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Updates from April, 2012

  • Beijing • On the Eve of Auto China 2012, held this year in Beijing, Volkswagen Group, which includes Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda, used the famed Water Cube to showcase its future wares — the very place Michael Phelps used to turn the swimming world on its ear.

    Why go to such extraordinary lengths? Potential.

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    While the United States and Germany remain strong markets for the VW Group, it is China that leads the way — of the Group’s almost 2.2-million vehicles delivered in the first quarter of 2012, 30% went to China. Here are some of the highlights from Auto China 2012:

    Graeme Fletcher for National Post

    The Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse is powered by a monster 7.9-litre W16 engine that delivers warp-like speed and has a thirst for fuel that’s second to none.

    Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse

    The Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse is powered by a monster 7.9-litre W16 engine that delivers warp-like speed and has a thirst for fuel that’s second to none. With a maximum output of 1,200 horsepower and a mind-numbing 1,106 pound-feet of torque on tap, this open-top speedster runs to 100 kilometres an hour in 2.9 seconds and on to its top speed of 410 km/h! Perhaps more remarkable is that the chassis and race-derived suspension give the Bugatti a claimed lateral acceleration of 1.4 g! Now, lest you think that speed and ultra-high lateral g-forces would ruffle the occupants’ hair, fear not — with the windbreak in place, Bugatti says holding a normal conversation at 200 km/h is still entirely possible. I can hear it now. “Will you slow down or I’m getting out.” “Yes, dear.”

    Porsche Cayenne GTS

    The Cayenne GTS, shown at top, which sits between the S and Turbo models, arrives with a meaner look and a 24-millimetre lower ride height. Along with its beefed up look — the larger air inlets in the front fascia being the biggest giveaway — comes a 4.8-litre V8 engine that pushes 420 hp and 380 lb-ft of torque through an eight-speed manumatic and all four wheels. The net result is a monster truck that runs from rest to 100 km/h in 5.7 seconds and on to a top speed of 261 km/h. Remarkably, the penalty for the extra power and performance is pegged at just 0.2 litres per 100 kilometres more than the base Cayenne S. To ensure the requisite sound emanates from the engine, Porsche has included its twin-flow Sound Symposer system. Essentially, two acoustic channels are linked to the A-pillars. When the driver hammers the gas, flaps in the channels open, giving the occupants an aural treat by amping up the intake noise. Of course, while all of this is going on, flaps in the exhaust are opened to give the GTS a snappy snarl.


    Graeme Fletcher for National Post

    Following on the heels of the debut of the tin-top electric Bug comes the Volkswagen E-Bugster, a sassy-looking convertible that’s powered by an 85-kilowatt electric motor.

    Volkswagen E-Bugster

    Following on the heels of the debut of the tin-top electric Bug comes the E-Bugster, a sassy-looking convertible that’s powered by an 85-kilowatt electric motor. It gets its power from a 28.3-kWh lithium ion battery pack that weighs just 80 kilograms. According to VW, this is enough for a 180-km driving range and a run from rest to 100 km/h in 10.8 seconds. The pie-in-the-sky aspect is the claim that the E-Bugster can be “refuelled” in 35 minutes at a charging station equipped with the right charger. Good luck finding that when you need it.

    Graeme Fletcher for National Post

    China also played host to the world premiere of the Nissan Sylphy.

    Nissan Sylphy

    China also played host to the world premiere of the Nissan Sylphy. Normally, it might slide by as being another of the numerous models that will not be sold in Canada. Well, the Sylphy will become the next-generation Sentra. As with the recently released Altima, the Sylphy/Sentra has been kicked up a notch or two both in terms of its style and content — it is much less entry-level this time around. Up front, a new grille and headlights that are underscored by LEDs accentuate the car’s wider stance, and the side profile of the car shows far more character than the outgoing vehicle. At the back end there are more LEDs in the tail lights. The interior also takes a big step forward, with much less hard plastic and more content, including push-button start and a smart key. A new 1.8L engine that’s married to Nissan’s next-generation Xtronic continuously variable transmission will power the Sylphy/Sentra. While there were no hard numbers released, Nissan says the combination will deliver better performance and fuel economy.

