Motorweek; 1832

This time on motor motorway Ferrari's ultimate G.T. car up a not for the whole family an auto sales online. So come drive with us next. Mogul. TV's original automotive magazine brought to you by Michelin makers of the zero pressure Michelin designed to let you drive up to 50 miles at 55 miles per hour without air pressure just what you expect from Michelin. And by pep boys no matter what you drive Pep Boys has over 27000 items in stock virtually any part for any car with all the name brands you know plus service be staffed with ACS certified technicians at boys parts tires accessories service. And by. Duplin color for your automotive paint needs for color matched scratch repair for a high performance engine paint and for specialty

coatings since 1938. Get the job done right. Duplicate. Your hopes for Motor Week. John Davis. Well hello and welcome again to motor week. Glad to have you with us. The tough part of building an awesome reputation is the fact that you have to constantly live up to it. And when you have a reputation like Ferrari that requires a lot of work each product must be even more impressive than the last one. Ferrari is the latest addition to its legacy. Is this car the 550 Maranello. It's designed to evoke the greatest G.T. cars of Ferrari's past while powering the company's name forward into the 21st century. And that's a tall order even for a Ferrari. But the Ferrari 550 Maranello is a car well equipped to do just that and do it with style and panache that Ferrari's have always been known for the lines of the aluminum body panels which are fair and welded to a tubular steel frame.

Pure Ferrari. They're called plastic models like the 275 GTV. But with just enough modern aerodynamic updating to keep this from being just a retro styling job this modern Ferrari rides on a ninety eight point four inch wheelbase and weighs a hefty thirty seven hundred twenty six pounds. A far cry from the comparatively small stripped down cars of old. But then today's Ferrari is built for a market that values comfort and refinement as much as raw power. The raw power is available if you want it. But under the five fifties ram induction hood lurks an Italian monster. A five point five leader dual overhead cam 48 Balbi 12 that delivers 485 horsepower and 420 pound feet of torque. That's thanks to ultra high end components like titanium connecting rods forge the aluminum pistons and a variable geometry intake system as well as a computer controlled variable back pressure stainless steel exhaust system power is routed to

the rear wheels through a rear mounted differential that also incorporates the six speed gearbox and controlled by a stiff manual shifter of the classic Ferrari gated style. The whole package rides on a double wishbone suspension with the electronically controlled gas shocks an 18 inch magnesium speed line wheels wearing ultra low profile Z-R rated tires and pure performance terms that mean zero to 60 in only four point six seconds in a primo quarter mile pass a twelve point seven seconds at one hundred eighteen miles per hour. Torque is so massive that it easily overwhelms the rear tires grip. Thankfully the throttle is extremely precise giving the driver excellent control. But a delicate hand is required to get the best out of the 550 especially if you put it on a racetrack. We did it Georges Roebling road Raceway. Pitched it hard into a turn and you'll soon be in trouble. The steering is so quick that only smooth careful inputs will yield smooth cornering. The balance however is very neutral.

Her front engine car that weighs almost 2 tons. The front end produces mild plow in tight turns while the rear end drifts out slightly and fast ones. We were surprised to feel the body twitch over fast bumps. It's a car that requires the careful hand of an experienced driver. As with any car with enough torque to light up the rear tires in fourth gear. Though with its huge extra thick Brembo brakes and a sophisticated anti-lock system the 550 is easy to slow down drops from 60 required only one hundred nine very stable feet. All in all it's tremendously exciting and more than a little intimidating when you really start to explore the outer limits of the by fifties performance envelope. But unlike so many Ferrari's of years past this breathtaking performance does not come at the expense of daily driving. The ride is remarkably supple with little of the harsh jarring feel over bumps that so many old guard Ferrari drivers are used to. Know those bare drilled aluminum pedals especially the clutch still require plenty of leg

muscle to operate and to help keep all that torque from taking control. There's a sophisticated multimode traction control system that uses both the brake and engine management system to manage wheel spin. All this makes the 550 Maranello the most sophisticated road car that Ferrari has ever built. But that doesn't mean that it hasn't got every bit of a talian character that we expect in a Ferrari. The two seat interior could only be that of an expensive Italian Grand Touring Car. Leather and polished metal are everywhere that you look at tight fitting power adjustable buckets hold you in like a proper racing seat but offer better padding and support they position you directly in front of a set of large clear analog gauges. And to the left of an auxillary cluster set high in the center dash though the exposed wire to these gauges certainly looks out of place on such a high end car lower in the center dash set a set of straight forward automatic climate controls and horizontally mounted stereo that was set to far below the driver's line of vision is much better than those of

