Reviews

From the January 1980 issue of Car and Driver.Ask yourself this: If the world’s best­selling car were rolling smartly off your assembly line into the eager clutches of millions of happy customers each year, would you gamble success and play the market with a totally new and different automobile? Say no and the competi­tion will grind you under its front-wheel drive and spit you out flatter than a sail kitty. Say yes and you’re faced with one of the all-time toughest dilemmas of the auto biz: how to build a better (read, more successful) Corolla.Toyota certainly mulled this very problem over as the old Corolla steadily edged toward obsolescence year after year. But two energy crunches and a decade of raging inflation have stam­peded plenty of buyers back to basics, making the Corolla more popular than ever in the process. It became the Bee­tle of Japan with practically no help from the engineering department—a universally recognized benchmark of basic transportation. Leaving the Corolla alone all these years gave Toyota two distinct advan­tages: plenty of time to plan a new one, and plenty of justification for waiting another year to thrust it upon the world. Now that the day of reckoning has finally come, it’s obvious what a dilemma Toyota’s gone through. Last year’s Co­rolla is well and truly gone, but now there are two replacements to fill the old girl’s shoes. Apparently the split be­tween conventional and front-wheel­-drive forces runs deep through Toyota City, because both factions have suc­ceeded in bringing a new Corolla to market. The front-engine-rear-drive version requires no explaining; it’s the same Corolla that’s been such a hit in steno pools and with high-school sen­iors over the years, repackaged with a host of improvements. The Corolla Tercel in this test is the antithesis of those diehard traditions. It may look weird, but it’s the first Toyota designed to be the best possible economy car in­stead of just another miniaturized American sedan. Looking back at Toyota subcompactsBefore we dig deep into the Tercel’s soul to find out how it was all done, consider a few bottom-line facts about this car. In stripped-down, twelve-inch­-tire, rubber-floor-mat trim, it’s the cheapest Toyota money can buy, in fact the second-cheapest new car in Ameri­ca, at $3698. The Tercel is also Toyota’s fuel-economy star, racking up 29 to 33 miles for every gallon (depending on transmission) in EPA tests. Plenty of technical sophistication has been built in: a new overhead-cam engine, front­-wheel drive, and all-independent sus­pension. And even though the Tercel is the smallest Toyota on the outside, it’s bigger than the biggest in several key dimensions inside. Richard George|Car and DriverWhile the Tercel’s looks are “unique” in a way that will take more than the usual amount of getting used to, you can love the hard parts under its strange skin right off the bat. Subaru, Honda, and Datsun all struggled through rather miserable first attempts at front-wheel drive, but Toyota has left its false starts in the lab. The Tercel is a front-wheel­-driver that works, further justifying the “last-out, best-dressed” strategy. The steering feels rear-wheel-drive “nor­mal”: There’s no torque steer, not much understeer, and just enough lift-throttle oversteer to keep hard drivers amused. Oddly enough, there’s not much evi­dence in the hardware to suggest how all this was accomplished. The front suspension is a conventional MacPherson strut design, the back wheels hang from an iso­lated crossmember on pure trailing arms, and the engine is right where you’d expect to find it in a rear-driver. Though the rest of the world’s carmak­ers have almost universally accepted the Alec Issigonis system (1959, Austin Mini) of transversely mounting the en­gine to drive the front wheels through a transverse transmission, Toyota’s gone its own way with a resolutely fore-and-­aft design. The engine is merely elevat­ed a few inches to make room for a dif­ferential mounted under the number-­four cylinder. This makes the transmis­sion a rather bizarre, four-shaft affair that takes power in at the top, turns it around inside, and spits it out below into a fairly conventional hypoid differ­ential. A pair of half-shafts run power out to the front wheels. Toyota claims that serviceability was the prime motivation for this vertically stacked powertrain. It’s true that spark plugs and ignition components are easi­er to get at than if they had been squeezed between a transverse cylinder head and the firewall, but the real rea­son is more likely a simple case of economics. The Tercel’s parts are a lot more like rear-drive components than they would be if the engine were turned 90 degrees in the car, and therefore somewhat cheaper for an old-line, rear­-drive builder like Toyota to tool up for. As it turns out, this does penalize the design somewhat. Jacking the engine up in the car to clear the drive components hurts both handling (higher center of gravity) and fuel economy (a taller hoodline is necessary to clear the en­gine, slightly increasing aerodynamic drag and fuel consumption). But the strangest sacrifice of all is Toyota’s use of a hypoid-bevel-gear final-drive in the Tercel. Engineers love to avoid this power waster if at all possible. (GM an­nounced that eliminating a 90-degree transfer of power with the X-car’s side­winder design improved overall efficien­cy by 3 percent). Hypoid bevel gears originally came into popular use because they allow an offset between input and output shafts, facilitating a low drive­shaft tunnel in rear-drive cars. The pen­alty is lots of sliding friction, which most FWD designers to date have been all too happy to eliminate. We can only guess that Toyota swallowed the hypoid pill in the Tercel in order to use a few more parts (or tooling) that already existed.Richard George|Car and DriverThere is one last big plus in Toyota’s favor in the great East-West-versus-North-South engine-layout debate. With the transmission where it has end­ed up in the Tercel, the shift linkage is short and sweet. While cars like the Rabbit have what looks like an Erector Set under the hood to bell-crank motion from a remote shifter to the transmis­sion, the Tercel has one highly polished shaft sliding smoothly inside an alumi­num casting. You don’t have to be a safecracker to feel all the snicks and clicks that Japanese transmissions have been so good at delivering over the years; a light flick of the wrist produces the right gear every time. The slick-shifting transmission is one of the few traits that have been saved from old Corollas for the new Tercel. In contrast to the dark-tunnel mood of the old car, the new interior is as bright and airy as a phone booth. The cloth-cov­ered bucket seats in our top-of-the-line SR5 test car are a new record achieve­ment for Toyota. They’re firmly pad­ded and shaped to fit a person’s back­side. The lateral-support cushions could use some plumping up and the recliner mechanism is a little coarse in its adjust­ment, but otherwise, these seats are ready for long bouts on the road. The back bench is undoubtedly the best rear seating Toyota has ever built into a car with fewer than four doors. Two six­-footers fit comfortably with room to spare, and the backrest is split to maxi­mize potential combinations of people and cargo. Color coordination rules the interior decor. Razzmatazz is thankfully at an all-time low, so you really get the feeling you’re in a nice, simple car and not a Japanese pachinko parlor. The instru­mentation is neatly arrayed within the visual bounds of the steering wheel. Readouts are highly telegraphic, and di­rectly illuminated at night with soft, white light. The A/C equipment is inte­grated into and hidden behind the instrument panel, so no center console is necessary to cover plumbing and soak up legroom. Two things do stand out in their absence: there’s no dock and not a single gimmick in the gas-flap-release, trunk-opener, and rear-window-flipper ilk that virtually all new Japanese cars have spoiled us with lately. The Tercel comes straight. What Toyota’s done is sacrifice gimmicks and also convention­al good looks to build a rather uncon­ventionally roomy interior. Wheels are relegated to the far corners of the car, and the roof is almost as long as the wheelbase. The plan went awry on only one count: what’s left after four passen­gers are seated is more like a golf bag than a steamer trunk. The cargo hold’s opening is small and waist-high, and the space available is almost as deep as it is long and wide. So think not of the Ter­cel as a mini station wagon, but more as a Scirocco with headroom. Just don’t let your thoughts be swept away with dreams of Scirocco-like speediness. The Tercel is slow, in fact downright turtle-like, the way Corollas have always been. Our test car never saw the blurry side of 85 mph, and churning up to 65 mph in the quarter-­mile took more than twenty seconds. No doubt this has purposely been designed in so Corolla customers won’t miss all the gas stations they’ll be driving by. The Tercel does break with boredom in handling. Turn the wheel and it charges after apexes with a vengeance. There’s less understeer than Toyota’s ever dared to build into its sportiest Celicas, and if you’re willing to horse around with the throttle and steering wheel, you can produce quite a nice sideways view of the world in the Ter­cel’s windshield. The steering is a little wooden-feeling at times—too slow, a bit too