Reviews

The city car is dead. While never particularly popular in the U.S., cars like the original Mini, the Fiat 500, and the Smart were successful all over the globe. But aggressive safety rules and electrification have made them bigger and heavier: The latest Smart is almost 170 inches long and weighs over 4000 pounds.Now there is a new player in the market, focused on Europe, but with a few orders already placed from the U.S.: the Microlino, a thoroughly modern take on BMW’s famous Isetta. That midcentury bubble car had entirely disappeared from European roads by the 1970s, but its design—you enter through the front—continues to bring a smile to the face of anyone who happens upon one. Fewer than 90 inches long and powered by a wheezing two-stroke engine, the Isetta is hopelessly unsafe and outdated. But Swiss inventor Wim Ouboter saw the opportunity to reimagine it as an electric car—or, rather, a quadricycle, because it would hardly be able to conform to the regulatory standards that an automobile must meet.Micro Mobility SystemsThe industry has toyed with reinventing city cars as quadricycles for over a decade. At the 2011 Frankfurt auto show, Audi launched the Urban Concept, VW showed the NILS, and Opel the Rak-e; Renault had earlier shown its Twizy. All were electric and designed as L7e “heavy quadricycles”—and, with the exception of the Twizy, all of them were subsequently buried. But with regular cars becoming so big and expensive, Stellantis recently joined the game with the Citroën Ami and Opel Rocks-e, both of which are only available as smaller L6e “light quadricycle” models. They are easy to park and practical, but too slow for a lot of city traffic and not allowed on motorways.The Microlino aims to pick up where premium concepts like the NILS and the Rak-e left off. With a length of 99.2 inches and a width of 58.0 inches, it’s slightly smaller than the Smart Fortwo the States first got in 2008. But the Microlino is a different animal. While the Smart was a sturdy and safe car, capable of reaching nearly 100 mph and subjected to rigorous crash tests, the Microlino is just a quadricycle; regulation is far more lenient. The Microlino brings a lot of sophistication in the realm of styling. Made of steel and aluminum, it perfectly translates the motif of the original Isetta into the modern age. The proportions are captured accurately, the surface treatment is clean, and details such as LED lighting are decidedly futuristic. The front door opens with an electric switch, is pulled closed with a strap, and locked electrically. Once inside, there is room for driver and passenger, snug but not cramped. Above your head, there’s a fabric top; perfectly executed by supplier Magna CTS, it is one of the best-engineered and highest-quality parts of this vehicle. The trunk is surprisingly large at 8.1 cubic feet.Micro Mobility SystemsThe cockpit looks good too. There’s a conventional key, gears are selected by turning a knob, small screens indicate speed, and a touch bar on the front door allows you to select climate-control functions. But the steering wheel is a curiosity: a generic three-spoke unit without an airbag, it does not reflect the exterior’s higher level of sophistication. More importantly, Microlino representatives aren’t keen to talk about passive safety and when they do, they emphasize “compatibility.” But shouldn’t a car protect its owner first?The car’s lack of sophistication extends to unexpected areas, such as the noisy windshield wiper and the half-windows that need to be pulled open. There is no stability-control system. And thus, the impression emerges that the Microlino, most certainly, is not a real car. Once you stop, you need to yank the parking brake; the transmission lacks Park.And if you thought EVs are about silence, think again. The Microlino whirs and sings noticeably, right from the beginning and up to its 56-mph top speed. Thank heavens the semi trucks are limited to 54 mph in Europe; we can merge and, ever so slowly, move away from them. Acceleration is decent up to 30 mph, but beyond that, it becomes a bit of an imposition. Ride quality isn’t great, as the vehicle’s suspension bucks and bounces violently.The Microlino offers three available battery sizes: 6.0 kWh, 10.5 kWh, and 14.0 kWh, with the corresponding stated range of 59 miles, 109 miles, and 143 miles, respectively. But those numbers conform to the wildly optimistic European test cycle and should be taken with a huge grain of salt; in the U.S., those would equate to EPA range figures of roughly 50, 90, and 120 miles, respectively. Once depleted, Microlino’s battery pack has no fast-charging capability, so you need to plan for a three- or four-hour stop to recharge. Noise, vibration, harshness, and range are all sore topics for the Microlino. But the main obstacle may be the price. In Europe, the initial model comes in at a whopping $25,000, with upmarket equipment but only the mid-size battery. Prices will drop by a few thousand with fewer accoutrements.Micro Mobility SystemsThe Microlino is cute, nimble, and practical around town. But truthfully, it can’t hold a candle to any real car, including an old Smart. It’s a charming toy, but at this price point, it is no answer to the mobility needs of most people.Car and driverCar and driver Lettermark logoContributing EditorJens Meiners has covered the auto industry since 1996 and written for Car and Driver for much of that time. He is a juror on the World Car of the Year and International Engine of the Year and founder of German Car of the Year. Jens splits his time between New York and Nuremberg, where he keeps a growing collection of historic cars. More

The 2024 Chevy Trax is one of the few new cars in recent memory that is significantly cheaper than the model it replaces. Starting at $21,495, the new Trax costs $1400 less than the outgoing 2022 model and now serves as Chevy’s entry-level vehicle. In fact, it’s the cheapest vehicle General Motors sells in the U.S. Even fully loaded, the new Trax comes in under $27,000. We hate to say it, but that’s cheap by today’s new-car standards.This reimagining of the Trax from a middling subcompact crossover into a value-focused price leader is similar to what Nissan did a few years ago when it replaced the Juke with the Kicks. This category of cheapo-utes, which also includes the Kia Soul and Hyundai Venue, prioritizes interior space and feature content over typical SUV traits such as optional all-wheel drive and rugged styling (if you want those things, Chevy will happily sell you a Trailblazer). They all start in the low-$20,000 range and come standard with front-wheel drive and Apple CarPlay. This is the new face of basic transportation.More on GM CrossoversBetter Inside and OutMeasured by that yardstick, the new Trax looks like a success. Significantly longer, lower, and wider than the old, awkwardly tall Trax, the nicely proportioned new model has an almost wagonoid look about it. The base LS model looks pedestrian with its hubcaps and lack of bright trim, but the LT, RS, and Activ trim levels are relatively stylish thanks to nice wheels, interestingly shaped headlights and taillights, and distinctive grille trim up front. Several bright paint colors are available too.ChevroletThe Trax’s stretched-out shape also pays dividends inside, as rear legroom and cargo space are significantly increased thanks to the drastically longer wheelbase and wider track. Chevrolet also managed to package a flat floor in the rear, making the middle seat habitable for shorter trips. This could be a popular choice for Uber drivers. Analog gauges and an 8.0-inch touchscreen are standard, but the optional digital gauge cluster and 11.0-inch central screen give the Trax a good amount of display real estate for a vehicle in this class.We’re not too down on the Trax’s cheap-feeling interior materials given the low price point. The plastics are hard and scratchy, but the crucial areas—the dashtop, the door panels, and the upholstery—at least have some interesting textures to keep them from looking too bargain-basement. The driving position is low and carlike, a welcome change from the chairlike seating arrangements in many of the Trax’s taller competitors, including Chevy’s own Trailblazer.Driving Experience Fits the BillThe 2024 Trax drives like an economy car, too, which isn’t a bad thing. The ride and handling balance is tuned appropriately—softly sprung enough to be comfortable on rougher roads while still offering enough damping to keep body roll in check when pushed. The steering’s lack of on-center feel is a letdown, though, and we would’ve preferred a quicker ratio for a small, relatively lightweight vehicle (3000-ish pounds, according to Chevy). If you think the RS trim offers any sort of dynamic upgrade, think again, as it’s mechanically identical to the others save for 18-inch (1RS) or 19-inch wheels (2RS).The only powertrain is a turbocharged 1.2-liter inline-three with a six-speed automatic transmission. Its 137 horsepower is meager, but the 162 pound-feet of torque comes on low in the rev range, and the Trax has enough power to get out of its own way. The three-cylinder has a distinctive warble, and turbo lag is minimal. The only real issue is the sluggish transmission, which doesn’t downshift as promptly as we’d like. That said, we’d still take it over a CVT any day. Fuel economy is rated at 30 mpg combined, which is not as good as compact cars like the Honda Civic but about on par for a crossover this size.It feels like we’re getting less and less for our hard-earned cash lately, which makes a legitimately inexpensive new car an increasingly appealing proposition. The Trax isn’t particularly engaging or refined, but its attractive pricing lowers expectations to the point where we can appreciate what it does offer: a generously sized interior, impressive feature content, and good looks. Chevy expects the Trax to become its third-bestselling model behind the Silverado and Equinox, and we don’t see any reason to doubt that. With better-equipped trims coming in under $25,000, it’s clear that the Trax’s low price is its top selling point—and nearly everyone can agree that value has universal appeal.Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
