All Entries Tagged With: "GUNNAR"
Ferrari F430 Review
“I don’t know if I should tell you this,” Dr. Frank Setter, anesthesiologist and 2006 Ferrari F430 owner, is about to clue us in, “but I just learned how to drive stick.”
Really, doctor?
The F430 is so potent that the mid-engined Ferrari could, in theory, exhaust the average driver’s modest skill set within the first throttle blip. Or kill us dead faster than you can shout – malignant hyperpyrexia.
Gear lever snaps into second.
Shouldn’t we practice on something slower? Perhaps a BMW M Thr- oh, Jesus…
Four hundred ninety horses break free. Michelin coated hooves spark Dante’s inferno as quad exhausts set off a sonic boom. We hit eighty five hundred rotations.
Third.
Clocks and landscape starting to melt into goo. Outside, the F430 broadcasts Formula One. Inside, imploding with g-force, I am Munch’s screamer.
Cut.
It’s a blazing hot day in Litchfield, Connecticut. The sun beats down on the countryside without mercy. Dr. Setter, perhaps ignoring his better angels, has agreed to drive out to this lovely land of hills, valleys, leafy forests, narrow ravines, and broad meadows with serpentine b-roads that snake through it all so that I can pester him with questions and drive his F430 – one of Maranello’s sharpest asphalt scalpels.
Our date falls a day before Hurricane Earl’s light brush with the Eastern seaboard and on the same Thursday that Ferrari recalls the 458 Italia, the F430’s cutting edge successor. From a TV hung above the bar at Da Capo restaurant, CNN’s saying that as many as 10 customers lost theirs to catastrophic fire.
The anchor crosses to the weatherman who dutifully fear mongers.
Dr. Setter, a chill Staten Island-native in his lower 40s sits across a table dressed in full Ferrari regalia. We sip cappuccinos and he remarks on how his time inside hospitals has turned him off of AC.
The restaurant’s central air washes us in cool.
So, why the F430? Why the traditional manual gearbox? Is this his first Ferrari? What’s the meaning of life?
Answers given in parables: He traded in a 911 Turbo and bought the $200K F430 with 4.3 L V8 for a relative song after browsing the lot at Miller Motorcars. It’s been a beautiful friendship ever since. The traditional gearbox represents sporting tradition and a cue to stay in the game of driving to say nothing of owning one of only 216 M.Y. 2006 F430s fitted with the gated shifter.
He’s taken a class or two at Skip Barber. Lapped the track at Lime Rock. And yes, this is his first Ferrari and likely not his last.
“Growing up, my family wasn’t affluent,” he confides. “But I read car magazines and used to go to the NY auto show.” He remembers getting hold of his first BMW 3-series somewhere at the corner of the new millennium following his residency.
“I enjoyed that car every day I drove it,” he recalls. The Bimmer was one of his favorites, though plenty of German machinery followed.
Now flush with the success of putting patients into and out of sleep, Dr. Setter’s finding a balance between his automotive passion and life’s fundamentals. He beams brightest when, as proud father, he retells the exploits of his precocious 4 and 10 year olds. Apparently, they tease their dad that he enjoys his car too much.
He gleefully agrees.
The F430 provides what we might call adrenaline induction therapy. Slipping behind the wheel, I insert the red fobbed key into the ignition and press the red start button on the helm. The fiery V8 comes alive and then settles into a low rumble. Then, like a complete ass, I stall out rolling forward in first.
Let’s try again, shall we? Tweee- varrrooooumm!
“You know, there are times I forget what I’m driving,” he says as a yellow bus load of stunned school kids passes by.
In rosso corsa, there’s no missing the F430 Berlinetta. The coupe’s color is so vibrantly Italian and quintessentially Ferrari that applying the same shine to a minivan would turn the mundane into the exotic.
Good thing, then, as the F430’s Pininfarina-penned body is the subject of some controversy among certain sects of the Ferraristi. As Clarkson once opined, it’s not the prettiest Ferrari. And he’s right.
But Dr. Setter, unfazed, tells it like it is. “They don’t have to buy it.”
Truth is, if they heeded his prescription, those well-to-do abstainers would really miss out.
Two big airscoops in the front swallow cooling air while voluptuous fenders arc, 1970s Dino style, into the windshield’s sharp angle. The shoulder-lines cut straight back into high-raised intakes that balloon out from the rear quarter panels as if bubbling from the V8’s heat.
