Motorweek; 609

Well. Our front drive Cadillac with SL aspiration. And a toilet a hatchback with DTI inclination to newcomers challenge the standards next on motorways. Motor TV's automotive magazine is proudly brought to you by antifreeze and coolant and by press stone super flush products. Your host for Motor Week John Davis. Well hello and welcome again to motor weight road test subjects this time come from different countries and have different buyers but they're both challengers

for established benchmark models. First Cadillac takes on the Mercedes-Benz SL with their a latte luxury two seater. Then Toyota tries to outgun the bokes wagon with a new 16 valve Corolla hatchback. And between Pat Goss will be along with the latest devices for fighting car thieves and Beth Nardo will tell us about a counterattack from Mercedes-Benz and a luxury sports car class. But first the attack from Cadillac. Now by now almost everyone's heard something about the Cadillac a latte how it was designed to sell in the same class with Mercedes-Benz and the best European cars styled in Italy and how its body is being built there. Yes we've been talking about the latte for more than two years. Well now it's here complete with its $50000 price tag. And now that it is here just who can afford to drive it. If anyone can afford to drive the best it has to be JR Ewing.

All right. And that's why when he selects his next new car it's likely to make a Texas size statement. Reportedly his new wheels will be the Cadillac a long time. The producers of Dallas are trading in JR's Mercedes SL for the new Detroit Turin hybrid. They'll give Cadillac an image boost that even a great car design can't manage alone. Even Mercedes has taken note of this first Motown ultra sports luxury antelope or. After all how many $50000 plus two seaters can you sell even in America. Well Cadillac thinks there shares around 6000. And with JR's help the first year will definitely be a sellout. Why so much confidence in a car from a Merc that's been losing cemeteries full of customers over the last decade. Because they a latte is a different Cadillac Caddy's old Detroit thing has been replaced by World thing ninety nine point four inch

wheelbase comes from a cut down elbow Seville chassis that still boast such status items as all independent suspension and 4 wheel antilock brake while the engine is still Cadillacs aluminum alloy four point one liter pushrod it now has one of the most advanced sequential port fuel injection systems available horsepower is up 50 to 170 and torque is up 30 to 230 and the engine makes a delightful exhaust burble that is decidedly un Cadillac. Most points of view on the Cadillac a latte make good impressions the Pinon Farina styled and built body is conservative yet a modern smooth yet crisp well thought out details include everything from headlight washers to low effort door handles to a neatly concealed gas filler door. To the best integrated high mounted stop light on any convertible yet two tops come with every car winterized hard one is easily removed by two people.

While the line is soft top that stores under a hard boot is manual. Our only real concern is that its many guides and latches need perfect alignment for good operation. And Side appointments abound and there are only two options collar and a cellular phone. These are car seats are specially designed for the alignment and they are supportive of soft leather to hold you in place yet only mildly firm. Both seats have 10 way electric adjustments and there is a two position memory plus an adjustment that puts the seat in best position for getting in and out. The area behind the seats is for storage and there's a folding door for getting to the trunk. Luggage space is good for a convertible but the broad tail lights make for a high sail to look over a novel cover for the temporary spare will expand to accommodate a full size flat. They can today. Stores a top notch automatic climate system and

stereo and a tower above the shift console. At the moment it contains only a four speed automatic connected to a viscous clutch. Its sophistication is only matched by the liquid crystal and the shape of the main gauges mimic analogue units and they do a credible job. The engine readouts are clear in the daylight yet can be turned off for less distraction at night. They reappear if one of the many computers spot a problem. A latte electronics make wide use of multiple a system that allows one wire to do the work of many. That means fewer connections and increased reliability. They allow the lighting system will activate if a sensor detects a fading sun and substitute nearby lamps if one burns out. Yet the fact that the a latte is electronically like jury is should be no surprise. So what about the way a drop. Well that was a surprise. It is an extremely competent road machine handling is remarkably precise

for a luxury car with only a modest amount of front wheel drive push and body roll it maintains its composure even in tight corners at high speed. Some of the credit goes to its exclusive Goodyear Eagle DL tires. They strike a good compromise between high performance traction and comfortable highway ride. Indeed Cadillac took great care to ensure the LNT is quiet on the open road especially with the top down wind buffeting is minimal and you can hear yourself think without shouting. Stopping is as expected. Axl. Also has exclusive use to the third generation Bosh and he locks system stops from 55 on this prototype gave a consistent average of 115 feet. Only acceleration seems lacking in the intent and then only in comparison to the Benz 560 SL. Zero to 60 took nine point three seconds. That's about two seconds slower than the SL but still as good as many other