2024 Chevrolet TraxVehicle Type: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE
LS: $21,495; 1RS, $23,195; LT, $23,395; 2RS, $24,995; Activ, $24,995
ENGINE
Turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 12-valve inline-3, aluminum block and head, direct fuel injectionDisplacement: 73 in3, 1193 cm3Power: 137 hp @ 5000 rpmTorque: 162 lb-ft @ 2500 rpm
TRANSMISSION
6-speed automatic
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 106.3 inLength: 178.6 inWidth: 71.7 inHeight: 61.4 inPassenger Volume, F/R: 53/45 ft3Cargo Volume, Behind F/R: 54/26 ft3Curb Weight (C/D est): 3000-3100 lb
PERFORMANCE (C/D EST)
60 mph: 8.8 sec1/4-Mile: 16.5 secTop Speed: 115 mph
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 30/28/32 mpgSenior EditorDespite being raised on a steady diet of base-model Hondas and Toyotas—or perhaps because of it—Joey Capparella nonetheless cultivated an obsession for the automotive industry throughout his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. He found a way to write about cars for the school newspaper during his college years at Rice University, which eventually led him to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for his first professional auto-writing gig at Automobile Magazine. He has been part of the Car and Driver team since 2016 and now lives in New York City.   More

The SUV arms race has gotten to the point where automakers are one-upping even themselves, introducing higher-performing variants of their already high-performance machines. The 2023 Lamborghini Urus lineup is a case in point. Last year’s Urus made 641 horsepower, but someone, somewhere decided this was insufficient, so they cranked the output up to 657 horses and called it the Urus S. But even that wasn’t enough, because they’ve also gone and built a Urus Performante, which makes the same power as the S but is decidedly more hardcore on account of lightweighting measures and a more performance-oriented suspension and tire package.Had either been available, the Urus S would have been the choice to do battle with the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT and Aston Martin DBX 707 in our earlier comparison test. Like them, the S has height-adjustable adaptive air springs to go with its active anti-roll bars, torque-vectoring rear differential, and rear-wheel steering system. It might have given the Porsche a run for its money because the Lambo is built on the same platform as the Cayenne, but with a 4.3-inch longer wheelbase. It utilizes the same suspension layout, eight-speed automatic gearbox, and 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, but with the latter tuned to make 657 horses instead of the Porsche’s 631 horsepower. Thing is, money might also have been its undoing, because at $233,995 to start the Urus S is about as expensive as the Aston, which lost out to the Porsche on account of price.As for our extroverted Viper Green Performante, it literally lives on a different plane of existence from the S and those others. In a nutshell, it ditches the idea of height-adjustable air springs in favor of coil springs. The chosen fixed height indicates an indifference toward ground clearance, as the Performante’s permanent crouch slumps 0.8 inch lower than the “normal” height of a Urus S and matches the lowermost aero posture the S acquires at speed. If that wasn’t enough to put paid to the very idea of off-roadability, the Performante’s so-called Anima drive selector lacks all three off-road modes: Neve for slippery work, Terra for basic off-roading, and Sabbia for sand. In their place is Rally, which sits at the tail-out hooligan end of the spectrum, atop Strada (street), Sport, and Corsa (track).HIGHS: Undeniably quick, a certified G-machine, oddly compelling cabin.More on the UrusWith the performance attitude firmly locked in place, the engineers set to work optimizing the chassis to suit aggressive pavement work and little else. Those lowering springs are firm to give the Corsa drive mode sufficient teeth—not to mention the ability to keep this lower-slung machine out of its bump stops. The active anti-roll bars and torque-vectoring rear diff have been reoptimized, and the center differential is decidedly more rear-biased than on a standard Urus. But the Performante’s ace in the hole is its tires, Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R quasi-competition track-loving gumballs with a 60-treadwear rating that undercuts the 80-treadwear Pirelli Corsas on Porsche’s Turbo GT.Mash the throttle and the Performante delivers, but it’s not an across-the-board drubbing by any means. Though we’ve tested a quicker and stickier Cayenne Turbo GT, for this breakdown, we’ll reference the Cayenne Turbo GT from the comparison test. The Performante is 0.2 second quicker to 100 mph, four-tenths quicker to 130 mph, and a tenth or two quicker in our 5-to-60-, 30-to-50-, and 50-to-70-mph acceleration tests. But its 3.0-second 60-mph time is a tenth slower than the Cayenne’s, and it’s an 11.2-second tie at the stripe at the quarter-mile—albeit with the Performante rolling 2 mph faster. What gives? The transmission ratios are identical, but the Lambo’s diff ratios are fractionally lazier and its tires are an inch taller. Its effective gearing is therefore taller, and the shift points simply hit different. Meanwhile the Performante orbits the skidpad to the tune of 1.04 g’s, holding a slight tail-out posture as it pips the Porsche’s 1.03-g effort. It’s a monster on mountain roads, too, but in more than one sense of that word. On the one hand, it responds well when pushed and cuts an eager and precise arc when asked to turn in at speed. We attacked a favorite tight winding downhill road, and it never flinched. The carbon-ceramic brakes held up admirably through numerous heavy downhill applications with nothing more than the occasional excited squeak. At the track, its 70-mph stops of 152 feet only beat the Porsche by a couple feet, but its 100-mph stops of just 296 feet bested the Turbo GT by a full 16 feet—essentially a full Cayenne length.Marc Urbano|Car and DriverBut the pavement needs to be smooth to get the best out of the Performante, as the tuning is perhaps more Corsa-optimized than we’d like. Push hard on the lumpier mountain roads we know, and it feels less sorted, and even switching the dampers to their softest mode (which we gravitated to most of the time anyway) doesn’t seem to help because the aggressive rebound damping doesn’t let the suspension breathe. This also makes it a bear to tolerate around town, where the passage of time and heavy trucks does pavement no favors. The active anti-roll bars feel constrained within the stiff suspension and as a result don’t seem to decouple as effectively as the Cayenne’s to combat head toss. Here we’re reminded that this is an SUV, which means that somewhere out there there’s a well-heeled family with high-dollar car seats in back for their progeny. Ever heard of shaken butter? That’s what you may get with milk in a sippy cup.Despite the ride, the interior is nevertheless a very interesting place to be, with an overwrought-at-first-glance look that grows on you quickly. Our Performante’s numerous options included swaths of carbon-fiber trim that looked attractive and well integrated, and the dual-screen center stack worked logically—even if the upper infotainment one is a bit small. The strange dual Anima drive mode selectors grew on us due to their ease of use, and even the shift lever made sense in short order, even though we’d never seen one like it. Sure, selecting Drive with a steering paddle is weird, and the red flap over the start button is unnecessary, but it’s fun. None of this would pass muster in a Camry, mind you, but it made perfect sense in the context of a Lambo, where over the top flies under the radar.The Performante is not cheap, as you may have surmised. Its base price of $268,666 is some $35,000 more than a Urus S, and our test car rang in at a breathtaking $342,765 due to nearly $75,000 in options, most of which amounted to trim and color upgrades. The Viper Green paint added $18,941, and gloss-black and carbon-fiber interior and exterior goodies amounted to nearly $33,000. Weirdly, the Performante’s base price includes a $1300 gas guzzler tax that the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT does not incur even though rated fuel economy is identical at 16 mpg combined (14 city/19 highway), a number we matched during our time in the car. That’s because the Lambo is formally classified as a wagon (a.k.a. car), while the Cayenne is an SUV, a truck designation.LOWS: Brutalist ride, sky-high price, track-optimized tires won’t last.Thing is, we have a hard time coming to grips with who the Performante is for, even though Lamborghini expects half of Urus buyers to choose it over the similarly powerful and undoubtably more well-rounded Urus S. From the way it’s tuned and equipped, the Performante is clearly the more track-focused and least family-friendly of the two. Normally, such considerations wouldn’t matter in the least to a Lamborghini-intender, but this isn’t some scissor-doored supercar built for those bent on eschewing matrimony. On the other hand, Lambo fans gotta Lambo, and this does come across as part of that family, four regularly hinged doors notwithstanding.Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