heavy, and slightly numb to the touch—but any front-driver that can be cajoled into oversteer is all right by us. The Tercel does have one strength that supersedes handling, however: It’s already selling like crazy. The Toyota dealer up the block from us is sold out for six months. By now the word is out that Toyotas don’t break down every time it’s raining and you happen to be late for work. Furthermore, recession buyers are checking window stickers first and worrying later about the weird taillights and the fact that a Tercel looks nothing at all like a roadgoing rapier. Its 29–33-mpg EPA rating has the uncanny ability to lash out and snag innocent customers right off the sidewalk. The big five (and occasionally a four, or even a three) next to the dollar sign has them reaching for a checkbook before the salesman even utters “front-wheel drive.” All because the Tercel does ex­actly what the world’s-best-seller Corol­la did. It keeps the basic in basic trans­portation. CounterpointIt took Toyota a bunch too many years to get into the front-wheel-drive business. As good a basic transportation module as the Corolla has been, it’s been showing its technological staleness from the mo­ment the Rabbit and its string of copiers showed up. But now there’s the Tercel with its unique front-wheel-drive engine­-transmission layout, its weird styling, and its wheels-at-the-far-corners chassis—its own formula for success. And that’s what I’m predicting for it. Lots of huge big piles of success. The Tercel is going to be just perfect for umpteen thousands of buyers who are looking for small and cheap and economy and couldn’t care less about anything else. Enthusiasts will be looking elsewhere. Like the Corollas before it, the Tercel is about as exciting as mold. But really good mold, mind you. —Mike KnepperToyota’s success is the result of building one good car after another. Not great cars, not exciting cars, not cars bursting with personality—just good ones. I can’t think of a Toyota I’ve ever driven that was horrible—or one that really rang my chimes, for that matter. The Tercel is no different; there’s nothing bad about it. If Toyota had said the Tercel was the next generation of rear-drive Corollas, I might have been fooled. It has no nasty fwd manners, no rough edges, and it goes about its business almost unnoticed­—more like a travel appliance than a car. It has the kind of power and room and trim you’d expect in a low-roller econobox, and seems well worth its price. Most of all it’s familiar, another middle-of-the-road, durable, economical, reliable, well-built Toyota sedan—only with front drive. Which is why I don’t expect anyone to be shocked or dismayed or thrilled or as­tounded by the Tercel. But I do expect vast hordes of mileage seekers to suck up every Tercel that lands here. And I expect they’ll like it just fine. —Rich CepposWell, friends, with this Tercel I think Toyota has hit the economy-car nail smack on the head. It is not spectacular­—economy cars don’t need to be, remem­ber?—but it does everything you could reasonably request of it. I find it very comfortable, and ensconced behind the wheel I can see all the gauges and touch all the controls without having to move one tiny little bit in the pleasantly plaid seat. There are nice, big windows all around to watch the scenery rise up, slip by, and fade away. In back is enough car­go room to pack home an office chair—I tried it—and underneath a neat and tidy independent rear suspension that con­tributes to a surprisingly good ride. The engine won’t ravage much asphalt, but it is responsive and willing and seems hap­pily free of most of the buzzings, thrash­ings, and dronings so typical of the species econoboxus. I don’t know if you will ever fall in love with this car, but I’m cer­tain you’ll always like it. For a wallet-sav­er, what else is there? —Don FullerArrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
1979 Toyota Corolla Tercel SR5Vehicle Type: front-engine, front-wheel-drive, 4-passenger, 2-door hatchback
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $4848/$5658Options: air conditioning, $520; aluminum wheels, $215; rear wiper, $75.
ENGINESOHC inline-4, iron block and aluminum headDisplacement: 89 in3, 1452 cm3Power: 60 hp @ 4800 rpmTorque: 72 lb-ft @ 2800 rpm 
TRANSMISSION5-speed manual
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: struts/control armsBrakes, F/R: 8.9-in disc/7.1-in drumTires: Dunlop SP4 Steel165/70SR-13
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 98.4 inLength: 160.0 inWidth: 61.2 inHeight: 52.8 inCurb Weight: 2010 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 16.2 sec1/4-Mile: 20.3 sec @ 65 mph80 mph: 41.7 secTop Speed: 85 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 212 ft 
EPA FUEL ECONOMYCombined (est.): 31 mpg 
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED More

From the August 1980 issue of Car and Driver.We are born in one of two ways: to be drivers or to be passengers. Beyond the cosmic import of these two inclinations lie the facts of our lives, the ways we react to the highs and the lows of our lives. Pre­sented with a slate-black Porsche 911SC, a reasonable assumption fore­sees in us an immediate upswing of good vibrations, some heavy breathing, and rising blips of the old heart rate. For drivers, these burgeoning sensations crackle in Vesuvian poppings of rap­ture. For passengers, it’s much worse.Going along for the ride is less than a surefire way to live up to the passive side of one’s nature. Riding shotgun in a raging, spitting, hair-trigger 911SC is just about the most awful and impossi­ble way there is to remain passive. This 911SC, this Thing, could draw screams from the pope. Confronted with stream­ing, onrushing impedimenta, even the most stolid passengers collapse into be­yond-the-pale-of-reason seizures of fright. Their eyes pop, their knuckles get pasty, and they put teeth marks in their tongues. “This is like a roller coaster,” they whimper. “I hate roller coasters.” But the 911SC is addictive. If the driver knows how to wield this Tool of the Ultimate Whisk, the passenger comes around with an inspired turn of enthusiasm: “I want one, I want one!” It bursts forth uncontrollably. There isn’t a soul alive who somehow doesn’t pooch out the boundaries of his or her personal performance envelope with insistent regularity. One way or an­other there are things to be tried, risks to be taken. Everybody likes to take the deep breath of commitment every so of­ten. It begins with things as passive as cringing at Psycho and steps up to rush­-hour jaywalking. Then, somewhere about in the middle, come roller coast­ers, the chance-taker’s delight. They don’t often derail or spit people out into the stratosphere, but they feel as if they were built for nothing else. Roller­ coaster graduates move straight on to full-contact karate, black belts shift over to everybody’s favorite game show, “Celebrity Decapitation,” and finally the survivor here gets to be Denis Jen­kinson and rides with Stirling Moss at 180 mph for a thousand miles through darkest Italy. Riding in a 911SC with someone who exhibits every intention of going really fast is sort of the ultimate, pumped-up pooching out of the more passive side of our nutty little envelopes. The only bad thing is that you can’t get on your knees; you’ve got to do your best prayers sitting down. Andre LaRoche|Car and DriverAnd now the question is, How much longer will Porsche be building these portable pews? Stuttgart has made nois­es before about the end being in sight for its hoary old coupe (and its ongoing Targa version), but even at today’s bloated price, it snags the old faithful and the new converts year after year. For good reason. If one can afford a 911SC, it is a helluva value. If not, it doesn’t make any difference. In the two years since we tested the first 911SC, its base price has jumped $10,000. But what you get for your $30,000 these days is probably the best rear-engined Porsche ever loaded on a boat. We mention this boat-loading-for-America business because cars for the European home market are blessed with better (read, lower and firmer and more pre­cise) suspension settings, which make a tremendous difference in the way the cars feel and ultimately respond. Even so, the 1980 911SC is a happier com­promise for the American market than the now discontinued 930 Turbo was. The 911SC mixes strong perform­ance with what we have reason to be­lieve, based on history and typical Ger­man thoroughness and quality, should be outstanding reliability. This thing should run until your hair and teeth fall out and your family looks around for someplace to plant you. The air-cooled flat-six whump-starts to a noisy idle, fast and healthy, busy with its performance preoccupation. A three-­way catalyst and an oxygen sensor in the fuel injection take care of emissions without further add-ons. The resulting drivability and performance are second to none among mass-produced U.S.­-available cars this year. This is an en­gine full of itself, cocky about what it can do. Send it your message and it hol­lers right back. Zero-to-60 takes 6.0 seconds flat, top speed is 130 mph, and overall mileage, even figuring in plenty of hard beating through the boondocks, runs out at 16 mpg. For coming into corners we recom­mend close attention to the First Rule of Ongais, to wit: Get your braking done in a straight line, transition smoothly into the corner as you begin to feed throttle, bringing the car from basic un­dersteer to a neutral distribution of cor­nering forces—i.e., all four wheels squared up. Just don’t indulge in a pan­icky rethink about slowing down by backing out of the gas. This over-your-­head time is when you should dust off the First Rule of Bobby Allison, to wit: Floor it and steer like crazy. We’ve always known that out behind the rear axle is no place for an engine to be, and Porsche has spent years try­ing to compensate. Currently—and ulti­mately?