most previous Ferraris. Luggage is carried on a packaged shelf behind the seat and in a trunk that looks small but is surprisingly deep and all cost a mere two hundred eight thousand dollars. That's including federal luxury and gas guzzler taxes. About the price of three Mercedes 55 sedans. Of course for many well-heeled drivers this is not an outrageous price for so much performance sophistication and heritage and fact Automobile magazine went so far as to call it the perfect sports car in the way it blends racing performance with Jiechi utility. High praise indeed. But this is clearly a car worthy of the great Ferrari name and a machine well able to take Italy's most famous car maker forward rapidly into a new millennium. To get the most out of four wheel ABS brakes. Remember three little words stop stay and steer. Stop the brake pedal in a panic stop. Stay on the brake pedal even if it vibrates or makes noise and steer

where you want to go. ABS brakes work best when you stop stay and steer. Coming up auto sales on the internet. Just because you know how to drive doesn't mean you have to know how a car works. But sometimes a bit of knowledge of the ladder can help you of the former. Here's Pat Goss to explain. John have you ever thought how much different history might have been if the Titanic had been equipped with ABS brakes. Well ABS brakes something that is very commonplace these days virtually all high flying cars are standard with ABS and most any car that you might elect to purchase probably is available with ABS ABS brakes kind of interesting but with all of these cars having abs on them it's amazing how little people seem to know about them. Well it all starts right here at the wheel. We have a series of

sensors and triggers that tell a computer what's going on at each wheel on the car. Here we have an example. This is a triggering that turns as the wheel turns it moves in front of this sensor and it delivers a signal by means of wires back to a computer that determines what's going on. All right. Now let's go through this. If you're making a panic stop and if one of the wheels tries to lock up it's going to turn more slowly than the other wheels. Then that signal coming back to the computer is going to tell the computer that one of the wheels is trying to lock the computer on the other hand controls the hydraulic portion of the ABS system and very very rapidly applies and releases the brakes on that

wheel until traction is regained. Now it's a very effective system and it gives you the ability to steer during a panic stop. Now one thing that you have to remember is that most ABS systems will give you some feedback you may have some noise or vibration or pulsation that you feel in the brake pedal or the steering wheel or in the floorboard of the car. Don't be alarmed at this. It is probably normal. Now you need to refer to your owner's manual for proper operation on your abs system. Also ABSs very reliable that is if you give it a little help and that help comes in the form of changing the brake fluid in the system every two years brake fluid absorbs a lot of moisture and that moisture can lead to the deterioration of these expensive components. So spend a few bucks and avoid the high cost of

repairing your abs if you have a question or if you have a comment about abs or anything else on your car write to me. If I use your letter I'll send you a motor week T-shirt. The address is Motor Week. Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. The week is a 1966 Plymouth sport very hard top one serious all-American cruiser. It belongs to Marvin and Norma Elsin of Cedar Rapids Iowa. The car is completely original right down to the hubcaps and has run up ninety eight thousand original Miles. You have a classic car to show off. Submit at least two good color photos and a description of the car to motor with Owings Mills Maryland 2 on 1 1 7. You know we've all been through the trauma of buying a car. It's the second biggest purchase that most of us make. It's also one of the most nerve racking and time consuming. For the last few years f y i reporter Lisa Barrow has been helping motoric viewers

survive the car buying process with helpful advice on pricing leasing and buying services. Now she's back with advice on the latest low stress way to put you behind the wheel. Pull the plug on the confusing car buying process. And forget about running to the library or bookstore for the latest pricing information or checking with a bank for financing. Thanks Josh.. Now you can buy a car in the comfort of your own home office or your favorite cybercafe. All you need is access to the information superhighway. Without question the Internet is having a dramatic impact on the way we buy cars. Ultimately a lot of people are probably going to be buying online without ever stepping foot

into a dealership. But even now a growing percentage perhaps one in four or one in five new car buyers are going on the Web to do their homework. According to Eisenstein there are roughly 20000 sites on the Internet that are dedicated to the automobile and thousands more they contain automotive related segments. We found the super site Yahoo. To be a good way to sort through it all from carmaker's sites to Edmond's pricing guide to our own motoric offering. We also liked Eisenstein's creation the Cargan action among other things and we offer news spy shots. We have reviews pricing information buying tips. We also have what we call the on ramps and Yellow Pages and this is critical because there are so many automotive sites out there it's hard for consumers to find what they're looking for with the site. You can go directly to our yellow pages and look up specific manufacturers by name where you can find individual sites. Simply click on the name and we'll take you right to that site.