A righteous glass canopy acts as display case to red-headed motor – a true work of art – and there’s a window to the mechanical wonder from inside the cabin, too. The quad tail lamps are stationed like rockets above the twin sets of dual exhausts pipes provide pleasing symmetry.
From inside the hide bound cockpit and behind the steering wheel, you’re treated to the potent taste of F1 technology. A clever little dial on the lower, right spoke allows for five settings from snow to psycho mode that tailors the E-Diff, traction control systems, ECU, and Skyhook suspension to your mood. Sport mode strikes the best balance and the technology stands as a beautiful affirmation of Ferrari’s purest ethos – let the driver decide (and make him look heroic)!
Your turn to drive.
Signature metallic ball-on-stick lever in hand, click it into first. Clutch pedal is light and is tightly tucked in with the stop and go pedals. Legroom is an improvement for Ferrari, though the front wheel well still cuts in.
Drop the hammer.
Eight cylinders ignite into a raging frenzy. Exhausts bellow and bray, drastically altering their tone and tenor each stage of the tach’s range.
Second gear. Speedometer needle spins upward as…
Shift now! You’re in third. With full throttle there’s just no time and…
You’re flying down a long descent that starts to ascend into a right hander into a forest so it’s time to…
Brake.
Pads clamp discs forcing the F430 to decelerate fast from three digits speeds. You detect a left-right-back-front tug as ABS and yaw control sensors fight a stoic battle against physics. You arrive at the uphill bend smoothly and notice that signature Ferrari poise as the rear hunkers down and tracks neatly with the front.
The F430’s handling is nothing short of a modern marvel and the power assisted steering betrays none of the road feel elicited from earlier unassisted setups. Perfectly weighted, the helm provides great assurance that the F430, locked on target, will go precisely where you point it.
Secreting a glance in the mirror, you’ll notice you’re spanning both ears with a Cheshire cat’s grin.
Cut.
Dr. Setter and I find our way to Cornwall Bridge and then up along Route Seven, a scenic yarn of tarmac that shadows the Housatonic River’s back and forth trail through a slice of Connecticut’s Appalachia. We circle back once we reach Falls Village and make a loop back to Litchfield.
A perfect slice of bucolic New England.
Pulling to a stop, I press the horn in appreciation – triggering Ferrari’s unmistakably strident siren. Dr. Setter nods, “That’s the sound of a traditional Ferrari horn! I installed it with help from another Ferrari owner . The factory horn sounded like something out of Detroit.”
Fortunately, the F430 observes most every other Ferrari tradition. And in a package so complete, for the bulk of the last decade, it pushed the boundaries of Italian performance well past the competition. It is fiercely capable and nearly peerless in the realm of road-legal performance cars.
That the F430 accomplishes all this while maintaining the Ferrari magic stands as a testament to Maranello’s enduring role as the world’s greatest purveyor of super cars.
Talking With Tom McGurn
In the 70s, BMW crafted an image from scratch…
By Gunnar Heinrich
IN retirement, as in career, Tom McGurn is every bit the company man.
“It’s bigger than people,” the affable former exec insists when discussing his former employer, BMW of North America.
Having enjoyed a long career in the auto industry that started with working public relations for Volkswagen and Audi distributors in the 1960s, Tom’s finding time on a sunny Californian day to talk with me on the phone about his career with BMW; a company which retains his lasting affection.
I ask him what he currently drives.
“We have a 5-series wagon and 1-series convertible.”
When I ask him about his first BMW experience, he loses some of his breath to a hint of sentiment.
“Ron Wakefield, editor for Road & Track for a long time, had a 3.0CS. Do you remember that coupe?”
Yes.
“Lovely.” His voice trails. It’s as if he’s gazing at the old road shark for the first time.
“Probably the loveliest design that the company’s ever had, I think. Ron had one of those.”
Another pause.
Then, pop!
“He never let me drive it… but I remember just how impressed I was with it!”
In our conversation, Tom engages in a kind of story telling with a tone that fuses porch-side yarn with press podium palaver. His communication’s tight but never terse and he credits his focus to the ethos behind his former employer’s products.
“You always knew, if this were a BMW, what [should] it be like? If it were a press release or a speech, it had to be aesthetically nice but well engineered. [It had to be] tight and focused and not a lot of extraneous stuff in it. It had to say something. Not just talk. A lot of behavior in the company came from product.”
