Motorweek; 2103

This time on motorways a bigger more refined ramp a stimulating spider and we take a detour pro art's sake. So come drive with us next. Little. TV's original automotive magazine brought to you by. Pep Boys. No matter what you drive get voices over 27000 items in stock virtually any part for any car with all the name brands you know plus service based staff with a a c certified technicians Pep Boys parts tires accessories service and to buy. King Fuller. Your host for Motor Week. John Davis. Well hello and welcome again to motorways. We're glad to have you with us. You know building

a hot selling pickup truck used to be pretty easy as long as it was reliable and can haul and tell a lot of stuff. It was sure to sell but his pickups have evolved into family haulers. Building a truck that will appeal to everyone from construction workers to soccer moms has become a major challenge a challenge faced up to by Dodge as it launches its all new Ram pick up. So does the 2002 Dodge Ram have both the power and the Polish to please them all. Well it certainly looks powerful. In fact the 2002 Dodge Ram 15:00 pickup makes all other full sized pickups look absolutely demure. The bigger than ever big rig grill on the new RAM really grabs your attention. I don't have drivers in front of you thinking they're being followed by a whole lot more truck than they really are. Other changes include a high crowned hood and smoother fenders all leading to a very sharply raked windshield which blends with doors that now wrap around the pillars

to form an almost aerodynamic roof line. Dodge engineers also reshape the bed eliminating the wide gap between the cab and bed it spoils the lines of most pickup. And on quad cabs short box models like our tester Cup the bed by 3 inches to 6 foot 3 thus adding cap space and allowing the switch from clamshell to all traditional doors. An eight foot box is also available as is a regular caf. Quad Cab payload tops out at fifteen hundred twenty pounds for our four by four. Seventeen hundred seventy for the poor by two. Also on the outside our extended Fender lines a new tail lights. Standard 17 inch wheels round off the exterior package. And if that's not big enough huge 20 inch past wheels are part of the optional sports package. The interior has received a complete make over as well as well-equipped and offers everything from full power accessories to available heated seats and power adjustable pedals.

The all new dash is cleaner and more car like with significantly better fit in finish signaling a shift in ramp personality from work first to more personal use the front seat as a wide well-padded 40 20 40 split bench with good back support but a need for larger sized bolster and a large holding center console that's big enough for a laptop computer. The driver faces a larger comprehensive analog gauge cluster and you're an easy reach of both the straightforward stereo controls as well as the idiot proof climate controls which are dual zone automatic system in this top of the line s l t plus model the rear seat is also a polling bench but with a 60 40 split it features a shoulder belt for the center passenger and baby seat anchors and when polled it becomes a solid load floor for sheltering small cargo. To motivate this much truck Dodge's equipped the 2002 Ram with a trio of capable engines faces a 3.7 liter single overhead cam B6 also used in the Jeep Liberty. It delivers two hundred fifteen horse power and 235

pound feet of torque. We tested the new to ram four point seven leader single overhead cam V8 also borrowed from Jeep smoothly pumps out 235 horsepower and two hundred ninety five pound feet of torque. The biggest Magnum V8 the carry over 5.9 leader pushrod engine provides two hundred forty five horsepower and three hundred thirty five pound feet of torque enough to trailer tow the quad cab smacks of a 350 pound transmission choices or by speed manual or the new 45 are at the four speed automatic with multispeed overdrive with a 4.7 leader V8 an automatic tranny. Our test truck hits 60 in ten point three seconds and ran a quarter mile and seventeen point eight seconds at 77 mph. Not bad. Both engine and transmission felt very refined and well matched with a wide spread of. We were equally impressed with the handling the new RAM feels much more balanced than its predecessor with little body roll reasonable levels of steering feel and far less

chassis flex over rough pavement. The improved handling and ride quality speaks volumes about the new suspension coil springs and gas charged shocks and stabilizer bar and rear leaf springs carrying a live axle as well as to the new stiffer frame with stout Hydra form rails breaking is buy for Will desk with standard rear ABS or the available for Will ABS of our test truck from 60 stops average the longest 142 feet with a good stability and moderate nosedive. Now if you want to get off the track the new ramps part time four wheel drive system beach is a beefed up manual transfer case and optional electric shift unit with power a nine and a half inches of ground. This ramp proved more than up to all our off road tests. Now if you have a task for the ramp the price of ownership starts at seventeen thousand six hundred seventy dollars for regular cab who will drive model Quad Cab model started twenty two thousand eight hundred sixty five dollars. Like all of

