Car Reviews

From the August 1991 issue of Car and Driver.
Jonathan Winters and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf may be the sort of look-alikes you’ll find in Spy magazine’s “Separated at Birth?” section, but we’d like to present a more strikingly similar duo.

Tested: 2003 Nissan 350Z Returns to Its Roots

Tested: 1979 Datsun 280ZX Gets Luxurious

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Consider: the Nissan 300ZX Turbo is powered by a twin-turbocharged and intercooled, 24-valve 3.0-liter V-6 that produces 300 horsepower. The Mitsubishi-engineered Dodge Stealth R/T Turbo is powered by a twin-turbocharged and intercooled, 24-valve 3.0-liter V-6 that produces 300 horsepower. The ZX Turbo comes with anti-lock brakes and four-wheel steering. The Stealth comes with anti-lock brakes and four-wheel steering. The Z sports a two-mode suspension that is controlled by a switch in the cockpit. The Stealth does too. The Z flaunts arresting bodywork and a handsome, luxurious interior—complete with driver-side air bag. Ditto for the Stealth. The Z can top 150 mph with ease. The Stealth? Take a wild guess.
When two cars with such comparable qualifications shoulder into the same market niche, the clock inevitably strikes “High Noon.” Which is why we decided to bring these near-twins together for a little tea party, a C/D-chaperoned showdown.

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DICK KELLEY

Though not even two years old, the 300ZX Turbo is already the established top gun in the sports-coupe class. Since its introduction in late 1989, it’s earned a spot on two straight Ten Best Cars lists and has even beaten the mighty Chevrolet Corvette in a C/D face-off (February 1990). But the new-for-1991 Stealth R/T Turbo (like its mechanical twin, the Mitsubishi 3000GT VR-4) brings to the duel a staggering array of hardware—there’s even a variable-note exhaust system on board. (Incidentally, though the Dodge and the Mitsubishi are essentially the same car, we opted to include the Dodge in this test because, well, everybody seems to respect the name “Stealth” nowadays).

1995 Nissan 300ZX Turbo

Tested: 1990 300ZX Aces Form and Function

1984 Nissan 300ZX Turbo

Our evaluations began with a two-day road drive. We rounded up four editors and once again journeyed south from our Ann Arbor headquarters to the clear country highways and tricky switchbacks of central Ohio. Below Bowling Green, we barreled along barren back roads through Bascom and Brokensword and Bucyrus and Butler, breaking only for a breather and burgers in Bellville. But by and by, as bed beckoned, this bounty of Bs became boring. And so we went to Mansfield. Lucky visitors to this slumbering metropolis near Mid-Ohio racetrack are hereby advised to dine at the creaky Oak Park Tavern, nestled in the woods just down the road a piece. Happily ensconced in the Oak Park’s dimly lit dining room, we each ordered a solid “tuck-in” of beer, bread, soup, salad, steak, hash browns, vegetable, pie, and coffee. That’s one of the rewards of taking a road trip in the Midwest: you get to eat like a serial killer.
Our road drives complete, we returned north to the Chrysler proving grounds in Chelsea, Michigan, for a full battery of instrumented tests. Rounding out our analyses were a series of hot laps around the Chrysler PG’s beautiful new roadcourse—a fast and challenging test circuit commissioned by Chrysler’s foot-to-the-floor president, Robert Lutz.

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DICK KELLEY

Not surprisingly, the final scoring was close. But, as usually happens with duels, the victor was clear. You’ll note that, this being Car and Driver, we’re actually going to reveal which car that is.
Up Close and Personal
Similar as they are, these two ninja coupes aren’t clones. The biggest difference: the 300ZX Turbo is a rear-driver while the Stealth R/T Turbo sports a full-time four-wheel-drive system employing a planetary-gear center differential in-unit with a viscous coupling. The basic torque split is 45/55 front/rear, but when one end begins to lose traction the system can apportion power as needed to the other axle.
There’s a notable size difference between the two coupes, too. The Z rides on a 96.5-inch wheelbase and measures 169.5 inches from nose to tail. It doesn’t look it, but it’s a hefty car, weighing 3570 pounds—about 200 pounds more than a Corvette. The Stealth is even heftier. Mounted on a 97.2-inch wheelbase, it’s about two inches wider and a full eleven inches longer overall than the Z. And it’s more than 250 pounds heavier—the price to be paid for carrying the extra length and four-wheel drive.
Each car has a comfortable and businesslike cockpit, with large analog gauges and handsomely contoured panels. The Stealth’s dashboard, however, drew criticisms for its layout; some of the controls are hard to reach, some are mounted out of sight behind the wheel. And gauge illumination is either too much or not enough: the Stealth’s turn signals are distractingly bright at night, yet its pictograph climate-control display is too dim during the day. More troubling, the Stealth is marginal on headroom. The six-footers on our staff fit inside but complained of an intrusive headliner. Taller drivers had to recline the seat just to get behind the wheel.
The Z’s cockpit, in contrast, is almost flawless. The materials are pleasing. The controls are easy to reach. The seats are supremely comfortable. The driving position is superb. The Z’s headroom isn’t exactly abundant, but there’s noticeably more than in the Stealth. In short, when it comes to modern sports coupes, the Oscar for Best Cockpit in a Leading Role goes to the 300ZX.
Road Runners
When choosing a weapon for long-distance touring, you could pick either of these cars and come out a winner. With their sophisticated suspensions and bounteous power, these machines can suck up the miles at an astonishing rate without breaking a sweat.
Neither car delivers a creamy ride, but in touring mode both offer good control while cushioning road shocks reasonably well. Each car’s sport mode, therefore, seems to exist only to placate “serious” drivers who must have a stiff ride to feel that their car is “handling.” On the road, none of our drivers engaged either car’s sport mode for long—the resulting hard ride did more to jar our bones than to improve handling in any appreciable degree.

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DICK KELLEY

In cruise, the Stealth suffers a bit from its extremely tall gearing. At 80 mph in fifth, the engine is burbling along at just 2850 rpm and can’t immediately catch breath if you prod the throttle. Also, the gearbox itself was a source of some criticism—though light and smooth, the cable-linkage shifter feels loose when moving from gear to gear.
Through the ups and downs and twists and turns of hilly rural Ohio, the Z’s variable-speed power steering proved spectacular—well weighted, accurate, and honest. The Stealth’s steering earned good marks, too, though in slow corners it felt overly light.
You’ll note that the Dodge’s engine edged the Nissan’s in the voting. Close as the two powerplants are, the Stealth’s Mitsubishi-built six feels smoother, livelier, and more responsive. Indeed, it produces more torque than the Z’s engine—307 pound-feet versus 283—and the torque peak occurs lower in the rev range. The Z’s six suffers from a bit more turbo lag and needs to be revved harder for maximum results, but it’s a beast once the boost is up.
Our road drives gave us plenty of time to measure public reaction to the cars’ provocative shapes. To a man, our editors prefer the Z’s clean, uncluttered form, an inspired design penned in Nissan’s California studio. But if the Z is Miss Universe, the Dodge-designed Stealth is Lady Godiva. “Yow! Dude! That’s the baddest ride on the face of this earth!” exclaimed a young University of Michigan scholar as our red test car idled through campus. Clearly, if this is the sort of commotion caused by a “Stealth,” you’d never want to get behind the wheel of a Dodge “Brazen.”

