 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour EX-L AWD
by Byron Hurd. Photos courtesy of Honda.
It takes about six seconds to travel from the stop box to the “time writer” official at a NASA Mid-Atlantic autocross (or “NASA-X”). If you’re in it to win it, those six seconds are excruciating. What should really be a short time might as well be an hour-long debriefing. Six. What did I screw up that time? Five.Did that wobbler back at the offset box fall over? Four. Did I tap one in that second slalom? Three. Does Jon Felton hate Miatas? Two.
One.
But this time, I don’t give a damn. I’m not playing for keeps. Brian, this heat’s time writer, is smiling and shaking his head as he leans in to his radio. He writes it on a post-it note and reaches out toward my driver-side window as I roll up. “You are consistent.” He tells me, laughing. I know what that means before I take the slip from him.
Another 67.
That’s a healthy six seconds off what would be my normal pace for a course this size. I normally peak mid-way through my session, and if I’ve settled to a 67.49 on run four, it’s pretty much a given that I’m not going to improve much from here. So why the lack of concern? Simple. Today, I’m not driving a Mazdaspeed3 or an RX-8 or a NA Miata. I’m not even driving our Focus.
I’m driving a 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour. And let me tell you, there’s nothing quite like hanging out the ass end of a 4100lb hatchback-on-stilts.
Continue reading Lord Byron — Over the river and through the cones: The 2010 Honda Accord Crosstour
I don’t care about Toyota. I haven’t for years. I’ve observed their place in the market and even expressed some degree of interest in a very small handful of their offerings over the last decade, but I’ve never really thought much of them one way or another. That may become a somewhat difficult assertion to defend after the next thousand words or so, but take my word for it.
See, many car enthusiasts care a great deal about Toyota. They’re the ones who take every opportunity to tell you how awful their cars are, how dreadfully overrated they are, and how lifeless and soulless and dishwasher-like they are. They tell you how cheap and how poorly-engineered they are. You want a Prius? This guy tells you to get a used Jetta TDI. Your mom wants a nice, reliable Camry? Tell her to get a Volvo! You like the old MR2s? Wise up and get a 944. You want a MkIV Supra turbo? Supercharge an old F-Body for 1/3 of the price.
It’s the same thing, you know, just without all that Japanese suck.
Continue reading Lord Byron — The Good Ship Toyota
Cadillac has been winning the hearts of the S:S:L staff here lately with the fantastic CTS, CTS-V and SRX models they’ve brought to market over the last couple of years. Cadillac is expanding their already great product portfolio for 2010 with the 2011 CTS Coupe which was shown at the LA Auto Show, and this new CTS-V Coupe variant which will debut next week at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show.
While we have seen the CTS-V sedan (and Jack Baruth) in action on the race track, the CTS-V Coupe takes that same pavement shredding performance and packages it in a sexier body. The rear track has been widened by an inch over the sedan, but most everything else is a carryover from the sedan model. Power of course comes from the 556-horsepower supercharged LSA V8, mated to either a six-speed manual or an automatic transmission.
Pricing has not been announced yet, but Cadillac promises the CTS-V Coupe will be showing up at dealers in the early Summer. Look for continued coverage of the 2010 Detroit Auto Show here next week as our crack team hits the grounds of Cobo Hall on Monday January 11th.
It’s no secret that we are big fans of the refreshed Ford Mustang here at Speed:Sport:Life. Nor are we alone: the vast majority of the automotive press has awarded the 2010 Mustang first place in the revitalized ponycar wars. The common theme among many reviewers is that the Mustang’s light weight, manageable size, and obsessive detailing are enough to overlook the relatively uncompetitive engine choices.
For the 2011 model year, those caveats are history. We’ve already shared the details on the variable-valve-timed, 300-plus-horsepower 2011 Mustang V6 with you, and now we are free to tell what has been the worst-kept secret in the industry: the five-liter Mustang is back, and it’s pissed off.
