Farewell, Big Prince: Lamenting the end of the Mercury Grand Marquis

After 18 years of loyal, albeit uneventful service, the Mercury Grand Marquis is going the way of the Kaiser Henry J and the Hupmobile Skylark. Mercury, of course, is also set to go extinct come 2011 following in the footsteps of other well loved but ultimately redundant brands like Plymouth, Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Why Mercury’s headed to the great junkyard in the sky is another blog post, but in a word: badge-engineering. Mercury products were just Fords with different grilles. Customers knew it, non-customers knew it — hell, dogs knew it — and after many years Ford finally copped to this fact.

However, the Grand Marquis, says me, is special. See, back in 2008 Ford made the decision to stop selling the Marquis’ Panther platform mate — the Crown Victoria — to the general public. The big Ford became fleet-only, meaning unless you’re a cop or a cabbie, no big Dearborn rear-driver for you. Sure, you could still buy the Lincoln Town Car, but that’s another price point, largely stretched and mostly for livery use. Meaning that the Mercury is the last in a very long line of full-size, V-8 rear-wheel drive Blue Oval sedans for the masses.

Realizing all this, on a recent trip to New England my good buddy Murilee Martin and I decided to go Grand one last time. For just $45 more than “Chevrolet Aveo or similar” we rented ourselves an Ultimate Edition Grand Marquis. Mind you, that’s not $45 more per day, but $45 more for all four days of our trip. Talk about money well spent. Instead of rubbing shoulders in a beaten up rental car edition of a penalty box, the two of us were able to plunk our sizable backsides down in some genuine American near-luxury.

The first leg of our trip was Providence, Rhode Island, to the most southern tip of Maine and a town called Kittery. Why? Lobster rolls! There’s a place called Bob’s Clam Hut that sells some really excellent ones, complete with a soft white roll that can barely contain the dual-mountain of yummy pink crustacean meat. Especially after you slather it up in melted, heart-stopping butter. I recommend the clam chowder, too, as it’s much more about the clams than it is milky white broth.

The Grand Marquis soaked up the 110-mile jaunt with ease. Special kudos go to the fat, leather-wrapped bench seats. Sure, they are split down the middle (as opposed to a single bench) and almost fully adjustable (some lumbar support however, would have been swell), but in an age when even station wagons are getting rigged up with hip-hugging Recaros, it’s refreshing to wiggle about on top of some big flat benches. After all, we weren’t planning on getting the Mercury sideways. At least not yet.

Which raises a key point. Unlike the bulk of both pro and civie Crown Vics out there, the Grand Marquis is no Police Interceptor. Even in Ultimate Edition form. Meaning you won’t find cop shocks, cop tires, cop brakes, cop engine (well, cop engine oil cooler) or any of the other special parts that allow Police Interceptors to run over curbs at more than 50 mph without flinching. No, our powder blue Grand Marquis was set up like a proper Mercury: real soft.

That fact suited the two of us just fine as we cranked the AM/FM and enjoyed the waft. One gripe is that we had absolutely no way to connect an iPod or a smart phone to the totally Sync-less Merc, and neither of us thought to bring any compact discs. But hey, New Hampshire has some of the most extreme, right wing talk radio in the nation, so we stayed quite entertained. Most importantly, we stayed comfortable, with that kinda-big, nearly powerful 4.6-liter V-8 peacefully humming along as if in a dream state.

Our next stop was Stafford, Connecticut, and the renowned (in short track NASCAR circles at any rate) Stafford Motor Speedway, a half-mile bullring of an oval. We’d arrived for that weekend’s 24 Hours of LeMons race. Thing is that motorized circus wouldn’t start until Saturday, today was Friday and boy that track sure looks empty. Yes, we took the Grand Marquis on the track.

How was it? Shockingly fun. In fact, more fun than the last few supercars I’ve banged around a track. How is this possible? Always remember what P.J. O’Rourke said, “here’s a lot of debate on this subject — about what kind of car handles best. Some say a front-engined car; some say a rear-engined car. I say a rented car. Nothing handles better than a rented car.” I experienced no compelling reason to disagree with this thesis. Besides, body-on frame brutes go with ovals like chocolate gets along with peanut butter.

The Mercury also performed one other amazing feat, one that 99.9 percent of other modern cars simply can’t do as well. I went ahead and prepaid for a tank of gas. Meaning that if we returned the Grand Marquis on anything more than an eighth of a tank, they’d be getting both my money and my gas! As it happened, Connecticut experienced record-breaking heat that weekend — 100 degrees Fahrenheit and 100 percent humidity. So, we left the car idling all day with the A/C set to Max. Whenever any of us felt a heat stroke coming on, we’d simply dip into the near-frozen Grand Marquis for a quick cool down. And this may have been the sun talking, but after a few hours I swear the windows began icing up.

