Mercedes museum honors history of superb, swift cars
STUTTGART, GERMANY — Breezing along on the German autobahn, my codriver in the passenger seat said he thought the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class station wagon I was driving had a diesel engine. I didnÂ’t think so. This vehicle was an E-320, so I thought it might be the new Mercede direct-injection gasoline V6.
I’m a strong advocate for diesel technology advancing into the United States as soon as we can get our fuel cleaned up in October, and I know the best European diesel-powered cars betray none of the obnoxious traits – smelly, smoky, loud clattering sound, and an oily lack of power – of diesels as American drivers recall them. My codriver, Tony, is a good friend from Vancouver. No language problem, because we share a love of great cars and the game of hockey. As we continued our friendly discussion, neither too sure, I tried a few smooth passing moves to see if I could detect any hesitations, or any telltale puffs of smoke from the exhaust. There were none.
At one point, where the autobahn had no posted speed limit, I pulled into the left lane of the three lanes, passed a slower vehicle, and kept on a-going. The speedometer rose, reaching 180, 190, and 200. Of course, we were in Germany, so the carÂ’s speedometer was in kilometers, not miles. But still, 200 of them are quite a few. I kept easing onward, with nothing but clear roadway ahead. At 220 kilometers per hour, I asked Tony to take a picture of the speedometer, because I was too occupied to look at it.
At the equivalent of 142 miles per hour, the E-320 was smooth as silk, and had a lot more in reserve. We stopped at the small town of Wolnzach, north of Munich, to change vehicles. As we walked around behind the station wagon, Tony pointed out that the emblem on the rear end said “CDI.†Sure enough, it was a turbocharged V6 diesel.
Furthermore, it is the new “BLUETEC†diesel that will become prominent in the U.S. within the next year, as our diesel fuel gets cleaned up to reasonable standards. It has only 165 horsepower, but a whopping 388 foot-pounds of torque, occurring from 1,600-2,800 RPMs.
I was reluctant to get out of the “Estate†– Germany’s term for station wagon – but U.S. buyers are strangely reluctant to buy station wagons, so duty pressed me to drive some of the gathered sedans. That comes under the heading of “tough job, but somebody has to do it,†because the gathered sedans were all world-class standouts – the new E-Class sedan, plus the high-powered AMG version of the E, and, several super-sleek CLS sedans, including its incredible AMG high-performance model.
While external design changes are only subtle in the four-year mid-term refreshening of the seven-year E-Class cycle – confined mostly to the adaptive headlights, side mirrors and taillights – there are also a number of technical revisions in the 2007 E-550. One of the major upgrades is in design of the standard 5-liter V8, which goes from three valves with single overhead camshafts to four valves with dual overhead cams on the E-550. The new engine delivers 382 horsepower and 391 foot-pounds of torque, and is evidence why other drivers stay out of the left lane on the autobahns.
ItÂ’s hard to imagine anyone wanting or needing more power than that, but turn to the AMG model of the E-Class. The E63 AMG is the same sedan after thorough reworking by the in-house hot-rodders of AMG. The E63 number signifies a nearly 6.3-liter V8 that replaces the 5-liter, and boosts power to 507 horsepower and 465 foot-pounds of torque. It will run from 0-100 kilometers (about 62 miles per hour) in a mere 4.5 seconds, through a specially reinforced seven-speed automatic, which is manually shiftable.
Mercedes has put simpler tabs above the steering wheel arms on both sides to facilitate upshifts and downshifts, having thankfully done away with the toggle switch controls on the backside of the steering wheel. They always made me uneasy because you could upshift or downshift with either hand, and I always imagined that as you upshifted with your right hand while squeezing your left hand just a bit you could inadvertently downshift, simultaneously. With the new larger and more obvious paddles, you upshift with the right hand and downshift with the left. Easy. And fun.
The entire trip was special, because I had never driven the CLS before, so it was introduction time for that car, too. It is the sleekest sedan ever built by any company, and is referred to as the “four-door coupe†in Germany.
It seems to me, the ideal thing in the world of automotive journalists would be to mandate that all road tests be conducted on the German autobahns. Other than a race track – a long, long racetrack – or maybe a private, open expanse of highway in Montana or Nevada, there is no place to let such a prized vehicle as these Mercedes stallions run at full gallop. As far as I could judge from the brief driving experiences, both the E-Class and the CLS could drive right on back to Stuttgart and park themselves in the sparkling new Mercedes-Benz Museum.
Before we drOve any of the cars, we spent two fascinating days with the priceless and historic vehicles stored at the old museum at the Mercedes plant, and the cream of the crop, strategically placed throughout the magnificent new museum, scheduled to open May 19. From a sensory perspective, it was too much to digest in a mere four days. The museum is a priceless work of art as a facility alone, to say nothing of the 160 or 170 vehicles on display – the fruit of a prolific company that can claim to have built the world’s first automobiles, dating back to 1883.
The history is riveting. The old museum was in the middle of the Mercedes-Benz plant, not suitable for properly displaying the pride of 125 years of building some of the world’s greatest motorcars. So in 2000, Mercedes executives went forward with plans to build the new facility. In January of 2002, they hired an architectural firm from Holland to design it, and without question, there is no other building like it in the world. Construction started in March of 2003, with May 19, 2006 as a target for completion – just before Stuttgart plays host to World Cup soccer quarterfinals in a stunning new domed stadium, which is located adjacent to the museum.