Continue reading 2010 NAIAS Preview: 2011 Ford Mustang GT – The 5.0 is back
BMW has released some preliminary specs on the 2011 BMW 740i and 740Li which will be introduced at the 2010 North American International Auto Show next month in Detroit. The 2011 740i and 740Li mark the return of a six-cylinder 7-series in America which has been missing from the 7-series lineup since the 3.4-liter inline-6 that was found in the 1992 735i. The 740i will be powered by BMW’s twin-turbocharged inline-6 cylinder engine which produces 315-horsepower @ 5800 rpm and 330 lb-ft of torque available from 1600 rpm. Power will be sent to the rear wheels by way of BMW’s 6-speed automatic transmission. The 2011 7-series models will be available for purchase in Spring of 2010.
Audi held the world premiere of the all-new 2011 A8 at Design Miami yesterday, and we’ve put together a massive photo gallery of it for you. While the design of the 2011 A8 is definitely an evolution over the outgoing D3 model, the subtle complexities of the lines on the car make for one very impressive package. While we only have press photos to offer right now, George Achorn from Fourtitude told me not to worry, the car looks much better in person than it does in photos.
The quick and dirty of the new A8 is that like the outgoing model, the D4 platform is built on Audi’s Aluminum Space Frame (ASF) which Audi says is wider and longer than the S-Class, 7-series and Jaguar XJ. Gasoline power comes from an updated 4.2-liter FSI V8 engine which produces 372-horsepower which is mated to a new eight-speed Tiptronic transmission. Audi claims that the new powertrain is 15 percent more efficient than the previous 4.2. For Europe, the A8 will also be available in TDI form at launch, followed by a hybrid model later in the D4 A8’s lifecycle.
Check out the full 2011 Audi A8 photo gallery after the jump, along with the very in-depth Audi USA press release after the jump.
Continue reading 2011 Audi A8 Revealed at Design Miami 2009
For many ponycar fans, the most compelling variant of Chevrolet’s reanimated Camaro isn’t the big-money, nose-heavy SS model. The lighter, more efficient “high-feature” V-6 base car has captured a lot of hearts and minds since being released earlier this year, and although Ford’s revised 2010 Mustang meets or beats the Chevy in many areas, it was severely hampered by its thrashy, understrength four-liter V-6. With this morning’s announcement of a Duratec-powered V-6 2011 Mustang and a track-oriented Performance Package to match, Ford has made it plain that they intend to match the Camaro pony for pony — a stance that we can only hope they back up further with a new high-performance “Coyote” V-8 announcement in weeks to come.
The new 2011 Mustang has 305 horsepower from a thoroughly revised 3.7L Duratec V-6, allowing it to challenge competitors as diverse as the Hyundai Genesis Coupe, Infiniti G37, and the aforementioned “Jodie Foster Special” Camaro. More details, including specs on the long-awaited V-6 Performance Package, after the jump.
Continue reading 2009 LA Auto Show – 2011 Mustang V-6 Performance Package: The Camaro isn’t the only competitor who should worry.
It seems like yesterday, but it was long ago, as the song says. One day in the spring of 1982, my father pulled into the driveway behind the wheel of a new Lincoln Town Car Signature Series. His new Lincoln Town Car Signature Series, purchased to commemorate his ascension to the post of Executive Vice President in a small food brokerage. Let the record show that my father was thirty-seven years old, as I am now. If he was confused and occasionally frustrated by life, as I am now, he never showed it; if he struggled with doubts and fear, as I occasionally do, it was never apparent. He was a respected businessman and stalwart, if not particularly cheerful, presence at church each Sunday. Still, I take comfort in the fact that his Town Car was painted a particularly outrageous shade of sky blue, referred to as “Wedgwood” in the manual but immediately characterized by my automotively diffident mother as “Polock Blue”. Not as outrageous as a bright green Audi S5, perhaps, but neither was this the car of a man who shied away from attention.
