Turbo-diesel future sweeping the world while U.S. hangs back
If you’re like I am, you must be thinking that the current skyrocket-job of gasoline prices is some sort of evil concoction of Middle Eastern oil moguls, who are out to undermine our carefree, gas-guzzling lifestyle. But when we have to spend nearly $2 a gallon, and it takes $40 to fill one of those new, big vehicles with its subtlely enlarged fuel tank, we might think it’s time to look a different direction.
Last week, we discussed the infinite number of tiny cars I noticed in Paris. Since then, I’ve had a chance to get into some deep and very enlightening discussions with some of Volkswagen’s top engineers, most notably Werner Ebbinghaus, the man in charge of much of VW’s engine development, and Stefan Krebsfanger, production manager for some of VW’s products.
We laugh at Europeans who have been spending $5 per gallon for fuel, although we can understand why they don’t take much sympathy in our current increase toward $2 per gallon. But there are some things I didn’t fully understand. Among them are that Europeans pay more for fuel because of taxes, which are high to promote the use of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars on one hand, and technology to refine higher-mileage vehicles on the other.
While we have been hurtling along on a stubborn plan whereby automotive lobbyists convince the government to NOT tighten the fuel-economy and emission laws, we also are allowing our fuel-refining companies to continue to make fuel that is enormously high in impurities, such as sulfur. I asked those engineers how much more sulfur we have in our fuel than Germany and Europe, and the answer was “between 10-fold, and 100-fold more.”
That is not VW corporate whining. Instead, it exposes the U.S. government’s vulnerability to U.S. automotive lobbyists, who have succeeded in preventing the tightening of fuel-economy and emission laws, which have allowed us to drone along, satisfied to make whopping earnings while shutting down U.S. plants and building them in Canada and Mexico, while our oil companies can rip off gigantic earnings while giving us fuel that is pretty lousy by comparison. But mediocre engines can thrive on lousy fuel. Meanwhile, European companies have made enormous technological strides in engines and engine-management systems, aided by having fuels that are refined to the standpoint that these slick new engines can be developed.
In Volkswagen’s case, as in the case of other European manufacturers, the answer to energy and emission problems is, simply, the Diesel engine.
We think of diesels as those loud, clattering, foul-smoke-spewing things that have tremendous power and are necessary for running semi trucks and buses and huge ships, but they don’t make any sense for consumer-level automobiles. Which proves we’ve been had, again. While those companies build engines for cars that work great in the U.S., we don’t get their best stuff, simply because it won’t work here.
For example, the VW Golf GTI can be had as a hot performer with the VR6 engine, which has a narrow-angle V that has staggered cylinders in a serpentine order. That engine has been improved dramatically, with the addition of dual-overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder and variable valve timing. It is introduced in the U.S. in the revised Eurovan, but has been operting on the top Jetta and GTI in Germany already. We will get those cars next year, and they will be screamers.
In the near future, Volkswagen is coming out with a luxury car with a V12 engine, an ingenious powerplant that actually is two VR6 engines mounted side-by-side. Essentially, each bank of the V12 will be a VR6. It has spectacular power, and Volkswagen officials believe it will challenge the best Mercedes and BMW luxury powerhouses.
However, Ebbinghaus and Krebsfanger are more enthused about a turbocharged diesel GTI, which has 150 horsepower and something approaching 170 foot-pounds of torque. “It is not as fast, outright, as the GTI with the new VR6 four-valve,” said Ebbinghaus, whose first job with VW in 1978 was the diesel engine in the Rabbit. “But it is very quick. All that torque allows it to start up very quickly.”
In Europe, where people demand high-mileage cars and purchase inexpensive smaller cars with smaller engines, the Golf is practically a midsized car. Volkswagen makes the smaller Polo, which is very popular there, and a still-smaller Lupo. Ebbinghaus scoffs at hybrid technology such as electric cars and even the gas/electric combinations, which Honda and Toyota are selling now, and insists turbo-diesels are a far better and more accessible alternative.
He and Krebsfanger told about a worldwide challenge which was issued to manufacturers to offer a car for a lengthy test to travel 100 kilometers on 3 liters of fuel, which would be the equivalent of 80 miles per gallon. Volkswagen took the challenge, and competed against the Honda Insight and a Toyota Prius with their hybrid gas/electric engines, with a VW Lupo with a tiny 3-liter turbo-diesel.
“We brought in low-sulfur European diesel fuel,” said Krebsfanger. “And our car won by getting something over 100 miles per gallon.”
In the U.S., of course, we still scoff and say we aren’t interested in diesels for consumer cars, and only accept them on giant pickup trucks needed for massive towing and hauling duties. We don’t like the noise, the clatter, and the smoke. But the smoke is because of our poor fuel quality. The better diesel fuel in Europe burns cleanly, and the turbodiesel cars do not belch out those black clouds. They also don’t clatter, but run smoothly, with only slightly more noise than gasoline engines in comparable vehicles. And while diesels traditionally don’t have any acceleration close to comparable to gas engines, the turbocharging and electronic engine management systems can combine to provide outstanding acceleration as well as high speed.
