As the weather turned to crap, we got this sunshine yellow Camaro in to test.
Reviewed: 2010 Lincoln MKS with EcoBoost
Ford is attempting to reboot and redefine it’s Lincoln brand in about one third the time that General Motors took to reboot Cadillac. They are doing it with new or refreshed vehicles and an cohesive (though maybe not with a Zen like theme™ RoundAboutShow) Much like Cadillac’s Art & Science look, most people either love or hate the new front end design of Lincoln.
For a brief moment in time Lincoln were drawing inspiration from the ‘62-’65 Continental’s which was most pronounced in the MKX which we tested back in May, and the Navigator, which, like the Town Car, might not be long for this world. Like it or not the “Waterfall Grill” look for Lincoln at least makes a statement, you aren’t going to mistake it for any other brand, and in this day and age when sometimes it’s difficult to visually distinguish between brands this is important.
Now channeling my inner Dennis Miller from his old HBO show, “I don’t mean to go off on a rant here,” but this continuing naming convention of MK(insert letter here) is beyond dumb. I know in theory that by going in this direction it’s easier to avoid trademark issues, but with the history of name plates that Lincoln can draw from it’s own portfolio, or borrow from Ford, give me a break. MK is supposed to reference the “Mark” brand, problem is the Mark brand was always attached to a two door coupe going back to the 1950’s. Then you have the problem with the third letter and what is it supposed to represent. OK “X” from Crossover, “S” for Sedan, but shouldn’t “T” be for Truck or Town Car, Lincoln says the T is for “Touring” and someone help me out what “Z” is for. OK I know the MKZ was originally the Zephyr, but shouldn’t that be “M” for Mid Sized or “E” for Entry Level? Then you have the issue of your two outliers the Town Car and the Navigator. Until they are killed off you have two different naming conventions with the brand, thus avoiding that Zen like theme.
Do you change up the Navigator to MKR? The “R” being for Redundant with the MKT now in the lineup? After all the MKT, which we have had in for review and will be posted in the very near future, hauls five to seven people in more style, comfort and mileage than the Navigator. Do you call the Town Car the MKA? The “A” being for Airport car since that is what you see picking up people at the airport.
The problem with these lettering naming conventions is they are generic. Cadillac and Acura to name a couple companies have gone down this path and hit still boggles my mind. Acura less so because they only have 25 years to draw upon, but with the two American luxury brands they have 80+ years of names to draw on and distinguish them. It seems the bolder and further out they go with their styling, the more they balance that off with throw away name plates.
What’s so wrong with calling the Z the Zephyr, and drawing upon Lincoln’s history for others. The MKT could easily be the Premier, the X could have taken the Aviator badge since it’s basically replaced that vehicle, and the MKS which I guess we should get to talking about here could and should be the Continental.
Lincoln needed some mid level luxury car to fill in sales figures with the Town Car all but relegated to Airport Black Sedan duty’s and gasolines sharp movement north in 2008 killed Navigator sales. Thankfully Ford was hard at work at the replacement for the 500/Taurus and Lincoln was able to jump on board with a version for themselves.
This is not a straight badge engineering job, there are many differences between the two cars, yet if you know it’s based of the new Taurus, and you’ve driven the new Taurus, the linkage us undeniable. The MKS feels like the big substantial sedan that it is, but it does hold a few surprises. Rather than being some luxo-barge that one might think a Lincoln would be, it’s actually handles quite well. While the road off of Highway 68 that leads you up to Laguna Seca Raceway may have more curves than all the roads in South East Michigan combined, we did find a few spots to push the general handling of the car and it was borderline shocking how well it tackled them. Off ramps with posted speeds of 30 were no problem at almost double that speed! While it’s not as light as feet as a Lotus Elise, or an Elise carrying another Elise on it’s roof, it’s better than you would expect for a 4200lbs car. Clearly some of the suspension upgrades that that SHO Taurus got made there way onto the MKS.
Steering communication, more like a string and two styrofoam cups connected by a string clarity rather than a fiber optic one. You turn, it goes, but feedback is not there, you just have to trust it. Granted the MKS isn’t likely to pull people interested in a BMW 5 Series away, nor those looking at an E Class Merc, strangely though I could see the Lincoln people targeting the A6 Audi crowd. It’s not a European like firm ride, maybe a touch softer than the CTS SportWagon we drove right before this. What this car will do, much like it’s brother the Taurus is suck up highway miles by the hundreds.