today's pick ups the 2002 Dodge Ram 15:00 must be many things to many people from hard charging work truck the soccer moms. But it's tough yet refined. That's quite a challenge but one that the new Dodge Ram does not retreat from. It's unquestionably the best full size pickup that God has ever built with the power and polish to please all of today's diverse and demanding pickup buyers. It is in a word I am testing. The best kind of car accident is the one you will avoid active handling and stability programs often called DSP or electronic stability programs are designed to help you do just that. DSP works by monitoring a car speed and direction as well as the drivers actions and then automatically applies the brake to one or more wheels to correct unstable conditions. It's high tech hands off. Keep it on the road peace of mind and it's as easy as e s

p. Coming up automotive art on the edge. Time now to check in with motor Wake's wizard with a wrench Pat Goss. Let's see what's caught his attention this week. John this time we have some interesting new automotive products. First is that he has it Assistant tool trolley by balm tools. It's pretty clever in as much as it rolls around and it's collapsible. All the shelves go down and they form a very small compact unit. Nice trays to keep everything in order. Does a good job now on your automobile you may not have all the accessories that you really want. One of the more popular ones these days are automatic headlights. And here we have lights on. With this you can hand of automatic headlamps on any car. It has a unit is a light sensing that gets mounted into the grill of the car and

you can select between 20 and 40 seconds off time. That is after you turn the key off the lights will stay on for 20 to 40 seconds. Also it will turn the lights on at dusk. Very clever. OK now even the most basic services that you try to do yourself these days can really be troublesome not the least of which is changing your own oil. Now you wonder a modern automobile and you may find this big pan it's for aerodynamics. Well this pan may have to be unbolted and drop to get to the drain plug. Well here's a solution. The Pella oil extraction system. There are two versions of it a small one and a large one. Both of them come with adapters that fit into the oil dipstick tube. You take the dipstick out you put the adaptor down in there. You pump the unit and it draws the oil out of the engine into the container. You then take the container to the recycling

center. You get rid of it. Very efficient. OK but another problem is keeping oil and fluids in the car. You may have leaks how do you find those leaks. Well tracer light has come up with a new product this is for do it yourself. Now what this amounts to is an ultraviolet light. It simply produces an ultraviolet light. And what good does this do you well you put a dye in the affected system that dye will leak out wherever the oil leaks out. The ultraviolet light combined with special glasses that will make that dye glow so you can trace it right back to where it came out of the engine. That is your leak. It's available for oil based products and for your air conditioning system so you can save a lot of money by checking your own AC for leaks. Works very very effectively. Now here's something that's very clever. This is

called a tap block. You add this to your automobile. Then by tapping on the glass and a pre-determined code you can lock or unlock your car just like that. Very clever if you have a question or a comment write to me if I use your letter. I'm going to send you a motor week T-shirt The address is Motor Week always Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. America's car culture has always had its share of rebels. They've ranged from grazers chopping 30 to Fords to mad speed margins blasting across the Bonneville Salt Flats and all along the way a small equally rebellious band of artists have contributed wild paint jobs pinstripes and space age body designs. Well this week we take a little detour and meet one such artist a man whose work has always been as shocking and thought provoking as the hot rod culture it portrays.

Thank you Frank for I try to think I'm painting someone a Scotch above 120 IQ has got investigators mind. You have two factions in society. You have like your athletic types with varsity jackets it or owns the football team or you have people that see themselves as outcasts or motorcycle jackets and sold hot rods. Well I lean toward that and the reason I lean toward that was because the personalities that infested that world had extreme personality characteristics that interested me. I'd run around with people who were felonies. And I didn't condone what they did they robbed felon stations and mug people. So consequently I got an awful lot of police trouble thrown out a lot of

schools. Had a lot of more so-called hot rods. That had a difficult time of it. And the only classes that I excelled in were art classes. So at a very early age I was all my way becoming artist Robert Williams grew up in an era when hot rods were associated with juvenile delinquents and buying an old 32 beater wasn't an investment it was throwing your money away. If I built a real nice 32 Ford roadster a low P roadster in 1955 and then I want to sell it. I couldn't get a fraction of the investment. It was just like shooting heroin in my office. Williams had owned cars since he was a mere child. His father bought him his first car a 34 Ford when he was only 12. From then on there was no turning back. Williams grew up on chopping and channeling old passenger cars into racing machines. But a life of hot rods fast living and

running with the wrong crowd offered few opportunities for him. So in 63 he headed out to California to pursue his other great passion. Williams wanted to become an artist. If I just drop a lock I got a job that Big Daddy Rob and Ed Rollins like a savior to me. Yet he had a great deal appreciation for my work he had told me that if he knew I existed he would hunt me up. Ed Roth was the mad genius behind rat fink and some of the zaniest custom hot rods of the underground 68 Williams quirky taste for the bizarre was a perfect addition to Roth studios where he unleashed his talents on cars and cartoons. I was attracted to things like DC comic books and mad comic Mad Magazine and. Salacious B movies. And magazines and material that at the time.