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DICK KELLEY

Potent Testees
A day at the test track proved that these two ninjas are as powerful as they look—fast enough to dispense with anything but the world’s costliest supercars.
Despite the Stealth’s weight (about as much as a BMW 735i), it charges to 60 mph in just 5.2 seconds and trips the quarter-mile lights in 14.0 seconds at 98 mph. That’s even better than the performance we measured with a pre-production car last October; our technical director attributes the progress to a strong production car and a more aggressive launch during testing.
The lighter 300ZX Turbo is even quicker. It reaches 60 mph in just 5.0 seconds and flashes through the quarter-mile in 13.7 seconds at 102 mph. This car proved to be the fastest Z we’ve ever tested.
Both ninjas, incidentally, are quick enough to leave a standard Chevrolet Corvette sucking dust.
These cars have legs, too. The Stealth doesn’t stop accelerating until it hits an aerodynamic wall at 155 mph. The Z, sleeker and shorter-geared, is fitted with an electronic limiter designed to kick in at 155 mph. Our test car cut out early—153 mph—but got there quicker than the Stealth. Without the limiter, the Z would probably climb to 165 mph.
Both cars, fitted with ABS and four vented disc brakes, are capable of spleen-wrenching stops. The Stealth claws to a halt from 70 mph in only 163 feet. The Z needs just five feet more. Awesome. Still, it’s here that each maker has the most work to do. Despite their power, the brakes in both cars suffered from noticeable fade during our brisk road drives. In fact, we noted rotor warpage on the Stealth after only a few minutes of really hard running. Before these ninjas can lay claim to having beaten Porsche at its game, they need to offer brakes commensurate with their speed.
The two cars tied on the skidpad, each hugging the circle with a whopping 0.87 g of grip. The Z, lighter on its feet, won the slalom contest handily, proving amazingly responsive and controllable. Careful readers will note, though, that the Nissan’s speed through the cones was down from that of the Z Turbo that fought in last year’s Corvette comparo. We attribute the change to our new test car’s Goodyear Eagle ZR tires, which delivered predictable breakaway at the limit but didn’t feel as grippy as the last tester’s Michelin MXX’s.
Beat the Clock
As evidence of how well matched these cars are, they turned in identical lap times at the new Chrysler racetrack. How each car went about its business, though, was telling.

DICK KELLEY

Running full bore, the Z felt supremely composed and responsive. The steering was superb, allowing surgically precise turns and transmitting plenty of information from the front tires. The chassis followed inputs from the helm without a ruffle. The drivetrain never stuttered. After being put through five hard laps, only the brakes showed signs of fatigue.
The Z displayed mild understeer in most corners, but we found we could break the rear end loose with power or a sudden move off the throttle. The breakaway was always easy to control, too. The 300ZX Turbo is a terrific track car.
The Stealth achieved the same result with less grace and more sheer guts. Its brakes suffered on the track, but more troubling was its steering, which in some corners felt disconcertingly disconnected from the front wheels. The Stealth never made any untoward moves, mind you, but the precision found in the Z was noticeably absent. We suspect the problem may have something to do with the manner in which the four-wheel-drive system apportions torque as the load shifts from front to rear and back again.
Where the Stealth shined was in the track’s quick esses. Transmitting its power through all four wheels, the Stealth simply exploded from corner to corner on the series of short straights. And its stability allowed us to brake deep into turns without worrying about the tail
The Envelope, Please
And the winner is . . . the Nissan 300ZX Turbo, taking eight of twelve categories and tying in three.

DICK KELLEY

The Dodge Stealth R/T Turbo is a most worthy challenger—fast, versatile, and stunning to look at. Its polish and sophistication are somewhat less than the Z’s, but at a base price of $29,595 the Stealth is an undeniable value. Its showing at the test track speaks for itself.
At $35,357, the 300ZX Turbo lists for almost $6000 more than the Stealth, but its strengths make it a fair buy. Such performance, refinement, and poise simply cannot be had anywhere else at anything near the price. Indeed, to find another sports coupe with as fine a brew of civility and speed, you’d have to move all the way up to the $62,000 Acura NSX.
You could do that, but only if you were “Loaded at Birth.”
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Internally, Volkswagen calls them GTX models. There’s the GTI, the turbo-diesel GTD, and the plug-in hybrid that Europe dubbed the GTE with the Audi A3 e-tron’s hybrid powertrain. Now VW is launching the eighth-generation Golf, and the new GTE version makes a GTI-matching 242 horsepower. In Germany, it costs 4000 euros (about $4,800) more than a GTI. We’ve driven both cars now and are ready to answer whether the GTE is worth the extra money.

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The GTE comes with a turbocharged 1.4-liter four-cylinder good for 148 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque paired, which is paired with an electric motor that can add 107 horses and 243 pound-feet. The hybrid powertrain sends its power to the front wheels through a six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. The powertrain is largely carried over from the previous GTE, although it is electronically tweaked to produce 242 horsepower instead of the previous 204. Should you be feeling nostalgic for the old GTE, a 204-hp version called the e-Hybrid is available, but you don’t get the GTI looks.

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Volkswagen

City dwellers may find that the plug-in hybrid powertrain has its merits. It’s possible to drive up to around 40 miles on an electric charge, although such a distance requires an extremely light foot. In the European cycle, the GTE is rated at 138.4 mpg due to its ability to run the test in EV mode. The electric motor also offers lightning-quick throttle response. By comparison, a GTI needs a blink of an eye for the turbo to wake up and provide meaningful boost. But what happens with the GTE after the initial accelerator response is less impressive.
VW claims the sprint from zero to 62 mph takes 6.7 seconds, a mere 0.5 second more than the GTI. In our last test of the 204-hp powertrain, the heavier 2016 A3 e-tron Sportback hit 60 mph in 6.5 seconds. Beyond 60 mph, the gap begins to widen. The GTE very noticeably loses steam in the 60-to-90-mph range, and finding the 140-mph top speed requires patience and a long stretch of road. The GTI, by contrast, hustles its way relentlessly up to a governed 155 mph. Blame the weight of the GTE’s motor and battery; they add a claimed 361 pounds to the roughly 3200-pound GTI.
On curvy roads, the heft of the plug-in hybrid system (which also eats into cargo space) is obvious. Compared to the GTI, the GTE rolls more, has a lazier turn-in, and the car just feels softer. Brake feel is good for a hybrid but mediocre when compared to the GTI. The GTE doesn’t blow us away in a straight line, nor does it impress in corners. There are many reasons to go for a plug-in hybrid—subsidies, tax incentives, a perception of environmental friendliness—but there will be a trade-off in vehicle dynamics, as (not just) the Golf GTE amply illustrates.

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Volkswagen

Inside, the Golf GTE is dressed like the GTI: same fantastic seats, generous space, and the futuristic dashboard that graces every new-gen Golf. Sadly, there are still teething problems with the user interface. In two of the three Golfs we drove at the hybrid event, we couldn’t get the navigation to work, and one of them couldn’t execute all of the heating and cooling options. When it works, it is a good system, and we are confident VW will iron out the proverbial wrinkles by the time the GTI comes to the United States in late 2021.
Barring any massive regulatory changes or a big spike in oil prices, the GTE won’t be making it stateside. Volkswagen is keeping the Golf lineup in the U.S. to the GTI and the Golf R. Considering its mediocre handling, we are not surprised that Audi has opted to keep its new A3 e-tron away from the States as well. We’d be more excited about a new GTD, but diesel and Volkswagen aren’t going together for the foreseeable future.

