiency without increasing displacement. By doing that, VW increased the horsepower from 140 to 201, and the torque from 177 to 181. The torque peak is at a mere 2,500 revs, which means a world of difference in performance, and it stays at that peak until 5,500 RPMs. Horsepower peaks at 6,200 revs.
With a relatively heavy vehicle — the Eurovan weighs 4,344 pounds — the VR6 doesn’t make you imagine yourself zooming down a dragstrip in the front-wheel-drive Eurovan. But it does take off quickly, with a lot of starch as soon as you touch the gas.
Driving the new Eurovan makes you quickly forget the former Eurovan, which is a good thing, particularly because it was soÂ…forgettable.
On top of the power increase, the new Eurovan engine is hooked up to an advanced stability and traction-control system, called ESP, for Electronic Stability Program. This is a standard feature, over and above the ASR (anti-slip regulation) system that also is standard for pure traction aid. Combined, these two high-tech aids mean you can start up and go strong in the most slippery of conditions, and you also can be sure of directional stability because a yaw-rate sensor feeds any skid tendencies into the system, and it instantaneously measures lateral acceleration and speed and can brake any of the four wheels slightly to straighten out and prevent the Eurovan from a skid.
All of that is combined with larger, 16-inch wheels, lower-profile tires, full front and rear independent suspension, increased torsional rigidity, and a suspension that allows all that power and control to grip the road in the tightest, twistiest of turns.
Frankly, it has to be driven, hard, to be appreciated, which is why Volkswagen summoned a couple waves of journalists to the Lake Placid Lodge. We got to whip around some tight roadways in the Adirondack mountains, and prove to ourselves what a difference power and handling can make, even in a tall van.
The Eurovan is tall, several inches taller than a Caravan, Windstar, GM version, or any other mainstream minivan. Yet its coefficient of drag is only 0.36, which is pretty good for a sedan, and exceptional for any minivan, most of which serve better as airdams. The Eurovan kept its stability, even when passed by an eager semi driver on the freeway. And it was so good on a twisty, dusty side road that I was able to hurl it around the turns and stay right on the tail of a couple of VW types who were scurrying from one stopover to another in a Jetta 1.8-Turbo.
While driving is enjoyable, the interior features of the Eurovan deserve inspection, too. The basic GLS has two front buckets, and two second-row buckets, with a third-row bench seat, meaning it seats seven. The second-row buckets pop out easily, increasing interior room, and the rear bench folds down to enhance stowage room. The MV — which stands for multi-van — is an upgrade that has, instead of forward-facing second-row buckets, two fixed, rear-facing buckets.That means two occupants can face the three rear-bench occupants, and a tight-fitting, fold-out table is hinged into the driver’s side wall, and it pops up to make a perfect little lunch or card-table between those rear-facing and rear bench seats.
Because it is tall, the Eurovan, which is slightly longer than a normal-length Caravan (or Windstar, or GM van), but shorter than a Grand Caravan, has 206 cubic feet of interior space, which is 11.4 percent more than the extended-length Chrysler minivans, and 18.8 percent more than the normal-length vans. You also can fold down the seats in the MV to turn the rear part into a full double bed.
There is one more, and it is something of a coup by VW. For a tad over $3,000, you get what’s called the “Weekender,” which starts out with a Eurovan on a stretched, 130.7-inch wheelbase, and includes a raise-able roof with fabric sides housing mosquito-netted windows on either side. That allows an adult to stand easily in the middle, and a platform-like bed also can be made up in the front part of the raised roof, on which you can sleep two more adults. The Weekender option also includes a small refrigerator located under the rear-facing bucket seat.
That means you can have your van and sleep four adults in a spacious, split-level setting, with a table and refrigerator, and still be right around $30,000.
Because VW is getting a late start with the introduction, it doesn’t expect to sell a lot of the new Eurovans this model year, and estimates are as low as 5,000. But it expects to double that amount next year, and has the capacity to redouble those out of its Hanover plant.
Beyond that, the revised Eurovan will be the basis for Volkswagen’s future plans, which include the new and more compact Microbus, and an SUV, which is being developed jointly by Volkswagen and — get this — Porsche.
The revision to the Eurovan, with its longer snout to house the twin-cam, multivalve VR6, and different headlights and standard foglights, is pretty subtle, and the rear remains boxy and, therefore, useful. But in one slick move, along with the increased power and lowered price, Volkswagen has turned the Eurovan into a pretty overwhelming entry in the minivan segment. And even Volkswagen must prefer a term like “overwhelming” to those previous terms like “underpowered” and “overpriced.”
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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