This is what the cockpit of the 2009 Infiniti FX50 looks like when you hit the ignition button too lightly for not long enough and then walk away with the key in your hand and lock the door, thinking you've shut down the V8 and left the lights to automatically extinguish themselves. Only to find that you've left the engine still running.
Which I've done in our noisy parking garage.
Twice.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor @ 24,490 miles
The guy I know who owns a gas station admits that he's an idiot. In a misguided attempt to represent what he sells, he put a set of gas station tires on his 1997 Jaguar XK8 convertible. They wear like iron (apparently no one who buys gas station tires ever thinks about braking distances or wet weather traction), but they're so noisy that he can't stand to drive the car for more than 45 minutes. He feels like a fool for cheaping out and saving a few dollars.
The Nissan 370Z gives me the same feeling. Every time the tire roar gets so overwhelming that the radio volume needs to go up to maximum, I think about the Nissan engineers cheaping out on the acoustic insulation for the cabin air extractors. Such a little thing that you'd never think any individual driver would notice and yet a huge cost savings spread over a lifetime of production. Seems like it's worth saving $5, doesn't it? And of course it ends up undercutting the whole driving experience.
A fix has already come down the production line we understand, but it's little compromises like this that always worry me about the long-term effect that the Renault way of doing business will have on the Nissan way of engineering. I don't want a generation of automobiles designed for people who buy their tires at gas stations.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor @ 14,250 miles
So much of the Mini E's psychological charge comes from its Mini-ness that it still rankles me that the Germans have messed up the interior with the second-generation Mini. It's as if they've smudged it with a giant eraser, taking down the colors, finishes and even shapes into the typical tone-on-tone grayness that you see in German rental cars.
Some of the best work in Frank Stephenson's design comes from his appreciation of the way the original Mini had been assembled from lots of little pieces, and he reproduced it all, including the central speedometer, the toggle switches on the center console, and even a stylized representation of a roll cage.
What we have now is the Mini interior dumbed down to graphic elements (and then painted yellow), which is perfect for those who really want this car's speedometer in front of the driver.
Then the Mini would be ever so much like a real car. You know, like a Toyota Yaris.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor @ 2,350 miles
From the start, you'd have to figure that there's no way the Mini E can be any good.
For what seems like a decade, I've been sitting in on meetings where assorted BMW brainiacs would tell me that diesel, diesel, diesel is the key to the clean air future. They said that the electric car is a complicated answer to a local transportation problem, just a circus stunt that pandered to the loonies in the California state legislature.
So there's no way that the Mini E can be any good. It's not like the BMW engineers put much effort into it. This thing is just a bunch of batteries duct-taped to a Mini, about one step removed from entry in the Dodson Middle School Science Fair. BMW is even too cheap or lazy or insincere to conduct a real evaluation with a test fleet, and instead has dropped this mess into the laps of hapless consumers, making them pay for the privilege of being test subjects.
So who would have guessed that the Mini E is the best electric car I've ever driven. And I've driven a lot of them, both serious and stupid.
Continue reading 2009 Mini E: Shocked.
With more than 30,000 miles on the odometer, our Pontiac G8 has led a hard life. The transmission lurches from gear to gear when it's cold and there's an annoying flutter from the back of the car (subframe, body panel?) that registers over stutter bumps. It's as if the car has spent a little time flat-out on the dirt roads of the Australian outback. Or maybe our Josh Jacquot has driven it more than a little.
Continue reading 2008 Pontiac G8 GT: The Anti-Camaro SS.
The 2009 BMW 750i is a great car to drive fast, so responsive and eager even compared to its rivals from Audi and Mercedes-Benz. If you're a big car guy, this is the big car to drive.
But it's a nightmare to pedal to work through commute traffic, so unspeakably bad that it makes even the clunkiest hybrid seem like a paragon of smooth sophistication.
Just as we've said before, the throttle tip-in is a mess, a combination of heavy effort, sluggish engagement and an over-aggressive follow through. If you're in bumper-to-bumper traffic and trying to use light throttle loads, you're always surging forward erratically while the throttle and the transmission try to figure out what's going on. We've all become accustomed to the car acting as if it wants to tag whatever happens to be in front of us.
