This week we’re getting the inside dirt on the North American International Auto Show, or as we prefer to call it: the Detroit Auto Show. Our guests are Bill Perkins, the NAIAS Co-Chair and Rod Alberts, the Executive Director for NAIAS. We’ll be asking them if things have really changed down at Cobo Center. Are unions still ripping everyone off? Can we expect any more fights with the Detroit City Council? Of course, with the big show only a few short days away, we’ll be talking a lot about what we can expect to see at the show with major reveals from Cadillac, Lincoln, Dodge, Acura, Ford, and more. To discuss these stories and more, John McElroy is joined in studio by Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist.
As many of you know by now V8 Supercar racer Jason Richards lost his battle with stomach cancer on Thursday night. It’s been told by everyone that Jase was among the best people you could ever meet, and his strenght and positive outlook while going through the illness was inspiring.
Mark Beretta who a host on the Morning Channel 7 News Show Sunrise, and a pit reporter for the V8 Supercar series had these words on Friday.
This week the Autoextremist gets behind the wheel while John McElroy is in Texas driving the new Chevy Malibu. And, as we close in on 2012, we’ll be taking a look back at some of the biggest automotive stories of 2011 with Scott Burgess of The Detroit News and Todd Lassa from Motor Trend. As usual we’ll also get into the news of the week including China’s import tariffs on U.S. cars, Acura’s attempt to become relevant again, and the NTSB’s recommendation to ban all cell phone use in cars. All this and more with the man himself,Peter De Lorenzo.
When Lexus first brought the GS to market it was targeted as the “sporty sedan” where the LS was the “luxury sedan”, but somewhere along road, the GS became soft, and the idea of it be comparable to a BMW 5 Series was tossed aside. With the latest iteration of the GS, Lexus are looking to change that conversation.
Right off the bat, Lexus are saying that they had the BMW 5 Series and Mercedes E-Class directly in their crosshairs as they developed the new GS. A part of going after the Germans with the GS is the debut of the new Lexus design language in the front end. Like it, love it, or hate it, get used to it, because this IS the new face of Lexus.
Part of philosophy with the new GS was set forth by Akio Toyoda himself when he said this car must have emotion in the styling, and emotion in the driving. He wanted the car to be able to stand out, and stand on it’s own, not just blend into the background. It is this point of view which Lexus believe that they will be able to achieve a 50% conquest rate with new buyers to the Lexus GS.
There will be three distinct versions of the GS, a Luxury, a Hybrid, and the F-Sport. We will focus on the Hybrid first. The idea with the Hybrid was more a focus on “Performance Hybrid” rather than “Economy Hybrid”. Think of the Hybrid as a V8 replacement, rather than say the CT200h which is focused on economy. The Hybrid is also the only GS model that will have LED headlamps available.
The Luxury level is firmly targeted at the E-Class Mercedes. The ride is tuned a little softer, there will be a special leather used, a three zone climate control system (two front, one back), 18 way power adjust seats and the driving dynamics are focused on a well controlled ride, rather than a “plush” ride.
The F-Sport is exactly what you’d think it would be. It is going after the 5 Series BMW and M-Sport trimmed 5 Series (not M5) with is multi level suspension settings, active rear steering, and electronic engine and steering controls that greatly sharpen everything when you go into Sport and Sport+ modes.
Power for the GS will be a 3.5 liter V6 that features both Direct Injection and Port Injection, it will provide 306 horsepower and 277 torques, backed up by a six speed automatic transmission. When asked why a six speed automatic and not an eight speed auto which has become de rigueur in the last twelve months, Lexus responded, that they did not believe they could get the driving dynamics they wanted with an eight speed. They felt it would “always be hunting for the right gear”.
The Hybrid also uses the 3.5 liter V6 but converts it to an Atkinson Cycle engine, very common for hybrids, and couples it with a an electric motor to give it a combined power rating of 338 horsepower. The reason for an Atkinson Cycle engine is that it is 35% more efficient and with the Hybrid system, it will return over 30MPG in the EPA combined cycle. Though Lexus did not have the final EPA numbers at this press intro, they were very confident of the number.
