Ford unveils 2009 F-150, Dodge shows new Ram
DETROIT, MI. — Trucks commanded a large presence at the Detroit International Auto Show, with virtually every manufacturer trying to spread out and conquer new territory in the crossover SUV realm. Ford and Dodge certainly play that game, too, but the big news from those two was the introduction of new models of their big pickup trucks.
The Ford F-150, the largest selling single vehicle in the country for 31 straight years, displayed its new redesigned half-ton pickup form, eschewing the rounded-off look of its last two generations for a bolder, more aggressive front end, similar to its heavier Super Duty F-250, F-350, and F-450 trucks. The new F-150 also takes the popular rear tailgate fold-down step and pop-up steadying grip pole from the larger trucks, and adds a new side step that folds down to allow easy loading and unloading from the bottom of the bed, just behind the cab.
Ford claims the best towing and hauling figures, with a stronger and lighter truck, and a 6-speed automatic transmission with trailer-sway control. Ford also played the political game so common among pickup manufacturers, by refusing to give out its tow/haul figures. Better than issuing arbitrary figures, then feeling compelled to increase them after a competitor lists slightly higher ones.
Ford also unveiled the Flex, a boxy concept wagon, and the Explorer concept vehicle, which looked good, but may be less likely to go into production than the Verve, a stunning compact with sleek lines and both a 2-door and 4-door design.
Dodge unveiled its new Ram half-ton, with an 1,850-pound hauling capacity and a 9,100-pound towing capacity. Maybe now we will get Ford’s numbers, with a side-bet that they’ll be 100 or so higher than Dodge’s. Who’s going to check?
The Ram’s 5.7-liter Hemi V8 runs on E85, will dash from 0-60 in 6.1 seconds and claims a 5 percent improvement in fuel economy. A big feature is a solid rear axle with coil springs, compared to the usual leaf springs of other full-size pickups.
Dodge herded the media outside into the freezing weather to watch a herd of longhorn steers being guided up Washington Ave. to the main entrance of Cobo for its Sunday morning introduction, then cowboys on horseback kept the cattle back a half-block while the new trucks came roaring by to confront the media. A Chrysler representative had told numerous media people to go to a seating area around the corner, from where, unfortunately, any photos of the cattle in the background of the new trucks was impossible. Call it — drum roll, please — a bum steer.
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The Ram half-ton has never been available in a full crew cab four door, but the new 2009 model adds that to its stable.
It also has several neat innovations, including wider sides to the bed, for a reason. Little doors open from the top of the sides to reveal deep and quite spacious storage bins. Just the latest in the plan to find ingenious ways to give truck owners places to store stuff so it won’t fly around in the bed.
General Motors introduced the Hummer HX concept, another Flex-Fuel vehicle, and claimed all Hummers will run on E85 by 2010. It also displayed the Silverado pickup in hybrid form.
But mostly, smaller crossover SUVs were the rule. There were new ones, some concepts and some ready to hit showrooms, including the BMW X6, Honda Pilot, Kia Borrego, Toyota Venza, Mercedes Vision GLK, and some outright concepts such as the Toyota Abat, and the Suzuki X-Head.
Most, if not all, of these crossovers are aimed at cutting fuel consumption, some by going to smaller engines, and others aiming at diesel technology.
Mercedes already is offering turbocharged-diesel engines in most of its SUVs already, and has new Bluetec powerplants ready to conform to emission rules in all 50 states. But more are following closely, particularly BMW and Audi, while Honda also is close to offering high-tech diesels.
While the crossovers can handle most of the normal people-hauling, the dropoff in sales of large SUVs and other truck-based SUVs continues.
Nevertheless, there will always be a solid place for full-sized pickup trucks, even if the segment finds a return to worker-needs, rather than consumer-wants when it comes to buying the half-tons.
Considering that the Nissan Titan came out all new, then was followed by the Chevrolet Silverado for 2007, the new and enlarged Toyota Tundra for this year (2008), and the new Ford F-150 and Dodge Ram among the first 2009 models to be shown. That means that the Silverado, and companion GMC Sierra, plus the Tundra, F-150, and Ram will all be entirely new within a two-year span.
And all of them are also investigating hybrid technology, and the advent of lighter but potent turbodiesels for use within the next year.
