Spannerhead Dot Com

• Here’s an incredibly cool poster featuring profiles of 50 significant Japanese sports cars. While I’m a little disappointed the Starion made the cut instead of the superior FC RX-7, for the most part, the “breed,” if you will, is well represented. Bonus points if you can name all 50!
• Car and Driver offers a preview of an upcoming road test of the refreshed Audi A4 and S4. It goes without saying, but they’re just stunning cars. The resolution of lines around the trunklid area (particularly the horizontal taillights that give the rear a low, wide aspect) is especially successful. If I were in the market for a new, small European 4-door, Audi’s entry-level cars would be on my short list.
• Ever wondered what you’d do caught behind the wheel of a car with a stuck throttle? Edmunds relays some helpful advice for those of us apt to completely freak out in such a situation. Hint: A little more knowledge about how your car actually works would go a long way.
• Another in a long line of cars not destined for the US that I’m not really sure we’d even want here, Renault plans to inject a little visual pep into their subcompact Twingo (yes, that’s its name). Lifting styling cues—notably the front and rear wing shapes—from F1 cars, the Twingo R.S. is identical to its less speedily-adorned stablemates under the hood (a 133 hp 4-banger provides the go). It’s factory-sanctioned rice, in other words.

Jalopnik reports on an upcoming supercar from Swedish boutique automaker Koenigsegg that will feature a twin-turbo V8 engine whole valves are actuated without camshafts.

Partnering with Swedish engineering firm Cargine, Koenigsegg plans to develop a valvetrain system whereby the valves are operated using pneumatic pressure alone. F1 car engines have used pneumatic valve springs since the Renault turbo engines of the mid-’80s, but always in conjunction with a camshaft. The Swedish performance car concern intends to do away with the camshaft altogether, actuating the valves directly via servos. The breakthrough has the potential to eliminate a great deal of complexity (the entire valvetrain, cam gears and tensioners) and offer benefits including infinitely variable valve timing and cylinder deactivation, among others. The challenges include reliability (how to make sure the valves remain closed in case of servo failure, to eliminate the potential for valve-to-piston contact) and noise (servos have exactly two states—open or closed—as opposed to the more gradual, less noisy opening and closing profile offered by a cam lobe).

This is a smart move for Koenigsegg. Publicity drives supercar sales, and without the resources to sustain an indefinite top speed pissing contest against Bugatti and SSC, the Swedish automaker has sidestepped that key issue and instead focused on innovation and efficiency. But rather than cooking up yet another oh-so-trendy hybrid supercar, they’ve decided to “borrow from the top,” as it were, and incorporate racing technology in their new engine. Instead of merely “going green” for the sake of going green, shoehorning in hybrid technology well aware of the weight and complexity drawbacks, as with a whole host of recent supercar concepts (New Acura NSX, Jaguar C-X75, Porsche 918, etc), Koenigsegg plans to boost efficiency in the pursuit of power and speed. It’s a win-win.

Autoblog reports today on the start of V12 Zagato production at Aston Martin. Not a totally new model so much as a V12 Vantage engine, drivetrain and chassis draped in new sheet metal, the new Zagato is an admirable effort by Aston to produce a car that at least looks somewhat different than their existing offerings. The DB9, DBS and Rapide and Vantage are gorgeous, to be sure, but a little hard to distinguish from one another beyond 50 yards or so. The arrival of the Zagato provides a nice point of contrast in their lineup and suggests some possible avenues for future styling directions, like the quarter lights and arc of the roofline.

For those wondering about the odd name, the Zagato in the latest in a line of rewrapped Astons dating back to the original DB4 GT Zagato of ’60-’63 (shown above). A competition version of the DB4, Aston commissioned Italian automotive design consultancy Zagato to develop their already-competitive DB4 into a racer with an additional turn of speed. The Italian firm replaced and reshaped the steel bodywork with more aerodynamic aluminum, lighting the car considerably, and bumped up the 3.7l inline-6’s compression to increase output to a stout 315 hp, considerable for the day. Only 25 were ever made, resulting in one of the rarest and most sought-after models produced by an already “exclusive” automaker. With its bold grille and substantial haunches, the new Zagato aims to capture some of the original’s mystique.

