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.”
Mercedes makes a better-handling rocket disguised as an SUV
It was almost as if somebody at Mercedes-Benz was reading my mail. Or at least my columns. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how impressive it was that the new Mercury Mountaineer, and presumably the new Ford Explorer being introduced for 2002 had revised their chassis and handling so extensively that in a test I drove in proved they were flatter through the turns than such impressive sport-utility vehicles as the Mercedes ML430.
It seemed an amazing irony that the Germans could have gone so far toward trying to give American buyers the softer ride they prefer that now the stiffest-handling SUVs would come from Ford.
Presto! A test vehicle arrived and it had a definite serious demeanor. It was a Mercedes ML55 AMG. Now, I only recently had reported on the very impressive ML430, which is the Mercedes SUV equipped with a 4.3-liter single-overhead-cam V8, and it was extremely impressive, because it has so much more power than the standard 3.2-liter SOHC V6.
Over in Germany, there is this hot-rod outfit called AMG, and for years they have been taking Mercedes sedans and coupes and fixing them up, power and suspension, as if the standard 150-mph autobahn cruisers weren’t strong enough. Mercedes has now corralled AMG into a subsidiary that is out of the closet, taking those world-class runners and improving upon them.
So it was just a matter of time that Mercedes would take the M430 SUV and turn it over to the lads from AMG. Sure enough, they’ve come up with the ultimate hot-rod SUV. With the competition out there including the BMW X5, and the new Audi allroad quattro, Mercedes couldn’t stand to have just a high-performing SUV. It had to recalculate to make it rise to the top superlatives in every category.
The AMG treatment includes body work, with high-intensity foglights built into the lower bumper molding, 18-inch wheels on stiffened suspension, a few interior upgrades for uniqueness, andÂ…under the hoodÂ…a huge jewel of an engine.
The ML55 disposes of the 4.3-liter V8 with its potent 268 horses and 288 foot-pounds of torque, and takes on a 5.5-liter V8 which AMG has jacked up to an almost incomprehensible 342 horsepower and 376 foot-pounds of torque.
That engine, dispensing its power to all four wheels all the time, is mated to a 5-speed automatic that you can shift manually without a clutch, or you can stuff it in “D” and let it do the shifting, smoothly and effortlessly.
Either way, you rocket from 0-60 in something less than 6.5 seconds, which would be good for a Porsche or a Corvette or some other racy sports car with too much power, and which, in an SUV, should require a separate license.
Inside, the seats are special, very firm, and the instrumentation is classy, with dark italic numerals on a light background, while the steering wheel, with its real wood and real leather in concert, sets off an entirely upgraded passenger compartment.
Going back to the basic ML320 with the V6, it costs about $33,000 and delivers a strong V6, permanent 4-wheel drive, fully independent suspension, and the best safety crash-test results in the industry. That’s with 215 horsepower and 233 foot-pounds of torque. The ML430 shoots the price up to around $50,000, but for those who like power, it’s probably worth it.
But the AMG version, the ML55, puts the money up around $67,000 fully loaded.
You probably wouldn’t want to go crashing through the underbrush and over trails in this beauty, although it seems willing, if you wanted to, with its skid-plate underside and the high stance on those huge wheels (the basic ML320 and ML430 have 17-inch wheels, and the ML55 goes to 18-inchers).
But if you had the money, and you wanted to be able to at least argue with any SUV compatriots that you had the ultimate one-upmanship SUV, the Mercedes ML55 would be the one to buy.
And, yes, the ML55 stays so flat around tight turns that for sure, I’d like to redo that handling test around the autocross course with the new Mountaineer and Explorer. The ML55, however, would probably prefer to take the test around Nurburgring.
[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The foglights are a subtle indication that this Mercedes SUV is the ML55 — the AMG upgraded 342-horsepower SUV that will go 0-60 in less than 6.5 seconds, for boat-trailer haulers in a real hurry.
2/ A classy upgraded interior sets off the ML55 from the very nice ML430, and it’s the least you’d expect for $67,000. ]]]]]]]
Consumer Reports 20-year data verifies ratings, improvement
As an avid follower of all things automotive, it is always fun to read magazines and articles pertdaining to the automotive business, and in that vein, one of the more thorough publications available every year is making its appearance right now — the annual auto edition of Consumer Reports magazine.
