January 29, 2016 at 4:59 pm by Clifford Atiyeh | Photography by Michael Simari
Nissan is recalling 846,000 Altima sedans in the U.S. for faulty hood latches. If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is the third (and hopefully final) time this problem has surfaced.
The 2013-2015 Altima has a secondary hood latch—the one you grab after the hood pops open partially—that may not lock the hood in place. Assembly problems with the actuation lever and improper anti-corrosion coating have contributed to the latches binding and rusting. Since dealers may have made haphazard repairs on the second round of 625,000 cars (that involved grease and bending a lever), Nissan wants to replace all of the hood latches just to be safe. The first recall, initiated in September 2014, involved 220,000 cars from 2013.
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You’d be forgiven for thinking that production of the Land Rover Defender ended some time ago. After all, the old-school 4×4 disappeared from the U.S. market in 1997, at which point it was already a relic. And we’ve seen multiple auto-show concepts of its replacement, as the company and its designers wring their hands over how, exactly, to follow up the iconic Landie. There were the obligatory Final Editions, and we did our own ode to the Defender, wherein we drove every generation in one day.
And yet, during all this time, Land Rover’s Solihull factory still was churning out fresh Defenders. Until today, that is. The last Land Rover Defender—in a fittingly age-amorphous pale-green hue—has rolled off the line, accompanied by the kind of pomp and circumstance the British do so well.
We expect this cataclysmic event has thrown the country into a fit of national mourning, given that the Defender is arguably even more British than either Big Ben or that soldier guy you see on gin bottles.
The vehicle has been in continuous production since 1948, with more than 2 million built. Originally known simply as the Land Rover Series I, and then the Series II—it didn’t acquire the Defender name until 1990—the off-roader has been built in numerous iterations: two-door softtop and hardtop, four-door station wagon, pickup truck, fire truck, snow plow, etc. The Land Rover’s reach expanded to the far corners of the world—even as Britain’s worldwide influence receded.
In a sense, then, the sun it setting on yet another aspect of the British Empire. But chin up, old boys. After all, how long can it be before some independent automaker—or even Jaguar Land Rover’s own SVO outfit—starts building “continuation” Defenders? Not long at all, we’d guess. Not long at all.
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Rocked by its diesel-emissions scandal, the VW Group is pivoting on its wheels and rushing to embrace battery-electric technology instead. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when the company attempted to change the conversation by rolling out the BUDD-e electric microvan concept at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. And it’s only slightly less surprising that VW wants to put the BUDD-e, or a vehicle much like it, into production.
Speaking to Britain’s Car magazine, Dr. Volkmar Tanneberger, head of electrical and electronic development at VW, said, “You will see a car that looks a lot like this, on the MEB [modular electric] platform, reach production. I can’t say exactly when, but 2020 or thereabouts.”
“[The] basic idea is to develop a modular toolkit and take this flat-battery idea into serial production, one motor on the front, one motor on the rear,” Tanneberger added. As shown in the BUDD-e concept, the battery pack was a 101-kWh lithium-ion unit claimed to provide a range of 233 miles. It lives under the floor between the axles, which will be standard fare for MEB-based passenger cars and light-commercial vehicles.
The BUDD-e, then, will be only one of many EVs spun off this platform. As for VW billing it as the second coming of the Microbus, we’re not seeing a whole lot of resemblance between the two. And as much as we’d like to see a modern version of that iconic machine, VW’s overarching mission at the moment is to refashion itself as a company that puts EVs—rather than TDIs—front and center, so this little battery-powered microvan will have to do.
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In BMW’s new math, four goes into seven—at least in some cases. BMW is putting a four-cylinder engine in its flagship new 7-series, but it’s not for the U.S. market. Instead, it’s buyers in Turkey who will be able to choose the new 730i (not pictured), with its turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder making 258 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque. Somehow, we’re not so envious.