imported performance cars. The automatic transmission shifts very crisply and at the right places quarter mile a reasonable seventeen point three seconds at. A 5 speed manual would help. But while one is being considered if you allow American buyers would order it it might be part of an export package that would also include simpler analog gauges because Cadillac is considering the supreme test of selling the way in Europe. Which brings us to the key question for the. With it's been in Farina lines and high technology. Does it have class enough to turn all of Cadillac around. Well probably not but Cadillac tells us that this is just the first in a line of world class Candy. It's an amazingly good effort so good that it doesn't really need an introduction from JR. It'll get a long ride well on its own. Now if you drive a car with a high price its chances of being stolen are pretty

high too. With that in mind Pat Goss is going to review the latest devices that could improve your car's chances of staying put. At. So you've finally arrived that exotic car that you've always wanted. You've made it. Here it is. Now the name of this game is to keep it out of the hands of thieves. Now this particular car right here is equipped with an intrusion type of alarm system. We're going to show you some of the different types of alarms and some of the things you can do to help keep your car yours. Let's see how the intrusion alarm works so it's sensitive to the sounds of breaking glass or other sounds that would be accompanied by breaking into an automobile and see if we can simulate this. OK. Now if you noticed on this particular alarm we also have a remote control device the remote controls are going to be applicable to just about all of the different types of alarms that we're going to be talking about.

Now here's another one and this one has an interesting feature. Hey with this one you can control the alarm itself you can actually set the alarm off some distance from the car. Now what's the advantage of that. Well the advantage is very simple suppose you're walking through a dark parking lot or someplace to get to your car and there's somebody suspicious nearby. You're afraid you might be mugged or worse. You can set off the alarm that scares the intruder away. It works quite well. Now here's another type of alarm that is very popular. This is a motion detector. What it does is it senses rocking or movement of the car and it sets the alarm off. Now this is an electronic type and it has an adjustment on it so that you can adjust the sensitivity of it so that the alarm doesn't go off every time the wind blows or something of that nature. All right. Now here is another one. This one works a little bit differently. This is an

ultrasonic alarm. And what it does is it fills the inside of the car with ultrasonic sound waves. And if those sound waves are interrupted by a door being opened or anything that would permit the sound wave pattern to be disturbed it sets off the alarm. It's quite effective. Now here's something that works quite nicely especially for pickup trucks and vans and commercial vehicles and so on. What this is is is a unit that fits over the lock itself and has a little door on it that you open to get to the lock. Well if the alarm is set when that door is opened it sets off the alarm. Now this of course saves a lot of body work and so on because generally they don't damage just the lock. They damage the body of the vehicle as well when they're taking the lock out. Now all of these alarms are worthless unless you have this know what in the world is this low it's a 9 volt battery and it's part of a

typical backup system. So you have to have power to the alarm system in case the thief is smart enough to cut a battery cable. Then the alarm system works off of the backup system. This is vital if you want to have good security on your automobile. Now what is more common than anything else. The most typical thing that a thief is trying to get is they're trying to get your sound system. Now many vehicles will have something that's a lot more exotic than what we have here but still in all even the inexpensive ones lots of times get stolen. What can you do to prevent that. Well here's one thing that can be done right here. This is a cassette lock and it fits into the little trap door in the cassette in the locks in there so that even if they steal the cassette player it isn't usable and there's no way to get it out of the cassette player. Works quite effective. But one thing that you don't want to do as far as your sound

system is concerned we find people that do some pretty elaborate things to make it difficult to get the sound system out of the day. Well that isn't good advice because if you make it too difficult to get the unit out of the day what they do then many times is something like this they take an axe or a hatchet and simply chop the dash of the car apart and they still get your sound system. Plus they do many hundreds sometimes thousands of dollars worth of damage to your car. Now here is something that is very interesting. Suppose you have a convertible or some other vehicle that doesn't lend itself to the typical types of alarm systems. Here's a unit that fits on the top of the steering column it's an adapter with a key and so on. What you do is you unlock the steering wheel itself take the steering wheel off. You can take it with you. Then there's a cap such as we have here. It's on the top. Like that and you lock it in place. Makes it very

difficult to steal the car. Now no matter what you do any combination of these or all of these alarms doesn't make it impossible to steal your car. What it does do is make it practical for a thief to steal your car. Now as we've seen with Cadillac and they're a latte GM is changing its marketing plans. Eventually each GM division will have separate and distinct images. The theory is that way the divisions won't have to compete with one another and GM as a whole will end up with a bigger slice of the pie. Well now we're going to take a look at Oldsmobile always has always been a conservative upscale division and over the years it has been an innovator. Lately though it's been called the old man division but that part of their image is about to change. The folks at OLS are very careful not to make too much of these cars.