It’s that time of year again. The time when F1 awakes from its winter slumber, the teams shake the cobwebs off their drivers’ uniforms and the engineers reveal the designs they’ve been burning the midnight oil over all winter long.

First of the major teams to unveil a 2012 standard-bearer, McLaren rolled out their MP4-27 (shown at top) last Wednesday. With few appearance-altering regulation changes from 2011, other than livery adjustments, most teams’ 2012 cars will resemble last year’s a great deal, and McLaren’s is no exception, showing only a few sidepod tweaks, a lower aft body area and a reprofiled nose.

A once-great team that hasn’t seen much success since the ’03 season, Williams recently pulled the wraps off their latest effort at a comeback, the FW34 (pictured above). Having secured a supply of top-tier Renault RS27-2012 engines (shared with the dominant Red Bull team), if the chassis and drivers are competitive, this could well be the year of William’s revival.

Speaking of Red Bull, the defending 2011 champions presented their reloaded racer, the RB8, on Monday. With the return of their seasoned 2011 driver pair in Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, they’ll be the team to beat this year.

Can you tell I’ve been in withdrawal during the F1 off-season? March 18, Australia, here we come!

One of the larger “controversies” (if you can call it that) to emerge from our NFL-sanctioned Super Bowl entertainment spectacle this past Sunday evening was the hubbub generated by Chrysler’s latest TV spot.

Reprising the rah-rah pro-America theme from last year’s ad, Chrysler’s 2012 effort aired during halftime and features narration by Clint Eastwood. In his inimitable voice, he extolls Detroit’s “revival,” extrapolating that to the country at large and encouraging us to “pull together” to fully recover from the economic malaise of the past few years. Chrysler isn’t explicitly mentioned other than brief glimpses of their cars and trucks throughout the clip, and the ad seems to focus more on drumming up latent positive feelings of patriotism which the viewer may or may not then translate to the automaker’s cars in particular.

Most of the online hand-wringing over the ad centered on the impression that it was a sort of thinly-veiled campaign spot for President Obama’s reelection. Tenuous parallels were drawn between the “halftime in America” line and the fact that a reelection campaign is a kind of “halftime” of a two-term president’s tenure. Also, the ad’s pleas for Americans to “pull together” seem to echo some of the administration’s rhetoric as they chastise Congress for its (in their eyes) intractability.

Rich Lowry at NRO, on the other hand, takes primary aim not at the ad’s tone, or at perceived implications of certain phrases, but at the spot’s revisionist history:

[It] is a half-baked tale about the revival of the automotive industry wrapped in economic nationalism: Dirty Harry does chest-thumping corporatism. Eastwood says that Americans are hurting and that “the people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together. Now, Motor City is fighting again.”

We all pulled together? As euphemism, this is clever; as history, it is false. Congress never approved the bailouts. Given the option to do so explicitly, it declined. The Bush and Obama administrations acted on their own, diverting TARP funds to Detroit regardless of the letter of the law. In Eastwood’s telling, a legally dubious act of executive highhandedness qualifies as patriotic collective action.

This is the correct line of criticism: Not directed toward vague implications of the ad, but at what it calls out explicitly. We can debate all day over what Chrysler may or may not have suggested, but when actual facts are presented, we have solid ground on which to build an argument.

In any case, in response to the flurry of conversation, Eastwood himself debunked speculation about his loyalties, and by extension, the actual meaning of several debated phrases in the ad:

l am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama. It was meant to be a message about just about job growth and the spirit of America. I think all politicians will agree with it. I thought the spirit was OK.