Malibu best Chevy ever — despite promotional overflow
It has been impossible to avoid the hype. Billboards, television ads, newspaper and magazine spreads – everywhere you look, there are ads promoting the just-introduced Chevrolet Malibu. We’ve seen that before from General Motors, of course, so the question is: Can the new Malibu possibly live up to all the promotional hype?
The answer is: Yes. Or, to equivocate: Almost. It is, in my opinion, the best car Chevrolet has ever built, and that includes everything from the 1957s to the new Corvette.
The new Malibu looks good, drives well, is comfortable, extremely quiet, has high-tech engines, and is reasonably priced. There is no question that it is the strongest competitor Chevrolet has ever offered to compete with the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Nissan Altima, Mazda6, or Volkswagen Jetta.
For a couple of decades now, GM’s bark has been more impressive than its bite – of performance and market share. It seemed that the more the ads raved, the less substance there was from the vehicle. Not that they were bad, but they couldn’t match up competitively with the tightness, engine technology and maintenance-free best from Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Volkswagen, and others.
A year ago, the Saturn Aura won 2007 Car of the Year for being a breakthrough sedan for General Motors. It is, and it evolved from the German Opel Vectra sedan platform, as does the Pontiac G6, and the Saab 9-3. The Malibu is the fourth car on that same platform, and it takes the direction the Aura and G6 took, and refines it with a different look, much more sound-deadening, and a bit more versatility; where the Aura comes only with the corporate 3.6-liter V6, the Malibu offers that same V6 with 252 horsepower, and also a 2.4-liter Ecotec 4-cylinder, with 169 horsepower.
Tim Kozub, designer of the Malibu, walked us through a preview at a neat hall at the Gibson guitar factory in downtown Memphis. We got a tour of the facility, too, and then walked a couple blocks to Beale Street, where we ate at BB KingÂâ€s rib joint. Impressive as those were, Kozub’s presentation was the most impressive.
A distinct grille, tightly wrapped upper body, and clean lines all the way define the body, but my favorite touch is the artful way Kozub drew a graceful widening at the bottom of the front and rear roof pillars. Subtle, but beautiful. Underneath, 60 percent of the underbody is made of high-strength steel.
Kozub, who also designed the Aura, said a lot of discussion with Opel and various sketches were done in that process. But with the Malibu, Kozub said he had some pressure to make an immediate design that could make it through management. He did, and it did.
“To see it come out of your hand as a sketch, then to a clay model to full-size car, is quite a thrill,†said Kozub, who, at 34, has worked nine years in GM design. “We had to work to get the battery placement and a lot of things repositioned to get the hood and the fascia past engineering. We used to be handed things by engineering, and we had to work around their demands.Ââ€
The base model starts at $19,995, while the LTZ has a base price of $26,995, and the loaded model with the V6 starts at $28,500. A hybrid model is offered at $30,300. All three models drove well. My partner and I zeroed the trip computer throughout our drive in city, rural and freeway segments. With the hybrid (EPA estimates of 24 city and 30 highway miles per gallon) we got 31.5 miles per gallon in mostly urban driving and 29.5 on rural and freeways; with the 4-cylinder (22/30 EPA) we got 25 mpg in combined urban-rural driving with the 6-speed automatic that is coming soon, and 22.0 with the 4-speed automatic on the first production cars; and we were down to 21.2 in a freeway-only run with the V6 (17/26 EPA).
While comfortable, quiet, and good-looking, the Malibu competes with the Accord, Camry, Altima, Mazda6, Jetta and Ford Fusion – all of which offer stick shifts for optimal economy, and all of which can get near or surpass 30 miles per gallon in real-world driving without the hybrid.
I will soon be getting a Malibu of my own for a week, so I’ll be able to give it a more thorough fuel-economy test of my own, to see if it can come closer to its EPA projections.
Couple of preliminary things I noticed. First, no stick shift is available in any Malibu. Too bad, because the 4-cylinder performed well with the 6-speed auto, and would have been even livelier and more fun with a stick. Second, Chevrolet is strongly marketing its outstanding OnStar driver aid system, and boast of a “turn-by-turn†navigation system. But Chevy doesn’t provide a navigation screen in any car, so you have to go through OnStar and let their folks read the big GPS and inform you by voice-only when a turn is coming up. I’m surprised that a nav-system, screen included, isn’t at least offered.