Ben van Berkel, chief architect of the Dutch firm, designed a double helix – essentially an unending line that traces three continuous double circles that ultimately meet – with the three circles to mimic the three-pointed star of the Mercedes logo. The three-pointed star, incidentally, was conceived out of the company’s ambition to develop internal combustion engines to revolutionize travel on land, sea and air.
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The exterior of the building is a wonderfully blended structure of huge glass panes, with steel exterior and concrete interior pillars. The steel represents the structure of the vehicles, and the concrete pays tribute to the highways and bridges those vehicles have traveled. There is not a single wall in the structure that is straight – everything curves for a purpose, either horizontally or vertically, from the seven levels that start from the top. The museum consumes 16,500 square meters, rising adjacent to the autobahn that leads down around the circular path into the city of Stuttgart, located in the valley below. As you drive into the city, it appears you might drive right into the Museum itself.
The Guggenheim Museum has similar spiral design, but nothing else has the double helix layout that always offers visitors the opportunity to look outside at the city, the soccer stadium, and mostly the autobahn, passing below, or inside, down to the atrium.
Elevators take visitors to the top, then the two separate tours travel downward through seven separate legend rooms, and five different collection rooms, each defining different eras of advancement. Four mechanized hooks in the center ceiling can lift vehicles to the various levels, placed through openings that are then closed to the artfully sloped inner walls. Passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, motorsports vehicles, aircraft engines, safety developments – everything is there, with a complete library where each of the eras can be more thoroughly researched.
The attention to detail includes sounds. As visitors rise on the interior elevators, they hear different sounds of automotives, until, at the very top, they hear the clip-clop sound of horses hooves. Visitors can take one of two separate tours, starting with the earliest vehicles at the top, and leading down along displays and vehicles in a breathtaking trip through time. The structure is so stiff, there are no interior pillars. As you continue downward, you can look to the inside and see each upcoming display from a different perspective, and you can step off the walkway for close-up examination of any of those displays.
The plan was to create the feeling that the entire facility is one long and continuing room, with no doors. Van Berkel described the constant view of displays from the walkways as merging into an “almost kaleidoscopic†sensation. Explanations are offered via headphones in eight languages at every level, with videos, memorabilia, and attention to detail, with the two pathways ultimately meeting at the motorsports display, which covers 120 years of racing.
Even the name Mercedes-Benz is fascinating. The three key players were Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach. Daimler and Maybach collaborated out of a facility in Cannstatt, and built their first car as a motorized horse carriage, with three wheels. Benz started out in Mannheim, and went a different direction, patenting his first car in 1886. Daimler-Maybach became one company, while Benz competed with them from 60 miles away, and never got to know his rivals.
In 1893, Benz built the “Vis-a-vis†car, and in 1894, Daimler added a fourth wheel to his vehicle in 1889, solving a steering problem with the three-wheeler, and created the “Velo,†which sold through 1901. When Daimler motorized a boat, he claimed it was electrically powered, because he feared people would be apprehensive of the dangers of the explosions of internal combustion power.
In 1899, Daimler built the Phoenix race car, and Emil Jellinek dominated auto races. It was Jellinek who asked to have the name of his daughter, Mercedes, added to the company. It wasnÂ’t until after both companies converted to World War I production for German vehicles, when they faced the economic crisis of the depression, that they decided to merge in order to survive.
The rest, as they say, is history. The company also made vehicles for World War II, which is still a subject of massive guilt under Adolph HitlerÂ’s Nazi control. But the significance of technical improvement continued, as the company realized aircraft lost power at higher altitudes, and invented supercharging their engines, using compressed air intake to overcome the problem.
After the war, the company struggled to continue, but after the May 8, 1945, capitulation to the Allied forces, it stayed in business doing maintenance work on occupying force vehicles. It wasnÂ’t until the 1950s that Mercedes-Benz could afford to build motorcars again.
Officials say that the facility will not be used for selling cars, although a magnificent nearby structure houses the most modern of dealership displays, and anyone buying a car will get invited to visit the museum.
To qualify for entry, a vehicle must be out of production for 25 years. So as we cruised the autobahn in the new E-Class, and in the CLS 63 AMG monsters, we realized they wouldnÂ’t yet qualify for inclusion. But their time will come. They are simply the latest example of a company that installs its pride in technology, quality, luxury, and safety into every vehicle. That pride also makes the museum come alive, as todayÂ’s vehicles zip past, outside on the autobahn.
Grand Vitara, Aerio SX highlight Suzuki line for 2006
Suzuki has a fleet of vehicles for 2006 that might seem to be perfectly placed for a market that is suddenly economy-minded. ItÂ’s also a curious mix, in some ways, with the star of the array the new Grand Vitara, an enlarged and much more stylishly designed sport-utility vehicle that has pretty much every feature but is still priced under $25,000.
The new Grand Vitara is different from the longer and larger XL-7 SUV, although they share the same drivetrain, and both of them are large departures from the Suzuki car-fleet, which now consists of the Reno, Forenza, Verona, and Aerio. My favorites of the whole batch are the Grand Vitara and the Aerio.