The big thing for the MKS is the power plant. Ford has deposited the 3.5 liter twin turbo EcoBoost motor under the hood. With 355 horsepower and a torque number equalling the horsepower, with a curve that looks like the Mesa’s in a John Ford Western, equals a lot of fun. The motor ticks all the right boxes for a modern lump, twin quick spooling turbos with direct injection that allow for a much higher compression ration of 10:1 and variable cam timing make turbo lag almost non existent. Ford claim a 20% improvement in fuel economy over a similar V8. While we didn’t notice any lag per se, when the tach was north of 2500 RPM you felt the power really build, not that it was missing below that area.
On a two lane highway or a four lane one, point the MKS in a direction and it goes willingly. The cockpit is comfortable, the seats give good support and the THX Stereo is fantastic. Unlike out experience with the THX system in the MKX which we found greatly disappointing this one was quite good be it with audio, or with video. We popped in “The Incredibles” DVD which is a THX 5.1 disc and right way you could tell the separation of channels. The video screen which has a matte finish looked pretty good as well. It’s not going to make you think you’re at home with your 50” Pioneer Kuro, but then again what are you doing watching a DVD while you’re driving!
We do have to spend a minute or two on my favorite subject of late and that’s the choice of materials for the interior. Lincoln’s have a very uniform interior look, which we don’t have a problem with, but the material used to cover them is a bit lacking. It has soft touch surfaces, but the material has a plastic like leatherette feel. There is a minor bit of fake wood trim in the car which on the dash is a nice contrast to the acres of black, but the minor bit of it on top of the steering wheel would be better off having not been added. If you think grabbing a cold leather wheel on a 15F° Michigan morning is bad, just grab that bit of plastic on top of the wheel and it’s worse. Is it too much for a car with a sticker price $200 shy of $55,000 to have a heated steering wheel? How about remote start? Shouldn’t a car which you don’t need to insert a key to start, just push a button also have the ability to unlock your doors just by the same proximity sensor? My last gripe in this area isn’t exclusive to the Lincoln but if I had the seat heaters on when I turned off the car and the cockpit temp is sub freezing when I get back in, wouldn’t logic dictate that I might want the seat heaters on at least as high as I had them before? Sorry one other thing, should it take almost three miles of stop and go driving before I can feel the seats heating up? My girlfriends five year old Escape will have good heat on your back side within ONE mile!
Lastly I’d like to talk about the trunk. It’s large, it’s deep, but the mail slot that you have available to load and unload items makes it awkward. The opening has sufficient height, it’s the lack, as in almost zero, depth that causes the issues. Fishing grocery bags out of there was a bit of a challenge.
It’s taken us some time to come up with a grade for the MKS. We kept going back and forth between C+ and B-. There are areas of the interior which we think need an upgrade in quality of materials or at least some materials that have better contrast in color and texture, the access to the trunk was also not the best. To the plus side the car drove much better than we expecting and was a genuine surprise in several instances. We aren’t quite the target demographic for this car so we look at it differently then maybe we should. On the other hand it’s the demographic that I’m in that Lincoln need to be reaching to grow their brand going forward.
This is a crowded space in the market right now with some very good choices to be had. Does the MKS run with the leaders, no, but is it closer to that pack than you might think, yes, and that’s why it slides in with a B-. If nothing else it’s worth a test drive to see how it stacks up against it’s competition and see if it breaks your current perceptions of what a Lincoln is.
Reviewed: 2010 Cadillac CTS Wagon
America has had an aversion to station wagons for the better part of the last 30 years. The early 70’s were the last of the glory days for wagons. But those five thousand pound land yachts with their fake wood paneling on their flanks turned off an entire generation to these vehicles. Yet when the time came for the generation that scorned wagons, for hauling kids, and all the gear that’s required these days to move kids around, they too bought wagons, though these were four wheel drive wagons with eight inches of ground clearance. 
Because these were aggressive off road vehicles, and the extent of their off road achievements were mall curbs and the occasional groomed dirt road, it was OK, because they weren’t the station wagons of their youth.
This was fine in a world of sub two dollar gas. Even when gas went to three dollars it was tolerable, But once gas went north of three dollars, the jig was up. SUV’s overnight became as acceptable as a telemarketer calling at 6AM on a Sunday, and in some circles that might have been less objectionable! The CUV’s or “Crossovers” are essentially the same thing, just on a unibody car platform rather than a full frame truck chassis. For those that had no need for for big SUV’s or CUV’s but needed to haul “things” the choices were very limited in the wagon segment. You could get a Jetta Wagon out of VW without going bankrupt, or you could take out that third home equity loan and get a wagon from BMW or Mercedes.