The marketing onslaught, meanwhile, might be unprecedented. On a recent trip, a USA Today was left at my hotel door. Nice touch. I folded it up, stashed it in my computer case, and read it on the flight home. There were five full-page ads for the Malibu in that edition. Three of them ran independently, and the other two were on facing pages, making an almost-lifesize panorama of the new midsize car.
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Good as it is, the Malibu can’t match the hype, because the hype is so over-blown. For example, the car was only displayed at auto shows, and was not actually driveable even at the all-2008 GM drive session in Peoria, Ill., at the end of August. Nobody could drive a Malibu until the media introduction, the last days of October, in Memphis, where Cheryl Catton, the director of marketing, offered some interesting nuggets about the most extensive market research the company had ever conducted.
“Midsize is a choice, not a compromise,†Ms. Catton said. “The buyers have made a choice to not buy a larger or more expensive car. They also rely on the Internet, and don’t trust what the manufacturers say. So we have to reach them to let them know we have a car to challenge the Camry and Accord. We’re not saying it’s the best domestic midsize, but the best midsize.
“We’ve built great products over time, but the perception is not there. We haven’t gotten out there to say how good our cars are.Ââ€
She sidestepped the comparison that outmoded engines and transmissions afflicted the style-challenged Chevies of those past generations, and focused instead on a clever television ad campaign that kicked off the Malibu marketing strategy.
The next part, Catton said, is the “reveal,†which started in Mid-November with a flood of large ads that give “third-party endorsements.†On the large screen, we were shown some in which the third-party endorsements were in large, bold words of great praise, attributed to Motor Trend, or Automobile, and maybe other publications. If those objective journalists feel that strongly, it must be a great car, right?
As a cynic, I get annoyed when manufacturers give car magazines early test cars so they can beat regular media by predating a new issue by a month or two. In this case, the first drives of the Malibu were tightly guarded, I wondered about the magazine quotes and their two-month lead time. So I asked Ms. Catton when and how those magazines got Malibus to evaluate.
“Oh, they didn’t,†she said. “Those comments were given to us after they examined the cars on display.Ââ€
That seemed to be an unfair slap at the integrity of such esteemed magazines, so I followed up. “Are you saying that none of those comments attributed to those magazines came from anyone who drove the car?†I asked.
“That’s correct,†she said.
That was unfortunate, because the Malibu is more impressive after you drive it, even for those magazine types who “agreed†to submit a misleading comment or two. Look for the ads. You’ll spot them by the big, bold-faced comments attributed to those magazines. Responsibility for the near-fraudulant claims should be shared by Chevy’s marketing whizzes for being too zealous, and the magazine spokesmen who agreed to misleading statements that compromise their integrity.
I was more impressed with the clever ads from the first phase of the launch strategy. One shows a woman jogger turning to cross a residential street in midblock, and running smack into the side of a plain, nondescript Oldsmobile. Another shows hooded bank robbers running out and jumping into a plain car — possibly the same defunct Olds – where they are immediately surrounded by police cars arriving with flashing lights and sirens. The cops all run around the getaway car, apparently without noticing it, to rush into the bank, leaving the Olds and its puzzled robbers, free to drive away.
In both ads, GM is stressing that it’s cars have been so bland in recent years that they were practically invisible to mainstream folks. Very clever.
Marketeers are caught between rhetoric and hyperbole by trying to claim the preceding Malibus were great and lacked only proper perception, while also trying to prove why the new Malibu is such a landmark improvement over that predecessor (which it is). The only way the ad would have more effectively stressed how improved the new Malibu is would be to replace the hard-to-notice Olds with last year’s Malibu.
Maybe consumers still can’t quite trust manufacturers, but they shouldn’t dismiss the Malibu, which has more credibility than all the ad campaigns.
Nissan Rogue is a sporty, macho compact-crossover
BALTIMORE, MD. — Baseball season has so much to offer, even though the media coverage, in our win-or-else society, covers every game from July on from the perspective of the whole season — either praise for being in the pennant race, or scorn for not being there. To me, Major League baseball was meant to be a more individual but pastoral happening: go to a game with your family or a couple of buddies, do the concession stand-food thing, and enjoy that isolated game for whatever entertainment value it offers.
