Motorweek; 1302

Next on motor week we uncage the 94 Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar. Then we discover the wild action of stadium racing and more to come draw it with us next. TV's Automobile magazine. Your host for Motor Week John Davis welcome to motor week Americans the regional automotive magazine for television. We're glad to have you with us. When we tested the current generation Ford Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar back in 1988 we said they were in a class by themselves. And it's true that even today there are few choices for lovers of big American rear wheel drive coupe. But while the T-Bird

and the cougar have had their market virtually cornered that doesn't mean that their designers are content to let things slide. Our first encounter with the revised Ford Thunderbird and Mercury 7 was a very soggy one. It seems that whatever summer rain didn't fall on the flooded Midwest found its way to Ford's Dearborn Michigan Test Track but it didn't dampen our enthusiasm for the major changes Ford has made to the six year old twins. And the rain stopped long enough for us to get plenty of track time with both the sleek Thunderbirds super tube and its more formal looking for seven siblings though still a mistake a T-bird or did a nice job freshening the front in most noticeable are the monstrous air scoops in the new face with restyled hood and head lamps common to both elex and super coupe. These cast aluminum directional wheels where 16 inch 60 series tires. I heard on the super coop an option on Elect T-Bird.

Where facia is also new and T-Bird continues to support just about the largest tail lamps and there are fewer obvious exterior alterations to the Mercury Cougar. The grill is new and very chrome bright and the rear lamps rival the T-Birds and intensity unchanged from last year. The x R 7 is the only model the most welcome change for these rear wheel drive wins comes in the engine compartment optional is the single overhead cam version of Ford's 4.6 leader modular aluminum head. The eight also used in its Crown Victoria and Margery's Grand Marquis. It features a quintal multi point fuel injection weighs 40 pounds less than last year's 5 leader all cast iron pushrod unit a new V8 delivers 205 horsepower and 265 pound feet of torque. The differences between be eight vintage is more immediately noticeable when you hit your accelerator with a quicker throttle response. The newbie 8 is much more willing to wind up and achieves a fine 0 to 60 time of 9 seconds flat with both more initial power and better sustained

acceleration thanks to a wider torque band. We recorded a quarter mile time of sixteen point eight seconds ending up even six miles. Because of reduced engine T-Birds and cougars no less nose heavy pushing less through corners something they didn't do much anyway. And the walk breaks are available on all models. But when it comes to performance the V8 still fits between two three point eight liter V-6 a 140 horsepower unit standard in both cars and the super coupe super charged an intercooler wonder. Horsepower is up 20 to 230 315 pound feet of torque. The super kook will be to be a T-bird elex to the end of the quarter mile by over a full second. What is satisfying is this super charged power train is it still lacks the bottom end punch and the sound of the new V8. One more thing if you want a 5 speed manual you'll have to stick with the super coupe. The newbie 8 comes for speed automatic equipped only and can include a braking style

traction control system inside all 94 Thunderbirds and cougars as a fresh driver oriented wrap around cockpit theme borrowed from Lincoln's Mark polluted our air bag for both driver and passenger. And this full set of analog agents who get a volt meter in place of the super hoops turbo boost gauge staying put behind the super hoops leather wraps steering wheel is easy with these articulated six way power bucket seats. Driver's door mounted power window and mirror controls fall easily to hand while no hands are needed to operate the optional cellular telephone but also has controls on the dash. The efficient freon free climate control and stereo system. There's a full sized glove box something not all dual airbag equipped cars manage split 70 30 the rear bench seat folds part or all the way down. Adding to the trunks wide flat fifteen point one cubic feet of storage space inside the cougar X are seven. You'll find the

standard cloth covered bucket seats with leather on the bolsters and this lone piece of wood trim on each door. Continuing for the 94 model year is for its value pricing of both Thunderbirds and cougar. This plan adds lots more features as standard equipment and offers cars so equipped for a deep discount or no hassle. Price. A value price 94 Thunderbird sixteen thousand eight hundred thirty dollars on the other hand the racks are seven the base price of sixteen thousand two hundred sixty dollars is even more reasonable. So it's easy to see why we've always been fans of these personal luxury performance codes and as long as Thunderbird and keep getting better will stay that way. An automobile is much more than a collection of parts. It's the heart and soul of