—Porsche has jacked up the car and grafted a number of hi-tech beha­vioral fixes into its outdated chassis. At this, Porsche has done better than ever before. The suspension calibrations, the wide rear wheels and tires, and the fat Pirelli P7 supertires all contribute to the reformation of the 911SC, but, as with a reformed drunk, the real shortcomings (semi-trailing-arm rear suspension and the clumsy rear weight bias thanks to the tail-hung engine) are still ready to crop up in moments of character weak­ness. But Porsche has done a masterly job of bringing the 911’s behavior into reasonable line.Andre LaRoche|Car and Driver The tech editor climbed into the SC and dragged the poor thing off for some skidpad abuse, and even he of the hy­percritical persuasion came away im­pressed with Porsche’s progress. There is new and unexpected controllability at the raggedy edge. So we belted down to Ohio and molested its secret colloquial byways, ripping off as much as 600 miles a day in the depths of tightly en­meshed forests and hills. At last light, we got out and ran a sen­sory check, and discovered all our facul­ties to be in good shape, and, except for a serious case of cop-eyes, no signs of personal wear and tear poked out any ­place. Much of the credit must go to the 911SC’s ventilated four-wheel disc brakes, which are a godsend. With the possible exceptions of the windshield and the steering wheel, there is nothing more useful on the car. The brakes produce overwhelming inversions of speed, transferring your insides about down to knee level under maximum braking. There’s next to no nose dive, and the pedal is ridiculously easy to modulate, oomphing the car down into corners as if a king-sized suction cup has been acti­vated. The suspension absorbs whoop­ing dips with no loss of equanimity, but jumping to daylight over lopsided crests gives those confounded semi-trailing arms too much of a chance to tweak the thing off kilter into a lopsided, darting landing. The steering is direct and quick, if fraught with kickback over bumps, and the five-speed gearbox is undoubtedly pleased with its latest linkage update, which still produces notchy shifts but with much more definite gates than in the past. Porsche never stops fiddling.In the Porsche tradition, the instru­ments are thorough and splendidly ar­rayed. We wish this were true of the heating and ventilation controls, which are grouped in a panel unmarked ex­cept for defrost instructions. One of the reasons the base price has leapt so drastically is a long list of for­merly optional standards such as air conditioning, power windows, a center console, black outside trim, an engine­-compartment light, and a leather-cov­ered wheel. Our SC also has $2145 worth of fog lights, rear speakers, right­-side electric mirror, sport shocks, forged alloy wheels, and the P7s. A Blaupunkt AM/FM/cassette unit with Dolby for hiss reduction channels its sound cleanly through four speakers, two of which are on the doors below long, handy storage bins neatly inte­grated into the armrests. Our only problem with the 911SC, other than maintaining possession of the keys, was with the keys themselves. They are featherweight aluminum, and they bend easily, especially when igni­tion tumblers are slightly misaligned. Ours were. The key was bent a little, and one of them hung up in the start position instead of returning to the run position, which is supposed to disen­gage the starter. As a result, the starter toasted itself to a crisp and the ignition shorted out. We have Howard Cooper Volkswagen/Porsche+Audi in Ann Ar­bor to thank for a super-quick fix that allowed us to get the car into this issue. Andre LaRoche|Car and DriverThe people-packaging core within the 911SC makes a halfhearted attempt at providing spots for two kids or two cramped adults in back (these seatlets fold down, providing useful luggage space over and above the five-cubic-foot trunk in the nose of the car). But the place where you live and work up front is first-cabin in every respect. Ours was superbly finished (except for a single drip of glue on the carpet) and taste­fully colored. The soothingly shaped and padded seats were covered in fine, ventilated leather. Everything fits so snugly it seems to have been molded to­gether almost to the point of meltdown. Surrounding these fine appointments is one of the stoutest bodies ever, a clean design that incorporates the best-­looking 5-mph bumpers on the market. Lacking the 930’s bulbous fenders and whale tail, the SC is less a caricature, more a subtle and righteous-looking notice of intent to commit unspecified ille­galities, especially in fast corners.Very fast corners. It is the roller­ coaster syndrome again. It is what the 911SC does. What is so pleasing about the whole proposition is that it also does so many other things so well. As compromises go, the 911SC is right at the top of the most intriguing heap of all, the one that peaks with works of man’s imagination that really aren’t compromises at all, because they’re ca­pable of a near-infinite feat of the leap­ing-tall-buildings variety. Need a lift?Counterpoint For almost 30 years I’ve wanted to own whatever rear-engined Porsche has been in production at the time. I guess I’ve driven at least one example of every Porsche production car ever built, including a 1300 Super, and I’ve never been disappointed. Now, with this 911SC coupe, my boundless affection begins to wane. Certainly, the months and miles I’ve done in the Porsche 928 have done their bit to erode the love affair, but there’s more . . . This Porsche feels old, somehow. It feels as if it’s finally coming to the end of its allotted life space. I’m no longer willing to put up with the harshness, or the way the front end hunts and nibbles when you power it through a favorite country corner. I’m sure I would have liked it better without the Pirelli P7 tires, and I’m sure that I could still be tempted by a dark-gray Targa, but my 911 appetite isn’t as strong now. It didn’t help that the Audi 5000 Turbo passed through my hands simultaneously. Even with four doors and an automatic transmission, the Audi manages to do several things better than the Porsche. From now on, the Porsche of my dreams has a V-8 engine in the front. —David E. Davis, Jr.The writing, it would seem, is on the wall. And what is written is that the venerable and venerated 911 is in the twilight of its years. I can remember when there were so many 911 variations I couldn’t keep them all straight. Now there’s just this one. Porsche says there will be a 911 as long as there is a demand for one, but it’s difficult to see the car or the demand lasting more than another couple of years. At the most. The 911SC is as good as it can be made. Porsche has massaged, refined, reworked, and improved on it until the car is as near perfection as it can be. And that’s why it will go away. Innovation and challenge are very important to Porsche. The 911 no longer provides either. It has outlived its usefulness, and as attrition takes the die-hard traditionalists, the 911 will finally outlive its demand. I loved driving the SC, and I could live a long and happy life with it. It’s still that good, that satisfying. But we’re getting a 928 in a few weeks, and I know it will turn my head, and it’ll make my knees feel funny, and the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The 911 just doesn’t do that to me anymore. The 928 is the now Porsche, and that’s fine by me. —Mike KnepperPorsche hereby inherits enviable distinction as the most accelerative car money can buy in these United States. With no help from a turbocharger. There are those that peak out a bit higher, but the Stuttgart Super Beetle gets you there quicker. This demands a certain amount of respect even from those who—like me—decry the obsolescence of rear-engine layouts. You’ve also go to credit Porsche for the 911’s staying power. It holds the record as the oldest car design still in production for America (not counting the Avanti and the Checker). One thing that has changed over the years is the 911’s penchant for oversteer. I find it at an all-time low in this 1980 model with the Sport group. It stuck and stuck on our skidpad, finally drifting over the limit front first. Lifting abruptly off the throttle hardly made it twitch. So the P7s and wider rear wheels are a must. I was also happy with the real-world handling, but I wouldn’t touch the sport shocks with a stick. Over broken pavement and Michigan-class expansion strips (the one­-inch-high kind), the so-called dampers fit­ted to our tester went rigid. Two hours on a bad highway gave me a headache. Now I know what they were thinking of when the 911’s soft-ride package came out a few years back. —Don ShermanArrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
1980 Porsche 911SCVehicle Type: rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 2+2-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $27,700/$30,470Options: F25 option group, $2145; metallic paint, $625.