Authorities would guarantee the mental pollution of young people. It was a formula some accused of bad taste but it was a formula for resound success. It was a guy that didn't throw away any of his. Past influences and bulldoze them into as our career and was making the breakthrough statement. The entire artwork. As the decades past of William stature in the art world and among hot rodding enthusiasm continue to grow. Today he is seen as a controversial unrelenting innovator still an outlaw at heart still remaining true to his own outlandish vision. This time 100 years ago the American Hero was a cowboy. And if you really go way back into the and life of the cowboy was he really wasn't much. You know this is a guy herding cattle. So by the by the 30s. Cowboys like Tom Mix had reached such an asinine abstraction. They were had nothing to do with these idiots rounded up cattle. And the

same thing is happening now. Hot Rod. Hot Rods and outlaw bikers. The thing is compounding itself an abstraction entails a 15 or 20 years from now you're going to hear great legends of these hot rodders and bikers. And the same could be true for Robert Williams. He just might be the stuff that legends are made of. More new people movers and more variations on the SUV theme park are two subjects for this week's long term protest update. This is Yuki Grande But Tarek sells 7 and this Subaru Outback Ltd. The 2001 Suzuki Grand Vitara eggshell seven finds its niche is the biggest of the small SUV. It's also on like other small SUV the Xcel seven uses traditional body on frame construction. However we found our Xcel seven to actually be thriftier than many more

fragile car like competitors. After eleven thousand two hundred miles and seven months fuel economy with its 2.7 leader V-6 as a solid twenty point eight mpg solid to his reliability with zero mechanical faults the seats are hard but it is a real SUV isn't it. Actually you don't have to be a real SUV to have marginal seats. That's the case with our Subaru Outback 8:06 3.0. Our staff is not crazy about front seat comfort here either. Do you suppose it's us anyway. That's the only meaningful complaint that we have about this modest sized family hauler after 8 months and fourteen thousand seven hundred miles. Our staff's logbook comments make it clear that they think the outback is the perfect all weather virtual also for urban climates. It does pretty good going to the country too. With twenty two point four mpg economy from its responsive to water 12 horsepower flat 6 engine plus while the

outback uses an all wheel drive system more suited for tarmac than trails. You'd be surprised how far off road you can get in an outback. But for on road prowess we recommend this infinity queue 45. For all roads how about this port excursion or the new Buick rendezvous all coming up on the next motor week long term road test update. Time now to check in with Jennifer for the newest on wheels and all the latest motor news with wildly fluctuating gas prices you can't blame commuters if they seem a little desperate for good news from the fuel front. But as Honda officials are quick to point out that good news could be already as close as your driveway. No Honda is not offering a ready an endless supply of affordable fuel but what they are offering is a new way to take full advantage of pricey petrol that's already out there. It's the new 2002 Honda Insight which is now available with CVT or continuously variable transmission. And with the EPA fuel economy ratings of

57 miles per gallon city 56 highway that makes according to Honda The new insight the most fuel efficient vehicle in the U.S. with an automatic transmission. And the second most fuel efficient vehicle on the road overall the ship list CBT with its nearly infinite range of gear ratios makes it the perfect companion for the insights integrated motorist system or I am a hybrid power plant. A system that combines an ultralight one liter three cylinder gasoline engine with a compact electric motor sandwiched neatly between the engine and CVT transmission. And because the electric motor also acts as a generated during braking and downhill coasting there's never a need to recharge the IMH batteries from an external source like the manual inside the CVT model includes an idle stop mode that shuts down the I Am A when sitting at red lights or in rush hour traffic that accounts for the insight slightly higher fuel ratings in the city vs. highway. No pricing information is available at this time on the 2002 insight or insight CBT to look for figures to