There you have it, from the horse’s mouth. If critics want something more substantial to seize upon, perhaps they should target last year’s Chrysler ad, which features rapper and Detroit native Eminem. The 2011 spot is a paean to Detroit’s resilience, much like this year’s ad, only it features an actual Chrysler product more prominently: the then-new 200 sedan. The spot is well-produced, to be sure, but I’d be hard-pressed to find a genuine car guy who wasn’t a little put off by the image of a gritty rapper cruising through downtown Detroit behind the wheel of a very un-thug-like vehicle, the kind of car more likely to turn up in a Kroger parking lot or be the mainstay of a rental fleet. For car buffs, that juxtaposition is more jarring than anything that graced the small screen this year.

Click on the jump below to watch this year’s and last year’s Chrysler Super Bowl ads:

Watch the clips!

I think this one might backfire on Honda. Maybe not on a conscious level for the average viewer, but there are definitely depressing undercurrents.

Briefly, then, let’s discuss the clip’s highlights

1. The car is prominently featured. In contrast to many car ads which put forth an idea or attempt to create a mood in lieu of actually showing the vehicle, we are “treated” (I use that word loosely) to some nice shots and angles of the CR-V tooling around.
2. Exuberant pacing. The editing of the clip effectively communicates the car’s runabout, practical nature as a sort of “companion” that can keep up with a busy daily routine.
3. All the scenes are easy to correlate with those of the original film. The ad pays homage to all the iconic scenes from the ’80s classic; I can’t think of anything from the original I wish they had paid tribute to in the TV spot.

And poor decisions:

1. The whole premise of the ad. Matthew Broderick’s character Ferris Bueller drives a Ferrari 250GT Calfornia during his “day off” in the original film. I can’t imagine many things more singularly depressing than puttering around town in a Honda CR-V, remembering that day from my youth when I was serenaded by the dulcet tones of a six-Weber Ferrari V12 at WOT all day long. If that isn’t a metaphor for the descent into mediocrity that often accompanies middle age, I don’t know what is.
2. Ferris is old. Yes, the ad’s concept is that Broderick—not the character he’s completely synonymous with—is experiencing a real-life Ferris-like “day off,” but who are they kidding? Viewers will immediately see Ferris, not Broderick; more than that, they’ll notice he’s aged, and as much as fans of the original film identified with and wanted to be Ferris, anyone who watches the ad is encouraged to identify with the older, squishier “Ferris.” Not a pleasant proposition.
3. The final shot of the car shows it bottoming out in a shower of sparks. Yes, the shot recalls the inimitable Ferrari + Star Wars theme music scene from the ’80s movie, but is that really the final impression to make on your viewers? A dumpy-looking CR-V clanking down on the asphalt, rear wiper flapping ignominiously?

So, some good points and some significant debits. Overall, a thumbs-down to Honda’s too-cute effort. Give me the Seinfeld/Jay Leno Acura NSX ad instead. Even if it doesn’t really show the car all that much.

Contrary to popular perception, there is some precedent for this.

No, not for mounting three turbos on a diesel engine—that’s new—but for BMW releasing more “mundane” M-tuned versions of regular road cars.

See, at the moment, the larger part of the BMW enthusiast community is undergoing a kind of soul-searching existential crisis, wondering how BMW’s M division could have ever stooped so low from their racing-derived roots as to release a trio of diesel-powered models: the M550d, X5 M50d and X6 M50d, all fitted with the above engine.

On the surface, it does indeed appear that BMW M has completely sold out. For years, enthusiasts could count on a few givens from the Bavarian automaker’s tuning arm: High-revving, bespoke, naturally-aspirated engines and firmed up, immensely capable versions of BMW’s regular sedans and coupes. With the release of an M-tuned, diesel-powered SUV, it would certainly seem like BMW M has finally abandoned the last of their core convictions, jumped the shark, so to speak.

Take heart, though, BMW fans; it’s not as bad as you think, for a couple of reasons:

1. Diesel engines now have a performance pedigree. Granted, oil-burners may have won their accolades under the auspices of a major BMW rival, Audi, but with the ’06 Le Mans victory of the awesome R10 TDI, the world has finally been made safe for performance-oriented diesel-powered cars.
2. The new models aren’t “true” M cars. Not in the sense that their nomenclature follows the M + single digit convention. When BMW M creates a new M3, M5 or M6, it truly does represent the division’s most uncompromising effort in that particular niche. However, the tuning arm does have a long history of creating “lesser” M cars, from the regular M30-powered E12 M535i, through the regular M60-powered E34 M540i and 540i M-Sport all the way to the regular N54-powered E82 1 Series M Coupe. So the long precedent doesn’t mean every car BMW M touches signals the downfall of the brand.