Lexus have also worked on the packaging of the batteries for the Hybrid system, allowing a much larger trunk for the GS then in the previous generation. There is some intrusion in space over the non-Hybrid versions of the GS, but it is far less then before.
There was also a focus on aero and NVH tuning so as to make the Hybrid a quiet as possible when driving on the highways.
The quality of materials in the two cars we spent time with at the launch, the F-Sport and the Hybrid were excellent. We really like the way the Hybrid was trimmed out with a bamboo trim that felt very substantial. Most wood trim on cars today is little more then a very thin vernier, in the Lexus it looked and felt more like solid chucks of wood. This was most apparent in the steering wheel. Again, most wood trimmed wheels have an almost a plastic feel to them, with the GS it felt as though it was a sold piece of bamboo that you were holding on to.
We also drove the Hybrid on the short and tight infield road course at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and it did not disappoint. The car felt very composed around the track which contained both long sweeping corners and areas that put an emphasis on quick changes of direction. While not a car that you are going to take out for lapping day at the track, it will feel very competent on twisty back roads should you choose to drive in a spirited manner.
The F-Sport is a bit of a revelation. Driven back to back with a BMW 5 Series that was available for comparison around the race track, the GS was every bit as good, and in many ways BETTER then the BMW. While the steering may not have felt quite as connected as the BMW, it was much more direct, and the GS had much less body roll!
There is a noticeable change in the manor of ride, handling and throttle responsiveness with the different settings that are available. In “normal” modes the F-Sport is more compliant, but as soon as you dial up either Sport or Sport+, things change for the better.
This does not mean that out on the open road the ride is harsh. We took the F-Sport for a 30+ mile loop which included highway runs and surface streets. On the day we were driving the GS, it also included 50+ MPH cross winds on the highway. Lets touch on this last part first. Number one, there was no way the car was not going to be moving around with winds that strong, however, there were no abrupt movements it felt more like a gentle push. In contrast you could see the Semi-trucks on the road moving around quite a bit. In addition the cabin remained very quiet. You did not hear the sounds of the strong winds making it into the cabin, so Lexus should be commended for their work in the wind tunnel to make these thing possible.
Driving in Sport+ on the highway the ride felt firm and controlled without a hint of harshness. If you enjoy more of the European firm and sporty ride, then you will enjoy this setting. Set in standard mode, it smooths things out just a bit, and may be the better call if you have to drive on roads that aren’t in the best of shape.
Also out on the road we got to crank up the 830 watt Mark Levinson stereo system and tried it with some high quality music that we brought along. If we have one gripe with the Levinson audio systems that Lexus use it’s that they lack a bit of bass. We are not talking about obnoxious bass that you associate with too loud systems blasting hip hop, it’s more not hearing and feeling kick drums, bass guitar, or in the case of Jazz and Classical music, stand up bass or Cello missing power, feeling and emotion from the music. That is purely a personal take on our part, but it’s something we noticed.
Out on the road we cranked up a little Allman Brothers Live At The Fillmore and lets just say, if you aren’t paying attention, you will be in triple digit speeds without knowing it. In the middle of “Whipping Post” we looked down at to see the speedometer touching three digits and immediately got off the gas, even though it felt as we weren’t doing much over 70 on the freeway with a 75MPH limit.
On the inside of the car one thing that dominates the dash is the massive 12.3” LCD display. Lexus have cleverly designed it so that it can be one large screen, or it can be broken up into three smaller ones if say you want audio information, an overall GPS man plus turn by turn directions all at the same time.
There has also been a large upgrade to the quality of feel in the mouse interface. The new changes make it much more direct, and there is better haptic feedback as you get close to menu items.
Also included is the Lexus Enform system. It will start with apps such as Facebook, Yelp, Pandora, MovieTix, iHeart Radio, bing and Open Table to start. You will download the apps onto your iPhone, Android or BlackBerry, and then connect via USB to the car. Enform will use your phones data plan to connect with the cloud and provide you with all the information, the Lexus Enform system in the car provides an nice interface in which to interact with it.