the company that builds it and every designed car is according to its own unique philosophy. We're looking at one car maker's approach. We turn to Apple II reporter Lisa Barrow. Seven California is a hotbed of automotive design. Virtually every major car manufacturer has a studio here. What goes on at the studios is a closely guarded secret. Recently Nissan allowed us to take a peek at what goes into shaping their cars. Key to any design at Nissan design international or MDI is a process called Mind mapping. It's a free association exercise that gets the creative juices flowing on each new project. Designers also dabble in role playing. If we're doing a van we drive all the vans there are or all the trucks there are. We analyze those vehicles not as critics but as users. And in a word we become the market that we're designing for design process

starts with sketches that the designers will do like to sketch of this wheel as we develop the design process we will then go to the pier to create a computer model that we all that meets all of the engineering requirements of the project. We have the capability of taking something that we designed on a computer screen and bringing it over to this machine and. Doing it. Motto of. Much of the design process is done simultaneously as sculptors transform drawings into 3-D flame models. Engineers are hard at work doing a reality check to see if you sign a piece of attention one of the well and interesting challenges we have in India is that we're working out across cultural boundaries. We had done a front end which in our mind was the right answer it had a grill and air intake and it had a narrow slot headlamps but we were shocked when we went to Japan to find out that this was an affront and a doll this was the face and this was its mouth and these words eyes and this mouth had an unhappy expression and these eyes were

Squinty. We didn't realize it at first but when Tom Semple did this sketch he quotes fixed it. He raised the corners of the mouth it's now a neutral of happy mouth and the eyes are now open and alert and we still felt we had the essence of the front end we wanted for the Jay 30 and both cultures seemed very comfortable with the expression that it presented. Automotive design is influenced by many factors from the mood of the country to the state of technology. Most design studios design automobiles exclusively whether NPR I believe to my designing other products like yachts and children's furniture there are brand new live attention for what an automobile Hendi. Great design respects. And. So powerful stuff I have a true life the spirit of God. We go outside with a volleyball. With this. Move. By allowing life. To be much. Good you had to.

Go. Time now for our weekly visit with master mechanic and more of his helpful car carried by. John I received a lot of mail about the piece that I did recently concerning the care of the inside of a car. But a lot of those letters had a question in them and the question was What do you do about taking care of leather seats. So you leather in a car is a very popular option these days. The matter of fact lots and lots of cars have leather leather feels good looks good smells good. That is if you take proper care of it. If you don't what's going to happen is that the leather in your car is probably going to wind up looking like these examples here. Now they get to be pretty ratty looking over a period of time. Now proper care can prevent that. But what is proper care number one you have to stay away from the things that actually damage the leather and that first off is more. How would you get around the seats. Well if you have a convertible and you leave the top down overnight or it rains

do or rain certainly is going to get wet. But more real world when it rains your clothes get damp and this dampness when you get in the car is transferred into the leather. And when it gets hot most all of us perspire and perspiration can certainly damage the leather. Now not only does it damage the surface in the color of the leather and so on but more can cause the stitching in the seats to come loose. That means you've got all these gaps and seams that have opened up in the seats. Now to prevent damage from moisture Well it's real simple. All you do is you keep towels in the car and when it's damp outside or when it's real hot you're going to perspire cover the seats in the car with towels that keeps the seats dry. Now in addition to that you've got to be careful of the materials that you use to maintain leather. Make sure that you never use anything that is designed specifically for vinyl or for cloth and above and beyond all. Don't ever use anything to clean the leather that

has alcohol in it. Alcohol takes the natural oils out of the leather and really can do some damage to it. Now what you look for if you look for a product that is designed specifically for taking care of leather. Follow the directions on the label and clean the leather Now this may have to be done two or three times a year maybe a little more frequently than that. If you leave the window down and you or you leave the top down and you have something like this this is another hazard to leather bird droppings. Anyway if you follow the directions on the container and you clean the leather thoroughly This will make it look good. This will make it last a long time and it will help the resale value of your car when it comes time to trade it in or to sell it. And if you have a question about your car whether it's the Interior or the exterior whatever it might be. Write to me. If I use your letter on the air I'll send you a motor week T-shirt. The address is Motor Week or wings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7.

I. Our car of the week is a spotless one thousand sixty two Chrysler 300. It belongs to Jim Edwards of Lakewood Colorado. If you have a candidate for car of the week send a good color photo of the car and just the car the Motor Week Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. Of all the cars that we test the ones that we test the hardest are members of our long term fleet instead of a top 2 weeks on the track. They endure a year of everything from hauling kids and groceries to just driving for prime. Let's see how they're holding up. And back to our eight long termers survive the long hot summer with a few scars we find as the days grow shorter so do their daily trips and short drives really have an effect on fuel economy. Witness our V8 power Jeep Grand Wagoneer.