Overall, the fleet shows a surprisingly large variety with differing personalities for a company that is best known for its motorcycles, and, in the Upper Midwest particularly, for outboard motors, all-terrain vehicles and snowmobile motors. Suzuki has something approaching regal status in the motorcycle world, where its street bikes, racing bikes and motocross off-roaders all reign up there with the technological leaders like Honda, Yamaha and Kawasaki. So when Suzuki cars started showing up in the U.S., I was eagerly awaiting them.
The first examples were the Geo Metro minicars sold by Chevrolet dealers, and they were the butt of some rude humor by big-car fanciers, even though they were extremely economical – over 40 miles per gallon – and their tiny, three-cylinder engines revved up and performed surprisingly well. At the same time, Suzuki opened its own dealerships, selling the Sprint – which was their own version of the Metro, but with a racier version with a four-cylinder engine, and was sort of a mini-GTI blast to drive. Suzuki dealers also sold the Samurai, a fun, lightweight off-road buggy that was also sold as the Geo Tracker.
Suzuki suffered a setback when youthful owners – who could afford a Samurai if they could afford any vehicle, drove the frisky, lightweight SUVs as if they were sports cars instead of SUVs, and rolled them over with alarming frequency. Much like blaming a restaurant for serving coffee that is too hot, much of the publicity blamed Suzuki for the carelessness and – dare we say? – stupidity of some over-aggressive drivers.
At any rate, the Samurai was widened, lengthened and made more stable and more mainstream-friendly, and has led to the current bigger and much better SUVs.
All the time, Suzuki engine-building expertise was never questioned. While never building large engines for the power-crazed, Suzuki engines always have been technically advanced over-achievers for efficiency, while also boasting durability – all on a budget variety of vehicles.
In the last few years, the sudden rise of South Korean automakers such as Hyundai and Kia was not shared by their countrymen at Daewoo. Although stylishly designed by Italdesign Giugiaro of Italy, and fairly fun to drive, Daewoo was going down, and sold out to General Motors. If you can track the complexity of the business arrangement, Suzuki owns 0.27 percent of GM, GM holds 20.3 percent of Suzuki, and Suzuki owns 14.9 percent of Korean-based what is now GM-Daewoo.
The outgrowth of that alliance led to the General bringing to the U.S. a restyled Korean-built, Daewoo-based economy car as the new Chevrolet Aveo. Scrutinizing the list of new Suzukis reveals that the subcompact Reno, the compact Forenza, and the midsize Verona are all built for the U.S. market in GM-Daewoo plants in South Korea. The Reno, for example, is built in Kunsan, Korea, and its 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine is built in Australia.
Meanwhile, the Grand Vitara, and the XL-7, are built in SuzukiÂ’s own Iwata, Japan, plant, while the Aerio and the Aerio SX are built at SuzukiÂ’s Kosai, Japan, facility.
Now, IÂ’m not one to discriminate too much about where a car is built. If it feels good and runs strong, IÂ’ll be impressed. IÂ’ve driven the Reno, the Verona, and the Forenza, and they are nice vehicles for moderate price tags. But I keep going back in memory to riding some of the hottest Suzuki Superbikes a decade ago, revving to over 11,000 RPMs, and watching them in road-racing and motocross competition. If I were to buy a Suzuki motorcycle, I would want the engine to be built by Suzuki in Japan, thank you.
Maybe that enters my consciousness when I drive vehicles with the Suzuki plaque on the hood, but, as I said, my favorite Suzukis are the Grand Vitara and the Aerio.
The Grand Vitara has combined the assets of body-on-frame and unibody construction, with a unibody that has a built-in ladder-frame. It also has four-wheel independent suspension, with SuzukiÂ’s 2.7-liter V6, which has dual-overhead camshafts pumping 24 valves, delivering 185 horsepower at 6,000 RPMs and 184 foot-pounds of torque at 4,500 revs.
That makes the Grand Vitara quick, and after only a couple days of getting acclimated, the feeling that the car was too twitchy because of its lightness and light steering is transformed into quick-reacting agility.
Tying together all the features, I think the restyled Grand Vitara has a very impressive look to it, plunking it squarely into competition with the good-looking new crossover SUVs such as the Hyundai Tucson, Kia Sportage, and the Honda CRV and Toyota RAV-4 mainstays. A length of 176 inches and wheelbase of 103.9 makes it a foot shorter than the XL-7, on a wheelbase six inches shorter.
In base form, the Grand Vitara has two-wheel drive and a five-speed stick for $18,999, while the fully-loaded Luxury Package version I drove, with four-wheel drive and a five-speed automatic, had a sticker of $24,399. All models have standard electronic stability program, with traction control, antilock brakes, electronic brake-force distribution, and six airbags, counting side-curtain for front and rear passengers. The test vehicle added a five-speed automatic, four-mode four-wheel drive, a smartpass keyless entry and keyless start, heated leather seats, six-disc changer, remote audio controls on the tilt steering wheel, power windows and locks, heated outside mirrors, a power-tilt sunroof, and 17-inch alloy wheels.