2023 Lamborghini Urus PerformanteVehicle Type: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $268,666/$342,765Options: Viper Green paint, $18,941; carbon fiber roof, shiny, $7361; 3D Bang & Olufsen premium sound, $7321; carbon-fiber hood, shiny, $5969; big carbon-fiber interior, matte, $5702; full carbon fiber exterior, shiny, $5573; full driver safety-assist package, $3616; ventilated and massaging power front seats, $3314; ambient light package, $3194; dark interior package, $2832; carbon-fiber kick plates, matte, $2469; 22-in shiny black rims, $1352; black brake calipers, $1288; contrast stitching, $901; wiper blades with washer nozzles, $868; floor mats with double stitching and piping, $703; premium air quality system, $594; steering-wheel contrast stitching, $422; gloss-black Lamborghini badge, $379
ENGINE
twin-turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 32-valve V-8, aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injectionDisplacement: 244 in3, 3996 cm3Power: 657 hp @ 6000 rpmTorque: 627 lb-ft @ 2300 rpm
TRANSMISSION
8-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: multilink/multilinkBrakes, F/R: 17.3-in vented, cross-drilled carbon-ceramic disc/14.6-in vented, cross-drilled carbon-ceramic discTires: Pirelli P Zero Trofeo RF: 285/40ZR-22 (110Y)  L R: 325/35ZR-22 (114Y)  L
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 118.3 inLength: 202.2 inWidth: 79.8 inHeight: 63.7 inPassenger Volume, F/R: 56/49 ft3Cargo Volume, Behind F/R: 56/22 ft3Curb Weight: 4986 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 3.0 sec100 mph: 7.2 sec1/4-Mile: 11.2 sec @ 122 mph130 mph: 13.1 sec150 mph: 20.0 secResults above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 4.4 secTop Gear, 30–50 mph: 2.6 secTop Gear, 50–70 mph: 3.0 secTop Speed (mfr’s claim): 190 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 152 ftBraking, 100–0 mph: 296 ftRoadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 1.04 g
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 16 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 16/14/19 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINEDTechnical EditorDan Edmunds was born into the world of automobiles, but not how you might think. His father was a retired racing driver who opened Autoresearch, a race-car-building shop, where Dan cut his teeth as a metal fabricator. Engineering school followed, then SCCA Showroom Stock racing, and that combination landed him suspension development jobs at two different automakers. His writing career began when he was picked up by Edmunds.com (no relation) to build a testing department. More

From the October 1979 issue of Car and Driver.It’s not gas distress that makes Ponti­ac’s bird of performance burp fire all over the Trans Am’s hood. It’s a turbo­charger, installed by Pontiac to ruffle the Firebird’s pinfeather and boost its potency to 205 horsepower for 1980. The decal fowl is now on a new flight plan—out of a rather primitive past to a future where speed and efficiency are precisely matched in importance. We should all tip our hats to the engineer and bean counter who’ve joined forces to keep the Firebird flying high, even if it did take a little heat under its tail to maintain altitude.The turbo Bird must carry around its old, heavy body for two more model years in spite of the fact that all the medium-to-big engines fit for this sort of duty are out of production. Faced with two “easy” alternatives to kick off the Eighties—building stone-slow Firebirds or borrowing engines from another GM division—Pontiac avoided both, and in­stead allotted more than a few engineer­ing dollars to discover some fresh horsepower. The biggest engine this di­vision builds, a 302-cubic-inch V-8 (la­beled a 301 by marketeers), was origi­nally conceived in 1977 as a smooth-­running, fuel-efficient station-wagon mover, but with lots of redevelopment it’s risen to the task at hand with turbo­charging. Though others have bolted the hardware together in almost exactly the same fashion as Pontiac did here (Buick’s turbo V-6 comes closest), the Trans Am’s new turbo V-8 does distin­guish itself as the biggest of its kind ever to see large-scale production.In case you hadn’t noticed, turbocharging is the universally accepted per­formance panacea for the times, and at the core of this particular system is an AiResearch TBO305 blower. Buick’s V-6 and Ford’s inline-four applications use the same basic unit, which features an integral waste gate controlled by intake-manifold pres­sure. Pontiac’s design is notably differ­ent in two respects, however. First of all, boost pressure is set higher than others have ventured (9 psi), and second, the compressor housing has a larger flow capacity to suit the requirements of the Trans Am’s larger piston displacement. Trans Am Tested!A Rochester Quadrajet carburetor feeds the turbo’s hungry mouth through a carefully designed cast-aluminum ple­num chamber. Air is picked up by a four-inch-diameter duct just above the front air dam, flows unimpeded to the carburetor, where fuel is added, and then turns through 90 degrees in the plenum to enter the turbo compressor in a horizontal stream. All passages are as smooth in shape and as generous in area as possible to minimize power-lim­iting restrictions. Heat is also detrimen­tal to a high-mass flow, so the normally aspirated 301 engine’s exhaust cross­over has been omitted from the turbo engine’s intake manifold. Instead, there’s a water jacket surrounding the plenum chamber. It heats the charge to maintain cold drivability, but once the cooling system reaches 217 degrees Fahrenheit, the thermostat shuts off flow to keep fuel-air mixtures as cool as possible. Nine psi worth of overpressure is a rather ambitious undertaking for an engine certified to run on 91-octane fuel, and realizing this, Pontiac has taken sev­eral precautions to avoid the mechanical destruction all too common when a tur­bocharger blows an engine the wrong way. Detonation is the principal enemy. It can be combatted by at least three means: by adding water injection, which Pontiac has avoided for a number of good reasons; by enriching the fuel-air mixture, which is unfortunately contrary to efficiency goals and therefore used sparingly; and by retarding ignition tim­ing. A side effect of using a later spark to limit detonation is the fact that it also sacrifices power. This is why Pontiac has adopted a very sophisticated spark re­tarder, pioneered by Buick in its 1978 turbo Regal. The system relies on an accelerometer-type transducer bolted to the intake manifold to listen for vibra­tions characteristic of unscheduled com­bustion. Upon hearing the first few rat­tles of detonation, the transducer tells an electronic module first to back off spark advance, and then immediately thereafter to restore just enough to keep ignition timing at the threshold of detonation. This happens continuously every few milliseconds, so the engine runs with optimum spark advance all the time. Several internal modifications have also helped the 301 stand the gaff of nine pounds of boost. Extra material was added to the block’s bearing webs and top deck, and main-bearing-cap bolts have been increased from seven-­sixteenths to one-half inch in diameter. Crankshaft fillets receive a pressure-­rolling treatment to make this part more fatigue-resistant. Pistons are cast-alumi­num, but they’ve been redesigned (along with the wrist pins) for greater strength. The compres­sion ratio has been lowered to 7.5:1. So far, this is standard turbo-engine practice, but all these conventional com­ponents were screwed together and di­aled in to produce some very un-turbolike behavior. Pontiac’s objectives were to match T/A 400 acceleration, to reap all the fuel-economy benefits offered by trimming piston displacement 25 per­cent, and to keep drivability up to GM’s usual high standards. Translated into street language, this means Pontiac wanted its turbo motor to act like a much bigger normally aspirated engine all the time, except at the gas pumps. In driving this new-world T/A, you’d swear Pontiac was trying to keep its tur­bocharger a secret. After a big buildup on the hood (rebulged for clearance and redecorated for flash), the instrument panel has neither a boost gauge nor even so much as an idiot light to tell you there’s anything special happening ahead of the firewall. The exhaust rum­bles the same sounds of the mellowed-­out, catalytic-convertered V-8 we’ve heard for years. Nailing the gas pedal only further confuses the issue: what you feel is the tug of an eager 350 cubic inches or so, doing its best against a 3700-pound curb weight. And don’t try to listen for the whistle of a turbine wheel spinning up to tell you good things are going on at the other end of the throttle