Current fuel economy has dropped to the mid teens although after 20000 miles we find our overall test results of sixteen point nine and an operating cost of 7.5 cents per mile compares very favorably to other V8 sport utility models. Our Jeep also continues to be faulty. Very impressive given it such a new design. Almost as new and holding up just as well after 23000 miles is this Mercury Villager mini van while overall economy remains above 20 mpg. Here are two shorter trips are consuming more fuel. Regardless the villager continues to be the most refined mini van we've ever experienced. No member of our fleet has more short run here and run their duties than this Subaru Impreza L here too mileage just down a bit to twenty nine point two. What we like most about the Impreza however is that while it's a tough little Subaru it's also quite comfortable and very pleasant to drive. Another favorite long term model regardless of trip length is this Mazda sixty six e-s. After 11000 miles and despite its free revving the six power

train mileage has actually climbed to twenty five point eight. So operating costs remain low at 5.1. And since a mile that's less than the six to seven cents we find is average for all cars our only concern at the moment is a sometimes erratic stereo cassette player. It is much the same story on economy and cost with the 5:54 as mechanical can our fire engine red Ford Probe. Here we noticed that the front brakes were becoming very grabby causing jerky stocks. So our dealer replaced pads and both rotors under warranty since last report we've had no reason to use the warranty on our Cadillac Eldorado touring coupe. It's 32 valve Northstar engine continues to impress us with its robust power and quite reasonable mileage which is nineteen point two. After just over 10000 miles of where we have to Toyota products in our fleet One is this yeoman Toyota Corolla Elissa Dan and the other is a sedan with a somewhat different mission.

This Lexus G-S 300 both our models our reliability with nary a pickup in months and it has the first fall chill approaches. We really don't expect that to change. Next stop on our motor week roster is Lisa barrow and all the latest Motor News. This week we drive a new Accord the car Honda hopes will regain the top spot in U.S. auto sales. Hyundai expects this fifth generation of record to be a car that exceeds its customer's expectations. So to improve an already successful car on it made it three inches wider lowered interior noise levels and refined exterior styling by increasing the size of the air intake. Deleting the chrome grill and moving the Honda logo to the hood all of which gives the new Accord a more rounded European look. A slight wager powerboat runs the entire length of the body and of the rear these new large tail lands remind us of the Mercedes-Benz accords continue with all of them four cylinder power plants to save weight.

A version of Honda's betake variable valve timing has been added to the next model. Result in 145 words down. To air bags are standard in all 94 Honda's. While the new Accord was designed to minimize injuries in front and rear collisions and meet the federal government's 1997 side impact standards. According to Dans are now on sale a coupe will fall in mid November with a station wagon due in February. And that's it for this week's Motor News. The late Mickey Thompson was a desert racing master. While Mickey is gone his legacy lives on through the frenetic sport of stadium racing. Our own Greg Haas has already conquered the wide open spaces of Baja so he decided to see what happens when the outdoors moves indoors. Here in Arizona Sun Devil Stadium it's hard to believe that this pile of dirt will soon become the ultimate off road playground.

Thompson started racing when Ivan Stewart and several other icons of the industry did. He had an idea I dream about bringing that concept in front of the people and bring in front of a television camera so you've got to tell a very very quick story about racing and. This is a spectator event. So people have a chance to get up close and personal with the equipment and the drivers for desert racing legend such as I've been steward of this is his kind of racing in concentrated form. Well I think the biggest difference between the state of race in a desert race of the fact that the stadium is so much more aggressive and you have to drive so much higher in a desert you might drive 80 percent of the flexibility the divers ability because you've got a lap for many hours. But here in a stadium if you're not quick and fast by a lot right off the bat you're not going to do anything.

We get to slide them run into each other to a certain degree I mean there's aggressive driving and then there's dirty driving which we get penalized for but a little bit a bump here and there that's part of the racing. Some say race is more like a hard and sometimes rollover back on just this kind of high voltage racing has kept crowds pouring into stadiums across the country for years to collect autographs and root for their favorite teams competing in an all out drama. This morning many of the manufacturers compete against each other like Nissan and Toyota Ford Shirley I think doesn't. Feel like Toyotas time and our man Stuart hopefully he's going to win tonight. That's. Hard. Core. That's my boys were there and he wanted to go and we thought of the words are going to go.