Suzuki’s non-deductible, fully-transferable seven-year/100,000-mile warranty backs up the Grand Vitara, which shows EPA fuel-economy estimates of 19 city, 23 highway. A switch on the console lets you select 4WD low, 4WD high, 4WD standard mode, or N. Reading the manual, the “N†is to be selected only when towing the vehicle.
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The Aerio, on the other hand, looks a lot like many subcompacts in sedan form, but becomes very interesting in SX form, as a squareback five-door. Looking like a perky little wagon, the Aerio SX starts at a mere $15,199 in front-wheel-drive form, which puts it into the severe competition with Honda Civic, Mazda3 and Toyota Corolla models.
At 166.5 inches in overall length, over a 97.6-inch wheelbase, it is shorter in both dimensions than its adopted cousin Reno, but seems to be significantly larger because of its squarish shape and large interior. It comes loaded with the same big warranty and long standard-equipment list – 2.3-liter chain-driven dual-overhead-cam Suzuki engine, with 155 horsepower at 5,400 RPMs and 152 foot-pounds of torque at 3,000 RPMs, a five-speed stick shift, independent suspension, climate control, advanced airbag system, audio system with CD and MP3 and six speakers, 60/40 fold-down rear seats, alloy wheels, keyless entry, power windows and locks, foglights, and heated exterior mirrors.
The only options on the test vehicle were antilock brakes and a six-CD upgrade with a subwoofer. It was impressively fun to drive and handled well, and if you wanted to go to the option list, the availability of full-time four-wheel drive puts the Aerio one-up on its most serious competition.
The Reno, Forenza and Verona have given Suzuki a successful array of models, and without criticizing their heritage, I prefer my Suzuki to come with a Suzuki powerplant, and the Grand Vitara and Aerio SX more than live up to my expectations.
Mercedes ML350 gets new style, engine, 7-speed
There have been critics of the Mercedes M-Class SUVs, although I have never been among them. I was impressed from the start with the vehicleÂ’s versatility and flexibility, both on and off the road. That said, the M-Class has been totally remade for 2006, and the new ML350 is impressive enough to cruise well beyond the reach of any critics.
A new body that retains styling queues from the current model, plus more power from an entire shift in concept and execution in the fine art of engine-building, highlights the stretched, more stable, and more agile 2006 model. All that, plus a seven-speed automatic transmission you can shift like a Formula 1 race car, has resulted in the just-introduced M-Class sold 3,516 units in the month of June, a 58.9-percent increase over June of 2004 and helping Mercedes record the most overall June sales in its history.
The first opportunity I ever had to drive the first Mercedes M-Class vehicle was at Road America race track at Elkhart Lake, Wis. The nationÂ’s automotive journalists got the chance to ride with and then drive with various top race drivers around the four-mile road course, and then also went through a rugged off-road course specially designed to tax the vehicle.
Having driven into some of Road America’s toughest corners at speeds of 120 miles per hour, I was impressed. Later, I was more impressed while driving through terrain that resembled an enormous ice cube tray, where one wheel could pull the entire vehicle through – and looking up to see a different M speeding along on the race track. Those were among the reasons I was impressed with the first M.
Mercedes, of course, has been in the SUV business since long before the term SUV accompanied the current runaway trend for sports-utility vehicles, and the current version of those early workhorse vehicles is a large, square truck under the heading of G-Class.
The ML350 bears no resemblance to the G. While the G is probably over-qualified to run on mere roadways, the ML350 is compact, tight, quick, agile, and yet luxurious in every dimension, inside and out. The restyled body has a more flowing, shapely look, with a wedgy rise from the front, and stylish contours along the sides, meeting gracefully with the sloping rear pillar. The rear is set off by chrome dual exhausts, while the front has the distinctive Mercedes logo in the middle of the grille, and the leading edge of a front skidplate tastefully visible when looking at the front. High-power projection headlights look out through glass lenses.
In the redesign, Mercedes obviously intended to make the ML350 even better suited to its on-road chores than featuring its off-road capabilities. For example, the unitized body structure of the best crossover SUVs is deployed, rather than the more truck-oriented body-on-frame arrangement. The ML350 is a bit longer, lower and wider, with a wheelbase stretched by 3 inches, but it loses its low-range transfer case – the device that most sets hardy off-road vehicles from their on-road cousins.
But since SUV owners rarely go off the road for anything more challenging than a grass-in-the-middle dirt road to a cabin up north, the adjustment shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, it helps save a chunk of weight, bringing the new ML350 in more than 400 pounds less than its predecessor. The look is unique enough that the ML350 seems more of a “passenger module†than a mere SUV.
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Inside the unitized body, Mercedes refers to its “modular command cockpit,†where the very businesslike and attractive gauge layout has a small information screen in the midst of the gauges. The center stack features a 7-inch screen for the navigation system, or controlling everything from the audio to the air/heat adjustments.
The interior is highlighted – dominated? – by the test car’s selection of leather and bird’s-eye maple. This is classy wood, more like furniture than a sheet of veneer or plastic looks-like woodgrain. The wood on the doors, console and running up the center stack was stunning, with its many bird’s-eyes on the light maple background.
But the best part of sitting in those comfortably supportive bucket seats comes when you activate the revised mechanical stuff under the hood.