So an added incentive for accepting Nissan’s invitation to the Rogue introduction was that it would include a stop at the already-legendary Camden Yards for a ball game. The Baltimore Orioles aren’t very good this year, but who cares? Seeing them play the Texas Rangers in that ballpark would be a memorable treat, especially for a Minnesotan looking ahead to the building of an outdoor boutique stadium.
And the Rogue? What the heck is a Rogue, anyway?
Turns out, the Rogue was the big hit of the trip — for two distinct reasons. The first reason, and our focus here, was the vehicle itself. It proved to be a solid, agile, and quite fulfilling vehicle for roaming through the Maryland and Virginia countryside, out to the historic Gettysburg, where even if you don’t have an actual address, you can tour the battlefield and memorial cemetery.
Toyota and Honda dominate the biggest Japanese news in the U.S. industry, but Nissan does very well, even though it seems relegated to sublevel status, where Mazda also resides. Both are overachievers, because their technology and vehicle engineering is among the best in the world, and they also focus on making their cars fun to drive, and in Japan, Nissan is second only to Toyota in sales volume, and Honda seems underappreciated. Go figure.
Nissan is striving to change all that. Its new Altima is extremely competitive with the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord, and its new Altima Coupe is a bargain-priced prize against those two. Nissan’s impressive fleet of SUVs range from tough and solid to luxurious, and its upscale Infiniti class of vehicles also ranks with the best. In fact, the Infiniti G35, and its newly introduced G37 Coupe version, tend to get compared to the best from BMW, rather than from Japanese or U.S. rivals. There was only one hole in the Nissan lineup: The Xterra takes care of the more rugged off-roading active lifestylers, but Nissan had no challenger for the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, which have done so well in stirring up a compact crossover SUV segment, which also includes the Ford Escape, Mazda Tribute, Chevy Equinox, Jeep Compass and Liberty, the new Saturn VUE, Hyundai Tucson and Kia Sportage.
Enter the Rogue. Nissan’s marketeers threw us a flurry of PR-speak to claim the Rogue is aimed directly at the CR-V — which now is the largest-selling SUV in the U.S. — and the RAV4, as Nissan’s first attempt in the “small crossover” segment. It was built jointly with Renault, the hugely successful French company whose financial input lifted Nissan to its current upward mobility. To coin a phrase. Once the PR staff located its fixed target, it then went on to build a mountain of evidence of why the Rogue outgunned the CR-V and RAV4 from the standpoint of sportiness and agility as a lure to get more male buyers.
The first attraction is the appearance. The Rogue is compact, and its design is streamlined and slick from nose to tail. I like the silhouette and the rear view more than the front, which is fine, but seems like its egg-crate grille is trying to hard to gain a family resemblance to the larger Murano SUV. The appearance thing continues inside, where it avoids the normal attempt at being mainstream-attractive, and made everything almost German-stark, with a pleasing-to-touch but all black finish surrounding ergonomically correct gauges and switchgear.
Using the potent 2.5-liter, dual-overhead-camshaft 4-cylinder engine out of the Altima, along with the latest version of its CVT (continuously variable transmission), the Rogue produces 170 horsepower and 175 foot-pounds of torque. The CVT is standard, with no manual shifter available, but the CVT offers the option of steering-wheel paddle switches to simulate the manual shifts of a 6-speed. Liberal use of high-strength steel helps make an extremely stiff platform without unnecessary weight, and sophisticated suspension coupled with all sorts of traction and stability controls makes the Rogue steer precisely and handle with a flat attitude.
Those are sporty attributes, but they also are vital contributors to safety, where a crumple-zone design fore and aft leads to a strong and secure inner shell.
I only have one significant challenge to the whole campaign. The Rogue is clearly more sporty and more macho than the CR-V and RAV4, primarily because the CR-V and RAV4 are built and directed toward compact, budget family haulers, and without question, female buyers prevail in the decision-making that lead up to such purchases. Our society has reached the point where women make the majority of car-buying decisions, but an interesting occurence is that women are now so well-versed in studying their purchase that they will buy the vehicle they deem as correct for their purposes, regardless of whether it has a male or female attraction — while men are so fragile in their little ego-worlds that most will not consider a car popular with females. Apparently male self-esteem is incapable of brushing off heckles about having a “chick car.”
