Newcomers

second time right

Get your performance out in the open

NOT everyone was a fan of the - Z Roadster. But the new Z version gets it right. The body is more curvaceous and better proportioned, with more of the visual mass moved to the rear. The top is much improved. The interior has gone upmarket. Bonus tracks: More power, less weight, and a base price increase of just a hundred bucks.

The ’s top stack, made by Magna in Germany, is a much higher quality piece. It’s a one-touch deal and will fully raise or lower in less time than it takes for the light to go from red to green. The old top resembled a football helmet, but this one touches down farther back on the rear deck for a longer, sleeker appearance. It’s neatly selfcovering, with the hard tonneau nicely integrated into the design. Two roll-hoops just aft of the seats look good too, and there’s a glass wind-blocker fi xed between them. Heated and ventilated seats are standard, although the cooler fans hiss too noisily.

The new Z Roadster’s chassis is more rigid structurally, with far greater resistance to twisting and bending. The stronger platform means the suspension can be tuned with much greater precision, and there’s less cowl shake and body shudder. We pounded the Z over our favorite really crappy road and came away impressed.

The -horse motor has power everywhere, with a linear delivery. The six-speed manual’s SynchroRev Match technology is magic stuff : Just hit the clutch and downshift, and the computer delivers a Schumacher-quality, rev-matched throttle blip.

The old ’s driver inputs felt artifi cially heavy. The ’s are still meaty, but better balanced. Windnoise and buff eting are commendably low too, with normal conversation still easy at  mph.

Gripes? A few. The new .-liter engine sounds harsh and grainy, lacking the sweetness of the old .. The accessory power point is located below the glovebox, at about shin level. The hard-to-read, LED fuel/temp/computer readout gauge is more attempted form than worthwhile function.

Track rats will still go for the Z coupe. It weighs less and off ers an even stiff er chassis platform. But the Roadster gives up commendably little in terms of performance, and adds all that open-air driving pleasure. ■ matt stone

2010 NISSAN 370Z ROADSTER

BASE PRICE $37,690 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front engine, RWD, 2-pass, 2-door conv

ENGINE 3.7L/332-hp/ 270-lb-ft DOHC 24-valve V-6

TRANSMISSIONS 6-speed manual, 7-speed auto

CURB WEIGHT 3450-3500 lb (MT est) WHEELBASE 110.4 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 167.2 x 72.8 x 52.2 in

0-60 MPH 4.8 (MT est) EPA CITY/HWY FUEL ECON 18/25 mpg CO2 EMISSIONS 0.94 lb/mile

euro dash

Who needs a luxury crossover?

IN A SNEAK peek a few years back, Cadillac said the CTS Sport Wagon was designed to lead its assault on the European market, where BMW  Tourings and Benz E-wagons sell like luxury crossovers. Cadillac expected to sell just  per year in the U.S. Finances have since put the brakes on the European foray. No more diesel program. No more right-hand-drive CTS. The Sport Wagon has to sell here on its own merits.

Styling alone could make it a sales breakout here. Cadillac has transformed perhaps the bestlooking modern luxury sedan into the best-looking luxury estate. Its roof extends to a very fast D-pillar and power tailgate. The “fi nlike” taillamps are exaggerated into vertical light pipes that run nearly to the cargo roof rails. Unlike wagons of yore, the rear window doesn’t provide an exemplary outward view. Modern wagons need rollover protection, so a thick rear header intrudes into the cargo area, making the optional nav system’s rear camera screen helpful.

Motivating  pounds more than the sedan, the optional .-liter direct-injection V- provides plenty of power. It’s hard to break the rear tires loose at launch, but the mid- to upper-rev ranges are strong. There’s no reason to expect anything better than adequate power from the new -horse,  pound-foot .-liter gas direct-injection V-, which replaces the port-injected . as the base CTS engine.

Other changes include more refi ned powertrain mounting and a slightly softer suspension. A new -inch summer tire option (RWD only—all-season s are available next year) adds grip while mostly maintaining the CTS’ excellent ride-handling balance. The ’s are noisy though and add bump-thump on rough Detroit roads. Steering is precise and communicative, and the brakes feel positively German. The wagon’s  cubic feet of cargo space with the / split rear seat up nearly doubles sedan trunk space. With the seats down, its  cubic feet is eight feet shy of the new SRX’s. The ’ SRX may be as great a leap forward for Cadillac crossovers as the CTS is for its sedans. Given a choice between SRX and CTS Sport Wagon, we’d choose the car. ■ todd lassa

2010 CADILLAC CTS SPORT WAGON

BASE PRICE $40,485 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, RWD/AWD, 5-pass, 4-door wagon

ENGINES

3.0L/265-hp/223-lb-ft DOHC 24-valve V-6; 3.6L/304-hp/273-lb-ft DOHC 24-valve V-6 TRANSMISSION 6-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT 4100-4300 lb (mfr est) WHEELBASE 113.4 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 191.3 x 72.6 x 59.1 in

0-60 MPH 6.5-7.5 sec (MT est) EPA CITY/HWY FUEL ECON 18/26 mpg (3.6L)

CO2 EMISSIONS 0.93 lb/mile ON SALE IN U.S. Currently

tech my ride

You’ll be surging along in serene performance

IT’S A LITTLE hard to

spot the point of the BMW Li. Does anyone consider the current top Seven, the twin-turbo V- Li, too slow? Too unrefi ned? Doesn’t BMW look a little fl atfooted for launching such an engine into today’s constricted market?