Tom joined BMW in 1975 as press relations manager in a “start-up team” during the final transition days of the Hoffman era. In those not-so-groovy days, BMWs were imported privately in numbers so small that any of Motown’s Big Three could’ve written off the German auto maker’s annual US sales volume as a rounding error for one month’s delivery to Texas.
When Tom retired in 2007 as General Manager for Industry and Trade Relations; reporting to the Chairman/CEO, he had capped a public relations career as the level headed frontman who had risen, fallen, and then risen again with a company that persevered and profited through three challenging decades.
At any given point in our conversation, Tom manages to avoid grabbing at credit and transmits ego-less while portraying himself instead as just some modest team player who did his part in making a great endeavor succeed.
EARLY DAYS
By the time BMW, AG bought out Hoffman to federalize US distribution under the umbrella corp. now known as BMW of North America, sales had increased to a scant 15,000 units per year. To put that into some perspective, BMW sold 16,381 cars last month. The company was a tight knit band, very much “hands-on” as he remembers.
“It was very product oriented,” Tom recalls. The German headquarters also had a strong Bavarian focus. Today, it’s decidedly internationalist, he claims.
Tom had just left Audi to join BMW at a time when 80% of their sales volume were the cut ‘n dry 2002’s. There was little product awareness during the introduction of the first generation 5er and Tom was part of a very small marketing team.
“BMW was well known in the eastern corridor, DC – north and California. Not so well known in other parts of the country.”
“There were only about 250 dealers. A lot of people didn’t know what BMW was about.”
There’s a momentary pause on the other end of the line, as if he allots time to let this all sink in, then he adds for good measure:
“A joke from polling was that a lot of people thought the ‘B’ [meant] ‘British’!”
I’m laughing. He stays on course.
“It was a job to create awareness then. Especially against European rivals that had established [themselves in America] much sooner. Mercedes was probably selling 40K to 50K cars a year at that time. Audi and Volvo were also big players. It was our job to say we’re in that group but different from that group.”
Fortunately for Tom and his tiny team, fate handed BMW the ultimate gift. Ammirati & Purvis, three ad men who had branched off to form their own smaller agency won BMW’s bid to launch the new 5er and to create awareness.
“Legend has it that they when they won the BMW account, they were down to two weeks of cash,” He says with admiration.
Ammirati & Purvis coined the term “The Ultimate Driving Machine” to describe BMW. As history’s shown, the tagline stuck.
“It had a lot of credibility about why BMW was different from its rivals.”
CONSISTENCY
With the advent of sales increases in the 90s and a new manufacturing presence in South Carolina, BMW NA matured as a company in step with the growth of the public’s awareness of the “brand”. Tom oversaw BMW’s initial James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) years as well as marketing for the Olympics.
“It was absolutely wonderful.”
He segued into industry and trade relations which brought him out of contact with the media and in touch with dealers and lobbyists; familiar territories that he knew from working with the American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA) during his time with Audi.
Tom caps our hour-long talk with some bullet points of what the BMW’s corporate life meant to him.
“It’s the advantage of being an independent company,” he parrots BMW’s recent marketing message.
“There’s the core.” He explains, referring to the company as an ongoing concern that transcends the individual.
“We had the worldwide chairman of the company, Eberhard Von Kuenheim. He served from when I started in the company through the late 80s. People said, oh, Mr. Von Kuenheim’s going to leave! What’s going to happen?! Well, another very competent executive came in to run the company.”
Tom adds:
“BMW had a good balance between personalities but everyone was focused on the products and what kind of cars we should build. The greatest strength of BMW over the course of my time there, some 30 years, was consistency.”
As a company man, the same virtue holds true for Tom McGurn.
___________________________________
Editor’s Note: Many thanks to Joe Corbett for arranging this interview.
2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS Review
FUNNY thing, dreams.
To define by parallel simile, reality is like the movie that’s adapted from an excellent book: it seldom mirrors your own singular expectations. You feel you’re on intimate terms with what someone else has managed vainly to interpret.
Yet, when reality and your dreams merge closer – or – if the planets are really aligned and like star crossed lovers the two should intertwine, well, there’s nothing more magical.
For many, this year’s Camaro SS will be that perfect union.
True, there’s a strong, leaded whiff of déjà vu. The muscle car hood trailing long and wide into sharp flanks; topped by a cockpit as short and secure as a turret’s hillside battery, echoes Chevy’s first generation “pony car” from 1966. The front air dam and the edgy faux intakes also nod to the third generation Camaro, a boxy beast that for many encapsulated the gritty everyman’s sports car in the 80s.