Specifications

Specifications
2021 Volkswagen Golf GTE
VEHICLE TYPE front-engine, front-motor, front-wheel-drive, 4-passenger, 4-door hatchback
BASE PRICE (GERMANY) $49,770
POWERTRAIN turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 1.4-liter inline-4, 148 hp, 184 lb-ft; permanent-magnet synchronous AC motor, 107 hp, 243 lb-ft; combined output, 242 hp, 295 lb-ft; 13.0-kWh lithium-ion battery pack
TRANSMISSION 6-speed dual-clutch automatic
DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 103.5 inLength: 168.8 inWidth: 70.4 inHeight: 58.4 inCurb weight (C/D est): 3500 lb
PERFORMANCE (C/D EST) 60 mph: 6.4 sec1/4 mile: 15.0 secTop speed: 140 mph
EPA FUEL ECONOMY (C/D EST) Combined/city/highway: 36/34/39 mpgCombined gasoline+electricity: 83 MPGeEV range: 35 miles

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From the March 1982 issue of Car and Driver.
New Blue trails respectfully as the short chute spirals up and over, feeding into Willow Spring’s twisty-turny roller coaster. Old Red has amassed a commanding lead by tiptoeing around a couple of sweepers and rocketing down the straightaways in bursts of close-rationed, ram-inducted, fuel-injected frenzy. Its keening climb to the redline is an orchestra of solid-lifter clatter, half-civilized exhaust bark, and the vigorous snorting of air through one hungry venturi. New Blue’s battle cry is a less threatening induction moan, the edge knocked off its exhaust note by the catalytic converter crammed between its dual pipes.

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Even though the new Chevy Corvette speaks more softly, it soon proves that it’s hauling the bigger stick. New Blue bites ten yards out of its disadvantage on hard braking, then closes in several feet more as the pairs arcs into the left-hand entry to the uphill ess-section. Old Red stumbles momentarily over the brow, where an elevation change unloads its chassis, while New Blue oversteers adroitly into contention. The pair of Corvettes rushes down to a right-left combination, where New Blue capitalizes on its superior stability to nip by on the inside, as Old red takes a pause to collect itself. Blue seizes the perfect late-apex line through the left-hander and its turbo Hydra-matic snaps a two-three upshift to keep engine rpm in an effective range down the long back straightaway. The new Corvette reaches a stride that will eventually run up a five-second-a-lap advantage over Old Red.
It’s the eve of the Corvette’s 30th birthday and the car world needs to know: Can the Corvette be trusted any longer? Is it still a sports car, or has Chevrolet’s power-assist program massaged this machine into some sort of two-seat Monte Carlo? Is it roadworthy, or just a personal preenmobile?

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George LippCar and Driver

In less than a year, the Corvette will turn 30, shedding its 20-year old chassis and 15-year old body like a lobster in molting season. What better time for a blast to the past to measure progress to date in hopes of seeing where the 1983 Corvette could and should be going?
We’ve picked two plastic Chevys to run through our full road-course, race-course, test-track wringer before we draw any conclusions: a stunning 1962 fuel-injected roadster from yesteryear and a hot-off-the-assembly-line 1982 T-top coupe to stand up for today’s state of the Corvette art.
A 1962 model is apropos to this exercise because it’s similar to the ’82 in a surprising number of ways. Each is a last-of-its-kind Corvette, from the final year of production before a major redesign. Each is powered by a fuel-injected, small-block V-8. And in each case you’re talking $20,000 to own one of these gems, whether it’s a pristine ’62 or a fully decked ’82.

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George LippCar and Driver

A paltry total of 14,531 Corvettes were manufactured during the whole 1962 model year, so it’s not hard to understand why major redesigns were (and still are) few and far between. The ’62 chassis was essentially the same X-reinforced ladder frame that Chevrolet’s directory of research and development, Maurice Olley, had sketched in the spring of 1952. The original Blue Flame six-cylinder engine was long gone, and a manual transmission had been added, but the 1962 Corvette still suffered through life with crudities shared with the ’52 Chevys: slow, heavy steering and an archaic kingpin-type (no ball joints) front suspension.
There were few complainers back then because the ’62 Corvette had so much to offer in compensations. The stylists had their act together with the bodywork, having given up on most of the chromium furbelows tacked here and there on earlier Corvettes. A lovely aluminum-cased four-speed transmission was in place with a choice of closely or widely spaced ratios. And every 1962 Corvette was a roadster, pure and simple, with a soft top that could be locked from sight to reveal the sun and stars in all their glory. The whole Western world waned to sell the farm and ramble down Route 66 in one of these machines.

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George LippCar and Driver

Early Corvettes were most revered for their engines. Big-blocks, of course, came later, and in retrospect they seem superfluous. The 327-cubic-inch displacement was new for the small-block in 1962, and a few bucks in the right place paid off handsomely in optional horsepower. There were two hydraulic-lifter four-barrel engines producing 250 and 300 horsepower (SAE gross). Or, if you were up for the fuss of solid lifters, you could specify a hotter 340-hp mighty-mite crowned with Rochester fuel injection. Delicious stuff, then and now.
The ’62 in this test is owned by Jim Mederer (a founding father of Racing Beat, the rotary-engine tuning firm) of Anaheim, California. As luck would have it, his car was a fuelie from the factory. Even though the chassis has racked up well over 100,000 miles in its time, Mederer has been through every bushing and ball bearing in a top-to-bottom restoration. You purists will of course spot the liberties taken. The original generator is now an alternator, Mederer has added an oil cooler, modern Sears radial tires have replaced original 6.70-by-15.0-inch bias-ply rubber, and ignition-wire shielding is missing in action. The intention was not to build a 100-point concoursmobile, but rather to rejuvenate a strong performer so that it could be enjoyed on a daily basis. Once our powers of persuasion were brought to bear on Mary Lou Mederer (Jim’s mother, who uses Old Red on her work commute), we were off to the races with this fine early-sports-car specimen.

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George LippCar and Driver

To shore up the modern half of the bargain, we borrowed one of the first-built 1982 Corvettes from Chevrolet engineering. Freedom of choice is not part of the plan this year, so you either take the 5.7-liter (350 cubic inches) small-block, fed by dual throttle-body fuel injection (TBI) and fitted to GM’s 700-4R turbo Hydra-matic, or wait for something better to come along next year.
TBI is the last attempt to inject life into America’s oldest car line. Now that we’ve seen new and old ways to build fuel injection in the same comparison test, we’re convinced that Chevrolet (and the other GM divisions) should take a break from “progress” and examine its own 25-year-old system. The ’62 Corvette has a torque curve as flat as the horizon in no small part because of the combination of low restriction and long ram tubes offered by the “Ramjet” injection. Across the 2000-to-6000-rpm effective power band, torque never drops more than 20 pound-feet.
This Rochester plumbing is in many ways similar to Bosch’s K-Jetronic continuous-flow system. It was doubtless expensive to build, but the advantages in cylinder-to-cylinder distribution and ram tuning for enhanced torque are simply too great to pass up. TBI is a great alternative to a carburetor, particularly on GM’s 2.5-liter four-cylinder, where it even affords a cost saving, but it’s clearly not what you’d call high-performance hardware.

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George LippCar and Driver

TBI does pump up both horsepower and torque for ’82, but speediness is off a bit with the new four-speed turbo Hydra-matic. Even so, once the sorrow of having no clutch pedal to play with has passed, the new Corvette can actually be entertaining. You may manually lock the transmission in second or third if you like, and the fact that the torque converter will lock up in second, third, or fourth makes it feel as though you’re managing a seven-speed at times. There is plenty of torque multiplication off the mark (much more than with the close-ratio-manual-transmissioned ’62), and fourth is so tall that you roll down the road at the legal limit with the tachometer reading an unbelievable 1400 rpm. This has nudged EPA highway fuel economy up by 5 mpg this year, at least enough to give the Corvette one more reprieve from the insidious gas-guzzler tax. (In case you were wondering, it was that tariff from our now moribund Department of Energy that scotched stick-shift Corvettes for 1982. Thankfully, they’ll be back next year. The DOE we’re not sure about.)

