Auto News 5

In a year when the U.S. auto market has been knocked out cold by the one-two punch of spiking fuel prices and the financial meltdown, it's not easy finding a hero in the car business. Now that the tide of easy credit and cheap gasoline has gone out, we see that a lot of car companies have been swimming naked. But not Honda. Honda's steadfast refusal to follow the herd once looked stubborn but now appears prescient. In an era when platinum-paid executives rarely deviate from the orthodoxy of the crowd, Honda's Takeo Fukui has successfully avoided faddish trends and instead stayed true to the founding principles of Soichiro Honda and his successors. For that, Honda president and CEO Takeo Fukui is the 2009 AUTOMOBILE MAGAZINE Man of the Year.

Unfortunately, history has shown that neither diesels nor the Mercedes-Benz R-Class are popular in North America. So why, then, would Mercedes drop its brand-new BlueTec diesel engine into the 2009 Mercedes-Benz R320 Bluetec and sell it here?

Angels don't start singing when you spot a Nissan GT-R. Inside and out, the car looks anything but heavenly. Even in the so-called Comfort mode, it rides like a New York City subway car, shuddering over bumps and clattering from station to station. The engine sounds like a demonically possessed household appliance. The car weighs a ton - nearly two tons, actually - and understeers accordingly. The video-game vibe is so pervasive that a conventional manual transmission isn't even offered.

Unlike BMW's M division, which put itself on the map by creating drivers' cars out of normal BMWs, AMG's cars - often the product of applying ludicrous power to regular Mercedes cars - make the ultimate I-outrank-you statements. And when your neighbors have an AMG in the driveway, there's only one way to beat them - an AMG Black Series.

The ZR1 is a high-water mark for Corvette performance that - given the macro trends in oil prices, the U.S. economy, and the fortunes of General Motors - almost certainly will never be achieved again.

Climbing into a Porsche 911 is always good for one's spirits. The story with this car is the PDK (Porsche's dual-clutch automatic) transmission, and I have a few thoughts on that: First, Porsche got the hardest part right, which is to say they tuned the initial clutch engagement for a smooth step-off. If you think that'd be easy, try driving a Lamboghini e-Gear or a Nissan GT-R sometime. Second, the shifts seem really, really quick to me. I don't know how many milliseconds they quote, but it feels as fast as a Ferrari sequential-manual box.

In March, the all new Volvo XC60 will go on sale in the United States. Launched this fall in Europe, the XC60 is Volvo's entry in the "small premium utility segment," where it will take on the likes of the BMW X5, the Acura RDX, the Audi Q5, and the Infiniti EX35. Hoping to build on its "safety first" image, Volvo has added measure of performance and fun to its newest vehicle, emphasizing styling, high-tech content, and all-around capability.

Launched this past June, the Kuga is a compact, five-seat crossover designed by Englishman Martin Smith, who left General Motors to join Ford in early 2004. He and his team created an aerodynamic yet extroverted skin, which is accentuated by available wheels as large as nineteen inches. Stylish and fashionable, the new crossover from Ford of Europe is about the same length as a Ford Escape, but it sits astride a 2.8-inch-longer wheelbase.

The recipe for success in a time of rising fuel prices is obvious: reduce a vehicle's weight and it will be more economical and faster. Obvious, but not simple to achieve while respecting crashworthiness norms, so Mazda designers and engineers deserve our unstinting admiration. At a time when almost every other car builder in the world has allowed each successive model to become bigger, heavier, and thirstier than the preceding one-the current Honda Accord is 1000 pounds heavier and 22.2 inches longer than the first one in 1981, and the current Volkswagen Rabbit weighs 1200 pounds more than the original 1975 Rabbit-Mazda has chopped about 220 pounds-9 percent-out of the basic Mazda 2 while increasing interior room. That the company improved the style and the aerodynamics in the process provides an excellent lesson. Careful and clever use of high-tensile steel in the body structure and thorough optimization of structural members account for most of the gains, but there's evidence of aircraftlike weight paring all through the car, without it seeming flimsy or excessively cheap.

The recipe for success in a time of rising fuel prices is obvious: reduce a vehicle's weight and it will be more economical and faster. Obvious, but not simple to achieve while respecting crashworthiness norms, so Mazda designers and engineers deserve our unstinting admiration. At a time when almost every other car builder in the world has allowed each successive model to become bigger, heavier, and thirstier than the preceding one-the current Honda Accord is 1000 pounds heavier and 22.2 inches longer than the first one in 1981, and the current Volkswagen Rabbit weighs 1200 pounds more than the original 1975 Rabbit-Mazda has chopped about 220 pounds-9 percent-out of the basic Mazda 2 while increasing interior room. That the company improved the style and the aerodynamics in the process provides an excellent lesson. Careful and clever use of high-tensile steel in the body structure and thorough optimization of structural members account for most of the gains, but there's evidence of aircraftlike weight paring all through the car, without it seeming flimsy or excessively cheap.

Toyota
At the Detroit auto show in January, we'll see the third generation of the now one-million-plus-selling Prius, which will still use a nickel-metal-hydride battery pack. A more expensive version, with a lithium-ion battery pack, arrives a year later, and Toyota already has announced that it will offer solar panels on the car's roof. In 2011, a plug-in model becomes available. Don't look for a big design change for the new Prius, as Toyota is sticking with the peaked roof and hatchback layout, a unique design that broadcasts the driver's green credentials. Another reason to preserve the shape is that the Japanese believe the Prius has Porsche 911-like icon potential.

Surprisingly, it's been nearly two decades since the last major advance in battery technology - the commercialization of the lithium-ion cell. This battery type remains the industry's standard for pure electric vehicles because it can deliver more power over a longer period of time at a lower cost than any competitive technology.

The Clubman poses an intriguing question for Mini. Does a brand that celebrates its smallness compromise itself by bringing out a larger model?

I've heard a lot of people talk about how well this Jaguar has aged over the years, so I asked Marc to book one before this generation of the car became history. The appeal is very easy to understand as soon as you slide into a soft leather seat and notice the tasteful expanses of wood and leather used in the interior. Everything feels very old school luxury.

For me, the Touareg has always been something of a disappointment - a car without a purpose. It's neither as sporty as its European competition (BMW X5, Mercedes-Benz ML) nor as useful, practical, and functional as the American SUVs that it was patterned after. Poor sight lines, a relatively space-inefficient interior, and a lackluster powertrain compound the problem. The engine lacks torque down low - it's not helped by the Touareg's substantial heft - but frustatingly, the six-speed automatic downshifts as if its innards were mired in molasses. The adjustable suspension (Sport/Automatic/Comfort) alternates between wallowy and painfully brittle, and finding pavement that the Touareg actually liked was something of a challenge.

Crossbreed a Saint Bernard, a Labrador Retriever, and a Poodle, and you just might get a dog that works hard, loves everyone, and wins shows.

You've got to be pretty old to remember when new cars didn't have catalytic converters. Whether you know it or not, these now-ubiquitous devices occupy a frontal position in the assault against dirty car emissions. But being green wasn't popular in the early 1970s. The automotive enthusiast community saw government emissions regulations and catalytic converters as the enemy of performance and horsepower.