Combined, these famous facets grant the new, fifth generation Camaro instant celebrity. Those brooding good looks are recognized everywhere. As when leaving from an anonymous garage in the lower forties to make your way cross Manhattan towards the Hudson – 6.2 Liter V8 burbling through twin exhausts – a surprise awaits you at the first light.
In this startling instance (one of many more to come) a middle aged man wearing the workday’s sweat that shows through a wrinkled wife-beater does a double take in his box truck’s side rearview and comes tumbling out the cab smiling broadly. He looks down at the hood – astonished- and peers through the pillbox windshield and gives you a meaty thumbs up.
“Camaro!” He trumpets.
To emphasize just how much he approves of your ride, he climbs back into the truck and waves after you as you drive off in his dream car.
Truth be told, in his mind your car is actually his. That’s because he knows all about the Chevy Camaro, gets its no holds barred message, whistles at the sheetmetal’s hotness, remembers the times he had in an old ’76 (in both front and back seats), and holds fast to the notion that the $36,000 2010 SS is a four-wheeled dream that he figures he can someday reach.
This retro car is the kind of déjà vu people love.
Most, anyway.
You happen upon another middle aged man enshrined in the social security of a vanilla Volvo V70 who offers you the most baleful look of contempt his political correctness can muster. You see, the Camaro doesn’t so much sponsor opinion as it provokes emotional reaction – even from our Volvo driver. In a certain sense, the Chevy flashes a fat middle finger at the world’s green parties and anyone who speaks in hushed tones and restrains honesty in their opinions.
Ecofriendly? One blip of the go control and this muscle car crackles with the electricity of a thousand… Volts.
Aside from the dot kit you left behind on your hasty road trip to Asbury Park, NJ – spiritual home of that other four decades old icon (Bruce Springsteen) – you’ve left out the baggage of preconceptions.
Fact is, if you recall the fourth generation, last of the F-body Camaros; you know… that one that marked time through the 90s as an also-ran… well, that’s just it. You’d rather not remember a car that bucked with all the torque of a bull that had parted with its balls.
Lucky for you, the 2010 model, simmering under its fresh coat of burnt orange paint (with interior match) and provocative black stripes that run clear down the hood, reminds you of another GM car entirely. It hints at its relation from the moment you take in the cockpit’s ESPN Zone appeal, that smell of rubbery plastics, synthetic leather, musky road rage, and the rouge of brightly lit ye olde schoole gauges that read “oil temp”, “transmission temp”, etc.
How the car proceeds down the road even seems familiar. It’s the way the MacPherson struts tied to the Pirelli PZero’d 19″ rims quietly cope with NY’s merciless roads without resorting to the bloated float that, say, an 13 year old Impala SS would feature. Twist the high mounted helm into your first real turn onto the New Jersey Turnpike and the association dawns on you faster than the first toll booth.
It’s the Pontiac G8 GT.
Underneath all this retro rests the same, accommodating rear wheel drive Zeta platform that supported the best contemporary sedan the ill-fated Pontiac division ever made. That this excellent platform’s high Australian-sourced virtues live on in this iconic enterprise is not only affirming to wistful sentiment, it’s rewarding in the tactile pleasures the setup provides the driver.
That said, as you log the miles you realize that the Camaro is not really a sports car, per se. It’s a liveable environment with accomodating seats and room four. Visibility is next to non-existent, but who cares? It’s the performance that matters and this is where some idealizations meet the road’s hard reality.
There’s a definitive difference between a performance car (sports car) and a muscle car. The Camaro SS is a loud example of what it means to be the latter.
Think of a sports car as a ripped Bruce Lee. His character was short, lean and devastatingly powerful. He slayed foes through the execution of accurately delivered force.
Then think of Arnold Schwarzenegger. There’s Arnold’s impressive muscular bulk, but all that weight (3,888 lbs) and size (190.4 inches long) hinders performance into simple displays of going straight ahead – really fast. Stop to sixty happens in 4.6 seconds. In other words, the might’s more for show than “practical” application. A particularly spry driver in a WRX could out fox you in this beast.
Plant the gas pedal and on tap pours a relentless surge of power. Relentless, until you’ll accelerate straight into the metaphorical wall at 120 mph. At which point you’ll find that the numbers proceed at an agonizing rate: 121…123…125…128. You can’t help but feel that the engine not only could, but should be able to push faster.