linkage. Pontiac pays AiRe­search a few dollars extra per unit for turbochargers just to buy them without the tiny rotating imbalance that makes them whine the haunting melody turbo nuts learn to live by. Pontiac’s plan goes further. There is no surge in the T/A’s torque curve to tell you the booster’s just been lit. As soon as you hit the throttle, the turbo­charger goes to work and pumps up full boost by 3500 rpm. Likewise, this car lacks an acceleration lag and the attend­ant steep rush to the redline you get with Buick’s, Ford’s and, most assertive­ly, Porsche’s turbos. So the blown T/A is more in the Saab Turbo class of per­formance: soft-spoken but aggressive. It works hard all the time to keep you from knowing it’s working hard. There are, however, limits to the tur­bo’s enthusiasm. By the time the engine reaches 4000 rpm, the show is essential­ly over. So much spark has been backed out by the anti-detonation electronics that the horsepower curve droops like licorice in the sun. For maximum accel­eration, you’re best off leaving the shift­er in “D” and letting the transmission make the moves Pontiac programmed into its hydraulic heart. In hard-number terms, 60 mph hap­pens 8.2 seconds after the stoplight goes green, and a quarter-mile is over in 16.7 seconds. The speedo registered 86 mph at this distance in our testing, and will crank up to 116 mph if you happen to have a cross-county straightaway, as we did, to let it all hang out. Referenced to 1979’s performance peak—a 400 T/A four-speed—acceleration times are longer by 1.5 seconds, and about 10 mph has been lost from both quarter­-mile and flat-out speeds. As you can see, a few performance points have been lost for 1980. These sacrifices are predictable with tightening emissions and fuel-economy stan­dards, but the amount of bullet-biting we’ll have to accept in this instance goes beyond the pale. California will catch no more than a glimpse of the new turbo engines as they’re built into cars at GM’s Van Nuys assembly plant and promptly loaded on trucks and trains bound for the other 49 states. A rather cruel and unusual predicament. Even if you do happen to live where the turbo is certified and decide to step up to buy one, your gears will forever after be se­lected by Turbo Hydra-matic whims. That’s right, synchromesh fans, the four-speed’s been banned from turbo­charger duty. Or any T/A duty for that matter, since Pontiac plans to offer but one manual transmission to serve the whole Firebird line for 1980: a three­-on-the-floor as base equipment behind a 231-cubic-inch V-6.All of which makes the Trans Am’s former greatness seem really great this year. Fortunately, most of the non-en­gine past glory is intact. The all-disc brakes are second only to the Corvette’s for pure, made-in-America stoppability. The wonderful WS6 handling pieces still work road magic, although there is substantially less oversteer to play with now that much of the powertrain’s punch is gone.Chalk the loss up to this year’s tight­ened emissions laws if you’re planning any correspondence with your elected representatives. Pontiac says heavy, stick-shift models are all but impossible to drive smoothly enough to pass the new hydrocarbon standard. And four-speed turbo-T/A prototypes with cali­brations aimed at certification were sup­posedly so abysmal to drive that Ponti­ac’s chief engineer, Steve Malone, pulled the plug on their development. That’s not to say you’ll never see the turbo matched to a four-speed in the Trans Am. The folks at Pontiac realize this is their image leader, and they’re not all convinced the T/A can lose its four-speed, big-motor macho all at once and save face with a turbocharger. Final judgment awaits—at discothèques, drive-ins, and cruising loops across the nation, where the flaming hood bird is as much a part of the Saturday-night scene as tight slacks, Super Fly shoes, and gold neck chains. Until turbo fever plays here, the T/A’s mystique won’t be secure. Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
1980 Pontiac Firebird Turbo Trans AmVehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 4-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE
As Tested: $9000 (est.)Options: Turbo Hydra-matic transmission, air conditioning, WS6 special performance package, tinted glass, power door locks, power windows, AM/FM stereo radio with CB.
ENGINEturbocharged pushrod V-8, iron block and headsDisplacement: 302 in3, 4940 cm3Power: 205 hp @ 4000 rpmTorque: 310 lb-ft @ 2800 rpm 
TRANSMISSION3-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/rigid axleBrakes, F/R: 11.0-in vented disc/11.1-in vented discTires: Goodyear Polysteel Radial225/60R-15
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 108.2 inLength: 197.1 inWidth: 73.0 inHeight: 49.3 inCurb Weight: 3717 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS30 mph: 3.0 sec60 mph: 8.2 sec1/4-Mile: 16.7 sec @ 86 mph100 mph: 24.4 secTop Speed: 116 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 186 ft 
EPA FUEL ECONOMYCity: 14 mpg (est.) 
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED More

From the September 1990 issue of Car and Driver.We’ve been giddy from speed in Cor­vette ZR-1s and dizzy from the price of Cadillac Allantés, but we’ve never driven a General Motors product that affected us like this before. GM’s new SD-60 is a brutal-looking three-seater equipped with everything an enthusiast could hope for: all-wheel drive, all-wheel steering, a massive midship-mounted V-16 engine, and brakes powerful enough to stop a freight train. Developed exclusively for tracks, it corners on rails. It belts out enough power to light up a small town. And it’s packed with computer-con­trolled everything—in fact, it’s so complicated it takes an engineer to run it. Unfortunately, the SD-60 is one vehi­cle you won’t see much of unless you spend a lot of time hanging around tracks. That means the only way to sam­ple one is to undertake basic training­—which is just what we did. We were only too pleased when General Motors’ Electro-Motive Division saw fit to swing open the gates to its factory and test tracks in LaGrange, Illinois, for us. We came, we saw, we tested—and in the end fulfilled a childhood dream surely shared with many a responsible grown-up: We drove a train. The GM guy on the scene was Keith Mahalik, a young engineer—mechanical, not railroad—whose job it is to keep in touch with EMD’s customers and devel­op ever-better software for the computer systems on today’s locomotives. Mahalik also has automotive proclivities: He de­scribe himself as “a horsepower guy” who likes big engines of all kinds, some­thing his personal transportation fleet confirms. Parked in his garage are a 1967 Corvette convertible motivated by a 427-cubic-inch V-8, a 1971 Olds 4-4-2 con­vertible equipped with the high-output W30 package, and a 1967 Olds 4-4-2 street rod pumped full of vitamins by a Detroit Diesel 6-71 supercharger. View PhotosGeneral Motors Electro-Motive Division’s ft-103General MotorsMahalik showed us into his office be­fore our morning plant tour. Fittingly, the big brick building is past its prime and a little shabby—like an old train sta­tion. The 343-acre LaGrange plant com­plex was opened in 1935, several years after GM bought Electro-Motive Engi­neering Corporation. The offices of the service technical engineers are a labyrinth of gray desks and steel partitions on the third floor. You walk up. The 1940s were the glory days for La­Grange. That’s when diesel-electric loco­motives eclipsed their steam-powered forebears. Though it’s hard to imagine now, steam locomotives had ruled the railways up through the 1930s. They were immensely powerful—some pro­duced as much as 6000 horsepower—and they had the potential for speed. Today, Japan’s much-heralded bullet train averages 125 mph, and the French TGV, which hits 160 mph on its regular routes, is consid­ered a marvel. Sixty years ago, however, the fastest U.S. steam locomotives got passengers to their destinations at better than 100 mph. Then, in 1939, GM’s Electro-Motive Division introduced the first successful diesel-electric locomotive, the FT103. It took four of EMD’s new engines hooked in tandem to match the power of one big steam locomotive, but the FT103’s lower operating costs and cleaner-running powerplant—no soot, no cinders, no clouds of smoke—won the railroad over. Versions of the slab-sided FT103 were produced through 1955 and used for many years afterward. Inside a Locomotive FactoryAs we headed for the factory floor, Mahalik explained how diesel-electric lo­comotives work. “The basic layout is the same today as it was when the FT103 was introduced. The diesel engine powers a generator, and the electricity from the generator drives six direct-current elec­tric motors located at the axles.” Doing it this way eliminates the need for a transmission. “Each electric motor acts like an infinitely variable transmission,” Mahalik pointed out. As the output from the main generator is increased, the electric mo­tor puts out a smooth flow of power; the more juice that goes in, the more motive force that comes out. “Another advantage,” Mahalik added, “is that electric motors have tremendous low-speed torque.” More than just the layout of locomo­tives has remained the same for the past half-century. After just a few minutes on the factory floor, it became apparent that the way locomotives are made hasn’t changed much since the 1940s, either. The scene was pure Smokestack