There are, then, a couple of other newcomers into that segment that might be better and more difficult targets for the Rogue. One is the Mazda CX-7, and the other Acura’s RDX. Both are similarly sized, and similarly sweeping in design, and both have turbocharged 2.3 4-cylinder engines with all-wheel drive. Both are decidedly sporty, and offer considerable competition to the Rogue — particularly the CX-7, which is priced about $10,000 less than the RDX and abou the same mid-$20,000 for the Rogue to hurdle. By avoiding mention with them, perhaps Nissan was playing a marketing game, to name only those more-mellow mainstreamers they can out-sport.
Nissan has been very busy for the past year, with new Altima, Sentra and Versa sedans introduced, followed by the Altima Coupe, a refreshed Pathfinder SUV with a V8 engine, and hiking the Titan pickup with a revision that gives it the longest crew cab box in the industry. Meanwhile, upscale cousin Infiniti redid the G35 and added an entirely new G37 Coupe with a bigger and more potent V6 that takes the venerable 3.5 up to 3.7 liters.
All of that has lifted Nissan’s car volume up by 18.9 percent for calendar 2007, with much more to come. In Baltimore, we examined the Rogue, which had first been displayed on the Auto Show circuit last winter, and the gracefull silhouette, called the “dynamic arch” by Nissan, tapers Murano-like to the rear, where the lower sill of the windows angles up to meet it.
Director of product planning Ken Kcomt, who seems to need a vowel more than another new vehicle, anticipates that 80 percent of Rogues sold will be SL models, the upper level above and beyond the basic S. Both models come front-wheel drive standard with all-wheel drive optional, and both have premium packages for upgrades.
The simulated 6-speed seems to conflict with the purpose of a CVT, but U.S. buyers are so put off by not hearing the revs build between shift points in a continuously-variable transmission, Nissan — like Audi — programs electronic steps into the manual override controls. In the Rogue, the CVT has electro-hydraulic control, so hydraulic pressure builds to reposition the metallic belt to hold a shift point and let the revs build, for what feels like a true manual.
All-wheel-drive models start out with 50-50 torque split front and rear for hard but sure start-up stability. Once going, torque distribution is pretty much front-wheel drive until the computer redistributes it. Combining the stiff body structure with electric power steering and high-performance shock damping on all four corners assures flat cornering, and the Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC) runs via yaw sensors, wheel-slip sensors, steering angle sensors, and the all-wheel drive to vary the torque from front to rear. In a curve, even on slippery surfaces, the VDC system can anticipate where the driver’s steering wants the Rogue to go, and if the vehicle doesn’t comply, its redistribution of torque forces it to.
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Even male buyers are accompanied by females most of the time, so concessions are made to the logical side of the relationship with all sorts of neat storage areas, including a rear floor that tilts up sto display detachable partitions in a cargo-organizer. Nissan’s information says that’s to isolate dirty or wet items from that active-lifestyle gang, but apparently the PC Police wouldn’t apprehend you if you or your real or perceived feminine side used it for groceries or other shiftable parcels.
Kcomt said that folding the second-row seats down provides 57.9 cubic feet of storage space, and it has an enormous bin that is under-identified by the term “glove box.” It will hold 34 CDs, among other things. As for gloves, you could be talking baseball gloves. That enormous cavern is about the only feature I could call poorly devised in the Rogue. If the compartment had been built to slide, like an enormous drawer, the front passenger might be able to make it work. As it is, you hit the release and a gigantic door folds down at you, striking you just below the knees. To avoid immediate contact with an orthopedic surgeon, you can slide the seat back as far as you can, but then you can’t reach the release switch, or reach anything inside. If you slide the seat forward enough to reach the release, you get banged on the shins, and you still can’t reach much in there because the door won’t open farther than where it hits your legs.
If the “glove compartment” is big enough to house baseball gloves rather than driving gloves, maybe another of the many Rogue standard-equipment features should be catcher’s shinpads.
Speaking of baseball analogies, ‘way back at the start of this dissertation I said the Rogue was the highlight of the baseball-oriented introductory trip for two reasons. One was the vehicle itself, and the second is that we got to Camden Yards and entered the wonderfully boutique-ish ballpark early, then we were ushered to a suite, where, as the drizzle worsened, we feasted on brats, hot dogs, and crab-cakes made almost entirely of clumps of crabmeat — a Baltimore specialty. Big Al, from Detroit, took only a couple bites and tossed his in a trash bin. He saw my incredulous look and explained it was “too fishy.” Only a Detroit writer could accuse a superb crabcake of containing too much crabmeat.
