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V O L . 67, N O . 2

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TABLE of CONTENTS F E AT U R E

The State of the American Driver Shifts in the larger world are affecting life behind the wheel.

By the Editors

SEPTEMBER 2021

42 . F E AT U R E

52 . F E AT U R E

62 . F E AT U R E

How’s This Work?

Advanced safety systems are not always as good or smart as drivers think they are.

By Sharon Silke Carty

Drive It, Park It, or Sell It? New Yorkers who bought cars during the pandemic have decisions to make.

By Tamara Warren

Redrawing the Line of Duty To address racism, one California city wants to pull police off the traffic beat.

By Andrew Lawrence

56

66 . F E AT U R E

32 . F E AT U R E

34 . R O A D T E S T

46 . F E AT U R E

Survey Says We asked our readers (and some others) to weigh in on where the auto industry is and where it’s going.

By the Editors

2021 Ford Bronco First Edition The Bronco’s triumphant return has the country agape. The awe is well deserved.

By Dave VanderWerp

Attention Deficit Disorder We hop out of the driver’s seat to push today’s driver-assist tech to the limit.

By Dave VanderWerp

ROAD TEST

2022 Honda Civic Touring Can a small car push back against a big trend?

By Annie White

Chipping Away What the supply-chain slowdown means for automotive manufacturers and car shoppers.

By Jonathon Ramsey

“THE STEERING, BRAKES, AND POWERTRAIN COMBINE TO CREATE AN EXPERIENCE FAR RICHER THAN THE PRICE SUGGESTS.” —Annie White, “It’s Lonely Being a Sedan in an SUV World” CAR A ND D R IV E R

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS SEPTEMBER 2021

COLUMNISTS 8. Sharon Silke Carty Reading the crowd.

26. Ezra Dyer Answer the phone.

28. Elana Scherr What the frunk?

UPFRONT 13. Conservation of Combustion The V-8 isn’t dead yet.

16. Cat Nip Your car’s catalyst is hot.

18. Can You Reach Me Now? Where should EV charging stations be built?

20. What to Buy: 1993– 2002 Chevrolet Camaro Sleek and cheap.

22. On the Front Lines A veteran turned GM exec shares his story.

24. Untrashed Building scaled-down cars from scrap.

T H E R U N D OW N 72. 2021 Alfa Romeo Giulia QF vs. 2021 BMW M3 Comp Relationship games.

76. 2021 MercedesBenz S580 Class systems.

77. 2022 Porsche 911 GT3 Touring Icarus shrugged.

78. 2022 Volkswagen Golf R Rated R. 80. 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee L True to form.

82. 2022 Nissan Pathfinder The fix is in.

The joyful noise of the commentariat, rebutted sporadically by Ed. DOG DAYS Best picture of the year?

The Oscar goes to James Lipman with a huge assist from Lemon [“Good Dog,” May 2021].

—J. Peter Scherer Newport Beach, CA Man’s best friend comes to the rescue again.

—Nick Andal Renton, WA

E TC .

The cover photo of the M4 schnoz would be unpardonable if not for the one with the dog blocking the offending portion of the car. That photo is so good that all the people who complained that you have an obvious BMW bias will now write in to apologize.

—Ray Ben California, MO They’ve moved on to accusing us of having a Porsche bias—Ed.

5. Backfires It’s a dog pile this month.

84. Car and Driver 1982 Aston Martin Lagonda and Harjeet S. Kalsi.

I plan to frame that great photo of Lemon!

—Lane Napoli Alexandria, VA

Please ask Lipman to take more pics of Lemon.

Give me some backstory on this hound.

—Robert Brooks Ramstein, Germany Like most influencers, he is on Instagram.

You can follow him @lemonjaxwolf—Ed. The Chewbacca-looking dog with the white ghost on his chest in front of that hideous BMW was cute. I would respect you guys a little more if it were on the cover. But I get it; you have to play nice.

—Jeff T. Oviedo, FL We considered it for the cover, but with the grille blocked and without the context of the road test, the car isn’t immediately identifiable as an M4. In fact, it looks a bit like a Subaru—Ed. Another cheap advertising trick: Cover up the ugly product with a cute dog.

—Richard Sherry Boynton Beach, FL

CAR A ND D R IV E R ~ S EPT EMB ER 202 1 ~ SI C YOU R DOGS ON U S AT: EDITORS@CARAND D RIV ER.COM

The new M4’s nose makes the Bangle butt look positively great by comparison.

—Mark H. Vincent Rochester, IN The nose on the M4 is absolutely the worst I have ever seen. It looks like a human nose with the front half chopped off. You want a great BMW? Try a 2006 E46 M3 coupe. Tidy, comfortable, quick on its feet, reliable, and damn good-looking.

—Jeffrey Curnett Summerville, SC You lost me at reliable—Ed. I kinda like the new BMW grille. So, go ahead—now’s your chance to cancel a subscriber for once!

—Sean Sweaney Nashville, TN Tony Quiroga seems to hate BMWs. Some owners like to use the settings to keep the car interesting, and most actually like the dual-clutch transmission better in these turbo cars.

Too bad Quiroga had to put

5

Backfires

It’s not about the nose; it’s about the numb steering, turbo lag, shift lights, engine Muzak, and nauseating instrument cluster.

M cars used to be a distinct breed but have devolved into a mere trim level.

—Ron Price Bedford, NH In your test of the M4, the specs state that the body is carbon fiber and aluminum. Mostly aluminum or more carbon fiber?

—Joe DeCarolis Deerfield Beach, FL The roof is carbon-fiberreinforced plastic; the hood, doors, and front fenders are aluminum; and the rear fenders and trunklid are steel. A miscommunication with BMW is to blame for the omission of steel from the road-test specs—Ed.

ID CHECK I am interested in getting an EV. I’m not concerned with its 60-mph time, skidpad numbers, or top speed, although it would be nice to be able to keep up in the left lane, where 80 mph is required. I don’t normally drive my 1997 Honda CR-V at that speed, with 65 usu-

6

ally sufficing in the right lanes. The Volkswagen ID.4 sounds as if it would meet my needs very nicely [“The New Normal,” May 2021].

Thank you for sharing an unhappy truth about EVs. If the loss of range—250 to 190 miles, or 24 percent, in 40-degree weather—is any indication of true range, electric power will drag out any real road trip.

—Michael Zaleski Jackson, NJ The 75-mph speed is a big factor in the drop.

A second ID.4 run in 70-degree temps saw 210 miles—Ed. If the new normal is a white steering wheel and white interior door handles, tell VW to count me out. The only thing dumber is David Beard wanting to drift in an ID.4.

For about the same money, he can get a first-gen Dodge Viper to meet that need.

—Chris Harvey Seabrook, TX

SEDANISSIMO Best line in the May issue goes to Elana Scherr in her comparison test of the Audi RS7, BMW M8 Comp, and Mercedes-AMG GT63 S [“Outrage Machines,” May 2021]: “With a barely passing grade in the ride category, the Gran Coupe has earned the D that’s missing from its name.”

—Doug Harding Surprise, AZ A BMW, a Merc, and an Audi, but no Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing? I know it’s not

as fancy, and it doesn’t seem to have atomizers or a baller attitude, but for half the price, it will hang with these big boys on a track.

—Brent Milton, ON Since the time machine is in the shop, it’s impossible to include cars that aren’t out yet—Ed. I enjoyed the RS7, GT63 S, and M8 comparison. Considering the disparity in price, however, why in the world did you test the AMG GT four-door with this group instead of the CLS63 S? —Neil N. New Orleans, LA Benz stopped importing the CLS63 S after 2018.

Again, without a functioning time machine, we’re out of luck—Ed. In the minus column, Scherr states that the M8 has “the ability to find and amplify every road imperfection.”

My Infiniti Q60 had the same problem until I got rid of the crappy run-flat tires.

—Paul Jay Austin, TX What if we told you the M8 doesn’t have run-flats?—Ed. Scherr’s comparison test reminded me why I subscribe. I loved the paragraph about the mountain peaks so much, I had to share it on social media.

—Aleks Zawisza Ottawa, ON

Reporting from an alternate universe where these supersedans make sense for fun-loving people who happen to have kids. A universe where you can smoke Raptors and Macans while singing along to Frozen.

Where the Teslarati sneer at you in the elementary-school pickup line. I’ve been asked whether I was going to get my car “fixed” because it was so loud, to which I responded, “That’s the point.”

—Matt Chua Minneapolis, MN Do you want to build a snowman?—Ed.

TELL-U-WHAT Besides the trickling rear washer, your long-term test of the Kia Telluride missed another flaw [May 2021]: It’s impossible to raise the wipers perpendicular to the windshield, so you can’t easily clean snow from the air vents or leave the wipers up in anticipation of an ice storm.

—Chuck Snowdon Plymouth, MA It doesn’t have to be a snowman—Ed. Your review of the Kia Telluride praises its value.

Tell me, does that apply to a top-trim SX at nearly $60K? Because that’s what buyers are faced with.

Kia may not yet have realized what it has done, but dealers definitely have.

—Ken Chapman Advance, NC SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

SIC YOU R DO GS O N U S AT: ED ITORS@ CARANDDRIVER.COM

up with the awful, rubbery manual. BMW has to build cars it can sell. When it tried a track-focused E30 M3, they gathered dust in showrooms.

Did the GT4 steal his heart before he got into this BMW? —Mark Schnoerr Fort Worth, TX The transmission in this gen M3/M4 is a conventional planetary automatic, and you’re assuming Quiroga has a heart—Ed.

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Backfires

Hyundai-Kia screwed up. It should have slapped a Genesis nameplate on that gem and an additional $10,000 on the price, and no one would have been the wiser.

—Alfie Epstein Les Cèdres, QC

Editor ’s Let ter

Reading the Crowd

ONE PROTON

BRONCO BUSTER You guys really hit the nail on the head when you compared the new Bronco Sport to the 2001 Escape [“Name Check,” May 2021]. Perhaps that explains why my excitement level is about the same for both of them.

—Brian Ludwig Waukesha, WI

HOYVIN-GLAVIN Thanks for the perfectly cromulent review of the new Chevy Bolt EUV [“Sizing Up,” May 2021]. It put a spring(field) in my step.

—Rendell Bird Lafayette, LA

ou’re a conflicted bunch. I mean, we knew that already, given your letters to Ed., but it came into focus this month. For this issue, we wanted a read on how life has changed for American drivers, so we pushed out a survey to get a broad look at what’s happening outside our home-office walls.

Many Car and Driver readers expressed a surprising amount of excitement about how EVs will boost performance, but you’re also bummed about a future with less driver engagement. For example: John Kerekes of Pittsford, New York, said that when thinking about the future of cars, he’s most excited about “electric sports cars with rapid acceleration.” What worries him? “The death of manual transmissions.”

Of course, EVs almost never come with manual transmissions, so to be excited about a future without them and also worried about that seems a bit incompatible. It also makes a lot of sense.

To outsiders, this kind of optimistic pessimism might be confusing, but car enthusiasts are people with a deep passion. Sure, we can be a little snobby about vehicles that don’t live up to their potential, but for the most part, we can find a way to appreciate even the ugliest car babies.

Our EV issue this summer got a fair amount of media attention.

One reporter asked me if the Car and Driver audience was really going to embrace electric vehicles.

I explained that you’re not a monolith of folks with one strong, unbreakable idea of what is cool or uncool. That’s what makes creating this magazine so much fun, even when you threaten to cancel your subscription.

Y

EZRA AND THE JETS I was reading the enjoyable “Salvaging Saab” [May 2021] by Ezra Dyer and noticed the brilliantly crafted sentence “Saabs come from the land of the ice and snow, where the synchros fry and the head gaskets blow.” This article is Dyer at his best. Even though

8

S H A R O N SI L K E C A R T Y E D I TO R - I N - C H I E F

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

SIC YOU R DO GS O N U S AT: ED ITORS@ CARANDDRIVER.COM PHOTO GRAPH BY JE NNY RISHE R

Hydrogen vehicles are sold as zero-emission vehicles, but that is a deceptive lie [“Hydrogen’s Bombshell,” May 2021].

Ninety-five percent of the hydrogen made in the U.S. comes from burning fossil fuel.

All you have done is move the emissions from the cars to the plant that makes the hydrogen.

Yes, you can make hydrogen from renewable energy, but that is not very efficient.

—George R. Sunnyvale, CA

Backfires Editor-in-Chief Sharon Silke Carty

As an imported-car mechanic for many makes, I can tell you they weren’t called Sobs for nothing.

—Bob Cleveland, WI Get rid of Dyer. He is a good writer, but he shouldn’t write for a car magazine. Perhaps he should transfer to Wired, Good Housekeeping, or even House Beautiful. The page that contains one of his lightweight articles could be used to feature a new column that offers repair tips or highlights a famous antique classic automobile. Sorry, Ezra.

—Chuck Barnett Peoria, AZ

LICENSE, PLEASE Thanks for the memories, Elana [“Adult Education,” May 2021]. I’m almost certain your essay could be four times as long and still be just as interesting and timely to me and many others.

—Mike Kilgore Mar Vista, CA I really enjoy the direction you are going in being more inclusive. Seeing more women as drivers and owners is refreshing.

And having more writers like Scherr makes a great magazine even better!

—Mark Loch Hockessin, DE Scherr’s “Adult Education” piece is indicative of the drift away from longtime

10

Publisher and Chief Revenue Officer Felix DiFilippo Associate Publisher, National Sales Director Cameron Albergo NEW YORK East Coast Sales Director Kyle taylor Group Advertising Director Joe pennacchio Integrated Sales Director Shannon rigby Integrated Sales Account Executive richard panciocco Assistant Keierra Wiltshire • CHICAGO Integrated Sales Director rick bisbee • DETROIT Group Advertising Director Samantha Shanahan Sales Directors theresa Hern, marisa Stutz Assistants toni Starrs, rene tuohy LOS ANGELES Group Advertising Director Anne rethmeyer Digital Sales Director Lisa LaCasse Senior Director of Sales Lori mertz Integrated Sales Director Susie miller Digital Account Executive molly Jolls Assistant Olivia Zurawin TORONTO Digital Sales Account Executive & Auto Aftermarket rex Cawagas HEARST DIRECT MEDIA Sales Manager brad Gettelfinger ADMINISTRATION Advertising Services Director regina Wall • PRODUCTION Manager Chris Hertwig • CIRCULATION Vice President, Strategy and Business Management rick Day Published by Hearst 300 W. 57th Street, New York, NY 10019 President & Chief Executive Officer Steven r. Swartz Chairman William r. Hearst III Executive Vice Chairman Frank A. bennack, Jr. President, Hearst Magazines Group Debi Chirichella

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Car and Driver© is a registered trademark of Hearst Autos, Inc. Copyright 2021, Hearst Autos, Inc. All rights reserved.

HEARST AUTOS, INC. Chief Executive Officer matt Sanchez President & Chief Revenue Officer Nick matarazzo Treasurer Debi Chirichella Secretary Catherine A. bostron Editorial Director Joe brown Chief Brand Officer eddie Alterman Chief Marketing Officer michelle panzer Executive Director of Finance paul Neumaier Executive Assistant erika Nuñez PUBLISHING CONSULTANTS Gilbert C. maurer, mark F. miller INTERNATIONAL EDITIONS brazil, China, Greece, Spain

C/D readers’ interests. This article covers a person and subject no C/D reader cares about. Lily is the antithesis of your readership, most of whom were at the DMV on the morning of their 16th birthday and peeled out of the parking lot after passing their driver’s test.

—Mark Douglass Kent, WA

PARTING GIFTS I just finished reading your [month] comparison test and had to write. How could you pick the [German car] over the [American car]? You gave it [number between 1 and 10] point(s) because it had a better [part of car].

This is [farm animal] manure.

I’ve been a subscriber since [number between 1955

and 2020], but cancel my subscription. Maybe you should change your name to [mode of transportation other than car] and Driver.

—Ron Brown Toledo, OH Have you heard? Ford will be making a long-wheelbase version of its new EV. It will be known as the Grand Mach-E. Rumors of a special de Sade option package have already started flying.

—Christopher Krisocki Belleville, NJ When the first subscriber sent a “Cancel my subscription!” letter, was that the beginning of cancel culture?

Why did everyone get a gluten allergy when the Prius came out? Did the birth of

the minivan also coincide with the birth of millions of Karens? What will the popularity of EVs produce?

—J. Raleigh, NC Congratulations on your new direction. The soft news stories about life in America are odd yet strangely compelling, but they do not belong in a car mag. So we will once again take a timeout.

—Brent Fetterly Lanark, ON If you see me wearing a face mask in my Celica convertible with Leon the yellow Lab in the back seat, it’s obviously to keep the dog hair out of my mouth.

—Scott Poley Clearwater, FL Sept ember 2021 ~ CA r AND Dr IV er

SIC YOU R DO GS O N U S AT: ED ITORS@ CARANDDRIVER.COM

I skip over his pieces on the Bronco, I still love you so. I can’t let you go. I love you. Ooh, baby, I love you!