Ameri­ca; it could have been almost any time in the last 50 years. The woodblock floor was covered in a grimy black goop, and an oily haze hung in the air. We were in the engine shop. A lone worker labored at a forging press, stamp­ing out exhaust valves. They glowed red hot as they fell into their steel holding container. Farther down the line, a long valve stem was being fuse-welded to the stubby tulip in a spray of sparks. The fin­ished valve would be almost the size of a clarinet. It’s ironmongery on a grand scale. “The SD-60 locomotive you’ll drive to­day uses our latest engine, the 16-710G3,” said Mahalik. “It’s a V-16, with turbocharging and aftercooling. We rate them by cylinder displacement.” So the 16-710G3 engine in the SD-60 displaces nearly 710 cubic inches per cylinder. That’s, uh, a total of 11,353 cubic inches, about 186 liters. Mahalik smiled. Jeez.Then we saw one of the engine blocks sitting on the floor, waiting for assembly. Welded up from huge slabs of rolled steel and massive forgings, it was the size of a motorboat. A box of connecting rods was sitting nearby. They were as big as tennis racquets and a lot heavier. Picking one up required two hands. “It’s 25 pounds,” said Mahalik. To build an engine that’s going to move mountains—a single SD-60 loco­motive can haul as much as 12,000 tons of train—you’d expect all of the compo­nents to be massive. But pistons that weigh 59 pounds each? An 1800-pound turbocharger? How about a crankshaft that weighs 3400 pounds—as much as an entire Olds Cutlass? A fully assembled engine, ready to install, weighs 39,600 pounds. And it’s so big that workmen must perch on six-foot-high catwalks just to adjust the valves. The scale here is staggering. There’s so much metal to lubricate in a 16-710G3 that the oil pan holds 395 gallons. Keep­ing the engine running at a safe tempera­ture requires a cooling system with 276 gallons of coolant. And your VISA gold card would wilt from just one fill-up; the tank can hold 5000 gallons of diesel fuel. Under full load, an SD-60 gulps 187 gallons of that fuel every hour. The SD-60’s engine is a direct descen­dant of the powerplant in the original FT103, but it is technologically current. It is a two-stroke, meaning the combus­tion takes place every time the piston reaches the top of its travel. Each cylin­der head is fitted with a single overhead camshaft that operates 32 valves—four per cylinder, all of them exhaust valves. A mechanical fuel injector is located dead center in each combustion chamber. The huge turbocharger blows pressur­ized air through a pair of aftercoolers (“intercoolers” to car folks) and into each cylinder through several ports located near the middle of each bore; the ports are uncovered when the piston reaches the bottom of its stroke. The SD-60’s turbocharger, by the way, is also designed to act as a mechanical supercharger. The turbo is so big and heavy that it doesn’t spin of its own ac­cord until the engine is pumping out 75 percent of full power; only then is there enough exhaust flow to budge it. So until that point, a clutch-controlled mechanism drives the turbo off of the crank­shaft—just like a regular supercharger.We were walking down an open hall about the size of a hangar. A door opened to our left, and a roar issued forth that shook the earth. A man popped out and slammed the door shut. “That’s a dyno cell,” explained Mahalik. “We’re running one of our engines.” We walked down to where the dyno operator was sitting and looked over his shoulder. The engine was turning 903 rpm. “Red­line,” said Mahalik with a nod. It was hard to imagine so much metal spinning around at all, but spin it did. At 900 rpm, the 16-710G3 was at its power peak, booming out 4100 horsepower. When installed in an SD-60, the hulking V-16 loses about 300 horsepower to accessories—leav­ing 3800 horsepower to drive the generator, which drives the six 1000-hp electric motors that drive the train. You get a better idea of the SD-60’s power when you consider its torque, which measures—get ready for this—23,925 pound-feet at 900 rpm. As much as 65 Corvette ZR-1s. We went through a couple of doors and everything got quiet; we were in the electrical assembly area. The equipment was still imposing, even if the din was not. “The diesel engine actually turns three generators,” Mahalik explained. The smallest, which weighs a mere 800 pounds, is called the auxiliary generator, and it serves the same purpose as a car’s alternator: Its primary duty is to keep the batteries charged and to provide power to some accessories. It also energizes (“excites” is the technical term) genera­tor number two, called the companion al­ternator. The companion provides pow­er for any AC devices on the train, such as cooling fans, and excites the all-impor­tant main generator. We checked out some mains being wired up. Their outer rings, called stators, were as big around as the intake on a jet engine, and they contained thou­sands of strands of wire intricately woven together—by hand, not machine. “The SD-60’s generator makes 9900 amps near stall and 1450 volts at top speed, which for this locomotive is 70 mph,” said Mahalik. When we expressed confusion as to how much power that really was, Mahalik chuckled and launched into the kind of simple explana­tion engineers love to use to illuminate the dim cranial cavities of liberal-arts majors: “We like to say that it makes enough power to light 250 homes.” Lest those watts, volts, and amps fly out of control and give someone an awful shock, they are carefully managed by a complex computer-aided control sys­tem. These days, virtually every aspect of locomotive operations is, at the very least, computer monitored, if not controlled outright. The SD-60’s three pow­erful microprocessors keep tabs on all diesel-engine parameters and can report, diagnose, and log problems on the move. They watch over the rows of con­tactors that control direction and braking and power flow to the electric motors, determine the excitation of the genera­tors, and manage the SD-60’s advanced traction-control system. All of the electrical equipment re­quired to put the juice where it’s needed is housed in what’s called the high-volt­age cabinet. We watched as several of these large steel lockers—they’re about as high as a basketball hoop—were wired up. The job looked like an electrician’s nightmare—miles of multicolored wire looping everywhere, thousands of connections, a circuit board the size of two office desks. Later, the cabinets would be installed in the locomotives’ cabs, where they would take up the entire rear wall. “Everything comes together here,” Mahalik said as we entered the huge fi­nal-assembly hall. At one end, sheet­metal was being fitted to the locomotive chassis, prepped, and painted yellow. A giant overhead crane whirred. “Oh good,” said Mahalik. “They’re going to truck a locomotive.”At the far end, the crane picked up a freshly painted locomotive, sans wheels, as if it were a scale-model Lionel piece, and hauled it down to where a pair of six-­wheel trucks—the completed axle-and-­electric motor assemblies—sat waiting on a set of rails. Men, some of them in white shirts and ties, stopped to watch. Warning bells clanged. The crane low­ered the locomotive onto its trucks like a loving parent laying their baby in its cra­dle. Trucking a locomotive is always an event, explained Mahalik. A GM car plant might spit out a new vehicle every 60 seconds or so, but LaGrange turns out only one locomotive every couple of days (there’s another GM locomotive plant in London, Ontario).Time to Drive the Locomotive”Let’s go drive a locomotive.” Mahalik grinned and held out a pair of engineer’s coveralls he’d scrounged up. Scrounged, because absolutely no one at LaGrange dresses like Casey Jones. Until I arrived, that is. I skulked from the locker room out the back door into the train yard­—red scarf, engineer’s hat, and all, hoping none of the workmen would see me. Right outside the door was our ride—a spanking-new pair of SD-60s in red-and­-gray Kansas City Southern livery, cou­pled back-to-back. Sitting out in the sun­shine, all alone, they looked . . . big. Really big. Mahalik waved me up the steps. “Let’s fire it up,” he said. After turning on the elec­trics in the cab, he opened a door at the locomotive’s waist and motioned to­ward me. I twisted the single two-posi­tion switch to prime the big diesel. Then, as instructed, I twisted it the other way, pushed on the manual throttle handle with my right hand and . . . wheeeee, wheeeee, went the starter. Rumba, rumba . . . BAH-RUMBAAAHH. The V-16 lit off like ten semis.We marched up to the cab, and Mahalik threw the reverser lever to “for­ward” and eased us through the yard at a walking pace. There were rows of dere­lict locomotives parked to one side. “We actually take trade-ins,” he said, nodding in their direction. The cabin was basic: a rubber mat covering the floor, plain dark vinyl on the three bucket seats, gray paint everywhere else. It wasn’t quite as inhospitable as it first looked, though. These two KCS locomo­tives were equipped with optional air conditioning, electrically heated win­dows, and air-ride seats. A 99-channel two-way railroad radio, a toilet, and a re­frigerator are standard. All of this luxury is yours for a paltry $1.4 million. (Not to worry, there’s no such thing as annual model changes. You can expect your SD-60 to go about a million miles between overhauls and last 15–30 years.) Mahalik stopped