While no human being on earth will shed a tear over the demise of say, the Mercury Mariner, many of us will be bummed about the loss of the Grand Marquis. Talk to any car-pundit these days and they’ll tell you that the future of personal transportation is all about choices. The automotive landscape will soon be a big potpourri of gasoline, corn-o-line (ethanol), hybrid, plug-in hybrid, range-extended hybrid (think Volt), pure electric, diesel, fuel cell and whatever else gets you from A to B. I just think it’s a shame that one of those choices won’t include a graceful old heavyweight like the Mercury Grand Marquis.

Photos by Murilee Martin

Obama Touts Auto Industry Revival as a Leading Economic Indicator

Can manufacturing save us? When President Obama bailed out Chrysler and General Motors, sending them to bankruptcy court last year, the nascent administration touted the Detroit Three as the last bastion of big-time manufacturing in the United States, a necessary part of our economy. Now that the economic recovery is stalling, GM, Ford and Chrysler are still growing. All three are profitable for the first time since 2004, Obama told a crowd of cheering United Auto Workers Friday. The bailouts saved about 1 million jobs, and the auto industry has added 55,000 more in the last year, he said.

This was a midterm election campaign rally, held at Chrysler’s Jeep Grand Cherokee assembly plant on Detroit’s Conner Avenue. This is what presidents of either party do as the midterms approach.

“We were in the midst, when I took office, of a deep and painful recession, that cost our economy about 8 million jobs. And took a terrible toll on communities like this. Our economy was shrinking about 6 percent per quarter. Now, this morning, we learned our economy grew by about 2.4 percent for the second quarter of the year. So that means it has been growing for one full year.”

The growth is slowing. That 2.4-percent growth in the second quarter is about one point below economists’ projections, and down from 3.7 percent in the first quarter and 5 percent in the last quarter of ‘09. It’s up from 0 percent in 2008. Overall, according to Commerce department figures, the economy shrank about 2.6 percent in 2009, mostly in the first half of the year.

But Obama reiterated the three options his administration had in dealing with the failing American auto industry. Three options that the Treasury department’s manufacturing chief, Ron Bloom, outlined for me in an interview earlier this year. The new administration rejected one, the unmitigated federal bailouts; two, letting GM and Chrysler fail; for three, the bailouts as we know them today. The bankruptcies left many investors and creditors with nothing, UAW workers with a two-tier wage formula and union-owned retiree benefits and many fewer jobs, and thousands of dealerships without franchises. GM’s bankruptcy cut itself nearly in half, and I’m still amazed how quickly and effortlessly the General went from eight to four brands in North America.

Here’s part of the campaign pitch: “our strategy was to get this company and this industry back on its feet … take a hands-off approach, saying ‘you guys know the business, we don’t. We’re going to give you a chance, but we know you’ve got a chance.”

He shot back at opponents of the GM and Chrysler bailouts, which at the time, and probably to this day, seems to include anyone outside Michigan and a few struggling cities elsewhere in the Midwest.

“The fact that we’re standing in this magnificent factory today is a testament to the decisions we made and the sacrifices you, and countless stakeholders across this industry and this country were willing to make. So today, this industry is growing strong. It’s creating new jobs. It’s manufacturing the fuel efficient new cars and trucks that will carry us toward an energy-independent future.”

There’s the nod to factory workers and environmentalists who helped Obama win the presidency in 2008. If a good number of them, more than the number who usually come out for mid-terms, vote in November, Democrats may stem the expected shift to Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.

Obama announced Friday that Chrysler will keep open past 2012 its Sterling Heights, Michigan, assembly plant, where it builds the Chrysler Sebring and Dodge Avenger. Chrysler/Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne told reporters after Obama’s speech that the factory, which Chrysler was planning to shut down in the first quarter of next year, will build the facelifted midsize sedans, and then the full redesign scheduled for the 2014 model year.

After the Jeep plant, Obama appeared at the Chevrolet Volt assembly plant in nearby Hamtramck, where GM announced it would boost Volt production by 50 percent in its second full year, 2013. That’s from 30,000 units in calendar ‘12 to 45,000 in ‘13, pretty good numbers for a car on which GM will lose money because of the cost of the high technology. This stuff doesn’t come cheap.

Obama even took what GM describes as an “impromptu” 40-foot drive in a production Volt at the Hamtramck plant. GM’s event seems a subtle jab at Rush Limbaugh’s confused attack on extended-range hybrid. (At one point, he told his radio audience, according to reports, that the Volt goes just 40 miles before running down its electrical charge.) Limbaugh said that the Obama administration had to offer a $7,500 tax credit in order to get anyone to buy the Volt.

The 0-$7,500 tax credit was renewed in Obama’s 2009 economic recovery act, but that was after the Bush administration renewed the tax credit in 2008, from its own Energy Policy Act of 2005. Don’t tell me Limbaugh’s against renewing a Bush-era tax break?

The Volt is getting it from both sides. Days before Limbaugh’s uninformed rant, the self-important Hybrid Owners of America put out an email comparing the Chevy Volt with the Nissan Leaf. “How can you have a ‘battle of the electric cars’ when there’s only one electric car in the match?” it asks, while going on to point out that the Volt will require “pricey premium unleaded” for its gas-powered generator.