In Europe wagons, or estates as they refer to them, are quite popular. The market for SUV’s in Europe is fairly limited to do the prices of fuel and the size of the roads. Many in the US have long wanted a quality wagon to call their own here. Well it’s not inexpensive, at all, but Cadillac has taken their acclaimed new CTS and created a wagon version for the North American market.
As we said the CTS has been widely acclaimed by almost everyone as a world class car capable of competing with the best in the world, and we were excited to see just how far Cadillac had come. Our last experience with the CTS was with one of the first production models of the first generation years ago. Back then, we liked the car, though we saw quite a number of things that needed to be worked on.
The styling direction of Cadillac with the art and science direction has people in two camps, you like it or you don’t, almost no one is ambivalent about it. When it debuted it was controversial, now, while not common, it’s not the shock it once was. The latest version of the CTS takes this styling to another level. Where the first generation was just about angles, this evolution is about angles having an elegance and a purpose. With the wagon all these surfaces have more length to come to natural conclusions in the tail. One thing that struck us at the tail section of the wagon, was a stubble hint at Cadillac’s or yore. We aren’t sure if it’s on purpose, but their are hints tail fins! Overall the wagon is bold and elegant without being so overtly masculine as to turn off women.
But while the styling of a car is what draws you in, it’s the interior and the driving experience that keep you coming back. The funny thing is that our first impressions were pretty MEH! The first day or two we wondered what all the fuss was about, but the more time we spent with the car, the more we were drawn to it. There are a few things about the interior that we still have some issues with, and we’ll get to that shortly, but it was the driving experience that made the car grow on us. For better or worse our first reaction to, well, just about everything is usually the correct one. Experience has taught us that if you have to be talked into liking something, or it doesn’t strike you right away, then you should move on. The CTS Wagon is the exception that proves the rule. After our first day with it, we were prepared to really knock this thing. By the end we were trying to bribe people to let us keep the Caddy as a long term tester.
The CTS Wagon is no autocross champion, but it’s not the land yacht of days past either. It’s sporty and firm without being harsh, even on the bomb craters that we call roads in South East Michigan. It will roll down the boulevard, play in stop and go traffic and eat up the miles on the highway. The best part of it is that this wagon drives and feels like a sedan, yet swallows most things with ease. As you will see, it will haul a Christmas tree, and though she didn’t fix exactly, an English Mastiff!
On the inside the car is nice, it has a good driving position, and good room, but I have questions about some of the materials used. I’m not expecting Connolly Leather, wool carpeting and burl walnut when I get in, but the materials that were in the Buick LaCrosse that we had a couple weeks later weren’t very different. There are soft touch surfaces, but they were barely soft touch. The “aluminum” and “wood trim” in the car are plastic that have been treated to appear as aluminum and wood. I know this because a friend of ours works for the company that developed the process, and immediately said, “hey, this is out product”. Cadillac has made great strides in the last five to seven years, but I will maintain that American cars need to exceed expectations, not just have a level that is “good enough” or “about what you would expect”
The pop up nav and entertainment is nice and works well. The picture quality when watching a DVD was good, as you can see here in the opening scene in LeMans. The hands free for the phone and the entertainment system work well too. One thing I would like to see, and this is not exclusive to GM is that when it’s cold outside and you remote start the car to bring it up to temperature, it would be nice if the seat heat would stay on a setting that you left it. Nothing will wake you more on a cold morning that plopping down on to an ice cold leather seat! It’s even more noticeable if the car has been warming up and the heat has come on in the car and begins to warm up the cabin, yet the seat remains ice cold.
The 3.6 liter, 304 horsepower V6 has a nice spread of power. While the torque peak is a bit higher that you might want, the torque curve feels fairly broad. Acceleration is brisk and while we can’t wait for the V Series to come out, we could be quite happy with this motor.
And that brings us to the final point. Even with the negatives we pointed out this is a car that we were sad to see go. It’s nice to see Cadillac have solid execution on this car. Sadly many of the people coming into the show room will walk right past the Wagon and jump right into the SRX Crossover without trying the Wagon. 90% of the people that buy the SRX would be just as well served in the Wagon while enjoying better fuel mileage, and a better driving experience, but, most of those same people care little about the driving experience or what servers them best, just what they think they should be scene in. Our first impressions of the car weren’t the ones we left with and that’s a huge positive for Cadillac. This CTS Wagon is a car that will provide enjoyment for those smart enough and brave enough to buy it with years of happiness.
