By the end of this month, Chrysler will offer EVDO routers (that's for CDMA services Verizon, Sprint and Alltel) for their cars. This for a whopping $499 a pop. And then there's the monthly service fee– which could be as low as $30. Or whatever the major carriers charge (i.e. more like $60 a month). While you can pick up an EVDO computer modem for free at your local cell phone store, when purchasing a new car, a $500 option may not feel expensive. Then again, is Chrysler kidding? It's bad enough when the guy in front of me is trying to pair his Bluetooth headset to the phone while driving. Now he's going to be on G Chat and Facebook? The system might operate only when parked, at which point I'd just go inside whatever Starbucks I'm parked in front of and use their internet for free. Speaking as an incipient lawyer, how Chrysler's in-house counsel signed off on this project, I have no idea.
Posts By: Justin Berkowitz
The Mark V Golf GTI, released in 2006, might be the greatest car ever– better than any Ferrari or Aston. Okay, that’s ridiculous. [Fair disclosure: I own one.] The Mark VI Golf, set to go on sale in Europe early next year and– knowing Volkswagen of America, in 2019 here– will not significantly diverge from the current GTI. The next GTI will keep the current model's turbocharged, FSI four-banger with 2.0-liters of displacement. It will pick-up Audi's variable valve lift. Horsepower rises by a handful of ponies to 211. But torque rockets from 207 ft-lbs to 258 ft-lbs. Fuel economy is likely to stay consistent or even improve. The big concern for VW: will that high torque number count against European rivals offering more horsepower? As all these competitors are front wheel-drivers suffering from serious wrist-wrenching torque steer, maybe VW has the right idea. Which reminds me… the six-pot R32 goes away. In its place, a hotter GTI will feature VW/Audi's 2.0-liter turbo engine boosted to 265 horsepower, routed to all four wheels. Yum.
Consumers living in The Land of Hope and Glory can now buy a right hand-drive (RHD) Cadillac CTS. But will they? In their review of the right-hooker CTS, the generally gentle AutoExpress notes that GM’s European operation hopes to shift 300 examples of the Cadillac CTS per year in the UK. Uh, does that cover the cost of the RHD engineering and tooling? The UK Caddy comes with a choice of a 208 horsepower, 2.8-liter V6, the 3.6 liter direct injection we Yanks enjoy (306 horsepower) and, eventually, a 250 horsepower diesel. The loaded 3.6 liter model goes for £33,000, which is the same as a BMW 335i. While the CTS ostensibly “competes” with the 5-Series in Europe, that’s an uphill battle– even against a BMW 525i (£35,000) or Mercedes E280 (£34,700).
The Jaguar XF was meant to be a clean sheet car for Jaguar – a reboot of the brand, to use filmmaker parlance. With that in mind, Jaguar was planning on ditching the 'Leaper' hood ornament altogether. But old habits die hard, as I observed in my local shopping mall today. Presumably, too many people said to Jaguar "But it's supposed to have a leaper on the hood." They made their bed, and now they can lie in it. It looks horrible and out of place on the XF, which is a sleek and modern car. While cars themselves and many components tend to be phallic, this is just a little too far. Even if the XF's front end is a little bland, you don't want people to immediately know it's a Jag if it's going to look silly like this. But what's most important here is the lesson in listening to customers. Sometimes, manufacturers and dealers need to just say no.
The weak link for Audi (aside from yes, I know already, the reliability of the breakdowns and electrical glitches) has been the lack of a competitive V6 in the US for the past few years. It's not that the 255 bhp 3.2 liter V6 was bad (smooth as dulce de leche in fact), it's that numerically it was at a disadvantage against BMW's 300 horsepower turbocharged I6, Benz's 268 hp V6, and pretty much everybody else in the 300 horsepower neighborhood. At times, in the big A6 with required automatic transmission, the engine just felt like it could use an inhaler. To get back in the hunt, Audi is offering the 3.0 liter supercharged V6 previously announced for the A4. It's rated at 300 horsepower and 310 lb ft of torque – about on par with where Audi's 4.2 liter V8 was just a few years ago. The 3.2 liter V6 will soldier on for A6 models equipped with the suicide-inducing FWD/CVT combination. Move up the range from those two V6 engines and you can pick up the 4.2 liter V8, now offering 350 horsepower (some 30-40 shy of the competition again). And then we move into serious performance territory: The 5.2 liter V10 S6 with 435 horsepower, and the properly bonkers RS6 with a twin turbocharged, dry sump 5.0 liter V10 and 580 horsepower. The rest of the facelift is superficial, mostly limited changing the front and rear lights. This writer quite liked the A6's own taillight styling, more or less carried over from the last generation to the current – but out it goes, in the name of sausage design and engineering. The A6 also picks up LED headlights up front. Still no word on the 3.0 liter V6 diesel. As for the gas engined cars, we'll bring you pricing and fuel economy numbers as soon as they're available.
