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What dreams are made up of blacktop rocket. Ship. See. John this is. Why you believe this makes each of us next week. Hi I'm Pat Goss protecting plastic this time on Goss's garage. Can we cope as this we've gone over the edge. Gene's weight loss will test GM sees new family size a keep your crossover utility. Took a drive with us. Hello. Brought to you by cars dot com. Let's say your looking for a car. Cars dot com can help research. OK even contacted us cars dot com. Find the right car for you and buy the tire rack. Ever notice how tires are like shoes with every take off season

for real football is how to help you less appropriate your one more. Black Dog. Maybe oil and water don't mix but oil and blood do. Now fully 100 years on the air. And by Dunlop tires the search for true performance is part of our heritage. Dunlop is proud to present the Dunlop drivers Cup where amateurs from around the world compete head to head in the on and off road competitions. Information at Dunlop tires dot com. Your host for Motor Week. John Davis. Well hello and welcome again to motor week. We're glad to have you with us. When we get set for our annual winter pilgrimage to Roebling road Raceway near Savannah Georgia the first task is to find the right cars. So when this Lotus 60 Jess showed up on our radar we knew it had to make the cut with a roots type super charger and only

twenty one hundred pounds of mass. The past seems like the perfect track car. There is no denying the racy appeal of the 2007 Lotus 16. Yes. Even. It looks like a perfect storm. When the starting gun. It's deeply carbon sharply he runs impossibly short overhangs boy racer wing and top mounted air snorkel all indicate a machine built with one purpose in mind to get to the next corner first. Backing up a crash looks the exceeds gas carries a toy and a 1.8 leader Twin Cam for. Shared with the exceeds coupe and the least roadster but the s ups the ante with an intercooler super charger package from the limited issue motor sport exceeds 240 are in the acid boost horsepower 30 to 220 and torque to 165 lbs feet with a lock to eight thousand RPM redline acceleration his rest.

With 0 to 60 running. Point five seconds and a trip through the quarter mile ending at thirteen point four seconds at 106 miles per hour. That's the same time to see. Is it still. Five hundred. And less than a second one minute an old drag race. The exceed just bare extruded aluminum chassis weighs just 150 pounds and the whole car tips the scales at two thousand seventy seven. Giving up power to weight ratio of only nine point four pounds per horsepower. For a little ass perspective. The Porsche Cayman S pushes 10 pounds with each of its 295 ponies and the new Mini Cooper S dragged around £15 per horse. Inside the tight exceeds cockpit and good luck getting in it gracefully by the way the weight savings are obvious there's not one scrap of material has been wasted. Spartan leather bucket seats face a dash with minimalist gauges and controls the sole luxury items are an Alpine CD stereo and

standard air conditioning. But pedals are tightly spaced but precise in operation. The bare aluminum shift knob connects to a close ratio six speed gearbox and typical of Lotus. The action is a bit clunky but it does get the job done inside Mir on the other hand is absolutely useless unless you want to keep an eye on the engine. But in a car this fun we'd rather keep our eyes on the road ahead especially the 10 fast turns of rolling road. Because this is where Lotus Manor Holland Chapman's guiding principle of simplicity and light weight shows its true genius. The exceeds test. Ackles the track with gusto showing your working balance and tons of grip from its sticky 17 inch competition tires. The racing inspired aerodynamics package wing air diffusers and black bottom generate 100 pounds of down force of 100 mph. Slowing from those speeds is no problem.

Thanks to four wheel minted Jesmyn standard abs body roll is moderate on the firm steering is very direct and delivers great feedback. Power delivery matches the abilities of the chassis. It's always where you want it but it's never over moment. Where the exceeds it loses ground other sports cars though is a long straightaway where horsepower equals being. In the same track session for instance. I mentioned GTA 500 was easily 15 MPH faster on the straight and Clarke lap times a half second quicker than the Lotus Despite weighing almost twice his Monk's route still demanding a little more of the driver than I would. Like to. Believe. Right but there is simply no other mid engine car that is easier to drive in the limit. Big C. Well on the street use despite its short wheelbase the ride quality is as comfortable as many small commuter car. Government fuel economy ratings are respectable 23 in the city and 29 on the highway using regular gas. The only disappointment in our drive was the flat buzzy exhaust note dominated by the

whining of the supercharger. We. Gladly live with that though if we could come up with the fifty six thousand nine hundred ninety dollar price of admission that maybe a lot to pay for what is essentially a weekend warrior one driving a Lotus seat yes will tell you it's pound for pound the biggest single real ride around. Coming up. What. Really really. Really. Some say change is good. But with every changing car design comes a change in how you have to care for it. And that means to stop by Goss's garage which. John lots of plastic parts under the hood of an automobile these days and they'll actually last longer than metal in most cases. If you take proper care of them don't spray anything under the hood don't use any chemicals that might dissolve the plastic and above and beyond all take