Reviewed The 2010 Ford Mustang GT
In this review we are going to try something a bit different and have you play some selected music as you read through this. You may see a bit of a bias towards music that comes from Detroit, so, we’d like you to play along at home by playing the clips as you read this.
*John Lee Hooker – Boogie Chillun
When we finally got the opportunity to spend some time with the 2010 Mustang GT we were excited, if for nothing else to compare and contrast it to the Camaro SS we drove back in July. While the new Camaro has been very well received, the body refreshing of the Mustang for 2010 was universally praised. The huzzah’s was near universal, though we weren’t one of them.
When the S197 came out for 2005 we WERE on board with that redesign as a great improvement, drawing on the heritage of the 1st generation Mustangs without being overtly retro. It wasn’t one thing about the 2010 rebody that we didn’t like initially, rather, there seemed to be quite a bit of fuss over what didn’t seem like much more than a nose job and some minor restyling of the rear. Like many other cars, the Mustang plays better in person, than in pictures. 
The restyling has made the overall look of the car seem more aggressive. There are body lines that taper both on the front and in the rear that keep the car from being as slab sided and give it some definition. At the end of our test we didn’t have any of the reservations that we did previously about the styling, but we still questioned all the noise that was made about it when it debuted.
When it comes to cars like the Camaro and the Mustang, and the people that drive them, they tend to fall into two camps. You are either a Camaro person, or you are a Mustang person. Many of the things that we didn’t like as much about the Camaro, it feeling very wide, a bit heavy and such, are just the items that Camaro people look for. While those same people find that the Mustang feels too narrow and lacks a heavy, substantial feel on the road. This observation came from several different people, independent of each other, and it explains much.
*Iggy – I want to be your dog
Now full disclosure here, I have owned two Mustangs in the past. First was an 83 GT and the other was a 92 five liter LX notchback. When we first got behind the wheel of the Mustang, the absolute first reaction was, “feels like home”, or to quote Chandler Bing, “it’s the thing that’s been missing from your hand”. Even thought the last Mustang we drove was a pre-production 05 car, getting behind the wheel of the 2010 car felt much like getting in the 92. The interior space felt much tighter on the inside than the Camaro, which we liked, there weren’t the massive blind spots in the rear three quarter view that there were in the Camaro, and two minutes into the initial drive, we felt that while the steering was over boosted, the car felt more nimble and much lighter on it’s feet.
The Mustang has evolved from being a bangers car which was only good in a straight line. That’s not to say that it’s going to be dicing with say a Porsche Boxster or a Lotus Elise as the best handling car on the market, not by a long shot, that said, it’s better than you’d expect. Much was said by the enthusiast press who’s focus is on Sports Cars about the Mustang continuing to have a straight axle rather than an Independent Rear Suspension, and the fact that memo’s have surfaced how the IRS system would have only added $100 to the cost of the car. This is really a 1% problem. 
Only 1% of the people who buy the car will notice, or even care about the fact that it lacks an independent rear. Ford has spent some time refining the ride and handling of this car and unless you are a hard core auto crosser or out doing track days, it’s fine. The enthusiast crowd who has historically been drawn to this car is the drag race community and they are more than happy that the IRS was not the choice as it’s durability in those conditions can be a bit dodgy. Is it a serious GT car, no, but is it a serviceable GT car, yes.
There has also been some conversation about the lack of a six speed manual for the Mustang. The only advantage a six speed may offer is a slightly higher overdrive gear in sixth, but at 75-80MPH the engine is turning 2200-2300 RPM’s . The advantage in MPG would be minimal. We were a bit disappointed in the milage that we did get from the Mustang on the highway. A couple of different efforts where we set set the cruise at 75 and drove for some distance only netted 23 mpg, mixed driving was just shy of 20.
As an every day car it works well. the driver and passenger have plenty of room, the back seat has a surprising amount of space. With the drivers or passengers seat set in what would be a normal position, there is room enough for a 5’11” person to sit. That person may not want to ride back there for a couple hours, but for a normal length drive it’s fine. The trunk has a good amount of room as well. It swallowed, without a problem our bi-weekly run to Costco, Trader Joe’s and Meijer’s.