The brake pedal adds to the confusion, because BMW builds a lot of brake rise in its pad material, so braking effect increases dramatically as the pads warm up. This is what you want if you're making a stop from high speed, because the pads compensate for the inevitable fade from overheating. But it is not what you want while in the commuter-hour accordion at 19 mph (the average speed on Los Angeles freeways during peak traffic congestion).
This is what happens when you can program the way the controls work. If there's money and budget to program for all the variations that you can encounter, things are fine. But if the BMW engineers never made it to Los Angeles or Chicago or New York, then things are very, very bad, because there's no way to allow the human computer to adapt to changing conditions with its own unique control solution.
It's true that the BMW 750i is always thinking. But when you're driving to work, you just want to make it stop.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor @ 16,800 miles
My friend the Kaiser Permanente doc knows a little bit about cars, enough to have a BMW 3 Series and an Audi Q7 3.2 in his garage. So he was more than a little eager to get an introduction to our long-term Honda Insight hybrid.
The big surprise to me is that every little thing about the Insight seemed to be a big surprise to him, as if the car were an example of industrial magic. Who knew that when the car stopped at a light, the engine did, too? Who knew that the instrument panel gave you a little reward for driving efficiently? Who knew that the batteries last more than 100,000 miles (so far, anyway)? Who knew that the rear seats fold down to provide a flat cargo floor?
Continue reading 2010 Honda Insight EX: Simple Electricity.
Yes, the steering wheel of the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS is very much a retro design with its recessed hub. It has aroused a lot of comment because the odd ergonomics of the rim make it hard to hold the wheel comfortably and also compromise the action of the controls mounted on the spokes.
But back when the Camaro was new (and before three-point seat belts had become more than just a wacky bit of safety technology from Volvo), the recessed hub was considered a serious safety feature. You see, a steering column close to your chest proved a very unpleasant thing in a car crash, and a recessed hub not only reduced chest injuries but the rim design also provided a crude form of energy absorbtion.
When safety began to be taken seriously during the 1950s, recessed steering wheel hubs became a useful feature. Even in the front-engine roadsters at the Indy 500 had elaborately padded steering wheel hubs.
So there once was a time when a steering wheel like this served a useful (and very serious) purpose. We'll see how we get along with it over the next year.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor @ 4,025 miles.
So my architect friend from 5+Design is looking at the 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS and saying that the Nissan GT-R is a more successful example of an American-style look.
The Nissan is oversize and a little bit of a mess, just like a big American coupe of the 1970s, as if it had been assembled from a lot of disparate pieces. The result is kind of utilitarian yet appealing, kind of like a Harley Davidson. Even the GT-R's oversize badges are sort of clumsy and overstated, like something provided from a third-rate casting company in Gary, Indiana. And yet the GT-R's design really works for him, he says.
In comparison, he says the Camaro looks so integrated and finished, it might as well be Japanese. It's not the retro thing, but instead the way it looks more like a transformer robot than a car. It's brutal and dramatic, but it's been processed by a sensibility that's more into animation than cars.
Even the glowing angel-eye headlights remind him of something from a Japanese manga, the graphic novels that Japanese subway commuters are so addicted to.
Michael Jordan, Executive Editor @ 3735 miles
I've driven a lot of Camaros and Firebirds over the years.
The first-generation Firebird 400 that Skip Robidart's father had. The small-block Firebird that belonged to the current boyfriend of Lissa, my old high-school girlfriend. The second-gen, black-and-gold, screaming-chicken-rampant Firebird 400 with the Detroit locker and a CB radio antenna on the roof that I drove cross-country from New York City to San Francisco the week that Smokey and the Bandit was released into theaters (couldn't figure out why all the trucks kept waving to me and blowing air horns until I saw the movie some weeks later). GM engineer Fred Schaafsma's third-generation Camaro. The tastefully styled third-generation Firedbird of John Schinella (the guy who ironically designed the screaming chicken graphic, something completely out of character for him). The revised fourth-generation Camaro with structurally adhesive in every crevice that eventually was restyled to look like a butter dish. The Pontiac GTO from Down Under (a great car to drive) that was a Camaro/Firebird in all but name.
The 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS isn't like any of these cars.
Continue reading 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS: Soul of a Sports Car?.
It's been a long time since I've driven a car that gets as much notice as this one. People in line for valet parking. Girls in crosswalks. Kids at lemonade stands.
