Motorweek; 1931

This time on motorways bigger things for Fords cobra like shifty Alero from old and roving over the great divide. So come drive with us next. TV's original automotive magazine brought to you by Priceline dot com with Priceline dot com you name your own price for new cards all makes and models of cars trucks sport utility vehicles minivans and more. When you log on to Priceline dot com you name your own price. And to buy the duplicate truck bed coding kit the truck bed protection that you can apply yourself with won't brush or spray. It's the rust and impact resistant coating that fits any size bed truck bed coating kit and by pep boys no matter what you drive Pep Boys Over 27000 items in stock virtually any part for any car with all the name brands you know plus service based staff with certified

technicians Pep Boys parts tires accessories service. Your host for Motor Week. John Davis. Hello and welcome again to motor week. We're glad to have you with us. This is a kinetic motion device a pendulum if you please. These ball bearings move back and forth and mostly as long as they get an occasional boost of power. It's a lot like the pony car wars between the Ford Mustang and the Chevrolet Camaro where engineers always seem to be able to work a little more magic for a little more. Oh and the new SVT Mustang Cobra are maybe Fords all of them of mood. So does this piston punching Tony swing the pendulum in Ford's favor for good. It darn well better be because Ford special vehicle team has gone all out to make the 2000 Mustang. You are the most fucking phony card to ever wear the Mustang brand. And one of the rarest. Only 300 Cobra hards will emerge from the

SBT shop this year and most of them will head straight to the racetrack. Fitting since through three generations the Coker our design philosophy has remained out of a fairly street legal race car. That's a good look with all the competition great goodies of the SBT Game can dream up. Starting with the ultra aggressive body work. It may look a bit over the top but every piece has a specific go past purpose such as the huge fixed rear wing to keep the tail planted a competition speeds the deep front spoiler with and a rope splitter that eliminates lifted triple digit velocity and the bolting power dome hoods that provide extra clearance for the voluminous be 8 intake system. The Twin Cam 5.40 leaders say you are right on the iron block. You can pick up engine. It's been beefed up and heavily modified with 385 horsepower and 385 pound feet of torque and even in the roughly finished form of our prototype test car packs hot rod parts like high flow heads an intake manifold special Ford steam and pistons Carrillo Billick still connecting rods and more aggressive

can. And is fed from a 20 gallon competition grade fuel cell powered gushes to the rear wheels to an 11 inch clutch and the first six speed manual gearbox in Mustang history. Power is controlled by another SBT burst. In and defended Tulay arm rear suspension bars from the standard SVT Cobra. But this one is upgraded with high bar Springs Bilstein charts and stiffer control or is also lowered. One and a half this is a front and one is just the rear contributing to Italy and its aggressive looks. And boy it does handle better than any Mustang that we've ever driven. As we found out on Firebird International Raceway outside Phoenix Arizona pictured into a curve in the Cobra our responds with mild push that quickly transitions into a near neutral feel at mid corner. Too much throttle will quickly have you pointed in the wrong direction to get it right and revving V8 rockets the cobra are out of the corner. Body roll is almost nonexistent and unlike me in quick 15 to 1 rack and pinion steering

provides excellent feel where particularly impressed with the finesse of the new independent rear suspension which soaks up bumps I would have had solid axle Mustangs dancing like drunken sailors. All this on a platform that is the stiffest most solid Mustang short of a factory Trans-Am car and is anchored by all vented Brembo brakes in 40 series a teenage Goodrich G-force tires designed for all out road horsemeat. Which by the way topped out at 175 with a 0 to 60 gallop of 4.7 seconds. But some of those 300 Cobra R's will live tamer lives on the street corners. Happy to report that despite its competition component. This ultimate equine is more civilized than we expected. So you'd better not mind a little noise. One of the. Oprah's weight savings program include removing most of the sound insulation and the rear seat as well which is replaced by a simple carpeted panel up front however as Beatty added form fitting were current seats and special Cobra are

instruments including an appropriate 180 mile per hour Speedo of course as always some goodies don't come cheap. The 2014 SCD Mustang Cobra heart carries a base price of fifty four thousand nine hundred ninety five dollars. That's 20 grand more than the standard SVT COBRA and 20 grand more than the previous 95 cobra heart. But with only 300 being produced Ford is having no trouble finding enough bands willing to lay down the. Would be eruption of the third generation SBT Mustang Cobra our sport has a just beat now to its GM rivals. Body slam them like stone. Cold Steve Austin. And swung the. The car Foreman's been doing so. What's the reaction. But it may never come back. Do antilock brakes always reduce your stopping distance in emergency situations. A new government study concludes that except on loose surfaces like sand and snow all panic stops can be shorter which will anti-lock brakes. Then without

shorter on wet pavement. And shorter on dry pavement. Remember ABS works best when you stop the brake pedal stay on the brake pedal and steer where you want to go. Coming up ranging the great divide on. Mastering good car care advice is no magic so here is motor Wake's masterful mechanic Pat Goss. John restoring older collectible cars. Well that certainly can be fun and sometimes it's even profitable. But. There are some rules that you have to follow if you want your job to be a success. Number one you have to identify what you are looking for out of your restoration. Is it going to be a show car or is it going to be a daily driver. What are you looking for. Well the number one thing that you need to do is you need to obtain a restoration manual. They're available for most of the collectible cars and they'll tell you the