    Volvo V40

    Looking like a four-door version of the V30, the all-new V40 is an upscale hatchback that features an oversized sunroof. The interior is certainly a cut above what one expects, with soft-touch materials, watch-like gauges that present information in three distinct formats, along with two of the most comfortable front seats in the business. There is also decent rear seat legroom and 11.8 cubic feet of cargo space. No word on when or if it will come to Canada but, should it make the transatlantic crossing, it will likely arrive with a 180-hp, four-cylinder engine with direct injection and a turbocharger. The latter ensures that 177 lb-ft of torque is delivered at a low 1,600 rpm. As shown, the V40 was offered with a six-speed manual or six-speed powershift transmissions. In keeping with Volvo’s safety philosophy, it will come with everything from lane keep assist and blind spot monitoring to Volvo’s advanced pedestrian detection system.

    Graeme Fletcher for National Post

    The award for least noteworthy launch goes to Range Rover. It revealed a special edition of its popular Evoque crossover — one designed in conjunction with former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham.

    Miscellaneous

    The award for least noteworthy launch goes to Range Rover. It revealed a special edition of its popular Evoque crossover — one designed in conjunction with former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham. The bespoke finish includes 20-inch wheels, a rich leather interior and rose gold accents dotted throughout the three-door Evoque. According to Gerry McGovern, Land Rover’s director of design, “Victoria herself inspired the use of rose gold. She was wearing dark clothes and a rose gold man’s watch. Apparently, it was the contrast between a slim feminine wrist and a man’s watch that got Land Rover’s mojo going. A grand total of 200 will be available worldwide. Why bother?

    Graeme Fletcher for National Post

    Having shocked the world at the Geneva Motor Show with its take on a luxury SUV, Bentley was usurped as the purveyor of the ugliest vehicle on display in China by the Geely Emgrand GE.

    Having shocked the world at the Geneva Motor Show with its take on a luxury SUV, Bentley was usurped as the purveyor of the ugliest vehicle on display in China by the Geely Emgrand GE. To say it was battered with a really big ugly-stick is being way too polite! The bulbous nose and gigantic big mouth bass-like slatted grille are only eclipsed in the ugly department by the ungainly crest atop the hood. And, trust me, the view from the rear doesn’t get any better.


    2:00 pm on April 23, 2012
     

  • The R-Design takes the stock Volvo S60 T6, which is not a bad-looking car in the first place, and adds to the appeal in all areas. The body kit, which counts a more aggressive nose and a rear diffuser, lends a louder style, while the work beneath the hood ramps up performance. The end result is a car with more purpose and certainly more substance.

    The S60 T6 R-Design is a seriously quick car, and it boils down to the work Polestar, a Swedish racing and performance company, did to the stock motor. Tweaking the engine management system and increasing the turbo’s boost pressure bumps the 3.0-litre’s output to 325 horsepower (up 8%) and 354 pound-feet of torque (up 9%) at 3,000 rpm. This is enough to spirit the S60 to 100 kilometres an hour in 6.1 seconds, while it accomplishes the more important 80-to-120-km/h passing move in four seconds flat.

    Power is put to the pavement through a six-speed manumatic transmission and all four wheels. The transmission, which features Normal, Sport and Manual modes, is a refined unit that slips through its gears seamlessly, yet it kicks down quickly when the throttle is hammered.

    When I tested the mortal S60, I lamented the lack of paddle shifters — in the R-Design, it is a bigger oversight. Given the added alacrity, the ability to drop a cog or two without taking one’s hands off the wheel would be preferable — alas, this is not the case.

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    The all-wheel-drive system is very good at getting the power down, even on a slippery road. Mechanically, the R-Design’s Haldex system operates as a front-driver, with 95% of the power being fed through the front wheels under normal circumstances. However, the car launches with the power being split evenly front to rear. This not only eliminates the need for front wheel slip to initiate all-wheel drive, it does away with any sign of torque steer.

    The seamlessness of the AWD system and the uprated suspension combine to give the R-Design a seriously planted feel. The firmer springs (up 15%) and damping along with a 15-millimetre drop in the ride height brings a balanced car.

    Toss the R-Design into a corner and roll is limited to a couple of degrees and understeer stays at arm’s length. The latter boils down to the torque vectoring that’s built into the all-wheel-drive system.