Thanks to the folks over at Edmunds Inside Line , the embargo is broken and pics are out of the 2009 Acura TL. It's a 28th century wedge of cheese. Acura is really taking their cyborg design theme to the extremes (they call it Keen Edge Dynamic), and while I don't like the general styling, it may look better here on the new TL than it does on the recently debuted Acura TSX. The TL's grill is all ready to plow your snow. That should be a fairly easy job thanks to the optional AWD, included on the higher priced 3.7 liter V6 models. The base 3.5 liter V6 puts out 280 horses through the front wheels only. Both engines route power through a 5-speed automatic: no word if a stick will be available, sorry to friend that like using the left foot. Like in the TSX, the interior on the TL is another Acura buttonfest – an ironic and sad development from the Honda folks that used to build ergonomically pleasant cabins. Since brands without an identity are now trying to sell themselves as the high tech gadget companies (Acura, Lincoln, Ford, Tesla, Nissan), the TL will be loaded up with bluetooth this and alphabet-soup that. Another one bites the dust? How will it stack up against arch rivals like the fellow front wheel drive, automatic only Nissan Maxima? We'll wait to drive it of course, but the TL is off to an ugly start.
Oil lovers, [wait to] start your engines! The BMW 335d won't make it stateside until November. But Camaro-like, that hasn't stopped press releases nor live photos from hitting the webs. The diesel 3's estimated EPA ratings of 23/33 blow the 335i's fuel consumption out of the water. But if BMW is smart, they won't market the 335d as a fuel efficient sedan. All of Paul Neidermeyer's usual diesel critiques apply here: more expensive to buy, more expensive to fuel and not vastly more fuel efficient. Ah but– the 265 horsepower, oil-fed twin-turbo straight six will produce with a tug boat-like 425 ft.-lbs. of torque. That's more twist than the 335i. Hell, that's more than the M3. Other than the fact that the 335d and 335xd (all wheel drive) will be autobox only (don't kvetch – Europeans won't get this car with a manual either), the stump-pulling 335d makes a convincing case for itself as the thinking man's sports sedan. With the 335i starting at $39k, I'd put my random guess on a sticker around $42k.
Pics of the US spec car "in the wild" at E90post.com
Edmunds (who else?) has pricing info on Porsche's Panamera sedan, under the guise "leaked document." If you read Edmunds (or any other car website), you know this already. You know there will be V6, V8, and twin-turbo V8 versions (the latter north of 500 horsepower). You know there will be a hybrid version, and that transmission options will include Porsche's new seven-speed dual clutch automatic. It's the sticker that's the kicker. For the Volkswagen-sourced 300 horsepower 3.6-liter V6 Panamera, we're talking $127k. If true, Porsche has priced the base Panamera straight into instant classic territory. Before you jump in and say "people said the Cayenne wouldn't sell and they made enough money on that porker to buy Lower Saxony," the Cayenne is very, very different. Porsche's so-not-a-sports-car wasn't $50k more expensive than its competition. And when you drop $130k+ on a Porsche sedan, you don't want to get smoked by an Infiniti G37 coupe at stoplights– let alone a 380 horsepower Mercedes S550. I give it an F-. But it's an epic car of legend and history. Thank you, Porsche.
At 4pm Monday, GM pulled the wraps off the new Chevrolet Camaro. I didn't watch the live press conference. No surprise there. Literally. Everything about the car had been leaked in the week leading up to the curtain pull: exterior, interior, engines and transmissions. Other than that, only two numbers held any mystery: price and zero to sixty sprint times. GM only told us the latter. I'm excited, as a car fan. As an armchair CEO…
A few years ago, when my mother was car shopping for entry luxury sedans, I suggested she "just get an Infiniti G35x." I've never been wild about the G – especially when laden with AWD – but it had more power than any competitors at the time, offered the AWD, the all-important luxury badge, and it was the best price in the class. I cannot count the number of time when I've seen in car forums somewhere, a debate or discussion in which the G35 plays the role of spoiler. "Why get a BMW 328i with only 230 horsepower when you could get an Infiniti G35 for the same price with 300+?" Replace BMW 328i with Mercedes C300, or Audi A4, or Lexus IS. That being said, they moved about 5600 G35 and G37s in June, compared to over 9000 BMW 3-Series sold in the US that month. Then again, the BMW 3-Series has a cult following going back 30 years. While the Infiniti G35 wears the legendary Skyline name in Japan, 99.9% of car shopping Americans don't know that. (Ken Watanabe, Japanese movie star and costar in The Last Samurai, is featured in the ad above). The bottom line is: Infiniti figured out how to get to the bargain breaking point. By that, I mean the position at which they offer the best value in the class, but not so much value that their car is no longer desirable.