proper care of the cooling system. Reason For That is a lot of the plastic lives in the cooling system. Now there are these tales going around that if your car has long life coolant like this gold or like some of the orange products out there you've got to take it out. You got to put the old fashioned green stuff in there to prevent problems such as we see here where the coolant turns muddy and damages the cooling system. Well that's not really true. What you need to do is to take proper care of that long life coolant. And that means that you do more than use the old fashioned hydrometer to look at the color of it and to see what it's freeze protection is so you can look like brand new yet it can be very acidic. That means that you need to use pH test strips and you need to do that at least twice a year. You want to check the PH When the PH drops below manufacturer's

specifications. You need to change the coolant the system needs to be flushed and new coolant of the proper type put in it. Now what are you trying to avoid while you're trying to avoid problems like we had here with this plastic tank radiator which developed a crack and that crack leaked and as it leaked it collected down in the bottom and you can see there is literally nothing left of this radiator. So that's a big problem. Another problem if you don't take care of the cooling system. Many water pumps these days. Have plastic impellers like this one and it cracked. It literally fell apart inside the car that caused the engine to overheat the overheated engine blew the head gasket. Well it's kind of a long sad story but the bottom line is the cooling system on that car was not properly maintained intake manifolds were another place where you'll find plastic on a lot of automobiles and we

have one here where part of the port in it has collapsed. This allowed coolant to go right straight into the throttle body and down into the engine. And what happened there was that it filled the oil with coolant and that damaged the engine. All because of poor cooling system maintenance. So check the Ph. Do it at least twice a year. Never leave the coolant in the car longer than the vehicle manufacturer recommends in the owner's manual. If you have a question write to me the address is Motor Week Mills Maryland. 2 1 1 1 7. No one spawns more forgettable advertising slogans than the auto industry. So when one comes along they really mean something has genuine substance it sticks to us jeep trail rated moniker fits the bill perfectly. So much so that it took Henrico pads right over the edge. Tucked away in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains river contrail offer some of the most

exciting and technical off roading available on the planet. It's where top notch equipment in class leading vehicle engineering come to shine and one manufacturer has an entire show or movie icles that will do just that. Walk up to a jeep and you're likely to find a trail rated badge on its fender. Now more than just a piece of off road jewelry. It's a go anywhere guarantee that Jeeps have to earn. And on the Rubicon trail the going gets tough the minute you set a wheel on it which made it the perfect place to try out one of the jeeps newest trail rated vehicles. The 2007 Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. And at the same time talk to the Jeep gearheads that makes rail rated vehicles everything they are long a mecca for off roaders Jeep designs a trail rated models to walk the walk over all 22 Rocky delete and torturous miles of the trail. What it takes to become a trail rated vehicle could easily turn other rides into whimpering Holt's of bent metal. And when it comes to designing a trail rated Jeep Chryslers body on frame team vice president Mike Donahue and his colleagues keep five very

important things in mind. There's five elements that make up a trail rated vehicle for us there is ground clearance traction the nuber ability articulation and water forwarding and there's engineering considerations that go into meeting the criteria for each and every one of those. And with the control rated version or the translated idea what we do is we make sure that we're maximizing the capability of the vehicle in each of the five criteria that we measure it against. And we start our thought process from there and it's not just the engineering teams at Jeep that determine the trail rated vehicles off road prowess. Some of the best ideas come from the. Even more in foreign source we start right at the very beginning with all the research and inputs that we get from our customers you know we have all these Jeep jam breeze and things like that we have our three vehicles are embedded within our organization that we we take input to give you a whole different experience that that you can't have in literally any other vehicle in the world.

Having that kind of contact with the loyalists during the design process is invaluable. It really keeps designers focused on what's expected from a trail rated G. You know people come in expecting they're buying it cheap. They have certain perceptions of what capabilities are all about and this is a measure that allows us to tell people that this thing has been through a very strenuous test. It's only unique to GM as senior manager of marketing at GM Dan Tardelli knows it's critical to back up the trail rated badge with solid performance right from the beginning. The trial rated program had two very important purposes for the couple ideas we had in mind one was we wanted to come up with a way to kind of consistently communicate you know capability in jeeps and second it was an inherent technical side but also on develop some standards that we could measure all our vehicles against in terms of making sure they met certain standards to be classified as targeted because jeeps obviously all about capability while Jeep is expanding its product.