—Larry Villano Phoenix, AZ

Print Director eric tingwall Executive Editor ryan White Digital Director Laura Sky brown BUYER’S GUIDE Deputy Editor rich Ceppos Staff Editors Drew Dorian, eric Stafford FEATURES Senior Editor elana Scherr Staff Editors Austin Irwin, Annie White NEWS Senior Editor Joey Capparella Staff Editors Connor Hoffman, Caleb miller Social Media Editor michael Aaron • REVIEWS Deputy Editor tony Quiroga Senior Editors ezra Dyer, mike Sutton • TESTING Director Dave VanderWerp Deputy Director K.C. Colwell Research Editor beth Nichols Technical Editor David beard Road Test Editor rebecca Hackett Assistant Technical Editor maxwell b. mortimer Road Warriors Harry Granito, Keoni Koch, Jacob Kurowicki, Zackary Lading CREATIVE Director Darin Johnson Deputy Director Nathan Schroeder Staff Photographers michael Simari, marc Urbano Photo Assistant Charley m. Ladd PRODUCTION Managing Editor mike Fazioli Copy Chief Adrienne Girard Associate Managing Editor Jennifer misaros Editorial Operations Manager Juli burke Copy Editors Chris Langrill, Kara Snow Online Production Designer Sarah Larson Online Production Assistant ron Askew Editorial Assistant Carlie Cooper CONTRIBUTORS European Editor mike Duff Contributing Editors Clifford Atiyeh, brett berk, Sebastian blanco, Csaba Csere, malcolm Gladwell, John pearley Huffman, Andrew Lawrence, bruce mcCall, Jens meiners, p.J. O’rourke, Jonathon ramsey, Steve Siler, James tate, John Voelcker Editorial Office 1585 eisenhower place, Ann Arbor, mI 48108 PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. Editorial Contributions Unsolicited artwork and manuscripts are not accepted, and publisher assumes no responsibility for return or safety of unsolicited artwork, photographs, or manuscripts. Query letters may be addressed to the print director.

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THE BIG IDEA

By Elana Scherr

Conservation of Combustion The future may be electric, but automakers remain committed to giving buyers what they want. In several cases, that’s a big V-8.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature says more than 37,400 species

are threatened with extinction. Big V-8s in small cars and unexpected off-roaders are not on the ledger, but if they were, we’d expect to see them listed as “near threatened,” defined by the conservation union as “species close to the threatened thresholds or that would be threatened without ongoing conservation measures.” Since high-horse V-8s can still be spotted in Land Rovers (Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Defender), Jeeps (Grand Cherokee, Wrangler Rubicon

CAR A ND D R IV E R ~ S EPTE M B ER 202 1 ~ PH OTOG RAP H BY JEN N Y R I SH ER

13

THE BIG IDEA

14

YO U ’ R E G O N N A PAY F O R T H AT With big power comes a big price, especially compared with a lineup’s less powerful models.

Horsepower

Base Price

2021 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon 285 $44,295 2021 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon 392 470 $74,995 2022 Land Rover Defender 110 SE 395 $64,050 2022 Land Rover Defender 110 V8 518 $107,640 2021 Cadillac CT5-V 335 $48,990 2022 Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing 668 $84,990 2021 Dodge Durango SXT 293 $34,065 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat 710 $82,490

engine bay possible. “I’ve said that we’re getting pretty close to where we can go with the innovation on ICE [internal-combustion engine] technology,” says Kuniskis. “That’s not necessarily true, because there are very sophisticated combustion chambers, like in F1 and things like that. But when you get to that point, you’re going to get into this superhigh-tech, expensive technology, and at the same time, the cost per kilowatt-hour [of EV batteries] and the cost of [electric drive modules] is coming down because everyone else in the mainstream is going there.

That’s technology that’s not being taxed and is now going to be cost competitive and can give me massive performance advantages that

I don’t have with ICE technology.”

Kuniskis thinks customers faced with the choice between a slower, more expensive big-engine car and a faster, affordable electrified (but not necessarily electric) car will choose better performance more often than not.

But Kuniskis is looking on the bright side. The big gas engine is “not going to end tomorrow,” he says. “It’s not going to end faster because of government fines. It’s not going to go away because it’s been mandated to go away. It’s going to go away because we’re going to be able to sell you something better, faster, stronger than anything you’ve seen. We’re going to evolve into better stuff.”

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

ILLUSTRATIO N BY PETE SUC HESKI

392), Cadillacs (CT5-V Blackwing), Lexuses (IS500 F Sport), and Dodges (Hellcat everything), to name just a few, they’re clearly not yet extinct.

Possibly, they’re not even endangered. On the automotive watchlist, V-8s are still healthier than the manual transmission, but they’re roaming the land in fewer numbers than they once were. Will they dwindle to memories like the Yangtze River dolphin and the Tasmanian tiger, or can they rebound like the American bald eagle? What’s cutting into their habitat, and what’s keeping them going for now?

That last question is easy to answer: Consumers still like them.

The 2022 Defender’s 518-hp supercharged 5.0-liter V-8 option “was very much a customer-led move,” says Robert Filipovic, product planning director for Jaguar Land Rover North America. “We knew there was strong market potential, both from our existing fans and new shoppers who were interested in the Defender. I’m optimistic that you’ll continue to see activity in the V-8 space for some time, not in place of but alongside all the other innovative powertrain tech.”

Lexus marketing senior analyst Richard Hollingsworth says his brand went with a 472-hp 5.0-liter V-8 in the 2022 IS500 F Sport because people missed the V-8-powered IS F, last offered in 2014. “There’s always been enthusiasm for a V-8 in our lineup, and now some of it is that nostalgia factor,” he says. “It’s just a different sound that comes with a V-8. We love our turbocharging, but V-8s have been a part of our history, and they’ll hopefully continue to be.”

If everyone loves a V-8 so much, why do we expect to see them go away? We asked Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis, who spent the better part of the past decade shoving supercharged Hemis into every

Land Rover Defender 110

S T O R Y B O A R D ~ By Andrew Lawrence

Cat Nip Thieves want to turn your car’s catalytic converter into easy cash. This is why they want it, how they get it, and what they do with it. t h e priz e

Catalytic converters are hot.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau recorded 2347 thefts of the emissions-cleaning devices in December 2020, up from 578 a year earlier.

Thieves are after the precious metals inside that change highly toxic pollutants in exhaust into less harmful gases. The price of one of those metals, rhodium, spiked as high as $30,000 per troy ounce (slightly heavier than a standard ounce) last year due to an existing shortage exacerbated by the pandemic. A single cat contains about $400 worth of rhodium.

T h e Job

The theft is typically a two-person job. One of the bandits jacks up the car and extracts the cat with a pipe cutter or a reciprocating saw.

The accomplice drives the getaway car.

T h e st r at egy

The crime often takes under three minutes. Thieves tend to target vehicles with high ground clearance (no need to use a jack) and Priuses (since the engine runs intermittently, the cat is generally clean and nets a big payday).

16

T h e vic t im

The next morning when the unsuspecting driver fires the engine, she jumps in her seat. The unmuffled vehicle sounds as if it belongs on the starting grid at Martinsville.

Replacing the catalytic converter will likely run about $3000.

T h e f e nce

The thief sells the part for $50 to $250, usually to a scrapper offering cash for cats, no questions asked.

This middleman amasses catalytic converters, as he may need 500 or more to strike a deal with a smelter, who extracts the precious metals.

T h e f l ip

The valuable metals are refined, resold on the open market, reintroduced into the manufacturing supply chain, and likely partially reconstituted inside the catalytic converter of a brand-new car. This, children, is the circle of life.

ILLUST RAT ION BY RICARDO LÓPEZ ORT IZ ~ SEPT E M BER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

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C A R T O G R A P H Y ~ By Annie White

Can You Reach Me Now?

As we write this, the House of Representatives has agreed to a slimmed-down version of President Biden’s proposed infrastructure plan. The bill sets aside $7.5 billion to build a national network of 500,000 EV charging stations, many of which would be in rural and low-income areas.

Regardless of whether the bitterly divided Senate will allow his plan to come to fruition, other government initiatives and businesses are driving the construction of charging stations across the country. But where will they go?

That depends on what’s used to determine the optimal network layout, according to Mehrnaz Ghamami, an assistant professor

18

of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan State University. She led a team of researchers to develop a plan for optimizing electric-vehicle charging in Michigan. Their proposal suggests first putting stations between the most populous places to make longer trips easier, then filling out the network with units in cities. Ghamami says her team faced criticism for including remote areas, but “the infrastructure needs to be there,

and users need to be educated about these vehicles” before they’ll buy them.

Electrify America, the network born from Volkswagen’s Dieselgate settlement, has a national footprint, with many stations on both coasts and along certain cross-country interstates, but vast expanses of the West and Upper Midwest are without its DC fast-chargers. “You have to start somewhere,” says Rob Barrosa,

MAP BY WANMEI LIANG ~ S EPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV E R

CHARGING AHEAD The nation’s DC fast-charging stations are concentrated on the coasts and sprinkled along interstates. Cross-country travel in an EV is possible, but we have a long way to go before it’s as convenient as traveling in a gas vehicle.

senior director of sales, business development, and marketing at EA. The company began by considering regional travel patterns and states with programs that incentivize EV ownership, and it prioritized areas with the most plug-in cars.

Setting up charging stations often involves partnerships among state and local governments, electric utilities, and private companies. EA partnered with Target, Walmart, and Sheetz, a

mid-Atlantic chain of 24-hour gas stations. But Ghamami says Michigan’s government sometimes can’t find businesses willing to shoulder even a third of the cost to purchase and install a station, which our research shows varies from as low as $1000 to $20,000 for a Level 2 unit to $90K to $200K for a DC fast-charger.

Coordinating partnerships is just one challenge awaiting the Biden administration, should its

Map created with ©Mapbox. Source: Department of Energy.

infrastructure plan ever be signed into law. Others include planning for technology that doesn’t exist yet, ensuring equitable station placement, and, in some places, upgrading an aging electrical grid. Ghamami says that in the meantime, there are no national guidelines for determining station locations, but Barrosa is confident that EA can close the gaps. “We’re going to cover everything,” he says. “It’s just a matter of time.”

19

W H AT T O B U Y ~ By Benjamin Hunting

2002 Chevrolet Camaro Z28 Convertible

VALUE

Chevrolet Camaro (1993–2002) For 10 years, the fourth-generation Chevrolet Camaro dominated Mustangs on

the street and the strip as it bridged the gap between GM’s legacy-small-block era and its LS-powered future. The last Camaro to offer T-tops, the fourth gen paid tribute to the windblown, big-hair ’80s while its sleek and stylized body looked forward to the wind-tunnel-optimized days ahead. As ’90s cars become collectible, this Camaro’s aero emphasis and V-8 options make it both a fun driver and a worthy investment that (we think) hasn’t quite reached its potential.

Muscle-car fans in search of a good deal should focus on the initial Z28 with the 275-hp LT1 or the SS model with the 305-hp 1993 CHEVROLET V-8 that came out three years later. For those CAMARO Z28 with a bigger budget, the 1998–2002 Camaros 275-hp 5.7-liter V-8, borrow the Corvette’s aluminum-block 5.76-speed manual liter LS1, rated at up to 325 horsepower. All Test Results • 60 mph ����������������������������� 5�3 sec V-8 cars could be had with either a six-speed • 1/4-Mile ����� 14�0 sec @ 100 mph manual or a four-speed automatic. A six-speed • Braking, 70–0 mph �������� 165 ft plus some suspension upgrades and a set of • Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad �������������� 0�92 g sticky tires will net you a canyon carver that can hang with sports cars while leaving you From C/D, February 1993.

Acceleration times adhere to our enough money for the nostalgic purchase of a old rollout rule of 3 mph.

Warrant cassette.

Spend a little more for a low-mileage car. Values for Camaros in excellent condition range from $12,000 for a first-year Z28 to $24,000 for a last-year LS1-powered SS, with special-edition cars commanding higher prices. If you’re picking cherries, 1997’s 330-hp SS LT4 30th Anniversary cars are among the rarest; those in great condition nudge up against $40,000. Don’t be afraid of a well-kept modified car losing its value, as this era’s Camaro hasn’t reached the “keep it stock” stage of collecting. The later LS cars can deliver a significant boost in output with camshaft, cylinder-head, intake, and exhaust upgrades. So get out there and hot-rod your Camaro as nature intended.

PROBLEM AREAS

The interiors, especially on the T-top and convertible cars, hold up with typical ’90splastic durability, which is to say not so well. Watch out for delamination on the doors and exterior roof caps too.

“Around town, the exhaust sound is a perfect replay of our high-school ideal, snarling at full power, popping and snapping on the overrun. The grin it brings is involuntary, and it is wide.”

— PAT RI CK B E DA R D, C / D, F E B RUA RY 1 9 93

20

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN ROE ~ SEPT E mBER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

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I N T E R V I E W ~ By De’Aundre Barnes

The auto industry has been a source of employment for minorities, for African Americans, for many, many generations coming out of the South.

When I came in, in the late ’70s, early ’80s, we were the first [African American] individuals in the executive group in manufacturing and operations. Of course, subsequent to that time, there have been a number of other high-level African American men and women in a variety of positions, and they’ve had African Americans on the board of directors. So, from where they were, they’ve come a long way.

Are they where they can be and should be? Not until there is an African American chairman of the board or an African American CEO. You’re a successful man who drives nice cars. Have you ever felt that people, especially police, believe you don’t belong in those cars because of your skin color?

On the Front Lines One of four Black Americans to graduate from West Point in 1965, Joseph Anderson commanded troops in Vietnam and received two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars, three Army Commendation Medals, and 11 Air Medals over the course of his military career. He joined General Motors after 13 years of service to, as he puts it, lead troops carrying wrenches rather than rifles. One of the first Black plant managers at GM, Anderson rose to head the company’s body hardware business unit, with 7000 employees and $1 billion in revenue, before starting his own holding company. He recently spoke with us about his experience in the military, in the auto industry, and as a Black man in America.

22

De’Aundre Barnes Have you always known that you wanted to serve your country, or did you have another plan for your life?

Joseph Anderson I thought I’d go into engineering. Now, did I know any Negro—at that time Negro—or African American or Black engineers?

No, I didn’t. But with the good grades that I had, I thought that would be the appropriate experience for me.

The automotive industry, as I understand it, has not been the best as far as being racially accepting or progressive. What was your experience rising through your career?

I was driving my Escalade, and a policeman pulled me over and said, “You did a rolling stop with the traffic light.” I said, “Well, officer, nobody’s around, and I was just turning right.” He did give me a ticket.

So I guess that was a big deal, a Black man in an Escalade not stopping the vehicle fully.

Should I stop fully? Obviously.

Is that something everybody gets stopped for? I don’t know.

But these are the kinds of issues that clearly come into your mind when driving while Black.

Anderson was interviewed for Lift Every Voice in partnership with Lexus. Lift Every Voice records the experiences of the oldest generation of Black Americans by connecting them with a new generation of Black journalists. Go to OprahDaily .com/LiftEveryVoice for more.

PHOTOGRAPH BY VALAURIAN WALLER ~ SEPT E M BER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

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M E TA L W O R K ~ By Mercedes Lilienthal

In Maricopa, Arizona, a fabricator makes intricate scaled-down cars from scrap.

When Ernie Adams looked at a

trashed refrigerator, he saw not garbage but the steel curves of a classic car. In 1965, Adams started an eight-year build that turned nine scrapped fridges into a cool little “Chevy.” He stacked two refrigerators to create the body. Adams used one more for the firewall and radiator shell. Others became the body skirts, running boards, and fenders—which proved to be the

most challenging part, “because I had to make patterns so that right and left would match,” he said.

The finished product wasn’t modeled exactly on any existing machine, but it looks most like a 1928 Chevrolet, so that’s how Adams describes the chest-high coupe. It was originally a roadster rolling on solid rubber; in the late ’70s, he upgraded to pneumatic tires and turned it into a coupe, using a refrigerator door for the roof panel. In time, Adams nicknamed the mini-build Grandpa Dwarf—the forefather of everything that came after it.

And a lot did come after it. Creating pint-sized hot rods soon became

Adams’s life’s work. He helped found a dirt-oval racing class for five-eighths-scale replicas of ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s racers, called Dwarf Race Cars. And in his spare time, he turned his attention to street-legal little cruisers. As of this writing, he has built nine of them and has a mini ’41 Chevy under construction.

At 80 years old, Adams loves taking his cars to shows or getting spotted on a cruise. The recycledrefrigerator car has a special place in his heart. “People get a kick out of seeing it,” he said. If you want to get a kick out of seeing it, too, head over to the Dwarf Car Museum in Maricopa, Arizona, where Adams’s creations are on display.

Toyota Corolla

G R A N D PA D WA R F Cost: $300 (excludes 1500 hours of labor) Powertrain: 13-hp

Height: 53.0 in

flat-2, 3-speed manual (from a Cushman mail cart) Curb Weight: 900 lb Top Speed: 35 mph (40 mph with the wind at your back) Brakes: mechanical

Steering:

recirculating-ball

24

Wheelbase: 73.0 in Length: 108.0 in

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL MORTON ~ SEPTE MBE R 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIVER

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EZR A DY ER

Answer the Phone

C

ongratulations on buying a new car! You’ve waited your whole life for this, and it’s everything you’d hoped for. You’ve got the latest technology, the hottest styling, and more muscle than the tires can handle.

There’s only one problem: Your vehicle’s warranty has expired.

It seems unbelievable, I know. You just bought that car last week. How could the warranty be expired? Well, warranties aren’t what they used to be. You know how back in the day, you’d buy a refrigerator, and it would last for 20 years, but now you’re lucky if you get 18 months out of the thing before the ice maker jams and the crisper drawer somehow starts actually cooking your food? Warranties are like that too. These new ones, they’re not like Lee Iacocca’s 7/70 plans. You get them home, they’re in effect for a while, but then they expire all willy-nilly. That’s why I’ve been calling you. And calling you. Glad you finally picked up, after I spoofed your doctor’s phone number. Don’t worry—you’re fine. But your warranty isn’t.