remain close to the $20000 range of last year's model. If the new insight CVT is the second most fuel efficient car on American highways you might ask which one is number one. Well it's the original Honda Insight with the 5 speed manual and that's it for this week's Motor News. What could be better than driving a Ferrari. How about driving a Ferrari convertible. How about driving the newest Ferrari convertible the 2001 360 mode no spider Oil want to coincidence. We just happen to have one right here. So let's fire it up and see how much fun driving can be when you go bareback in the open air on a prancing horse. How much fun. Well for automotive open air enthusiasm the 2001 Ferrari 360 moden a spider could certainly be considered the pinnacle of topless touring. At least that's the impression one gets when behind the wheel of the 360 Spider. Judging from all the pointing fingers eyes wide hands over mouth expressions

and rowdy thumbs up gesturing and that was before we even left the parking lot. Unlike most of the new generation of drop tops this is parar East 20th convertible and the company's illustrious history exposing you and your passenger to those good vibes emanating from the outside environs is a snap. Just push the button and you're there. No less than 70 electro hydraulically controlled actuators go to work to stow the aluminum framed fully lined top in its own cozy compartment behind the seats and in front of the engine. The whole operation takes 20 seconds and when done there is no evidence of the tops whatsoever. If all this looked vaguely familiar it will come as no surprise that the same company that designed this set up also designed the roof systems for the Mercedes-Benz SLK and Porsche Boxster and 911 Cabrio. The only bummer is the plastic Rear Window necessitated by the tight storage quarters in a way the top must hold a foot there. But Ferrari tells us that it's easily replaced shouldn't start to haze over

to accommodate this piece of mechanized origami. A few design changes to the 360 structure which otherwise remain faithful to the 360 mode in the coop we tested last year were needed. All air intakes and outlets were redesigned and of course to make room for the top the engine bay is smaller. The added structure also adds about 130 pounds to the spiders 20 970 unladen weight. There's also two leather wrapped tubular steel roll bars incorporated behind the head restraints and mesh windscreens within and between the roll bars to keep wind buffeting in the cockpit to a minimum. The topless nature of the 360 Spider blues when resistance lightly over the coops point three three coefficient of drag the point three six. That's hardly an issue when you have a 3.6 liter double overhead cam 40 Balbi 8 that produces three hundred ninety five horsepower and 275 pound feet of torque at your disposal and back. Not only are the mechanicals between the 360 Spider and its stablemate the

Koopa did tickle nearly so are their performance numbers that means neck snapping shots to 60 in just 4.1 seconds and the quarter mile passes and twelve point two seconds at 150 mph. Our coop Tester had the same elapsed time but managed to squeeze out 190 miles per hour. Like the coop our spider was outfitted with the F1 inspired electro hydraulic clutch with steering wheel mounted pedals to stir the six speed automatic transmission. There are four settings normal sports low grip and full auto but we found operation in full auto rough and an even poorer around town driving and not nearly as much fun as the paddles. For a purist of a six speed manual is available to you. As much as we love the sound of 395 screaming ponies. There are occasions when you have to come to a stop for that the huge ABS equipped Rimbaud brakes at the corners do a highly commendable job. They squeeze this down from 60 in a short sweet 140. As for handling what's to be

said that hasn't been said before. You'll be hard pressed to find another car that delivers the responsiveness feedback and solidity of the 360 boat. This is private unless of course it's the coo with just enough understeer to keep you safe. Plus a US our electronic traction and stability control. Even the novice looks masterful winging through the cone in the cockpit the spider's appointments and control layout are also the same as the crew. Our staff complained about a few awkward placements but Ferrari is paying more attention to ergonomics than in the past. The plush Conneally leather seats don't hurt either. The price. Well that's a different story in the SRP including destination charge and gas guzzler tax comes to one hundred seventy thousand eight hundred thirty five dollars. And there are options. But you didn't expect a car that comes with paddles to be completely pain free. Did you after all Ferrari's have always provokes strong emotional and sometimes physical responses from drivers and

curbside wannabes and fact we think it's safe to say that in addition to their legendary performance. That's a large part of their appeal. So take it from us when we say top down engine singing the 2001 360 moden a spider offers plenty of. This. I hope you will join us next week for more motor week when we'll test Toyota's all new Camry for door and the latest Audi A4 sports sedan. I'm John Davis. We'll see you then. To learn more about motor week. TV's original automotive magazine visit PBS online at PBS dot org or America Online keyword PBS to order a video cassette of this program call 1 800 4 2 2 0 0 6 for Motor Week has been brought to you by Pep Boys. No matter what you drive Pep Boys has over twenty seven thousand items in stock virtually any part for any car with all the name brands you know plus service based staff with a a c certified

technicians that boys parts tires accessories service. And to buy. What are you looking for. E-bay Motors. And. This is PBS.