After all the conservative part of Bowles isn't likely to change as far as old management is concerned these cars just answer the question what is. What if for instance future ols buyers want a compact front drive coupe that goes like say a 60s V8 muscle car. Well then olds could modify their Kalai with a double overhead cam four valve for cylinder engine called the one for this 2.3 leaderboard. INDORE puts out 150 voice power and it isn't just a dream engine designed by Oldsmobile. It will go into production for the 1988 model year. And it will most likely be mated to this five speed manual transmission the one that just became available this year on higher performance front drive GM model. In this ballet that combination means Whitely performance to say the least. But getting back to what amps suppose ols buyers want the same sort of performance from a full size luxury sedan.

Simple answer. Turbo charge the quad pool. This one in a modified Olds 98 makes more than 200 horsepower and holds engineers tell us it could make even more with special tuning. But even so this tame version pushed the 98 to speeds that no production 98 has seen in years. And finally what if these mythical ols buyers should want their cars to handle and stop like the late model for them. Well then olds would add the newest in high performance 17 inch rubber. Tweak the suspensions and then add bigger brakes from existing old model just. For good measure. Now if all this hardware unconservative luxury cars seems out of place just stop and think it works great for Mercedes Benz and BMW. So why not Oldsmobile. So will these what have most Beals become future Oldsmobile with a quad core engine. There's a sure thing.

As for the other modifications. Who knows if they'll make production. And even if they don't it still looks like Oldsmobile is a few steps closer to becoming GM. High performance high line division. Well Beth we've now seen the Cadillac a latte and we know that back in 1980 to its original target was the Mercedes-Benz three a DSL and now it's time to see just how much more Mercedes Benz will up the ante with the next SL. Mercedes-Benz has raised the stakes so high it's going to put them in a whole new game when Mercedes-Benz introduces this new SL in 1988. It will be a sports car with better performance than a Corvette or Porsche and I'm 28 s so don't call this a luxury two seater. Power will come from an all new five point six leader V8 So the new car will probably still be called the 560 SL. That engine should make about 240

horsepower. That's more than the current Corvette to put that power to the ground. The SL will get 4 wheel drive but unlike most systems the Mercedes-Benz four wheel drive will work automatically as conditions demand despite an all new drive train. The SL won't be all new. The suspension comes from the W1 24 and that's the car we know as the Mercedes Benz 300. That means an independent rear suspension so sophisticated that even Mercedes-Benz engineers have a hard time describing it like the 300 the new 560 will get anti-skid brakes as standard and those brakes will work with the four wheel drive to control skids during acceleration too. Like all recent s L's this one will have a removable hard top and convertible top. But there's a new feature a roll bar that pops into place behind the driver should the car roll over and it almost goes without saying that airbags will be part of the SL safety features too.

And since the SL is moving up to the high performance sports car level the cost will also go higher. John look for price in the low $60000 range. You know Beth if you really think about it we're Sadie's is moving back to its roots with a new SL The famous S. ells of the fifties were pretty much race cars for the street right. But high performance doesn't mean this new SL will lose anything in Creature Comforts. It will have all the luxury for which Mercedes-Benz is famous. I can't wait. Thanks Beth. You're welcome John. You know these days it seems like you can spend an awful lot on a sports car or just about any car for that matter. But now we're going to turn our attention to a car for people on a tighter budget. This is the newest model to share Toyota's famous Corolla name. And while it may not look like it it's a hatchback made for having fun. You know it wasn't too long ago that most cars weren't much fun at all. Round about the beginning of the 80s when the country was still recovering from the gas

shortage it seemed like the only cars on the street were boring little hatch bags. But then Volkswagen decided to soup up the engine and suspension of its little hatchback the rabbit. The result was the rabbit DTI and it was fun. So much so that the rest of the world's car makers soon follow. Now hatchback Bunn has escalated into a full blown war one after another. They try to shoot their way to the Top Gun of the class and the newest toy is a hot hatchback carries a fitting name to join the battle. They call it the Corolla f x 16 and you patriotic types should know that this little fighter is made right here in the United States. It's a product of the new United Motor Manufacturing incorporated and their plant in Fremont California where NUMMI is a joint venture between GM and Toyota. This little front driver is an all Toyota designed from its flush