Audi has become the signature of high-fashion European style. When people see an Audi, they imagine themselves in some kind of wacky fashion photo shoot in Italy. And that's the reason Audi AG commissioned its own series of fashion photos with models Natalia Worner and Robert Seeliger, from which this picture is taken.
When you see an Audi, you think of exotic Europe. When you see a BMW or a Mercedes-Benz, you think of the country club parking lot in Indianapolis. And this is why Audi is winning the design contest and BMW and Mercedes are losing it.
Michael Jordan, Executive Ediutor @ 8,345 miles
Our easy-to-like Jetta hit the 25 grand mark over the weekend while traveling over the 110 freeway. I pulled off into the breakdown lane (as far over as possible) to celebrate by quickly taking a pic.
Sadly, other than me, all the Jetta had for party attendees was the ridiculous amount of debris that littered the breakdown lane. This is not uncommon on LA's collision-riddled freeways. I've got an idea, how about we have some jailbirds take care of that problem? Hey, we could even let Chris Brown do it as part of his community service obligation.
Okay, back to the Jetta...
Continue reading 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI: Happy 25,000 Miles.
So Frank calls me yesterday and tells me that he's thinking about getting a Honda Fit. I ask if he is nuts.
Apparently the expense of commuting back and forth to the Valley in his Dodge Ram pickup is getting a little pricey, and he really admires the practicality of the Fit's interior packaging. You see, he wants to be able to carry an engine block when he has to.
That's because Ed Pink Racing Engines builds the Toyota inline-4 racing engine for USAC midgets, and the last time I was at the shop Frank also showed me a Toyota V8 NASCAR-spec engine, a turbocharged Ford-Cosworth V8 Indy-car engine (27 of them, in fact), a flat-12 for a Ferrari 512BB endurance racer, a V12 for the Jaguar XJR-5 IMSA GTP car, and the straight-8 from the first-ever Duesenberg passenger car of 1920. Hence the whole thing about carrying around engine pieces.
But I tell him that he doesn't want a Honda Fit.
Continue reading 2009 Suzuki SX4: Shop Truck?.
The Honda Insight is a terrific car. Few companies are dedicated to transportation in the way that Honda is. It believes in the liberation of personal mobility, which is a lot more important thing than just snappy styling, lap times at the Nurburgring, or corporate profits. That's why Honda really does cheap cars better than it does expensive ones.
The Honda Insight could easily become one of my favorite cheap cars. It strips the whole hybrid concept down to its bare essentials. It passes by gas stations, it goes down the freeway, it carries a family (whining about headroom for six-footers in the back seat is ridiculous, really), and it looks dramatic. In every way, the Honda Insight seems to represent what Honda does best.
So why doesn't the Insight go down the road better? It's as if hamsters had tuned the ride and handling. Actually that's probably not true, as the Kia Soul goes down the road better than the Insight.
Continue reading 2010 Honda Insight EX: The Hamster Factor.
No sense waiting around for the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races, I figured. You'd just spend the weekend looking at the back of people's legs instead of old historic racing cars. Most of the same machinery always runs the vintage racing event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca the weekend before, an event fondly known as, "The Pre-Historics."
So I pointed the 2009 BMW 135i toward Monterey and looked forward to seeing some interesting cars, notably one of the John Wyer-run Porsche 917s in Gulf Oil colors that raced at the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans and gave Steve McQueen's Le Mans its timeless appeal.
And after I put a couple tanks of gas into the 1 Series over the course of 800 miles or so, I noticed that a lot of us have been choosing the smallest BMW for long-distance travel. Just check the odometer.
No mystery, as this car combines a great driving position, excellent visibility, supple suspension and an engine with a powerband so wide and seamlessly elastic that you never really have to use the gearbox unless you want to.
Continue reading 2008 BMW 135i: Pre-Historic.
2009 BMW M3: Best Car in the World
November 7, 2009 12:12 PM
Saturday Poll: What's Your Favorite IL Long-Term Test Car Ever?
November 7, 2009 8:00 AM
2009 Nissan GT-R: How's it Ride?
November 6, 2009 10:42 PM
2010 Volvo XC60: Our Favorite Caption
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2010 Honda Insight EX: Hybrid System Walkaround
November 6, 2009 12:45 PM