AutoWeek articles from March 2001

AutoWeek archives from March 2001

2001 Kia Optima; David vs. Goliath: Kia takes on the midsize segment.
March 5, 2001... Wait! Don't buy that Camry/ Accord/Taurus/whatever yet! The new Kia Optima is here! That's what Kia wants shoppers in the huge midsize sedan segment to think, at least. Diving headfirst into the biggest segment in the car market, tiny little...

Estates Ho!; And small wagon makes 12.(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... A three-door Mercedes-Benz coupe feels a bit odd to Americans, but Mercedes wagons are another story. The E-Class wagon (Estate everywhere else in the world) has been a fixture for years. Mercedes will bring its small C-Class wagon to North...

C stands for Coupe; Mercedes-Benz embarks on a mission to convince American car buyers that `hatchback' and `cheap' are not synonymous.
March 5, 2001... Burkhard Osthaus. Nice German name, isn't it? It belongs to an earnest man, early 30s, creased and manicured, son of a banker, born in the north of Germany and raised near Stuttgart, now general manager of passenger car development for...

Toyota Tundra; Hauling the mail.
March 5, 2001... Neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night...'' aww, the heck with those mail carriers-what about the plight of the average automotive journalist? Our long-term Toyota Tundra carried the mail for many staffers who all found the lumbering...

Missing Man ; NASCAR strives to understand, explain and cope with its loss.
March 5, 2001... NASCAR is not in the habit of retiring numbers. Witness: Never in 52 years has the Daytona Beach-based sanctioning body taken down a car number and kept it down. But until the week after Dale Earnhardt died, it had never been in the habit of...

Fast Poll.
March 5, 2001... If respondents are correct, and they usually are, Dodge will have a successful NASCAR season. Yes, Dodge will be successful in its first year out. NASCAR is the ``big time'' and Dodge has recruited the management and drivers to make it...

Get outta' the way ; Freightliner rolls out the `universal engine-driven apparatus,' aka Unimog.(Brief Article)
March 5, 2001... Outgrown your Excursion? Hummer lacking the ground clearance to ford the creek on the south forty? Talk to Freightliner. The manufacturer of the ubiquitous 18-wheeler may have the right vehicle for you in something it calls the Unimog....

The Race Report.
March 5, 2001... Steve Park finally ended NASCAR's longest and most difficult week in years by winning the Dura Lube 400 at the North Carolina Speedway. Round two of the 36-race season began on Sunday, was quickly stopped by rain, then ended on a bright, warm...

Silver Arrow: Aluminum inside and out.
March 5, 2001... Mercedes-Benz in April will offer two 2002 SL-Series Roadster models, one pow-ered by a limited-production aluminum V12 engine. The SL600's 48-valve V12 produces 389 horsepower and 420 lb-ft of torque. The SL500 Silver Arrow comes with a...

So Far, So Good; Dodge says its return to Winston Cup is right on track.
March 12, 2001... It was 90 minutes before the Daytona 500 and DaimlerChrysler's racing PR machine was in schmooze overdrive. Little wonder: Chrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche was lurking, eyebrow-deep into his first NASCAR race. Swigging a canned Pepsi and wearing a...

Offside Undo.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... If you've any enthusiast blood coursing through those braided steel hoses you call veins, raise a pint in salute: Happy Birthday, E-Type Jaguar, you sure do look good for 40. (Since it's a vintage Jag-you-are, perhaps it would be more...

2001 Roush Stage III Ford Mustang; The best-kept secret no longer.
March 12, 2001... Jack Roush's work for the Big Three has been one of Detroit's most closely guarded secrets. Finally, Roush's engineers get to go public. They're still not sharing any proprietary secrets, but they do get to show off some of their skills as...

Views and Reviews.
March 12, 2001... OWNERS I HAVE READ EVERY REVIEW of the car, and none has captured my feeling-it is the most beautiful sports car currently made. BMW tried to create the spiritual successor to the 507, which wasn't a race car, but a delightful, usable...

Facts.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... MANUFACTURER'S DATA BMW of North America 300 Chestnut Ridge Road Woodcliff Lake NJ 07677 Customer assistance: (800) 831-1117 Internet address: www.bmwusa.com Country of origin: Germany Number of dealers: 375 SPECIFICATIONS CHASSIS Unibody...

Car Board.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
March 12, 2001... Geneva: Where debutantes named Heidi converse in French, English and German with aplomb, and cars of all pedigrees love to debut. Of course, cars like other places, too. Land Rover RANGE ROVER 4.6 SE Price: $62,625 Engine: 4.6-liter V8,...

Tail fins forever ; Celebrating Cadillac's finned history.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... From now until May 28, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles will be crawling with Cadillacs, both the three-dimension-al kind and the two-dimensional. The exhibit is called ``Fantasy and Fins: The Artist and the Automobile,'' and it's...

Well-Muscled Elegance; BMW's Z8 offers the best of the old and the best of the new.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 12, 2001... The BMW Z8 is about everything we love about cars. Faster and more nimble than all but a few sports cars made today, it looks as smooth and sensuous as the roadsters of the '60s. While the design cues are all taken directly from Albrecht...