26

Fortunately, I’ve got a warranty that actually works. My entry-level plan is bumper to bumper, by which I mean it covers all the way from the left side to the right side of either your front or rear bumper. The choice is yours! I’ll be honest, though.

That plan—all it covers is the actual bumper. And there’s a $1000 deductible. So I’d never suggest that one. I only bring it up since you need a warranty, on account of yours being expired. It’s the only one I have that’s even nearly as bad as yours.

What I would suggest, at a minimum, is our fiveyear, 60,000-mile limited powertrain warranty. You might say, “Hey, that sounds exactly like the one my car already has!” But I assure you, there are major differences. Say you were driving down the road when Brood X, the 17-year apocalyptic plague of cicadas, descended on your car and a bunch of them got sucked past your air filter, which caused your radiator to explode. Happens all the time. Does your factory warranty cover that exact situation? Ours does. In fact, it covers only that situation. And sure, those cicadas are gone for now, but they’ll be back in 2038. And what’s your plan for that?

Even better than the 5/60 warranty is our 10-year, 10,000-mile warranty. You say that doesn’t make sense, but I’ll have you know the 10/10 is our bestseller. Who among us hasn’t lost their keys for two to six years, only to find them and realize that their warranty had expired? This warranty is great for key losers, collector-car owners, and pedestrians.

And it covers everything, with very few exceptions.

For instance, headlights used to be inexpensive and easy to replace. Not anymore. With your new car’s LED headlights, swapping in a replacement lamp may require removing half the front end.

And that’s before you figure in the cost of the light assembly itself. I mean, this job can cost more than $1000! That’s why we don’t cover that. It’s one of the exceptions. Look, after warrantying Land Rover air springs back in the ’90s, we realized we had to make some choices. But we pass the savings on to you. That’s how we can sell this warranty for only $8000, financed for 84 months.

You seem skeptical. But you know those stock photos of a mechanic holding a clipboard and talking to someone who looks sad? You should, because I’ve been mailing them to you every day.

You don’t want to be that sad person, do you? Then buy one of our warranties and never again worry about the spark plugs on your Cummins Ram or the transfer case on your Mitsubishi Mirage or the fuel pump on your Mustang Mach-E. We cover all of that.

We even offer the first “aboveground lifetime warranty.” You might ask, “Aboveground lifetime of what?” Great question. You’re familiar with cicadas?

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ELANA SCHERR

What the Frunk?

If front trunks are going to become part of our everyday conversations, they need a better name.

I

’ve long wondered if part of what drew me to cars, or maybe to writing about cars, was all the fun words associated with them. “Accelerator” sounds like a rush of speed. “Scoop” sounds big and open, an obvious intake. “Diffuser” smooths out the air even as you say it. Who doesn’t want to stomp hard on “throttle” or luxuriate in the spaciousness of “sedaaaaan”?

New technologies bring new words. Some are simply everyday words made sparkly in proximity to an automobile. Nouns like “camera” and “touchscreen” are old hat around the house but still intriguing on the road.

“Massaging” always sounds nice yet is even more relaxing when your car does it. But don’t get too comfortable, because they aren’t all winners. There’s one in particular that’s banging around in my brain like a freeway pileup.

It could be an old-school Batman fight sound (frunk!), a muttered insult to a dowdy elder (“That old frunk!”), or half of a high-end German brand of electronic equipment (“Oh, this stereo? It’s a Telefrunken”). But no. It’s not any of those things. “Frunk” is a serious word that we’re expected to use

28

seriously on a regular basis as front trunks become more common. I can’t do it. It’s too silly. I wouldn’t say I’m depressed, but I’m definitely in a frunk.

“Frunk” is a portmanteau, a combo of “front” and “trunk,” like “brunch” is made from “breakfast” and “lunch,” “motel” from “motor” and “hotel,” and “brony” from—never mind, you get the point. Previously, there was no need to differentiate where your trunk was, because most likely it was in the back, and if it wasn’t, you were probably in a Porsche or something Italian, and part of the fun of ownership was snickering at the unsophisticated schlub who went behind your 911 to stow their bags. C/D first used “frunk” in a McLaren review in 2012, when it was a rarity. Now we must refer to this area more often, and I really don’t want to say “frunk.” Ugh. Because I don’t believe in complaining without offering a solution, I have made it my duty to come up with an alternative. First I looked to Porsche, since it has a long history of front trunkin’. Where do suitcases go in Stuttgart? “Kofferraum,” said Frank (not Frunk) Wiesmann, a Porsche spokesman. No matter where it is? “No matter the location. Literally translated, it means ‘space for suitcases.’ ” I like Kofferraum better than “frunk,” though it does sound as if your car might be about to hack up your luggage like a cat with a hairball.

Much of Europe goes with “boot” instead of “trunk.” Jaguar briefly tried to make “froot” happen, but that works better for sugary cereal than for cargo space. Swapping the root words doesn’t help either. “Trunt”? The less said about that, the better.

If I can’t come up with a superior word, maybe I can learn to love the one we’ve got. That’s what Nancy Reppenhagen did when she found herself in charge of designing the front cargo area for the new Ford F-150 Lightning. What were her first thoughts on calling it a frunk? “It just seemed like an efficient way to say ‘front trunk,’ so it didn’t bother me. And then I tried to have fun with it. When people would ask me how the project was going, I would be like, ‘It’s frunking awesome.’ ” “Would you say it’s frunktional?” I asked. “Oh my gosh,” she gushed. “That’s great.” So if you see it in Ford advertising, blame me.

I hung up with Reppenhagen feeling better about frunks but not totally convinced. There must be something else, something with a little more gravitas. Then it came to me. This whole time I’ve been talking about a portmanteau, which, before it was applied to fused words, meant . . . a trunk.

Now that has a dignified ring to it. “What should I do with these coolers full of Coors Light?” “You brought frunkin’ Coors Light? Whatever, put ’em in the portmanteau.” Oh yeah, that’s classy.

ILLUST RAT ION BY GIANNA MEOLA ~ SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

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E E V E RY I S S U E O F T H I S M AG A Z I N E chronicles the constant change in the vehicles, technologies, and ideas that define the auto industry. This month we’re taking a somewhat broader approach to that mission, examining how shifts in the automotive landscape and the larger world are affecting more than just what we drive.

We started our survey of this moment with a literal survey. More than 4000 people weighed in on topics ranging from manual transmissions to commuting [see “Survey Says,” page 32]. We didn’t need to ask anyone, though, to know how much anticipation there is for the new Ford Bronco. The public reaction to the July 2020 debut made that very clear. Our road test answers the question we’ve all been wondering for the past year: Can the Bronco live up to the hype [see “Happy Landings,” page 34]?

On the other end of the spectrum, we’ve tested the new Honda Civic [see “It’s Lonely Being a Sedan in an SUV World,” page 56].

If any company can stem the tide of shoppers turning away from small sedans, it’s Honda. With cars becoming more complicated, we’ve also taken a hard look at how carmakers have both misled owners about their driver-assistance systems and underestimated the more mischievous drivers who abuse these safety features in dangerous ways [see “How’s This Work?” page 42].

Of course, forces beyond the auto industry affect drivers too. The Black Lives Matter movement has led one California city to consider taking police off the traffic beat [see “Redrawing the Line of Duty,” page 62]. In New York City, COVID-19 nudged many residents to buy a car. As the pandemic comes under control, some of them plan to hold on to their keys [see “Drive It, Park It, or Sell It?” page 52]. Around the globe, the aftershocks of COVID-19 have disrupted the newcar supply chain, and as a result, Americans are paying inflated prices to get their hands on whatever they can find [see “Chipping Away,” page 66].

That’s all a very long way of saying . . .

S EPT E MB E R 2021 ~ CA R A N D DR I VER

It’s a moment of massive change for the auto industry.

As a driver, if you haven’t felt that yet, you likely will soon.

This is the state of the American driver.

31

SURVEY SAYS CAR AND DRIVER READERS (AND SOME LESS ENTHUSIASTIC DRIVERS) WEIGH IN ON WHERE WE ARE AND WHERE WE’RE HEADED. As part of this look at the state of the

American driver, it made sense to reach out to as many of you as possible and consider your thoughts, because there’s a lot going on. A pandemic with the power to change how we live and work doesn’t happen often. And with each new press release promising more electrifi-

cation at a date not terribly far in the future, automakers seem set on changing the way we drive.

We worked up a survey touching on many of the topics in this issue, posted it online, and promoted it on social media and in our newsletter.

And then, because a lot more people drive than just those of you who

WHAT POWERS YOUR DAILY DRIVER?

read this magazine, we asked our colleagues at Good Housekeeping to put the questions to their readers too.

In all, more than 4000 people took part in the survey. These results aren’t a scientific sampling, but they are a snapshot of this complicated moment when the forces of change seem particularly strong.

WHAT EXCITES YOU ABOUT THE FUTURE?

WHAT TYPE OF POWER WOULD YOU PREFER?*

92.6% Gas

Gas 63.2% Hydrogen fuel-cell 0.5% Diesel 2.4% Battery electric 10.2% Plug-in hybrid 5.8%

0.0% Hydrogen fuel-cell 1.7% Diesel 1.4% Battery electric 1.0% Plug-in hybrid 3.3% Hybrid

Hybrid 17.9% *According to people who plan to buy a car in the next two years.

WHEN DO YOU THINK YOU’LL BE INTERESTED IN LEASING OR BUYING AN EV? 2–5 years

WE OFFERED C/D READERS A LIST OF COMMON REASONS TO BE INTERESTED IN, OR WARY OF, EVs AND ASKED THEM TO CHECK ALL THAT APPLY. THESE WERE THE TOP VOTE-GETTERS: The Good

6–10 years

52.0% Low maintenance/

Car and Driver 22.0%

30.1%

64.3% Range

cost of ownership

Good Housekeeping 14.6%

The Bad

45.9% Performance

18.7%

63.3% Limited public charging

Combined 18.3%

24.4%

PERCENTAGE OF DRIVERS WHO EXPECT TO GET A NEW VEHICLE IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS:

43.3% Environmental

47.8% Battery

benefits

longevity

TRANSMISSION PREFERENCE OF POTENTIAL NEW-CAR BUYERS: 39.2%

41.4% Car and Driver

The power of EVs, the development of the technology for motorsports, and watching that new technology become adopted.

—Amanda Johnson Anderson, IN

It will be interesting to see if they can implant soul into electric cars.

9.1% Good Housekeeping

Car and Driver Good Housekeeping

—Tim Lynch Washington, DC

—Jeff Miller El Dorado, CA

Manual

52.1%

More robust drivetrains, structural integrity, the potential for “clean” engines, more responsive suspensions, and the general improvements to be expected from the automotive industry.

90.9%

60.8%

Looks grim!

—Jorge Colmenares Waco, TX

Automatic

32

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

In general, you don’t miss your commutes (though C/D readers miss them more than GH folks), and you’re ready to get back out there.

BEFORE COVID-19, HOW LONG WAS YOUR COMMUTE ONE WAY? More than 60 miles 2.4%

HAS COVID-19 CHANGED YOUR VIEW OF SERVICES LIKE UBER AND LYFT?

WHAT WORRIES YOU ABOUT THE FUTURE?

Combined

Most automakers are taking forever to offer competitive and affordable electric options.

As soon as Tesla started doing so well and policies were made about future emissions goals, major automakers should have immediately been building more affordable and diverse options.

—Mora Miller Portland, OR

No

41–60 miles 4.8%

83.4%

BEFORE COVID-19, DID YOU USE THESE SERVICES?

60 miles

26–40 miles 12.9% 40

Combined

25

No

10

64.8%

Less than 10 miles 40.5% IF COVID-19 ELIMINATED YOUR COMMUTE, HOW WOULD YOU FEEL ABOUT RESUMING IT? 11–25 miles 39.4%

I’d like to commute but a shorter distance

I’d like to do it part time 27.8%

WE ASKED C/D READERS WHERE THEY TOOK THEIR VEHICLES IN THE PAST TWO YEARS AND WHERE THEY’D LIKE TO IN THE COMING ONES: Past Two Years

17.9%

Next Two Years

14.4% 39.9%

16.7%

3.4%

2.9%

17.7%

Racetrack

Drag strip Sanctioned motorsports competition Off-road park or trails

38.9%

10.5%

Great, I miss it

Awful, I never want to do it again

17.3% of C/D respondents said they miss their daily commute

24.9%

DO YOU INTEND TO TAKE MORE ROAD TRIPS IN THE FUTURE INSTEAD OF FLYING? 9.8%

Car and Driver

Yes 55.8%

12.5%

Local car show Distant car show (more than 100 miles away)

62.8%

Good Housekeeping

Yes 26.3%

57.9% 29.0%

Combined

Yes 73.8%

Road trip of more than 250 miles

7.4%

Driving school

6.1%

Organized noncompetitive tour or rally

43.5%

78.6%

IF YES, ARE YOU INTERESTED IN PURCHASING AN RV OR TRAILER? 25.7%

Yes 26.2%

33.4%

Car and Driver

Good Housekeeping

21.6%

73.8%

No

The loss of privacy from connected vehicles.

The growing expense of vehicles. The absolutely abysmal condition of U.S. roads.

—Goran Thompson Kernersville, NC

I believe one day we will end up with one worldwide brand making bland selfdriving pods. No diversity, no fun design language, no driver engagement.

—Roger Barraby Windsor, VT

66.6%

33

34

RELIVE TH E TH RILL.

ST EP 1: FLIP TO COV ER.

ST EP 2: OPEN TO STO RY.

Happ The triumphant return of the Ford

CAR A ND D R IV E R ~ S EPT EMB ER 202 1

35

py Bronco has the country agape .

36

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

Landings

The awe is well deserved.

B y Dav e Va n d e r W e r p Photography by Marc Urbano

37

Want a new Bronco? Hopefully you’ve already claimed your spot in line, because Ford has pulled a page from Tesla’s playbook and is hyping its most exciting vehicles well ahead of production and taking reservations for the initial allotment.

Here’s how many hand raisers some recent hits have reportedly drawn.

Tesla Cybertruck (Global)

1,000,000 — Ford Bronco (U.S. and Canada)

190,000 — Ford F-150 Lightning (U.S. and Canada)

100,000

38

o much of life streams by unnoticed. And then there are moments when your entire being flinches to attention, your senses hyperstimulated until the world goes stop-motion. We had one of those experiences during the brief yet agonizingly long time that started with the tread blocks of our Bronco’s 35-inchtall Goodyear Wrangler Territory MT tires releasing their grip on the sand in Michigan’s Silver Lake State Park offroad playland. From that instant until the dual-reservoir Bilstein dampers bottomed out after 8.7 inches of travel, our overwhelmed neurons frantically calculated the odds that we had overcooked it. The Bronco wasn’t concerned.

It landed impressively, incredibly, and almost impossibly softly, shrugging off this provocation as if it were a steel and aluminum cape.

With more than 125,000 orders waiting to be delivered, the Bronco clearly has this country captivated.

Two-door models, back after a quartercentury hiatus, come only with a hard top. The first-ever four-door variants have a standard soft top, but buyers can spec a rigid roof. Either way, the top,

the doors, the fender flares, and even the fenders are easily removable. Propulsion comes from one of two familiar Ford engines: a 300-hp turbocharged 2.3-liter inline-four or a 330-hp twinturbo 2.7-liter V-6. Both are paired with a 10-speed automatic transmission, but the four-cylinder can also be had with a new seven-speed Getrag manual.

In addition to the base model, Ford offers five trim levels with outdoorsy names (Big Bend, Black Diamond, Outer Banks, Badlands, and Wildtrak) plus a loaded First Edition, which we tested.

Entry pricing spans from $29,995 to $62,605, and as that range climbs, feature content and off-road capability generally increase. But we appreciate that even the lowliest Bronco can be had with the hardcore Sasquatch package (included in some trims, $2495 or $4995 in others), which adds locking front and rear differentials, a shorter final-drive ratio, and the big 35-inch all-terrain rubber.

In a subtle jab at its cross-town rival, Ford had Goodyear scrub the name Wrangler from the outer sidewall of those tires. The off-road rubber starts singing at about 30 mph. Between 65 and 70 mph, wind noise overpowers tire roar. Even with the extra sound-deadening material on our First Edition’s hard top, at 70 mph, the Bronco summons 73 decibels of interior racket, which is no quieter than a V-6-powered Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. The Bronco’s frameless windows shrink the size of the doors, allowing them to be stowed onboard in the cargo area. But everything is a compromise, and at speed, you hear a lot of wind noise at the seals. Also, when

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

someone tugs a door handle, the indexing glass doesn’t drop quickly enough and often snags on the weatherstripping.

In pretty much every other way, though, the Bronco is far more refined than the Wrangler. Even on our car’s squirmy off-road-oriented tires, the Ford is miles ahead when it comes to steering precision, thanks largely to its more sophisticated independent front suspension and rack-and-pinion setup.

We say this having done one of the most inappropriate things you could do with a Bronco outfitted with all the available off-road gear: We threw it down a twisty road at max attack speed, where we’re certain we were carrying velocities that would have put a Wrangler in a ditch.

We’re talking relative refinement here, of course. Big stabs at the brakes bring dramatic dives from the Sasquatch’s soft Bilsteins, making it seem like the grille wants to smooch the pavement during the long, 197-foot stops from 70 mph. Body roll when cornering is less dramatic, but 0.71 g of lateral grip on the skidpad is only slightly better than what we managed in the last Rubicon we tested. Telltale body-on-frame structural dithers come through the steering wheel, yet they’re more muted than the Jeep’s. This first application of Ford’s next-generation mid-size-truck

The Bronco is immediately recognizable without being cloyingly retro.