ENGINESOHC flat-6, aluminum block and heads, direct fuel injectionDisplacement: 183 in3, 2990 cm3Power: 172 hp @ 5500 rpmTorque: 189 lb-ft @ 4200 rpm 
TRANSMISSION[S]5-speed manual
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: struts/control armsBrakes, F/R: 9.0-in vented disc/9.6-in vented discTires: Pirelli Cintuato P7F: 205/55VR-16R: 225/50VR-16
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 89.4 inLength: 168.9 inWidth: 65.0 inHeight: 52.0 inPassenger Volume, F: 46 ft3Trunk Volume: 5 ft3Curb Weight: 2700 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 6.0 sec1/4-Mile: 14.7 sec @ 92 mph100 mph: 18.4 secTop Speed: 130 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 169 ftRoadholding, 218-ft Skidpad: 0.80 g
EPA FUEL ECONOMYCombined (est.): 16 mpg
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED More

There’s no denying the 2023 Chevrolet Colorado has received an extreme makeover that has considerably toughened its image, with a bold front end and creased chiseled flanks. The new third-generation example stands in stark contrast to the outgoing unit, which came across as little more than a scaled-down full-size truck. It failed to take advantage of its smaller size in a mid-size segment that was being increasingly defined by perceived toughness and off-road prowess. Thus far, the Toyota Tacoma has owned that territory, but the Colorado looks set to mount a serious challenge.That’s because the changes are also functional and go beyond mere styling. The truck’s reworked air dam and shorter front overhang result in a healthy 29.1-degree approach angle for the Z71, which formerly had a low-hanging and difficult-to-remove spoiler that would barely clear a parking block, let alone any off-highway obstacle worth the name. The prior Z71 “off-road” model couldn’t even clear a 20.0-degree Ramp Travel Index ramp, earning it a score of zero.ChevroletOut back, the spare has been tucked up some 2.5 inches higher for better departure clearance, because there’s no longer a need to create space for the discontinued diesel engine’s DEF tank. It’s easy to see the terrain in front because of the way the hood creases are shaped, and the lower rear shock mounts are less vulnerable to impact because they have been shifted closer to the rear springs. In other words, a Z71 can now readily head off-pavement, and the WT (work truck) and LT trims are better able to maneuver a job site or pole-line road.More on the Colorado PickupChevrolet’s engineering team didn’t stop there. The new Trail Boss is a budget-minded off-roader that slots in below the ZR2 while outperforming and costing less than a Z71. It combines 32-inch all-terrain tires, flared fenders, and nearly the same wide stance as the ZR2 with a 2.0-inch lift that’s more than just cosmetic. Compared to the WT, LT, and Z71, the Trail Boss sports 1.5 inches of extra front suspension travel and an extra 1.0 inch out back, enough to make a difference in the wild, not to mention on our RTI ramp. Its longer shocks are still twin-tube units, and it shares its rear limited-slip differential with the Z71. If you want Multimatic spool-valve dampers and lockable front and rear diffs, the not-yet-released ZR2 has those, plus a taller lift and even more rear suspension travel.Besides the move toward off-road legitimacy, another theme defines the new Colorado: simplification. There’s just one cab and bed choice this time, a crew cab with a five-foot-two-inch bed. That’s the most popular configuration by a ridiculously wide margin, so the loss of variety in the cab/bed realm isn’t liable to put off many buyers. Chevrolet has made a move to assuage those who might pine for a longer bed, adding an optional mid-level tailgate stop that aligns its upper edge up with the inner fender bulges to fashion a level base for hauling plywood or drywall.The engine lineup has likewise been streamlined. The 2.5-liter inline-four, 2.8-liter inline-four turbo-diesel, and 3.6-liter V-6 are history, replaced here by a turbocharged 2.7-liter inline-four gas engine across the board, albeit in three flavors. All are backed by an eight-speed automatic, and four-wheel-drive versions (optional on WT and LT and the sole configuration on the others) have an automatic four-wheel-drive engagement setting and 2.72:1 low-range gearing. No fuel-economy figures are available for its three guises, but one is allegedly more fuel efficient than the 2.5-liter four, two are more powerful than the V-6, and the top dog makes more torque than the diesel.A somewhat decontented 2.7 Turbo base version comes standard in the WT and LT, where it makes 237 horsepower, 259 pound-feet of torque and supports a 3500-pound tow rating. The 2.7 Turbo Plus is optional in those trucks and standard in Z71 and Trail Boss, and it’s good for 310 horses, 390 pound-feet, and 7700 pounds of tow capacity, which ties the Jeep Gladiator for best in class. The ZR2 gets the 2.7 Turbo HO (high output), with the same horsepower as the Plus but with 430 pound-feet of torque; that’s due to a software reflash, not mechanical differences. The best part: Turbo Plus owners can pay a dealer for the HO calibration upon delivery or anytime after purchase.ChevroletOur ZR2 drive will come later, but we sampled all the others. On pavement, all four shared a common trait: Their suspensions readily soak up irregular pavement without excess residual shake, and they are adept at gliding over coarse road surfaces. They feel smooth and well put together, the exception being the occasional rear kick any unloaded truck can produce when driven over the wrong sort of bump. All of them are similarly pleasing to wheel around town because they steer smoothly and exhibit a good sense of straight-ahead, with the 17-inch tire fitted to the WT a surprising standout.The base engine produces sufficient beans for an economy-minded powertrain, possibly owing to its low torque peak of 1250 rpm. It does sound a bit gravelly, though, in contrast to the 2.7 Turbo Plus, which is much less coarse while being perfectly capable of moving the heavier Z71 and Trail Boss with little apparent effort. We tend to prefer eight-speed automatics over the competition’s 10-speed units, and that was indeed the case here. But there’s no sport mode among the drive settings, which include Normal, Tow/Haul, Off-Road, and Terrain. ChevroletOff pavement, the Z71 and Trail Boss are impressive. Their suspensions absorbed rough terrain without passing any noise or undamped shake into the drum-tight cabin, and their limited-slip rear differentials maintained forward progress even with one rear wheel hiked high in the air through a diagonal ditch. The highlight may have been the brakes, which are linear and firm in normal use due to the use of an electronic booster instead of a vacuum unit. With the mode dial in Terrain, this booster supports a smooth one-pedal driving mode, the speed range of which you can tailor by setting the shift lever to L and tweaking the manual shift button. Unlike competing systems, the Colorado’s setup is utterly free of any ABS pulsing and feels like one-pedal driving in an EV, with delicate control that let us tiptoe down into dips and out the other side without ever thinking of touching the actual brake pedal. Don’t like the idea? Select Off-Road mode instead, and normal service resumes.The simplification theme continues inside, where all Colorado trims from WT on up get a keyless ignition—actually great for off-roading because there are no jangling keys. A large 11.3-inch touchscreen is also standard, and it supports wireless smartphone integration and Google Built-In, which is a bit of a laugh considering the latter only comes on the new Honda Accord’s high-zoot Touring trim.But simplification also brings a few quirks. The window lock button is on the touchscreen, as are the headlight controls (although the latter has an always-visible access icon). Perhaps that’s okay? Window lock isn’t something we toggle much, and the headlights are so comprehensively auto-controlled as to come on at dusk or whenever the wipers are running. But the least appealing aspect may be the interior materials, which are generally plasticky with an unconvincing grain that’s a bit too glossy. The Trail Boss keeps its price low by being based on the WT, so its interior is equally underwhelming. But even the Z71, the most luxurious, features a soft-touch dash and armrest treatment of a mysterious rubbery origin.ChevroletPricing has edged up, but not to an alarming degree—especially when considering the numerous improvements. A two-wheel-drive WT goes for $30,695, which is barely $1000 more than before. A four-wheel-drive WT starts at $33,995, which is $300 less than before. The Z71 goes for $41,395, only $900 more than last year. As for the Trail Boss, it starts at a very reasonable $38,495. The ZR2, which we’ll sample in a couple months, will command close to a $10K premium at $48,295.In many ways, the appeal of the new Chevrolet Colorado has risen to an all-time high. It has made the jump from pint-size pickup that didn’t know what it wanted to be in life to a more self-assured truck that should appeal to the outdoor lifestyle buyers who have traditionally gravitated to the Tacoma. Will it pan out that way? We’ll know for certain when the new Tacoma and Ford Ranger surface in the coming months. This is going to get interesting.Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