Ah, well. No matter what GM, Chrysler, and even Ford build in the next several years, it’s going to take some time before the U.S. auto industry gets the kind of respect Asian and European brands have enjoyed, including from the automotive and non-automotive press.

The president may have been campaigning Friday, but he had good reason to crow about the auto industry. It’s smaller and healthier today, able to make a profit at lower volumes, which are volumes that indicate how weak the economy remains. I don’t know whether a majority of Americans today would say they’re better off today than they were a year ago. I can tell you that one factory-full of Chrysler workers would say “yes,” and those still working at GM and Ford, and a good number of those of us who live in and near Detroit would agree.

Joe Bortz’s 1955 Chevrolet Biscayne

Motor Trend Classic readers know Joe Bortz. He’s the Chicago-based restaurant mogul and car collector who has been buying and restoring concept cars from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s for nearly four decades. I’ve been fortunate enough to drive five of Bortz’s cars and write about them for Classic. His 1953 Buick Wildcat I and 1954 Pontiac Bonneville-Special GM Motorama cars were on the cover of Issue 5. His 1955 Chrysler Falcon, 1957 Chrysler Diablo and 1966 Duesenberg Model D, all Ghia-built Virgil Exner designs, were in this summer’s Issue 10.

All Motorama cars would have been crushed or drawn-and-quartered, if not for the crafty purveyors of Warhoops, the junkyard about 10 miles north of GM’s Tech Center, where the concepts — “dream cars” in ’50s vernacular — were to be destroyed.  All except the ‘54 Bonneville; Bortz proudly calls the Pontiac the “most original” concept extant. It was titled to a GM employee after it made the showcar rounds, and Bortz bought it from that employee 30-some years ago.

The Buick Wildcat wasn’t so lucky. Bortz’s long-time car handler, Paul Peterlin, told me in 2006 that he could find only three of the car’s original roto-static hubcaps (they remain steady, the Buick logo stays upright as the wheels turn). A fabricator took two years to make the fourth out of a Weber grill cover.

That’s the way one- or two-off dream cars are restored. There are no parts cars, although many production pieces can be used. The Wildcat and Bonneville-Special are powered by production Buick and Pontiac engines, and the Chrysler Falcon and Dart have production Hemis.

Same with Bortz’s latest re-creation, the 1955 Chevrolet Biscayne. It was designed to show off Chevy’s new small block, and it’s now powered by a 265 cubic-inch V-8 from a vintage production car. Warhoops had to cut the Biscayne into three parts; the top and front clip were in separate pieces. Bortz’s son found the car at Warhoops in 1988. It wasn’t until GM sent original blueprints for the car in ‘96 that Bortz had Hopperstad Custom of Belvidere, Illinois, begin restoration. They had to build a chassis for the fiberglass body, and add structure inside.

It looks great.

The Motorama Biscayne is far from the most handsome concept ever built. The bugeye headlamps point skyward when the hood is opened, of course, while the denture-like maw below it lacks the cuteness of the Austin-Healey Sprite that debuted three years later. The Biscayne’s side scallops hint at the ‘56 Corvette’s, though they’re reversed and run from the front door back.

The 2+2 four-door hardtop (the ‘55 Buicks and Oldsmobiles introduced this bodystyle, but Chevy wouldn’t get it until ‘56) has frameless suicide doors, one particular area where Hopperstad had to add structure. While the Biscayne has a front-mounted V-8, its tail also hints at the 1960 Corvair.

Bortz showed the reconstructed, but unrestored Biscayne at the Pebble Beach Concours a couple of summers ago. Last weekend, he unveiled the fully restored, mint green-on-mint green Biscayne at the Concours d’Elegance of America, at Oakland, Michigan’s Meadow Brook. He called his display a “mini-Motorama,” featuring the Buick Wildcat I, Pontiac Bonneville-Special and 1953 Pontiac Parisienne.

Ed Welburn, the sixth and current GM design chief, was pretty excited to see the 55-year-old Chevy, and he showed his weakness for Buick, asking Bortz if he could sit in the Wildcat. Welburn is busy getting GM design in order. He’s made great strides with Buick by referring to its past — especially its early ’50s heyday — without going retro. The Chevy Cruze owes nothing, as far as I can see, to the Motorama Biscayne. Except, as analyst Jim Hall pointed out to me, this: it’s a semi-premium compact Chevy. There’s nothing in the Biscayne’s design that suggests the compacts Detroit would introduce in the following decade should be priced below full-size deluxe models.

Will the Cruze’s dynamics and feel match its image? I’ll find out when I drive it (Frank Markus already has written his review, so call mine a “second drive”) in a couple of days in Washington, D.C.

Photographs by Donna Lassa

Ford Cuts Incentive Costs, Raises Average Transaction Prices, Makes $2.6 Billion

Ford Motor Company made net income of $2.6 billion in the second quarter of this year. That comes to 61 cents per share, better than investment analysts’ expected 48 cents per share. The profit looks good from a number of perspectives. It’s Ford’s best profit in six years, $338 million better than the Q1 ‘10 profit, and $3.5 billion better than Q2 ’09’s loss. And Ford says it expects its cash on hand to exceed automotive debt by the end of 2011.