The two-door model with the Sasquatch package’s big tires has ideal proportions.

Dialogue Ford, you nailed the dynamics and styling, putting the Bronco so close to retro perfection. But give me better sound insulation, because I’m old and can barely hear. Also, you claim to wrap the steering wheel in leather, but you may want to call your supplier; I didn’t think animal skin could feel this plasticky. You spent money developing seldom-used switchgear that’ll combat the elements but skimped on the one thing I touch every time I drive this $60K vehicle. Top-spec Wranglers have quality leather for the helm. The Bronco should too. —K.C. Colwell The steering isn’t just good for a big body-on-frame off-roader rolling on knobby all-terrain tires. It’s good compared with countless pickups, crossovers, and sedans. I have no idea how Ford pulled this off, but Jeep better figure it out quickly. Thanks to the Bronco, hardcore off-roaders no longer have a reason to tolerate the Wrangler’s 1940s-era slop. —Eric Tingwall platform makes for remarkable polish, even with this off-road bent.

The Bronco can’t, however, match the on-road moves of the unibody Land Rover Defender.

The Sasquatch package takes a toll on straight-line swiftness. The shorter axle puts the Bronco in fourth gear by the time it hits 60 mph. We made our quickest sprint using a second-gear start to elimi-

nate one of the those time-sucking shifts. Our 6.3-second run eclipses the 60-mph times of Wranglers with either a V-6 or a turbo four even though the Bronco carries hundreds more pounds of weight.

The Wrangler’s naturally aspirated six has better vocals, though. We wish the Bronco had more audible fury than a muffled grumble with a strong airflow backing track.

The bucking Bronco represents what it feels like when you nail the brakes. Other than the nosedive and cabin roar, this beast is housebroken.

Plus Unlikely on-road refinement with mega off-road capability, tough-truck extroverted looks.

Minus Poor fuel economy, limited range, just as noisy at speed as a Wrangler, interior isn’t $60K nice. Equals Buckle up, Jeep.

There’s almost never a universal consensus on styling, but the Bronco is about as close as vehicles come to a unanimous hit. Ford pays homage to the original Bronco of the mid-1960s, yet the new truck doesn’t come off at all dated. While the two-door packs incredible visual wallop, the four-door mutes those spot-on proportions with its additional 15.7 inches of wheelbase and overall length. And this flamboyant box simply doesn’t look right unless it’s wearing one of the more aggressive tire packages.

40

To distinguish it from the smaller and cheaper Bronco Sport that launched last year, many have taken to calling this SUV the Big Bronco. And big it is. Line it up nose to nose with a Wrangler and it’s immediately obvious that the Ford is wider. That width provides a welcome amount of knee- and elbowroom for front-seat occupants.

Just because you need rear-seat space doesn’t mean you should head straight for the four-door. The extra length goes almost entirely to the cargo hold. The four-door has

more than 50 percent more storage volume than the two, yet it offers a mere 0.6 inch more rear legroom. Even this six-foot-five evaluator found sufficient space in the back of the two-door.

Although there are some nice touches in the cabin, such as a splash of contrasting color on the vent-control tabs and on the grab handles at either end of the dash, the interior is plain in places, with vast expanses of black plastic on the doors. Ford’s steering-wheel leather isn’t as nice as Jeep’s, and call us old-fashioned but we’d prefer a mechanical tachometer to the Bronco’s cartoonish digital display.

Ford has gone to great lengths to make the Bronco approachable off-road, too, with a drive-mode dial that adjusts the four-wheel-drive system and, where equipped, the front and rear electronically locking differentials and the front anti-roll-bar disconnect. It also modifies throttle response and steering effort.

Just choose the surface you’re on and go. Ford offers various off-road-oriented features, including one called Trail Turn Assist, which grabs the inside rear brake so the Bronco pivots around the dragging tire, reducing the diameter of its turning circle by as much as 40 percent.

Even among off-road brutes, the Bronco’s efficiency is substandard. This is the rare gas vehicle that, in many trims, gets the same EPA fuel economy on the highway as in the city. Broncos with the V-6 wearing the 35s are labeled at 17 mpg city and highway. We got 18 mpg on our 75-mph highway fuel-economy loop, which equates to just 300 miles of range, both poor results and worse than every Wrangler we’ve tested save one, a two-door 2.0T Rubicon.

After the time-altering leap, plus slogging through bumper-deep water, scaling mud-slicked rock faces, and making some awful scraping noises while the underbody skid plates did their thing, what impresses us most about Ford’s reimagined Bronco is that it’s a friendly and refined softy—particularly on the road, where the majority of buyers will be driving most of the time. Don’t tune out and let its greatness pass you by.

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

2021 FORD BRONCO FIRST EDITION Price $59,410

Width: 79.3 in

Rear Track: 66.9 in

33.5 in

37.2°

100.4 in 173.7 in

twin-turbocharged and intercooled V-6, iron-and-aluminum block and aluminum heads Bore x Stroke ...... 3.27 x 3.27 in, 83.0 x 83.0 mm Displacement ............................... 164 in3, 2694 cm3 Compression Ratio ........................................... 10.0:1 Fuel Delivery: port and direct injection Turbochargers: Garrett Maximum Boost Pressure ....................... 24.7 psi Valve Gear: double overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder, variable intake- and exhaust-valve timing Redline/Fuel Cutoff .................... 6000/6100 rpm Power ........................................... 330 hp @ 5250 rpm Torque ........................................ 415 lb-ft @ 3100 rpm

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

TEST RESULTS

full-length frame Body Material: aluminum and steel stampings

Acceleration

Steering rack-and-pinion with variable electric power assist Ratio ........................................................................ 19.3:1 Turns Lock-to-Lock ............................................ 3.4 Turning Circle Curb-to-Curb .................. 39.9 ft

19.5 100 91

F: ind, unequal-length control arms, coil springs, electronically disconnectable anti-roll bar R: live axle, 4 trailing links and a Panhard rod, coil springs

15.0 6.3 60

Brakes

2.2 30

F: 12.2 x 1.3-in vented disc, 2-piston sliding caliper R: 12.1 x 0.9-in vented disc, 1-piston sliding caliper Stability Control: partially and fully defeatable, traction off

MAX SPEED IN GEAR (rpm) (low/high)

....... 4.71 .......... 1.5/4.5 ........... 9/27 mph (6100/6100) ....... 3.00 ......... 2.3/7.0 .......... 14/43 mph (6100/6100) ....... 2.15 .......... 3.2/9.8 .......... 20/60 mph (6100/6100) ....... 1.77 .......... 3.9/11.9 .......... 24/73 mph (6100/6100) ....... 1.52 .......... 4.5/13.8 ......... 27/84 mph (6100/6100) ....... 1.28 .......... 5.4/16.5 ........ 33/101 mph (6100/6100) ....... 1.00 ......... 6.9/21.0 ......... 42/106 mph (6100/5050) ....... 0.85 ......... —/24.6 ........... —/106 mph (—/4300) ....... 0.69 ......... —/30.5 ........... —/106 mph (—/3500) ....... 0.64 ......... —/33.0 ........... —/106 mph (—/3200)

1/4-MILE

MPH

Suspension

Transmission: 10-speed automatic Final-Drive Ratio .............................................. 4.70:1 4-Wheel-Drive System: part time 2-speed or full time with automatic front-axle engagement, locking front and rear differentials Transfer-Gear Ratios ........................ 3.06:1/1.00:1

1

11.6 in

Chassis

Drivetrain

MPH PER 1000 RPM (low/high)

43.2°

29.0°

Engine

GEAR RATIO

Front Track: 66.9 in

75.2 in

As Tested .............................

Base ................................................................... $58,410 Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear/4-wheeldrive, 4-passenger, 2-door wagon Options: towing package, $595; Rapid Red paint, $295; entry keypad, $110 Infotainment: 12.0-inch touchscreen; wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay; satellite radio (3 months included); 3 USB (2 for power only), 3 USB-C (2 for power only), and Bluetooth inputs; Wi-Fi hotspot (3 months included); Bang & Olufsen audio, 10 speakers

0

SEC

20

Results in graph omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.

Rolling Start, 5–60 mph ................. 7.4 sec Top Gear, 30–50 mph ..................... 3.4 sec Top Gear, 50–70 mph ..................... 4.4 sec Top Speed (gov ltd) ..................... 106 mph

Wheels and Tires Wheels: cast aluminum, 8.5 x 17 in Tires: Goodyear Wrangler Territory MT LT315/70R-17 113/110S M+S

Handling

Dimensions

Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad ........... 0.71 g Understeer: excessive

Passenger Volume, F/R ........................... 56/41 ft3 Cargo Volume behind F/R ..................... 52/22 ft3

Braking 70–0 mph .............................................. 197 ft Fade Rating: none

COMPETITORS

NG LB ,

0

XT OW I

47

MA

0.

8

Fuel CURB WEIGHT, LB

0.7 5

56

0.7 0

0

0 25

74

78 5000

4600

4200

5.0

18 20

E F PA MP UEL CO G EC MB ON INE OM D Y,

6.0

16

T EST E D BY DAV E VA N D E R WE R P I N C H ELSEA , MI

Capacity ............................................. 16.9 gal Octane ......................................................... 93

C/D Fuel Economy Observed ............................................. 15 mpg 75-mph Hwy Driving ....................... 18 mpg Range .................................................... 300 mi

EPA Fuel Economy

14

7.0

8.0

5400

N,

ILLUSTRATIO N BY PETE SUC HESKI

38

Curb ...................................................... 4975 lb Per Horsepower .................................. 15.1 lb Distribution, F/R ...................... 55.4/44.6% Towing Capacity .............................. 3500 lb

0

0 45

70

TIO P H RA -M LE 60 CCE A EC S

*Includes performanceenhancing options.

66 70-MPH CRUISE SOUND LEVEL, dBA

Ford Bronco Sasquatch 2-Door 330-hp 2.7-L V-6, 10-sp auto Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon 285-hp 3.6-L V-6, 8-sp auto Land Rover Defender 90 395-hp 3.0-L I-6, 8-sp auto Toyota 4Runner TRD Off-Road 270-hp 4.0-L V-6, 5-sp auto

Weight

G, IN DLD KI , G HO T S AD AD 0-F P RO 30

BASE, $ x 1000*

While the Bronco, Wrangler, and 4Runner duke it out for off-road supremacy, the Defender 90 lurks in the shadows.

Comb/City/Hwy ....................... 17/17/17 mpg

Interior Sound Level Idle ......................................................... 39 dBA Full Throttle ....................................... 78 dBA 70-mph Cruising .............................. 73 dBA

70–0-MPH BRAKING, FT

41

Illustration by Diego Patiño

42

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

Advanced Driver- Assis tance sys tems are ge t ting be t ter and smar ter, bu t the y’re not always as good or smar t as drivers THINK THE Y ARE . How wel l do we re al ly know our vehicl es? And whose job is it to make sure we unders tand what we’ ve got? ~ By Sharon Silke Carty

43

We asked Car and Driver readers how interested they are, on a scale of zero to 10, in owning or leasing a vehicle with various driver-assistance technologies. Here are the averages from the more than 1900 responses.

Blind-Spot Monitoring

6.7 Adaptive Cruise Control

5.5 Lane-Departure Warning

4.9 Driver-Attention Monitoring

3.7 Hands-Free Highway Driving

3.2 Hands-Free City Driving

2.4 44

YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO DEEP DOWN AN INTERNET RABBIT HOLE TO FIND EVIDENCE THAT HUMANS WILL PUSH BOUNDARIES. The relatively recent introduction of semi-autonomous technology in cars has led to all sorts of documented bad behavior, from folks putting water bottles on their steering wheel to drivers letting Jesus take the wheel as they climb into another seat. The former can trick a car into thinking a driver’s hands are where they should be; the latter is wildly dangerous.

When a Tesla Model S hit a tree 550 feet from its starting point in suburban Houston earlier this year, initial reports of the fiery fatal crash suggested no one was in the driver’s seat at the time. The National Transportation Safety Board has since said that security-camera footage shows the driver getting behind the wheel. But even if the ensuing (and somewhat chaotic) coverage of that incident hasn’t clarified exactly what happened, it did expose a hard truth about new automotive technologies: Many people have no idea what their cars can and can’t do. That confusion is clouding the debate about who is responsible when there’s a crash.

In Tesla’s case, the misconception that cars can drive themselves is partially egged on by the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, who has overstated claims.

But consumers are guilty of putting too much trust in even the most conservatively marketed systems, as evidenced by the number of Reddit threads and YouTube videos showing how you can outsmart the technology.

As the industry puts more semiautonomous tech into the hands of the American public, there is a growing need for better driver education

and marketing standards that push automakers to clearly explain systems without overpromising. Solving these problems will only become more urgent as more advanced vehicles that actually can drive themselves under certain circumstances begin sharing the road and the marketplace with cars that have much less capability.

“When you tell somebody that they don’t have to be responsible, that this part of the driving task is going to happen for you, you are giving them an indication that they don’t have to pay attention,” says Sam Anthony, chief technology officer and cofounder of Perceptive Automata, a company that helps software for automated vehicle systems to understand human behavior.

Anthony, who has a PhD in psychology, says drivers assume computers can act like humans, processing information as quickly as and in the same way that people do. “Neither of those is really true,” he says.

Anthony points to a crash in 2018 in San Jose, California, where a Model S heading south on the 101 slammed into the back of a stopped firetruck. The car’s radar-based cruise control didn’t register the truck because it wasn’t moving. “In human terms, it’s like if you couldn’t see the car in front of you if it stopped,” Anthony says.

“The artificial intelligence in cars isn’t actually that good,” says Gill Pratt, CEO of the Toyota Research Institute.

“The reason human beings can do it so well is that we are smart, we can empathize, and we know what other people are most likely to do.” He says SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

PHOTO GRAPH BY MICHAEL SI MARI

Neither your dog nor your car is capable of driving. Do not try to imitate this, unless your attempt involves as much Photoshop as ours.

AI struggles to predict human behavior, which is the technology’s biggest limiting factor.

In an attempt to give drivers a clear understanding of Toyota’s advanced driver-assistance systems, the company named the suite Teammate to indicate that it is assisting the driver rather than taking over.

While that may seem trivial, branding matters when it comes to public understanding.

AAA looked at the marketing terms automakers use for driverassistance systems and found 40 different names for automated emergency braking, 20 for adaptive cruise control, and 19 for lane-keeping assist.

The 2019 report claims this makes it “difficult for consumers to discern what features a vehicle has and how they actually work.” And previous research by AAA found that when a partially automated driving system’s name includes the word “pilot,” 40 percent of Americans expect the car will be able to drive itself. No one interviewed for this story wanted to comment on Tesla specifically, but given its use of the terms “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving Capability”

and in light of AAA’s findings, Tesla’s marketing may lead people to overestimate what its cars can do.

We may be on the cusp of standardizing names. In April, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade and lobbying group for the auto industry, published guidelines for Level 2 driver-monitoring systems. The group acknowledged consumer confusion about what cars can do and the resulting complacency in and abuse of the technology. It recommended that automakers give their systems names that “reasonably reflect the functionality” and don’t “imply greater capability.”

“Some of the high-profile crashes we’ve seen where drivers weren’t appropriately engaged are eroding consumer acceptance and confidence in these systems,” says John Bozzella, president and CEO of the alliance.

These measures aim to combat that.

But marketing and naming guidelines can do only so much.

Automakers may eventually need to offer customers formal training.

David Mindell, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

and author of Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy, has watched industries like aviation and deep-sea exploration adapt to automation. Businesses in those fields understand the importance of training when new technologies are introduced. When operators don’t receive proper instruction, the results can be catastrophic. Consider the recent Boeing 737 Max crashes; a lack of pilot training contributed to those disasters.

Mindell puts it into perspective, noting that while pilots must take recurrent trainings every year, “I’ve had my driver’s license since age 16 and haven’t had a day of training since. Which is a remarkable thing when you think about how you operate complex deadly machinery, which is what cars are.”

But ultimately, people will continue doing stupid things for stupid prizes like adrenaline rushes and internet infamy. “Any safety feature sort of puts constraints on the driver or the vehicle,” says Mindell. “People will try to push those limits, even if it’s for no other reason than making YouTube videos.”

45

ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER ost new cars have very similar driver-assistance capabilities. Not that a consumer would know, given all the names automakers attach to these aids and the distinct indicators each employs.

Lane-keeping or -centering assistance uses one or more cameras to detect lane markings and applies appropriate nudges to the steering to keep the vehicle between the lines. Adaptive cruise control in most cases uses radar to track vehicles ahead and adjusts your car’s speed to the flow of traffic. Together these two features can steer, accelerate, and brake a car. The best examples might even lull drivers into believing the computers are capable of handling the driving for extended periods. That’s a mistake. None can be trusted to mind the road and avoid obstacles to the point that a driver is not required.

While one brand’s tech achieves the same end as another’s, that’s not to say all systems behave the same way. They don’t. To demonstrate this, we performed four tests on 17 vehicles, one from most major manufacturers, to determine how much each expects the driver to remain engaged and attentive.

First, with adaptive cruise control set to 60 mph and lane centering active, we unbuckled the driver’s seatbelt. Some, such as the Subaru, immediately canceled all driver aids. Others, such as the Teslas and Cadillac, went even further, braking to a halt. But the majority of the vehicles tested did nothing in this scenario.