The baker's dozen feature gives you direct access to some of the internet car buying sources. First on the list is auto by town free to the consumer. It's the largest online buying service for new or used cars fill out a purchase request and a dealer near you will be in touch with a no haggle price within 72 hours. The pricing was so much better than the dealer prices because you weren't looking at sticker price you were looking at invoice prices which were a lot lower. What I found is that they tend to range from between $50 over invoice to maybe 50 over invoice. When somebody comes to our site we give them all that information they know what retail price wholesale cost is cost of ownership. Maintenance cost crash tests all kinds of data. So now there arm they're just like I would be buying a car. And what we do is we put them in touch directly with an auto by Toll manager in the dealership who quotes someone up front. Low cost price. The real big advantage of this is that this reduces our advertising cost. Traditional newspaper cost which is $400 per car. For sale.

But when we show Korwin internet we can probably offer that $100. So therefore we can reduce our cost to the customer. It's a cinch for them to change for us auto buy tell. And some of the other baker's dozen sites are now equipped to handle financing and insurance needs too. If you think leasing might be right for you click on lease source for bargaining tips and a quick lesson on leasing lingo auto connect offers side by side comparisons of models you're interested in and provides an easy to use calculator for figuring costs. Dealer net can steer you toward the unusual as well as mainstream vehicles with its connection to over 700 dealerships across the country and car smart will spend up to 30 days helping you locate those hard to find vehicles in the near future we're going to see a lot of changes on the Internet ultimately with some of the future display technology. You might be able to take a virtual test drive right at your home computer. At the very least the fact that people have access to information that they never had before

is going to make consumers smarter shoppers. It's going to change the negotiation process and make it a lot more likely you'll get a good deal. So you see a few stops on the information superhighway is an easy way to go shopping for your next new car or truck. It might even say it's a piece of cake. Volvo Cars stand out in many ways. Safety quality and orthopedic comfort to name a few but they also stand down as a company that has succeeded in selling station wagons during a time when minivans pretty much killed off the old square back American icon. It seems that some people especially those with higher incomes wanted something more exclusive than minivans. And Volvo has filled the need. But what about the onslaught of premium sport utility vehicles Bobo has done well by offering wagons with all wheel drive and now they have blunted the attack further with the likes of our beefier long term test.

The 70 crosscountry a bit more aggressive than a normal 70 with a tad more ground clearance to boot. We found this crosscountry perfect for rain snow and slushy street. They kind of stable long distance ride comfort that is virtually impossible for our sport to duplicate a recent fast round trip between Maryland and Florida proved to be an untiring affair in this Volvo. Plus with a solid twenty one point two miles per gallon economy after eighty five hundred miles of trekking the cross country is willing five cylinder turbo charged engine delivering much better economy than most SUV competitors faults only one so far. A slightly rough idle. Otherwise their cross-country is a smooth year round performer. As were other state of the art people movers will turn our attention to this Honda Odyssey on our next motor week long term road test update. Americans love new cars. That's why every year they flock to major auto shows to see what's exciting and fresh but not everyone can make it to the auto shows.

Fortunately we can. And not just any auto show up with a New York International Auto Show. So sit back and enjoy a motorway guided tour of what's Waley new in the Big Apple. The 1999 New York International Auto Show cemented his stature as a rite of spring with no less than 11 world introductions beginning with a reworked 2004 Taurus. Ford's overuse of obols has been replaced with more conservative but much better looking sheetmetal while the interior has a decidedly Lexus flavor. Safety is the big story here with side airbags in advance seat belts. You'll find more seat belts in the 2000 GMC Yukon and its twin Chevy Tahoe this fall. The all new full size sport utes had a third seat for the first time. Equally new Chevrolet Suburban resisted any temptation to grow larger but it's still huge space is easier to use thanks to a lightweight liftgate engine is the same 5.3 found in the Silverado pickup on the car side of GM the all new 2001

Oldsmobile warra. Wow. The press with its handsome and decidedly more muscular stance while Rora shares a chassis with a Bonneville Power trains or Cadillac based standard is a 215 horsepower 3.5 liter V-6 with a 250 horse liter Northstar V8 an option not to be overshadowed. Mitsubishi's delicious new a clipped Sport Coupe and Mazda's new MPB minivan with rear sliding door windows that actually roll down Saab showed us super heated 9:3 cube while the maximum based infinity I-30 looks conservatively dressed for success. One of the few concepts on display was a convertible version of the Isuzu across sporty sport you'd that. Oh to his production is a real possibility. All in all this year's big show in the Big Apple truly lives up to. It. Holy smokes. Caught in the crosshairs this week as this boat sank in Jeddah are rumored to be