With the cat out of the bag, the embargo-conformists are no longer keeping the Camaro details quiet. Since TTAC's official policy on embargoes is "No thank you," GM decided not to include us on this one. Now that they are out though, we're happy to oblige. The base Camaro LS V6 is a steel wheel express, but it'll also be the cheapest point of entry, and features the same 300 horsepower direct injection V6 in the Cadillac CTS/STS. For comparison, Ford's V6 makes 210 horses – their upmarket V8 is still only 300 horses. For the Camaro, the uprated V6 car is an LT trim level, and gives huge alloy wheels and more toys inside. The transmission options for the V6, you'll all be happy to hear, are either a six speed automatic or a six speed manual transmission. Clearing up some earlier confusion, the sole V8 version of the Camaro thus far is the SS. With the stick, you get 425 horses, and 400 with the automatic. The block is a version of the 6.2 liter V8 from the Corvette – though dubbed L99 when paired with the automatic in this case. And all automatic transmissions – V6 or V8 – will offer rev-matching downshifts and paddle shifting. What it really means that this should be a stonking good deal if it's anywhere south of $40,000. To bring you to a halt, you get big ol' Brembo brakes, big wheels, and all other manner of kit.
For the past six years or so, I steered clear of SUVs. A car guy bought cars. End of story. And now, suddenly, I want one. Not a cute ute or anything as sensible as a Honda Pilot, mind you (I'd rather ride a Vespa). But an authentic, gas-guzzling off roader: a Land Rover Discovery or whatever the stupid alphanumeric is for it now [LR3]. Or a Jeep Wrangler. I'd even go supervulgar and ride around in a Mercedes G500. Or a Toyota Land Cruiser, FJ Cruiser or Nissan Xterra. If a stick shift is available, even better. Not that I'd actually take my SUV off road. I just like the image. Is that so horrible? Does it really make me a bad person? I certainly hope so.
This week General Motors sent out a note saying that full Camaro details would come out on Monday the 21st of July. So I put the Camaro on the mental backburner. Now, in a series of events that so fits the development of the Camaro, pictures have leaked onto the net. Are they intentionally leaked? Is a bear Catholic? Anyway, putting aside the marketing problems, and gas prices, and GM's problems, and Bob Lutz's talking, and the seemingly endless hype, ladies and gentlemen, we have a new four-seat, rear wheel-drive V6 and V8 pony car. Woohoo! The info that accompanied the pictures over at Cartribe.com is spotty and inconsistent with what we've heard before. They claim engine options are the 3.6-liter V6 with direct injection, good for around 300 horses (that's almost definitely true). But they also claim the V8 is the 6.2-liter LS3 V8 out of the Corvette. In this application it would make some 416 horses they say. Unfortunately, I'm doubting it. As an SS, maybe. My money is on the 360 horse V8 as the base V8 engine. The official specs come Monday. But for now enjoy the pics of a hitherto unannounced RS version. Just like last time (early 1970s), the muscle cars are best right before the market implodes. But to quote Joel Goodsen's father in Risky Business, sometimes you just gotta say "What the heck."
According to an Automotive News Europe report yesterday, Mercedes is set to have an entirely turbocharged automobile lineup by 2010-2011. You might have noticed that while the "big boys" blogged it immediately, we at TTAC did not. The story, which was originally published in Europe based on a European presentation, was just too many steps removed from Dieter Zetsche to race to press – and a little too wild. Rather than pull an Autoblog on the CTS-V/Europe (rush to report, then recant ), we held off until getting confirmation from the author of the original news story, James Franey. Well it turns out that the madness, in this case, is true – until Mercedes changes its mind. In the meantime, the plan is to go all turbocharged, aside from perhaps the hybrid models set to debut in the coming years. You can see in the attached PDF that Daimler is defecating a brick over the upcoming European emissions regulations and their very European fines for noncompliance. Everything will end up with some kind of marketing-lover name – Bluetec, BlueEfficiency, and DiesOtto. The latter is the most exciting from an enthusiast point of view, with the concept DiesOtto engine delivering 238 hp, 294 lb ft of torque, and 40 US MPG from a 1.8 liter gasoline engine in an S-Class. And from Zetsche's presentation, it looks like it'll be happening. Oh yeah, and everything will get turbos, too.
In 2002, my friend Patrick threw a glass ashtray at me in a bar in Boston. “Berzerkowitz!” he barked, celebrating the successful hit right in the middle of my forehead. That’s how he said hi. The next morning, once he sobered up, and my face still hurt like a sonofabitch, we went for a ride in the car he rented for the weekend. “It’s the most generic car I have ever driven,” Pat told me from the driver’s seat of a Hyundai XG350L.
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