By then, the drizzle had become a persistent downpour, and the game was postponed. Bummer. That took baseball out of the equation, although a later media wave saw the last game of the series, in which Texas scored a record 30 runs against the poor Orioles. That might have been memorable, from an oddity perspective, but even then, I suspect in evaluating the trip, the Rogue was the best part — and figuratively hit the most distinctive home run.
Honda’s 8th-generation icon dazzles Accord-ingly
BOSTON, MASS. — Honda seems like the Japanese version of BMW, a company so advanced in technology, and with such an impressive array of vehicles, that it doesn’t need benchmarks — it IS the benchmark. BMW’s 3-Series is considered the standard of mid-size “near-luxury” sedans, while the Honda Accord has been the icon of middle-class midsize sedans, having established the segment with its debut in 1976.
After briefly experiencing all that the new Accord is offering for 2008, it appears it provides everything any midsize buyer could look for. The long-awaited eighth-generation Accord has enough style, size and punch to be an immediate hit when it reaches showrooms in September, and it offers a flashy Coupe that is far more than just an Accord with two fewer doors.
Honda officials actually considered making the eighth-generation Accord slightly smaller, but then the Accord’s two primary competitors came out in all-new versions for 2007. The Toyota Camry, which had followed the Accord up the sales charts and then passing it for first place when it opened up sales to fleets and rental companies several years ago, held its usual, quite conservative position. The Nissan Altima, growing as a threat, had chosen instead to aim at the sportirer part of the midsize segment. While pointing its stylish new nose right between those two adversaries, the Accord also has become the biggest sedan in the midsize segment — so big, in fact, that its interior qualifies as an EPA large car.
The new Accord’s progressive styling sets it apart from those competitors, and also from the somewhat stodgy styling of the current Accord, which lasted from 2003 through 2007. With a low, wide nose, and a six-sided grille almost identical to the Coupe, the Accord Sedan’s longer and wider body is accented with a decisive side groove that is not unlike that on its upscale cousin, the Acura TL.
Honda also built the Accord with its latest safety concept. The Civic came out in 2006 as the company’s first car to use Honda’s ACE — Advanced Compatibility Engineering — body structure technique, focusing on higher-strength steel and crash-energy dispersal. The Civic was the first subcompact to get five-star crash-test marks, and in essence, the Civic might have been safer than the current Accord. Applying the ACE treatment to the Accord structure steps it up to the head of the safety class.
Larger in every dimension, the Accord requires a bit more power, and typical of Honda engineering, the quest for power does not leave emissions or fuel economy in arrears. The 2008 model pushes Honda’s exceptional dual-overhead camshaft, 16-valve, i-VTEC four-cylinder from 166 horsepower. 180 horsepower in the LX model (a 14-horse improvement), while the LXi or EX versions gain 34-horsepower, by hitting an even 200 horsepower. It should still be in the 30-miles-per-gallon range, and meet the strictest emission standards.
The strong 3.0-liter V6 with 244 horsepower in the 2007 Accord is replaced by the stronger 3.5-liter version, designed for the Acura MDX and Honda Ridgeline pickup, for 2008. In the Accord, the enlarged single-overhead-cam, 24-valve V6 makes 273 horsepower, a boost of 29 over the current model, and has a new variable cylinder management system that. In normal driving it employs all six cylinders when accelerating or climbing, and electronically cuts down to four cylinders for mid-range driving, or to three cylinders for highway cruising. That helps fuel economy and emissions, although it is seamless to the driver, who gets full power at the touch of a toe.
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Having a Coupe makes sense for the Accord, and brings back some history. When the first Accord came out in 1976, it was only a 2-door coupe. In recent years, the Accord coupe has been attractive, but only in the manner of a two-door version of the sedan. For 2008, Honda is designating the Coupe with a capital C, and it has earned the acclimation by being a separate car, with shorter wheelbase and its own sheet metal, despite the strong family resemblance.
A preliminary drive of the new cars from Boston to Cape Cod and back offered pretty convincing evidence that Honda connected all the dots properly, although a couple of interesting compromises does leave some room for the competition. The Coupe, obviously, has that sleeker roofline, with the kind of dramatic appearance that could lure sporty coupe buyers considering 2-doors, including Mustangs. With its front-wheel drive, the Accord Coupe also has no concerns about winter.