The speed may not be sustainable at the over-130-mph level, which gasoline engines can cruise at in Germany, but the tradeout is pretty impressive — 50, 60, 75 and more miles per gallon in normal-sized cars, and the aforementioned 100-plus miles per gallon in the minicars.
Reducing sulfur and other impurities in fuel allows companies to build such high-tech, fine-burning engines. Shipping those engines to the U.S. would result in fouling up their operation, plus all that foul smoke and odor. But it’s not because of the diesel technology, just our fuel.
“Reducing the particulate and sulfur levels would greatly reduce the problem of nitrous-oxide emissions,” said Krebsfanger. “The U.S. sulfur level in fuel is too high to allow our new catalytic converters to work. The U.S. needs a mandate to fix the fuels, which not only would clean up the emissions, but would allow manufacturers to use their latest technology, such as direct-injection.”
Such methods require higher compression ratios, which result in better efficiency in burning all the fuel, with benefits in power and fuel economy. But manufacturers can’t risk having low-grade fuel fouling the cleaning and injection systems of those engines.
“In Europe, fuel is expensive because the fuel is taxed so that the more you use, the more taxes you pay,” said Ebbinghaus. “That is an incentive for the fuel companies to make clean fuel. In Europe, a gallon of premium fuel is taxed more than regular, and regular is taxed more than diesel fuel. Those fuels are highly refined, but the difference in tax from premium to diesel is about 20 percent. That is why consumers go for smaller engines — mostly four-cylinder instead of sixes — and diesel engines.”
But not in the U.S. Here, there is only small demand for diesels, but you can buy a lower-tech VW turbodiesel in a New Beetle, Golf or Jetta. If you ask an owner, you will find an outspoken advocate.
When a new administration takes over and implies we can overcome energy-conservation tightening by simply drilling into all our national parkland preserves to find limitless supplies of oil, a lot of us believe itÂ…can’t we? Despite accusations that George Dubya Bush favors the wealthy, favors big industry, and favors those wealthy supporters to whom he owes favors, we can understand it. That’s U.S. politics at work. So moves to help the bottom-line profit of big business — oil companies to explore for more oil, and U.S. auto manufacturers who want a rollback in fuel-economy and emission standards in order to continue making gas-guzzling enormo-cars — we also seem to accept it.
MeanwhileÂ…”For the whole world, I would estimate that all of Volkswagen’s engines would be 40 percent diesel,” Ebbinghaus added.
But not in the U.S. Here, we are faced with another one of those questions: Are we in the U.S. right, or is the rest of the world right? And if we are wrong, are we falling behind because of a bureaucratic snarl of political posturing?
Ford revisits fun cars of decades past with new Tbird and Bullitt
[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The 2002 Thunderbird attracted all sorts of passersby along the shore at the surfer’s museum near Monterey, Calif.
2/ A gathering of Tbirds at a rest stop on Highway 1 in the Big Sur region drew attention.
3/ Getting on top of the Pacific Coast fog allowed the top to come down on the new Thunderbird.
4/ The Tbird interior shows off some retro cues but has strict contemporary efficiency.
4/ A pair of Bullitt Mustangs awaited test drives in Monterey, Calif.
5/ The driver is reminded of the early Mustangs with the Bullitt’s gauge package.
6/ The glassed-in headlights give the Bullitt a fierce look, while the tail is emblazoned with the special-edition name. ]]]]]
The everyday tedium of work can be a lot more enjoyable if a little fun can be injected. At Ford Motor Company, the labor of building cars and trucks to compete with the giants of the industry have brought obvious benefits.
Now it’s time for Ford to have a little fun.
Some of the most fun times for Ford date back to the 1950s and 1960s. In the ’50s, Ford built a small, 2-seat sporty car called the Thunderbird. It was small, sleek, contemporary and elicited high levels of emotion from customers and those who saw and coveted them. After building the Tbirds for 1955, ’56 and ’57, tedium took over. Somehow, the Thunderbird grew into a large and far less pleasurable vehicle, becoming a 4-seat coupe, and then a sedan, and growing larger and less sporty by the year.
In the 1960s, Ford shocked the auto industry with a small, affordable sporty coupe called the Mustang. It was a 4-seater from the start, but never more than a coupe, and it, too, elicited strong emotions, right up through the 1970 model year. Then, as if practicality required Ford to make everything bigger to be better, the Mustang grew a foot in 1971, stayed large for a while, then shrunk down to a small compact again. The Mustang is back to being a sporty coupe these days, but there are those at Ford who remember the best Mustangs of all time — the 1968-through-’70 models.
It seems that the popularity of cars like the original Thunderbird and the early Mustangs captivated the public enough to gain starring roles in popular movies. Consider “American Graffiti,” and “Bullitt,” two films that have endured through generations.
“Remember Suzanne Somers, and the white Tbird in American Graffiti?” asked Ford vice president Chris Theodore. “Then there was Steve McQueen in Bullitt, and the most famous chase scene in movie history — a memorable 8-minute stretch with absolutely no dialogue.”