This might lead you to suspect that the Camaro’s been subtly detuned so as not to upstage the aforementioned cousin that competes on the higher plane.
You take an early exit off the Garden State Parkway and find yourself barreling up twisting roads that serpent their way through the Atlantic Highlands. With a 6-Speed automatic transmission that takes 20 horsepower off the top to lower the SS’ rating to 400 hp even, the AT misses the QT by acting as a sloppy slush box that takes its sweet time deciding when to swap one gear for the next.
Despite sharing the old G8 GT’s able pedigree, chucking this brute into corners isn’t the Camaro’s tank of premium. There’s plenty of power propelling you in, but hit the brakes and you feel like you’re reeling in a loose line. There’s plenty of yaw and pitch and the back end wiggles to let you know that since you stepped off the gas the tail would much rather lead he way.
This is where wheel mounted button shifting comes in very handy. As in auto mode, the electronic shifts don’t come quickly. They happen with all the immediacy of an old analog TV’s remote: you wait for one-Mississippi, sometimes two, from the time your index taps the back of the wheel to when the transmission gets around to executing your command.
The dramatic pause makes for perfect for comedic timing, because the resulting throttle blip or interrupted bellow is endlessly entertaining. Unless you’re actually trying to keep time.
So, you plan for corners more than you ordinarily would. And how you control the mass is by forsaking the lazy auto for manual shifting thereby using the engine’s prodigious torque to control all that body into and out of tight turns. Without it, you’re playing fast and loose with your life at worst, or reenacting a scene from Smokey and the Bandit at best.
Following Route 36, you’re over the bridge now – briefly gazing North to see past the watery haze to New York’s towers in the far distance – before routing south on Ocean Avenue through Sea Bright. Traffic’s heavy – in this part of the world as the summer seems to exist for the Jersey shore and half the Garden State and New York are muscling in on this thin barrier island for their pound of flesh sand.
Parading from one strip mall to the next, the Camaro’s celeb factor shines again. It’s like they’re watching The Boss himself guiding the E Street Band back to Asbury.
The Camaro fits perfectly here. Lower the windows and take in the sweet summer scent of “scene” as you cruise slowly past older Camaros, new Vettes, umpteen Porsches, and countless Benzes and the gaggles of pedestrians young and old.
“Bumblebee!” one kid elbows another as they watch you burble past. Thanks to Transformers, they own the Camaro’s legacy now, too.
Monmouth… Long Branch… Deal…traffic thins and you seem to gather momentum just as the sun is starting its own rapid descent.
You arrive in Asbury Park just in time to watch the sun set. Asbury Park sends you its greetings – via its finest – who couldn’t help but stop to inspect the sight of new Motown muscle that’s motored into the Boss’ “hometown”.
The friendly interrogation starts.
“How many horsepower?”
“V6 or V8?”
“Does the tail come out on ya?”
And on it goes.
Attracting attention. Causing a raucous on the Jersey shore.The revived Camaro, a new take on an old premise, is sure to become a familiar face as time wears on. Like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band, the very name Camaro promises a lasting appeal.
Long live the dream.
2010 Camaro SS: @ Neil’s Car Wash
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Neil Rogers
WITH the Fourth of July nearly upon us, it’s only fitting that whatever car(s) we have in our stables are shined up and looking good for when they make their fair weather debut tomorrow. In our case, our orange with black stripes 2010 Chevrolet Camaro SS needed a good wash.
Lucky for me, my co-producer Neil was only to happy to oblige taking over washing duties.
Not that it was that dirty. But any excuse would do.
Any at all…
The beauty of washing cars is that you’re able to soak in all the details…
And see how well the design channels and deflects the elements…
It’s kind of like performing your own kind of informal R&D test, if you will…
The end benefit of this “test” is you get a clean car.
Glossier than ever…
…and ready to rock & roll.
ADL TV | A Day At The Races
As seen on CPTV | Copyright © 2009 Heinrich Rogers Productions, LLC
WHAT a day.
It was July. The forecast called for possible showers or thunderstorms. Humidity felt something like ninety-nine percent.
Then the sun came out. And the humidity stayed as glued to hillsides of northwestern Connecticut as our sweat-soaked shirts stayed glued to our backs.
Race weather, in other words.
I can’t remember watching one of my uncle’s NHRA races on a day when the air wasn’t so hotly thick with the smell of gas and burning rubber. Being at Lime Rock – a very different kind of course – with Joe Ficca as he took to the track brought back some of those childhood memories.