headlights and sculptured air dam to its large rear hatch and spoiler. Here's what tells you for sure. The Toyota 1.6 liter twin cam engine is the same for a valve for cylinder unit used in the m r two and the rear drive Corolla GTX standard in all f x 16 models the 16 valve makes one hundred eight horsepower and ninety six pound feet of torque. And of course because it's 16 valve it'll happily wrap the jet engine speed. And the Corolla Aphex 16 is the light this Toyota to get the 16 valve or so it gets to the end of the carrier deck for the quarter mile pretty quickly. We measured seventeen point two seconds at seventy eight miles per hour. And 0 to 60. Well there's plenty of thrust for that too. Thanks to the afterburner effect the engine gives at high RPM our time. Nine point eight. Sense of comparison is in order. Those numbers are just slightly faster to both

marks than in the current which doesn't offer a 16 valve engine here yet. But how about if you want to come back down from speed with the epic 16s four wheel d'Este do it from 55 with plenty of poise and a firm secure feel in the pedal though not quite as short as the GTA but a stopping average of one hundred fifteen feet is actually. The 16 comes in to trim levels base and g ts g ts gives you a firmer suspension and 14 inch U.S. made Eagle tires. Either way the suspension is fully independent with MacPherson struts both front and rear. We found the car had more body feeling than we expected. The cornering power was very good if not up to the level of the G. We had a chance to drive various ethic 16s under a lot of different conditions on the fast straightaways and downhill turns of the Mid-Ohio racecourse. And the tight fisted slalom of our home 75 80 dragged away and on the two

lanes in the Shenandoah Mountains. At Mid-Ohio 16 felt the most nimble it has a toss about character makes it feel faster than it is. And this is where we really appreciated the f 16s crisp precise steering. In the slalom and on twisty two lanes. You know just more power at the front and that changes the slide from the tail when you lift off the gas. The F 16s should never scare anyone though since breakaway is gentle on less demanding pavement. The 16 shows other good manners it gives you a firm but compliant ROM and none of the jolting you get with some other small car performance suspensions. We also recorded good fuel economy 29 mpg and all around driving an EPA ratings are 25 city and 29 Highway 16 is fairly quiet too with an interior sound level of 69 decibels at 50.

And how about that interior. Well this is a hatchback of course and this one gives you plenty of room and a cargo cover. The rear seat has a 50/50 split. Our only complaint is that it doesn't fold completely flat but there is adequate leg room for rear seat passengers plus these nifty pull handles on the seats up front the cabin has an even roomier feel. But we were a little disappointed with the FSX 16s dash. Like many from Japan it looks chopped up with too many elements that don't all go together well. And if this is a high performance car why doesn't it have an oil pressure gauge and volt meter. As for the seats they're cloth covered and most supportive. Plus the GTX driver's seat has more adjustments than most people will use. Driver controls are well thought out and easy to reach and the shifter has the most delightful short throws. As for interior quality the whole inside of our car was rattle free. It seems this Toyotas American Assembly has just as good as in Japan. But if we do have one more complaint is that you

really pay for the extras you order on this car fully optioned this epic 16 GTX would set you back thirteen thousand five hundred eighty three dollars while the bass Carlist for a reasonable eight thousand one hundred seventy eight dollars. But let's consider our list of hits. We were impressed by the smooth 16 valve engine and the acceleration again. We also like the car's overall nimble feel on the practical side there's plenty of interior room good fuel economy and quality workmanship. As for misses we didn't much care for the confused look of the FSX 16s dash or its lack of instrumentation and body roll as high as performance hatchbacks go. And then there's the matter of price. With typical options it's also a bit high for its class. But what we have here is a little hatchback that can just about fly. Is it the best hot hatchback. Well we're not sure. So we think it may be time to gather all of the little hatchback fighters together for a road course dogfights of our own.

So stay tuned. Well we'll be going into battle with a lot more cars in the weeks ahead right here on motorway. We'll see you then. Motor Week was proudly brought to you by presto an antifreeze in COLA and by presto super flush products. Studio vehicle courtesy of the Russell motor cars. From the merely fast. To the super fat and from the

sublime to the ridiculous We've got a ball on a motorway. Hello I'm John Davis and it's got four wheels and move sooner or later it'll show up on motorways where every week we've got road test maintenance advice in advance lots of cars of the future to join us for the last word on the automotive world right here on the motorway.