Of course, I remembered the Bullitt scene, where MacQueen in a dark green 1968 Mustang chased a couple of bad guys in a Dodge Charger up and down the steep hills of San Francisco, flying off every flat intersection before plunging down the next block. I had forgotten the American Graffiti bit, with Suzanne Somers, long before the days of Thighmaster promos.
In those days, Ford seemed to be having a lot of fun. Nowadays, Ford sells pickup trucks, SUVs, a lot of sedans of various sizes, and has made it as one of the world’s automotive giants. But you wonder if the company has the wherewithal to ever have that kind of old-time fun.
Well, wonder no more.
Ford summoned several waves of automotive journalists to California this past week to behold the wonders of retro-fun. It was a chance to make introductory test drives of new versions of both the Thunderbird and the Mustang Bullitt.
THUNDERBIRD
Ford brought out a concept car Thunderbird at last year’s Detroit International Auto Show. It was a neat, all-new design, with rounded front and rear, looking both contemporary and a little bit retro. Reaction was so overwhelming that Ford decided to build the car for the real world, and it brought it to life swiftly.
The original Tbird was 175.3 inches long, 52.4 inches high and weighed 3,180 pounds. It was powered by a 292 cubic inch V8, and cost $3,000 in 1955. With Ford executives filling the air with terms such as “heritage” and “emotion,” they unveiled the new car, and it is a jewel. It is 186.3 inches long, 52.1 inches high, and weighs 3,775 pounds. It is powered by a 3.9-liter V8. It will be priced from $36,000 up to $39,000
Ford likes to say it is the Lincoln LS engine, but in reality it is the sensational high-tech V8 built by Jaguar and swapped into the LS, while also powering the Jaguar S-Type and sports car. It is a dual-overhead-camshaft, four-valve-per-cylinder beauty producing 252 horsepower at 6,100 RPMs and 267 foot-pounds of torque at 4,300 RPMs.
The transmission is a five-speed automatic.
Frankly, except for the two-seat configuration, there are few similarities to the original Thunderbird. But while it has a few retro touches, the new Tbird might best be described as a projection of what the Thunderbird might be like for 2002 if it had never strayed from its original 2-seater concept.
We got a chance to drive the Tbirds down the South Coast of California, from Monterey to Big Sur. Typically, while that drive is perhaps the best in the world when it’s sunny, it is still one of the best the way we found it — with a heavy, low-hanging cloud of fog rolling in off the Pacific and shrouding the cliffside roadway as it winds its way along and above the coast. We changed drivers as we visited a neat art gallery and coffeehouse on Highway 1, and the sight of a dozen new Thunderbirds — identical except for color choices of black, white, red, yellow and turquoise — attracted all kinds of attention.
It was thick and moist and about 50 degrees when we angled off Highway 1 and headed inland, twisting and curving up, up and finally above the cloud of fog, where the temperature was closer to 80 and the sun created a surreal effect looking down on the fog-bank below. A flip of the switch, and we put the top down on our glistening black Thunderbird. It took more work to snap into place the boot covering the folded top. You also can buy an optional hardtop for the car, which snaps securely on top and comes with the porthole windows familiar to those who recall the original as a hardtop.
Zipping up and down and around the curving roadways, the Thunderbird had plenty of power, and the smooth-shifting transmission was clear evidence why a 5-speed automatic is far superior to the usual 4-speed version. But it also was evident that the Thunderbird is a cruiser, not an all-out sports car.
The Tbird will be in showrooms by late summer, Ford officials say, and will start at a sticker price of $35,495 — another place where the new car doesn’t resemble the original’s $3,000. All of them will come with the fold-down top, with the hardtop an option. The standard fold-down top has a large rear window, glass, with a heated element, and it fits snugly and easily. In fact, it fits tightly enough that when you open and close the doors, the windows drop 12 millimeters in order to clear the roof and seal tightly into it.
Traction control and chrome 17-inch wheels are standard on the premium models. Traction control is optional on the basic model, which Ford chooses to call the “deluxe” model. The 6.7-cubic feet of trunk space is enough, Ford officials claim, to house two golf bags.
Safety has been well tended to in the Tbird, with steel side door beams, side head and thorax airbags to supplement the frontal bags, and even a two-piece driveshaft to eliminate the risk of one long driveshaft that might bend and break, which could threaten to penetrate the passenger compartment. The long driveshaft is because the front-engined Tbird has rear drive, like the original. With its low-slung silhouette and neat headlight and grille, the new Tbird doesn’t look much like the originial from the outside. But unless you like the original tailfins, you probably will prefer the contemporary look of the new one, which is very classy, and yet pleasingly understated.
BULLITT MUSTANG
The new Mustang has taken great effort to look more like the original, or at least like the early-year 1968-70 models. It does the job, and is impressive either in expensive Cobra form, with its hand-built, 32-valve aluminum V8, or in basic GT form, with its 16 valve, single overhead cam design. The GT is a very good car, having benefited by upgrades every time the hottest Cobra has been revised.