Right. As usual the complacent Patriots execs swear they'll never forget their trail rated core from the open air wrangler to the seven passenger commander jeep will retain a full line of the trail rated models all 18 percent off road action. So the next time you see a jeep with a trail rated badge don't worry. But I have no problem taking you to the ends of the earth and back again. For those that just happen to have a full size SUV for hauling an oversized family or load it's tough to beat RJ thousand seven Chevrolet Suburban sport utility vehicle with seven or eight seats and an eight thousand pound towing capacity for our Ltd four by four. There's no unit ties crossover utility they can match the abilities of this body on frame SUV. Our trucks 320 horsepower 5.3 leader V8 is just strong enough. And with its fuel saving cylinder come off each year it's averaging an acceptable fifteen point three miles per regular great gallon. After five months

and nearly 11000 miles of highway cruises closer to 20. Still this is not the kind of vehicle you want to drive every day since it's 18 and a half foot link makes it up there to park. As we've noted before the interior is exceptionally well done. It's refined luxury Aceh mostly ergonomically correct. We like the fact that the second and third row seats quickly fold to make a continuously flat load floor. But space between the cushions makes it easy to lose small items and hard for pets to keep their footing. But when your plans call for a big SUV we think the Chevrolet Suburban is in a class by itself. Now if you don't need all of the abilities of a suburban then consider our 2006 Subaru benign drive back across a real utility while motor we viewers know we never cared for it's awkward front end styling. We grew quite fond of everything else the tried back offered. Even though the third row is only for kids. You'll be glad to have the try because seven passenger

capacity when you need it. Performance from the 3 liter 245 horsepower flat 6 is just adequate but the payoff is fuel economy averaging nineteen point six mpg on premium gas. That's about 20 percent better than I. I have the whole body on green SUV and despite a lot of wear and tear over 13 months and nearly 30000 miles the benign was 100 percent fault free. If only the front passenger's footwell wasn't so cramped with a restyle 2008 model on the way our only objection may soon be solved. We'll miss our Subaru benign try back out since in the end it proved a handsome rod. We'll set our sights on this Buick Lucerne sedan and this Kia Sedona minivan on the next motor week long term road test update. Now let's check in with Jessica choccy for all the latest Motor News. This week it's off to Switzerland to see what's new with the 2007 Geneva International

Auto Show Mercedes-Benz launched a new C-Class series with a team of more power but less fuel consumption. There will be two different C class sedans available here in the States this fall. The luxury and the sport with your choice of one of the two be six engines. German rival ality took the wraps off an all new A5 this big Google go on sale in Europe soon but won't come to the States until the end of the year. The higher performance S5 will also be available. BMW had many cars to show including a U.S. bound one series three door compact and updated five series and an M3 concept. Jaguar showed an updated x Jay sedan. Changes are minor but most noticeable is the new front facia. There were a few Dave Hughes from American companies as well including this dodge demon concept. This little rear drive roadster looks just about production ready and was one of the most talked about debuts of the show. Well Ford came in all new Mondeo which

may or may not make it states. The same can be said of the impressively rooming C-Max many many than Asian manufactures had quite a presence in Geneva Hyundai showed a very cool looking I-35 door hatchback that sadly is for Europe only as well as this rather bizarre looking car MK utility concept from Kia comes this little exchange dropped. It's a different look from the Korean manufacturer but one we could get used to very quickly. Mazda had two debuts this Mazda to a five door subcompact and yet another styling exercise does cause a Nissan and valid new version of its popular x trail. Well the extra won't come to the US. We could see it styling on a future Xterra toilet unveiled a new hybrid concept. And while not exactly the next Prius it does give us some idea of what they're thinking. So isn't he showed a neat looking concept the splash. Well Honda showed this little hybrid sports coupe and it wouldn't be Geneva without a

few exotic car debuts this year courtesy of Lamborghini with a garrote a Super League era and Mazda ready with the grand jury's mo. And that's it from Geneva. And for this week's Motor News. Recently we named the all new Saturn Outlook and GMC Acadia as a motor weeks drivers choice best crossover utilities of the year. The 7 and 8 passenger seat UVA's represent a major departure for General Motors and its long heritage of building big traditional sport utes. Now we've already shown you the details on the Saturn Outlook. Now it's the turn of the GMC Acadia. Up until now when GM and all other full line car companies introduced multiple versions of the same vehicle design the biggest difference was usually the name. But in the case of the 2007 GMC Acadia GM is trying to make such total bad engineering a thing of the past. That said the unit