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George LippCar and Driver

In some ways, the four-speed automatic is an aid to handling. On the tight and twisty sections of the Ortega Highway and Willow Springs, we locked the lever in second. Third works fine for the straightaways and high-speed sweepers. Since there’s so little shifting to be done, you can brace your left foot solidly against the floorpan and keep both hands on the wheel to make best use of the Corvette’s 0.82-g adhesion and excellent overall balance. The steering still feels disconnected at times—during an initial dive-in toward the apex, or running straight over low-frequency-sine-wave pavement at high speeds—but this is the last impractical-to-remove foible in a 19-year-old chassis. The natural tendency is to steer, then correct when the car points ten feet off the mark you were aiming for. A far smoother approach is to ride through that queasy off-center instant and let the tires take a bite into the pavement before you dial in a course correction.
This occasional lapse of linearity is a trivial fault compared with the nasty kinks baked into the 1962 Corvette. It will go straight if the road is flat and true. With a little muscle on the big steering wheel, it will corner on a smooth skidpad to an impressive 0.77 g. And it’s better in braking than plenty of new cars on the road today. Combinations of the above, however, invariably tripped up the ’62 Corvette in this test, making it a nasty beast to drive anywhere near its limit. Old Red was so cantankerous over the high-speed wavies that co-driver Csaba Csere blanched every time he saw one of the Ortega Highway’s steep precipices lurching into sharp focus. Changing throttle position and steering lock at the same time was a definite no-no at Willow Springs. And if any attempt was made to mix late braking with the turn-in maneuver, it was strictly all-hands-on-deck time. Either you’re ready and waiting to windlass in handfuls of opposite lock, or the woolly rear axle is likely to wiggle you toward a whole new perspective on life.

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George LippCar and Driver

Old Red’s steering was slow, heavy, and insensitive, while its chassis featured several Bermuda Triangle zones that had to be avoided at all costs. This is what separated the men from the boys back when cars weren’t so refined. If you could tune in on the Corvette’s idiosyncrasies and use them to advantage, you were a racer, or at least a very fast driver. If you couldn’t, you ordered 4.56 gears and made your point peeling out from the Dairi-Freeze.
These days, anybody can drive a Corvette flat out. Even through the TBI V-8 and turbo Hydra-matic powertrain will pull you to a higher terminal speed than we registered at Old Red’s redline, it takes so long to get there, you’ll need Nebraska. The handling and braking offer more security than the good hands of Allstate. You can drive out of almost any misfortune you’re likely to stumble into just by keeping paws at nine and three and steering away from the more massive fixed objects. If you’re talented enough to keep pavement under the flat Goodyear tires, the whole U.S. is Road America and you’re qualified just a few rows back from the pole.

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George LippCar and Driver

The answer to the riddle that set this adventure rolling is, yes. The 1982 Corvette is still a sports car. The Flash Gordon fenders are a bore, the curb weight needs a 10-percent chop, and a five-speed transmission would be a joy, but we’ve got to hand it to the old girl: New Blue could inhale pavement when its pedal was pushed.
And we found Old Red more fun than a high-school class reunion. It’s not every day we get to work with a 6300-rpm redline and launch ourselves to 60 in six seconds. Car-nut heaven had better be stocked with machinery like this, or we’ve all been wasting our time being good. What more could you ask for than a chestful of that big “competition-type” steering wheel, a handful of close-ratio shifter, and the solid-lifter serenade rattling in your eardrums?

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George LippCar and Driver

David E. Davis, Jr., summed up the experience twenty years ago when he wrote, “Some guys have it tough.” Little did he know how well those words would also fit the engineers at Chevy today, as they toil away on 1983’s edition of the legend.
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Andi HedrickCar and Driver

The ophthalmologist’s assistant, masked for COVID-19 protection, handed my repaired glasses through the driver’s-side window of the Kia Forte GT and stepped back to take in the white compact sedan. “I’m looking to buy a new car, something sporty,” she said, shaking her head in approval. “What is this?”

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It’s easy to see why it took her but one glance to pick up on the Forte GT’s vibe. With its blacked-out trim and aggressive front end, low-profile Michelin Pilot Sport 4 summer tires wrapped around racy 18-inch alloy wheels, and subtle rear deck spoiler that looks borrowed from a BMW M2, the GT comes across as purposeful and, yes, sporty. The GT’s appearance does not bring to mind a SpaceX rocket or an IMSA race car. Rather, it’s a more conservative, classic look, one that you’ll find on two other well-known, front-wheel-drive sports sedans: the Honda Civic Si and Volkswagen Jetta GLI—which are, in fact, the Forte GT’s direct competitors.

HIGHS: Sports-sedan looks, well-appointed and equipped, a strong value.

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Andi HedrickCar and Driver

The GT was added to the Forte lineup for the 2020 model year. Fitted with the same 201-hp turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine found in many Hyundai and Kia products, plus a six-speed manual transmission and a firmer suspension, the Forte GT’s spec sheet lines up well against the 205-hp Honda and the 228-hp VW. Kia even went to the trouble of swapping the Forte’s standard torsion-beam rear axle for a more sophisticated multilink setup to improve the GT’s handling. We’ll soon toss it into a face-off against the GLI and Si in a comparison test to see how well these changes work.
It will enter that competition with at least one great strength: value. The GT is similarly equipped to both the Honda and VW, but its base price undercuts the former by $1580 and the latter by $2615. You do have to pony up an extra $200 for our test car’s 225/40R-18 Michelin Pilot Sport 4s—summer rubber is also $200 on the Si but included at no cost on the GLI—but the rest of the GT’s gear is standard.

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Andi HedrickCar and Driver

The treatment starts with an interior that’s dressed in more soft surfaces and less hard plastic than you’d expect in a hot-rodded economy sedan. The front buckets are good looking, deeply pocketed, and covered in grippy fabric and leatherette. The steering wheel is an appropriately sporty, leather-covered flat-bottom design. An analog tach and speedo housed in round white-on-black gauges stare back at you. Above your head is a power moonroof, and the premium audio system is from Harman/Kardon. Our example did have one other option, Snow White Pearl paint ($295), plus a few accessory add-ons such as a cargo mat and net and wheel locks but still came in at just $25,090. If you’d prefer your GT with a paddle-shifted seven-speed dual-clutch automatic, it’ll reduce the bottom line by $600.

LOWS: Fun ebbs as speed climbs, reedy engine sound at higher revs, looks promise more than the chassis and powertrain can deliver.

Our initial impression of the GT is that it delivers much of the sportiness that its looks promise—to a point. Its test-track results overlap that of its main competition, with a zero-to-60-mph time of 6.7 seconds, skidpad grip of 0.93 g, and a 157-foot stop from 70 mph. That’s enough to keep this Kia interesting in most daily driving situations. And although we averaged a reasonable 27 mpg in our regular, spirited driving cycle, the GT’s 37-mpg return on our 75-mph highway fuel-economy test is a whopping 5 mpg better than its EPA estimate.

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Andi HedrickCar and Driver

But fun behind the wheel is about more than just numbers. It’s about the feel and confidence that the car imparts through its primary controls, the sounds that its engine makes, and the connection between the driver’s inputs and the car’s responses. Driven briskly, the GT feels lively and athletic. The clutch pedal is light and easy to modulate, and the shifter moves through its gates with little effort. The GT’s steering is accurate, its brakes reasonably responsive, and its ride motions clipped but not overly harsh. Through the first half of the tachometer’s sweep, the exhaust snarls distantly.
Press the Forte GT hard, though, and its composure unravels. Steering feel evaporates. Storming out of tight second-gear bends demands a delicate touch on the throttle lest the inside front tire spins and howls futilely. Slashing around an off-ramp brings subtle interference from the stability-control system even if you’ve turned it off. The chassis loses the crisp edge and taut body control it has in less-aggressive driving. The exhaust’s pleasant snort morphs into a generic four-cylinder thrum as the 1.6-liter’s revs climb above 4500 rpm.