Back about a decade, Mercedes decided to revise its engines and build them with three valves atop each cylinder – two intake and one exhaust. That allowed for cutting corners on cost, because one overhead camshaft could make the whole bank of valves function. Now, however, Mercedes has decided to reach back for extra power, and it’s back to dual-overhead cams and four valves per cylinder.
The ML350 has a 3.5-liter V6 engine that produces 268 horsepower at 6,000 RPMs, and 258 foot-pounds of torque that are electronically maintained at a peak from 2,400-5,000 RPMs.
While some larger competitors are still trying to figure out how to go beyond four-speed transmissions, Mercedes has put the first U.S. application of a seven-speed automatic transmission in the ML350 – not just an ordinary seven-speed, either. This transmission came out for 2005 on the S430 and 500, E500, SL 500, and the CL500 coupe. For 2006, its use spreads to the ML.
The shift lever is on the column, not the console, and gives you three options. The lever in the middle is at “N,†from where it may be pushed up to engage reverse, in, toward the steering column, for park, or down into “D†for drive. Once you’re in drive, you simply drive, if that’s all you want to do. The transmission shifts smoothly and without any jerking, probably because with seven ratios you can pretty well be sure you’re in an appropriate range for whatever speed you’re going.
If you want more fun, and more control, there are little rectangular pads on the backside of the steering wheel, one for each hand, where reaching with your finger you can push on the outer side for the transmission to upshift, while if you push the inner side, it downshifts. Many people ignore these devices, but this one can be both useful and enjoyable.
You can start up in first, and upshift at the touch of your finger at however many revs you select. Naturally, you can run the revs up toward 6,000 before shifting if youÂ’re in a hurry, and you want to zip ahead with stronger acceleration. Coming off a freeway, you can downshift to fourth, or even third, so that the transmission doesnÂ’t have to hunt for a gear for city or residential streets.
The ML350 should be driven by anyone in the market for a $40,000 compact SUV, because thatÂ’s what the base price is — $40,525. It is easy, naturally, to load on the options from a vast array of goodies Mercedes provides. But it comes well equipped at that base price, and during my weeklong test, I got 19.5 miles per gallon in combined city/freeway driving, while I achieved 22.7 miles per gallon on a highway and freeway trip with the cruise hovering between 60-77 miles per hour.
Setting the cruise, incidentally, is my biggest complaint about the ML350. The cruise has been on a stalk jutting out of the left side of the steering column on Mercedes vehicles for so long, that the German company is not likely to yield in its stubborn determination to keep it there. Sure, it gets in the way of the turn signal, so the turn signal is rotated downward, as if coming out at 8 oÂ’clock, while the smaller cruise stalk is at about 9:30. The turn stalk is positioned perfectly to be obscured by the steering wheel column itself, while the cruise stalk remains in clear view. So, of course, the driver tends to hit the cruise switch about 70 percent of the time when he or she wants to signal a turn.
Beyond that, the four-sided cruise stalk has clearly spelled-out places on which way to push it for activating it, deactivating it, accelerating, decelerating, or perhaps how to slice bread. It has everything you could want – except for a readily identifiable direction to set the speed. Which is its fundamental purpose. Every time I tried to set the speed, I would pull, push, raise and lower the stalk, until it finally would catch at some speed with 10-15 mph of where I wanted it, then I would accelerate or decelerate to get to my desired speed. This was all just a petty nuisance, until, on a lightly traveled two-lane highway, I tried three times to set the cruise by hitting “accel,†and the highway patrolman coming toward me wasn’t what you’d call sympathetic to my experimental clicking to accelerate for scientific/mechanical purposes.
Fortunately, I was driving the ML350, and not the ML500, which costs about $10,000 more, with a 5.0-liter V8 and 302 horsepower with 339 foot-pounds of torque. I suppose if you have to tow a heavy trailer, or you can’t resist the temptatation to stay active in the who’s-got-the-baddest-SUV-on-the-block competition, you might spend the extra dough on the V8. Personally, I can’t imagine needing more power than the ML350, and the price makes it a bargain.
(John Gilbert writes weekly reviews, and can be reached at cars@jwgilbert.com.)
Aston Martin DB9 ‘Bonds’ luxury with high performance
SAN DIEGO, CALIF. — Driving the Aston Martin DB9 through the mountains of Southern California brings to life the class and luxury of exotic sports cars, along with recurring thoughts of James Bond movies past and future. Surrounded by all that high-strength metal, and the more visible leather, mahogany and brushed aluminum, and the sweet sound of the V12 engine, you imagine being able to live the lifestyle of someone who might buy such a car, far more than you think about going out on a race track.
But after the legendary 12 Hours of Sebring endurance race in mid-March, the luxurious refinement of the DB9 suddenly suggests a different connotation.
The automotive world and auto racing used to be closely aligned – remember “win on Sunday, sell on Monday?†— but that connection has mostly gone away, living only in the fertile minds of public-relations and advertising types. Everyone knows that no automaker builds the identical frames or the aging pushrod V8s called for by the NASCAR stock car rules, or even the “funny car” replica bodies of those race cars. It’s the same for NHRA drag-racers, where old technology, twisted tightly, prevails.