The 730i costs the equivalent of $210,000 in Turkey. Like many nations outside the U.S., Turkey charges an annual tax based on engine capacity, and so a 4.4-liter V-8 is not in the cards in that country. China, according to BMW Blog, is also on the list for the 730i. A long-wheelbase 730Li (remember, all U.S. 7s are long, even without the L designation) and a 730d, with the 3.0-liter turbodiesel six from the outgoing 740Ld, are also available.
The new 730i is effectively our upcoming 740e only without the plug-in hybrid element, which boosts total output to 321 horsepower. While we’re sure a rear-wheel drive four-cylinder 730i would chop a bit off the 4883-pound curb weight of the 750i xDrive we tested, it’s still a big car with a small engine.
Mercedes-Benz and Audi don’t offer four-cylinder engines in their flagship sedans, but Jaguar does. In India, Turkey, and a few other markets, the XJ comes standard with a 2.0-liter turbo four that makes 240 horsepower. Here in the States, the closest equivalent might be the Cadillac CT6, which comes with a 265-hp 2.0-liter turbo four—along with a more powerful V-6 and a twin-turbo V-6.
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Like many late-20th-century kids reared in the industrial orbit of Detroit, the standard line tossed about by our well-meaning but somewhat uninterested teachers was that “Henry Ford was the father of the gasoline-powered automobile.” They were wrong of course; Ford was far from first, even in the U.S. If our noble educators had removed their rust-belt blinders even for a minute, they would have made the distinction between popularizing the gasoline-powered automobile and actually being credited with creating it. Because when it comes to claiming the title of first, no other single individual has a stronger case than Karl Benz, whose three-wheeled, self-propelled, gasoline-powered “Patent-Motorwagen” vehicle first rolled under its own power in 1885.
Confident he was on to something big, Benz wisely filed for a patent on January 29th of 1886, registering the rig as a “gas-powered vehicle” with the German Imperial Patent Office in Berlin under the number DRP 37435. Although not uncontested (Gottlieb Daimler, the Duryea brothers, George Selden, and countless others were on similar timelines), the Benz patent remains the closest official date for the birth of the modern automobile. And today marks its 130th birthday.
Benz first showed the vehicle, which for obvious reasons earned the name “Patentwagen” or “Patent-Motorwagen” or even simply “patent motor car,” in public on July 3, 1866, when he took it for a spin on the Ringstrasse in Mannheim, Germany. Powered by a rear-mounted 954-cc, one-cylinder four-stroke engine producing less than 1 horsepower, the Patentwagen was capable of cruising at up to 9.9 mph with the engine turning approximately 400 rpm. Constructed of a steel tubular chassis and wooden slats with a chain drive and large spoke wheels, one wonders if Karl Benz realized his design sensibilities would, more than a century later, serve as an embryonic puff of inspiration for a burgeoning steampunk movement.
Although Benz’s short trip around Mannheim may have helped cement the vehicle’s provenance, legend has it that it was an unscheduled excursion by Benz’s wife Bertha in 1888 that established the motor vehicle’s everyday utility. Benz had continued to improve the vehicle, and by 1988 had completed the third revision, logically dubbed the Model III. In August of that same year, Bertha, accompanied by sons Eugene and Richard, gave Benz the slip and embarked on a long-distance (approximately 120-mile) journey the Model III, traveling from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back to visit her mother, in the process proving the motorcar’s practical application in day-to-day life. (Interested parties can trace their travels via the Bertha Benz Memorial Route in Baden-Wurttemberg.)
Eventually, Benz would connect with Gottlieb Daimler—who also had a motorized carriage in 1886, but alas, not the first patent—and the two would go on to raise some serious hell in the automotive world, setting records, pioneering safety advances, and generally making names for themselves in the nascent auto industry. Today, Carl Benz’s patent motor car and Gottlieb Daimler’s motorized carriage make up the first exhibit on view to visitors of the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.
And what became of the original patent filing number DRP 37435? It’s still around, currently in the Untied Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations, “Memory of the World Program,” sharing space with such esteemed documents as the Magna Carta, Gutenberg Bible, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Like my schoolteachers always said, “Save your paperwork–you might need it in the future.”