the locomotive a cou­ple of times as several switches were thrown for us. Then we were on what is, quite literally, the test track—a three-­quarter-mile-long private straightaway on EMD property. “Let’s do an engine self-load test.” He motioned me toward the right seat, the engineer’s seat. The instrument panel angled to my left. It contained gauges for electric-motor current load, air pressure, and brake-cylinder pressure. Jutting out of the panel were levers for the throttle, the dynamic brake, the reverser, the loco­motive’s independent brakes, and another for the train’s brakes. Getting stopped is clearly a high priority in the train business. Mahalik punched a few keys below the computer display screen on the high­-voltage cabinet behind us. Dozens of green numbers winked on the screen—­engine parameters like coolant tempera­ture, throttle position, generator voltage. The two that interested me were horse­power and rpm. Mahalik explained that we would be standing still, but the main generator would be on full, providing resistance for the V-16 to work against—like an engine dynamometer. The current manufac­tured by the generator would be routed past the electric motors in the trucks and directly to a huge grid resistor—essen­tially a giant toaster—in the roof of the locomotive. The energy produced by the generator would be dissipated as heat. And to make sure the locomotive’s roof didn’t melt, a 100-hp blower fan would be blasting a gale-force wind across the glowing grid wires. “The grid resistor is normally used for dynamic braking,” Mahalik explained. In dynamic-braking mode, the electric mo­tors become generators. Now they’re try­ing to resist the train’s movement in an amount roughly equivalent to their pow­er, meaning you have about 5200 horsepower worth of brakes—enough to slow a freight train down in all but hilly terrain. The electricity produced by dynamic braking is spent through the grid resistors. “Open the throttle,” Mahalik ordered. There are eight throttle positions, and I watched the power readout climb as I notched the big lever through its travel. At position one, the engine was barely awake: only 190 horsepower. By position four, things were getting interesting: 570 rpm, 1310 horsepower. Position five: 1765 horsepower. The noise was getting raucous. Position six: 2280 horsepower and 729 rpm. Position seven: 3350 horsepower, 824 rpm. Position eight-wide open: 3855 horsepower at 903 rpm. But wait, there was more. I saw a flash reading of 4133 horsepower, and the engine settled down to a steady 4055 horsepower. I opened the cabin door. Whoa! Hell itself was bellowing at me. I slammed it shut. I eased the throttle back to idle. “Okay,” said Mahalik, “now put the re­verser in forward. It’s all yours.” I moved the throttle tentatively. The locomotive crept forward. The view over the stubby hood was surprisingly panoramic. I eased up to 15 mph, then went back to idle. Yeah, that’s it. Like driving a small motel. And we kept coasting. Three­-quarters of a million pounds doesn’t have much interest in slowing down, and the end of the track drew closer. I used the train brake. Ahead lay the main line, and the call of shiny steel rails going off into the distance. Maybe someday. Going forward was easy, but backing up was something else again. The view rearward was limited by the locomotive body; we were blind to the right. Maneu­vering just the locomotives was unnerv­ing, so backing a freight train around a railroad yard must be a laugh riot.After a few uneventful trips down the test track, Mahalik suggested we find out what it feels like to pull a load. “I’ll put the rear locomotive into dynamic brake, and we’ll drag it.” Sounded like a megadollar version of “irresistible force meets immovable object.” It had begun to drizzle, perfect for showing off EMO’s latest traction-con­trol system, according to Mahalik. “Okay, full throttle.” The SD-60 howled and shuddered and shook and began creeping forward. You could feel the traction-control system searching for grip, pulling back the voltage when any of the six driving axles began to slip. “A radar transceiver under the nose, aimed down at the track bed, feeds the comput­ers true ground speed,” Mahalik said over the thrumming. We were going less than 10 mph. “When the track gets really slippery, the computer automatically puts down sand to increase traction,” explained Mahalik, “but we don’t fill our lo­comotives with sand before delivery. “This is what it would be like dragging a heavy load in hilly terrain. You don’t want to run a locomotive under about 12 mph, because that strains the electric motors and they can overheat.” If more power is needed to get over the moun­tains, a railroad hooks up as many loco­motives as are required, then shuts them down on the flat sections. Having use of your own personal 4000-hp locomotive wouldn’t be worth much if you couldn’t engage in at least one act of juvenile delinquency, would it? I throttled back to a stop and jumped from the cab. At my signal, Mahalik eased the pair of SD-60s ahead and right on past me. There on the track was my handiwork: a dime and a penny, pressed as flat and smooth as your best shirt. Ah, life is sweet. “Time to park it,” said Mahalik with a shrug. But wait, Keith, we haven’t done the most important thing of all. Mahalik smiled knowingly and pointed to the big lever atop the instrument cluster. “Go ahead,” he nodded.Children of all ages, this one’s for you: WOOO—WOOOO—WOOOOOOOO . . . .Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
General Motors Electro-Motive SD-60Vehicle Type: mid-engine, 12-wheel-drive, 3-passenger, 2-door, diesel-electric locomotive
PRICE
Base: $1,400,000Standard accessories: electronic control system with display, cab heaters and defrosters, toiletOptions on our test vehicle: air conditioning, refrigerator, electrically heated windows, air-ride seats, comfort cab
ENGINEturbocharged and intercooled 2-stroke V-16 diesel, welded steel block and iron heads, direct fuel injectionDisplacement: 11,353 in3, 186,037 cm3Power: 4100 hp @ 900 rpmTorque: 23,925 lb-ft @ 900 rpm 
TRANSMISSION
1-speed DC Electric
CHASSISSuspension, Primary/Secondary: rigid axle/rubber spring pad between truck frame and steel bolsterBrakes: Electro-Motive Division 945-amp dynamic electromagnetic brakes with electronic anti-lock control, plus twelve Type 26L 2.5-inch-wide compressed-air-actuated shoe brakes acting on the drive wheelsWheels: 5.5 x 40-inch forged steel
DIMENSIONSTrack: 56.5 inLength: 804.0 inWidth: 122.5 inHeight: 187.0 inCurb Weight: 390,000 lbFuel Capactiy: 5000 gal
MANUFACTURER’S PERFORMANCE RATINGSTop Speed: 70 mphFuel consumption @ full power: 187 gallons per hour  Director, Buyer’s GuideRich Ceppos has evaluated automobiles and automotive technology during a career that has encompassed 10 years at General Motors, two stints at Car and Driver totaling 19 years, and thousands of miles logged in racing cars. He was in music school when he realized what he really wanted to do in life and, somehow, it’s worked out. In between his two C/D postings he served as executive editor of Automobile Magazine; was an executive vice president at Campbell Marketing & Communications; worked in GM’s product-development area; and became publisher of Autoweek. He has raced continuously since college, held SCCA and IMSA pro racing licenses, and has competed in the 24 Hours of Daytona. He currently ministers to a 1999 Miata and a 1965 Corvette convertible and appreciates that none of his younger colleagues have yet uttered “Okay, Boomer” when he tells one of his stories about the crazy old days at C/D. More

Outside of Tesla’s enviable Supercharger network, the public charging infrastructure for EVs in many places is grim. Oh, sure, it’s promised to get better, but how much does that help when you’re standing outside a broken charger or waiting for someone to leave a spot so you can juice up? Shoppers who prioritize range when choosing an EV minimize their interaction with the public charging network, and for those looking at Kia’s impressive EV6, that means going with the single-motor configuration. That’s the variant we’ve tested here, in the GT-Line trim level.For 2023, the EV6 is offered with three powertrains, as the base Light model with a 58.0-kWh battery pack and a 167-hp motor has been dropped. The single-motor version now comes standard with a 77.4-kWh battery and makes 225 horsepower in the Wind and GT-Line trim levels. Those same two trims are also offered with all-wheel drive and dual motors making a total of 320 horsepower, again using the 77.4-kWh battery. And, finally, there’s the new-for-2023 high-performance dual-motor GT with a combined 576 horsepower.Michael Simari|Car and DriverRange NumbersThe single-motor drivetrain yields the best EPA-estimated range: 310 miles. That betters the the dual-motor Wind model’s 282 miles, the dual-motor GT-Line’s 252 miles, and the EV6 GT’s dramatically lower EPA range estimate of 206 miles.HIGHS: Longest EPA range of any EV6, quick recharging, sleek exterior design.Not only does the single-motor EV6 have the best EPA range of its siblings, it also exceeds most of its competitors. The Toyota bZ4X maxes out at 252 miles, the Audi Q4 e-tron at 265 miles, and the Volkswagen ID.4 at 275 miles. The Kia falls just short of the longest-range versions of the Ford Mustang Mach-E (312 miles) and the Tesla Model Y (330 miles), but as we’ve pointed out in a recent SAE paper, those on-paper