AutoWeek articles from July 2001

AutoWeek archives from July 2001

How the survey works.(AutoWeek America's Best car survey)(Brief Article)
July 2, 2001... For 12 years AutoWeek editors have polled subscribers to determine the changing direction of trends among America's most passionate car buyers, a survey at the heart of the AutoWeek America's Best issue. We mail surveys to a sample base of 1...

Offside Undo.(navigational systems and computer-aided maps)(Brief Article)
July 2, 2001... I am a map guy. Loved 'em since childhood. Read 'em for fun. Have used maps to get from European ghettos to high froufrou manses and out from under overindulgent relatives. I love maps. Please don't lump me with guys who shy from asking...

Internet interaction ; Website visitors have different ideas of America's Best.(AutoWeek car survey)(Brief Article)
July 2, 2001... For each of the past dozen years we've mailed paper surveys to a random 1 percent of our audience, but this year we added something different by including a version of the America's Best survey on our website at www.autoweek.com. Full detailed...

What You Said ; Our annual survey of readers gives the passionate point of view on America's Best vehicles.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
July 2, 2001... We know passion. We live car passion every day. And so, too, does the AutoWeek reader. According to our 12th annual poll of subscribers, our average reader owns five cars or trucks or sport/utility vehicles or a combination thereof. Two were...

The Car: 1964 Studebaker Wagonaire ; The last wagon from South Bend.(Brief Article)
July 2, 2001... Studebaker's downsized Lark gave the company a shot of tonic for the 1959 model year. The trouble was, the Big Three were readying their own compact cars, and by the time the 1960 sales numbers were tallied Studebaker had fallen from 10th to...

Out to change the world, one bumper sticker at a time.(Brief Article)
July 2, 2001... Vandalism, civil disobedience, or just darn funny? All of the above? San Franciscans Robert Lind and Charles Dines have launched an assault on monster sport/utility vehicles. Not a deadly assault, it's almost polite and usually...

Where there's smoke...; BMW set to recall thousands of 2001 models due to fire hazard.(Brief Article)
July 2, 2001... BMW will soon recall 22,345 new sedans, sport/utility vehicles and high-end sports cars to replace a faulty radiator cooling fan switch that has resulted in at least four vehicle fires. BMW spokesman Rob Mitchell said BMW became aware of...

7 (Series) Heaven.(BMW)(Brief Article)
July 2, 2001... BMW's fourth-generation 7 Series makes its world debut in Frankfurt this September and goes on sale in Europe in November. The 2002 745i will make its U.S. debut at the Detroit auto show in January and goes on sale in the States later that...

The News: July 2, 2001.(BMW)(Brief Article)
July 2, 2001... For BMW, it's a good news, bad news kind of week. The German automaker's M3 wins high marks from our readers (Cover Story), and we expect its redesigned 7 Series (below) to pick up its share of applause. But all is not rosy in Bimmer-land, not...

Long Term: Porsche Boxster S.(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... The top has dropped, and boy are we geeked. Weather in the Midwest is finally starting to cooperate, and AutoWeek staffers have been lowering the Boxster S's canvas cover at every opportunity-including those when rain threatens but is not yet...

Driving Impressions: Audi S8; All you could want in a big, fast car; except signs that say, "Bust me!".(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... It takes about a minute piloting Audi's all-powerful S8 executive jet to realize the pursuit of wealth and its associated trappings is good. Why? Because for a fair penny you too can sit in this seat. Less than another minute later you...

Long Term: Lexus IS 300.(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... The jury is still out in our yearlong bid to see if a Lexus IS 300 matches up to the BMW 3 Series as a world-class sports sedan. Unfortunately, our long-term Lexus hiccuped a couple times while making its case. The 215-hp 3.0-liter inline...

Supercar wars looming; Lamborghini readying for a run at Ferrari for U.S. market dominance.(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... Lamborghini, long considered an also-ran to Ferrari, has its rival Italian automaker square in its sights as it gears up for a major assault on the lucrative North American supercar market. And the newly emboldened car builder known for its...

Going down swinging.(Chevrolet's Camaro )(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... Chevrolet's Camaro may be on its deathbed, but that's not stopping Chevy from giving the car extra kick before it kicks the bucket. The demise of General Motors' F-body Camaro and Pontiac Firebird models is expected following the 2002...

Minimizing Maxima.(Nissan)(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... The revamped flagship sedan is great, but Nissan expects more people to buy the Altima Ordinarily, when a new or significantly revised car comes to market, you would expect the manufacturer to at least pretend to hope that it sells well....