As did fond recollections of all those Porsche and Ferrari club meets I’d witnessed at Lime Rock over the years.
This day, we brought a range of BMWs and one Cadillac to the track to experience Lime Rock’s famous twists and turns for ourselves. Following a renovation, the track was freshly paved with an extra turn carved into the hillside following the back straight.
But our time was as limited as the Park’s was valuable (memberships cost $100K) so we set out to answer a number of questions.
Which of the BMW convertibles we tested would prove fastest?
Could an E65 550i beat an E39 M5?
Would an XLR-V out perform a gang of M-powered BMWs?
TRT: 09:27
_________________________
Credits
Executive Producers: Gunnar Heinrich & Neil Rogers
Line Producer: Tiffany Hopkins
Editors: Neil Rogers Production Assistants: Kevin Kusina | Larry Henrikson
Camera: Neil Rogers | Chris Reo | Ben Winchell | Jan Hering
Writer | Host: Gunnar Heinrich
Special Thanks: BMW | GM| Lime Rock Park | Dres. Ward Heinrich, Sr. & Jr.| J.M. Ficca
ADL TV | BMWs on Block Island
DECISIONS, decisions.
Sometimes life presents the nice kind of hard choices.
Harvard or Yale? Paris or Rome? Oil or gold?
If you had to boil the benefits of both down to experiencing just one long term – and both presented impeccable qualifications to justify your expenditure of time and money… how could you choose?
Would you opt for Yale only to miss Beantown’s nightlife? Would you vie for Paris and do without Villa Borghesi? Or what if you put all your chips down on gold only to watch oil futures rocket beyond the horizon?
The debate between which BMW convertible the 1-Series or 3-Series, presents a similarly luxurious dilemma. To buy both would be a foolhardy expenditure of $100K. And at $100K, there are many more enticing cars that you should be considering- used Aston Martins and Ferraris come to mind.
So sense and sensibility dictate that you should opt for just one BMW drop top for your garage. Trouble is…or was… I just couldn’t. Whether it was color choices or amenities or character – both the 1er and 3er present strong, if endearing cases.
That’s why in this segment, we took the 128i and 328i to Block Island (a scenic spit of hills off Rhode Island’s coast) and asked SoCal native and one-time Infiniti owner Alexandra Harbushka to judge which convertible might entice her to switch to a roundel badged car.
To say the least, we were surprised by her choice. TRT: 09:30.
_________________________
Credits
Executive Producers: Gunnar Heinrich & Neil Rogers
Line Producer: Tiffany Hopkins
Editors: Neil Rogers | Kevin Kusina
Camera: Neil Rogers | Chris Reo | Ben Winchell
Writer | Host: Gunnar Heinrich
Special Thanks: BMW | Block Island Chamber of Commerce| Dres. Ward Heinrich, Sr. & Jr.| J.M. Ficca
ADL TV | GM @ 100 Yrs: Cadillac
“MISTER EARL”
There’s nothing quite like having the man who designed the Corvette Sting Ray tell you, the interviewer, that you’re not giving GM’s larger-than-life chief designer Harley Earl enough respect.
My question: “Did you ever work with Harley Earl back in the day?”
Bob Veryzer: “He was around. It was never Harley Earl. It was always Mister Earl.”
To which GM’s VP of Global Design Ed Welburn added, “It was only until recently that people started calling him Harley Earl.”
Apparently, GM’s artistic duo hadn’t seen any of Buick’s “My name’s Harley Earl” TV spots. Nevertheless, at this gala in honor of Cadillac, clear respect for an icon was the order of the evening.
Last summer we drove up to Saratoga Springs, New York where instead of placing bets on horses we braved the worst tempests that the Hudson River Valley could throw our way to tape a story about Cadillac’s past and where it might fit in GM’s tomorrow.
GM had turned 100 years old and the Saratoga Auto Museum threw a party in honor of Cadillac. Many GM big wigs were there, including GM’s G.M. for Cadillac, Jim Taylor.
As grim as Caddy sales looked last July, the financial markets had yet to crash and the General was still almost a year away from filing for bankruptcy protection. We were in, if you like, the eye of the perfect storm.
In this segment with a T.R.T. of 07:15, we watch some of the best and worst of Cadillac’s past; hear comments from the marque’s fans; and get a real sense that in the midst of the celebration, GM’s top brass knew what was to come.