For the second test, again with the cruise set to 60 and lane centering active, we took our hands off the wheel to see how much time passed before (a) the vehicle threw a warning and (b) the system shut down. The most conservative bunch—the Cadillac, Ford, Volvo, Toyota, and Lexus—called it quits within 21 seconds, while the Hyundai tracked for 91 seconds, covering 1.5 miles sans hands.

Then we repeated the second test, only this time we tried to trick each vehicle into thinking we had our hands on the wheel by draping a 2.5-pound ankle weight over

46

Safety First No vehicle today is designed for the driver to leave their post, and doing so is flagrantly dangerous. That’s why we performed all our testing on a closed track, primarily at Fowlerville Proving Ground in Michigan. While it’s perfectly possible to leap from the driver’s seat to the passenger’s at speed, an inadvertent kick to the steering wheel could send the car into calamity. So we used a lead car to slow the test vehicle, which was running adaptive cruise control, to a complete stop before

we hopped over the console. To keep the brakes within reach, we fastened a hockey stick to a fabricated bracket, which we attached to the pedal. That allowed us to easily and safely brake at any time. The only vehicle we couldn’t test at the Fowlerville track was the Cadillac Escalade, because Super Cruise operates only on mapped limitedaccess highways.

So we worked with the state of Indiana to close a 1.5-mile section of highway for a couple of hours.

Our apologies to the confused and inconvenienced passersby.

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

PHOTO GRAPHY BY AND I HE DRICK

Driver-assistance systems have become commonplace, but every one of ’em allows you to tune out far too much.

By Dave VanderWerp

one of the spokes. That fooled the vast majority of today’s systems, which watch for torque at the steering wheel as a proxy for driver engagement. But the ones that rely on touch, such as the BMW’s and Mercedes’s, couldn’t be gamed by the weight. Before you ask, we also tried putting tape around those wheels and, when that didn’t work, a zip tie. No dice.

We had to adjust the parameters of our third test for GM’s Super Cruise. Currently the only system to allow hands-free driving for extended periods, Super Cruise relies on an infrared camera pointed at the driver to determine whether sufficient attention is being paid to the road. (Ford will launch a similar system called BlueCruise later this year.) Since our hands were already off the wheel, we tested the Caddy’s capability by taking our eyes off the road. It shut us down, but even today’s most sophisticated system isn’t foolproof. We tricked it with a pair of gag glasses emblazoned with eyeballs.

Finally, we went for the full monty, getting out of the driver’s seat and letting the car fend for itself [see “Safety First”]. Every last vehicle let us. Most of them, when saddled with a weight on the helm, would mind the steering and

speed for as long as you dare. Riding lawn mowers can detect a missing driver. Why can’t cars?

While some vehicles cancel driver aids when the seatbelt is unlatched, a determined fool can simply buckle the belt over an empty driver’s seat; no vehicle can tell the difference. The BMW, Mercedes, and Cadillac fared best against driver misuse, with the Germans having a touch-sensitive steering-wheel sensor and Cadillac’s Super Cruise remaining active for only 18 seconds with no one behind the wheel—unless, of course, you put a mannequin wearing eyeball glasses in the seat.

As these systems continue to gain capabilities, we suspect drivers will become increasingly emboldened to take risks. Automakers should close these loopholes to head off future idiocy.

PASSENGER ’S-SEAT DRIVER — All the vehicles tested allowed us to use their driver-assist systems with no one at the wheel.

Don’t Try This at Home Here’s how each automaker fared in our driver-assistance misuse tests.

Brand Tested Model

Driver’s Seatbelt Is Unbuckled

Audi

No effect

18

2020 X7

Cadillac 2021 Escalade

Chevrolet

Cancels lane centering Cancels everything and brakes to a stop No effect

2021 Suburban

Ford

No effect

2021 Mach-E

Genesis

No effect

5

No

25

5

18 20 N/A (insufficient track length for 60-mph test; 85 sec at 50 mph) 11 21 40

2021 G80

Honda

15

No effect

Yes (eyeball glasses) Yes (weight) Yes (weight)

Yes (weight) 51

No effect

91

2021 Elantra

Lexus

No effect

2021 ES

Mercedes

No effect

2021 E450 Cab

Nissan

Cancels everything

2021 Rogue

Subaru

Cancels everything

2021 Crosstrek

Tesla 2019 Model 3 2021 Model S

Toyota

Cancels everything and brakes to a stop No effect

2021 RAV4

Volkswagen

No effect

2021 Arteon

Volvo

Cancels everything

2020 S60

12

Yes (weight) Yes (weight)

21

45 N/A (insufficient track length for 60-mph test; 90 sec at 50 mph) 12 29 15 45 25 (Model 3) 55 (Model 3) 40 (Model S) 70 (Model S) 12 21 11 28 12 21 Then brakes to a stop.

*Eyes off the road for Cadillac Super Cruise.

Yes (weight)

80

30

2021 CR-V

Hyundai

Yes (weight)

41 (but never cancels cruise control)

2021 SQ5

BMW

Can Driver Monitoring Be Tricked?

Hands off the Wheel* Time to First Warning (sec) Time to System Shutdown (sec)

Then brakes to a stop, calls SOS.

No Yes (weight) Yes (weight) Yes (weight)

Yes (weight) Yes (weight) Yes (weight)

Then brakes to 5 mph.

47

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Drive It, Park It, or Sell It? As America recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, some New Yorkers are deciding whether to keep their newly purchased cars.

By Tamara Warren Photography by Benjamin Norman

S EPT E MB E R 2021 ~ CA R A N D DR I VER

For years it was a selling point: You don’t need a car to live in

New York City. Not only does it have arguably the nation’s best transit system, but parking is expensive and a pain, and traffic is atrocious.

And yet, even before the pandemic, plenty of New Yorkers relished the heady upside of aggressive big-city driving.

In 2018, more than half of adults in the Big Apple were licensed drivers, and nearly 2 million passenger cars were registered to the city’s 8.4 million residents, according to the DMV. That doesn’t count the semi trucks, commercial

53

New York climbed from the fourth-mostcongested U.S. city in 2019 to the top spot in 2020. Despite that dubious honor, driving in the Big Apple improved as traffic patterns changed during the pandemic.

The average New York auto commuter lost

56 hours to traffic delays last year, down from 96 hours in 2019.

54

vehicles, and commuters’ cars packing the streets or those registered outside the city to avoid pricey insurance premiums.

Civic groups have advocated for ending car use in Manhattan and restricting it in other boroughs in favor of bike lanes and alternative forms of transportation.

In the terrifying first wave of the pandemic, the number of cars on New York City roads dipped sharply, with the echo of ambulance sirens filling the streets as many cooped-up New Yorkers fled for suburbs or their hometowns.

Having a car made that relocation easier. Then, last summer, the number of registered vehicles surged in what a New York Times headline described as “The Great Gotham Vroom Boom of 2020.”

In June and July 2020, car registrations in the five boroughs were up 18 percent from the same period the previous year.

Chris Kim, a 36-year-old father of a toddler in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, jumped on a local Toyota dealership’s good lease offer on a bare-bones RAV4. Benjamin Almeter, a 27-year-old publicist who lives in lower Manhattan, sprung for the Jeep Wrangler he’d always wanted, his very first car purchase.

“Everyone got dogs and bought cars,” says Nata Andresen, who lives in Fort

Nata Andresen uses her newly purchased stick-shift Volkswagen Jetta for her volunteer work stocking community refrigerators with fresh food.

Greene, Brooklyn. During the pandemic, Andresen got a Malshipoo named Teddy and, somewhat spontaneously, a 2019 Volkswagen Jetta with 30,000 miles. She grew up in Mexico City, where Volkswagens ruled the road. “It was a wild place to learn to drive because everyone kind of does whatever they want,” she says. “I am a pretty fast driver. I love to play music, and if there are no cars on the road, I like a little speed.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Andresen received her first speeding ticket during the pandemic.

The Jetta became essential not only for day trips upstate but also for Andresen’s volunteer work with a friend’s nonprofit, One Love Community Fridge, which stocks public fridges around Brooklyn with donations of fresh items from restaurants and food services that they’d otherwise throw out. “You definitely need a car to do that,” she says. She’s urging the organization’s founder, who regularly rents cars for delivery runs, to buy one.

Noel Borbon, a real-estate agent and native New Yorker who once looked down on car ownership, started driving exclusively during the pandemic to protect himself. “A SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

lot of New Yorkers got cars because of not wanting to be in public transportation,” he says, “and also to have that freedom to get up and go.” Now he’s leasing a 2021 Hyundai Santa Fe. “I wanted the center console to be sleek and look luxurious, and then I wanted a sunroof,” he says. Borbon, who is six foot eight, believed he couldn’t reasonably consider a performance car because of headroom concerns. He’s working toward a Mercedes-Benz G-class, but we could point him toward plenty of sporty cars that fit the extra tall.

Ask any car-owning New Yorker about their purchase and the conversation quickly pivots to parking. They’ll explain how alternate-side parking rules shape their work schedules. During the pandemic, New York cut back street cleanings from twice to once a week, a boon for drivers, who didn’t have to move their cars as often. The flip side is that finding a spot on the street has become almost impossible in some places.

By January, it wasn’t uncommon to see cars parked overnight in front of fire hydrants in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. As the city opens up, traffic is messier than ever: New York just took the esteemed title of most congested city in the United States, knocking out Los Angeles, according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s 2021 Urban Mobility Report.

What’s unclear is whether this trend will stick and how many cars represent panic purchases by New Yorkers who fled to suburbia last summer, never to return. Ricky Maldonado, a manager at lower Manhattan’s Area Garage, says he has seen only a few new customers since the pandemic started.

Public officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio, discourage car ownership.

To support struggling local businesses, the city blocked off 70 miles of streets for social distancing, biking, and outdoor dining. They may remain closed permanently.

“It is also not clear at this point that New Yorkers have decided they want more cars for personal transportation to avoid public transportation,” says Stephanie Brinley, a principal analyst

“A lot of New Yorkers got cars because of not wanting to be in public transportation and also to have that freedom to get up and go.”

for IHS Markit. She points out that the rise in vehicle sales in the third and fourth quarters of 2020 could have been driven by the massive drops in purchasing at the beginning of the pandemic.

“For 2021 sales to be better than 2020 is a good sign, but 2020 was awful. It doesn’t suggest that demand is higher than it was prior to the pandemic.”

The romance with cars may turn out to be short lived. A congestion tax on trips into parts of Manhattan is looming, and in November, New Yorkers will elect a new mayor, who could reshape the city’s infrastructure policy. Many gas stations have shuttered in recent years, and electric charging stations are often out of service or blocked by a parked car.

As vaccines have become available and COVID case numbers have fallen, New Yorkers are returning to some of their old ways. “In the past few months, I haven’t used the car as much,” says Andresen, “and then I find myself just moving it for parking spots.” She refuses to pay for parking, and finding a space on the street is a challenge.

It seems inevitable that New Yorkers will increasingly return to public transportation for financial and environmental reasons and in the interest of that goal they all share: getting places in a hurry.

But some folks aren’t planning on giving up their vehicles. Almeter is attached to his Jeep and the freedom it gives him for weekend road trips. When street parking became too difficult, he invested in a parking space near his building for the Wrangler. “Even if it ends up sitting in the garage forever, I can’t go back to not having one,” he says.

Noel Borbon once scorned car ownership, but he leased a Hyundai Santa Fe and began driving to work during the pandemic.

55

It’s Lonely Being a Sedan in an SUV World The new Civic is about as good as it has ever been.

Can Honda push back against a trend that’s far bigger than any one automaker? ~

By Annie White Photography by Marc Urbano 56

57

These days, As companies like Ford, Stellantis, and GM abandoned cars to focus on segments that are more popular and profitable, Honda’s venerable Civic has hung on to its market share.

U.S. Sales January–June 2021 All Vehicles 8,242,764

Honda Civic 152,956 (1.9%)

All Other Compact Cars 469,330 (5.7%)

January–June 2011 All Vehicles 6,333,313

Honda Civic 127,571 (2.0%)

All Other Compact Cars 845,205 (13.3%)

Source: Automotive News.

58

if you walk into a dealership looking to spend as little as possible on a new car, the salesperson will probably steer you toward a shrink-rayed version of the brand’s bestselling SUV, not the matchbox sedan you might have been directed to 10 years ago. Depending on the dealership, there might not even be a new entry-level sedan or hatchback on offer. But chez Honda, the compact-caras-brand-entry structure is alive and well with the Civic.

The outgoing Civic was nimble, engaging, affordable, and efficient. It was an enthusiast car that even the most apathetic driver could fall for, or maybe it was a car for the apathetic that even enthusiasts could love. Either way, plenty of shoppers pushed past rows of crossovers to get to Honda’s small car.

In 2020, when the pandemic reduced overall sales, 261,225 new Civics found homes in the United States; that’s down from 325,650 in 2019 but still more than three times the audience for Honda’s entry-level crossover, the HR-V. Some of the Civic’s success may be thanks to its status as a standout product in a thinning field. For the U.S., Ford is no longer building new sedans, Chevrolet abandoned the Cruze, Volkswagen dropped the Golf, and the Dodge Dart is barely a memory.

Now a new generation of Honda’s holdout sedan is here, with all the attributes that drew us to the last one, sans the polarizing styling of its predecessor.

While the 2022 Civic marks the beginning of the 11th generation, the machinery largely carries over from the 2021. A 158-hp 2.0-liter inline-four still powers the base model, but Honda upped the output of the optional turbocharged 1.5-liter four-cylinder by six horsepower and 15 pound-feet of torque, for a total of 180 ponies and 177 pound-feet.

Styled like a Honda Accord, this new Civic both looks and feels more upscale than the outgoing model.

Both engines pair exclusively with a continuously variable automatic transmission. Manual devotees are out of luck, at least until the hatchback, Si, and Type R variants arrive. Light changes to the powertrains minimize vibrations and boost efficiency by 1 or 2 mpg in some EPA tests. On Car and Driver’s 75-mph highway fuel-economy loop, our Touring model matched its frugal EPA highway estimate with a 38-mpg score.

In terms of straight-line performance, the slow, steady march of progress seems to have eluded this Civic.

Our turbocharged test car needed 7.5 seconds to accelerate to 60 mph and 15.8 seconds to cross the quarter-mile mark. The old Touring needed 6.8 and 15.2 seconds, respectively. Honda tells us that its tests showed only a 0.1- or SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

0.2-second gap between times for the old and new cars, which was also what we expected given the 2022’s 128 extra pounds.

Our test car lagged behind the outgoing model in its 30-to-50-mph and 50-to-70mph passing times, and its rolling-start 5-to60-mph figure slipped by 0.6 second. To confirm that our acceleration tests weren’t a fluke, we ran them again and got the same results. This mystery remains unsolved, though we have a theory that the transmission is the culprit [see “Short Shift,” page 61].

Considering the mechanical similarities between the two generations, it’s no surprise that the rest of the new Civic’s numbers hardly deviate from the old car’s. The braking distance from 70 mph shrunk by four feet, to 174, and the skidpad score improved by the smallest margin, to 0.83 g. The respectable grip of the Touring’s 18-inch all-season tires is backed by

Dialogue This may sound hyperbolic, but the new Civic really is a glimmer of hope. If anything has a shot at beating back the crossover’s steady advance, it’s a small sedan that’s this comprehensively excellent. The 11th-gen Civic is like a mini-Accord, not just in appearance, but also in the sophistication of its steering precision, damping, and body control. —Dave VanderWerp I’m no fan of CVTs, but I can appreciate one well tuned for everyday driving, which the Civic’s happens to be. However, I will never understand why the Civic’s manual-shifting mode hurts acceleration; the car takes about half a second more to reach 60 mph. Paddles shouldn’t be a placebo for sportiness. Other than that, this little sedan is wonderful. If I were in the market, I’d wait for the hatchback and its available six-speed manual. —K.C. Colwell

59

The Civic’s road (and parking-lot) manners are impeccable for a car at this price.

Plus Massively improved exterior design, upscale interior, reasonable price.

Minus Much slower than we thought it’d be, pulse-pounding models aren’t out yet, the best content is reserved for the top trim.

Equals We’re so glad Honda hasn’t given up on the small sedan.

stable and secure handling, and the steering is just as light and accurate as in the previous-generation car. We’re even impressed with the way the Civic tackles back roads, where the steering, brakes, and powertrain combine to create an experience far richer than the price suggests. Push the speed to extralegal and this Honda pulls off that slow-car-fast thing that every cheap-car engineering team tries to achieve but few get right.

But that’s all prologue to the Civic’s most obvious changes: its looks. Honda overhauled the exterior for a more premium and mature appearance. Gone are erratic cutlines and fake vents, replaced by a design that borrows heavily from

the Accord. The cabin is stylish and well thought out too. To better accommodate broader people, Honda widened the shoulders of the front seats, and they kept us comfortable for several hours of driving. The center console is covered with an attractive textured material instead of the currently trendy piano-black trim that looks great until it’s covered in fingerprints. At 70 mph, the new car registered 69 decibels, a noteworthy two decibels below its predecessor.

Honda reserves some of the best features for Touring models, such as a wirelesscharging pad for your phone, a Bose audio system, and an easy-to-use 9.0-inch touchscreen. Fortunately, every model gets a volume knob and a convenient ledge to rest your hand on while using the center display.

For all of the Civic’s newfound maturity, buyers will pay a negligible premium compared with the 10th gen’s price. The base LX model starts at $22,715, just $450 more than the ’21. The Touring’s price, $29,315, hasn’t budged. If this sedan is any indication—and we have no reason to believe it isn’t—there’s a lot to look forward to as Honda builds out this model line. Our favorite Civics are still awaiting the 11th-generation treatment.