The Sedan also handles well, but with that large family-oriented rear seat and trunk, it lacks the feeling of agility so prominent in the Coupe.
An interesting fact is that the V6 Sedan comes with a 5-speed automatic, but no manual shifter, while the 4-cylinder Sedan offers a 5-speed stick or the 5-speed automatic. The V6 Coupe comes with either a 5-speed automatic or a 6-speed stick, while 4-cylinder Coupes offer either the 5-speed automatic or a 5-speed stick — but no 6-speed stick.
Since the Accord wants to be a sporty alternative, it should be noted that the Camry sedan comes with a 6-speed automatic to the Accord’s 5, while the new Altima comes with a second-generation CVT (continuously variable transmission) as its automatic. Honda officials say that their customers have complained about the strange feeling of Honda’s CVT, so it is not offering it until drivers become accustomed to the lack of engine-revving sound. Also, the cost of a 6-speed and the dwindling number of stick shift customers prevented Honda from including one in the sedan.
My question was with the Coupe. It is sporty and fast, and a worthy alternative to a lot of sports cars with the V6 and 6-speed stick. But it also is a capable sporty car with the 4-cylinder, which could benefit more from having a sixth gear than the larger and torquier V6. Honda officials defended their choice by saying they thought 4-cylinder buyers would be less interested in the all-out sporty attitude of the 6-speed.
The V6’s 273 horsepower peak at 6,200 RPMs, while its 245 foot-pounds of torque are attained at 5,000 RPMs. Meanwhile, the hotter version of the 2.4 4-cylinder shows 200 horsepower at 7,000 RPMs, and its 170 foot-pounds of torque peak at 4,500. So it seems that sporty drivers might enjoy having a stick shift in the V6 Sedan, just as they would in the V6 Coupe. Similarly, buyers watching their budgets might well choose the 4-cylinder Coupe, but might prefer the greater variation of a 6-speed stick to a 5-speed. Nissan’s new and sleek Altima Coupe may prove to be the Accord Coupe’s main competitor, and it offers a 6-speed manual with either the V6 or 4-cylinder.
So, apparently, Honda wants the Accord to be sporty — just not TOO sporty.
Touareg 2 makes roads easy, mountains possible
Critics questioned Volkswagen’s intitial logic five years ago when it decided to invade the world of SUVs with the Touareg, but the vehicle has proven to be solid and capable for any imaginable duty, including its basic and most logical use as a modern version of the good-ol’ family station wagon.
Now it’s time for updating, and VW has kept the basic size and shape but revised the important under-the-skin stuff to create the Touareg 2 for 2008. It is improved in every way, which means basic people-moving on normal highways is a snap, and even mountain climbing is possible. I had a chance to prove those capabilities, both during the Touareg 2 introduction, and for a later week on Minnesota roadways.
The most distinguishing feature of the 2008 Touareg 2 is the front end, where Volkswagen’s tweaking gives the new model the family resemblance, with the large grille separated by a horizontal chrome bar, similar to the new Jetta, Rabbit, GLI and GTI. The family resemblance makes good sense, and is one of the more attractive applications of that grille shape.
The Touareg was initially built with a companion version for the basis of Porsche’s high-performing Cayenne. The Touareg 2 has many subtle upgrades, with new seats a definite improvement, and the Audi-sourced 4.2-liter V8 is now direct-injected and runs smoother and with quicker response.
Its new grille is flanked by wider headlight openings and more intense lights, and its adjustable stiff or merely firm suspension, complementing the more supportive bucket seats, performs admirably on any freeway, highway, 2-lane, or lake-access road. Its weighty stance — from 5,100 to 5,800 pounds — makes it always feel stable and gives a good base for towing, although it’s difficult to avoid the impression that it’s overbuilt for mundane highway travel.
Base price is $39,320 for a Touareg 2 with the latest version of VW’s narrow-angle 3.6-liter V6, with 280 horsepower and 266 foot-pounds of torque. The one I drove for a week, starts at $59,320, loaded up with the 4.2 V8, with its direct-injection 350 horsepower and 324 foot-pounds of torque. Both engines are dual-overhead-camshaft pieces, and both run through 6-speed automatic transmissions. The V6 does just fine, unless you’re a power-hungry type. Fuel economy EPA estimates are 12 city and 17 highway for the V8, and 15/20 for the V6.