    While not as sophisticated as a mechanical system (think Acura or Audi), the brake-based system has the desired effect. Slowing the inner wheel(s) tricks the differentials into sending more power to the outer wheels, which physically turns the car in. This reduces the plow factor and the amount of steering that needs to be dialled in. In the end, it allows the S60 T6 R-Design to be driven deeper into the corners, which speaks to its agile feel — remember, this is a large car that tips the scales at 1,775 kilograms.

    One neat feature is the ability to tailor the assist level of the steering. The driver can select from three levels of steering effort — low, medium and high. I preferred the latter; my wife liked the low setting and its pinky-light feel.

    Now, if you’re after a technologically laden car, this is the one for you. The S60’s list of electronic helpers is longer than any of its peers when equipped with the Driver Support package. City Safety, which is standard, looks for low-speed impacts and can stop the car if the driver shows no sign of doing so. You’ll also find blind spot monitoring and adaptive cruise control.

    Thumbs up for these two systems. Ditto the pedestrian detection system with full auto brake. It actively looks for pedestrians using a camera and grille-mounted radar. If it senses a pedestrian and the driver doesn’t react, the system applies the brakes and brings the car to a halt about a half-metre short of the jaywalker.

    THE SPECS

    Type of vehicle All-wheel-drive mid-sized sport sedan
    Engine 3.0L turbocharged in-line six
    Power 325 hp @ 5,400 rpm; 354 lb-ft of torque @ 3,000 rpm
    Transmission Six-speed manumatic
    Brakes Four-wheel disc with ABS
    Tires P235/40R18 (optional winter)
    Price: base /as tested $50,325/$58,775
    Destination charge $1,095
    Transport Canada fuel economy L/100 km 11.3 city, 7.7 hwy.

    The lane departure warning system is plain annoying — it blares out the first three notes of the Lone Ranger ditty whenever the car impinges on a lane marking. I also disliked the fact that it is automatically re-armed whenever the car is started. This mandates turning it off before each and every drive.

    As for the rest if it, the R-Design is first class all the way. The front seats are quite simply the best in the industry, the ice-blue instrumentation is very easy to scan at speed and the centre stack is intuitive. The climate control system revolves around a human-shaped series of buttons. In the back, there is plenty of head- and legroom for two adults — the outboard pews are bucket seat-like, which leaves a pronounced hump between them. Behind that there’s a large 12-cubic-foot trunk that features a low liftover and benefits from split/folding rear seats.

    As an alternative to an Audi A4 or BMW 3 Series, the S60 works, especially the R-Design. It is remarkable how much difference 25 hp and a sorted suspension can make to the manner in which a car drives. The S60 T6 is good; the R-Design is better.


    9:00 am on February 27, 2012
     

  • Detroit • The role of the “concept” show car used to be so simple. Invariably outrageously sculpted, the concept car was intended to wow audiences into an automaker’s display area so they might then be tempted into one of the company’s less striking but eminently more practical production automobiles. Jet cars, motorcycles with car engines, phantasmagorical off-roaders with gun turrets and not even a hint of on-road practicality were all rendered with the same final destination — the museum or the scrap heap.

    Related

    Then Dodge had the audacity to actually produce the Viper, a totally off-the-wall roadster we all assumed was just the musing of another testosterone-fuelled stylist yet to have his, er, cojones chopped off by the realities of the real world. The world of concept cars was forever changed.

    Now there are concepts just for display purposes, still others looking for public acceptance so that their backers will develop the testicular fortitude to produce them and still others that are concept in name only, the only difference between them and what will hit showroom floors in a few months being the location of the badge and the colour of the inlays in their alloy wheels. Hell, this year, Chevrolet even introduced the “virtual” concept car — two whose final styling it plans to palm off on the social media network as some sort of mass-market focus group trial by Internet.

    Nonetheless, the bottom line is that a concept car must thrill show goers, professionals and consumers alike. And at this year’s North American International Auto Show, the car that did that best was the return of Acura’s evergreen NSX. Never mind that it was the worst-kept secret of the entire show — or that it is unlikely that even the wheels will change before the revitalized supercar goes on sale later this year. And pay no mind to the Hybrid badge on its side, Honda making much of the fact that the car’s 3.5-litre V6 is backed up by an electric motor. The reason crowds of normally sanguine autojournalists flocked to Acura’s booth is that the NSX is just so hot — as in Ferrari, Lamborghini and, yes, even Audi R8 hot. If the new one is at all as technically competent as the original, Acura dealers are going to have to start booking appointments to prevent showroom overcrowding.