2023 Chevrolet ColoradoVehicle Type: front-engine, rear- or rear/4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door pickup
PRICEBase: WT 4×2, $30,695; LT 4×2, $33,095; WT 4×4, $33,995; LT 4×4, $36,395; Trail Boss, $38,495; Z71, $41,395
ENGINESturbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 2.7-liter inline-4, 237 or 310 hp, 259 or 390 lb-ft
TRANSMISSION
8-speed automatic
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 131.4 inLength: 212.7-213.2 inWidth: 74.9-76.3 inHeight: 70.7-71.9 inPassenger Volume, F/R: 58/43 ft3Curb Weight (C/D est): 4300-4700 lb
PERFORMANCE (C/D EST)
60 mph: 6.0-7.2 sec1/4-Mile: 14.7-15.9 secTop Speed: 100 mph
EPA FUEL ECONOMY (C/D EST)
Combined/City/Highway: 20-23/17-20/24-26 mpg More

Hearing the Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe described as the “most fuel-efficient Jeep ever” gives us the warm fuzzies. It feels like a win for the world and makes us want to parade through an aisle at Whole Foods, high-fiving every farm-to-fork enthusiast until our palms turn red. But while the 4xe’s EPA-estimated 56 MPGe and 26 miles of electric-only range are good for a Grand Cherokee, the plug-in-hybrid option is an expensive one.That’s not to downplay the effort by Jeep to reduce its wonderfully luxurious SUV’s usage of gasoline. The Grand Cherokee, which was redesigned last year, is an absolute honey on the road. With a firm brake pedal, linear steering, and a smooth ride, the Grand Cherokee moves with confidence. Its lavish interior and robust four-wheel-drive system make it akin to a Kia Telluride that’s graduated from off-road boot camp. Unlike its Wrangler 4xe plug-in-hybrid sibling, the Grand Cherokee 4xe is subdued and quiet at speed. At idle, however, a grumpy 46 decibels from the inline-four echo throughout the cabin. Michael Simari|Car and DriverA 270-hp turbo 2.0-liter and two electric motors bring the total output to 375 horsepower and 470 pound-feet of torque, a combination potent enough to make passengers ask, “This is a four-cylinder?” (which, really, is the best compliment a four-cylinder can hope for). We noticed some hesitation when accelerating hard from low speed as the gas engine and electric motor bickered over whose turn it was. More on the new Grand CherokeeIn the Wrangler, we noted this powertrain’s rocky transitions between gas and electric propulsion, although they were somewhat lost amid the Wrangler’s general cacophony. In the vastly more polished Grand Cherokee, the powertrain’s hesitation and its abrupt transitions stand out.Eventually, the powertrain suffered a more serious fault, and the hybrid system went silent. As a result, we were unable to record an as-tested fuel economy, nor can we provide you with the 4xe’s 75-mph highway fuel-economy results.We were able to perform instrumented testing before the hybrid-system failure and found that the 4xe is the quickest version of the new Grand Cherokee. It springs to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds and hits 100 mph in 13.9 seconds, right as it reaches a quarter-mile. That’s 0.3 second quicker to 60 mph and 1.3 seconds sooner to 100 than the discontinued V-8 version. When it comes to lugging, the 4xe’s 6000-pound maximum towing capacity is 200 pounds short of the V-6 and 1200 less than the dead V-8 model.The Grand Cherokee 4xe starts at $61,660, which is $16,830 more than the base four-wheel-drive V-6 Laredo. The 4xe, though, skips the Laredo trim and is available only in Limited, Trailhawk, Overland, Summit, and Summit Reserve grades. Comparing like trims, the 4xe’s upcharge over the V-6 variants with four-wheel drive ranges from $8685 to $10,010—although that can be at least partially offset by the PHEV’s $7500 federal tax credit. Our Overland test rig rumbled in with a $77,525 price tag. The two largest contributions to its bill were optional packages. A Luxury Tech Group IV ($2155) included nappa leather seats with a massaging front row, wireless device charging, and window shades for the back seats. An Advanced Protech Group III ($2235) added head-up display, night vision, and additional driver-assistance features.Michael Simari|Car and DriverThis higher-trim model also had the available 10.3-inch front passenger interactive display screen. Taking the opportunity to nerd out, we connected Valve’s Steam Deck handheld gaming PC via an HDMI cable while waiting for a takeout order. Although playing the video game SnowRunner in a snowy parking lot sounds ironic and fun, we found the screen to be incredibly dim, even at night with the brightness fully cranked. Owners with short commutes may be able to avoid gas stations for months, bouncing between the workplace and home, where a typical 240-volt charging connection to the 4xe’s 7.2-kW onboard charger can juice up the roughly 14.0-kWh battery in about 2.5 hours. For folks plugging into a standard wall socket, the charge could take eight to 15 hours, depending on the home’s outlet. However, footing the bill for the pricey Grand Cherokee 4xe just to avoid gas stations seems like an overpriced convenience. Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xeVehicle Type: front-engine, front-motor, 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $61,660/$77,525Options: Overland trim (air springs, front tow hooks, hands-free liftgate, LED headlights, backlit door handles, heated and power folding exterior mirrors, 20-inch wheels, automatic wipers, ambient interior lighting, auto dimming rearview mirror power tilt/telescoping steering column, power-folding second row rear seats, McIntosh stereo, front-parking assist), $8015; Advanced Protech Group III (head-up display, night vision, surround-view camera, off-road camera), $2235; Luxury Tech Group IV (nappa leather seats, digital rearview mirror display, wireless device charging, massaging front seats, four-zone climate control), $2155; front passenger interactive display, $1095; Off-Road Group, (Goodyear All-Terrain tires, electronically controlled limited slip rear differential, underbody skid plates), $1095; black-painted roof, $775; Velvet Red Pearlcoat paint, $495
POWERTRAIN
turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 2.0-liter inline-4, 270 hp, 295 lb-ft + 2 AC motors, 44 and 134 hp, 39 and 195 lb-ft (combined output: 375 hp, 470 lb-ft; 14.0-kWh lithium-ion battery pack (C/D est); 7.2-kW onboard charger)Transmission: 8-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: multilink/multilinkBrakes, F/R: 13.9-in vented disc/13.8-in vented discTires: Goodyear Wrangler All Terrain Adventure265/60R-18 110T M+S
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 116.7 inLength: 193.5 inWidth: 77.5 inHeight: 70.9 inPassenger Volume, F/R: 56/51 ft3Cargo Volume, F/R: 71/38 ft3Curb Weight: 5664 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 5.3 sec1/4-Mile: 13.9 sec @ 100 mphResults above omit 1-ft rollout of 0.3 sec.Rolling Start, 5–60 mph: 6.1 secTop Gear, 30–50 mph: 3.4 secTop Gear, 50–70 mph: 4.3 secTop Speed (gov ltd): 117 mphBraking, 70–0 mph: 189 ftRoadholding, 300-ft Skidpad: 0.79 g
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 23/23/24 mpgCombined Gasoline + Electricity: 56 MPGeEV Range: 26 miC/D Testing Explained More

Ford continues to channel the rich history of its iconic Bronco 4×4 with the introduction of two new retro-inspired special editions of its compact Bronco Sport SUV.The 2023 Bronco Sport Heritage Edition and Bronco Sport Heritage Limited Edition celebrate the birth of the Bronco brand with a classic-themed appearance package that takes styling cues from the original 1966 truck. Both variants feature a white roof, white rear badging, white 17-inch aluminum wheels, and a white grille with red BRONCO lettering.The Bronco Sport Heritage Edition, built on the Big Bend trim level, utilizes Ford’s 181-hp turbocharged 1.5-liter inline-three, which is paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive. Suspension features include hydraulic front bump stops and specially tuned springs included in Ford’s High-Performance Off-Road Stability Suspension (HOSS) system package, plus five user-selectable “G.O.A.T.” terrain modes for off-road driving. The Heritage Edition’s interior styling includes white trim accents, plaid cloth seats, blue-and-red accent stitching, a microsuede center console armrest, and Navy Pier Blue accents on the door panels and dash. Buyers have a choice of seven paint options, including Robin’s Egg Blue, a throwback color based on one that was available on the original Bronco.More on the Bronco SportThe pricier Heritage Limited Edition is derived from the Bronco Sport lineup’s more off-road-focused Badlands package, which features the larger turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four, two additional G.O.A.T. modes, a torque-vectoring rear differential, and a lockable center clutch pack for the all-wheel-drive system. Our Peak Blue sample is one of three paint shades available, the others being the lighter Robin’s Egg Blue and the intense Yellowstone Metallic.Heritage