The hatchback is due on dealer lots in the coming months, and we’re expecting performance-light and -heavy Si and Type R models to follow. We wouldn’t be as excited about a tuned-up HR-V. SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

2022 honda civic touring Price $29,710

SHORT SHIFT — A CVT can maximize acceleration (and produce a hell of a racket) by constantly adjusting the gear ratio to keep the engine at its power peak. But the new Civic favors civility over quickness by always mimicking the stepped shifts of an automatic transmission.

The outgoing Civic would imitate shifts or continuously change the ratio, depending on the mode. Not surprisingly, it was always quickest without the faked gearchanges.

As Tested ..............................

Base .................................................................... $29,315 Vehicle Type: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan Options: Morning Mist paint, $395 Infotainment: 9.0-inch touchscreen; wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay; satellite radio (3 months included); 4 USB (3 for power only) and Bluetooth inputs; Bose audio, 12 speakers

Engine turbocharged and intercooled inline-4, aluminum block and head Bore x Stroke ....... 2.87 x 3.52 in, 73.0 x 89.5 mm Displacement .................................. 91 in3, 1498 cm3 Compression Ratio ........................................... 10.3:1 Fuel Delivery: direct injection Turbocharger: IHI RHF4 Maximum Boost Pressure ........................ 16.5 psi Valve Gear: double overhead cams, 4 valves per cylinder, variable intake- and exhaust-valve timing and variable exhaust-valve lift Redline/Fuel Cutoff ................... 6600/6600 rpm Power ........................................... 180 hp @ 6000 rpm Torque ........................................ 177 lb-ft @ 1700 rpm

Suspension

MPH PER 1000 RPM

91 MPH

7.5 60

Dimensions

2.9

Wheelbase ......................................................... 107.7 in Length ................................................................. 184.0 in Width ...................................................................... 70.9 in Height .................................................................... 55.7 in Front Track ........................................................ 60.5 in Rear Track ........................................................... 61.6 in Ground Clearance ............................................ 5.3 in Passenger Volume, F/R .......................... 52/44 ft3 Trunk Volume ....................................................... 14 ft3

unit construction Body Material: aluminum and steel stampings

Steering rack-and-pinion with variable electric power assist Ratio ........................................................................ 11.5:1 Turns Lock-to-Lock ............................................ 2.2 Turning Circle Curb-to-Curb ................... 38.1 ft

1/4-MILE

15.8

Wheels: cast aluminum, 8.0 x 18 in Tires: Goodyear Eagle Sport All-Season 235/40R-18 91W M+S

MAX SPEED IN GEAR (rpm)

Chassis

30 0

SEC

34

Results in graph omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.

Rolling Start, 5–60 mph .................. 8.1 sec Top Gear, 30–50 mph ..................... 4.0 sec Top Gear, 50–70 mph ...................... 5.1 sec Top Speed (gov ltd) ...................... 126 mph

Handling Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad .......... 0.83 g Understeer: moderate

Braking

COMPETITORS

24 26

Weight Curb ...................................................... 3054 lb Per Horsepower ................................. 17.0 lb Distribution, F/R ....................... 61.0/39.0%

0.7 9

30

35

CURB WEIGHT, LB

0.

89

41

0.9 4

44

75 -M DR PH IV HIG IN H G, W MP AY G

70–0 mph .............................................. 174 ft Fade Rating: none

G, IN DLD KI , G HO T S AD AD 0-F P RO 30

BASE, $ x 1000*

Affordable, small, front-drive sedans are a dying breed. Aside from Volkswagen, the segment is now dominated by Asian automakers.

1/4-MILE ACCELERATION, SEC

3100

3050

3000

90

185

7.5

8.0

3150

Capacity ............................................. 12.4 gal Octane .......................................................... 87

C/D Fuel Economy 75-mph Hwy Driving ...................... 38 mpg Range .................................................... 470 mi

92

Comb/City/Hwy .................... 34/31/38 mpg

6.5

94 96

P VO ASS LU EN ME GE ,F R T

175

N,

T EST E D BY DAV E VA N D E R WE R P I N C H ELSEA , MI

Fuel

EPA Fuel Economy

TIO P H RA -M LE 60 CCE A EC S

*Includes performanceenhancing options.

19.7 100

Wheels and Tires

Lowest ..... 2.65 ...... 8.5 ............. 56 mph (6600) Highest ... 0.41 ....... 55.6 ........... 126 mph (2250)

Honda Civic Touring 180-hp 1.5-L I-4, CVT Kia Forte GT 201-hp 1.6-L I-4, 6-sp man Mazda 3 Premium 186-hp 2.5-L I-4, 6-sp auto Volkswagen Jetta R-Line 147-hp 1.4-L I-4, 8-sp auto

33.0 120

F: 11.1 x 0.9-in vented disc, 1-piston sliding caliper R: 10.2 x 0.4-in disc, 1-piston sliding caliper Stability Control: partially defeatable

Transmission: continuously variable automatic Final-Drive Ratio .............................................. 3.24:1 RATIO

Acceleration

Brakes

Drivetrain GEAR

TEST RESULTS

F: ind, strut located by a control arm, coil springs, anti-roll bar R: ind; 1 trailing arm, 2 lateral links, and a toe-control link per side; coil springs; anti-roll bar

Interior Sound Level Idle ......................................................... 36 dBA Full Throttle ....................................... 75 dBA 70-mph Cruising .............................. 69 dBA

70–0-MPH BRAKING, FT

61

Redra of Line To

address systemic racism i n l aw e n force m e nt,

t h e B e r k e l e y, California, C I T Y C O U N C I L WA N T S T O

ta k e p o l i c e o f f i c e r s o f f t h e t r a f f i c b e at.

62

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

wing

Duty Besides being a war hero and integration champion, Ulysses S. Grant was also a speed demon. In 1872, the first time he was caught street racing his horse and buggy near the corner of 13th and M Streets in Washington, D.C., a beat cop named William Henry West let him off with a warning. Then West—a former slave, a Civil War veteran, and one of the first Black men to earn a Metro police shield during Reconstruction—watched Grant blow past him again the very next day. This time, he climbed down from his horse after a blocklong chase and initiated an arrest. ¶ “I am very sorry, Mr. President, to have to do it, for you are the chief of the nation, and I am nothing but a policeman,” West said. “But duty is duty, sir.” ¶ “All right,” Grant conceded after an attempt to plead ignorance fizzled. “Where do you wish me to go with you?”

By

A n d r e w

L aw r e n c e

63

Roughly one in four Americans age 16 or older had contact with police in 2018.

More than half of the interactions involved a vehicle, due to either a crash or a traffic stop.

Total Residents with Police Contact in 2018 61,542,300 Reason for Contact Other Traffic Accident 28,291,700 8,882,000 (46.0%) (14.4%)

Traffic Stop 24,368,600 (39.6%) Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

T h e S tat e of the Speed Limit It’s been more than two decades since the repeal of the National Maximum Speed Law. You know, the 55-mph interstate limit that inspired Sammy Hagar to write an anthem. Only the District of Columbia has stuck with the

64

The 18th president was booked at a nearby station and released on a $20 bond, the equivalent of $445 today.

Grant neither disputed the fine nor challenged his arrest in this nascent example of a traffic stop. The cop and the Confederacy buster actually wound up fast friends, bonding over their shared love of horses, according to a 1908 Washington Evening Star interview with West.

Their congeniality would not become a hallmark of these police encounters, and while policymakers in one California city can’t change the past, they’re working on a better future.

In February, as part of a sweeping effort to reduce racial disparities in policing, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to deprioritize traffic stops for offenses unrelated to public safety (e.g., not wearing a seatbelt, expired tags). For Rigel Robinson, the 25-yearold councilmember behind the initiative, it’s a starting point. “I don’t see a world where we’re stripping police of all those responsibilities,” he says. The council “is trying to figure out where the line is.”

About 20 million Americans are pulled over by police annually, making the traffic stop one of the most common ways the public engages with law enforcement. While roadside reckonings can prevent crashes and fatalities, they nonetheless remain an existential danger to Black Americans, who are killed by police at nearly twice the rate of their

double-nickel speed limit on its (entirely urban) interstates since then. Upper limits have crept to 80 mph in eight states, including Texas, which claims the highest speed limit in the U.S. with a 41-mile stretch of 85-mph state highway. But even with states making their own rules, changing interstate speed limits these days is

white counterparts. The high-profile killings of Philando Castile, Daunte Wright, and other Black motorists in recent years have put a spotlight on the problem and instigated public outcry.

In 2018, Kelsey Shoub, now an assistant professor of political science at the University of South Carolina, coauthored Suspect Citizens: What 20 Million Traffic Stops Tell Us About Policing and Race. She and her fellow researchers studied 20 million traffic stops in North Carolina and found that Black drivers were not only 63 percent more likely to be pulled over despite driving 16 percent less than white drivers, but also 115 percent more likely to be searched even though contraband was more often found on white drivers. “It appears to be more systemic than a few ‘bad apple’ officers engaged in racial profiling,” Shoub told a reporter at the University of South Carolina last year. A 2020 study by the Stanford Open Policing Project investigating nearly 100 million traffic stops across the country showed similar disparities. Importantly, it determined that “Black drivers were less likely to be stopped after sunset, when a ‘veil of darkness’ masks one’s race, suggesting bias in stop decisions.”

Berkeley’s attempt to combat this doesn’t mean parking violations and expired tags will go unchecked. The council will pursue transferring the enforcement of nonviolent traffic infrac-

often a contentious, drawnout process.

An Indiana bill to close a 5-mph gap between limits for passenger vehicles and large trucks languished in committee this year, as did a New Hampshire bill to raise speed limits as high as 75 mph. North Dakota lawmakers voted in February against a bill setting an 80-mph max. In

New Jersey, the Speed Limit Sanity Act proposed updating speed limits based on the 85th-percentile speed of traffic. It, too, went nowhere.

That 85th-percentile recommendation comes from the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, which provides guidelines for public roads. The Biden administration is reviewing the manual, SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

tions to a new unit of unarmed civil servants within the city’s transportation division (think meter maids).

Unsurprisingly, police groups fear the worst. “To the mayor of Berkeley and the city council, I would say you need to talk to the victim of a traffic crash before you do this, what I believe to be an idiotic move,” says John Whetsel, chair of the National Sheriffs’ Association’s traffic-safety committee.

For Whetsel, a 50-year veteran of Oklahoma law enforcement, traffic safety is personal. In 1980, he was dispatched to a fiery crash caused by a state trooper chasing a drag-racing motorcycle through a residential neighborhood. The officer ran a stop sign in his pursuit; his car, traveling 97 mph, broadsided a Datsun B210 at an intersection.

It wasn’t until Whetsel spotted a bumper sticker on the Datsun that he realized he was looking at his family car. A passerby pulled his four-year-old daughter from the wreckage. His wife and two-yearold daughter were killed.

Whetsel argues that without police stops, traffic fatalities would spike and potential leads in violent crimes might slip through the cracks. He points out that an Oklahoma state trooper pulled over Timothy McVeigh for driving his 1977

and safety advocates are urging policymakers to change the guidance to encourage lower speed limits, which they say could reduce the number of fatal crashes.

The state bills have found support from commercial drivers, small-government types, and those of us who’ve been on the wrong side of a set of flashing lights. —Annie White

“In

any approach e n force m e nt,

you ’re

going

to

end

up

to

with

c o m p l i c at e d a n d l ay e r e d equity

questions.”

—Rigel Robinson, Berkeley councilmember

Mercury Marquis without a license plate, a stop that led to his arrest in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

“One thing I know is not all drivers are criminals,” says Whetsel, who concedes that racial bias in policing is a problem, but he believes it can be fixed through training. “Another thing I know is that most criminals drive to and from work. If it’s a burglary or a bank robbery or a homicide, they’re generally not going to walk to and from that scene.”

Traffic stops weren’t always such a fundamental police service.

When cars first came on the scene in the late 19th century, there was no catching the rich people who owned them. Then the Model T came along in 1908, changing the landscape of American life, and within 20 years, traffic fatalities numbered around 20,000 a year. That’s when community-based vigilante groups stepped in, tracking license plates, pursuing speeders, and issuing tickets. Over time, as a way to bring order to this system, police officers took over such enforcement.

By the late ’70s, following years of tough-on-crime agendas, police departments had embraced a culture of radar guns and high-speed pursuit vehicles. On the one hand, these tools helped rein in lawbreakers. On the other: With ticket quotas to fill, police now write citations for things like blown exterior lights (something most cars don’t alert the driver about) and doing 80 in a 75. Just this May, an Arkansas woman filed suit against a state trooper who performed a pursuit tactic known as a PIT maneuver.

By tapping her vehicle with his, the

trooper caused her crossover to flip as she was trying to find a safe place to pull over. Even worse, she was pregnant. So it figures that some jurisdictions would ask, is there a better way?

Last fall, Virginia passed a law that limits police from stopping drivers for problems like defective taillights, loud exhausts, and objects hanging from a rearview mirror. A 2019 Oregon Supreme Court ruling prevents officers from asking a detained motorist questions unrelated to the reason for the stop. Texas lawmakers pushed for a similar measure in legislation to honor Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old Black woman who was found hanging in a jail cell three days after her arrest during a traffic stop. But because of police opposition, senators stripped it (and many other reforms) from the bill.

The Berkeley plan, too, will surely see some revisions in the face of obstacles, not the least of which is the California law that prohibits civilian traffic enforcement. But the city hopes to work with the state toward a compromise.

“The thesis here is that in any approach to enforcement, you’re going to end up with complicated and layered equity questions,” says Robinson. “All we’re really asking for is the opportunity to try something new.”

If the Berkeley experiment doesn’t go down as a blip, it could inspire more municipalities to reimagine traffic stops as a less contentious affair for the good of all parties involved. Wishful thinking, perhaps. But consider for a moment how cathartic it would be to say that this ignominious period in automotive history was buried in Grant’s tomb.

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Just as the auto industry began to dig out from a pandemic, supply-chain issues slowed it down.

What does that mean for manufacturers and shoppers? ~

By Jonathon Ramsey

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SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

67

Average Transaction Price Q2 2020 Q2 2021 New Cars

$38,895

$40,827 (+5%)

Used Cars

$20,942

$25,410 (+21%)

W When automakers took stock at the end of last year, they discovered it hadn’t been the financial bloodbath many feared when COVID-19 forced factories and suppliers to close, put millions of potential customers out of work, and sent almost everyone home to stay for a while. Jack Hollis, senior vice president of automotive operations at Toyota Motor North America, told NBC News in January, “What looked like the most horrible year for the industry turned out really well.” Dealer groups like Auto Nation and Lithia Motors reported fantastic third-quarter results, and Bentley enjoyed a record-breaking sales year.

But a disruption of that magnitude doesn’t just come and go, and the industry continues to grapple with the fallout in ways that will affect its future as well as car buyers.

“We can tie all of this back, really, to COVID and the fact that industries around the world shut down very, very quickly,” says Mark Fulthorpe, executive director of global light-vehicle production forecast at IHS Markit. More than halfway into 2021, the few cars that do reach dealerships go for sticker price or, in some cases, more. And used cars are often commanding more money than they did when new. Alas, just as manufacturers put the pandemic in the rearview, they collided head-on with a new problem: a global shortage of semiconductor chips—the electronic heart of everything from engine control units to graphics-intensive infotainment systems.

Forecasts for 2021 from outfits like Cox Automotive, BBVA, the Economist, and IHS Markit predicted that barring further COVID lockdowns, sales would rebound by nearly 10 percent over 2020’s. But that’s all out the window now, as the chip shortage has led manufacturers to pause production of certain models or decide their products can do without some systems.

Source: Edmunds.

Anticipating the growing need for chips, Bosch invested heavily in a new semiconductor plant in Dresden, Germany.

Operations will begin this year.

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SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

CAR LOT PHOTO GRAPH BY JU STIN SULLIVAN/GE TTY IMAGES, BOSCH PHOTO GRAPH BY ROBERT MICHAEL/PICTURE ALLIANCE VIA GETTY IMAGES

With new vehicles in short supply and high demand, dealers are often asking for—and getting—the sticker price or more from buyers. But the ripple effect means the chip shortage is having an even bigger impact on the used-car market. Unwilling or unable to pay such high prices, many would-be new-car shoppers are considering used vehicles instead, which has caused prices to rise by 21 percent in the past year.

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Further acts of God have exacerbated the issue: Frigid temperatures followed by flooding in Texas meant computer-chip factories had to close.

A drought in Taiwan caused headaches for major manufacturers of semiconductors, whose production requires massive amounts of water.

And a fire in March crippled the Renesas Electronics plant in Japan.

In an April earnings call, Ford CEO Jim Farley said nine of the company’s Tier 1 suppliers rely on Renesas chips. So if you’re wondering why your F-150 was delayed, that might have something to do with it.

As if that weren’t enough, steel prices have jumped by more than 200 percent since March 2020, some have started to worry that the ramp-up of EVs could lead to shortages of lithium, and COVID isn’t gone. New strains loom on the periphery, injecting more of what any market hates—uncertainty.

Predictably, consumers will take the hit for all of this when it comes time to pay.

Vehicle prices have increased due to the supply-demand imbalance. According to Edmunds, in the second quarter of this year, the estimated average transaction price for a new vehicle in the U.S. was $40,827. That’s up $1932, or 5 percent, year over year. And Kelley Blue Book analysts note that auto-

70

makers aren’t offering nearly as many incentives as they did a year ago. In May 2020, incentives averaged about 10.7 percent of a vehicle’s transaction price. Twelve months later, that was down to 7.4.