    Acura had another so-called “concept” on the floor in the form of the ILX, essentially Acura’s newest entry-level sport sedan. Far funkier than Honda’s stillborn Civic, if Acura futzes with the ILX’s styling at all, it would be very silly indeed.

    Another “concept” almost assuredly heading for production, albeit much later (possibly in 2014), is Volvo’s XC60 Plug-In Hybrid. Though the Swedish-cum-Chinese automaker is late to the hybrid game, it is throwing the entire gamut of fuel-conserving technology hardware into the electrified XC60. First, the four-cylinder engine is a small 2.0L turbocharged unit (à la Ford EcoBoost) with a whopping 280 horsepower. It drives the front wheels through an eight-speed transmission for even more miserly fuel economy. A 70-hp electric motor, meanwhile, drives the rear wheels (making the XC an all-wheel-drive, through-the-road hybrid) and combines with the gas motor for a very impressive 350 hp.

    All that horsepower doesn’t mean poor fuel economy, however. Volvo’s PHEV features three driver-selectable modes — Pure, Hybrid and Power — that allow the driver to tailor the XC60’s performance/consumption balance on the fly.

    Pure is an all-electric mode good for 102 MPGe (miles per U.S. gallon gasoline equivalent) and 50 kilometres of range thanks to a 12 kW-h lithium ion battery. Hybrid combines gas and electric motors for minimal consumption, said to be in the range of 4.7 L/100 km. And Power, as the name suggests, combines the full effect of the 280-hp gasoline and 70-hp electric motors to scoot to 100 kilometres an hour in less than six seconds, fuel economy be damned. Volvo may be late to the party, but the XC60 is an impressive first effort.

    Not (yet) scheduled for production — but it probably should be — is Lexus’ fantastic LF-FC roadster concept. A 2+2 coupe worthy of comparisons with BMW’s 650i and even Mercedes’ SL, the LF-FC is daring in a way we haven’t seen in a long time from a Japanese luxury automaker. The “spindle” grille’s lines are exaggerated to good effect, the side sightlines are classic Euro coupe and the rear end features tail lights that look they should be on an F-16. The LF is a hybrid, although Lexus will not detail the powertrain. We are, of course, hoping for big horsepower to accompany its projected parsimony. Inside, there’s more of the connectivity that’s making the rounds of the Detroit auto show, with an iPad-like tablet built into the Lexus’s centre console.

    Less likely for production but no less comely is the Smart-for-us pickup. Of course, North Americans like their pickups writ large, but the Smart topless roadster is just too cute to ignore, even if the bicycles stored in the display model’s rear bed seem to dwarf the micro car. The for-us is also electric powered, with a 73-hp motor said to accelerate the micro car, er, pickup to 100 km/h in approximately five seconds. Don’t go to your local Mercedes dealers asking when you can buy one — there are no plans for production.

    Yet another twist in the concept format was Chevrolet’s introduction of two cars — the Tru 140S and the Code 130R — it hopes to design by consensus. The 140S is a classic coupe, albeit one with a whole bunch more Italian influence than anything we’ve seen out of Detroit in a very long time, while the 130R looks a little like an original M3 that’s been seriously butched up with massive fender flares and a big trunk-mounted rear wing. Both look to be powered by conventional 1.4L turbocharged Ecotec motors. Less conventional is that Chevy is looking to social media input to further solidify design and content. I’m not sure about this “focus-grouping” of the young; had GM asked me the same questions in my youth, the 130R would have ended up with about a bazillion horsepower, no trunk and speakers the size of a house. Be careful what you wish for.

    But, for the ultimate in futuristic design at the Detroit auto show, you have to head to the displays that cultivate the industry’s future automotive stylists, namely design schools such as the College for Creative Studies and the Lawrence Technological University. Both offer coming designers a forum to display their wares for the established automotive world to see. I can tell you that Lincoln, for one, should take some of their futuristic designers very seriously. With youth comes enthusiasm and, Lord knows, Ford’s luxury brand could use some of that.


    2:19 pm on January 13, 2012