Now along comes the Bullitt, and it is an impressive compromise. It has the GT’s easy-to-live-with allure for everyday driving, but it approaches the Cobra’s spectacular handling characteristics. In fact, the Bullitt, with its considerable suspension tweaks, handles so superbly it is nearly perfect the way it responds to your every input of steering, twisting around the tightest curves and staying flat and firmly planted no matter how hard you go into them.
We got to take a dozen or so identical, dark green Bullitt Mustangs from a diner in downtown San Francisco, up the same hills and along the exact same route that the moviemakers traced when the late Steve McQueen roared through that famous chase scene. Of course, I didn’t drive it that forcefully on those hills, although we crested one hill with enough of a surge to feel pretty light as we started to go down the other side, with perhaps the sight of Alcatraz out there ahead in the harbor providing a deterrent to going too hard.
Style-wise, the Bullitt has its name on the rear trunklid, but otherwise has only subtle styling cues. The headlights are completely covered by a curved glass lens, and there are no foglights. Ford executives say they wanted to “reduce weight” as the reason for deleting the foglights, although using the new “bullet” shaped foglights might have been more logical.
Art Hyde, chief engineer for the Bullitt project, said the plan was to bring alive the spirit of fun and “looking cool.” Clean styling on the vents, pillars and rocker panels, with no rear spoiler, and a fabulous exhaust note are all in place. Under the skin, the Bullitt has been lowered, with higher spring-rate shocks, different valving in the shocks to make the handling neutral, and altered pedals to aid heel-and-toe driving. An 11-inch clutch with tremendous grabbing ability but easy foot feel makes the 5-speed manual easy to operate. Two-piston calipers on 13-inch discs aid the stopping, and the 4.6-liter V8 has been modified with a race-proven intake system and dual throttle-body intake.
The entire Bullitt package costs $3,695 over the price of the Mustang GT, and Ford execs claim that the amount covers about $8,000 worth of parts if they were bought and installed separately. The option would lift the price of the Bullitt to something around $27,000, but only 6,500 models will be built, virtually assuring it as a collector’s item. They are in showrooms now, as 2001 models.
Seats similar to the Mustangs of the ’68-70 era are in place, as are the 5-spoke alloy wheels, which look a lot like the old American mags on the originals. A spring-loaded, brushed aluminum fuel door opens out from the flank, and is brushed silver, a neat touch.
Roaring up and down the hills of San Francisco was neat, but nowhere near as impressive as heading south toward Monterey, using both the hill country inland from the coast, and zipping down the coast highway. The Bullitt can be bought in black, dark blue or green, although the test cars came only in green, because that was what McQueen drove in the movie. Its retro image is only an image, however, because the new model is an improvement on those great vintage Mustangs of three decades ago.
New Q45 takes Infiniti luxury to its new-found performance roots
[[[[[CUTLINES:
1/ The new Infiniti Q45’s lean and agile stance looks sufficiently racy adjacent to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Turn 4 grandstand.
2/ A unique seven-lens low beam provides precise focus for the headlight, with the high beam a separate light.
3/ The navigation screen could be set to find a shortcut to a hotel from inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
4/ The driver’s entry invites you to leather and wood-coated luxury but with a distinctive and roomy sportiness.
5/ The Q45 has a unique look, with the smoothly contoured rear similar to the Audi A6. ]]]]]]]
Nissan’s new Infiniti engine did not win the Indianapolis 500 last weekend. In fact, there were only three of them in the field. But the last serious challenge that winner Helio Castroneves faced in the race came from Robbie Buhl, who closed right in on him and then spun out trying too aggressively to pass him. Pretty much everyone agreed that for sheer power, Buhl’s Infiniti-powered race car was the fastest car on the track in those closing laps.
Similarly, the Infiniti Q45 sedan I drove to Indianapolis wasn’t in any competition on the 10-hour trek, but its engine was a wonderful blend of power, quick response, and fuel efficiency.
Being fast doesn’t always mean being first in auto racing. But the technology required to make an engine run fast enough to win can equate to superior engines for real-world use.
Over the last couple of decades, some Japanese companies have found auto racing providing rich benefits in engine technology. Honda always made good, economical, trouble-free engines, and then it went racing, dominating first Formula 1 and then CART racing, and since then its engines have been incredibly high-tech for performance while retaining all those previous assets. Same with Toyota, which got into CART racing and is now doing well, and suddenly the Celica and MR2 are a lot more fun from a performance standpoint while also remaining trouble-free, durable and efficient.
When Indy switched over to a separate, rebel formula for engines six years ago, the only two manufacturers who could be coaxed into participating were General Motors and Nissan, GM with the Olds Aurora V8, sent to race teams or high-performance shops for refinement to race tune. Nissan sent its top dual-overhead-camshaft Q45 V8 from its upscale Infiniti flagship, but in a different manner.