In other words, cash in the bank will exceed debt by the end of next year. This is the once infamous - now famous for proving CEO Alan Mulally’s prescience - debt that included putting up the Blue Oval trademark as collateral. At the end of the last quarter, that debt, which helped Ford through the worst industry downturn since the Great Depression, totaled $27.3 billion. And that was paid down from $34.3 billion at the end of the previous quarter.

That Q2 debt reduction includes $3.8 billion Ford paid to the United Auto Workers Retiree Medical Benefit Trust and $3 billion to Ford’s revolving credit, saving more than $470 million annually in interest payments. Ford will reduce that $27.3 billion to somewhere below $21.9 billion (its current cash on hand) to reach the net cash position.

For the record, Ford’s pre-tax operating profit was $2.9 billion, with $2.1 billion coming from automotive operations. Ford says it earned money in all of its world regions. Total revenue was $31.3 billion, up by $4.5 billion from the second quarter of ‘09, or an increase of $7.4 billion if you remove Volvo revenue from the Q2 ‘09 results. If Volvo was still part of Ford, it would have contributed $53 million in pre-tax profit for the second quarter.

So how did Ford do it?

It improved pricing by $1.1 billion in the second quarter (up from a $900 million improvement for the first quarter). This means 2010 Tauruses that sold for much more than the previous Five Hundred/Taurus, Flexes that stickered for nearly as much as Lincoln MKTs, Focuses sold with Sync systems, four-cylinder Fusions that sold for more money, say with heated leather seats and premium sound systems, than cloth-seat V-6 Fusions. “Improved pricing” also means Ford cut incentive spending, by $200 million worldwide in the quarter.

Product mix brought in another $1.5 billion. That means a higher ratio of Lincolns to Mercurys, for example, and a resurgence of F-150 sales. Add improved pricing to product mix and you get $2.6 billion.

Here’s the requisite Mulally quote: “We delivered a very strong second quarter profit and first half of 2010 and are ahead of where we thought we would be despite the still-challenging business conditions. We remain on track to deliver solid profits and positive automotive operating-related cash flow for 2010, and we expect even better financial results in 2011.”

Warning to those of you who see softening car sales as evidence of a double-dip recession: Ford hasn’t downgraded its sales expectations for the second half of this year. “Ford expects full-year 2010 U.S. industry volume will be in the range of 11.5 million to 12 million units,” it says. If the recovery is sputtering, Ford will find it harder to achieve its “positive cash position” by the end of next year.

Meanwhile, it looks like General Motors will also release good second-quarter results, and that Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre will announce in August intentions to issue stock. The Detroit Bureau reports that Whitacre believes the value of an initial public offering may be enough to buy out all or part of the 61 percent the Treasury department owns, paying back nearly $50 billion in federal bailout money.

As you read Thursday, GM has announced it will buy AmeriCredit Corporation, for $3.5 billion. With GMAC renamed Ally and under the control of Cerberus, GM figures it needs a captive credit company to get more customers into its showrooms. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Finance committee, figures TARP’s special inspector general should look into GM’s plans.

“If GM has $3.5 billion in cash to buy a financial institution, it seems like it should have paid back taxpayers first,” Grassley said in his letter to Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky. “After GM’s experience with GMAC, which left GM seeking a taxpayer bailout, you have to think the company, and, in turn, the taxpayers would be better off if GM focused on making cars that people want to buy and stayed clear of repeating its effort to make high-risk car loans.”

I wonder how Grassley will react when GM issues an IPO just in time for the November mid-term elections.

Tesla’s Founder is VW’s Secret Weapon in the Plans to Beat Toyota

You know the name Elon Musk. He’s the PayPal founder who has procured some $550 million in federal funds and has raised some $226 million more in Tesla Motors’ initial public offering. He’s planning to build the $60,000 luxury electric-powered Model S sedan from scratch in Toyota-GM’s old NUMMI plant while providing Daimler’s smart with electric powerplants. And now, he’s teaming up with Toyota to build electric RAV4s.

You may also know the name Martin Eberhard.

A couple of years ago, Musk forced Eberhard out as CEO of Tesla Motors. The two engaged in a litigious argument over who could claim to be Tesla’s founder. They mediated out of court, and Musk issued a statement that Eberhard was “indispensible” in Tesla’s formative years. Eberhard is a self-described longtime champion of “consumer” cell batteries, the 18650 version of the lithium-ion batteries used in the laptop I’m using to write this.

At its Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) in Palo Alto, California, VW Group CEO Martin Winterkorn said Monday that the automaker plans an electric-powered Golf and an electric-powered Up-type car to be ready for the market by calendar 2012.

“One of the two will be the first all-electric VW in the U.S.,” Winterkorn said. The VW e-Golf currently under development has a 26.5 killowatt-hour battery pack with a 100-mile range, though like its competitors, Volkswagen is working to keep up with rapidly improving battery technology and to take advantage of rapidly falling costs.