The used-car market is even hotter. Edmunds puts the average price of a used vehicle in the second quarter at $25,410—a 21 percent leap from a year earlier. At the same time, IHS Markit reports that the average age of vehicles on the road has increased to 12.1 years, up a touch from 11.9 in 2020. Which makes sense. With fewer cars available to buy, many people can’t replace their aging vehicles.

Automakers would love to be able to get more products on dealer lots, but chips remain the literal showstopper. Fulthorpe believes the crisis could push manufacturers to manage inventory differently and stock more chips than they need.

Toyota has weathered the storm perhaps better than any other automaker by learning lessons from earlier supply-chain disruptions.

In 1997, the Aisin plant that made all its brake proportioning valves caught fire, and in 2011, severe flooding in Thailand meant major suppliers had to halt production.

Fulthorpe thinks the chip problem will abate within the next 12 months, but Daron Gifford, Plante

SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

PHOTO GRAPH BY JUSTIN SULLIVAN/G ETTY IMAGES

Ford employees in Michigan marry a Bronco body to its chassis.

Output of the highly anticipated off-roader has been curbed by the chip shortage.

Moran partner and automotive practice leader, suspects the challenges could extend through 2022, and by then the industry will need even more semiconductors as it speeds up its promised shift toward EVs. Compared with a modern vehicle that has an internal-combustion engine, “EVs are going to require anywhere from three to four times the number of semiconductors,” Gifford says. “Take it all the way to autonomous and mobility applications, and then it’s going to go up another two to three times [due to the extensive number of] electronics in the vehicle.”

Early in the pandemic, automakers, predicting slower sales, cut orders for semiconductors. Understanding what homebound customers would want, phone and gaming-system manufacturers swooped in to fill the void. “The quick turnaround for vehicle manufacturers was not expected,” says Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions. “Chips for cars and trucks are high-volume products but relatively low-profit parts when compared with the cutting-edge chips used in phones and games.”

Fiorani thinks auto manufacturers may need to rethink their practice of “just in time” production, in which only imminently necessary parts are kept on hand. They also might want to consider larger investments in semiconductor production, perhaps even joint ventures like they have with battery makers.

Fiorani points out that you can’t just use any consumer-grade chip without validating it for automotive use. Also, using the latest chips means automakers would have to compete not just with one another, but with Apple, Sony, and everyone else that relies on the technology. That could push prices higher still.

On an early-summer road trip, Gifford passed by dealerships with lots so empty, they looked like they’d gone out of business. When will that end? When, as everyone wonders these days, will we be back to normal? AutoForecast Solutions predicts U.S. production won’t exceed 2019’s pre-COVID total of 16.3 million units until 2023. “Competition will return,” Fiorani says, “but don’t expect the average price of a new vehicle to slip under $40,000.”

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THE RUNDOWN An expert look at the newest and most important vehicles this month.

Page 77: To wing or not to wing?

2 02 1 A L FA R O M E O G I U L I A Q UA D R I F O G L I O V S . 2 02 1 B M W M 3 C O M P E T I T I O N ~ BY K . C . C O LW E L L

Relationship Games Nobody ever said love would be easy.

Everyone knows a couple who probably shouldn’t be

trils are a love-it-or-leave-it deal, but we will say that the Competition package’s black trim and the $1950 Tanzanite Blue II Metallic paint temper the worst of it. The Comp starts at $73,795, a $2900 premium over the 473-hp base M3, and comes exclusively with an eight-speed planetary automatic.

Fitted with $8150 in carbon-ceramic brakes as well as some other niceties, our M3 totaled $93,495.

And then there’s Alfa Romeo, a brand that reaches right into the enthusiast’s heart with a devastating one-two punch of driving joy and sex appeal.

Falling hard for a Giulia Quadrifoglio is all too easy, but committing to one can be painful, as we learned during a problem-filled 40,000-mile long-term test. Before we saw a dark side, we lofted the Giulia to our 2018 10Best list, and the QF won the last comparison test of this segment. In 2019, the Giulia got a few well-placed updates: Alfa added six port fuel injectors to bolster the Quad’s

together. They fight in public and drag friends into their quarrels, yet at the end of the night, perhaps after disappearing for an hour or two, they’re all smiles. They remind us a little of our complicated relationships with the BMW M3 and the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.

You see, the M3 and C/D, we go way back. Our love affair started in 1995 and burned hot for decades. But then, sometime in 2014, the passion fizzled. We called it quits, not necessarily because the M3 was a bad car, but because we felt it had become dull and cold to the touch. It used to be so alive and fun loving, but when it decided to go turbocharged, it sort of forgot who it was.

But now the new G80 M3 Competition rolls into our lives with 503 horses looking to reconnect. The nos-

The Alfa makes its priorities clear with a driving-focused interior. Despite being pressurized by two turbos, the V-6 builds revs with a naturally aspirated linearity.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL SIMARI ~ SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

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505-hp direct-injection twin-turbo V-6, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto became standard. It looks the same, which is fine. Looks weren’t the problem.

Base to base, the Quadrifoglio costs about $3000 more than the M3 Comp. It’s not really possible to equip them identically, since Alfa eliminated the $8000 option to upgrade to carbon-ceramic rotors. So the Italian ends up being a relative bargain at $83,740.

Otherwise, play The Dating Game with these two and you might think you were talking to the same contestant. Both have twin-turbo six-cylinder engines—a 2.9-liter V-6 for the Giulia, a 3.0-liter inline-six for the M3—making over 500 horsepower. Each comes with a

74

THE RUNDOWN

The M3 has the more luxurious cabin and more refined highway disposition. Its 3.0-liter inline-six is smooth once you get past the initial turbo lag.

ZF-supplied eight-speed automatic turning the rear wheels. Both hit 60 mph in about the same time—3.5 seconds for the BMW and 3.6 for the Alfa—but the M3 increases its advantage to 0.3 second by the quarter-mile.

On the road, the BMW’s six impresses with its smoothness and strength, but it suffers from the on-off nature of turbo lag. Keep the engine on boil and it’s strong and willing, but the transition from the turbo spooling to the shove makes it a bit less fun on SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CA R AND DR IV ER

the street. The Alfa’s engine tuning is less explosive, and its rush is metered with a linear, almost naturally aspirated push that is more satisfying. It even reminds us of turbocharged Ferraris—swoon.

The BMW is unflappable at high speeds.

It’s also quieter than the Alfa at idle and at 70 mph, but that insulates the driver from a sense of speed. Pointed straight, the new M3 transmits little shockwaves up the column at every crack, pebble, and tar strip, but start turning and communication is stifled. Step into the Giulia and you’re fully aware at 150 mph that you’re 60 percent water and very much alive. You hear the wind and sense the car’s and your own pulse beating on the steering wheel.

While the Alfa has a smattering of cheap materials inside, we love its two round analog gauges that tell you exactly what you want to know. They’re a welcome reprieve from the BMW’s digital cluster, where the speedometer and counterclockwise tach, both on the periphery of the screen, are hard to read at a glance. Selecting the M gauge mode changes the readout style and placement, but deciphering your speed and rpm is still a challenge.

As is finding a satisfying combination of the M3’s settings. The engine, chassis, steering, exhaust, brakes, and transmission all have multiple adjustments. We calculated 216 possible permutations to explore. Add in 13 stability- and traction-control modes and you’re up to 2800-plus combinations. If you find the winning one, buy a lottery ticket.

To get even closer to these sedans, we headed to Grattan Raceway’s 2.0-mile road course, where the Quadrifoglio promptly melted down. We suspect improper bedding of the brake pads led the front set to disintegrate in seven laps, and Alfa—still investigating the incident—thinks that’s a possibility. Fortunately, the loss of braking power ended without damage or too much drama. Could this incident be a harbinger of what a relationship might bring? Maybe, but those few laps were really something else.

Yes, the M3 dominates most performance metrics, including braking and skidpad results, and it never once scared us. But the Giulia’s numbers aren’t far off, and the Italian offers a closer connection with the driver. We know it’s not the rational choice, and that it might not always be easy, but we have to follow our heart. We appreciate your concern, but when the Alfa is right, it’s so right. It’s the one we’d take home, even if it tried to kill us that one time.

2021 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio

2021 BMW M3 Competition

Base/As Tested

$76,845/$83,740

$73,795/$93,495

Dimensions Wheelbase Length/Width/Height Track, F/R Passenger Volume, F/R Trunk Volume

111.0 in 182.6/73.8/56.1 in 61.2/63.3 in 53/41 ft 3 13 ft3

112.5 in 189.1/74.3/56.4 in 63.7/63.2 in 55/43 ft3 13 ft3

Power, hp @ rpm Torque, lb-ft @ rpm Redline/Fuel Cutoff lb per hp

twin-turbocharged DOHC 24-valve V-6 176 in3 (2891 cm3) 505 @ 6500 443 @ 2500 7000/7000 rpm 7.6

twin-turbocharged DOHC 24-valve inline-6 183 in3 (2993 cm3) 503 @ 6250 479 @ 2750 7200/7200 rpm 7.6

Driveline Transmission Driven Wheels Final-Drive Ratio:1

8-speed automatic rear 3.09

8-speed automatic rear 3.15

1.6 sec 3.6 sec 8.2 sec 13.9 sec 20.4 sec 11.9 sec @ 121 Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.

4.4 sec 2.4 sec 2.7 sec 191 mph (mfr’s claim)

1.5 sec 3.5 sec 7.6 sec 12.8 sec 18.3 sec 11.6 sec @ 124 Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.2 sec.

4.5 sec 2.4 sec 2.7 sec 180 mph (mfr’s claim)

157 ft 324 ft

150 ft 297 ft

0.96 g

1.03 g

3862 lb 52.5/47.5%

3820 lb 52.7/47.3%

15.3 gal/91 20/17/25 mpg

15.6 gal/93 19/16/23 mpg

49/81 dBA 73 dBA

44/86 dBA 72 dBA

Powertrain Engine

TEST RESULTS Acceleration 30 mph 60 mph 100 mph 130 mph 150 mph 1/4-Mile @ mph

Rolling Start, 5–60 mph Top Gear, 30–50 mph Top Gear, 50–70 mph Top Speed Chassis Braking, 70–0 mph Braking, 100–0 mph Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad Weight Curb Distribution, F/R Fuel Capacity/Octane EPA Comb/City/Hwy Sound Level Idle/Full Throttle 70-mph Cruise

2nd Place: BMW M3 Competition Plus Racetrack capability with autobahn composure, impressive grip and brakes, upscale interior.

Minus Numb steering, palpable turbo lag, an overwhelming amount of adjustability.

1st Place: Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Plus Passion you can feel through the steering wheel, Italian design, linear power delivery.

Minus Some cheap materials inside, knowing it might break your heart at any moment.

TESTE D BY K.C. COLWELL IN CHELSEA, MI

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2 02 1 M E R C E D E S - B E N Z S 5 8 0 ~ BY N E I L D U N L O P

Class Systems Highs: Effortless driving, living-room comfort. Lows: Priced for the 1 percent.

We were so busy playing with all the tech in the new

S-class that we ignored the navigation system’s commands and missed the exit for the Jersey Turnpike. The car’s revised route took us past multimillion-dollar estates with lawns that must take weeks to mow. Act like you belong, the adage goes. Mercedes’s latest version of its flagship sedan makes us look and feel as if we do.

If this is the kind of place you call home, the S-class’s $110,850 base price may seem entirely reasonable. Hell, you might even spring for the Maybach, which opens at $185,950. At launch, U.S. shoppers can pick between the S500’s 429-hp turbo- and supercharged 3.0-liter inline-six and the S580’s 496-hp twin-turbo V-8. Every model comes with all-wheel drive and a 48-volt motor that adds as much as 184 pound-feet of torque for short bursts.

We drove an S580, which seemed a bit sluggish at first. Hitting the Dynamic button on the 12.8-inch OLED central display exposed the problem: The darn thing was set to Eco mode. We jumped to Sport Plus, which brings out this sedate cruiser’s inner sports sedan by increasing the steering effort, altering the shift points, lowering the body height by 0.7 inch, sprucing up the engine response with a livelier throttle map, and adhering to a less intrusive stability-control program. In this mode, the S580 snapped off a 3.9-second run to 60 and hit the quarter in 12.5 seconds at 114 mph.

On uninteresting roads, we took advantage of the semi-autonomous driving function so we could more easily explore our car’s cloud-soft headrests, 10 massage experiences, and optional 30-speaker Burmester stereo, which includes in-seat resonators that deliver the bass to your backside. Mercedes shows passengers some love by giving rear-seat riders 0.7 inch more legroom than before, made possible by the 2.0-inch-longer wheelbase. Calling up navigation on the 12.3-inch instrument cluster gives you a convincing 3-D image of the car moving across the landscape. The system works in concert with the expansive head-up display to present directions in your line of sight. It’s one of the best native setups we’ve ever used.

Fitted with optional four-wheel steering, the big sedan cut through Manhattan traffic with the deftness of a bike messenger. But be conscious of wheel size: An S-class on 19- or 20-inchers allows for up to 10.0 degrees of steering angle at the rear axle, which translates to a turning circle of 35.8 feet. (That’s tighter than a Honda Civic can swing.) Opt for the 21s and the angle is limited to 4.5 degrees, netting a 39.0-foot circle.

At the end of our drive, we hit the kind of traffic that would normally send us into paroxysms of frustration. Fortunately, we were in a high-tech mobile living room designed to make us as comfortable as possible, so we weren’t stressed. As it has been for generations, the S-class remains a self-contained bubble of the good life.

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THE RUNDOWN

the numbers Vehicle Type: front-engine, all-wheeldrive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan Base/As Tested .... $117,350/$143,240 Engine: twin-turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 32-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injection Displacement ............... 243 in3, 3982 cm3 Power .......................... 496 hp @ 5500 rpm Torque ...................... 516 lb-ft @ 2000 rpm Transmission: 9-speed automatic Dimensions • Wheelbase ...................................... 126.6 in • L/W/H .......................... 208.2/76.9/59.2 in • Curb Weight ................................... 4992 lb

test RESULTS 60 mph ................................................. 3.9 sec 100 mph ............................................... 9.7 sec 1/4-Mile ........................ 12.5 sec @ 114 mph 120 mph ............................................. 14.0 sec Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.2 sec.

Rolling Start, 5–60 mph ............. 4.8 sec Top Speed (gov ltd) ..................... 129 mph Braking, 70–0 mph ........................... 168 ft Braking, 100–0 mph ........................ 350 ft Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad ..... 0.87 g C/D Fuel Economy • Observed ........................................ 20 mpg EPA Fuel Economy • Comb/City/Hwy ............... 20/17/25 mpg

BOOSTER SEAT —

In addition to debuting frontal airbags for the rear seats—an industry first—the latest S-class also offers an innovative airbag system to prevent reclined back-seat riders from submarining (sliding under the lap belt) in a collision.

Included in the Executive Line pack, these airbags deploy from the seat-bottom cushion and push your legs up to keep your waist under the lap belt.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL SIMARI ~ SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

2 02 2 P O R S C H E 9 1 1 G T 3 T O U R I N G ~ BY D E R E K P O W E L L

Icarus Shrugged The GT3 goes without wings.

If you relish the 9000-rpm scream of a naturally aspirated flat-six but not the attention of every cop on the road, the Porsche 911 GT3 Touring is the car for you. It offers the same sound and fury as its mechanical twin but ditches the giant wing in favor of a rear spoiler that automatically extends at 49 mph.

Apart from that, the two models share all other aero bits, from the paneled underbody to the rear diffuser. Under the wingless tail lies one of the greatest flat-six engines Porsche has ever made, a 4.0-liter unit kicking out 502 horses. The six-speed manual’s throws are natural and precise, much like its beautifully weighted clutch. For the first time in the Touring, buyers can spec the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, but take note: It imparts a roughly 40-pound weight penalty.

Porsche GT director Andreas Preuninger and his team worked hard to keep the new GT3s light, installing a carbon-fiber hood and

lightweight glass. A carbon-fiber roof is a $3890 option. Porsche says this 992 Touring is a mere 11 pounds heavier than its 991.2 predecessor.

We expect it to weigh about 3150 pounds, the same as the regular GT3.

At idle, the cabin buzzes as the engine chatters and chomps against its mounts. Engaging the clutch in first gear transforms that eagerness into a wallop of thrust. The power delivery is direct and linear as the six throttle bodies provide the immediate engine response that forced-induction engines can match only with anti-lag devices.

We predict the PDK car will need a mere 2.7 seconds to reach 60, and the stick shift, 3.2.

In the mountains above Los Angeles, the Touring reminds us that as glorious as life may be, it is ultimately unfair. Hitting the stratospheric redline is addictive, yet achieving that goal in third gear catapults us well past 100 mph.

Fortunately, the enormous brakes instantly scrub away the speed, and the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s refuse to budge from the chosen line.