The Infiniti engines would be supplied to racers for a fee, but Nissan engineers would refine and tune it, and replace those engines as necessary, but it wouldn’t allow engines to be sent to after-market race shops for preparation. The result is that the plentiful Aurora V8s have dominated, although Eddie Cheever has won with the Infiniti. And last weekend, the final bit of drama in the race came when the swift and smooth Castroneves was pretty much overtaken by the raw power of Buhl’s Infiniti.
All the technical data of the Infiniti is retained by Nissan engineers, and no question some of it has filtered through to the 2002 Infiniti Q45, which always has been the corporation’s top luxury sedan. Designed to retain Infiniti’s target market, which is the BMW 540 and 740, the Mercedes E or S Class, the Audi A6 or A8, and such domestics as the Cadillac Seville STS and the Lincoln LS, the Infiniti is little more than a fantasy car to the masses, at a sticker price of $50,000.
We’re talking about the 2002 model Q45, which was shown first at auto shows last year and has been in a carefully planned program for replacing the current model. The Q-ship I test drove was the Sport model, which means it has all the luxury characteristics of the standard Q45, but has a sport package which consists of an active rear damping suspension, which can be set for different stiffness, plus 18-inch wheels, smoke-tone wood inserts on the dashboard, and blue-tone headlights and back-up lights.
That’s a $1,500 option, and the test fleet car also had the $2,100 navigation system, which is based on a digital videodisc device, and plays out on a 7-inch screen at the top of the center-dashboard area. Power sunshades that can cover the rear window and the rear seat side windows are another option, as are heated front seats. That boosted the sticker of the test car to $55,895, which is a lot of money. However, it is not a lot for a luxury-sports cruiser that can run with the world’s elite cars.
LOADED, STANDARD
The standard equipment list on the Q45 sounds like everything in the parts bin, the luxury bin and the futuristic bin. It starts with the motor, which is now a 4.5-liter V8 with 340 horsepower at 6,400 RPMs and 333 foot-pounds of torque at 4,000 RPMs. That is a lot of low-end pulling torque, and also a hot-rod lot of high-end horsepower. With four valves per cylinder clicking away under those dual cams, and a precise electronic engine-management system, the power is sent to the rear wheels via a 5-speed automatic transmission.
The automatic has a Tiptronic-like manual shift gate off to the right side, where you can bump it to upshift or downshift. In a large, heavy luxury cruiser, you might not use the manual gate for much rev-building, but it remains extremely useful in exiting freeways and downshifting to get you into third, for example, for driving on more residential streets.
About the only complaint I could muster in a week’s time with the Q45 is that the car seemed to hesitate on abrupt power changes, almost as if it was giving you time to reconsider before leaping ahead furiously.
With the Sport model’s larger wheels and low-profile (P245/45 by 18 inch) tires, and the active suspension set to the firmest “sport” mode, the big Q cornered well and showed excellent agility.
It also surprised me by delivering 24.7 miles per gallon on the highway, cruising effortlessly at 70 to maybe 75 miles per hour, for hours at a time, with maybe an occasional burst to pass a couple semis, and just to let that powerful engine stretch its legs — for scientific reasons, you understand. Trust me, you have to be watchful or you could go zooming right on up and past 100 without straining anything.
Other powertrain items include independent front and rear suspension, speed-sensitive power steering with excellent feel through the wood and leather steering wheel, vehicle dynamic control which is above and beyond the traction control system to make sure you stay pointed in the proper trajectory under all conditions. The other side of such going performance elements is provided by 4-wheel power disc brakes with antilock and an electronic brake force distribution system that can tell by the force if you need full-panic stop pressure and applies it properly.
The leather seats are comfortable, supportive and infinitely adjustable, the driver’s outside mirror automatically dims if the driver behind you is too dim to dim his lights, and the directional signals have remote blinkers on the outside mirrors’ extremity. The audio system is a 300-watt Bose deal, with a tape player mounted below and a glove-compartment-mounted 6-disc CD changer.
For safety, there are front dual-stage airbags, plus front side airbags and front and rear side-impact air curtain bags, along with pretensioners and load limiters on the seat harness straps, as well as child restraint tethers. The headlights, also, are phenomenal. The low beams consist of seven little bullet-shaped lenses al focused on brightening your way, with a larger, separate high-beam lens. There were no foglights, but the light system was as good as I’ve witnessed without them.
Luxury touches include bird’s-eye maple trim done up in that new grey-ish “smoked” color that I call “barnwood grey.” It’s repeated on the steering wheel and shift knob. Power windows have one-touch up and down, and the dual-zone temperature and climate control system also is standard. There are rear air and heat vents as well. Infiniti’s signature touch is a classy analog clock, right there in the middle of the dash.
SHORTENING THE TRIP
Driving that haul to Indianapolis alone caused me to get prepared, mentally and munchily. It’s a great break to stop for meals on a long trip, but I wanted to get there as directly as possible. So I ate a large breakfast, and set off, loaded up with some healthier-than-normal munchies. Included was a sack of veggies that included whole red, orange and yellow peppers sliced up; a half-pound of almonds, half plain and half with sea salt, mixed together just right; a couple of bottles of ginseng-laced iced tea, a bottle of naturally-sparkling mineral water, and a thermos mug of coffee.