As a result of the Tesla mediation, VW proudly introduces Eberhard as “founder of Tesla Motors.” Eighteen months ago, he quietly became electric vehicle engineering director at VW’s ERL in Palo Alto. Eberhard says VW will have working prototypes of electric cars on the road this year. Has he sold VW on consumer cells, like those used in the Lotus-bodied Tesla Roadster?

“They’re coming around,” Eberhard says.

VW has set a lot of hard-to-reach goals for 2018. Three percent of the vehicles it sells by then will be electric-powered, and while that doesn’t sound like much, that’s 300,000 worldwide. (Eberhard hopes electrics will make up the vast majority of the market in 20 years.) And in ‘18, VW plans to sell 800,000 Volkswagens, plus 200,000 Audis in North America. Those numbers will help VW Group pass Toyota to become the world’s largest automaker.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that VW sees its ERL as the perfect place to develop electric car technology. Palo Alto is far from the old-tech automotive engineering centers of Detroit, Tokyo and Wolfsburg, Germany, where engineers don’t feel confined by longstanding engineering “rules.”

Their legal squabble reportedly began after Musk questioned then-Tesla CEO Eberhard’s costs estimates for the Roadster model. This won’t be an issue for Eberhard at VW, which benefits from the cost efficiencies of being a full-line automaker while its bean counters can perform the task of realistically estimating the costs of pretty much any new technology.

I don’t know who told Musk he could sell a $60,000 luxury electric-powered sedan at a profit, but Musk might think about a new round of firings. Leading up to his company’s IPO, Musk has insisted Tesla Motors will remain independent. His deals with Daimler and Toyota should help mitigate the big dose of reality he must be facing with the ambitious Model S.

This all sets up a fascinating battle for the rest of the decade: Tesla principle + Toyota vs. Tesla founder + VW.

Screen Savior-My Aston Rapide Affirmation

I think automotive history’s most beautiful car may be the Lamborghini Miura, with a very close second being the Maserati Ghibli. The former is insanely expensive and impractical to drive on trips. The latter is not, and so in August 2000 when a lovely 1967 example came up for sale at an exotic car dealership 5.4 miles from home, I test-drove it right to my house for a quick snapshot that instantly became my screen saver. Seeing myself in that gorgeous car every day helped cement my resolve to pay about as much as I’d spent on all the cars I’d owned prior to that one combined. Ten years later I had the chance to drive what I feel is the most beautiful car in production today, and I was so smitten by it that I recreated the same screen-saver image as an affirmation that with hard work and clean living I may one day land an Aston Martin Rapide in my humble garage.

I’m probably going to have to wait a lot longer for this one to depreciate into my price range. My Ghibli listed for about $19,000 in 1967–roughly $122,000 in today’s dollars, and had depreciated by about 80 percent in modern money. The Rapide starts at $195,000, so if it holds up like my gorgeous Ghibli, it may be down to $39,000 in today’s currency by 2043–a perfect bauble for my 80th birthday.

It has been an awfully long time since any car made my knees so weak with its beauty. I had the car for just 24 hours, it arrived spotless, and yet I hand washed it just as an excuse to caress its every hip and curve with a wet soapy rag. I needed a cigarette after. Happily, this Aston’s beauty is more than skin deep. The Bang & Olufsen stereo sounds almost as spectacular as the V-12’s snarl (kudos to Michael Kramer who personally inspected and signed off on the test car’s engine). The engine even looks magnificent nestled under a lattice of gorgeous extruded aluminum shock-tower braces.

My 5-foot 10-inch frame fits comfortably enough in the rear seat to endure a double-header screening of BOTH “Howard’s End” and “The Remains of the Day” on the built-in DVD screens. Doors swing upward to clear any curbs and remain open wherever you stop pushing them. Brilliant.

The practical hatchback opens on a huge cargo area with seats that fold down to accommodate the spoils of a day-trip to Harrods. A clever luggage compartment divider is retained with magnets (I know this because one of them popped out, but went right back in easily). It features capless refueling, a legacy of Aston’s former Ford ownership, and the key–a jeweled treasure that cannot be attached to a ring–glows in the dark.

Of course it isn’t perfect. There are rattles and buzzes, it desperately needs a rear-view camera for parking, and its astronomical price is going to delay my gratification way too long. Oh well, I seriously doubt I’ll tire of gazing at this screen saver in the meantime.

Call it a Rush: Running the Targa Trophy in a Redhead’s Porsche 911 Turbo

Lined up in a parking lot behind the W Hotel Hollywood, I feel like an A-lister. Strangers wearing hip designer t-shirts snap pictures as we wait. Everyone is all smiles, pointing and staring at the millions of dollars worth of machinery on hand. A few of NOS Energy’s scantily clad models say hello as they pass our metallic silver Porsche Turbo. It’s partly cloudy and around 72 degrees. Today should be entertaining. 