The body wasn’t the only thing to get a refresh for the 2010 model year, the interior also got a refresh. The gages still have a 60’s retro look to them, but are easier to read. The quality of materials, along with their fit and finish also received a major upgrade. Interiors are one of the areas I’m most critical on. While the body styling may capture you and be the initial infatuation, it’s the interior that you have to live with. I have said, and maintain, that if manufacturers spent an extra $100-$200 on the interior they could get $1000 worth of pricing. The Mustang is no different. When you get to a $30,000 price point there should be NO hard plastic surfaces, AT ALL! That said if we are comparing the Camaro interior to the Mustang interior, the materials are much better in the Mustang.
The Mustang comes with Ford’s SYNC system and it works as advertised, save one issue. The SYNC system doesn’t particularly like the iPod Touch with the 3.0 operating system. This is an issue we have experienced in multiple Ford vehicles, and after spending some time in various forums there is a software update that was in beta testing as we finish this and should be available after the first of the year. The issue is the system is forever trying to index your iPod. We had a 45 minute drive and it never did. If it does ever complete it’s indexing, it doesn’t remember it and will have to start all over again the next time you start the car. This is only a problem with the Touch though, as the iPod Classic worked just fine.
White Stripes – Fell In Love With A Girl
What matters most to people interested in Mustang’s and Pony Cars in general is the lump in the front. When for the 2005 Ford upgraded the 4.6 SOHC motor to a three valve head, there was a huge sigh of relief from the performance community.
The two valve, two cam motor while serviceable, compared to the Five Liter pushrod motor it replaced, it was hated and even vilified. Not because it wasn’t a pushrod motor, more that it wasn’t really any better for horsepower and the torque was missing all together. Other than the four valve four cam Cobra motor, in naturally aspirated form, it was only in 2005 that the torque levels approached what they were in 1995, the last year for the the 5.0 motor in the Mustang. In those ten years though the car packed on some three to four hundred pounds and it can be felt.
While the thee valve motor has good torque, it doesn’t quite have that plant your lower back into the seat push that the five liter cars of days past did. Here the Camaro is worlds better then the Mustang, though it SHOULD BE as it has a just shy of a 97 cubic inch displacement advantage. The Camaro kicks in 100 more horsepower and torques than the Mustang, AND at a lower rpm which is noticeable when driving on the street.
Salvation is at hand though. For 2011 there are two new motors coming for the Mustang, a V6 that will nearly match the three valve V8 in power and an all new Five Liter “Coyote” V8 that will match or exceed the Camaro in power. We look forward to driving both versions to see if they address our issues. In fact if you are thinking of buying a new Mustang I would say hold off till the new motors are released. Not only will they have more power, but they will have better fuel mileage as well.
MC5 – Kick Out The Jams
As much as I liked and was impressed with the Camaro, I like the Mustang better, but I admit I AM a Mustang person. The Mustang is much like Detroit, it’s raw, it’s much maligned and it’s unapologetic about who and what it is, you will either get it and bond with it, or you won’t. The best thing you can do with the Mustang GT is to roll down the windows, put your foot to the floor, shift it like you sold it, listen to the siren song that is a Detroit V8, channel your inner MC5 on and yell at the top of your lungs “KICK OUT THE JAMS MOTHER FU@KERS!!!!!!
Reviewed The 2010 Ford Taurus Limited
We spent a weekend with the 2010 Ford Taurus, here are our thoughts
Reviewed 2010 Camaro SS
As General Motors emerges from bankruptcy and all the talk of the car that will save GM is the Volt, a funny thing happened on the way to the production of “the cars American’s want to drive”(™V.I. Obama). America did find in GM a car that they wanted to drive. In fact for the month of June that single model out sold both the entire Buick and Cadillac brands in their entirety. The new halo car for GM and Chevy is the Camaro.
For the month of June, the Camaro sold a touch over 9700 units. Quite a remarkable feat in the current economic unpleasantness. Unlike many of their other models, dealers are getting full MSRP with no incentives. If the buyer can get financing, they are going right out the door.
Why is it that the new Camaro is moving so well? I believe there are a number of factors here. Number one: in an era where there is little innovative styling going on, designers (not just in the car industry) have fallen in love with retro styling because it’s easy. The new Camaro IS retro, but not in a patronizing way like most others are. The new Camaro feels like a natural evolution of the Gen 1 67-69 series in much the same way the current 997 series Porsche 911 feels like a natural evolution of the original 63-69 911.
For the last six months to a year we have been told by those in power that we will all be driving small, fuel efficient, bland, uninteresting appliances for the most part. CNBC’s Larry Kudlow calls them “little green go-karts” and while the American spirit of independence, individualism, and rebellion has been beaten almost out of existence, a small flame still lingers. I think the Camaro represents that spirit, much like its rival the Ford Mustang. Something that the average person can reach for, even if it’s not the V8 model, to say that those in the ivory white towers will not dictate to them what they can and cannot choose to drive.