In endurance racing, however, there still is some validity. True, there are one-off prototype cars running at the front, but there also are real-world sports cars competing as well. Porsche and Ferrari have long competed at LeMans, Sebring, and other endurance venues, and in recent years, Dodge Vipers have made solid inroads, so to speak, against factory-aided Corvettes. This year, enough factory-aided Chevrolet C6 Corvettes were in place to establilsh a dominant position.
All of that occurred just after I had the chance to be one of a dozen auto journalists invited to San Diego for an introductory road test of the new Aston Martin DB9. The car has a low, slinky, and undeniably beautiful body. The angular headlight housing slashes across the outer reaches of that sleek nose to resemble an attacking raptor. The familiar Aston Martin grille looks more like a hungry shark coming at you.
When I say “familiar,†the grille from the legendary British auto maker has been seen on all the Aston Martins you’ve seen on U.S. roadways — a number which might, indeed, number zero. But it has become familiar because of the standard-issue sports cars driven by James Bond through all the novels and movies popularizing secret agent 007. Those, of course, were fitted with machine guns, bullet-proof shields, ejection seats, missile-launchers, and all sorts of futuristic gadgets to give Bond characters from Sean Connery to Pierce Brosnan a clearcut edge in BondÂ’s confrontations with the worldÂ’s bad guys.
In the process, those Aston Martins became as popular as the plots, and the, ahem, leading ladies. Brosnan tried switching to a BMW sports car last time, but in the next Bond movie, heÂ’s back in an Aston.
Under ownership of Ford Motor Company, Aston Martin is similarly rejuvenated in real life, taking its pride and creating the new car that is up to and beyond contemporary standards. Aston Martin is optimistic about doubling its presence in the U.S., while still retaining the mystique of being a sports car for people who enjoy its unique statement, and owners are not likely to see any other Aston Martins in neighborhood driveways.
Company officials insist the DB9 is still purely Aston Martin, made better because the company put to good use all of its new-found relationships. The V12 engine, for example, was designed by Ford’s Dearborn gang, which just got through piecing together the Ford GT powerplant. The engines are built by hand at a special Aston Martin facility within FordÂ’s complex in Cologne, Germany. The extremely light and rigid aluminum frame was designed in coordination with Ford affiliate Volvo, at its cutting-edge safety structure facilities.
The worldly assets all come home to Aston MartinÂ’s new base, in Gaydon, Warwickshire, England. The DB9 is the first car built at the Gaydon plant, which has only one robot, for applying adhesives to fit body panels. Otherwise, everything is done by hand. The 6-liter V12 produces 450 horsepower at 6,000 RPMs, and 420 foot-pounds of torque at 5,000 RPMs, running 0-60 in less than five seconds. The aluminum double-wishbone front and rear suspension and the stiff chassis are calculated perfectly, with the engine mounted just behind the front axle and the transmission located just ahead of the rear axle, to create perfect 50-50 balance on the axles.
This is not a car for everyman. It is hand built, so only a precious few can be built. This year, 1,100 DB9s are scheduled for construction, 300 coupes and 800 Volante convertibles, and a V8 model is coming. All that exclusivity comes at a cost. The DB9 coupe base price is $155,000, while the companion Volante convertible lists for $168,000. Destination, plus such options as a navigation system, and heated seats, must be added to those prices. If you want the automatic transmission with paddle-shifting capabilities, it’s a $5,000 option, for example.
It was mentioned that Aston Martin also intended to enter the world endurance racing competition, which sounded good, but I didn’t give it much thought at the time, because anybody can enter a race. So we went out on the highway, where we were impressed by running the DB9s through their paces, up into the mountains east of San Diego. Somebody complained that there seemed to be quite a bit of noise entering the cockpit, but except for some tire sound over rough pavement, any intrusion of that V12 revving up toward 7,000 RPMs was such high-tech music that it not only wasn’t objectionable, but we chose to ignore the sophisticated audio system so as not to interfere with the sound.
As a long-time motorsports reporter, after returning home I tuned in to a website to follow the chronology of what was going on down at Sebring. From practice, I noted that, sure enough, a pair of factory-supported Aston Martin DBR9s had been thrown into the GT1 competition. Without a lot of practice or preparation, nobody expected it to win, but instead to use the 12-hour endurance race to measure the new car’s status.
Surprisingly, the No. 58 Aston Martin had qualified fourth in GT1 class, behind the top Corvettes, and the No. 57 DB9 had qualified fifth. After the first three hours, David Brabham and his co-drivers were running in third place in the No. 58 car, having covered 303.4 miles, followed by the No. 57 DBR9 fourth. That was impressive, even though the best DB9 lap was 0.5 seconds a lap slower than the fastest Corvette lap. After six hours, the No. 57 carÂ’s best lap had improved from 0.5 to 0.05 seconds slower than the best Corvette lap, while, having covered 166 laps or 614.2 miles, it had pulled into second place in GT1 class behind the Ron Fellows Corvette, while the other DB9 was fourth in class.
At the nine-mile mark, the No. 58 DBR9 has been involved in a collision, and crew members worked feverishly for an hour to make what the release said was a “chassis adjustment,†then got the car back on the track. The No. 57 car, by then, had completed 225 laps, or 8,325 miles, with its best lap now 0.2 seconds FASTER than the best Corvette lap, or that of any other GT1 car. When the leading Corvette suffered some mechanical breakdown that required attention in the pits, the Aston Martin took over first place in the GT1 class.