I’m strapped into a racing bucket as a participant of Targa Trophy — one of those many “rally” events usually reserved for socialites with money to blow and cool cars to run. It’s like the famous Bull Run and Gumball 3000, but without the respective $20,000 and $50,000 to $100,000-plus entry fees. The cost to enter Targa Trophy: a more reasonable $900, not including the cost of hotel rooms, food, and drink. Rather than taking multiple days to accomplish, Targa Trophy only takes place on one Saturday.

In lieu of racing each other, competitors try to set the best time over the 200-mile course from Hollywood to the W Hotel in downtown San Diego. To win, drivers and navigators must also compile the most points by stopping at predetermined checkpoints.

From Lamborghini Murcielagos to Mercedes-Benz AMGs, to Lotus Evoras and fully modified BMW M3s, the collective of Targa Trophy participants is beyond impressive. The pre-race expo attracts over 600 of the region’s most pristine automotive examples.

Talk to the cars’ owners and they’re just as diverse and interesting as the rides. Local business leaders, international playboys (and girls), and plain old rich people come from as far away as Europe to run Targa Trophy. Why? Because “it is a rush”, Sevan says. A real life adventure of sorts…

Sevan, the beautiful eastern European redhead with the title to our No. 55 Porsche Turbo and a fire to drive hard, is sitting to my left. After a last minute breakdown of my ride, driving was out of the question, so I’ve taken the role as her navigator.

“I’ve always wanted to try it. Once I got the Porsche, I had to sign up,” she explained the night prior. “There is definitely an element of adventure that attracted me.”

After a quick mileage check by officials, we’re off on our day long journey. The round butt of the No. 09 Panamera Turbo arrives quickly at our nose thanks to some long stop lights. A quick downshift and jab of the right pedal and the quirky four-door falls back into our rear view.

Heading first to Long Beach, we pull off the 105 east and onto the 405 south. A Vons grocery store is our first checkpoint. Forty minutes later, we’re cruising along Newport Beach. After quick lunch at the local Ferrari dealership, it’s time to make the break to San Diego, about an hour and a half to the south. But first, we head inland to hit the region’s smooth serpentine paths.

The road leading up Palomar Mountain is one of Southern California’s most scenic and challenging drives. And if taken without care, it can be one of the most dangerous. Steep canyons filled with thick green forests reside mere feet from the road’s edge. Line the nose of your car or bike incorrectly, and it most likely will be your last. Today, only a few motorcyclists brave the same trail with us.

Sevan’s movements are fluid on the run through Palomar: Brake. Shift. Modulate throttle. Hit it full bore. On to the next apex.

“Two weeks ago I went to a track day at Willow Springs,” Sevan mentioned before our start. “I was taught a few things.”

I can tell. She’s going well over the legal speed limit, poised and collected as ever. Neither her nor the new six-speed 997 Turbo is sweating. Flat as Bonneville and as athletic as LeBron, the all-wheel drive, 500-horsepower Porsche eagerly devours each of the mountain’s countless kinks. It was painstakingly engineered for moments like these, and this redhead is proving she can handle her business behind the wheel.

The higher we climb, East San Diego’s vistas become more breathtaking and clearer. Skeletons of the trees burned by recent unfortunate fires blur by.

Residents hear the Targa cars ahead of us speed past. Some set up folding beach chairs along the road. Others just stand and point. Everyone waves, cheers, and grins happily. One man flashes his latest copy of Motor Trend after picking it from the mailbox. How could he possibly have known? Thumbs up are the norm in these mountains.

On our descent we drive past the small mountain town of Julian, a place known for its delicious apple pie and sweet ciders. Onto Interstate 8 east, downtown is almost in sight. We hit light traffic and venture into the city.

“Pretty fun, yes?” Sevan asks as we pull into the W Hotel San Diego.

“Definitely. Great driving, too.”

Of course, my only regret is that I didn’t actually drive the Targa Trophy. But my alternative wasn’t all that bad, either. It made me realize once again that you don’t always need to be at the helm to have a good time — especially when you’re in one of Stuttgart’s finest.

Even with my eyes plugged into Google Maps, Targa Trophy proved to be as entertaining as advertised. Unfortunately, we didn’t beat the 72 other driving pairs or even gain a top 10 finish, but with Sevan taking corners, hustling hard up and down some of southern California’s most scenic mountain passes and desolate country roads, it proved quite the experience — one that I can see being thoroughly addicting. Now if I only had an extra $2000 in the bank and an exotic car to flog, I’d definitely sign up just for this “rush”.

Photography by Nate Martinez, Vincent Guglielmina, Thomas McCallum, Ryan Siu, Mo Satarzadeh + ID Agency

Akio Toyoda Stays On-Message for the World’s Largest Automaker

Akio Toyoda’s great grandfather invented the non-stop shuttle change Toyota Automatic Loom, Type G, on display in the company’s Shinegawa, Japan, museum where the scion explained the 1920’s technology to a group of American automotive and business journalists. Akio is justifiably proud of Toyota’s heritage. As you know, the company overtook General Motors a couple of years ago to become the world’s largest automaker, and the world’s largest automotive target. GM had held that position for the previous 80 years.