Long Term: Chrysler PT Cruiser.(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... After nine months of use and abuse, our Cruiser hasn't given up much. As one staffer comments, ``I've never had to pick up parts from the parking lot or found stray bits wandering under the seats.'' To the credit of those toiling down in...

Fast Poll.(electronic racing games )(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... Respondents generally agree that electronic racing games such as Gran Turismo are fun, but no substitute for the real thing. No. They can be fun, but video games cannot give you the g forces and they don't make you face the consequences of...

Long Term: Audi TT.(Brief Article)
July 9, 2001... Logbooks for long-term cars usually fill up with mundane notes like ``Tire pressures were off four pounds. Pay attention people!'' or ``Who left a Michael Bolton CD in here?'' But even after four months in our hands, the Audi TT is still...

Obituary.(American Sunroof Co. )(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... Automotive sunroof pioneer Heinz Prechter, whose Michigan-based American Sunroof Co. is helping develop Chevrolet's SSR truck, died July 6 of an apparent suicide. He was 59 and had struggled with clinical depression for many years. ...

FACTS.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... MANUFACTURER'S DATA Subaru of America Subaru Plaza P.O. Box 6000 Cherry Hill NJ 08034-6000 Customer assistance: (800) 782-2783 Internet address: www.subaru.com Country of origin: Japan Number of dealers: 570...

The WRX Effect ; Turbo, limited-slip, awd make this Subaru a super hero.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... In the glovebox of every Subaru WRX sold in America is an application for a free membership in the Sports Car Club of America. In any other compact four-door passenger sedan or wagon, that might be pretentious marketing overreach. In the WRX it...

Driving Impressions: Four To Go; All-wheel-drive wagon extends 3 Series' terrific talents.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... ``I love this wagon. It has all the perfection of the 3 Series, the beautifully rear-biased awd system, plus extra cargo capacity.'' ``This really is the perfect car.'' Those are just two of the logbook comments heaping praise on the...

Long Term: Subaru Impreza WRX: We aRe eXcited.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... A dozen different drivers, for a year. The question here isn't whether we're going to love the latest addition to our long-term test fleet. The real question is how much love one little car can stand. Earlier drives of the Subaru Impreza...

Subaru Impreza WRX.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... SUBARU IMPREZA WRX Likes: Turbo power Solid chassis Tons of grip Dislikes: Thin paint Brakes fade Wants more gears

Where there's a WiLL, there's a way; Toyota's Genesis goes after the youth market.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... Two years from now, Genesis, Toyota's youth-oriented marketing and product planning organization, will finally have its own vehicles in showrooms. At least three different models are planned for the U.S. market, including a van, a...

Nissan (super) charging ahead; Upgrades could help reverse slowing truck sales.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... With its truck sales in decline, Nissan isn't waiting for all-new models, but giving its existing trucks a good, swift kick in the bumper. First, the supercharged Xterra (below) announced at the Chicago auto show arrives in showrooms in...

Fastest production Corvette ever?; 2002 Z06 breaks the 400-hp mark.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... Hot-rodder tricks like hollow-stem valves and higher-lift camshafts helped Chevrolet engineers squeeze 20 more horsepower under the hood of the 2002 Corvette Z06, eclipsing the 400-hp level for the first time since the late, lamented ZR-1...

IS 300: No more tranny gap.(Lexus)(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... Sensing a shortfall in the IS 300's repertoire when compared to say, a BMW 3 Series or an Audi A4, Toyota's luxury Lexus division will offer its sport sedan with a five-speed manual transmission beginning in August. Not that the IS 300's...

Mustang's sequel: Terminator '03.(Brief Article)
July 16, 2001... They're calling this 400-hp supercharged beast the ``Terminator'' inside Ford's engineering studios, but look for it under another name when it hits the street in 2002 as a 2003 model. Another in the now growing line of special-edition...

Blue Light Special; Loads of features and a low, low price give Kia Sedona an edge in the minivan market.(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... Kia Sedona enters the minivan fray stuffed with standard features, cupholders galore and the lowest minivan sticker price in America. It may not be ready to take on sales juggernauts like the Chrysler Caravan and high-demand models like Honda's...

Redefining Saab; Swedish automaker's fall concept forecasts future designs.(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... Dig into Saab's design history and you won't find much. In more than a half century in the car business, nearly every car produced by the Swedish manufacturer has clearly descended from the design of the Saab 92, a 1947 concept car also known...

Teutonic twosome.(VW)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... Expect a pitched battle for the top of the heap between Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Volkswagen once VW rolls out its luxury flagship D1 next year. D1 is VW's first attempt to take on the Mercedes E-Class and BMW 7 Series in the luxury sedan...