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Top-secret engineering facilities shouldn’t draw attention to themselves, but Aston Martin’s skunkworks takes covert boringness to a whole new level. As these things tend to be, it’s in a low-rise building, this one located in the small and uninteresting English town of Wellesbourne, seven miles from Aston’s Gaydon HQ.
There are no signs, unsurprisingly, but we soon discover the facility doesn’t seem to even have a name beyond the one given to it by the industrial park it sits on. Chief engineer Fraser Dunn looks unsure when we ask how to describe this elite part of the business. “Unit 20 usually, but don’t say that,” he says. “Officially we’re the Q Advanced Operations division—think of us as Aston’s ‘what if?’ department.”
It’s soon clear that, for all the external dullness, great things happen inside Unit 20. This is where the idea for the Vulcan—the track-only special based around the One-77’s chassis and powertrain—was proposed, and it’s where the 24 cars subsequently ordered (for a cool $2.4 million each) have been built. Before then it was busy making the DB10 cars that were used for the filming of James Bond’s last outing. It’s also where Aston’s future limited-run specials will be designed and constructed, with company boss Andy Palmer having previously told us that the company will be doing two such cars per year.
When we visit, the last Vulcans are being finished off and preparations are being made to ship cars and parts to the first of the ultra-exclusive track days that buyers get as part of their seven-figure investment. This is taking place at Yas Marina in Dubai next week, with boxes of wheels, tires and spare parts ready for dispatch—apparently there will even be an extra car on the ground in case things go really wrong.
The visit is also a chance to get as close to the Vulcan as we ever will, multiple simultaneous lottery wins notwithstanding. It’s an astonishing thing, with a full carbon tub and milled metal suspension components that look like they belong on an LMP1 racer. There are three different power modes to allow owners to build up to the full experience: 550 hp, 675 hp, and then the unfettered 820 hp. Despite that, the 7.0-liter V-12 engine is estimated to be good for 15,500 miles between rebuilds, which for a track-only car is probably pretty much a lifetime. The car is claimed to weigh 2980 pounds and reportedly produces 3080 pounds of aerodynamic downforce at its top speed of 204 mph.
The last two cars in the workshop are finished in white, not because their owners want them like that, but because—although they’ve ordered and paid for them—they haven’t decided which color to have them painted yet. It’s enough to make you feel sorry for the hectic life of the modern billionaire.
This is only a quick visit, but Dunn fires up one of the Vulcans so we can hear an idle noise that Satan might use as his ringtone and see the cone of flames that appears in the side-exit exhausts every time the throttle is blipped. We also get to admire the detachable steering wheel, which looks like an F1 item for the fact it’s been made by the same manufacturer that produces them for most of the Grand Prix grid. It costs $20,000 by itself, although by the standards of the Vulcan that seems like pretty good value; Dunn also shows us a set of badges made from machine-milled carbon fiber which is a £20,000 option—that’s $28,300 (!) at current exchange rates. Apparently three Vulcan buyers have opted for them.
So what else goes on in Unit 20? We’ve noticed a sizable partition that runs along the center of the building, either an extremely well-protected storage area or something even more secret. Our requests to take a look are politely refused, although Dunn refuses to be drawn into revealing precisely what is going on there. “We do other activities on this site,” he says with a smile, “ones that we’re not going to talk about right now.”
His reticence under gentle interrogation is to his credit, but on the way out we see a sign warning that it’s necessary to take another route to enter the Prototype Tub Build Area, which gives the game away. Let’s hope that Dunn, and the 40 other people who work on the site, are kept busy in the years ahead.