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Andi HedrickCar and Driver

This is the low-percentage end of the driving spectrum to be sure, but the best cars in this segment happily hang out there. They have the chops to stay collected, confident, and playful right up to the point where the grip runs out and the tach needle hits the red zone. The Forte GT is almost there but not quite.
Which is not to say the Forte GT fails as a compact sports sedan. It looks the part, has adequate room inside, and is engaging to drive. Factor in an impressive roster of standard equipment that helps make it a terrific value, and it’s got a lot to offer buyers searching for a sporty economy car. It’s just not quite talented enough to win us over.

Specifications

Specifications
2020 Kia Forte GT
VEHICLE TYPE front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door sedan
PRICE AS TESTED $25,090 (base price: $24,055)
ENGINE TYPE turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve inline-4, aluminum block and head, direct fuel injectionDisplacement 97 in3, 1591 cm3Power 201 hp @ 6000 rpmTorque 195 lb-ft @ 1500 rpm
TRANSMISSION 6-speed manual
CHASSIS Suspension (F/R): struts/multilinkBrakes (F/R): 12.0-in vented disc/10.3-in discTires: : Michelin Pilot Sport 4, 225/40R-18 (92Y)
DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 106.3 inLength: 182.7 inWidth: 70.9 inHeight: 56.5 inPassenger volume: 96 ft3Trunk volume: 15 ft3Curb weight: 3019 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS 60 mph: 6.7 sec100 mph: 16.2 sec120 mph: 25.9 secRolling start, 5–60 mph: 7.2 secTop gear, 30–50 mph: 7.7 secTop gear, 50–70 mph: 6.9 sec1/4 mile: 15.0 sec @ 96 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 157 ftBraking, 100–0 mph: 324 ftRoadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.93 gStanding-start accel times omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.
C/D FUEL ECONOMY Observed: 27 mpg75-mph highway driving: 37 mpgHighway range: 510 miles
EPA FUEL ECONOMY Combined/city/highway: 28/25/32 mpg

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Recent rains have changed the trail. Runoff from the nearby peaks combined with gusty winds have increased the severity of the terrain since the last time we drove a truck through here. The ruts are larger, the sandy sections are deeper, and new rocks, some the size of beanbag chairs, have found their way into our path. As Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” and the Mojave Desert just landed an uppercut.
If we were driving a standard-issue 2020 Ford Ranger with the FX4 off-road package, we’d undoubtedly spit some blood on the canvas and grow a set of wings. But this Ranger is fitted with the Level 3 Off-Road package, which not only increases its ground clearance but adds power, a set of 32-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2 tires, and a front-end battering ram, which Ford prefers to call a powder-coated steel front bumper. Until Ford decides to sell the Ranger Raptor in the United States and really take on the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2, Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, and Jeep Gladiator Mojave, this is as off-road capable as its mid-size Ford pickup gets.

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Jessica Lynn WalkerCar and Driver

Dirty Looks: Ranger Level 1 Off-Road Package

Ford Ranger Gets Badass Off-Road Packages

This is a sequel of sorts. A few weeks ago, we reviewed the 2020 Ford Ranger Level 1, which is available now, along with the also cleverly named Level 2 Off Road package. Ford says the Level 3 package will be available next summer and will include everything you get in the Level 1 and 2 packages (essentially, the lift and extra power) plus a winch-capable bumper supplied by ARB, a Ford Performance chase rack that bolts to the top of the bed, a Rigid 40-inch LED lightbar, and a Ford Performance exhaust. The additional hardware not only adds function but also greatly increases the pickup’s intimidation factor. Sedan drivers skedaddle like frightened children when this Ranger fills their mirrors.
All three packages include suspension hardware that lifts the Ranger’s front end by about two inches, leveling off its stance and increasing ground clearance. New stiffer-than-FX4 front springs are paired with Fox Racing dampers. But don’t confuse these 2.0-inch monotube dampers with the beefier units fitted to the F-150 Raptor, Ranger Raptor, Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, or the Jeep Gladiator Mojave. Those 2.5-inchers feature an internal bypass and remote reservoirs for even more control. Level 2 and 3 Rangers also include a butch set of dark-gray wheels shod with knobby BFGs that measure 265/70R-17. Up front, ground clearance improves to 11.8 inches, and rear clearance climbs from 8.9 inches to 9.8.

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Jessica Lynn WalkerCar and Driver

Mark Wilson, Ford’s vehicle personalization manager, is quick to point out that the shock tuning is the work of Ford Performance, not Fox. It isn’t exactly their best work. The ride is firm on the highway and over most trails, and the rear suspension, which retains its factory leaf springs, kicks you up out of the seat. Big shots and landings are handled well, but it doesn’t soak up the terrain as much as beat it into submission, bludgeoning you and your passengers along the way. Basically, it’s bouncy and doesn’t deliver the supple ride of a Raptor.
You can pound your way through high-speed fire roads at a respectable 30-35 mph, but the Ranger’s aging chassis and cab structure, which date to 2011, quiver like they’ve been put in a paint shaker. Over rough, whooped-up sections, your pace is limited to just 10 mph as the front end pogos violently. Any faster and you risk damage as it begins to crash down on its bump stops.

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Jessica Lynn WalkerCar and Driver

The modded Ranger is a capable climber, though. Even with the transfer case in two-wheel drive, you can lock the rear end and make your way up grades that would require four-wheel drive in some other trucks. Although its wheel travel and suspension articulation lag most of its rivals, that locking rear differential (part of the FX4 package) and additional ground clearance save its bacon. Compared to a stock Ranger, the Level 3’s approach angle improves from 28.7 degrees to 34.8 degrees—improving on the Ranger Raptor’s 32.5 degrees—and its breakover angle goes from 21.5 degrees to a very respectable 23.8 degrees, besting the Jeep Gladiator Rubicon on that metric. Although it’s still without a locking front differential, which is standard on a Colorado ZR2 and Gladiator Rubicon, Level 3 scrambles its way up almost any hill when you drop it into low-range four-wheel drive.
While the Ranger’s terrain-management system lacks a dedicated rock-crawling mode (oddly, it includes one for grass), that bulldog front bumper radically improves its ability to navigate a rock garden. Fabricated from 0.2-inch plate, it only adds about 20 pounds to the nose of the truck, and its angled corners help expose the front tires so they can climb up and over large obstacles.

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Jessica Lynn WalkerCar and Driver

Be careful, though: The skid plate beneath that bumper is weak sauce compared to the thick aluminum piece Toyota bolts to the front of a Tacoma TRD Pro. The thin steel plate does cover most of the Ford’s front end, and there’s another that protects the transfer case, but the rear differential is naked and vulnerable. We scraped it on rocks and dragged it along the ground more than once without issue, but regular trail runners will want some aftermarket armor. We also skillfully dinged up those Dyno Gray wheels. Their angled spokes look great, but they protrude proud of the tire sidewall and easily kiss rocks. Alloy grinding over granite is not a pleasant sound.
When we hit a sandy wash, however, the upgraded Ranger felt most at home. The ride is rough here as well, but the Ranger is agile, its quick steering facilitating easy control of high-speed slides. The Level 2 and Level 3 packages also recalibrate the pickup’s turbocharged 2.3-liter inline-four, increasing boost from 19.5 psi to 24.2 psi and horsepower from 270 to 315. Torque climbs from 310 pound-feet to 370. What’s more, the usable power is moved lower in the rpm range, with the EcoBoost’s power peak arriving 1000 rpm sooner and its torque peak 500 rpm lower. You will need to use premium fuel, 91 octane or higher, to unlock that extra boost.