Consumers’ groups, environmentalists, safety advocates, U.S. Congress, car-haters and Volkswagen AG all are taking aim at Toyota; the latter wants to replace it in the number-one spot by later in the decade.

And so, we, the American journalists, anticipated the hour-long Akio Toyoda interview in Shinegawa, following the loom demonstration last Friday as a potential breakthrough, a close look at how the president and CEO would restore the company’s quality and safety reputation while bringing more passion to its products’ designs, as promised last year before all hell broke loose.

It was Akio’s chance to prove that Toyota hasn’t become like pre-bankruptcy GM.

Akio Toyoda let Toyota down. His statements Friday all stuck closely to company message.

Four months after Toyoda’s deer-in-the-headlamps appearance before U.S. Congress on the ridiculous unintended acceleration charges, Toyoda restated what his safety experts have found; that there is no evidence of a problem with Toyota’s electronic throttle system. Will Toyota cite driver error?

“Since the founding of our company, safety first has been the outstanding principle,” Toyoda said through an interpreter. “As a result of the investigation, we do not need to say anything, that it was, maybe, the drivers’ problem, but rather, the safe driving environment consists of the drivers, the automakers, the infrastructure. Those three parties should cooperate together.”

Toyota’s executive vice president, Shinichi Sasaki, supported Toyoda with additional comments.

“The machine, when it fails, always should have a failsafe behavior … we make the automobile like that. The driver, the customer, when he makes a mistake, it should not lead to any fatal accident. The controls should be optimal. That is our ultimate goal, purpose  … We never want to blame the customer. Even in making a mistake in using. That’s our attitude.”

Of course, it would be folly to blame customers. But the rest of Akio Toyoda’s message stuck to a corporate script free of any controversy. You would have a hard time determining the question simply by listening to Toyoda’s and Sasaki’s answers.

Toyota is devoting an additional 1,000 engineers to straighten up its safety initiative, and it is going to allow Toyota’s North American operations to discuss product development decisions with headquarters in Toyota City, Japan, before a managing officer from headquarters makes the final decision. This is a morsel thrown to North American management that was pretty much kept out of the loop on the quality and safety issues that affected its business here in the past year. Better than nothing.

Anyway, how will reallocation of Toyota’s resources to concentrate on quality and safety affect Toyoda’s passionate promise to bring more enthusiasts’ flavor to its cars, as promised last October at the Tokyo motor show?

“I personally feel that the cars are so convenient, but there are negative parts, like air pollution, CO2 emissions, the energy problem, traffic accidents. We like to maximize the merit, the benefit. And minimize the negative aspects … as I mentioned at the Tokyo motor show … we pay due respect to the environment.  … But I’m personally a car guy. I love to drive, myself. There should be some exciting feature, attractive feature of the automobile, and we like to keep and maintain that exciting feel while driving.”

And so it goes. Toyoda and Sasaki stayed on-Toyota-message.

The Toyota FT-86, developed with Subaru and unveiled at the ‘09 Tokyo show, won’t be ready until calendar ‘13 at the earliest. Whether that was always in the plan or whether it has been delayed as Toyota reacts to its recent setbacks (come to think of it, that sounds like recent GM, doesn’t it?) is a moot point. There wasn’t much time after Tokyo for Toyota to think about anything but safety and quality.

Biggest news from the roundtable interview was in Friday’s Wide Open Throttle post; that Toyota is working with Tesla Motors in developing a prototype electric vehicle, not necessarily for production, but to figure out whether Tesla’s technology (which is all, so far, of off-the-shelf parts and components), can work with a Toyota design.

Toyoda expressed his admiration for Tesla’s Silicon Valley mindset, its entrepreneurial/new technology style. Its ability to move and change like a small, lithe company, instead of a big, bureaucratic corporation overly protective of its profit margins, like the GM that slowly, unwittingly imploded over the last 30 years.

First thing Toyota should do is give more autonomy to its North American operations. Toyota has tried to portray itself as a kind of “domestic” automaker, even to the point of racing in NASCAR. It has struggled to be a major player in the large pickup market in the same way GM has struggled to make a world-class compact car. It may not be the message Toyota wants you to hear, but it should be the message Toyota is beginning to understand.

Let’s Go Road Trippin’

 What is a road trip…anyway?  “A question of almost Talmudic proportions” so says author Steve McCarthy.  “Well then, let’s talk Road Trips.  not the “Load the kids in the Minivan, turn on the DVD and rush to some far off theme Park eating fast food all the way on the interstate with the cruise control on and yakking on cellphone road trips; trips that sadly confirm John Steinbeck’s prediction, ’soon, we will be able to drive coast to coast and never see anything.’  No, real Road Trips.  Road Trips on back roads.  Road Trips eating at Mom and Pop diners.  Rod Trips of odd souvenir stands and picnic lunches.  Road Trips of spectacular scenery where the journey itself is the reward and to top it off, you have to do it in a Real Car.”  That’s from the back cover of a wonderful little book called Let’s Go Road Trippin! that everyone with a cool car ought to own. 