“This is a new world we’re going into,” Mr. Taylor notes, “Quite frankly I don’t think anybody realizes how big a difference there’s going to be. Until you wake up in four or five years and realized what happened.”
_
_________________________
Credits
Executive Producers: Gunnar Heinrich & Neil Rogers
Editors: Michael Russell | Neil Rogers | Kevin Kusina
Camera: Joshua Schnitzer | Gregory Dwyer | Neil Rogers
Writer | Host: Gunnar Heinrich
Special Thanks: GM | Saratoga Auto Museum | Dres. Ward Heinrich, Sr. & Jr.| J.M. Ficca
2009 BMW 750Li Review
I have a confession to make:
While BMW’s latest flagship, the as tested one hundred thousand three hundred twenty dollar 2009 750Li is an object of technical brilliance, it fails to move me.
Oh, it propels like a rocket.
The Twin-turbo V8 with 400 horsepower and 450 lb-ft of torque, the bulk of which is readily available from 1800-4500 rpm thanks to those terrific turbos, makes this 7-Series faster than any of its swift predecessors.
Zero to 60 in 5.2 seconds. Mid-range acceleration bests the old school M5.
And, God, does it coddle and cosset. The new 7 is the quintessence of German comfort: effortless, adjustable in countless ways (except for the fixed rear seats in this model), heated, cooled, and supple but made as solidly as if from the bark of some titanium tree. What’s more, the interior’s supremely insulated and S-Class roomy.
And as a generational contrast to highlight just how far the Bavarians have come, you could drive all day in this 750Li and still feel reasonably rested with your blood circulated, your back ‘n bottom in good shape, and your mind relatively alert whereas you could drive all day in a 1983 733i and feel like you’ve run three miles in steel-toed work boots.
But like the old 7, in the new 7 -a sedan that’s an amalgamation of the old three box formula and the wedge theory- has a hood that extends out far in front of the driver’s view. In most Bimmers, the sightline ends at the dash which keeps things feeling tight ‘n right.
But where the lines of the old shark’s bonnet look angular and sharply defined, this 7’s flowing curves which pinch at either end in two sweeping arcs (like the 3er) would make a terrific stunt double for a 1999 Buick LeSabre.
And in titanium silver metallic, you’re almost convinced that this is grand pa’s car. Only much cooler.
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME?
The 7er’s external form is one of our hero’s tragic flaws. There’s nothing wrong with the interior; with Oyster Nappa hides matched with what BMW’s calling “High Gloss Fine Line Wood”, it’s a cool, Germanic environ.
The sedan’s dash is back to being driver centered along with the dash mounted joystick shifter, as the Gods of Valhalla intended.
But the exterior is an aesthetic mess.
Perhaps, my own taste is a generational thing.
In fact I think it is, because the E38 7-Series in jet black on black never, ever fails to stop me dead in my tracks. When I drove past a 2000/2001 740iL one evening in the 750Li, I almost rolled down my window to ask if the other driver wanted to swap cars.
Similarly handsome was the signature cashmere E32. A 1988 735i and a 1992 740i are two sedans that will live inside my heart forever.
And therein lays my own personal conflict.
Such is my ardor for the 7-Series line, second only to the S-Class, that throughout my days with the 750Li, I continually asked myself how I could objectively (as is humanly possible) cover this new car. Were I judge in a court case, I’d have to recuse myself.
But we’re not in a court of law (knock on wood). And the fact is I do know a thing or two about where BMW’s been and I’m not liking the avenue this new 7’s taken by virtue of its styling, size, and Lexus-like softness. It’s trying to be too many things to too many people. The focus, the precise essence is noticeably absent.
Too much is often just that.
WIZARDRY
To be clear, it’s not for the plethora of watch dog technology and on board computers. Though they hog center stage, they’re little short of amazing and are a sophisticated furthering of BMW’s preliminary efforts with trip computers and stability programs all those years ago.
Let’s explore for a sec…
The second generation iDrive is actually user friendly. Below the rotary dial are a set of hot buttons that get you where you need to go on the computer’s many menus faster than if you scrolled. Amen!
But often time I’d have to switch off the wide screen as I found myself spending as much as 20% of my driving time watching static “TV” and not the road.
Thank goodness then, for the collision warning system, a sensor guided alert that flashes a red BMW on the heads up display and the instrument panel warning of an impending collision. This saved my distracted bacon once in slow, stop ‘n go traffic.