Overall we came away very impressed with the GS, and a quick informal poll of those in our wave for the drive and those who had just finished, were pretty much in agreement that if Lexus can get the word out on this car as it comes to market in mid February, it should have a hit on it’s hands. The GS will come a surprise to many who view Lexus’ as nothing more than Sub Zero refrigerators, they are very nice refrigerators, but at the end of the day they are refrigerators. The GS is likely to change that perception, and we look forward to having a chance to spend more time with the car in the near future.
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This week we’re in a very different time zone. Since John and the crew are in Los Angeles for the LA Auto Show, they’ve decided to pay a visit to the famous Petersen Automotive Museum and meet the collection’s curator, Leslie Kendall. They’ll also talk to John Clinard, formerly of Ford West Coast Communications, but perhaps more well known for the event he started in California: Cars and Coffee. We’ll learn a whole lot about that, find out what’s new at the Petersen and much more on this week’s show.
There was a time, not all that long ago, that having a six cylinder in your half ton pickup was a non issue. Everyone who made full sized half ton pickups had a quality six cylinder in their lineup that, while it may have been the base engine, got the job done.
We had some experience with the Ford 300 straight six back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The fuel injected straight six had a ton of torque and unless you were trying to tow 7,000 pounds didn’t sweat the work load.
Sometime in the late 90’s the culture determined that unless you had a V8 under the hood of your half ton, (insert Arnold Schwarzenegger voice over), “you, were a girly man!” It was said you need a big V8, even if all you ever towed was a small Bass boat, or a couple of jet ski’s and the most you ever brought home from the home improvement store were three 4×8 sheets of plywood. In the era when gas was $2/gallon, that was fine, but now when gas is $3.50 or more a gallon, things change.
Ford along with everyone else got caught out when in 2008 fuel prices spiked from $2.75 a gallon to $4.25 a gallon in two months, and sales of full size trucks fell off a cliff. Not wanting to get caught out again Ford put together a program where they would revamp their entire engine line for the F150 pickup so they could retain their crown of the “best selling vehicle in the U.S.” and with it, keep money flowing into the company, since pickups and SUV’s are where a majority of the profits come from.
We had the opportunity to drive the two new V6 powered F150’s in back to back weeks. We started out with the base 302 horsepower 3.7 liter V6, then the week after we had the 365 horsepower 3.5 liter EcoBoost V6. The question to be answered is, by going with a V6 are you missing anything by not having a V8.
The first F150 we had was was a 4×2 Supercrew in XLT trim. Perhaps it’s our perception, but the Ford F150 seems to have gotten much wider in the last couple iterations. The F150 now feels as large as the F250. These truck are extremely wide inside, and outside as well. The truck is every bit of seven feet wide, so you will be taking up most of the lane driving down the road, and if you live in an older neighborhood, it’s tight going down the street if cars are parked on both sides of the road.
In the Supercrew, the back seat leg room is huge. There may be more leg room for back seat passengers then on a BMW 750iL sedan! Seating in the back is comfortable too. You can put three large people in the back and not have any complaints even if you have a drive of several hours. For the driver and passenger, the captains chairs were comfortable and had plenty of adjustment for us to find the ideal spot.
The cloth that we had in our XLT model is quite good. It had good heft and thickness and felt like it would hold up for a long time, even under hard use. We would like to have seen the USB and AUX jacks that are are at the bottom of the center stack, moved into the center console which is absolutely huge. This is not necessary for aesthetic reasons, more ones of security. Even though the F150 sits up so high, you can still see wires connecting to devices in the cab, that just invites problems.
The F-150’s now have the 4.3” information screen that debuted in the SuperDuties a couple years ago in between the the speedometer and the tach. This multi function display is laid out well and provides good information to the driver in an easy to navigate menus. It has more information then you will probably need, but always nice to have. There are sub menus that are relevant for off roading and for towing along with the usual trip/distance measurements, diagnostics and the clever average and instant fuel economy gages which are blended into one.