That allowed me to avoid any lengthy meal stops. I drove until I had to make a fuel stop, made one other rest-room stop, and made it the whole distance, over 625 miles, in just under 10 hours. That worked out to be an average speed of 63 miles per hour. All of that was calculated instantly for me on the 7-inch screen at the top of the center dash panel. You also could tune the audio system on that screen, adjust the climate control, and operate the navigation system.
I was all set with radio stations locked in, a working knowledge of how to get the thing to scan, plus a couple of good cassettes in hand, and a variety of CDs. Trip music can be extremely important to fighting fatigue, especially when you’re driving alone for 10 hours. In celebration of Bob Dylan’s 60th birthday, I had some of my favorite early-best Dylan discs as well as his newest one, and a wide range of others, including a couple of Joni Mitchell’s earliest albums, Emmylou Harris, Sheryl Crow, and a classic Leonard Cohen live concert, and the year-old Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young disc. My theory is the music has to be good, but it’s mandatory to have significant words, too, to keep you mentally stimulated instead of drummed into a stupor by a pounding beat without identifiable lyrics.
A key element of the trip was the navigation system, which was, in a word, fantastic. I’ve made the drive to Indianapolis to know that unless you have an extra hour or two to waste, or a reason to stop in the big city, you want to avoid Chicago. So I circumvent it, going south from Rockford, Ill., to I74, which is a straight easterly shot into Indianapolis well south of Chicago. When I clicked onto the navigation system, I got it to Indianapolis easily enough, but then I challenged it by installing the name of the motel chain I was booked into.
It gave me five choices, and I clicked the one I was at, although I had never been there before. In a moment, the system gave me a route choice of shortest time or shortest distance. I clicked shortest time, and, sure enough, the computer also avoided Chicago, sending me precisely on the same route I would have chosen, only on a new freeway stretch of I39 I hadn’t been aware of. The computer screen gives you a map of the route ahead, and you can click on “birdview” and get a sort of raised, 3D view of the road ahead, set up in increments you can adjust from ¼ mile to 20 mile scope.
The screen is backed up by a pleasant, English-accented female voice that advises you of upcoming turns. “Stay in the right lane, and prepare for a right turn in a half-mileÂ…” Or, when you pull off to refuel, and the computer thinks you’ve gone astray, it says: “As soon as possible, try to make a legal U-turnÂ…” Very impressive, but most impressive was when it directed me to the hotel I had never before seen or stayed at, exiting the freeway at the right spot, going on past it, making a right, and then doubling back on the frontage road, all at visible and voice commands, until the final: “You have reached your destination.”
I even set the thing up once to launch me on a shortcut back to the hotel from inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the map showed a large, colored area that was the entire track region, with the outside streets identified, by birdview. Coming home was a breeze, too, because I set it on my destination address in the Twin Cities and it delivered me exactly to the driveway. It did not, however, identify the Lakewood Road for my home in Duluth. That meant the map showed me turning off the freeway and the arrow showed me moving northward where there appeared to be no road.
[same old head will work…]
Nissan’s new Infiniti engine did not win the Indianapolis 500 last weekend. But the last serious challenge that winner Helio Castroneves faced in the race came from Robbie Buhl, who closed right in on him and then spun out trying too aggressively to pass him. Pretty much everyone agreed that for sheer power, Buhl’s Infiniti-powered race car was the fastest car on the track in those closing laps.
Similarly, the Infiniti Q45 sedan I drove to Indianapolis wasn’t in any competition on the 10-hour trek, but its engine was a wonderful blend of power, quick response, and fuel efficiency.
Being fast doesn’t always mean being first in auto racing. But the technology required to make an engine run fast enough to win can equate to superior engines for real-world use.
Over the last couple of decades, companies like Honda and Toyota have found auto racing providing rich benefits in engine technology. Nissan is the most recent. When Indy switched over to a separate formula for engines six years ago, the only two manufacturers who could be coaxed into participating were General Motors and Nissan, GM with the Olds Aurora V8, sent to race teams or high-performance shops for refinement to race tune, and Nissan with its top dual-overhead-camshaft Q45 V8 from its upscale Infiniti flagship. Infiniti engines would be supplied to racers, but Nissan engineers would refine and tune it, and replace those engines as necessary, and wouldn’t allow engines to be sent to after-market race shops for preparation, as Auroras were.
All the technical data of the Infiniti is retained by Nissan engineers, and no question some of it has filtered through to the 2002 Infiniti Q45, which always has been the corporation’s top luxury sedan. Infiniti’s target market for the Q45 is the BMW 540 and 740, the Mercedes E or S Class, the Audi A6 or A8, and such domestics as the Cadillac Seville STS and the Lincoln LS, and so the Q45 is little more than a fantasy car to the masses, at a sticker price of $50,000.