Limited Edition–specific features include larger 29-inch all-terrain tires, leather-trimmed seats, and white door inserts. A retro-style plaque adorns the center console, while metal Bronco door badging in the classic ’60s script is satisfyingly eye-catching.James Lipman|Car and DriverDespite its basis in the humble C2 unibody platform as used in the Escape SUV and Maverick pickup, the Bronco Sport proves to be unexpectedly capable off-road, with the 2.0-liter’s 250 horsepower and 277 pound-feet of torque making light work of the steep gullies, embedded boulders, and deep sand that constitute the Johnson Valley area of the Mojave Desert. (So much of the model’s off-road development was conducted here that Ford chose to include a geographic coordinate from the area as an Easter egg hidden in the molding of the rear hatch trim.)An aluminum skid plate, part of the standard Badlands equipment package, eases concerns of stabbing the Bronco Sport’s underbody with spiky terrain elements. Despite the Sport’s modest ride height, its 8.8-inch ground clearance (on 235/65R-17 tires, the model’s largest available) proves to be perfectly adequate for comfortably brisk-paced desert driving as we follow the dusty wake of our guide, Melissa. She is well-versed in the Bronco Sport’s abilities, having taken a stock Bronco Sport Badlands to first place in the 1500-mile, off-road Rebelle Rally in both 2021 and 2022.It is the suspension that makes the Bronco Sport, and despite the plethora of off-road driving modes available, this SUV handles even soft trail running just fine in its standard drive mode. Locking in the all-wheel-drive system and the rear differential is more than sufficient for confident thrashing in deeper sand. All of that would be equally true for the less retro-tastic Badlands model, however. At $46,250, the Heritage Limited Edition is fully kitted out, carrying nearly $5000 worth of features that are optional on the Badlands. Screen that out, and you see that the retro look carries a roughly $2000 premium. One rung down, the $34,245 Heritage Edition represents a roughly $1500 upcharge over the equivalent Big Bend model. James Lipman|Car and DriverIs that worth it? Well, several miles east of where we drove this Bronco Sport, classic Broncos, stock and modified, are swarming the viewing areas of this year’s King of the Hammers desert road-race competition. For off-road enthusiasts, the appeal of those classic Broncos, the reborn Bronco, and this offshoot Bronco Sport is wrapped up in the combination of capability and aesthetics. The Bronco Sport Heritage Editions lean more heavily on the latter, but to no detriment of the former.Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
2023 Ford Bronco Sport Heritage EditionVehicle Type: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE
Base: Heritage, $34,245; Heritage Limited, $46,250
ENGINES
turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 12-valve 1.5-liter inline-3, 181 hp, 190 lb-ft; turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve 2.0-liter inine-4, 250 hp, 277 lb-ft
TRANSMISSION
8-speed automatic
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 105.1 inLength: 172.7 inWidth: 74.3 inHeight: 70.2–71.4 inPassenger Volume, F/R: 53–56/50 ft3Curb Weight (C/D est): 3600–3800 lb
PERFORMANCE (C/D EST)
60 mph: 5.9–8.2 sec1/4-Mile: 14.5–16.3 secTop Speed: 125 mph
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined/City/Highway: 23–26/21–25/26–28 mpg More

Call them wagons or estate cars, it doesn’t really matter. What counts is the sad fact that a drop in global demand is speedily driving the genre that epitomizes style, space, and street cred toward extinction. Worse still, the industry has fallen concurrently into the habit of replacing every single outgoing family holdall with another anonymous SUV or crossover. Central Europe is now the last stronghold of the formerly coveted body style, which is often badged Touring, T-model, Variant, or Avant, and is typically kitted out with inspiring powertrains and lifestyle-oriented accessories.The auto industry’s costly crusade from gasoline and diesel propulsion to hybrid powertrains and EVs will continue to thin the wagon ranks, but BMW, for one, decided to expand its offerings. The 2023 503-hp M3 Touring made its debut last year, and it will be followed in early 2025 by the all-new 650-hp PHEV M5 Touring Competition and the even brawnier 740-hp M5 Touring Label Red.BMWThe M3 Touring—a first of its kind—shares its overbite grille and adaptive AWD/RWD system with the marginally less expensive M3 Competition xDrive sedan. The two also share the same powertrain, comprising a twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six bolted to an eight-speed automatic transmission. The fully loaded example we drove stickers for a whopping $120,000. The More M3, The MerrierAlthough 53 cubic feet of luggage space with the rear bench folded is a welcome bonus for the next weekend getaway or trip to the DIY superstore, the M3 Touring is best used on six days out of seven in its signature role as the ultimate driving machine. True to this moniker, it goes like stink, handles like a gymkhana hero, oozes presence even when parked, and makes all the right noises when not. The run from naught to 60 is over and done with in 3.4 seconds, according to BMW. The pricey M Driver’s Package lifts the top speed to 174 mph. And from 2750 to 5500 rpm there is 479 pound-feet of maximum torque that can be sent to all four wheels—or only the rear two. Fuel economy when pushed? Next question.The scalpel-sharp steering gets the German Society of Surgeons seal of approval. Even on Michelin winter tires, our M3 Touring delivers massive grip, the carbon-ceramic anchors are liable to pull eyeballs out of their sockets, and the optional thinly padded lightweight composite bucket seat clamps man to machine. Like the facelifted 3-series, the M3 Touring features the latest infotainment complete with a wide-screen digital display, jazzed-up instrument graphics, and too many new functions (think M Drift Analyzer) to process in a single session. The M3 Touring is a hardcore and rough-edged high-performance wagon that shines brightest when driven aggressively. Keen drivers will find an unfiltered audio soundtrack, an uncompromising ride, a narrow bargaining zone at the limit, and on uneven tarmac, the iffy directional stability of a tightrope walker. While the taller and longer rear end improves the weight distribution by a tiny margin, it inches the center of gravity upward by a similar measure. Since the recalibrated rear suspension is tuned for a broader variety of axle loads than the sedan, the Touring displays an occasional shoulder-jostling stiffness we don’t recall in its notchback sibling.BMWMore sensible shoppers will gravitate toward the M340i xDrive Touring, but dyed-in-the-wool M3 aficionados will want the real McCoy. But beware: The 503-hp Touring is not a part-time school bus; Saturday morning shopping cart; or the family’s only car, with two baby seats in the back. Instead, this super-special M car deserves to live its life in the fast lane.Arrow pointing downArrow pointing downSpecificationsSpecifications
2023 BMW M3 TouringVehicle Type: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 4-door wagon
PRICE
Base: $108,772 (Germany)
ENGINE
Twin-turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 24-valve inline-6, aluminum block and head, direct fuel injectionDisplacement: 183 in3, 2993 cm3Power: 503 hp @ 6250 rpmTorque: 479 lb-ft @ 2750 rpm
TRANSMISSION
8-speed automatic
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 112.5 inLength: 189.0 inWidth: 74.9 inHeight: 56.9 inPassenger Volume, F/R: 55/42 ft3Cargo Volume, Behind F/R: 53/18 ft3Curb Weight (C/D est): 4200 lb
PERFORMANCE (C/D EST)
60 mph: 3.0 sec100 mph: 7.2 sec1/4-Mile: 11.2 secTop Speed (mfr): 174 mph
EPA FUEL ECONOMY (C/D EST)
Combined/City/Highway: 18/15/22 mpg More