Well, yes, the engine (it’s pretty much all-new) was given the go-ahead in better times.

To ensure it’s a technology showcase, this direct-injection unit has two turbos, one for each bank, and it’s hooked up to a new ZF eight-speed automatic transmission.

On the autobahn, the Li is magnifi cent. The engine merely whispers, its eff orts drowned by the wind and road roar, and they in themselves are subdued to near-subterranean levels.

And, boy, this car is a tech-fest. You can alter the setup of the engine response, transmission shift points, adaptive dampers, and adaptive anti-roll bars through a rocker switch on the tunnel. But only the Normal setting feels harmonious. In Comfort, the soft damping can’t control wheelhop; and in Sport, there’s an agile car waiting to come out, but the artifi cial steering suppresses your urge to fi nd it, and the ride becomes too wooden to allow good traction. The new eight-speed transmission is attentive and smooth enough, though with all those ratios to choose from, it can seem busy.

The ’s cabin shows a move away from the austerity of recent big BMWs. The headliner is Alcantara and leather, and the switchgear can be had with black ceramic touch-points. The wood trims are less plasticky, and the graphics of the TFT panel behind the main dials are superbly resolved. At the rear, the two outer seats recline and tilt, and each passenger gets his own screen, audio and three-way climate control with separate rear A/C compressor. As long as the suspension is set to Normal, it’s close to benchmark refi nement.

And that’s the right use for the . It’s not a driver’s car. But oddly it comes with a load of technology that implies it wants to be. Treat it as the Ultimate Riding Machine. ■ paul horrell

2010 BMW 760LI

BASE PRICE $130,000 (est) VEHICLE LAYOUT Front engine, RWD, 5-pass 4-door sedan

ENGINE 6.0-liter/537-hp/ 553-lb-ft twin-turbo DOHC 48-valve V-12

TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT 4800 lb (mfr) WHEELBASE 126.4 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 205.2 x 74.9 x 58.4 in

0-62 MPH 4.6 (mfr est) EPA CITY/HWY FUEL ECON Not yet rated ON SALE IN U.S. Fall 2009

bella voce

Want to understand an emotive, Italian auto? Just listen

WE FIRST drove the rare, expensive, sonorous-sounding C Competizione coupe in late , and track-tested one just a few months ago. We’ve now had a crack at the open-topped version, and we’re pleased to report it’s more of the same, just al fresco. Carbon-fi ber bodywork bolts and bonds to a steel and aluminum tubular chassis. There’s additional bracing to compensate for the structural strength given up by the loss of its lid. While structural rigidity suff ers by nearly  percent, the coupe was so strong to begin with that the Spider is a mostly body-wiggle-free machine. Alfa bagged the notion of a retractable hardtop in favor of the more coachbuilt nature of a rich-looking soft top. Weight goes up about  pounds.

Underhood is the Ferraridesigned-and-built .-liter V- off ered in all current Maseratis, backed by the same six-speed autoclutch manual transaxle. Power is -horses at  revs, its -pound-fot torque peak shows up at , and redline is  rpm. The biggest functional diff erence is that the Spider gets standard carbon-ceramic brake rotors, which were not available on the coupe. The cabin is a dazzling smorgasbord of sexy-yetfunctional materials.

The C Spider isn’t a “numbers” car. It’s plenty fast, but Ferrari  Scuderia or Lamborghini Gallardo LP- will run away and hide. Its performance is still impressive, and it’s a handler too. The well-worn C Competizione coupe we tested ran  to  in . seconds, cornered at . g, and braked from  to  in  feet. A fresh Spider on good tires will be within a pinch and an inch of these numbers.

What sets this macchina Italiana magica apart is the fact that its performance is so easily accessible. You won’t need to fold yourself into an inhospitable cabin, leave your luggage at home, or be beaten to death by a rockhard suspension. This is a car you cannot only drive  miles a day on your favorite ocean/mountain/ deserted road, but you’ll want to. The big disappointment is that it doesn’t have the latest sevenspeed dual autoclutch transaxle of a (less expensive) Ferrari California. Alfa will bring only  made-toorder C Spiders to the U.S., so it will be a rare and lucky club that owns them. ■ matt stone

2010 ALFA ROMEO 8C SPIDER

BASE PRICE $299,000 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front engine, RWD, 2-pass, 2-door conv

ENGINE 4.7L/450-hp/ 354-lb-ft DOHC 32-valve V-8

TRANSMISSION 6-speed auto-cl man CURB WEIGHT 3550 lb (mfr) WHEELBASE 104.1 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 172.5 x 74.6 x 53.9 in

0-60 MPH 4.6 (mfr est) EPA CITY/HWY FUEL ECON Not yet rated ON SALE IN U.S. Fall 2009