Once you are accustomed to the size of the truck, it drives quite well. While we didn’t have a chance to hook up anything to tow while we had the 3.7 V6 it did make a few trips to Lowes for supplies. No, a 4×8 sheet of plywood will not lay flat in the bed, however, when propped up to fit, it didn’t protrude much past the upright tailgate. We would recommend getting the step that makes getting into the bed of the truck easier. Unless you have a 36”+ inseam, it’s a big step to climb up into the bed of the truck.
We would also recommend the back up camera option as well. Living in an older neighborhood, one built in the nineteen teens and twenty’s backing out of the driveway was a bit of an adventure a few times. On one occasion we had to get out of the truck to see just how much further we could back up without hitting the car parked on the other side of the street as it could not be seen in the rearview or sideview mirrors.
Now the big question is, does the 3.7 V6 have enough power? The answer is yes. While one could always use more power, the base V6 felt fine. Again we didn’t load it up with a ton of weight in the bed, or tow anything heavy, but for driving around and hauling a few things it was fine. The only thing that struck us as odd, is that under full throttle, this engine shifts at 7,000 rpm’s. It’s very un-truck like and it takes a little getting used to having the power is up higher in the rev range then most traditional truck buyers are used to. The question remains though is how people who will tow with the base engine will feel when they don’t have the majority of their torque right off idle.
Fuel economy for the base V6 in two wheel drive is rated at 17 city and 23 highway and 19 combined. We saw 18 combined and 22 on the highway, so the readings are about spot on. The base sticker on our XLT was $31,810, then with options came to $34,880. It seems a bit high priced, however, go and option out a pickup from ANY manufacturer these days and they get expensive in a hurry. Long gone are the days you could get a full sized half ton for low to mid $20,000’s. Then again, the interior of trucks today are as nice as some near luxury cars!
Next up we had the EcoBoost V6 F150, again a Supercrew but this time it was a 4×4 and in Lariat trim. The move to the EcoBoost V6 is an attempt by Ford to offer the power of the larger V8’s in this case the 6.2 V8, yet retain better fuel economy. While the EcoBoost is down on horsepower to the 6.2, 365 vs. 411, they are near equal on torque.
No matter how much advertising is thrown at you about “we have more horespower then insert brand here” in a truck intended for work, TORQUE is the most important thing. You want as much as you can get, as low in the rpm range as you can get it. With the EcoBoost, Ford is not only able to match torque numbers of the 6.2 V8, but through the use of careful computer tuning they can create a near flat torque curve so that 80-90 percent of torque is available from 2,000 rpm’s on. The EcoBoost is rated to tow 11,000 and while we wanted to try that out, the person we know with the 32’ race car trailer was out of town, so we were again unable to hook up anything meaningful to really test this engine.
While testing by sites like PickupTrucks.com has shown that when towing at near max capacity the advantage in fuel economy between the EcoBoost and the 6.2 V8 is negligible, it’s when driving around in “normal conditions” that the EcoBoost really shines. We had some experience with the 6.2 in the Raptor that we tested some time back, and while that is a bit unique due to the 35” tires and it’s elevated stance, the best highway fuel economy we got in the Raptor as 14 mpg and we had to be very light footed to achieve that, 12-13 mpg was more the norm. With this 4×4 Supercrew we pulled down 20 mpg on a 550 mile trip to Indiana and back.
Power with the EcoBoost is very good, in fact it didn’t take very much throttle to begin to feel the traction control coming in. Put your foot down with the traction control turned off, and in two wheel drive, it would smoke the tires with easy. Get the EcoBoost and the F-150 is an entertaining truck to drive.
The interior of the Lariat package was nice, but the level of materials in a few spots left something to be desired. The leather material on the dash is paper thin, and didn’t have a real quality feel to it. The wood grain for some of the interior trim looked nice, but the veneer appeared to be about 2 millimeters thick. There was also quite a bit of hard plastic to be found as well, and while this IS a press vehicle with 8,000 miles on the clock, the fit and finish is not what we have come to expect from Ford of late.