The 2002 model Q45, shown first at auto shows last year, is just out. I test-drove the Sport model, with all the luxury characteristics of the Q45, but adding a sport package which consists of an active rear-damping suspension, which can be set for different stiffness, plus 18-inch wheels, low-profile tires, smoke-tone wood inserts on the dashboard, and blue-tone headlights and back-up lights. That’s a $1,500 option, and the test fleet car also had the $2,100 navigation system, which is based on a digital videodisc device, and plays out on a 7-inch screen at the top of the center-dashboard area.
Power sunshades that can cover the rear window and the rear seat side windows are another option, as are heated front seats. That boosted the sticker of the test car to $55,895, which is a lot of money. However, it is not a lot for a luxury-sports cruiser that can run with the world’s elite cars.
The standard equipment list on the Q45 sounds like everything in the factory store and a few from the futuristic bin. It starts with the motor, which is now a 4.5-liter V8 with 340 horsepower at 6,400 RPMs and 333 foot-pounds of torque at 4,000 RPMs. That is a lot of low-end pulling torque, and also a hot-rod lot of high-end horsepower. With four valves per cylinder clicking away under those dual cams, and a precise electronic engine-management system, the power is sent to the rear wheels via a 5-speed automatic transmission. The automatic has a Tiptronic-like manual shift gate off to the right side, where you can bump it to upshift or downshift. In a large, heavy luxury cruiser, you might not use the manual gate for much rev-building, but it remains extremely useful in exiting freeways and downshifting to get you into third, for example, for driving on more residential streets.
About the only complaint I could muster in a week’s time with the Q45 is that the car seemed to hesitate on abrupt power changes, almost as if it was giving you time to reconsider before leaping ahead furiously. With the Sport model’s larger wheels and low-profile (P245/45 by 18 inch) tires, and the active suspension set to the firmest “sport” mode, the big Q cornered well and showed excellent agility.
It also surprised me by delivering 24.7 miles per gallon on the highway, cruising effortlessly at 70 to maybe 75 miles per hour, for hours at a time, with maybe an occasional burst to pass a couple semis, and just to let that powerful engine stretch its legs — for scientific reasons, you understand. Trust me, you have to be watchful or you could go zooming right on up and past 100 without straining anything.
Vehicle dynamic control which is above and beyond the traction control system makes sure you stay pointed in the proper trajectory under all conditions. The other side of such going performance elements is provided by 4-wheel power disc brakes with antilock and an electronic brake force distribution system that can tell by the force if you need full-panic stop pressure and applies it properly.
The leather seats are comfortable, supportive and infinitely adjustable, the driver’s outside mirror automatically dims if the driver behind you is too dim to dim his lights, and the directional signals have remote blinkers on the outside mirrors’ extremity. The audio system is a 300-watt Bose deal, with a tape player mounted below and a glove-compartment-mounted 6-disc CD changer.
For safety, there are front dual-stage airbags, plus front side airbags and front and rear side-impact air curtain bags, along with pretensioners and load limiters on the seat harness straps, as well as child restraint tethers. The headlights, also, are phenomenal. The low beams consist of seven little bullet-shaped lenses al focused on brightening your way, with a larger, separate high-beam lens. There were no foglights, but the light system was as good as I’ve witnessed without them.
Luxury touches include bird’s-eye maple trim done up in that new grey-ish “smoked” color that I call “barnwood grey.” It’s repeated on the steering wheel and shift knob. Power windows have one-touch up and down, and the dual-zone temperature and climate control system also is standard. There are rear air and heat vents as well. Infiniti’s signature touch is a classy analog clock, right there in the middle of the dash.
Driving that haul to Indianapolis alone caused me to get prepared, mentally and munchily. It’s a great break to stop for meals on a long trip, but I wanted to get there as directly as possible. So I loaded up with a sack of veggies that included whole red, orange and yellow peppers sliced up; a half-pound of almonds, half plain and half with sea salt; a couple of bottles of ginseng-laced iced tea, a bottle of naturally-sparkling mineral water, and a thermos mug of coffee. That allowed me to avoid any lengthy meal stops.
One fuel stop, one other rest-room stop, and I made the distance, over 625 miles, in just under 10 hours, an average speed of 63 miles per hour. All of that was calculated instantly for me on the 7-inch screen at the top of the center dash panel. You also could tune the audio system — with carefully selected discs — on that screen, plus adjust the climate control, and operate the navigation system. The navigation system was, in a word, fantastic, directing me for the shortest time rather than shortest distance, circumventing Chicago to I74, then straight into Indianapolis. I had challenged it by installing the name of my motel, where I had never stayed, and it delivered me, right down to the frontage road, with a pleasant English-accented female voice saying: “You have reached your destination.”
The screen gives you a map of the route ahead, and you can click on “birdview” to get a raised, 3D view of the road ahead, set up in increments from ¼-mile to 20-mile scope. I even set the thing up once to find a shortcut back to the hotel from inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and it came through. It was the same coming back to Minnesota, bringing me precisely to the Twin Cities address I had coded in.