The lines are classic sports/muscle car, no matter it be American, British, Italian, etc. – a long front end, a compact passenger compartment and a short rear section. While I’m not always a fan of the move to the 19″ and larger wheels that have been the trend in the last 5-7 years, the 20″ wheels on our test car looked good and did a nice job of filling in the massive wheel wells.
This last point brings up my major beef with the new Camaro and I wanted to get it out at the top of this review. The car is too large. It’s a bit too long, way too wide and it is 500 pounds too heavy. While we didn’t have a chance to drive it over the scales to verify, the official measurements have this coming in a couple large deluxe pizzas shy of 3900 pounds. 3860 is the official number for the V8 equipped SS that we drove with a six speed automatic.
Weight is the enemy of all car design. In the last decade to decade and a half the weight creep on cars has been astounding. Thanks to more electronics in cars these days, elaborate engine electronics, sat nav, stereos, bluetooth, active handling, more governmental demands for crash worthiness, demands for more quiet interiors by the consumer, increased complexity of emissions equipment and now hybrid systems have added close to half a ton in weight on most cars.
I will give three personal examples. My 1983 Mustang GT with me in it weighed 3016 pounds, my 1992 Mustang LX 5.0 weighed 3285 pounds and my 1983 Mercedes 300SD, a FULL SIZED car with a diesel motor, weighed 3795 pounds. I think that last number really puts things in perspective. A luxury four door diesel car weighed LESS than the current Camaro SS. I will say this though – the Camaro was nearly as quiet, and rode almost as well as the Mercedes. The question then arises: Is that last bit really a complaint for a muscle car, or have our minimum standards changed that much?
Climb into the Camaro and their are two things that you notice immediately. One, because the windshield is raked back so dramatically the area you look through makes it feel like you are driving in a chopped 50 Merc. The other, much like the same custom Merc, is that the visibility to the left rear for the driver is nonexistent. You will be relying on your mirrors and an involved twist which requires you twisting your head to the left to peer around the side of the drivers headrest to see out the back window when making a lane change or to see if anything is looming in your blind spot. While I will often complain about all the technology in cars today, this is one situation where a blind spot warning light in the side mirrors could be useful.
In the interior the fit and finish is pretty good, save one spot in our test car that was pretty obvious. 
Much has been made by others of the hard plastic on the dash, and I agree with them, though it looks good. I’m not sold on the orange plastic inserts in the doors that wrap around the dash. Chevy did attempt something similar to Ford’s mood lighting with it though, as the top edge of this on the doors had a lighting feature that, had it been better implemented with a stronger light for the whole length of the door panels, could have been interesting. 
The front seats are good, though not great. They could use a little more lower lumbar support. In a 200 mile trip to Indiana to visit my grandmother, I found myself moving around a bit trying to get comfortable after about 90 minutes. While there is not much room in the back seats you can fit an adult back there as long as you don’t slide the front seats back too far. At that point the leg room goes from tight to nonexistent.
One mega huge improvement on the new Camaro over the previous generation is that you can actually see and get to the spark plugs and most other areas of the engine with no issues. Another improvement is – If you need to pull the motor for some reason you don’t have to put it on a lift and drop the entire K-member and suspension. All my hot rod friends thought this may be the single best thing about the car!
Now the part that all of you really care about: How does the car drive and perform? It drives quite nice, thank you. The steering has a nice weight to it and going down the highway it tracks nicely, even with the big wide tires. Throttle response can be interesting though. Let me go into further detail about this…
If you buy this car the first thing you need to do is get yourself some sort of aftermarket plug-in tuner or take it to a performance shop that can tune it for you. I’m not sure if this is because of emissions, mileage or what, but you can literally feel the computer running through different fuel strategies in the gas pedal! It feels like it’s hunting for some optimal balance, and I’m not kidding about this as I had two other people take turns at the wheel and they noticed the same thing. In doing this it also might clean up some issues with the transmission. The car feels like there is another 20-40 horsepower just waiting to be unlocked.
Our test car was equipped with the six speed auto box, as a manual was not available for testing. While 85-90% of the time it worked just fine, there were moments that were frustrating. There are times when you are rolling along and you give the throttle the full stick, and there is no response for half a second, like the transmission can’t decide which gear to choose. 