His choice of a Town Car surprised me. My grandfather — his father — was a confirmed Cadillac man who piloted a stainless-roofed Eldorado Biarritz from home to country club and back every day. Surely a Sedan de Ville (French, amusingly, for “town car”) would have been a better choice? As always, though, Dad had his finger vaguely on the American pulse. The Town Car was “hot” and the de Ville was “cold”, so he chose the former. And how I loved to ride in that blue-velour interior, surrounded by chromed script and plastic wood, serenaded by the “Premium Sound” system complete with door-mounted subwoofers! And though my father would eventually follow that American pulse away from Lincoln, through a series of BMWs, Jags, Lexuses, and Infinitis, I never forgot this: sliding behind the wheel of a big new Lincoln meant that one had “made it”.
Fast-forward to the present day. I am in full attack mode, bearing down on the tail of an E36 BMW through a series of vicious decreasing-radius turns. He’s pushing hard, breaking the tail loose slightly at every exit. I’m holding the gap from braking zone to apex and closing it from there. A pair of utterly silent turbochargers quicken the cultured twin-cam music filtering into an exceptionally quiet cabin. We have all-wheel-drive and make full use of it, clawing the road at full throttle and ripping the scenery back through the windshield. On a wide sweeper, I see the needle swing well past the triple-digit hash mark, the Bimmer’s license plate swells to myopic visibility, and the chase is finally over. We’re on his tail, will not be shaken. My three passengers relax a bit. They are each reclined in a power-ventilated individual chair, surrounded by figured maple and stitched leather, lit by the sun through a panoramic glass roof and soothed by a studio-quality sound system. We’re in a Lincoln. More pertinently, we’re in a Lincoln station wagon.
Continue reading Avoidable Contact #28: Lincoln and Cadillac, MKT and CTS-V, one last time, to the death.
Mazda NA Ops pres and CEO Jim O’Sullivan confirmed the Mazda2 for the U.S. and Canada during a dealer meeting.
 Mazda2/Demio
MAZDA CONFIRMS THAT MAZDA2 SUBCOMPACT CAR
WILL BE SOLD IN U.S. AND CANADA
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – Mazda North American Operations’ president and CEO, Jim O’Sullivan, confirmed today during a meeting of the company’s top dealers that the MAZDA2 subcompact, or B-Car classification, car will be sold in the U.S. beginning in late 2010. It was previously announced that the car also will be sold in Canada, beginning at about the same time.
“You’ve asked us for it for a while now, and we’ve been studying the market to make sure we can make a business case for it across North America,” O’Sullivan told the assembled dealers. “As consumers’ tastes and attitudes toward small vehicles have changed, we now believe strongly there is a place in our lineup for a car below our current least-expensive car, the MAZDA3. MAZDA2 will be true to everything that makes our cars stand apart from the competition: it will be stylish, fun-to-drive and a heck of a value. In short, it will be Zoom-Zoom.”
No further details were released at the meeting, other than notice that the final North American-specification MAZDA2 will be unveiled to media and the public at the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show. Further information on specifications, content, pricing and on-sale timing will be provided closer to launch.
MAZDA2 has been a sales and media success in markets around the world, winning more than 50 awards and being named Car of the Year in more than 20 separate countries. Additionally, MAZDA2 was named the 2008 World Car of the Year, besting all other new cars around the world.
Celebrating its 40th Anniversary in the United States in 2010, Mazda North American Operations is headquartered in Irvine, Calif. and oversees the sales, marketing, parts and customer service support of Mazda vehicles in the United States, Canada and Mexico through nearly 900 dealers. Operations in Canada are managed by Mazda Canada, Inc., located in Ontario; and in Mexico by Mazda Motor de Mexico in Mexico City.
Mercedes-Benz has released several photos of the upcoming SLS AMG ahead of the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. A full press release has not been issued yet, but the information we do know is that the SLS features 300SL-inspired styling including the signature Gullwing doors. Power will come from a 563-horsepower 6.3-liter V8, and will propel the SLS to 60 in 3.7 seconds and reach terminal velocity at 197 mph.
We’re a bit torn on the styling, but one thing is for sure…the SLS stands out amongst the flood of Lotus Evora look-alikes in the supercar world.
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