sporting eight under its hood. The normally aspirated eight cylinder could displace either 3.7 or 4.2 leaders 270 and 300 horsepower respectively. There's also a good chance these engines will be coupled to veto. As for motion all wheel drive system and a choice of tiptronic or six speed manual transmissions this M3 killer could hit the pavement and race tracks as early as spring of 2000. When we drove the latest Volkswagen Passat sedan last year. We praised it for its performance build quality interior room even luggage space. This year the Pusat B-6 sedan won our motor drivers choice award. Now Volkswagen has gone one better with this new Passat wagon. They claim it's everything that the sedan is and then some. To the literal minded Volkswagen's claim is a statement of fact since the 1999 facade wagon is everything is and then some by virtue of its additional

cargo space alone. Our pre-production tester also came with Volkswagen's V-6 engine an automatic all wheel drive synchros system a combination that Volkswagen would put on public sale until the 2000 model year and one that should catapult the BUSSAU wagon to the upper reaches of the desirability charts where its sedan counterpart our 1999 drivers choice winter has also just unseated the stoic Toyota Camry as consumer reports top family sedan pick. The midsize Pusat wagon rides at a one hundred six point three inch wheelbase and a stable 59 inch track at the front and rear tight body gap tolerances give the wagon a solid rock of Gibraltar appearance a look that's carried throughout the VW lineup that solidity transcends the superficial However as the Pusat drives as substantial as it looks. When pushed to the limits through our low speed slalom the Pusat suspension for Link design up front and a double control arm set up at the rear with coil springs and shocks in all

corners kept the wagon firmly planted. The body roll entire roll over are somewhat pronounced. They're not unnervingly so and unforthcoming syncro all wheel drive system with its Torsen differential and electronic traction control does a seamless job of keeping the power directed to the wheels with the most traction. Although wheel spin is definitely not a problem when launching this thirty six hundred fifty three pound beast through the quarter mile. Equipped with a five speed self-worship tiptronic automatic transmission 60 was reached a yeoman 9.8 seconds. The quarter mile past and seventeen point three seconds at 84 miles per hour. That effort comes from this 2.8 liter 90 degree V-6 loaded with advancements like bivalves per cylinder dual overhead cams and variable valve timing. This little workhorse kicks out 190 horsepower and 206 pound feet of torque. Standard Pusat wagon power is VW punchy 1.8 leader in line for Turbo with 150 horsepower and 155 pound feet of torque while reining in that power

is left up to 4 wheel disc brakes fitted with the latest Bosch ABS system. Both are standard and soft from 60 were achieved in a stable and uneventful 130 beat. Up his thoughts interior however is an event worth noting with a host of safety features and top drawer amenities usually found on more expensive cars. The facade is very capable of handling its passengers. Their front leather buckets in our test car are manually adjustable include height and are heated. Side impact airbags are integrated into their seatbacks. The driver faces a thickly padded leather wrap steering wheel that is adjustable for both the rake and reach controls to the right are clearly marked and easy to use. Not so the AM-FM Cossette below. Several on the staff felt it set too low on the dash and the buttons too small for easy use but there's plenty of room in the rear quarters for two adults plus thirty eight point four cubic feet of their stuff. In fact the interior dimensions are comparable to Volvo's popular and larger 70 wagons in all areas except shoulder room and it costs less

suggested retail price for today's Pusat wagon glass starts at twenty two thousand two hundred fifty dollars. The basic synchro with tiptronic should boost it to around 31000 when it finally arrives. There's no question the front wheel drive 1999 Pusat wagon is a solid and very desirable piece of work right now. For those searching for a wealth of value and utility coupled with their share of all wheel drive the 2000 Pusat synchro wagon will be well worth the wait. I hope you'll join us next week for more motor week. Well test Jaguar's view S-type sedan and Chevrolet compact tracker convertible. America's future auto technicians will match their skills and national competition. While Pat Goss explains the problems and pitfalls of overhead cam engines plus will have another long term road test update and all the latest Motor News. I'm John Davis will see it and to learn more about Motor Week TV's original automotive magazine. Visit us PBS online

at the Internet address on your screen. Motorway has been brought to you by Michelin makers of the zero pressure Michelin. Designed to let you drive up 250 miles at 55 miles per hour without air pressure just what you expect from Michelin and by pep boys no matter what you drive Pep Boy says over 27000 items in stock virtually any car for any car with all the name brands you know plus service be staffed with A.S.C. certified technicians Pep Boys parts tires accessories service. And by duplexer for your automotive paint needs for color matched scratch repair for a high performance engine paint and for specialty coatings since 1938. Get the job done right. Duplexer. To order a video cassette of this program call 1 800 4 2 2 0 0 0 0 6 4 1995 plus 495 shipping and handling to this address.

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