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Jessica Lynn WalkerCar and Driver

There’s still some turbo lag off idle, which is most noticeable in the slowest crawling maneuvers. In the paved world, the 2.3-liter always supplies enough thrust and the 10-speed transmission is ready with the right gear, especially in Sport mode, which holds lower ratios longer. The exhaust system isn’t going to win any Grammys, but it doesn’t drone on the highway like Toyota’s TRD system.
The last Ranger four-by-four we tested hit 60 mph in 6.5 seconds and covered the quarter-mile in 15.0 seconds. This truck should come close to matching those numbers. Ford says fuel economy also shouldn’t be affected. “I had less than a 0.5-mpg drop over 8000 miles in my personal truck,” Wilson said. “And I wasn’t babying it, I was enjoying it.”
Most buyers are expected to have their Ford dealer or a local four-by-four shop do the dirty work, but you can save quite a bit of scratch and install all the parts yourself. They fit any 2019 or 2020 Ranger four-wheeler. The kit even supplies DIYers with a tool to rejigger the speedometer and odometer to work with the taller tires.

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Jessica Lynn WalkerCar and Driver

Despite its imperfect suspension tuning, the Level 3 Off-Road package does improve the performance of the Ranger. The truck may have beaten us up a bit along the way, but it scraped and clawed its way through a seriously nasty trail that a standard Ranger FX4 could not have tackled. It’s disappointing that the Level 3 kit doesn’t include a locker for the front differential. “We thought,” Wilson explained, “that might take it beyond what the normal customer could install in his driveway with simple hand tools.”
It would have also driven up the price, which already blows up the piggy bank. At $8995 not including installation, the Level 3 package costs twice as much as the Level 2 package, which is the best value of the three. And it cranked up the price of this Lariat-spec truck to $55,905. That’s F-150 Raptor money.
Which one do you think Iron Mike would choose?

Specifications

Specifications
2020 Ford Ranger SuperCrew Lariat 4×4 Ford Performance Level 3 
VEHICLE TYPE front-engine, rear/4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door pickup
BASE PRICE $44,585
ENGINE turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 2.3-liter inline-4, 315 hp, 370 lb-ft
TRANSMISSION 10-speed automatic
DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 126.8 inLength: 210.8 inWidth: 73.3 inHeight (C/D est): 73.1 inCurb weight (C/D est): 4500 lb
PERFORMANCE (C/D EST) 60 mph: 6.6 sec1/4 mile: 15.1 secTop speed: 110 mph

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Jeremy M. LangeCar and Driver

Between 1993 and 1997, Land Rover imported fewer than 7000 Defender 90s to North America. If you want one, prepare to pay up; prime, low-mileage examples trade for around $100,000. Even the nicest North American Specification (NAS) Defender, however, is old enough to buy beer and wasn’t exactly a paragon of reliability on the day it arrived at the dealer lot. By now, even a good one will likely present leaks from above (the ill-sealing doors) and below (transmission, transfer case, and the 182-hp Rover V-8, which is actually a Buick aluminum-block design from the early 1960s). But what if you could have the Jeepy, er, blocky charm of an NAS D90 combined with modern horsepower and amenities for about the same price as a nice, used one? For those who care more about driving than originality, Osprey Custom Cars in Wilmington, North Carolina, builds some of the nicest Defenders that never were.
Company founder Aaron Richardet began restoring Defenders in 2009 and eventually realized a truism that applies to any sufficiently thorough restoration: If you’re replacing nearly every component anyway, you may as well just start from scratch. “We’ll do it either way, as a restoration or from the ground up,” Richardet said, “but you end up at about the same price.”

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Jeremy M. LangeCar and Driver

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20 Awesome Vintage 4x4s Cooler Than Modern SUVs

Defender parts are plentiful, and Osprey constructs its trucks from a combination of OEM, aftermarket, and rebuilt components. The frame of the truck we drove was new, galvanized and powder-coated (the old belt-and-suspenders approach to corrosion prevention). Its General Motors-sourced 5.3-liter V-8, while more modern than the NAS Rover V-8, was rebuilt. Richardet likes the 5.3-liter V-8 for Defender builds, but GM Performance doesn’t offer it as a crate engine. “The 5.3 is really perfect for Defenders,” he said. “GM had this engine dialed. It’s happy at the amount of power it makes, and it runs cool. You see plenty of Tahoes and Suburbans with these things in them running around with 300,000 miles.” As installed in this Defender, Osprey claims 325 horsepower and 330 pound-feet of torque.
The 5.3-liter is hooked to a 6L80E six-speed automatic transmission that’s programmed to keep engine revs low unless you really hoof the throttle, in which case the stubby four-by-four unleashes a bellicose holler through its Cherry Bomb muffler and accelerates with an urgency totally at odds with its toolshed-on-wheels proportions. An automatic-equipped NAS Defender from the ’90s will frequently downshift out of top gear at highway speeds, its old Rover V-8 fighting ongoing skirmishes with the wind. The Osprey has no such problem, but high-speed interstate travel isn’t really its forte. You can build a Defender as fine as you please, but doing 75 mph in one will still feel like you’re riding Skylab out of orbit.
It’s better to take it easy, roll down the front windows and unzip the plastic rear ones on the canvas top. Activate your heated seat if it’s chilly, crank some air conditioning if it’s not. The Osprey doesn’t offer the sophisticated luxury of, oh, a Jeep Wrangler, but it does marry that jaunty old-school Defender charisma with modern features: LED headlights, remote start, a 7.0-inch Pioneer touchscreen with a backup camera. The four side-facing rear seats mean that the Osprey seats six, provided the four in back don’t mind extended eye contact (or avoiding same). It’s an agreeable way to go get some ice cream.

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Jeremy M. LangeCar and Driver

While Osprey doesn’t offer an official warranty, there’s a tacit understanding that the company will support the product if gremlins creep up. Richardet and his team put shakedown miles on each new build, and in this case we helped with that. A two-hour highway drive exposed an occasional hiccup in the driveline that turned out to be a transmission calibration issue. Osprey worked it out after we surrendered the truck, since this one was on its way to its new owner the week after we sampled it. Even at more than $100,000, these trucks don’t linger long in the showroom.
Osprey will build you a Defender considerably nuttier than this one—one recent LS3-powered Defender pickup cost nearly $200,000—as will companies like Himalaya and East Coast Defender. But at this price, in this spec, Osprey’s creation represents the Defender Singularity, the point where new and used prices intersect. You don’t get that Land Rover “Solihull Warwickshire” numbered build plate, but you do get power, reliability, and heated seats. The Osprey is also notable for what you don’t get. After driving it for two weeks, it didn’t leave a spot on our driveway.
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Michael SimariCar and Driver

Chassis engineers have a tough and largely thankless job. Ride quality remains in a long-standing feud with handling, and the engineers’ job is to negotiate a peace that works for the vehicle and for the customer. After driving the 2020 Macan GTS, we’d say that Porsche’s engineers deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for brokering such a satisfyingly sporty compromise.

HIGHS: Balanced chassis, steers like the sports cars, refined ride.

There’s nothing particularly exotic about the suspension hardware. The Macan GTS comes standard with air springs paired to Porsche’s Active Suspension Management (PASM) adaptive dampers. The two are tuned and work to smooth broken pavement, and despite the optional 21-inch wheels with small sidewalls, the suspension never crashes or sends ugly vibrations through the structure. With the push of a console-mounted button (or a turn of the steering wheel-mounted dial, part of the $1360 Sport Chrono package), the dampers tighten just enough up to savagely attack corners. At the test track, the Michelin Latitude Sport 3 tires stick with stability up to the high 0.94-g lateral limit.

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Michael SimariCar and Driver

Porsche Macan S Is Familiarly Brilliant

Tested: New Macan Turbo Remains an SUV Benchmark

Responsive and accurate steering seems to have been plucked right from a 718 GTS. Our German-spec test vehicle came equipped with the optional PSCB tungsten-coated brake rotors ($3490) that can be identified by their mirrored finish and white brake calipers. Porsche continues to dial in the pedal feel of this system. When it debuted on the Cayenne, the brakes felt grabby with too much initial bite. On the GTS, the brakes react with a firm and linear stroke. Stops from 70 mph occur in a sports-car-like 155 feet.