At the completion of all 12 hours, Brabham and his codrivers had maintained a steady pace and brought the No. 57 car to the finish line first in GT1 and fourth overall, beating the herd of Corvette C6-Rs. The other DBR9 finished eighth in GT1 and 15th overall – despite its additional one-hour pit stop. Choosing to make its first competitive run in such a world-class race may have seemed foolhardy, but when the DBR9 won the race, it turned out to be far more than the measuring-stick of Aston Martin’s competitiveness.
You may have missed any published accounts of the 12 Hours of Sebring, what with NASCAR holding a stock car race, and everything from the NCAA basketball tournament to congressional hearings on how formerly skinny baseball players so suddenly gained enormous muscles at about the same time they went from 25 to 70 home runs a year. Besides, Aston Martin, and even Ford, might have been unprepared to capitalize on the surprising victory at Sebring. More important is how it reflects on the production success of the DB9.
Every exotic sports car boasts of speed capability somewhere north of 175 miles per hour, and although it’s been ignored by the car magazines who focus on Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Corvette, the Aston Martin DB9 reports a top speed of 186. Not that real-world highways – this side of the German autobahns, at least – allow that sort of speed, but the carÂ’s capabilities are awesome to control.
The DB9 stands apart from other premium sports cars, by being much more understated than Ferraris or Lamborghinis, yet more exotic than the competition-honed Porsches. The DB9 sits low, like a snake that seems to coat the pavement it stands on, while its silhouette rises gracefully over the cockpit and falls away in a fluid flow of fastback lines to the nicely-contoured rear façade.
The fleet of DB9s for the media introductory drive all had the Touchtronic 2 automatic, a German transmission also used by BMW, Audi and Jaguar. Replacing the six-speed manual shifter, it is a shift-by-wire six-speed automatic, activated by magnesium shift paddles at fingertip reach behind the steering wheel. Pull the right paddle for upshifts, and the left for downshifts. It shifts smoothly and immediately, although when I took off hard, accelerating from a T-intersection stop sign into a 90-degree left, I became a bit uneasy learning that the paddles are fixed. So I had to grope before realizing that if you’re turning while running out of revs, you must take your hand off the wheel to find the shift paddle.
That, I suppose, is something youÂ’d get used to. And at least, you know where you can find it.
Perfectly fitted leather seats, are part of the benefit of hand-crafting, and even more noticeable is the wood trim. In almost all other cars, wood trim means a paper-thin appliqués shaved off a slab of wood and then pasted onto the dash and coated with lacquer to the point of being indistinguishable from plastic. In the DB9 interior, you get wood. Large, furniture-size chunks of wood. And you can select mahogany, walnut, or bamboo, depending on color preference. Aluminum trim adds a technical edge to that luxurious leather and wood.
While Aston Martins are rare to find on the road, the company intends to have them become less-rare. The 35 dealers currently selling Aston Martins in the U.S. are more than double the15 dealerships in 2001, although the closest one to Minnesota is in Chicago at present. While the company wants to sell a lot more DB9s, it wonÂ’t matter to the interested customers. TheyÂ’re not buying a car, so much as joining an exclusive club confined only to those who live a particular lifestyle, and would like to have a uniquely classy vehicle in order to display it.
On fairway, or in rough, new Grand Cherokee beats par
SANTA YNEZ MOUNTAINS, CALIF. — Negotiating tight curves and majestic vistas while driving up and over the mountains above the sea-level strip that is Santa Barbara, Calif., left the 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee press-launch media unanimously impressed.
While I was impressed, the Grand Cherokee was so smooth that I was also concerned. I mean, dating back to the origin of the Jeep, when Willys introduced the rugged little 4×4 as a military vehicle in 1941, ruggedness has been the key descriptive term for all things Jeep. The Cherokee was a somewhat refined wagon, and the Wagoneer of 1963 attempted to be luxurious in a very weird and plastical way, but pseudo refinements couldnÂ’t conceal the basic ruggedness of the brand.
Since Chrysler, now DaimlerChrysler, has taken over Jeep, the Grand Cherokee has become more refined, but the nameplateÂ’s tradition has continued to mean certain justifiable spinoffs, including a few rattles and assorted nuisance problems. Jeep lovers accepted them, because, after all, itÂ’s a Jeep.
So if the 2005 Grand Cherokee is so smooth, so tight, so refined, in all circumstances on the road, it must have compromised some of its legendary off-road status, right? Furthermore, that might make sense, to modernize the Grand Cherokee for the still-huge SUV segment of mostly on-road users, because Jeep makes the Wrangler and Rubicon for serious off-roaders, has inserted the Liberty as a midpoint between off- and on-roaders, and, in fact, has just added the Wrangler Unlimited, with a longer wheelbase for less-bouncy off-roading.
Turns out, I was wrong. True, the new Grand Cherokee is far better on any road than any predecessor wearing the Jeep name, but our trek over the mountains took us to Camp Jeep California, the latest of several specifically designed off-road challenges built by, and run by and for, Jeep. Once there, we drove in a dusty caravan up a lengthy, sandy incline, along ridges with precipitous drops on either side. We plunged down steep drop-offs, picked our way through obstacles carved into hillsides and valleys, and scrambled like mountain goats to get up and out of all such terrain.