It did not, however, identify the Lakewood Road for my home in Duluth, which meant the birdview arrow showed me turning off the freeway and plowing northward where no road appeared. That might be too much, even for the new Q45.
Cougar adds sportier C2 version to standard sporty coupe
When Mercury came out with the current Cougar, it was a modern-era reincarnation of a nice old sports coupe. The original was a refinished Mustang, back in the late 1960s, early 1970s. It grew into a large coupe, and later went the way of a lot of automotive dinosaurs.
The new, rejuvenated Cougar came out three years ago as a light, quick, agile sporty coupe, with front-wheel drive and what Ford/Lincoln-Mercury likes to call new-edge styling. It is edgy, with contours everywhere, with a wedge-shaped look from the side, a sporty nose, and a high-kick tail.
Built in Flat Rock, Mich., where Ford’s cousin, Mazda, works some joint-ventures with Ford, the Cougar continues as a low-volume but pleasing alternative to economical sports coupes with an attitude.
Recently I had the opportunity to test a new Cougar “C2,” which is a model that stands slightly apart from the norm, but mostly by cosmetic standards.
It had a knockout color, French Blue Metallic, and a neat spoiler on the rear deck, plus special wheels, with a C2 logo on the hub, a decal that says C2 on the leading edge of the rear side windows, and a special interior with neat instruments.
What it all boils down to is that it’s a special version of a very neat little sporty coupe.
The Cougar comes with a standard 2.0-liter Zetec engine, which is a dual-overhead cam, 16-valve engine with 125 horsepower. That engine is adequate for such a compact coupe, and the optional powerplant is a 2.5-liter Duratec V6, also with dual-overhead cams and four valves per cylinder, but turning out a healthier 170 horses at a peak of 6,250 RPMs.
Then there is the Sport package, which upgrades you to a high-output version of the same 2.5 V6, which puts out 196 horsepower at 6,750, and 168 foot-pounds of torque at 5,500 RPMs.
That amount of power makes the 3,013-pound, 5-speed Cougar get up and snort. The Sport version with automatic tips the scales at 3,200 pounds, however.
The C2 model is something different again. It takes the basic $17,200 Cougar and adds the V6 Sport group, a package that includes foglights, the rear spoiler, leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob, and other touches. The test car also had the convenience option of speed control, a rear washer-wiper, and remote keyless entry.
A separate charge of $515 covers 16-inch allow wheels with the C2 caps. The test car also had traction control, antilock 4-wheel disc brakes, side airbags and leather bucket seats, and — at $815 extra — it had a four-speed automatic transmission. Altogether, the packages and options runs the sticker up to $22,800, which is a hefty increase, but still reasonable for what you’re getting.
Now, putting an automatic transmission in a sporty coupe seems to defeat the purpose, but in this day and age, a lot of consumers are looking for style and panache, even more than substance. The same car with a stick would be a true sporty car, but the Cougar C2 with the automatic handled well and drew some attention, even though you might hesitate to take on anybody on an autocross course in that form.
I particularly like the appearance and feel of the Cougar from the driver’s seat. The instrumentation is neatly styled and integrated, easy to read, and the steering wheel is properly thick and has that great Cougar logo on the hub.
For features, the Cougar aims at reinforcing its original safety design. Front and side airbags support the high-strength steel door beams. Four-channel antilock brakes have an electric sensor to detect wheel lockup and pump the brakes rapidly for you, and adds electronic brake force distribution to limit rear-wheel slippage even before the ABS is activated by slippery conditions.
At 185 inches, the Cougar is 15 inches shorter than a Taurus or Sable sedan, and it suggests the Mitsubishi Eclipse, Toyota Celica GT, and Acura Integra GS as worthy competitors. Mercury suggests the optional four-wheel discs give the Cougar an edge on the Eclipse, and the traction control gives it an edge on the Integra, while the V6 puts it one-up on the Celica.
That’s pretty optimistic, because the flip side of those claims might suggest the turbo Eclipse, the hottest Integra and the screaming 4-cylinder of the new Celica all might run away and hide from the Cougar. But we digress.
The grille, foglights, instrument cluster and front and rear fascias are all new for this model year, and I got 24.5 miles per gallon driving the automatic Cougar pretty hard.
Inside, the supportive and firm bucket seats have a cramped rear seat for occasional use, and many may want to fold down the rear seat to unveil an increase in stowage space from 14.5 to 24 cubic feet under the hatchback.
The air conditioning is standard, and has a micron air filtration system, and the headlights are the new projector-beam style that lights up the night. The audio system included a 6-disc CD player, and the gas and brake pedals are drilled aluminum, which looks great and feels good all summer, although they can be pretty slippery in Minnesota winters. I like the old-time dash vents, which are simple to adjust.
All in all, the new Cougar lives up to its name — a light, quick, agile, cat-like critter that performs in a contemporary manner. It may not be an all-out street racer or true sports car, but it looks the part, and it handles everyday driving duties with style and class. The body is extremely tight, which enhances the feeling of stability you get from even a simple drive.
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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