LOWS: The engine lacks the punch and character of competitors, smallish rear seat, pricey.

While we like the Macan GTS’s chassis, the powertrain isn’t as inspiring. The GTS uses the same twin-turbocharged 2.9-liter V-6 found in the Macan Turbo, tuned down from 434 horsepower to 375 horsepower in GTS trim. Porsche’s V-6 lacks the character and punch of the BMW X3 M’s twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six and the angry exhaust of Mercedes-AMG’s twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 that powers the GLC63. The GTS sprints from zero to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds and rips through the quarter-mile in 12.6 seconds at 107 mph—a Macan Turbo is 0.4 second quicker in both measures. Some credit for those stellar times goes to the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic’s launch-control system that revs the engine to 4600 rpm before engaging the clutch.

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Michael SimariCar and Driver

The Macan GTS starts at $72,650, a hefty $12,300 less than the Turbo. Spotters will be able to differentiate the Macan GTS by its blacked-out exterior trim and tinted LED light housings in the front and rear. On the inside, the interior is largely unchanged since the 2018 refresh. We particularly liked the faux-suede coverings on the door panels and center console as well as the inserts of the more aggressively bolstered, GTS-exclusive power seats. A lengthy list of options awaits buyers, and our test GTS came lavishly equipped at $98,160.
Buyers will also have to accept a smallish rear seat in the Macan. Adults won’t be very comfortable back there. But if the Macan is replacing a sports car, that’s an easy compromise to make. If you’re coming from a more spacious SUV, bending on the Macan GTS’s rear-seat space brings the reward of a sublime ride-and-handling compromise that seems more than worth it to us.

Specifications

Specifications
2020 Porsche Macan GTS
VEHICLE TYPE front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE AS TESTED $98,160 (base price: $72,650)
ENGINE TYPE twin-turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 24-valve V-6, aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injectionDisplacement 177 in3, 2894 cm3Power 375 hp @ 6700 rpmTorque 383 lb-ft @ 1750 rpm
TRANSMISSION 7-speed dual-clutch automatic
CHASSIS Suspension (F/R): multilink/multilinkBrakes (F/R): 15.4-in vented, tungsten-carbide-coated disc/14.0-in vented, tungsten-carbide-coated discTires: Michelin Latitude Sport 3, F: 265/40R-21 101Y N2 R: 295/35R-21 103Y N2
DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 110.6 inLength: 184.5 inWidth: 76.1 inHeight: 63.0 inPassenger volume: 96 ft3Cargo volume: 18 ft3Curb weight: 4468 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS 60 mph: 3.9 sec100 mph: 10.8 sec130 mph: 20.5 sec150 mph: 33.4 secRolling start, 5–60 mph: 4.9 secTop gear, 30–50 mph: 2.7 secTop gear, 50–70 mph: 3.6 sec1/4 mile: 12.6 sec @ 107 mphTop speed (mfr’s claim): 162 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 155 ftBraking, 100–0 mph: 306 ftRoadholding, 300-ft-dia skidpad: 0.94 gStanding-start accel times omit 1-ft rollout of 0.2 sec.
C/D FUEL ECONOMY Observed: 20 mpg75-mph highway driving: 27 mpgHighway range: 530 miles
EPA FUEL ECONOMY Combined/city/highway: 19/17/22 mpg

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From the November 1979 issue of Car and Driver.
Soft, powdery Chrysler-proving­ grounds dirt is coming in the window. A choking pea-soup fog churned up by four madly spinning tires engulfs Toyota’s LUV 4wd pickup as I wrestle it, bucking and howling, toward the rim of the Soup Bowl.
The Soup Bowl is part of Chrysler’s off-road-vehicle testing facility, a ravine that gouges ten stories deep into the overgrown Chelsea, Michigan, landscape. There are about a half-dozen trails out of the bowl, some as steep as 45 percent. From the top, you feel as though you were standing in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium. The people at the bottom look very small.

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Chrysler has generously allowed us access to its off-road preserve so that we might get better acquainted with the first two efficiency-era off-road trucks: the Toyota 4wd and Chevrolet LUV four-by-four mini-pickups. It never even occurs to us that this will also be an opportunity to roar, slide, bounce, wiggle, and thump through the Michigan countryside unmolested by the authorities. Not for a second.
One obvious fact marks these two Japanese-built pick-’em-ups as the first of tomorrow’s four-by-fours: they’re far more fuel-efficient than their much larger domestic counterparts. A LUV, for instance, will travel 20 EPA city miles on every gallon, about 25 percent farther than a comparably equipped full-grown Chevy pickup. The government, to no one’s surprise, has duly noted the fuelishness of Blazer-class rigs and will slowly legislate them out of existence with new 4wd fuel-mileage standards that start in 1980. And interest in the big rigs has already faded significantly, ever since OPEC first dialed back the flow of crude. If you have any doubt that mini-trucks are the answer, just try to find a dealer that has any in stock.

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Aaron KileyCar and Driver

It’s been that way ever since Subaru pioneered the tiny 4wd vehicle back in 1978 with its BRAT and 4wd wagon. But those were gentlemen off-road machines, transformed sedans intended for light-duty use. The LUV and the Toyota, on the other hand, are trucks, built with all the heavy-duty functionalism that that term implies.
Both of these trucks have been with us a while. Isuzu sent the LUV over from Japan at the beginning of 1979, and Toyota had its all-wheel-driver on the market in mid-year. If a 4wd pickup seemed like a good idea way back when fuel was flowing relatively freely, it’s positively inspired now.
Still, there’s more to their attractiveness than good fuel economy. Like their 2wd siblings, these 4wd trucks are lighter and more compact than the domestic pickups. The LUV, at 2780 pounds and 173.8 inches in length, is at least a half­-ton lighter and a foot and a half shorter than Chevy’s home-grown pickups. Numbers like these make the LUV and the Toyota more nimble, more maneuverable, and easier to park than the chunky full-sized brands.

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Aaron KileyCar and Driver

We have only one self-imposed restriction during the testing: we will not jump the trucks under any circumstances, because we have learned the hard way that production four-by-fours will twist themselves into scrap iron when you make like Evel Knievel.
The first event is Free-Form Driving Around, wherein we charge up and down every one of the Soup Bowl’s trails. The trucks throw up blinding clouds of dust that settle on every interior surface and pack dirt into our every pore. Hell, there’s even dirt in my teeth. But we do not jump the trucks.
Event number two is the first head-to­-head clash, a sophisticated off-road test thought up by technical trendsetter Don Sherman. It’s called Let’s Race Up That Hill. Time and again we attack the slopes, with front hubs locked, transfer cases in low range, and gear levers in first. Door handle to door handle, we scrabble up the steep, soft grades, the trucks bucking and jumping and throwing rooster tails of dirt—sometimes into the cabs. Now and again the trucks get hung up and slither sideways toward each other. We even race up the hills backwards in our search for a winner—but mostly just for the fun of it. And it is fun, rollicking good fun, punctuated with howling tires and howls of laughter. Amazingly enough, only once is there body contact, and it’s light.

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Aaron KileyCar and Driver

The first confrontation is judged a draw. Both trucks seem to have equal helpings of traction and climbing prowess, though the Toyota does exhibit the more colorful climbing style: the fuel system, for some mysterious reason, starves intermittently, causing the engine to surge on and off at full throttle, and the chassis jackhammers whenever the tires lose their grip. The LUV, by comparison, is much more sedate—but no more adept.
Four-wheel-drive trucks, of course, are expected to do much more than just climb out of ravines. So to deepen our understanding of these two mini-mites, a change of venue is called for. Chrysler, you may know, builds tanks for the government—and they have to test them somewhere, right? The “somewhere” turns out to be a perfect site for a trail-riding comparison.