The other issue is in the “manual” mode. There are buttons on the back of the wheel, rather than paddles, and by selecting up or down doesn’t always mean you get that gear and certainly not with speed you’d want. Under part throttle it’s OK, but driving at any kind of spirited pace, there is a lag that will frustrate you.
With all that said, the 435 horsepower LS3 is a riot! It is, as the Brits might say, a proper American V8. It has big torque from off idle so that you can drive with a light foot on the gas and still accelerate at a good pace. It revs to 6200 RPM with ease and never feels out of breath, other than having to schlep two tons around. We were going to take the car to the drag strip for some proper (and legal) acceleration tests, but it rained on the the two days that we could have gone.
I often joke that there are more curves, twists and switchbacks on the road leading up to Laguna Seca Raceway than there are in all of the state of Michigan. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. With that said, the Camaro handles pretty well, but it’s not at an elite sports car level by any stretch. Unless you are doing track days or auto crossing though, you won’t care. Day in and day out the car is fun to drive and doesn’t wear on you.
No matter where you go in this car, people young and old, men and women will flock to you to ask about the car, want to look at it, and have their picture taken with it. If you are shy, trying to keep a low profile or your time is really valuable to you, this is NOT the car for you. I can’t think of anyone I ran across who had anything but a strong positive reaction to the car.
Many jokes have been made about the new Camaro that if you buy it you need to get your mullet wig to go with. While switching the XM radio over to the Hair Metal station and having The Scorpions, White Snake and Motley Crue blast out seems very natural, it seems more like it’s taking a few minutes bringing back memories of high school. It feels almost as natural to just roll around in town in the car with XM tuned in to Chill.
For a car with the power and weight this has, the mileage it returns is more than reasonable. We got 18 in the city and on the trip back from Indiana just after I shot this pic it ticked over to an average of 25 for the highway. 
The highway trip was with the cruise control at 76-77MPH and I was NOT trying to be easy with it in in town driving so I would say these are numbers you can get with ease.
For better and for worse the Camaro has matured and grown up. It doesn’t mean that it can’t still go out and have a lot of fun mixing it up like it did “back in the day” but in that time it’s gotten a bit heavier, a bit wider and mellow. It might not have quite the edge it had at one point, but it’s more than just a weekend warrior.
It’s hard for me to come up with a number for the final rating. I’ll say 7.9 out of 10, and that probably would have been an 8.2 or more had the car had a manual transmission. Chevy has every right to be proud of this car. While it seemingly took forever for them to bring it to market, it may single handedly save the company. As a long time hard core Mustang owner and fan, I would spend my own money for this car, though I think I’d have to order that Kenne Bell Supercharger kit for it. After all, like Mark Donohue said, “If you can make black marks on a straight from the time you turn out of a corner until the braking point of the next turn, then you have enough horsepower.”
Oh, and speaking of Mr. “The Unfair Advantage”, forget the Transformers edition Camaro. I want the Mark Donohue Special Edition!
Final conclusion, the Camaro SS is a bottom of the ninth, two out, 0-2 count walk-off home run.
Ford Flex Follow Up
Back in March when we had the Ford Flex in for review, out major issue with it was it’s lack of power, and stated at the time that the EcoBoost motor would probably answer that. Well, yesterday, we had a chance to try it out. Thanks to the Mark and Joe at the Movement Design Bureau we attended Ford’s 2010 Model Year Event. There, we had an opportunity to drive the EcoBoost Flex on the high speed track at the Dearborn test track. Here is the video of that.
Five Days With The Ford Fusion Hybrid
When we drove the Fusion Hybrid back from DC, we liked the car very much as you can see from out earlier review, the question was how would it be on a day in and day out basis. While five days isn’t very long, driving it more surface streets, running errands and such gave us a clear view. Have a look.
Vehicle Review The Lincoln MKX
Over the last few years Lincoln has made a concerted effort to move away from the choice of the blue hair, early bird special crowd, and to a younger demographic and one with probably more money, and that is the Lexus crowd.
Lincoln’s were for many years cars to aspire to. US Presidents were driven in them, and executives wanted to drive and be seen in them. Somewhere in the late 60’s to early 70’s they lost their way and it’s only in the last couple years that the ship began to be righted.
Our tuxedo black MKX review unit left a good first opinion visually. It has just enough bright work, with the optional chrome 20” wheels to offset and highlight the body lines nicely. Going down the road, parked in your driveway or being valeted at the Big Rock Chop House in Birmingham, MI the MKX has a presence that it belongs.