That said, ever since the X5 M and X6 M, I still don’t know what to say about a performance SUV from BMW. That’s…untouchable. The new X5 M50d and X6 M50d may be very impressive indeed, but as SUVs, to borrow from Clarkson, they’re utterly pointless.

As for the engine itself, shown at top, I’m eager to get more details on how it works. Top Gear reports:

The lower inertia of the smaller turbos is used to deliver “razor-sharp responses” according to BMW, while the larger one is tuned for maximum pressure when you really feel like opening the taps.

Well…yeah. That’s been the point of sequential twin turbos ever since the Germans and Japanese began fitting them to their cars in the late ’80s. More details on the engineering justifications for the extra turbo and associated complexity would be nice. Will keep you posted.

This is a joke, right?

BMW wants to spearhead new automotive technology. Okay.

They want to be at the forefront of the eco-car trend. Fine.

But a self-driving car from the automaker synonymous with driver engagement? You’ve got to be kidding.

Alternate title for this post: Worst idea ever, or simply worst acronym ever? BMW’s ConnectedDrive Connect (CDC) system festoons an unsuspecting, innocent BMW with an array of sensors, cursing the vehicle with a kind of unwanted self-awareness as it navigates its own way through traffic, crosswalks and city centers.

Particularly in BMW’s case, given the erstwhile emphasis of their cars, but overall, I simply fail to see the purpose of the self-driving car. Is it to make us more safe? If so, it’s difficult to perceive how dangling a kind of electronic sword of Damocles between the driver and sudden, high-speed death would make him any safer. That’s asking us to place an awful lot of faith in our digital overlords, so to speak. Is it, as with the PDA or smartphone, to unburden us from one of our daily “chores” and so enable us to relax and/or be more productive? If that’s the goal, then again, you’re asking a lot of the occupant-of-the-car-formerly-known-as-the-driver to place complete and utter faith in the vehicle’s electronic helmsmen to point where he will be able to relax enough to, well, relax and/or focus on other tasks. I, for one, would be a white-knuckle basket case at Autobahn speeds.

Here’s an idea, BMW: How about spending the money otherwise allocated to the CDC program on dealership-based driver’s ed courses? It would save development resources on the cars themselves, make the eventual buyers better, safer drivers and teach them to appreciate the finer points of what makes driving a BMW such a sublime experience More people than you think actually crave the responsibility of driving a car, especially one of yours.

Left Lane reports today that many Chevy dealerships have been turning away shipments of the automaker’s much-hyped Volt:

Dealers across the country are cutting back on their Volt orders, largely due to the NHTSA’s investigation that has scared off potential buyers. The federal investigation was launched late last year after three crash-tested Volt models unexpectedly caught fire.

The article offers its theory for the decline in orders, and I’m sure that’s a part of it, just as Toyota’s bad publicity last year over their largely debunked “unintended acceleration” glitches, but in the Volt’s case, I’d conjecture there’s more rotten with the car than has been uncovered by the NHTSA investigation.

It’s not that there’s anything further technically amiss with the American hybrid, it’s the concept, the idea that enough buyers would be driven by misguided environmental concern to shell out twice as much for a car less usable and less efficient (in the real world) than another vehicle offered by the very same automaker—a car, by the way, that’s been selling like gangbusters; in its first year on the market, it claimed 9th place in the 2011 best-selling vehicle rankings.

As the fog of hybrid hype recedes, outliers like the Volt and Nissan Leaf are looking increasingly isolated, and automakers are starting to get a taste of whether buyers, past the initial sales rush, are willing to move in the direction of pure electric vehicles in quantities that would make them profitable. As the Volt’s misfortunes remind us, at this point, the answer seems to be a resounding no.