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Aaron KileyCar and Driver

The tank-testing course is a twenty ­foot-wide, serpentine swath cut from the undergrowth, twisting and turning in a mile-long loop. The surface ranges from ankle-deep sand to hard-packed dirt. The loop is bounded by trees, shoulder-high banks, and ditches, while the center of the trail—the part that passes under a tank’s belly—rises high enough to form a natural divider between the outer and inner lanes in some places. It’s high enough to flip a truck.
The able Mr. Sherman again hits on an excellent test procedure. “Let’s race,” he suggests. And race we do, in 2wd this time—it’s easier to hang the tail out in the corners—on what could easily pass for a special stage in a pro rally. We bounce, wallow, tilt, slide, and buck furiously around the course, whipping the dust into a smoke screen; at times I can’t so much as see the end of my hood.

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Aaron KileyCar and Driver

The Toyota’s lighter and quicker power steering makes feverish steering corrections easier, but its added height and resulting tippiness—it’s five inches taller than the LUV—make it more intimidating to drive hard. The power difference between the two doesn’t even come into play. The result is another dead heat.
The afternoon’s foray in, around, and through the wilds of Chelsea has led us to the surprising conclusion that, in the brush, neither truck is more capable or more fun than the other. Their relative equality is especially curious considering the differences in their designs and specifications. The Toyota went in as the overdog, and one look will tell you why: it’s as macho as the Duke was, standing tall enough to look a Blazer right in the eye. (We later discovered that it actually offers 1.5 inches less ground clearance than the LUV.) The Toyota’s 2.2-liter four has fifteen more horsepower and 27 more pound-feet of torque than the LUV’s 1.8-liter engine. And the Toyota sports 15-inch mud-and­-snow tires as opposed to the LUV’s 14-inchers. Nevertheless, the trucks’ tractive abilities and general off­road manners were as close as you’II ever find in two competing makes. Both were a ball to bash around in, and both stood up to our rambunctious romping without so much as a trace of fatigue. We hereby pronounce them fit for enthusiast use, and every bit as rugged as the Essex-class rigs of yore.

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Aaron KileyCar and Driver

All of this fun in the woods, however, makes it all too easy to forget that there’s a flip side to this story. Most off­-road vehicles spend the vast majority of their time on the road. And that’s just why we devoted but a single day to our off-road extravaganza. We lived with the trucks on the street for weeks.
Unfortunately, neither of these trucks takes very well to the civilized life. In fact, few vehicles have spent more nights in the company parking lot than these two. If annoying traits were worth money, these two would cost a fortune: they accelerate as though loaded with a ton of bricks, they make your ears ring on the highway, and, worst of all, they have no affinity whatsoever for paved surfaces. They show their contempt for hard corners by lurching unnervingly and lifting their inside rear wheels in the fire-hydrant salute. And they both ride, well, like trucks, though the Toyota is by far the bigger pain in the butt—literally. Our test Toyota acted as if it had concrete for springs and wrought iron for shocks, bucking and jerking over every crack, wave, and bump in the road. It was otherwise easy to maneuver, nicely trimmed, and more than roomy enough, but the feeling that we were inside a giant Shake ‘n Bake bag took all the fun out of it. To be fair, Toyota tells us the long-bed, 110-inch ­wheelbase version rides better. But none was available for comparison, so we really can’t speak to the validity of that claim.

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Aaron KileyCar and Driver

The LUV, by comparison, had a more sophisticated way of dealing with the paved terrain. Its independent front suspension did a much better job than the Toyota’s solid-axle-leaf-spring arrangement. But we still can’t think of a sedan that’s as rough-riding as the LUV. And while the LUV doesn’t have any glaring faults, it does suffer because of the cumulative effect of a few smaller problems: the steering is heavy and slow, the engine is positively anemic, and the cab is cramped for six-footers.
About the only thing these two do well on the street is hauling. Then they’re just wonderful. Both trucks’ payload capacities—the combined weight of passengers and cargo—are in the 1100-pound range. That’s a few hundred pounds less than larger four-by­-fours can carry, but unless you make a habit of hauling around bridge abutments, it ought to suffice.

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Aaron KileyCar and Driver

The “Michigan stopper” is what tractor pullers call a transfer: 43,000 pounds of movable weight that can be gradually applied to a skid that claws into the good earth. Properly adjusted, a transfer can develop enough resistance to stop a 2000-hp competition pulling tractor in its tracks. The stopper belongs to the Michigan Tractor Pullers, Inc., an association that promotes tractor-pulling events in the Midwest. They’ve agreed to help us with this final event, a head-to-head test of sheer pulling strength that’s about as subtle as arm-wrestling. Oh, sure, we know hooking a 4wd mini-pickup to a tractor-pull transfer sounds crazy. That’s because it is crazy.
It takes quite a bit of figuring and testing and adjusting for the Pullers to lower the transfer’s resistance enough so that our mini-mites can budge it. That done, the trucks grunt out a couple of runs each. Power talks, and theToyota chugs its way to the 56-foot mark before stalling out, exhausted. The LUV can manage only an agonizingly slow 30-foot pull.
Then someone jumps a truck. During a jaunt around the Saline Community Fairgrounds, one of the Michigan Pullers runs the Toyota off the end of a loading dock or something. He returns with the front axle pretzeled, but the truck is still drivable. Oh well, we tried to be good.
The new generation of 4wd pickups has proved itself as able as the old guard in most respects. The Toyota and LUV four-by-fours are trucks through and through: rugged, a blast in the out-back, terrific for hauling gear, and lousy car substitutes.
So there’s no need to worry about the future of four-wheeling in an energy-conscious world. The first of the new economical breed are here, and they are good. We confidently predict that tomorrow’s off-road rider will find his trails happy and his trucks fit.

Specifications

SPECIFICATIONS
1979 Toyota 4WD
VEHICLE TYPEfront-engine, rear-/4-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door pickup
PRICE AS TESTED$6,702 (base price: $6,200)
ENGINE TYPESOHC 8-valve inline-4, iron block and aluminum head, 1×2-bbl Aisan carburetionDisplacement: 134 in3, 2189 cm3Power: 95 hp @ 4800 rpmTorque: 122 lb-ft @ 2400 rpm
TRANSMISSION4-speed manual
CHASSISSuspension (F/R): live axle/live axleBrakes (F/R): 11.8-in disc/10.0-in drumTires: Dunlop Snow Cruiser 78, H78-15
DIMENSIONSWheelbase: 102.2 inLength: 171.1 inWidth: 66.5 inHeight: 65.9 inCurb weight: 2920 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS30 mph: 4.0 sec60 mph: 14.3 sec80 mph: 32.7 sec1/4 mile: 19.8 sec @ 69 mphTop speed: 88 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 214 ft

1979 Chevrolet LUV
VEHICLE TYPEfront-engine, rear-/4-wheel-drive, 2-passenger, 2-door pickup
PRICE AS TESTED$7586 (base price: $6,247)
ENGINE TYPESOHC 8-valve inline-4, iron block and aluminum head, 1×2-bbl Hitachi carburetionDisplacement: 111 in3, 1817 cm3Power: 80 hp @ 4800 rpmTorque: 95 lb-ft @ 3000 rpm
TRANSMISSION4-speed manual
CHASSISSuspension (F/R): control arms/live axleBrakes (F/R): 9.8-in disc/10.0-in drumTires: BF Goodrich All-Terrain T/A, F70-14
DIMENSIONSWheelbase: 102.4 inLength: 173.8 inWidth: 63.0 inHeight: 60.8 inCurb weight: 2780 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS30 mph: 4.3 sec60 mph: 16.3 sec80 mph: 37.9 sec1/4 mile: 20.6 sec @ 67 mphTop speed: 88 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 222 ft

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