The April issue has all sorts of information on the 2001 model year, as well as on 2002 models recently, or about to be, introduced.
Twenty years ago, Consumer Reports and autos didn’t always blend well. There was a time I recall the magazine criticizing the Corvette for inadequate rear seat room. It was true, of course. It also was true that the Corvette didn’t even HAVE a rear seat. The same magazine also test-drove a sporty Mustang and reported that it had outstanding acceleration, fantastic brakes, and the best emergency handling characteristics of anything they had tested, and yet they said not to consider buying one because of its sporty image.
Whether you think some of their reports are too stodgy, too conservative, and not always quick to recognize the all-important fun factor in driving, it always has some thought-provoking information. The automobile business has changed dramatically in the past 20 years, and Consumer Reports has matured very well in the same time span. One of its best features is assembling criticism about all sorts of things on all sorts of cars and compiling that data into frequency-of-repair rates for virtually every vehicle you can find.
Every five years, CR analyzes all its survey data, which provides a great base for comparison. This time around, it is truly impressive, because for the first time in its history, CR can go back a fyull two decades and compare problems and therefore reliability of 2.5 million responses, covering all cars available in the U.S.
Now, we know that automobiles have become more reliable and more trouble-free. We also know that we face a barrage of advertising, public relations snow-jobs, and lobbyist-inspired government stances on cars and laws. While getting the opportunity to test-drive about 100 cars a year for 25 years, some things are very obvious. I’ve about how U.S. car-makers fell behind the Germans in craftsmanship, and then fell way behind the Japanese in technology, cost and reliability. That was written without prejudice — I always hope every car is high-tech and impressive — but it generated considerable scorn from those who either are prejudiced or have an ax to grind.
Still, those were seat-of-the-pants opinions, filtered by unique interview sessions with engineers, designers and public-relations types. I had no way to measure what consumers would say about personal problems with their cars. So Consumer Reports has done that, and remember, CR accepts no advertising from auto companies, so it doesn’t compromise its objectivity because of a 4-page, multi-color spread on page 28, if you know what I mean.
Here is an overview of the findings in Consumer Reports’ analysis:
In 1980, the average rate of for all new vehicles was 88 problems for every 100 cars. As of 2000, that rate had dropped to 20 — an impressive 77 percent improvement.
Problem rates for U.S. (GM, Ford, Chrysler) vehicles dropped from 105 problems in 1980 to 23 in 2000. Problem rates for European cars sold in the U.S. dropped from 50 to 20 per 100 vehicles. The rate for Japanese vehicles dropped from an average of 34 to an average of 11.
Over those 20 years, Chrysler cars have been slightly more reliable overall than vehicles from Ford and General Motors. BMW and Mercedes-Benz have been the most reliable European vehicles. The Japanese companies have been far more consistent, therefore showing less improvement, but Nissan, Honda and Subaru showed the greatest improvement in problem rate.
In the truck department, Japanese-made trucks had only a tiny share of the market in 1980, but improved from 41 problems per 100 vehicles to a mere 16 for the 2000 model year. U.S. nameplates improved from 102 complaints per 100 vehicles to 23. Individually, Ford pickups were the most troublesome in 1980, but improved 86 percent to 16 problems, ranking second only to Toyota’s 13. GM’s problems per 100 trucks improved from 107 in 1980 to 26 in 2000, while Chrysler’s trucks went from 40 to 26 problems per 100.
In SUVs, the U.S. had the only ones with enough sales to compile data in 1980, but the data wasn’t good — a rating of 138 problems per 100 vehicles. Japanese SUVs were just coming into the marketplace then, but they reflected the tradition of good workmanship by having only 16 problems per 100 SUVs in 1980, and have improved to 9 in 2000.
Japanese nameplate SUVs have now surpassed Japanese cars as being the most trouble-free vehicles on the road, and the Honda CR-V ranks as the most reliable vehicle in the survey of all 2000-year models.
The Ford F150, annually the top-selling vehicle in the U.S., was one of the worst for problems in 1980, but now ranks as the most reliable product among all Ford vehicles in 2000.