That said, some technical feats still need fine tuning.
For example, the active cruise control (ACC) would never work in the fast lane. If the car you’re following is doing 75 mph, the system will slow your progress (by gentle brake application) to 64 mph – or some similarly safe number. This means that traffic behind you will grow to hate you.
Also, the blind spot detection system which lights yellow triangles from the corresponding rear view mirror that the approaching car is traveling on, will likely displease most aggressive Bimmer drivers as it also vibrates the steering wheel in warning when an approaching vehicle is a full car length away.
I could go on. And so I will.
The lane departure system which gauges whether you’re drifting out of your lane also vibrates the steering wheel in conjunction with a visual alert appearing in the HUD. This and the other features are defeatable, but they could prove useful to the late night road warrior.
But back to where it counts.
PERFORMANCE
As I’d mentioned, the V8 is a thrill a mile – or – a relaxed cruiser. It’s an incredibly capable powerplant and it’s the new 7’s crown jewel. The active air suspension, on the other hand, is a little bit of a let down.
There’s an old BMW adage that BMW never built a suspension that couldn’t keep up with the speeds the engine produces. In this case, the V8 is so capable, the luxury tuned bellows are entirely outmatched. Select one of four modes, “Comfort”, “Normal”, “Sport”, and “Sport +” which deactivates the traction control, and the suspension along with the transmission and engine change their tenor.
The difference in ride quality is readily apparent. The 7 practically wafts Rolls style in “Comfort”. And in “Sport”, the car seems ready to spring while registering every bump in the road.
Still, I took the same increasing radius, concrete walled offramp/connector three times in each mode save for Sport + while noting my exit speed.
Driving fast each time, the big 7 leaning hard on the driverside tyres, and returned similar numbers: 57, 54, and 56 mph, respectively.
To give you some idea of where these speed stats fall on the grand scale of my own automotive relativity, the fastest I’ve managed this tightening turn is 60 mph (in a 128i convertible) and the slowest is 45 mph in my li’l Panzer (Benz 300E 4-Matic).
Of course this indicates varying levels of nerve on my part, but it also tells you that my confidence did not grow nor did the 7’s apparent grip increase when switching from Comfort to Normal to Sport modes. I had, in fact, all 245/50 tyres howling.
To be fair, it also demonstrates how well this luxo barge manages a corner despite itself.
But that point segues us nicely to another of this 7’s troubles – size and weight.
LARGESS
At 205.2 inches, it’s as long as a LWB W140 generation Benz S600, with a 126 inch wheelbase that’s three inches longer than the old Benz’s wheelbase. And at 4,640 lbs it’s about as heavy as the old gen. S420.
And while the active steering, brakes, and suspension do a great job of disguising the weight with sporty litheness of feel, the car can only match the inflated expectation to a point.
Coming down hard from easily attainable, super-legal speeds elicits tail wag from the rear. And full out panic stops take a lot longer to execute than the pedal feel would otherwise suggest.
And another BMW test…
Approach a piece of road that drops suddenly away and one of several things can happen.
In a typical car, at lows speeds the front suspension will drop out from beneath the car leading into a nose dive or at higher speeds the car will simply catch air and bottom out on landing.
In any BMW worth its salt, the Bimmer will do neither. An E39 M5, an E32 735i, an E46 328i, whatever, will follow asphalt or catch air and land on its feet – not bottoming out.
Approach this challenge in the 750Li and the front wheels drop away and the car will nose dive. It cushions you from the harsh change, but it just doesn’t respond fast enough to road conditions.
The simple-is-beautiful Macpherson strut setup seems to shine about now…
THE CRUX
Like all good 7’s, the 750Li lies about its weight. But if all that’s being too critical (it isn’t, really) let’s remember that the F01/F02 generation 7-Series is a step back from the abyss and step forward in terms of comfort.
And from the rear and the side profiles, surface tension has made a welcome comeback. And thank Heaven, the last car (E65/E66) looked like the genetic cross mutation of a vampire bat and a sea cow.
In short, there are plenty of positives. But none lead me to desire this car in the same way I lusted after its esteemed forebears. It may be more engaging than the current S-Class, but the Benz’s current flagship is truer to the grand Benz ethos than the 7 is to its own creed.
I fear for those who long for performance over luxury in their BMWs, the solution is to hazard a used E38 or E32 7er, enjoy the smaller scaled thrills of a new 1-Series, or pine on the memory of sevens past.