July 23, 2001.(Saab)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... Saab's secret is out, sort of. The Swedish automaker's design guy won't talk specifics, but it's news enough to know that the now-General Motors subsidiary is readying a concept that will signal its first major design shift since 1947...

Honda Insight: Sayonara.(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... Consider it an experiment in teaching old dogs new tricks. Take a pack of lead-footed journalists, trained to eke maximum performance (or at least maximum fun) out of German steel and American muscle, and see how well they do over the course of...

Car Board.(Automobile reviews)(Brief Article)
July 23, 2001... Of good-byes, good nights and good ol' boys: There's little that's bad about connecting a road with a vehicle and just driving. Oldsmobile AURORA Price: $36,170 Engine: 4.0-liter V8, 250 hp, 260 lb-ft Curb weight: 3803 lbs...

Rover Boys; Three crews of Apollo astronauts experienced an out-of-this-world driving adventure.(Apollo Lunar Rover)
July 30, 2001... On July 30, 1971, the engineers at Boeing Aircraft watched as their company's most peculiar creation took flight. The aerospace mega-giant was best known for fabricating massive, lumbering aluminum overcasts capable of hauling a myriad of...

Gimme an H!; Hydrogen-powered internal-combustion engines for future 7 Series.(BMW developing hydrogen-powered cars)(Brief Article)
July 30, 2001... Fuel cells? We don't need no stinking fuel cells! While the rest of the world's automakers experiment with hydrogen-powered fuel cells, BMW continues to insist hydrogen is better used in conventional internal-combustion engines. In the...

Trucks are not simply utilitarian anymore. In today's crowd, they need an edge.(Chevrolet TrailBlazer, Chevrolet Avalanche Z71, Jeep Liberty Limited Edition)(Brief Article)(Evaluation)
July 30, 2001... Chevrolet TrailBlazer Price: $33,895 Engine: 4.2-liter I6, 270 hp, 275 lb-ft Curb weight: 4628 lbs Drivetrain: 4wd, four-speed automatic Name recognition goes a long way. Take the 2002 TrailBlazer. The ``Blazer'' is about...

Take Five; Makers of RX prescribe a new form.(Lexus SportCross)(Brief Article)(Evaluation)
July 30, 2001... Our impression of driving the SportCross? It's the same as the automatic sedan, familiar from an AutoFile road test (Sept. 18, 2000) and an ongoing long-term evaluation. Its 3.0-liter inline six is smooth and strong, its steering reward- ing,...

The Shadow of the Mountain ; With the next A4, Audi moves out and beyond.
July 30, 2001... From the top of Mount Equinox, 3816 feet above sea level, Vermont stretches rugged, green and gorgeous in every direction. Equinox is not precisely one of the Green Mountains-it's the highest peak in a subsidiary range called the Taconics-but...

Stingray styling-for a price.(Avelate custom bodies for Corvettes)(Brief Article)
July 30, 2001... Don Johnson-the car designer, not the actor-may have spent the past few years developing the Mustang FR500 and Focus FR200 (AW, July 16) for Ford, but he's never quite forgotten his love of Corvettes. Johnson, whose 15 years on General Motors'...

The True Test; Heritage Motorsports officials insist they're in the IRL for the long haul.(Indy Racing League)(Brief Article)
July 30, 2001... Jimmy Rathmann believes his Heritage Motorsports is the case study for race teams in the new era of the Indy Racing League. He's probably right. As companies consider investing in America's all-oval open-wheel series, they're studying the...

One Last Waltz; CART turns its back on the past, and looks into an uncertain future.(CART leaves Michigan International Speedway)(Brief Article)
July 30, 2001... After 22 years and 33 races, CART has said goodbye to Michigan International Speedway. For decades owned by CART co-founder Roger Penske before he recently merged all his track operations with the France family's International Speedway Corp.,...

Spyder on the fly.(Maserati two-seat spider)(Brief Article)
July 30, 2001... Maserati is calling its two-seat spider simply Spyder. Derived from the 2+2 3200 GT coupe, Spyder will be unveiled at Frankfurt in September with European sales to follow. A U.S. version, heralding Maserati's return to the North Ameri-can...

Simple Math; 300 plus five makes this Lexus complete.(Lexus IS 300)(Brief Article)(Evaluation)
July 30, 2001... Now that it has a five-speed manual transmission for its IS 300, Lexus is getting a little closer to BMW. Not as close as Lexus would like you to think, not as close as it intimated at the IS 300's introduction a year ago, but close. The BMW 3...