Volkswagen officials chose to introduce the refined Touareg 2 by whisking North American auto journalists away to Couer d’Alene, a little town on the skinny northern tip of Idaho that stretches to the Canadian border. The town, like the Native American tribe from the region, was named for its bargaining practices, which were “sharp as an awl.” For some, it was hard to reach such an out-of-the-way location, but for me, it was a pleasure.
My younger son, Jeff, had driven through the town a couple years ago, on his way west on I-90, and raved about how picturesque it is to come out of the spectacular Bitterroot mountain range on the Montana-Idaho border and descend to discover the beautiful Lake Couer d’Alene and the little town that adjoins it.
Volkswagen had gone for the ultimate, and hired Dan Mick, a Minnesota native famous as a tour and trek guide in the Moab desert of Utah. Since he is the undisputed king of Moab’s outrageous terrain for Range Rover, Jeep, Dodge trucks, and also the first Touareg introduction, VW brought him to Idaho to create the perfect and treacherous course for us to attempt with the Touareg 2.
Because of Volkswagen’s intent to show off the Touareg’s off-road capability, we drove a brief little sprint on the highway to get to a fantastic area where we could spend a couple hours on very challenging off-road trails. For that, the location was perfect. So we rushed off toward the east, cruising smoothly from the Couere d’Alene Resort, and after too little time on the mountainous roads, we turned off them.
Our incentive was a wonderful lunch served on top of the mountain, and getting there would be more than half the fun. I had met and talked with Dan Mick on several occasions, and our Minnesota ties always connected. He’s from Pine River, MN., a little town between Brainerd and Walker, but he’s made the Moab region his home and raised his family out there. Anyway, he asked if my co-driver and I would like to join him for the off-road trek, and I jumped at the chance to be guided by the maestro.
Unfortunately, Mick also wanted to be the last vehicle in line, so he could help anyone having trouble on the steep and unruly surfaces. So we were last, by design. Waiting for everybody else to clear was more of a pain than merely being last to lunch, but it was still an enjoyable day.
At several points he got out and directed us by hand-signal over the toughest areas, including one spot where the Touareg 2 would lift a front or rear-corner wheel a couple feet off the ground, and hold it there, like a German short-haired pointer. But instead of pointing to an unflushed pheasant, this beast was showing off its impressive structural rigidity.
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To be fully equipped for the battle, the Touareg 2 has switches to lock in whatever you choose. You can set the comfort range, and a pair of knobs allow you to set the firmness and height of the air suspension. The vehicle actually rises up off the suspension to enhance ground clearance for semi-tough or all-out demands, and will settle back down low and sleek for highway cruising.
We handled everything with ease, except for one very steep stretch where free-spinning vehicles preceding us had left hundreds of softball-size boulders lined up like so many marbles, and we spun too much to make sense of the climb. So we backed down and circled that hill.
When we finished off our belated mountaintop lunch, it was time to test the hill-descent control, which controls the steeply descending slopes without riding the brakes, and, in fact, without touching anything.
The ultimate evidence of the Touareg 2’s capability is that Dan Mick, who normally won’t leave his trusty short-wheelbase Jeep Wrangler while leading all other makes on Moab excursions or introductions, said that he now also wants a Touareg 2 because of its capabilities.
Still, the cynic in me had to point out that after two hours of off-roading, we had probably driven the new Touareg 2 off-road more than any customer is likely to drive a $40,000-$60,000 SUV.
As is often the case with German manufacturers, it is the capability of achieving what it is designed to do that seems to drive them. So to speak. I mean, a Porsche looks like it could go 175 mph, so it can, even though there is no chance any purchasers will be able to do that. And the Touareg 2 will perform amazing feats on the wildest terrain, even though about 95 percent of its buyers will spend 0 percent of their time venturing off road with any degree of difficulty.
Still to come, incidentally, is the return of the V10 twin-turbo-diesel in the Touareg 2, with 553 foot-pounds of torque, and will add the Bluetec exhaust-cleansing urea technology for 2009, to qualify as a clean diesel in all 50 states. That will increase power and fuel economy, and will make the Touareg 2 zip up cliffs so swiftly you won’t ever be late for lunch.
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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