The control-arm front suspension borrowed from the 911 RSR racer makes for magical front-end stability. Steering feel can’t be measured, but the GT3 seems to quantify it in a way we didn’t think was possible with today’s electrically assisted racks. You know you’ve hit your mark even before you get there,

the numbers Vehicle Type: rear-engine, rear-wheeldrive, 2-passenger, 2-door coupe Base (C/D est) ..................... $163,450 Engine: DOHC 24-valve flat-6, aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injection Displacement .............. 244 in3, 3996 cm3 Power .......................... 502 hp @ 8400 rpm Torque ...................... 346 lb-ft @ 6100 rpm Transmissions: 6-speed manual, 7-speed dual-clutch automatic Dimensions • Wheelbase ....................................... 96.7 in • L/W/H .......................... 180.0/72.9/50.4 in • Curb Weight ........................ 3150–3200 lb Performance (C/D est) • 60 mph ..................................... 2.7–3.2 sec • 100 mph ................................... 6.5–7.0 sec • 1/4-Mile .................................. 10.9–11.4 sec • Top Speed ............................. 198–199 mph EPA Fuel Economy (C/D est) • Comb/City/Hwy ..... 17/14–15/19–21 mpg

although the rear-axle steering can add some midcorner nervousness.

Unlike with the last Touring and the regular GT3, Porsche will offer a number of interior colors, including several expensive two-tone leather options. The 10.9-inch touchscreen infotainment system responds quickly and works well enough. We just wish the center vents didn’t blow directly at gearshift level.

About a quarter of 991.2 GT3 buyers opted for the de-winged version. Given that the 992 Touring offers an automatic and more customization, we suspect it’ll have a higher take rate. Deliveries begin early next year, and to anyone who can afford its estimated $163,450 base price, we say Godspeed.

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2 02 2 VO L K S WAG E N G O L F R ~ BY DAV I D B E A R D

Rated R Redesigned and now with 315 horsepower, Volkswagen’s Golf R remains the hot hatch for mature audiences.

The hot-hatch genre has, at times,

made us feel very old. Our younger selves would have happily tolerated a bouncy ride, a laggy engine, or a raucous cabin if it kept the price low and the fun-to-drive quotient high, but our backs, our patience, and our eardrums aren’t as forgiving as they once were. Volkswagen seems to understand.

Ahead of the Golf R’s arrival here this fall, we recently drove a Europe-spec model around our Michigan stomping ground and concluded that it stays true to the franchise. The new Drift mode may be the star in the highlight reels, but the Golf R’s distinguishing trait is that it’s so much more well rounded than your typical hot hatch.

The heart of the Golf R remains a turbocharged iron-block 2.0liter inline-four, but Volkswagen massaged the software and moving bits to a Civic Type R–beating 315 horsepower and 310 poundfeet of torque, gains of 27 and 30, respectively. Most turbo fours this powerful feel as though they were tuned by Michael Bay, with their barely controlled, explosive power delivery. Not this one. The fourth-

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THE RUNDOWN

gen EA888 is linear and refined in its work, even at its most violent.

Engage launch control and the optional seven-speed dual-clutch automatic slips a clutch through first gear rather than slamming shut in the axle-shaft stress test we’ve grown accustomed to from other all-wheel-drive products.

The transmission flicks through the gears at a furious pace. We expect the automatic-equipped R to sprint to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds, with the manual-gearbox car trailing a few tenths behind.

An R button on the steering wheel pulls up a driving-modeselection screen on the central display—this is the easiest-to-use function of the otherwise infuriating new infotainment system.

Our test car came with the RPerformance package, which U.S. cars won’t see. It’s a shame, as the pack’s Special mode readies the R to tackle the Nürburgring by sharpening the throttle, livening up the transmission, and dialing in the 15-position electronically controlled dampers. This mode is also perfect for terrorizing your local twisties, where the driving experience can best be described as that of a Porsche 718 Cayman with a back seat. Yes, this Golf—with a transversely mounted four-cylinder in an economy car’s body—is that good.

The steering is quick if a touch short on feel, and the firm brake pedal works the 14.1-inch cross-drilled front rotors with precision.

The revised all-wheel-drive system abandons the previous model’s center coupling for a pair of electronically controlled clutch packs,

each dedicated to one of the rearaxle half-shafts. By varying pressure in the clutches, the Golf R can shuffle the left-right torque distribution to aid rotation. With Drift mode activated, the system delivers all the torque to the outside tire in turns, but don’t expect cinematic powerslides: The car is capable of routing only 50 percent of the engine’s grunt to the rear axle.

That’s fine by us, because the Golf R’s thrills are more sophisticated than sliding sideways and sending up smoke signals. If you’re more interested in speed, precision, and refinement, this is your hot hatch. Hopefully you’ve been saving like a grown-up, because the Golf R will carry a very adult price, starting at $44,640.

the numbers Vehicle Type: front-engine, allwheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door hatchback Base .............................. $44,640 Engine: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve inline-4, iron block and aluminum head, direct fuel injection Displacement ....... 121 in3, 1984 cm3 Power ................. 315 hp @ 5900 rpm Torque ............. 310 lb-ft @ 1900 rpm Transmissions: 6-speed manual, 7-speed dual-clutch automatic Dimensions • Wheelbase ........................... 103.6 in • L/W/H ................. 168.9/70.4/57.7 in • Curb Weight ............ 3400–3450 lb Performance (C/D est) • 60 mph .......................... 4.3–4.6 sec • 100 mph ........................ 11.5–11.9 sec • 1/4-Mile ........................ 12.8–13.1 sec • Top Speed ........................... 155 mph EPA Fuel Economy (C/D est) • Comb/City/Hwy ...... 24–26/21–23/ 29–30 mpg

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARC URBANO ~ SEPTE MBE R 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

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2 02 1 J E E P G R A N D C H E R O K E E L ~ BY M I K E S U T T O N

True to Form A third row doesn’t diminish the Jeep Grand Cherokee’s ultracapable nature.

That the Jeep Grand Cherokee amassed

209,000 sales last year despite a decade-old design underscores the appeal of the outgoing two-row-only SUV. As Stellantis’s cash cow, Jeep faces a lot of pressure to maintain that under seven seconds with the V-6; success as it introduces a redesigned the numbers the V-8 should shave a half-second version with three rows. Fortunately Vehicle Type: front-engine; rear-, off that and is our pick for its deeper for fans of the old model’s refinement, rear/4-, or rear/all-wheel-drive; 6- or 7-passenger; 4-door wagon exhaust rumble and easygoing style, and formidable off-road and Base ............... $38,690–$59,985 towing credentials, the new and longer power delivery. It can also tow Engines: DOHC 24-valve Grand Cherokee L stays on course.

7200 pounds versus the V-6’s 6200.

3.6-liter V-6, 293 hp, 260 lb-ft; pushrod 16-valve 5.7-liter V-8, Unfortunately, stepping up to the Compared with the two-row GC, 357 hp, 390 lb-ft Hemi lowers the L’s EPA combined the L gains 15.1 inches in length and 7.0 Transmission: 8-speed automatic estimate from 21 mpg to just 17. inches in wheelbase, which together Dimensions • Wheelbase ............................. 121.7 in Buyers can spec the Grand Cherprovide friendly accommodations for • L/W/H ................. 204.9/76.7/71.5 in okee L’s multilink suspensions with six-foot-tall passengers from the front • Curb Weight ............ 4550–5300 lb air springs and adaptive dampers. to the wayback. The standard captain’s Performance (C/D est) • 60 mph .......................... 6.4–6.9 sec The former can increase ground chairs easily tilt and slide forward for • 1/4-Mile ...................... 15.0–15.5 sec clearance by 2.4 inches to a lofty access to the spacious third row. Want • Top Speed ........................... 120 mph 10.9. Regardless of the setup, the GC seven seats? Jeep offers a second-row EPA Fuel Economy • Comb/City/Hwy ......... 17–21/14–19/ bench with the same capability. A big 17 feels competent and secure on the 22–26 mpg cubic feet of cargo room lies behind the road, with a firm brake pedal, linear steering, and decent body control. third row; fold the seat flat and storage space expands to 47 cubes, 11 more than Ride comfort is plush on the standthe previous model provided. ard 18-inch wheels, but the optional 20s or 21s jell better with the L’s lengthy proportions. In an Overland model equipped Despite the growth spurt and a stiffer structure, the with the Trail Rated off-roading gear (underbody skid plates, L weighs about the same as the last Grand Cherokee. all-terrain tires, limited-slip rear differential), you can tackle Two available powertrains—a longitudinally mounted 293-hp 3.6-liter V-6 and a 357-hp 5.7-liter V-8, both with steep, boulder-strewn hillsides with ease, the L seemingly a ZF eight-speed automatic—carry over, and there are unfazed when its suspension dangles a wheel high in the air. three available drivelines. Figure on a 60-mph time just Inside, there’s a pleasant balance to the shapes across the dash, and Jeep offers several luxury options, including 16-way-adjustable front seats with massage functions, rich open-pore wood trim, and a 20-speaker McIntosh audio system. The responsive Uconnect 5 infotainment suite is presented in either an 8.4-inch touchscreen or an optional 10.1inch unit, and several electronic driver aids come standard.

Pricing for the L starts at $38,690 for a rear-drive Laredo and can top $70K for a fully loaded Summit Reserve. Coming later this year are an enhanced driver-assistance system, a non-L two-row Grand Cherokee on a shorter wheelbase, and a 4xe plug-in hybrid. We’ll be shocked if the hardcore Trailhawk and fire-breathing SRT models don’t eventually join the lineup too. But even in its most accommodating form, the new L model remains true to the Grand Cherokee’s polished, ultracapable ways.

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SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

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2 02 2 N I S S A N PAT H F I N D E R ~ BY J O E Y C A P PA R E L L A

The Fix Is In Highs: Modern and roomy interior, doesn’t look like a blob anymore, the CVT is gone. Lows: Never-settled ride, dead steering.

is giving us a better Pathfinder— one with smart interior packaging, a large third row that fits adults, and styling that reads SUV instead of minivan in SUV clothing.

While the 284-hp 3.5-liter V-6 engine carries over, a new ninespeed automatic livens up the Pathfinder’s responses, offers none of the old CVT’s annoying droning and sluggishness, and appears to have helped acceleration. In front-drive SL spec, the 4481-pound vehicle scoots to 60 mph in 6.7 seconds, a 0.6-second improvement over a 173-pound-heavier, all-wheel-drive 2017 Pathfinder.

After revitalizing the powertrain, Nissan turned to handling, installing wider tires and stiffer springs. Grip is up to 0.80 g (versus 0.77 g for the last gen), but the Pathfinder still trails the Mazda CX-9 in nimbleness and driving satisfaction.

An unsettled ride and numb steering keep enthusiasm in check.

Compared with the outgoing model, the new Pathfinder has additional sound deadening and thicker glass, which keep the outside world to a hushed 68 decibels at 70 mph. Interior comfort is excellent, with plush leather upholstery in the SL and good support from the front seats. Gone is the dated dashboard, replaced by a design that

82

THE RUNDOWN

says 2022, not 2012. We appreciate the soft, rich-looking materials throughout the cabin as well as the large volume and tuning knobs flanking the center touchscreen. The Kia Telluride is more upscale inside, but the Pathfinder is a far better place to spend time than the Ford Explorer and Toyota Highlander.

Pathfinders start at $34,560; our well-equipped test car stickered at $44,335. Opting for all-wheel drive would’ve added $1900. This pricing aligns with what rivals charge, but they may offer a better value. For example, a comparably equipped front-drive Telluride SX goes for $44,920, and the Kia’s packaging, interior design, and ride quality are tough to beat. A formal comparison test is warranted.

More appealing and practical than the last one, the new Pathfinder elevates the model from also-ran to above-average hauler and should be on every three-row buyer’s shortlist.

the numbers Vehicle Type: front-engine, frontwheel-drive, 7-passenger, 4-door wagon Base/As Tested ... $34,560/$44,335 Engine: DOHC 24-valve V-6, aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injection Displacement ........... 213 in3, 3498 cm3 Power ..................... 284 hp @ 6400 rpm Torque ................. 259 lb-ft @ 4800 rpm Transmission: 9-speed automatic Dimensions • Wheelbase .................................. 114.2 in • L/W/H ........................ 197.7/77.9/69.7 in • Curb Weight ............................... 4481 lb

test RESULTS 60 mph ............................................ 6.7 sec 1/4-Mile .................... 15.3 sec @ 94 mph 100 mph ......................................... 17.7 sec Results above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.

Rolling Start, 5–60 mph ........... 7.1 sec Top Speed (gov ltd) .................. 119 mph Braking, 70–0 mph ....................... 179 ft Roadholding, 300-ft Skidpad ............................. 0.80 g C/D Fuel Economy • Observed .................................... 21 mpg EPA Fuel Economy • Comb/City/Hwy .......... 23/21/26 mpg

THREE-PEAT

As a tribute to the original Pathfinder, sold from 1986 to 1995, the new one has three horizontal slots at the top of its grille.

ILLUSTRATI ON BY PE TE SUCHESKI

Nissan has seen the light and for 2022

PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL SIMARI ~ SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

CUSTOMER SERVICE Call 800-289-9464, email cdbCustServ@CDSFulfillment.com, visit Service.CarandDriver.com, or write to Customer Service Dept., Car and Driver, P.O. Box 37870, Boone, IA 50037 for inquiries/requests, changes of mailing or email addresses, subscription orders, payments, etc.

CAR AND DRIVER® (ISSN 0008-6002), VOL. 67, NO. 2, September 2021, is published monthly, 10 times per year, with combined issues in February/March and July/August, by Hearst, 300 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019, U.S.A. Steven R. Swartz, President & Chief Executive Officer; William R. Hearst III, Chairman; Frank A. Bennack, Jr., Executive Vice Chairman; Debi Chirichella, President, Hearst Magazines Group. Hearst Autos, Inc.: Matt Sanchez, Chief Executive Officer; Nick Matarazzo, President & Chief Revenue Officer; Debi Chirichella, Treasurer; Catherine A. Bostron, Secretary. © 2021 by Hearst Autos, Inc. All rights reserved. Trademarks: Car and Driver is a registered trademark of Hearst Autos, Inc. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canada Post International Publications mail product (Canadian distribution) sales agreement no. 40012499. Editorial and Advertising Offices: 1585 Eisenhower Place, Ann Arbor, MI 48108. SUBSCRIPTION PRICES United States and possessions: $13.00 for one year; Canada, add $10.00; all other countries, add $24.00. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES Car and Driver will, upon receipt of a complete subscription order, undertake fulfillment of that order so as to provide the first copy for delivery by the U.S. Postal Service or alternate carrier within 4–6 weeks. MAILING LISTS From time to time, we make our subscriber list available to companies who sell goods and services by mail that we believe would interest our readers. If you would rather not receive such offers by postal mail, please send your current mailing label or an exact copy to Mail Preference Service, P.O. Box 37870, Boone, IA 50037. You can also visit preferences.hearstmags.com to manage your preferences and opt out of receiving marketing offers by email. Car and Driver assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. None will be returned unless accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. Permissions: Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Back Issues: Back issues are available for purchase in digital format only from your app store of choice. POSTMASTER Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 507.1.5.2); NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES Send address corrections to Car and Driver, P.O. Box 37870, Boone, IA 50037. Printed in the U.S.A.

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CAR 1982 ASTON MARTIN L AGONDA

AND DRIVER HARJEE T S. K AL SI

84

Harjeet S. Kalsi has created an anomaly. Defying the model’s reputation for

horrendous reliability, his 1982 Aston Martin Lagonda runs flawlessly. It has for almost two decades.

As a young boy, Kalsi came across a magazine road test of the Lagonda, and the car wedged in his mind like an earworm. He was 30 years old before he encountered one in person, on a trip to Kuwait. He purchased the next Lagonda he saw—a Series 2 car with bespoke pearlescent paint. When Kalsi bought it, the engine blew clouds of black smoke, desert heat had destroyed the interior, half the instrument panel didn’t work, and the seat electrics were broken. He had it shipped from Kuwait to Canada anyway and drove it home to Surrey, British Columbia, from the local docks. “The seat was stuck all the way forward,” says the six-foot-two Kalsi. “It turned what should have been a dream drive into basically a nightmare.”

Kalsi, an electrical engineer by training, rolled up his sleeves. “I remember having it all torn apart, and I hadn’t found some alien technology,” he says.

“That was the reputation, but the mythical Lagonda was actually just a car.”

Kalsi built an octopus-like device to measure the intake vacuum of the 5.3-liter V-8. He tuned the four Weber carburetors precisely. He repaired the finicky Javelina LED dashboard, replaced the Lagonda’s ridiculous number of relays, and restored the hacked wiring harnesses. He learned leather upholstery to redo the interior and fiberglass repair to save the badly damaged front and rear bumper valances.

He has since used those self-taught skills to restore other cars, including a Citroën CX, a Studebaker Avanti, and a Peugeot 604. He has also expanded into producing hardto-find parts for classic cars and has just finished testing replacements for the Lagonda’s light and horn relays, a weak point he discovered during his restoration two decades ago.

Many people told Kalsi that his Lagonda would never run reliably. But Kalsi is a man of quiet confidence. “I wasn’t afraid of it,” he says. “I figured, if a thing is handmade, then why shouldn’t I be able to do it?” —Brendan McAleer

PHOTOGRAPHY BY EVAAN KHERAJ ~ SEPT EMBER 2021 ~ CAR AND DRIV ER

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STINGER SCORPION. ANY FASTER AND IT WOULD GO INTO ORBIT.

Acceleration that feels like liftoff. That’s the propulsion you feel behind the wheel of the 2022 Kia Stinger Scorpion trimmed with black-7nish alloy rims and a sleek rear spoiler. Plus a 368-hp Twin Turbo V6 that delivers 0–60 in 4.7 seconds.* The Stinger Scorpion — the fastest way to turn your driveway, into a launch pad.

2022 Stinger Scorpion shown with optional features. Some features may vary. *Estimates determined by Kia. Rear-wheel drive and premium gasoline required. Results may vary. Do not attempt to verify results. Drive safely.