I don’t know Steve McCarthy, but based on this little mission statement, I like him already.  Most of this book covers great California road routes, and much of it is an ode to the late, lamented “No Frills Iron Bottom Motoring Tour”.  A Road trip event only for the sake of road tripping.  For a decade, the NFIBMT met and launched at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, with a minimum of organization and rules.  It was one of those good things that was ruined when a couple of lead-footed, lead-brained Luddites acted as if it were a Cannonball Run with a billion dollar prize, and went too fast for too long in the wrong place and pissed off too many people.  So the organizers killed it off (after the 2008 running) before somebody was hurt, killed, or sued big time.  I never drove an NFIBMT, but know folks that have and they still speak warmly of it.  I have driven many of these roads, and the McCarthys know of what they write.  Many are Motor Trend Road test route favorites.

McCarthy and his wife drive a well worn, rally-prepped Triumph TR3 that has been road hard, put away wet, and looks fabulous (the book’s cover photo was shot over its blue-and-white louvered hood).  A real road animal.  And they do a nice job of giving you turn by turn directions and road notes on driving some of the Western US’s most notable back roads.  I recommend it.

Road Trippin’ a guide to absolutely the best west coast road trips, ever!  by Steve McCarthy

Published 2010

www.mccarthypix.com

Driving the Ford Focus RS, the Feistiest Ford

There are plenty of things in Europe that we Americans unfortunately don’t get to enjoy here on home soil: Monstrous medieval castles. No speed limits. Beer stronger than Coke Zero. Of course, some pretty damn cool rides, too.

Like many of my cohorts, I have drooled over Ford’s Focus RS (and RS500) from afar. And now, thanks to Continental Tire, I’m happy to report that I’ve driven the snot out of a Performance Blue example during a recent stay at the brand’s Contridrom test facilities near Hanover, Germany.

To experience one of the world’s hottest hatches first hand — on a track, no less — was a completely unexpected treat. I travelled to Deutschland for a test of the latest German tires, not cars. But when the Focus rolled up to the tightly twisted wet handling course (Imagine a regular circuit with small sprinklers constantly dousing the pavement, and you’ll get an idea of the Slip ‘n Slide-like environment), I had to see if it was worth all the international hype. Strapped into the snug Recaro bucket, I was giddier than a thirteen year old during The Twilight Saga: Eclipse premiere.

The modern, simple cabin impresses with its soft leather and handsome plastics. The interior is a step above most U.S.-market Blue Oval products in terms of design, but lacks in pizzazz and quality compared to say the Volkswagen GTI.

The sexy skin makes everything below your beltline tingle as if a scantily-clad Adriana Lima just passed by. To glance once does the complex form no justice. Details are numerous and command further scrutiny; from the vented and muscular nose, to the chiseled flanks, venturi diffuser, and bold hatch wing, the functional build screams nothing but pure, hardcore WRC.

For an all-too-brief time, I flogged the RS through 14 corners and two short straights, putting it through some exhaustive and wet paces. Even on such a limited compact circuit, I riled the RS up to 80 mph in the middle of third gear. Its 13-inch front brakes never faded under the constant stressful use.

The RS I piloted wore Conti’s new ContiSportContact 5 P, a brilliant high performance tire that, during this particular test, quickly and efficiently shoveled gallons of water away from the vital contact patch (I’ll delve into the tire’s performance and tech in a later report).

Aside from the non-OEM rubber, stock-size 19-inch Borbet rims, and less than ideal testing grounds/conditions, the RS stuck hard to the slick surface with a Porsche GT3-esque flatness and an Audi quattro-like grip no matter how hard I pushed, delicately balancing its taut 3300 pound mass at each challenging kink.

Provoke the 305-horsepower 2.5-liter five-cylinder to just over 4000 rpm and the best combination of brute turbocharged power and torque throws head and shoulders smack into the embroidered “RECARO” badge. This enthusiastic little hatch is beyond quick, having an input responsiveness superior to any U.S.-spec Subaru WRX STI or Mazdaspeed3.

The Duratec engine’s tuning is superb. No real turbo lag to speak of, just an eager giddy-up that hurls the Focus faster with each foot of tarmac covered. And with the trick RevoKnuckle underneath the front axle, there is nary a hint of ugly torque steer. The Focus RS is one of the most solid rides I’ve ever driven and was ready and able to take on the aggressive abuse for which it was carefully bred.

My short drive was not only fun, but thought provoking. I kept reminding myself of Ford’s many excuses for not bringing a vehicle as entertaining and unique to its home market — a place yearning for something of the sort. A revised Focus RS would follow its current UK sibling’s suit and sell out in days. Maybe even hours. Hopefully the higher-ups will give the go-ahead to a future RS version based on the next-generation Focus that’s set to debut here next year. We can only hope if they do that it turns out as good as this car.