Of all the more expensive features available on cars today few are more popular than the sunroof. Some are made of glass. Some of steel Some have power and some are manually operated no matter what the warm though virtually all sunroof eventually leak. We've had more than a few leaks on roofs over the years here at Motor Week and with some advice on how to cure the problem we turn once again to our master mechanic pack. John this time I have a letter from Charles Payne of Savannah Georgia. Charles has a problem that plagues lots of vehicle owners. He has a Taurus that has a sun roof and the

sun roof leaks. Well he's tried everything that he can think of as far as trying to find the source of the leak. And he would like my opinion as to what I would recommend. Well before we get into the actual answer of that letter a little bit about some roofs in general see there are two basic types. One is the manual type this is a pop up sunroof. And all it does is pop up in the back. Well these have some advantages and some disadvantages. First off one disadvantage some of these can be removed but then you have to have a place to put it. You know many cars don't have enough space to store this. OK but it has the advantage of being very inexpensive very easy to install and it doesn't take up a lot of headroom. See the installation on one of these is simply to lay out a template on the outside of the car. Cut a hole in the roof drop the sunroof through that hole and then it's bolted from the inside. Very simple and many times a very practical aftermarket installation. Now over here we have a two way

electric sunroof. Now this will either pop up or it will slide back. Now there's two ways that it can slide back one is to the outside. If you have a car with a very short roof or it will slide back to the inside. If you have a car that has substantial links to the roof. Now these are a whole different ball game when it comes to installation. You see this gets pretty complicated in most cases the headliner has to come out of the car. Then using a template the outside of the grooves there's a home. Hold up through it then the sun roof is mounted to the inside of the roof from the inside of the car. Now from there we have to run all of the electrical wiring in the relays and everything like that plus drains have to be installed so there are typically four drain hoses that run from the corners of the sunroof out to the four corners of the car to get rid of water that gets inside this sunroof and last but not least is the headliner inside the car. It either has to be replaced or

modified so that we have a nice fit around the inside of the sunroof and a proper positioning for the switch that controls the sunroof. But what about our question. What about that problem with the leaks. Well one of the most common areas that we're going to have a leak at is right where the drain hoses connect to the sunroof itself. See these drain hoses plug up you may get a leak for some other type of debris that gets into the end of that drain hose. Then water builds up and runs into the inside of the car. Take a cotton swab dab away any kind of debris that you can see at the ends of any one of the drain holes. Then you need to use compressed air. But lots of people get themselves into trouble with their air compressor because they put too much pressure on it that pressure blows the hose off of the backside of the sunroof. Then you have a real leak. Now here's a safe way to do it go to an electronics supply store buy a can of

compressed air and the adapter that goes with it. This is a low pressure. Then you can position it down here into the drain hole and you can blow any remaining debris out the other end of the hose. Does away with a leak in most cases. Also something for preventive maintenance. You get all these parts that move back and forth and up and down in here. Well the best thing to do is once or twice a year. Use a really lightweight aerosol type of grease and you simply spray this along the tracks and anything else in there that moves. This makes the sun roof reliable for many years and if you have a question about your car how about writing to me. If I use your letter on the air I'll send you a motor week T-shirt. The address is Motor Week always Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. That's Motor Week Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. Be sure to join us for the next motor week with the all that's new from Chrysler for

1994 and experience a grueling Hamel propre rally in a cleaner way to change your oil pump out dock and which Happy 30th birthday to the Porsche 911. John David and then to order a video cassette of this program call 1 800 4 2 2 0 0 6 4. Or send twenty nine ninety five plus $4 shipping and handling to this address. That expanded version of motor weeks in Jaguar the roar of the cat is available

on video cassette. It examines past present and future Jaguar models. To use your credit card call 1 800 4 2 2 0 0 6 4 or send 195 plus $4 and shipping to Motor Week home video post office box 6 8 6 1 8 Indianapolis Indiana 4 6 2 6 8. Hello I'm John Davis. On the next edition of motor week we'll show you all of its new prime

Chrysler for 1994. We'll also test the all new Cadillac Deville and contour that gospel show us an easier and cleaner oil change place a barrel shipped to Malaysia for Land Rovers Camel Trophy rally and Craig singles attends the Porsche 911 30th birthday. It's all on the next motorway.