When you move to the inside of the MKX and the theme continues. The materials are nice, and the fit and finish are good. There are a couple of exceptions where the bean counters got in the way, the sides of the center console and the face of the instrument cluster are a hard plastic rather than the soft touch leatherette found in the rest of the interior. Seems an odd place to drop some noticeably cheep materials, right where the driver can notice it, and they saved maybe $20, wrong decision.
After out time with the Flex and the Fusion Hybrid we had gotten used to the big display for Ford’s Sync system, however the one in the MKX was much smaller. While not too small, the larger display in the other vehicles was less prone to fat fingering as you were going through the menus. That said this install of Sync seemed to be just a bit zippier in voice recognition. Our only real complaint in the past about Sync is that the delay in between the spoken command and it’s response was just about a second too long to fall into normal speech patterns. The delay here seemed shorter. Or maybe we are just getting trained by it, hard to say.
For what seems like a smaller vehicle, the MKX is roomy on the inside. Back seat passengers will have no problems with leg room even with the front seats all the way back. Also ingress and egress are good for back seat passengers. On far to many SUV’s the rear doors are quite short and it can make it awkward to get in and out, especially for tall people, and some older folks as well. The rear area has much more room that you would think from the outside as well. You would think that it would have less room than an Escape, but it is quite a bit larger. A trip to IKEA for some shelving and other large items we needed to redo a room in the house were easily swallowed up. This is good news for the target demographic for this SUV, not so much that they will be hauling stuff from IKEA, or Lowe’s, but that it will haul three or four kids and all their gear to hockey practice.
Driving the MKX is a what you would expect. The real test for us was coming home from an announcing gig that went very long. We rolled out of Milan Raceway just after 1:30AM. The 58 mile drive home may have been the easiest, most relaxing drive home from the track we’ve had. It was a long day, we were VERY tired, and yet with the cruise set at 70 the time seemed to fly by. For those road warriors that would purchase this and pile on the miles, that I would think would be very welcome. General handling is good as well, for such a heavy vehicle, it takes on/off ramps quite well.
There are a couple things that we did not like at all for the MKX in the driving experience however. Because of the rear design and the sloping rear section, vision between the C and D pillars on the drivers side is not existent creating a MASSIVE blind spot. The passenger side isn’t much better either. This makes it difficult merging in traffic trying to judge the distance to vehicles behind you. What would be very welcome on the MKX is the blind spot detection in the rear view mirrors that we had in the Fusion Hybrid.
Mileage in the MKX is about what your would expect, be got 19 in pretty mixed driving. We tried to use some of the techniques we learned from Wayne Gerdes to help out the mileage, but by no means did we drive far outside what we would call “normal” driving habits.
A big deal was made when Lincoln began to instal THX Certified sound systems in their product line. We were very interested to see if it would live up to the hype. We ran a variety of music through the system. Mingus, Pink Floyd. Kevin Saunderson, Pantera, Mazzy Star and Norah Jones just to name a few. Sadly, to my ears, the system sounded no better than the systems in the Flex or the Fusion. While we are no uber audiophiles, we are pretty sure we would notice a difference of quality, being accustomed to listening to uncompressed music over some nice headphones on a regular basis.
At the end of the day we come out with some mixed feelings about the MKX. As Billy Crystal’s version of Fernando might say, “It’s better to look good, that to feel good.” That, and Maxwell Smart’s classic line, “Missed it by THAT much.” sum up the MKX nicely. The vehicle looks good, but it doesn’t feel special. If you are driving a premium brand, at a premium price, just shy of $45,000, it should make you feel special, and the MKX didn’t, It’s a nice vehicle, don’t get us wrong, it just doesn’t feel special.
What could Ford change to bring it to that level? That’s the kicker, we’re not sure, and we thought long and hard about it. There is no one thing that it is, it’s just a take away. Maybe it’s better materials inside, we don’t know, we couldn’t put our finger on it. When we shared that thought with a number of people who rode with us in the MKX we got that silent head nod that tells you they were thinking along the same lines and were having trouble putting their thoughts into words.
At the end of the day how do we grade this? We may be being hard here but 7.8 out of 10 is where we end up. Again, not that it isn’t a fine vehicle, it’s just that it didn’t meet our expectations.
Insight On The Honda Insight
Our friends Mark Charmer and Joe Simpson of The Movement Design Bureau have spent some significant time with the new Honda Insight. They offer the European perspective on the whole hybrid movement. Some really good thoughts here, and why I’m not alone on the island thinking that modern diesels are a far better solution than hybrids.
Enjoy!