advantages may not equate to a real-world range advantage at highway speeds.Related StoriesDriving the EV6The downside is that the single-motor EV6 doesn’t have the sports-car quickness of the dual-motor version. In our testing, the dual-motor all-wheel-drive GT-Line zipped to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds, while the single-motor GT-Line took a more languid 6.7 seconds. It was a similar story looking at quarter-mile times, with the dual-motor car’s 13.3 seconds at 102 mph well ahead of its single-motor sibling’s 15.2 at 93 mph. Of course, pulling away from a stop isn’t always a time trial—or so we’re told—and the single-motor EV6 moves through traffic eagerly enough, particularly at city and suburban speeds. The rear-wheel-drive GT-Line came to a halt from 70 mph in 168 feet, although for gentle stops, some drivers might not have to use the brakes at all. In the highest (i-Pedal) setting, brake regeneration allows for one-pedal driving, but drivers who don’t want that much regen can choose four other levels, including none—all selected via the steering-wheel paddles. The EV6’s cornering is capable if not eager, mostly due to the rather lifeless steering, and on the skidpad, the car demonstrated 0.87 g of grip. Much more noteworthy is the ride quality, as the EV6 shows impressive composure over bumps, with zero harshness making its way to the cabin. Michael Simari|Car and DriverEV6 InteriorThat cabin features a mod-style design with a striped pattern on the dash that repeats on the center armrest, and illuminated blue stripes appear under the vents. The suede seat upholstery with synthetic-leather trim is $295 extra (and unavailable on the Wind model), and its white accents brighten the otherwise black cabin. The rear seat cushion is low—necessary, perhaps, to create adequate headroom for six-footers under the squashed roofline (here’s where the mechanically similar but boxier Hyundai Ioniq 5 has an advantage). The seat is plenty wide for three, though, and the floor is flat.LOWS: Can’t hustle like the dual-motor version, some annoying controls, less roomy inside than the Ioniq 5Up front, dual screens dominate the dash. The central display is impressively broad, although, on the home screen, that space is largely wasted, as the default display is just a clock. Beneath it, the touch-sensitive climate controls oddly also do double duty operating the audio system, meaning you have to toggle back and forth between the two sets of functions. The digital instrument cluster is slightly configurable, with the center section able to show driver-assist info, a trip computer, turn-by-turn directions, or tire pressure. The center console projects out over a large, open storage bin, and on top, there are cupholders, covered storage, and a spot to charge your phone wirelessly. Shifting is via dial, and there are also buttons for seat heating and cooling, the parking camera, and the parking sensors.The 2023 EV6 GT-Line in single-motor form currently starts at $54,225—there’s also the EV6 Wind, which can be had in the same configuration for $50,025. For the GT-Line, the single-motor powertrain saves $4700 over the dual-motor version; in the Wind trim level, the difference is $3900. So, we see that those who have mastered the art of patience are rewarded with a fatter wallet as well as the ability to travel greater distances before plugging in.Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
2022 Kia EV6 Long Range RWDVehicle Type: rear-motor, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $48,795/$53,985 Options: GT-Line trim (sunroof, Highway Driving Assist 2, park assist, HomeLink, auto-dimming rearview mirror), $4200; Steel Matte Gray paint, $695; GT-Line Suede Seat package, $295
POWERTRAIN
Motor: permanent-magnet synchronous AC, 225 hp, 258 lb-ftBattery Pack: liquid-cooled lithium-ion, 77.4 kWhOnboard Charger: 10.9 kWTransmission: direct-drive
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: struts/multilinkBrakes, F/R: 12.8-in vented disc/12.8-in solid disc Tires: Kumho Crugen HP71 EV235/55R-19 101H
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 114.2 inLength: 184.8 inWidth: 74.4 inHeight: 60.8 inPassenger Volume, F/R: 52/48 ft3Cargo Volume, behind F/R: 50/24 ft3Curb Weight: 4395 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 6.7 sec1/4-Mile: 15.2 sec @ 93 mph100 mph: 18.0 secResults above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 6.7 secTop Gear, 30–50 mph: 2.6 secTop Gear, 50–70 mph: 3.7 secTop Speed (gov ltd): 118 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 168 ftRoadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.87 g
EPA FUEL ECONOMYCombined/City/Highway: 117/134/101 MPGeRange: 310 mi
C/D TESTING EXPLAINEDDeputy Editor, Reviews and FeaturesJoe Lorio has been obsessed with cars since his Matchbox days, and he got his first subscription to Car and Driver at age 11. Joe started his career at Automobile Magazine under David E. Davis Jr., and his work has also appeared on websites including Amazon Autos, Autoblog, AutoTrader, Hagerty, Hemmings, KBB, and TrueCar. More

From the September 1990 issue of Car and Driver.We could begin this discussion of the new BMW 318is by saying that, finally, here’s a BMW that Biff and Buffy can afford, even if they’re strung out by stress, staggering vet bills, and interest pay­ments on the condo.And we could say that here’s a BMW intended to provide the ultimate-driv­ing-machine experience even to those who must daily face life without red sus­penders or home-delivery mineral wa­ter. Which is to say, if we dare, that the two-door 318is and its companion piece, the four-door 318i, are considered by BMW management to be affordable. The question of affordability is some­thing you’ll have to deal with after you turn off David Letterman and lie there in the dark trying to will your con­science into submission. If indecision persists or is unusually severe, put some Wagner on and add a six-pack of Beck’s to the mix. For those who have thus far been kept out of BMWs by an innate sense of fiscal responsibility (or a mulish loan officer), the biggest news here is the price: our 318is, as tested, cost a modest $21,985. The four-door, at a base of $19,900, is the first BMW 3-series to cost less than $20,000 since 1986. Last year, the Car and Driver Buyers Guide listed 3-series base prices ranging from $24,650 for the price-leader six-cylinder sedan to $34,950 for the thoroughbred M3, the car that a Famous Writer called “worth sacrificing the lives of every golden re­triever on earth.” Well, maybe he didn’t say exactly that, but most famous per­sons don’t really understand what BMWs are all about in the first place.More 1990s 3-series BMWsWhat BMWs are about, of course, is Driving, with a capital “D,” and that’s why the marque is one of our favorites. These days, BMWs are also about letting you feel that you’re not only one up on your neighbors and their minivans, but that you’ve left some of the town’s smart set lusting in your wake as well. We’ll stick with the driving. Our test drive–which started in San Antonio, Texas, advanced to the Missis­sippi gulf coast, and then turned north toward Detroit—concerned only the 318is, so we’ll confine our remarks to that version. Which is only appropriate, it being the sportier of the pair. The 318is has a four-cylinder engine. There. We’ve gone ahead and said it. And, having said it, we can also say that there is life after the wonderful 2.5-liter inline-six that we’ve loved so much around here. Even so, what questions we have concerning the envy quotient of the new 318is center on the new engine. Be assured that it’s a fine piece of work, the kind you’ve come to expect from BMW. Also be assured that it displaces only 1.8 liters and generates 134 horsepower. “The engine is the most powerful 1.8-liter normally aspirated four-cylinder sold in the United States,” says BMW’s Rob Mitchell. The new engine indeed has all the hats and horns needed for a celebration. Each cylinder has four valves, activated by chain-driven double overhead cam­shafts. Though BMW’s experience with four-valve-per-cylinder engines dates to a racing engine that appeared in 1966 and extends through a series of the spar­kling M-series engines, the new 1.8-liter four has the first four-valve-per-cylinder engine intended for volume production. How much volume? BMW hopes to sell 7000 units in North America this year and 15,000 per year after that. The engine’s completely new alumi­num cylinder-head design incorporates hollow camshafts designed to reduce weight and power-sapping inertial forces, if only by a minuscule amount. It’s driven by a chain that’s kept quiet by the use of rubber-coated guides and a hy­draulic tensioner. The noise police also installed hydraulic bucket tappets, which have the additional advantage of avoid­ing oil drainage when the engine is not running. The valvetrain cover has been acoustically “decoupled” from the cylin­der head to reduce noise still further. Having nothing to do with noise but a lot to do with hard driving, the exhaust valves are sodium-cooled. The engine is controlled by a new­-generation Bosch Digital Motor Elec­tronics engine-management system with individual ignition coils at each cylinder. This works in conjunction with the usual Bosch port-fuel-injection system. There’s a two-barrel throttle body that uses a 1.4-inch-diameter opening for del­icate control at light loads and an addi­tional 2.2-inch-diameter