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Let’s face it: Folks buying all-wheel-drive, turbocharged hot hatchbacks (and sedans, we aren’t forgetting you, Subaru WRX STI!) aren’t doing so because it’s logical. After all, spending nearly $40,000 on what to most people will appear to be an ordinary compact car could be seen as unhinged, especially considering the far more powerful Ford Mustang GT and Chevrolet Camaro SS cost about the same. Yet those cars are flashy, lack all-weather traction, and have useless back seats. To us, the Golf R and Focus RS are intensely personal car purchases, the perfect everyday performance machines, easily slipping past most everyone else’s radar while delivering oodles of driving satisfaction without compromising practicality. We’ve set up this argument because Ford’s Focus RS online configurator is live, and in our latest fit of How We’d Spec It fantasy car-ordering, we priced out an RS to an almost absurd MSRP. Hold those “What about a Mustang!?” comments and let us explain.
MODEL:
2016 Ford Focus RS (base price: $36,605)
Right off the bat, the Focus RS is $135 more than a four-door Volkswagen Golf R, and despite going without standard leather seating or heated front seats, it one-ups the VW with 19-inch wheels (to the Golf R’s 18s), adaptive HID headlights, Recaro seats, and a 10-speaker Sony audio system. Then there’s the 350-hp Ford’s 58-hp advantage over the Golf R. Other standard equipment shared by both the Ford and the VW includes dual-zone automatic climate control, a six-speed manual transmission, a touch-screen infotainment display, proximity key entry and pushbutton ignition, and a body kit. The Ford’s body kit, of course, is a bit wilder than the Golf’s. With such a rich list of features—and epic performance, as we found out in our first drive—a base Focus RS would make for a plenty-satisfying purchase. Even so, were it our money, we’d spend more; the options list is simply too tempting, and remember, the Focus RS is a personal choice!
OPTIONS:
Stealth Gray paint ($0)
RS winter tire and wheel package ($1995)
19-inch forged aluminum wheels with Michelin Cup 2 track tires ($1990)
RS2 package ($2785)
Tallying up our options, we’ve added $6770 in extras, mostly in wheels and tires. Here’s why: As we’ve noted many times, our office is situated in the great white north, where cold, snow, and misery reign for seven months of every year. The RS’s standard summer tires would not do well in that environment, so we sprung for the RS Winter Tire and Wheel package right away. For $1995, Ford rolls into your payments a set of factory 18-inch RS wheels wrapped in Michelin Alpin PA4 winter tires, no extra trips to the tire store or need to suffer with ugly aftermarket rims. As a bonus, the included wheels feature a silvery finish (the stock rims are dark gray) that should continue to look good even with road grime and salt caked on them.
Next on our shopping list? The RS’s ultra-hot-looking 19-inch forged aluminum wheel option. These come with the stock Michelin Super Sport tires for $1395 or, for another $505, with a set of Michelin Cup 2 tires. Given that those tires retail for nearly $400 a pop, and we’ve already taken care of our bad-weather needs with the winter-tire option, and we’d take the RS to the track were it ours, the full monty was a no-brainer. Hot looks, light weight, and insane grip? Yes, please.
To round out our Focus RS’s daily commuting skills, we also added the $2785 RS2 package, which includes an eight-way power driver’s seat, partial-leather for the Recaro seats, heated door mirrors, heated front seats, a heated steering wheel, and navigation. Finishing off our masterpiece, we passed over the RS’s debut color, Nitrous Blue, for the ultra-stealthy Stealth Gray paint. We’ve seen this hue in person, and gives the Ford a subtle whiff of anger without screaming for attention. With the black wheels and bright blue brake calipers, the gray paint is nearly perfect.
Those keeping score will have already done the math and figured out that our hypothetical Focus RS would sticker for $43,375. We will admit that anything over $40K is strong money for a hatchback, even one with 350 horsepower, and that several arguably better alternatives are less expensive. Play with the Mustang’s order sheet, for example, and one can build a GT with leather, Recaro seats, the GT Performance package, navigation, dual-zone automatic climate control, and more—for $1000 cheaper. A BMW M235i is only slightly more, at $45,145. And we could go on and on. But remember, such arguments, while valid, will not sway the Focus RS or Golf R buyer. And hey, if you’re going to spend $36K on what everyone else will see as an economy car, why not go all the way and spend $43,000 on said hatchback? You’ve only got to answer to yourself.
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