From the February 1980 issue of Car and Driver.Several staff members drove a small fleet of Eagle prototypes at the AMC press preview last summer and came back from Kenosha reeking of a kind of enthusiasm that’s usually reserved for European exotica. Only the week before I’d had lunch with AMC marketing vice­-president Tom Staudt—a recent arrival from Chevrolet—and he was waving his arms in this snazzoid French restaurant, protesting the folly that had led his new employers to come up with what was simply the best idea in the history of De­troit and then only plan for production of 40,000 units in the first year. “Gee,” he complained, “Chevrolet could lose 40,000 cars in a year. This thing is so good that it demands a hundred percent effort by everybody involved!” Natural­ly, I was cautious. Automotive journal­ists—even ours—can be swayed by the fun and games and shiny new toys at a press preview, and automotive market­ing directors are among the greatest self-hypnotists of all time. But I got my chance soon. Our test Eagle arrived here on Hogback Road just as my friends were gathering from around the country for our annual out­ing on the Au Sable River, so I com­mandeered the little beastie and mo­tored off into the autumn night for the 180-mile run up north to our camp. Be­fore a week had passed I’d driven it over a thousand miles, at least half of those off-pavement, if not actually off-road. I hadn’t set out to prove anything. I wasn’t trying to find its limits. I just wanted comfortable, sure-footed trans­portation for a week of bad back roads and muddy Jeep trails, and I thought it would be nice to show off for my pals with the one truly new product out of Detroit in 1980. To say that I loved the Eagle would be the understatement of the year. When I got home, I bought 200 shares of American Motors stock. The Eagle had convinced me that AMC was a hot property. AMC Eagle Tested and Vintage 4x4sThe Eagle is not just a Concord with Quadra-Trac four-wheel drive. The Ea­gle is the Concord transformed, an ut­terly different car from anything AMC has ever offered us in the past. It is not an off-road vehicle. It is a luxurious compact car with four-wheel drive, a grown-up Subaru. I saw my first one at the annual Northwood Institute auto­mobile show at Midland, Michigan. It looked like a tall Concord, but the tall feeling went away when I got behind the wheel. All three models—coupe, sedan, and wagon—were present there, and I quickly decided that the wagon configu­ration was the most appropriate for the Eagle idea. Somehow the coupe and se­dan, with their vinyl roofs arid flashy ’51 Telefunken-radio trim, just didn’t have any credibility as four-wheel-drive machines. There’s a tidier sport option for the coupe and the wagon, which re­places much of the flash with black paint and seems to pull the shape together rather nicely, particularly on our test wagon, which is finished in a lovely fire­-engine red. If the Eagle started as a Concord, the Concord started as a Hornet, and we’ve always felt that the original AMC Hor­net—especially the wagon—was one of the better-looking American cars. Strange, the Hornet was first intro­duced in 1969, and now, after a kind of uneventful cruise through ten years of high automotive drama, the Hornet/Concord becomes the Eagle and sets the woods on fire. Eagles are command­ing full sticker price in Snow Belt AMC dealerships, and the mind-blowing suc­cess of the four-wheel-drive family se­dan caused AMC first to double its original estimate of first-year sales, then—talk about high drama—an­nounce that it was dumping the Pac­er to concentrate those production facil­ities on building more and more Eagles. Why? Is it just that America was wait­ing for a domestic manufacturer to bring out something as sensible as a Su­baru, or is the Eagle more important than that? We’re inclined to support both views. Certainly, Subaru proved there was a vast untapped market for four-by-four family cars in the United States. But—and you’ll have to drive an Eagle to appreciate this—the Eagle does many things better than most American cars, just motoring along in situations where four­-wheel drive isn’t even a factor. Many observers see the Eagle as a logical outgrowth of AMC’s trailblazing experience with 4WD in Jeeps and Wag­oneers, but the connection is more phil­osophical than mechanical. The Eagle is not a Concord with Jeep underpinnings, but an entirely new approach to 4WD for road cars in America. Actually, the basic Concord was more useful to AMC’s en­gineers than any existing Jeep/Wago­neer technology. The Concord’s dou­ble-wishbone front suspension (with coil spring and shock absorber mounted up on top, out of the way) was ideally suited to allow the necessary space for front half-shafts, and its rear leaf springs made it relatively easy to accom­modate the larger wheels and added ride height of the new 4WD package.Three things seem to contribute most to the surprising pleasure of driving an Eagle: first, stiffening the suspension by about 15 percent over the standard Concord; second, the optional (and su­perb) P195/75R-15 Goodyear Tiempo all-season tires; and third, the undeni­able advantage of independent front suspension. Our Mr. Sherman adds that it certainly doesn’t hurt to have the front wheels pulling and the rear wheels pushing when you commit yourself to a banzai charge onto some slippery Inter­state off-ramp. Another advantage of the Eagle’s full-time 4WD is enhanced braking performance, in that the limited-slip function (rear to front) of the one-speed transfer case also provides some anti-skid benefits by helping to balance fore-and-aft braking forces. The Eagle, by virtue of its stiffer sus­pension and more aggressive tires, feels quite European. It is smooth and quiet to a fare-thee-well, but the tires and sus­pension contribute a feeling of tight, solid sure-footedness that just isn’t there in a standard Concord. The steer­ing is about average, but in normal driving, the Eagle offers better control feedback and overall “feel” than any American Motors product in our experi­ence, better than most American cars, period. The main limitation on han­dling and roadability in the Eagle is the standard 4.2-liter (258-cubic-inch ) six-­cylinder engine, since you run out of power long before you lose traction­—and this is equally true when slogging through the muck. The Eagle’s higher center of gravity might have been a lia­bility, but seems to have been offset by the stiffer suspension, particularly the front and rear anti-roll bars. The heady success of the Eagle can only be explained in terms of all-round automotive goodness, plus four-wheel drive, because it doesn’t feature the kind of beauty that would launch a bass boat, let alone a thousand ships. The exterior is tall gimcrackery, salvageable only if you have the foresight to order the sport trim option. The interior is better, provided you ignore the instru­ment panel, which appears to be a ran­dom collision of afterthoughts. The front seats are better than average for a Detroit product, though they still lack the range of adjustment available on the meanest of Japanese econoboxes. The rear seat is a little short under the legs but is acceptable otherwise. The best feature back there, however, is the ultra-­simple, one-handed system for flopping the seatback down to increase load space—better than the Wagoneer’s, bet­ter than most. Our test Eagle was up­holstered in a pleasant but impractical gray-tan plaid material that felt like high-quality wool and vividly showed every dog footprint and hint of human error. We’d probably go for vinyl in a vehicle of this kind. The very fact that the Eagle is so clearly designed for supe­rior performance in unfriendly climes dictates that you’ll be climbing in and out with wet outer garments and dirty footgear. (As a matter of fact, we have some thoughts about that interior . . . but that comes later.) Aaron Kiley|Car and DriverEvery Eagle comes with the 4.2-liter engine, three-speed automatic transmis­sion, Quadra-Trac 4WD, and 15-inch wheels as standard equipment. There is no manual transmission available, which is okay by us. There’s a wide range of options listed for the Eagle: AM/FM ra­dios, cassette decks, trailer packages, a self-leveling system, plus all the interior and exterior trim options that we’ve come to expect from Detroit. Scanning the list, it’s doubtful even the kitschiest customer could put together an order for a bad one, considering the combina­tions to be had, but the wagon with the sport trim option, Tiempo all-weather radials, and a light-trailer package was clearly the hot setup for us. The wait for a new Eagle stands at six months as of this writing. Shades of the Honda Accord and GM’s new X-cars! The car is such a smash hit that we can’t help but wonder how successful it might have been with yeastier, more contem­porary styling and the clout of General Motors behind it. It is quiet and stable at 75. It drives better than most Ameri­can sedans at any price, and it offers the manifold advantages of full-time four­-wheel drive combined with independent suspension in a true family car. If it suf­fers any liabilities at all—beyond its somewhat dated styling—they would be lack of power, some fuel-consumption penalty for the Quadra-Trac system, smaller interior dimensions than most recently introduced compacts, and typi­cal American seats. Otherwise, it’s an absolute charmer. Aaron Kiley|Car and DriverThis is the first time we’ve been so unanimously impressed with an Ameri­can Motors product, and we’re all a lit­tle bemused by our own enthusiasm. So great is our affection for it, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn our red test car into a long-term project vehicle. As you read this, our project Eagle (Boss Wag­on 4×4) is in California with Mr. Techni­cal Editor Sherman, having a new interi­or installed, its engine breathed upon, and some additional development work done with its suspension. Our goal is to bring the performance of the engine up to the potential of the suspension and four-wheel drive and, at the same time, to optimize the handling and roadability on pavement without compromising its performance in mud and snow. This will probably be our most ambitious project to date, spiced considerably by the fact that for the first time, we’re working with a highly sophisticated four-wheel-drive system. As they say, watch this space. The Eagle has landed and is about to scream.CounterpointHere we have a rare