opening for high power demands. The exhaust system has a nifty large­-diameter header, two mufflers, and a cat­alytic converter. A 10.0:1 compression ratio allows the use of 91-octane fuel, your conscience permitting, and the EPA awards the 318is a fuel-economy rating of 22 mpg city, 27 mpg highway. We ob­served a 26-mpg figure during the car’s stay with us. Speaking of mileage, what’s it like to drive this machine? In two words, not bad. The peak horsepower of 134 ap­pears at 6000 rpm, 600 revs below redline. Maximum torque, 127 pound-feet, is found at 4600 rpm. If you judge from these technical tidbits that the engine takes a bit of hard driving to extract maximum performance, you judge correctly. Driven under noncombat conditions, the car will feel a tad on the slow side. It won’t bore you exactly, nor is it a lug, but neither will it give you that sense of pent-up energy you feel in a good horse straining at its reins. We managed to exceed BMW’s per­formance projections when we tested the 318is. We achieved a 0-to-60-mph time of 8.7 seconds (BMW had predicted 9.9), and our landing quarter-mile clocked in at 82 mph in 16.4 seconds. Top speed was 123 mph. The powertrain includes a Getrag 240/5 five-speed gearbox that’s as nice an interface between car and driver as you’ll ever find. There’s no automatic option in the transmission column, an obvious money-saving move that might cost some mainstream sales but won’t disappoint the true BMW enthusiast—it may even weed out some of the Land’s End and L.L. Bean dandelions. The handling is pure BMW, which is to say more fun than Labrador puppies. We did note that the steering tended toward the light side at high speed, but the rest of the attributes were of the level expected from a Bimmer—very high. The suspen­sion is fully independent, and the 318is gets thicker anti-roll bars and shock ab­sorbers with a sportier personality than in the 318i. The package, called the M-Tech­nic suspension, aims to provide crisper handling than the four-door and succeeds in doing just that—without unduly compromising the car’s fine ride. The 0.80-g skidpad number won’t win any trophies, but this figure does not al­ways reflect a car’s overall competence­ let alone the satisfaction it can deliver in the right pair of hands.Braking from 70 mph required only 170 feet, and the standard anti-lock sys­tem and four-wheel discs displayed no fade whatsoever in repeated stopping maneuvers. We don’t think it’s overstat­ing the case to say that most BMW brak­ing systems display excellent pedal feel and feedback so accurate that the driver feels as if his feet were connected me­chanically to the brake calipers. The 318is upholds this tradition.The BMW 318is and 318i keep other BMW customs as well, beginning with the concept of offering a well-equipped car at the advertised base price. Here’s what you get with the 318is (the small “s” is for “sport,” in case you wondered): air conditioning, a driver-side air bag, anti­-lock brakes, power windows, a central door-locking system, a rear defroster, sport seats with good lateral support in a choice of fabric or leatherette, a four-­speaker AM/FM/cassette system, and a lot more. The 318is also gets a deck spoiler and an air dam that distinguish it from its colleague, plus fourteen-inch al­loy wheels whose 6.5-inch width holds a variety of 195/65R14 tires (our car wore H-rated Goodyear Eagle NCT65s). The only options available on the two 318 models are a limited-slip differential, halogen fog lights, an anti-theft system, metallic paint, and a sunroof.Clearly, the BMW marketers mean business with these cars. When you fac­tor in the generous list of standard equip­ment, the cars—viewed by a BMW en­thusiast—seem more than reasonably priced. But it would be wrong to rule out such competition as the Eagle Talon TSi AWD, which can be said to have most of the above plus all-wheel drive. Or a Nissan Maxima SE, which has four doors. Or a Ford Thunderbird SC, which can blow the BMW into the Armco at an equally reasonable price. All those cars, moreover, possess exterior styling that can be said to be far more modern than that of the current Bimmer 3-series. But none of those competitors is a BMW. And in some circles, the BMW heritage, including the look of the 3-se­ries, counts for a lot. How widely those circles reach into the marketplace, only time will tell, of course. “It is a BMW without compromise,” BMW’s North American boss Karl Gerlinger told us. And we’d agree with that. There’s no hint of bargain-base­ment tackiness about these two cars, par­ticularly the 318is. And though its price seems low to BMW management—and presumably to potential BMW owners—­the average enthusiast won’t call it cheap. Whether you can afford a 318is has little or nothing to do with us thinking you ought to have one of them. Owning a BMW, like dating a movie star or having your horse win the Kentucky Derby, is just one of those things that red-blooded Americans ought to do. How you do it, of course, is your business. CounterpointAt last: a reasonably priced BMW that feels like a Bimmer. Banish those sorry recollections of the deceased (happily) eight-valve 318i—a car that delighted the fern-bar crowd but chilled the hearts of the BMW faithful. This new 318—the sixteen-valve 318—feels and acts like a scaled-down version of its bigger, more potent brethren.Yes, you have to rev the whee out of the 1.8-liter four to wring the most from it, but remember that this is a BMW engine; it likes—scratch that, adores—being gunned hard. And the five-speed shifter is one of the finest on the planet. So it’s easy to keep the tach needle up where it belongs. For $21,895, the 318is offers a lot for discerning drivers: that hearty powertrain, an air bag, stout anti-lock brakes, a fine chassis, and a fair help­ing of convenience items. You can find plenty of better-performing cars for less money, but few share this Bimmer’s steadfast character. BMW lovers: this one is worth it. —Arthur St. AntoineThe 318is is a bargain hunter’s BMW that stays true to the marque’s sports-­sedan heritage. True to tradition, its impressive list of standard equipment includes a wonderful engine: an all­-new sixteen-valve four-cylinder. Al­though not exactly turbo-muscular, the new engine makes plenty of us­able horsepower and some pretty ter­rific sounds in the process. Keep the tach needle in the upper ranges and you’ll never miss the six-cylinder. The controls are light and precise, and the sport seats are some of the best around, even if they are covered in vinyl. Unfortunately, the ventilation system falls short of modern standards: the cabin becomes unusually stuffy when the fan isn’t used to boost circulation. Because the back-seat windows don’t open, the optional sunroof is almost a necessity. Except for a few badges, the 318is is visually identical to its more upscale 3-series siblings. It proves BMW can build a satisfying sports sedan and of­fer it at a reasonable price. —Jeffrey DworinOn paper, the BMW 318is doesn’t seem overly impressive. It uses BMW’s oldest body style, it is bereft of many of the usual creature com­forts, it is fitted with the least powerful engine the company sells in America, and it performs no better than any of several econohunks. Seemingly, the only thing going for this car is its price, which is low by BMW’s lofty standards. From behind its wheel, however, the 318is starts to look better. With its solid body and supple suspension, the small Bimmer can be hurled over even the most pockmarked roads without losing touch with the pave­ment or inciting a symphony of shakes and shudders. Its driveline is an un­mitigated pleasure, marrying a pre­cise shifter with a supremely eager engine that joyfully gives its all without hesitation. Finally, this newest 3-se­ries model, with its smaller powerplant and less burdensome load of creature comforts, has a de­lightfully light and agile feel, giving it a decidedly sporting flavor. Those drivers who can see past its modest specs will find that the 318is provides enough driving satisfaction to justify its price. —Csaba CsereArrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
1990 BMW 318isVehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $21,985/$21,985
ENGINEDOHC 16-valve inline-4, iron block and aluminum head, port fuel injectionDisplacement: 110 in3, 1796 cm3Power: 134 hp @ 6000 rpmTorque: 127 lb-ft @ 4600 rpm 
TRANSMISSION[S]5-speed manual
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arm/trailing armsBrakes, F/R: 10.2-in vented disc/10.2-in discTires: Goodyear Eagle NCT65195/65HR-14
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 101.2 inLength: 170.3 inWidth: 64.8 inHeight: 53.5 inPassenger Volume, F/R: 45/37 ft3Trunk Volume: 12 ft3Curb Weight: 2607 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS30 mph: 2.760 mph: 8.7 sec100 mph: 26.1 sec1/4-Mile: 16.4 sec @ 82 mphTop Gear, 30–50 mph: 13.3 secTop Gear, 50–70 mph: 14.2 secTop Speed: 123 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 170 ftRoadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.80 g 
C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 26 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMYCity/Highway: 22/27 mpg 
C/D TESTING EXPLAINEDCar and driverCar and driver Lettermark logoContributing EditorWilliam Jeanes is a former editor-in-chief and publisher of Car and Driver. He and his wife, Susan, a former art director at Car and Driver, are now living in Madison, Mississippi. More