We bring these issues up because the out the door price on this very well equipped truck as $49,115. Now, I don’t care who you are, when you are paying just shy of fifty large for a new vehicle there are some expectations that come with it, and we have to say, that the interior of this F-150 didn’t live up to it. The rest of the truck was great. It rode very well for a 4×4, it was very quiet in the cabin, the Sync and Nav systems worked well, but that price tag gives you cause to make that Jeremy Clarkson sucking air between his teeth sound that he’s not best pleased.
We could knock $4,000 of the price pretty easy by ditching the $2,495 Sony Navigation Radio package and $1,450 for the Lariat Chrome package, and maybe another $995 for the sunroof, but we are still talking about a mid $40,000 truck at that point! Again we know the cost of pickup trucks has gone up dramatically in the past decade, it’s just that we still have a hard time wrapping our head around those figures, and we know we aren’t the only ones.
Overall we do have to say, if you plan to tow frequently and with bigger loads you should feel very comfortable getting the EcoBoost V6. Ford has spent quite a bit of time and money making sure it will hold up as good as any V8, and we think you will like the results.
In the end we like these F150’s, the base V6 does a fantastic job and will suit most people who don’t have need to tow very heavy loads. Most contractors could get away with this V6 and be happy with it. If we were to buy a new F150 we have to seriously consider this 3.7 V6 because the most we would be towing is 5,000 pounds and that would be maybe six or eight times a year to go to the race track, though that weight is at the top end of it’s tow rating.
To get the EcoBoost isn’t an expensive option up front, but to try and get one out the door for under $40,000 takes a lot of doing. That said over 50% of the F-150’s coming off dealer lots right now are equipped with the V6’s and dealers are having a hard time keeping EcoBoost’s in stock, so no matter what some may think, consumers are voting with their wallet, and Ford appears to have hit it out of the park with these two engines.
The F-150 continues to be the best selling vehicle in the U.S. year after year, even when gas has become much more expensive, F Series trucks continue to sell at around 50,000 units a month and for October 2011 specifically 40% of those were EcoBoost models, it will be interesting to see if GM, Dodge, Toyota and Nissan follow Ford down this path, or come up with something of their own. We should find out very soon.
Have a look at all of our photos of these two trucks below.
First he accused GM of “Kill(ing) the Electric Car.” Then he took “Revenge” and got buddy-buddy with the giant company that created the Chevrolet Volt. But Chris Paine, director of the new documentary, “Revenge of the Electric Car,” hasn’t faced off against our resident EV skeptics. This week John McElroy and Peter De Lorenzo will attempt to navigate the EV hype and get down to the heart of the matter: are electric cars really here to stay? Of course we’ll get into the top news of the week as well: GM earnings disappoint, experts are sounding the overcapacity alarm in China and Lexus is calling it quits on the HS 250h. All that and much more on this week’s show.
This morning a lap of honor was ridden by every bike in the MotoGP paddock, 125’s, Moto2 and MotoGP bikes were lead around the Ricardo Tormo Circuit by Kevin Schwantz, who rode Marco’s Grisini Honda.
After the completed the lap they all assembled on the grid, along with everyone in the MotoGP paddock as they unveiled a banner that covered the enire Press Office Tower. There were also two minutes of fireworks to say goodby. Have a look.
This week we’re wondering if the iPhone has met its automotive match. Designed by our guest, Stuart Norris, Cadillac CUE is the infotainment system that promises to simplify a user’s experience while offering the smart phone features people have come to expect. It will begin arriving in 2012, and we’ll be asking Stuart what he thinks puts CUE ahead of the competition and how it will avoid the quality problems plaguing MyFord Touch. To discuss this and more, John McElroy is joined in studio by Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist.
This week we’re getting the inside dirt on the North American International Auto Show, or as we prefer to call it: the Detroit Auto Show. Our guests are Bill Perkins, the NAIAS Co-Chair and Rod Alberts, the Executive Director for NAIAS. We’ll be asking them if things have really changed down at Cobo Center. Are unions still ripping everyone off? Can we expect any more fights with the Detroit City Council? Of course, with the big show only a few short days away, we’ll be talking a lot about what we can expect to see at the show with major reveals from Cadillac, Lincoln, Dodge, Acura, Ford, and more. To discuss these stories and more, John McElroy is joined in studio by Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist.