I can’t say the 2005 Grand Cherokee is better off-road than those off-road-only Jeep products, but it is the best Grand Cherokee I’ve ever driven off-road. As well as on-road. So, for sure it is the best combination vehicle Jeep has ever produced – effortlessly covering grueling off-road tests, swift freeway cruising, and curvy switchback cornering. If quality-control and lack of nuisance problems can match the promise of the introductory vehicles, the Grand Cherokee should be a solid winner.
Power is big news for the Grand Cherokee, as it gains the top-line 5.7-liter HEMI V8, with 330 horsepower and 375 foot-pounds of torque, for a 7,200-pound towing capability. The HEMI also has available cylinder deactivation, with two cylinders on each bank of the “V†cutting out while cruising, improving fuel economy and keeping maximum force available to seamlessly re-engage at the tap of your toe.
While the HEMI provides head-turning – and possibly neck-snapping – acceleration, the other engines shouldn’t be overlooked for those not interesting in drag-racing the neighbor’s SUVs. The 4.7-liter V8 is an overhead-camshaft unit with 235 horsepower and a very impressive 310 foot-pounds of torque, and the base engine is a 3.7-liter overhead-cam V6 with 210 horsepower and a very useful 235 foot-pounds of torque. EPA fuel economy estimates are 20 highway/14 city for the 4.7, and 21/16 for the V6, while the cylinder deactivation gives the HEMI impressive 20/14 figures.
At a glance, the new Grand Cherokee doesn’t look that much different from the 2004 model it displaces. The more corners are more harmonious than sharp-edged, encasing a vehicle that is a few inches longer, a bit wider, slightly lower, yet with a shorter turning radius. As one company official said: “It’s still a little boxy, and we’re OK with that.†DaimlerChrysler didn’t want to forego all the equity built up in making “Jeep†the best-recognized automotive icon in the world. Look closely, and you notice a slightly different angle to the front A pillar, and a more roundly fitted rear corner treatment.
The most obvious difference is up front, where new, round headlights appear as if borrowed from the Wrangler. The headlights can be selected with something called SmartBeam, which reads the ambient light and oncoming traffic to automatically adjust the angle of the high or low lights.
Underneath the new skin is a new suspension system. An all-new short and long arm independent front unit has a single-piece iron lower control arm and forged upper control arm with aluminum steering components designed for optimum steering and on-road maneuverability. Unsprung weight was reduced by 100 pounds, and ground clearance was increased by more than an inch. The familiar five-link rear suspension has been refined, and both ends are finely coordinated, and work well with the new rack-and-pinion steering system.
Perhaps the key to the seemingly impossible combination of good posture both on- and off-road is the Dynamic Handling System (DHS), which uses hydraulic, active stabilizer bars. Normally, an SUV that is firm enough off-road is so harsh as to jar your fillings loose on-road, and one that is smooth on-road is too squishy off-road. On the Grand Cherokee, the DHS bars relax by virtually uncoupling when cruising on highways, but a steering-angle sensor and a pair of lateral accelerometers pressurize the bar links to stiffen in hard cornering or on rough terrain, firming up the stability. From our brief exposure, it works to master both extremes.
What makes a Grand Cherokee truly a Jeep is its all-wheel-drive capability, and Jeep has blessed the new one with three distinctly different units. Quadra-Trac I has a single transfer case and Brake Traction Control System for full-time 4×4 without any levers to shift, sending 48 percent of torque to the front and 52 percent to the rear. Quadra-Trac II has an active transfer case that can be shifted to 4-high or 4-low. And Quadra-Drive II has electronic limited-slip front, rear and center, for more and quicker torque transfer and ultimate off-road capability. A 34.1-degree approach angle, 27.1-degree departure angle and 20.6-degree ramp breakover angle should clear most boulders.
The Grand Cherokee interior brings all those physical assets together, with firm and comfortable seats, remote controls on the steering wheel, a navigation system, rear-seat DVD entertainment with wireless headsets and remote control, U-Connect hands-free cell phone operation, and Sirius satellite radio. Well-placed and easily-read gauges and center-stack controls are complemented by nicely textured facings on the dashboard, and even the faux woodgrain surrounding the shift lever, with its gated Autostick manual control, adds a nice touch.
Weight for the new Grand Cherokee ranges from 4,254 pounds for the base 2WD with the 3.7 engine to the 4,735 of the fully-loaded Limited with the HEMI. Prices weigh-in similarly. Base price starts at $26,775 for the Laredo with the 3.7, and $28,860 with the 4.7; the Limited starts at $34,045, and a fully-loaded HEMI-powered Limited with the optional stability program, heated seats, SmartBeam lights, rear video, Sirius radio, beeping back-up system, navigation and all the goodies can run up to $40,415, as seen on a later test-drive vehicle I had for a week.
The new Grand Cherokee will impress anyone who ever has liked the idea of having a Jeep, and will positively dazzle those who have tolerated a few miseries in the past for the satisfaction of owning a Jeep. Just remember – don’t be dismayed at the smooth, refined demeanor on the road, because the new Grand Cherokee will live up to Jeep heritage off the road.
(John Gilbert writes weekly auto reviews and can be reached at cars@jwgilbert.com.)
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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