phenomenon: The whole is way more than the sum of its parts. Little AMC, which you’ll agree is anything but America’s prince of technol­ogy, took one obsolete car line, jacked the body three inches skyward, stuck in enough gears and fluid couplings to make all the wheels drive, and called it Eagle. And the thing flies! It’s got to be the most impressive piece of automobile engineer­ing in America today. What’s more, it drives well. There’s actual road feel in the steering wheel. The brakes work great. It goes straight down the highway. And it produces only a little more wind whistle and road noise than your average conven­tional car. The wagon version even looks right perched up on its tippy-toes. The only things I don’t like about the Eagle are its lack of a manual transmission, and the Modern American Funky interior it comes with. The seats in particular look like furniture you’d expect to find in a re­ally wacko shrink’s office. All of which fades into insignificance the instant you’re confronted with bad roads or rot­ten weather. If you’ve got ten grand to spend on mobility insurance, this Eagle will do you a whole lot more good than State Farm. —Don ShermanWith derisive hoots. That’s how I met the news about AMC’s plan to build a four­-wheel-drive Concord. I couldn’t think of a more whacked-out way for AMC to spend precious research-and-development dol­lars, especially in the face of the strong demand for efficient, front-wheel-drive econoboxes. Better to scrap the old Gremlin-cum-Spirit and get on with a proper program for the Eighties. Well, I was right about one thing. The Spirit can still use a good scrapping. But who’da thunk AMC was going to turn its semi­-successful Concord into one of the best American cars around? And I’m pleased, pleased that AMC has finally built a car no one—not the company, not the buy­ers, not anyone—has to make excuses for. The four-wheel-drive system has trans­formed the Concord: It drives, rides, and handles like nothing else AMC has ever built. Yes, that silly dime-store-design in­terior is still there with its funny seats, anachronistic parcel tray, and such. But for the first time, in light of the Eagle’s overall personality, I’m willing to over­look the traditional AMC touches. —Mike KnepperIf I were a believer in . . . imaginative in­vestment, I’d put some money on Ameri­can Motors bulling through the thick and skating across the thin. All the way to sur­vival and prosperity. Something has hap­pened over there in Nash Land that’s go­ing to take some getting used to. Ameri­can Motors has suddenly found the han­dle for building cars people want to buy. The Eagle is already back-ordered for half a year, and AMC has just announced it has good sense. It will stop building Pacers altogether in order to gain more space for Eagle production. On pave­ment, the Eagle will pick ’em up and put ’em down with an aplomb never before felt in a four-wheel-drive whatever. Inside is serenity. It gets better. Nothing chang­es when the pavement ends unless you execute a triple-gainer into a ditch of can­yonesque proportions. Then you might scream. But if it’s only normal tomfoolery like a high-crowned, hyper-washboard strip of endless blast-site gravel, you won’t know it from an Interstate. Hot damn! —Larry GriffinSpecificationsSpecifications
1980 AMC EagleVehicle Type: front-engine, all-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon
PRICE
Base/As Tested: $7549/$9535Options: A/C, $513; AM/FM with CB radio, $399; sport package, $299; power windows and door locks, $289; rear-window defroster, $89; trailer-towing package, $82; convenience group, $75; heavy-duty suspension, $65; tinted glass, $63; light group, $39; protection group, $30; fabric upholstery, $25; heavy-duty battery, $18.
ENGINEPushrod inline-6, iron block and headDisplacement: 258 in3, 4235 cm3Power: 110 hp @ 3400 rpmTorque: 206 lb-ft @ 1800 rpm 
TRANSMISSION3-speed automatic
CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/rigid axleBrakes, F/R: 11.o-in vented disc/10.0-in drumTires: Goodyear TiempoP195/75R-15
DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 109.3 inLength: 186.2 inWidth: 71.9 inHeight: 55.0 inCurb Weight: 3740 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS
60 mph: 13.2 sec1/4-Mile: 19.2 sec @ 71 mph80 mph: 27.9 secBraking, 70–0 mph: 195 ft 
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
Combined: 16 mpg (est.) 
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED More

A pair of hands plugs my helmet into a filtered air feed, another clips the window net in place. In the seat next to me, Curt LeDuc, Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Famer, keys the intercom. “We’re going to take it easy till the shock oil has warmed up.” Oh, God. I peer past the reassuring lattice crash structure, into the interminable lunar topography of the Southern California desert outside, and ponder at which point my spinal cord will exit through the top of my skull.Starting at $295,000, the new ultra-hardcore DR— for Desert Racer—is Ford’s ultimate off-road mission statement in its Bronco lineup. The DR channels a decades-long legacy of desert racing that began with a stock first-gen Bronco’s class win of the legendary 1967 Baja 1000, an outright race win in 1969, further class wins in 1971 and 1972, and 15 Baja 1000 Class 3 wins for the ’78-to-’95 model between 2002 and 2019.Eager to retain the DR’s lineage to the dealer-lot-variety Bronco, Ford deliberately eschewed the traditional tubular frame architecture of top-tier off-road racing Trophy Trucks, instead opting to build it from a production Bronco four-door frame with as many stock suspension and drivetrain components as possible. A standard-issue 10R80 automatic transmission delivers power to the independent electronically locking front and rear 4.70:1 differentials via a stock Ford electronic shift-on-the-fly transfer case. The upper front suspension A-arms are production-Bronco, and a forward section of chassis stiffening, cut from the rear rollover frame of the production Bronco, is visible in the front wheel wells. The rear axle is stock F-150, giving the DR a widened track of 73.3 inches, and the brakes are stock Bronco, or in this case, optional Alcon units. The DR’s power is from a largely stock 5.0-liter Coyote V-8 equipped with thunderous exhaust headers that instantly confute any notion of road legality (the DR is not road legal).More on the BroncoAs we buck gently across the landscape, concerns of my intervertebral discs being smashed to a frothy pulp are vanquished. The 80-mm remote-reservoir Multimatic spool-valve dampers give the racer over 50 percent more suspension travel than the production Bronco Badlands—15.7 inches at the front and 17.4 inches at the rear—with hydraulic bump stops soaking up the last few inches of travel from the 37-inch BFGoodrich tires. The DR’s structure is immensely stout, and the electric power-assisted steering—completely devoid of kickback—is full of feel, wildly direct, and confidence-inspiring. From the right seat, LeDuc relays 25 years of Dakar and Baja desert-racing wisdom, his casual wit as dry as the deserts of which it was born, and I begin to relax. Aside from being a tool built for a job, the DR, at this speed, is unexpectedly comfortable and enormous fun.James Lipman|Car and DriverThe big spool-valved dampers have obviously warmed up, and LeDuc gestures ahead. “Okay, we can get on it.” By now I have no idea how fast we’re going, and at this rate, I can’t really take my eyes off the trail to check. I listen to the mechanical chaos beneath us and wonder how much the DR can take. “You cannot break it,” LeDuc reassures me. “Just don’t turn during a jump.” (It’s not the truck that he’s worried about.) Faster still, and the approximately 6200-pound DR begins to float atop the terrain like a speedboat on plane. After years of bucking across these same desert trails in my own lowly road-focused garbage, the stress of not even having to consider mechanical failure is a revelation.We break out onto a wide, smooth dry lakebed. “Full gas, let’s go.” I press the pedal to the floor, and the DR, now pushing out over 400 horsepower, thunders like industrial machinery. With nothing for miles around to provide a visual clue as to our speed, I glance at the center-mounted screen. We’re at 100 mph, but the ride is so utterly liquid and stable that I would happily sit here for hours, in this Zen-like state, being gradually deafened by five liters of screaming V-8 as the desert gently rolls by. What a fantastic place to be.The press release describes the DR as “a turnkey racing solution for serious off-road competitors,” but I suspect that many of the 50 cars Ford plans to build will end up in the hands of collectors or wealthy off-road enthusiasts who just wanna rip across the desert in the baddest Bronco there is.We’re back at base now. I’m back on my feet but still floating from the experience. I look over to LeDuc, pleased to see that he’s still smiling.”You were at about 40 percent of its capability,” he says, grinning. “This thing is serious. With a bigger fuel tank, it’d do Dakar.”I look for any sign of a wink or a nod, but he’s just too dry to read.James Lipman|Car and Driver More