2001 Geneva.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Ah, spring. We know it's not far off when the Geneva Auto Salon is fired up and ready, and this year was no exception as the automotive world gathered in the high-mountain Swiss town to take stock and brace for 2001. While worries about the...

Fast Poll.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... NASCAR fans debate the usefulness of the HANS device after the death of NASCAR's biggest star. NASCAR is notoriously slow to adapt new technology. Perhaps the most fitting memorial to Dale Earnhardt would be to mandate the HANS device....

Jaguar X-Type.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... The much-anticipated world introduction of the new entry-level Jaguar kicked off the media previews on Fat Tuesday. The premier was anything but fat: It was quick, tasteful and, for the early hour, well attended. Jaguar managing director...

Be an auto mogul!(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... For only $400,000 you could be the Henry Ford of Zimbabwe It may be too late to start the Ford Motor Co., since Henry did that nearly a century ago, and GM and Daimler are already up and running, too. But that doesn't mean you can't become...

Aston Martin Vanquish.(International Pages)(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... We have said it before and will continue: The Best in Show award should go to the car that you will remember five years hence. We won't forget this year's Geneva show for its worldwide introduction of the long-anticipated Aston Martin Vanquish....

Opel Astra Coupe OPC X-Treme Concept.(Brief Article)(Product Announcement)
March 12, 2001... No, we will not get this car in America. And no, it's of no use asking why. We tried. Chalk it up to the fact that Opel, General Motors' European arm, gets all the fun toys and we get, well, we get the Aztek. Despite its high-maintenance...

Pininfarina Citroen Osee.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... The last time Pininfarina won the Best Concept award was 1995, and it was too long in coming for the well-known carrozzeria. Oddly and surprisingly enough, this is the first time that Lorenzo Ramaciotti, the company's chief designer and general...

...But Wait, There's More.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Geneva's always good for a few late winter laughs. There's this big press party on a boat in the lake, and somehow the neutral ground makes everyone less tense than in a car town like Detroit, Frankfurt or Tokyo. Still, the only reason we went...

Letters.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Dale & Daytona We were at Daytona Sunday. Every time Dale Earnhardt went by in the lead, my son and I held up our hands making the No. 3. Almost everyone around us was, too. In this day and age, it is probably passe to have heroes, but...

Lose the bowtie?; GM denies reports it plans to cut ties between Corvette and Chevy.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Reports that General Motors plans to spin off its flagship Corvette brand to a premium car group within the corporation are based on ``sheer rumor and speculation,'' GM and Chevrolet officials say. ``Corvette has been a highly successful...

Competition This Week.
March 12, 2001... TV tales A German media group is now the majority owner of Formula One. EM.TV & Merchandising exercised its option to acquire 75 percent of the company that holds the F1 commercial rights, and the automobile manufacturers that participate...

Late Racing News.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Prost lands a sponsor Prost Grand Prix announced Acer as its new title sponsor. The team is to compete as Prost Acer and the customer Ferrari engines will be badged in deference to the Taiwan-based company. The PC manufacturer and...

Bugatti ups the ante.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... When they showed the Bugatti EB 16-4 Veyron at the Paris motor show last October, Volkswagen officials were cagey with statistics about their exotic sports car. But at Geneva, Volkswagen folks came with the full story-and what a story it is....

The News.(Brief Article)
March 12, 2001... Street-legal Cosworth Ford and engine developer Cosworth Technology have enjoyed a long partnership in racing, but for the first time the two manufacturers will team to produce a Cosworth-powered street machine for the North American...

Wild Thing; Porsche's GT2 is the most powerful production Porsche ever.
March 19, 2001... Well, isn't this just special? We haven't been in the new Porsche GT2 for seven minutes before, three miles up the road, we pass through a toll booth, immediately after which a police officer waves the Guards Red car with the big honking wing...

`Soft' hybrid set for '02 debut.
March 19, 2001... Siemens Automotive is touting a ``soft'' hybrid powertrain add-on that combines an integrated starter/generator with an automatic manual transmission. The company says the package delivers a 15 percent to 20 percent boost in fuel economy. ...

Fast Poll.
March 19, 2001... The vast majority of respondents want NASCAR to retire the No. 3 of the ``Intimidator.'' If there was ever a case for starting to retire numbers in NASCAR, this is one. Dale was the greatest. What better way to start this tradition. Keith...

Bagged cat.
March 26, 2001... Jaguar's XJ replacement, due as a 2003 model, will feature a lightweight aluminum chassis and sophisticated suspension and traction control technology. Perhaps as important for Jag lovers: The new model will have greater interior space and...

`American luxury' reconsidered ; Lincoln-Cadillac rivalry absorbed in broader melee.
March 26, 2001... Back in the heyday of American luxury cars, two marques-Cadillac and Lincoln-stood alone as symbols of U.S. success and excess. From Fleetwoods to Town Cars, the two car divisions scrapped like street fighters for sales and market share. ...

Car Board.
March 26, 2001... With spring around the corner we thought we'd crawl out of hibernation. BMW M5 Price: $73,120 Engine: 5.0-liter V8, 394 hp, 368 lb-ft Curb weight: 4024 lbs Drivetrain: rwd, six-speed manual Ah, the annual season of rejuvenation:...