body Acadia does share the same chassis and virtually all unseen mechanical bits with the Saturn Outlook and the 2008 Buick Enclave. This new lambda architecture enables GM sees first crossover utility to be configured for seven or eight passengers with standard third row seating but it Kitty is more aggressive GMC exterior styling easily sets it apart from the euro look Saturn Outlook chairing many design cues with the Yukon the almost full size Acadia has a tougher more traditional SUV truck presence that starts with the brands hoping grille an oversized GMC emblem the front fenders bumper and arched headlamps are also unique to Acadia The same goes for the rear facia Acadia is tapered roofline leads back to a traditional D pillar rather than the wrapped last look on the outlook. And it plants itself atop large 18 inch alloy wheels more formidable 9000 injures are available unlike the outlook's two engine choices the

Acadia comes with only the more powerful dual exhaust version of GM is three point six leader Twin Cam P6 the same engine used in the Cadillac c ts and Seville. It produces a hearty 275 horsepower and two hundred fifty one pound feet of torque at 30 200 RPM. Harness that pulling power with the optional trailering package for a toke a passerby a forty five hundred pounds. Tied to a new six speed automatic transmission with manual shift mode. The Acadia is available in front and all wheel drive. All will drive system utilizes a clutch pack to manage torque between the front and rear axle. Government fuel economy ratings for the front drive a KTAR 18 city and 26 highway on regular gas expect 20 to a normal driving. Radius respectable energy impact score of sixteen point three. Barrels of oil per year is also about 15 percent better than the Yukon. We first experienced the Acadia sedan like handling on the twisty roads

north of San Francisco. It's compliant ride and stable handling is the effect of an all independent suspension. Just as with the outlook you can use ease of maneuverability makes you forget that this is still an almost 17 foot long utility. Electronic stability control with rollover mitigation and traction control come standard as do four wheel ventilated dispraise with abs that arrest the £5000 he has momentum. Stop for a straight and secure. If not always as short as we think we should be. Inside the Acadia is easily as refined as the outlook. But like the exterior has a more robust purposeful appearance up level trim is a metal look rather than wood uniquely shaped center stacked houses three center air vents rather than the outlooks to. R s l t had comfy unsupported front seats. The steering will tilt and telescopes and includes auxiliary controls the center console sliding armrest is also a

plus notable standards include full power crews front and rear air and CD stereo three row curtain airbags are also included as is the OnStar communication system. Notable Extras include leather seat heat navigation heated washer fluid remote start rear DVD and a double sunroof. Head Up Display similar to the one found in the Chevrolet Corvette as an option exclusive to the Acadia. The second row comes as either a bench for three or captain's chairs for two GM smart slide feature which works smoother on this Acadia than on the outlook we tested allows easy access to a third row that is even suitable for adults. Cargo access is effortless. If you order the power liftgate Acadia smacks quarter rouble one hundred one thousand point seven cubic feet slightly better is that of the outlook. There's nineteen point seven cubic feet of storage behind the third row under floor bin and cargo bay audio controls perfect for tailgate parties which

the outlook lacks. As for Arcadia pricing up front drive SL egos were twenty nine thousand nine hundred ninety dollars while on up level. All wheel drive s Ltd stickers at thirty five thousand nine hundred sixty dollars while slightly better equipped than the outlook. The Academy is two to three thousand dollar premium may not be worth it to some. We think the design of the 2007 GMC Acadia goes far enough beyond the badge to attract a different core buyer than its lambda stable makes. The Acadia is also everything a large C U V should be and with its very own spin. Well I hope you'll join us next week for more motorways. One more test of all those all new flagship they're safe yet now almost 60 and 80 sedan and Chrysler's decked out sport utility vehicle. They asked for it. I'm John Davis. We'll see that.

To learn more about Motor Week TV's original automotive magazine visit PBS dot org. To order a DVD or VHS copy of this program call 1 800 873 6 1 5 4. Motorway has been brought to you by cars dot com. Let's say your looking for a car. Cars dot com can help research locate even contact a dealer. Cars dot com find the right car for you and buy the tire rack offering a wide selection of tires wheels attaboy with professional advice and online shopping tools. Plus a national network of tile rack recommended installers. Some guys like to relax in a leather recliner. But to others there is nothing better than cardboard on concrete Valvoline 100 years under the hood. Had by Dunlop tires. The search for a true performance is part of our heritage. Dunlop

is proud to present the Dunlop drivers Cup where amateurs from around the world compete head to head in the on and off road competitions. Information at Dunlop tires dot com. This program was produced by American Public Television which is soley responsible for its content. On PBS.