In CR’s ranking of the most reliable vehicles for 2000, the top vehicles were, in order, 1. Infiniti, 2. Lexus, 3. Acura, 4. Honda, 5. Toyota, 6. Nissan, 7. Subaru, 8. Mazda, 9. BMW, 10. Mercury, 11. Ford, 12. Volvo, 13. Chrysler, 14. Volkswagen, 15. Plymouth, 16. Saturn, 17. Dodge, 18. Audi, 19. Buick, 20. Mercedes-Benz, 21. Oldsmobile, 22. Cadillac, 23. Pontiac, 24. Lincoln, 25. Chevrolet, 26. GMC, 27. Jaguar, and 28. Jeep.
CR also lists charts to show how much the problem areas have changed. In 1980, fuel systems, electrical systems, and body rust were the three clear leaders among the 15 categories in problems, with body integrity a strong fourth. In 2000, body rust is the least-named problem among those 15, and fuel systems had dropped to seventh, while electrical system problems had dropped almost in half but still were the primary trouble spot, followed closely by brake systems, then hardware, body integrity and suspension.
Consumer Reports also has accompanying articles on a variety of other automotive records, and it has its own safety and performance tests. Another indication of how impressive CR does its job these days is that its safety tests show crashworthiness by pounding the cars into barriers, but it now adds a factor for accident avoidance, which has long been my major emphasis on driving safety. A car that can avoid an accident in 95 percent of the cases makes its occupants far safer than a car that might be heavier and more crashworthy, but in which avoidance capabilities almost make accidents inevitable.
The magazine’s breakdown in crash protection shows the best among small cars is the Volkswagen Golf, Honda Civic, Volkswagen Jetta and Volkswagen New Beetle; tied for the worst were the Kia Sephia, Pontiac Sunfire and Chevrolet Cavalier.
Among intermediate-size family cars, the top two were the Volkswagen Passat and Chevrolet Impala, with 13 more models about tied behind them with impressively high test results; the worst rating went to the Daewoo Leganza, with next-to-worst crash barrier test scores to Pontiac Grand Am, Oldsmobile Alero, Buick Regal, Saturn LS1, Oldsmobile Intrigue and Pontiac Grand Prix.
Among large and upscale cars, the Volvo S80, Lincoln LS, Toyota Avalon, Lincoln Town Car and Mercury Grand Marquis tied for the best in crash-barrier tests alone, while the worst wre the Buick Park Avenue, Ford Crown Victoria, Pontiac Bonneville, Acura 3.2TL, Oldsmobile Aurora and Lexus ES300. It must be pointed out, however, that all the crash tests of the largest cars were good to very good, this was just the pecking order.
In accident avoidance, however, there was quite a different tale. Among small cars, the best were the Civic, Toyota Celica, Ford Focus and Chrysler Neon; the worst were the Kia Sephia and Saturn SL2. Among medium cars, the best at avoidance was the Passat, while the worst was a lengthy list of Daewoo Leganza, Grand Am, Alero, Regal, Saturn LS1, Dodge Intrepid, Mazda 626, Subaru Legacy, Mercury Sable and Ford Taurus. Among large cars, the best at handling agility was the Volvo S80, Lincoln LS, Avalon, ES300, Aurora, Lincoln Town Car andAcura 3.2TL — but none was as good as the best-handling medium or small cars in accident avoidance. Worst among large cars were the Buick Park Avenue, Grand Marquis, Crown Vic, and Bonneville.
Taking it even beyond that, the overall combined crash and avoidance tests were ranked in various categories. The best upscale and large cars were the Infiniti I30 and Buick LeSabre; among minivans, the Honda Odyssey, followed closely by the Toyota Sienna and Ford Windstar. For small SUVs, the Subaru Forester was No. 1, solidly. For midsized SUVs, the Mercedes-Benz ML430 was far and away the best, with the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Nissan Xterra next. For pickup trucks, the Ford F150 was best, followed by the Ford Ranger and Mazda B4000 (the same vehicle, now), with the Toyota Tacoma next.
That’s only a taste of the April Consumer Reports, but all that information and surveying is compelling stuff to ponder, when you’re looking at buying a new or used car. The ads make everything sound exceptional, but you can’t fool the owners.
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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