appropriate colors for the different items under the hood and under the chassis of the car and so on and how things are supposed to fit. All kinds of information that you wouldn't know otherwise. Second thing that you want is an Eastwood Tool Company catalog because they have a complete ray of restoration finishes that can make that car look like a new one. But the things that you have to remember is that whatever product you're going to use for your restoration you have to practice with it before you attempt to do the real thing because many of these things well they take a little finesse to make it look the way it's supposed to. The other thing is to make sure that you use the appropriate finish for the part that you're working on. Take this hood latch for instance. Not all hood latches would be this silver gray color. Some might be a black oxide finish. Some might be painted to match the car and so on. So again it's knowing what needs to be and what is correct. Especially

if you're going to show the car if you're not going to show the car all doesn't make any difference. Just do whatever makes you feel good. And back to that business about practicing. Well you certainly wouldn't want a panel to wind up looking like this with the dry spots and so on. The only way that you get these to work right is by using the product on some test panels. Oh here's some interesting stuff. Cadmium plating Eastwood has this combination of finishes to reconstruct what looks like real cadmium plating. And here's something else. Headers are always nasty looking under the hood of a car but with a high temp coating you can make them look good and they will stay looking good. So do your homework and you can have a restoration that will either please you or please the judges. If you have a question or a comment 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. Our car of the week is a rare little 1968 Saab Sunit before owned by Greg Russell of a rural Colorado one of just sixteen hundred eleven produced between one thousand sixty seven and one thousand sixty nine. This little baby sports a fiberglass body a German built Ford V for engine and front wheel drive. Now if your baby has wheels We'd love to see it. Just send two good color photos to Motor Week Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. 1 1 thanks of Range Rovers the thoughts are usually accompanied by images of genteel society. The lush English countryside or the queen mom being spirited around London. Recently Craig saying hasta Range Rover to places the Queen Mother would fear to tread and found this high brow machine to be one bloody tough customer.

Some of the most challenging and spectacular vistas on earth can be found here in North America's Rocky Mountain range. That is why in 1989 Land Rover North America chose to reverse the state of Colorado from north to south entirely off road. The event was known as The Great Divide expedition. And it marked the beginning of a new era of ecologically responsible off road adventures. The great divide even 10 years ago was the hallmark event for land or North America. The company was still very new and it was an opportunity to take exquisite vehicles range rovers up and down some hills that no one thought you could really drive on these type of vehicles on it was an eye opener for a lot of journalists and it really helped define what the company is today a company about a venture company about Texas. That's why ten years later I was pleased to participate in a commemorative tour that celebrated the 10th anniversary of the great divide expedition.

Along with a handful of all the journalists I would be taking the high road. As we tread ever so lightly among nature's vast expanses to tread lightly program. I actually started in 1989 when the first great divide program. And we were a founder of the program with the with the US Forest Service. It's an awareness program to make people aware that if we abuse the land it will be closed off to us we will have use of the trails that we ran in this past week. And modern sport utility vehicles are more environmentally compatible than ever before. Advances in technology such as sophisticated four wheel drive with traction control have virtually eliminated the spinning of tires which led in the past to soil erosion. Of course those same advances can lead intrepid off roaders to even greater challenges than ever before. This is not some mountain goats don't go up this trail.

Little did I know that. One of the amazing challenges lay ahead. Using absolutely stock range rovers. We went places where it was almost impossible to walk let alone drive. We would land rover products. The first thing you see in the design process is that it has to function off the road. It has to be class leading off the road. We feel that's our home our. Land Rovers again their hallmarks are the travel wheel suspension advance system such as traction control for the four wheel drive to make a very capable off road. All the driver really needs to do is point the vehicle in drive and leave the work up to the vehicle of the lever. Easier said than done Bob. Still the Range Rovers we were driving gave amazing intro which was pretty important considering where we were driving. Let me just tell you this is a tad intimidating. Because. Over there is quite a drop.

And. If you fell over the edge Your clothes would be out of style before you hit bottom. The minor risks involved are more than compensated for by the incredible adventure and sheer beauty we encountered. This is what responsible Modern off roading is really all about. Working in conjunction with the U.S. Forest Service and practicing our best tread lightly techniques the Great Divide commemorative expedition really took nothing from the land but photographs and memories. From great virgin forests to windswept and barren mountain peaks. We experience nature as most of us had never before imagined. I only hope that Land Rover and their amazing off road vehicles will repeat this type of trip in the future so that I may experience the wonder all over again. This second generation 2000 Subaru Outback Ltd it's a logical addition to our

motor rig long term grotesquely. The original Outback was the concept of a rugged all road all weather all wheel drive station wagon to the masses. They all knew 2000 al-Bakr finds that concept in almost every manner. The styling is or fine the interiors refine engine performance and refine chassis stiffness as are both available all real drive systems. This solid and silent outback outperforms its predecessor and almost every way yet it is still as familiar as your best. Friend. And best friend met in five months and seven thousand five hundred seventy three miles has been totally trouble free and returns a most user friendly twenty two point three mpg if you're driving your traditional SUV that's got to make you green with envy every time you pay today's higher gas. Prices. Log book comments are mostly praises. One staffer wrote after a month of vacation. I'm even more convinced that this is an excellent car for singles or family. I hauled everything from furniture to trees to a full load of

friends and never once wished for a larger sport you are alpaca also handled our Silvia's days with ease. Although the 16 inch Firestone tires did tend to clog up with snow faster than the more aggressive 15 it's Michelin's on the first outback we tested four years ago. On the other hand in the rain. The Outback is the model of confidence with a standard 4 channel all this ABS system. One of the best and least intrusive on the market confidence is a big selling point of the Toyota Tundra pickup and the Nissan Xterra SUV. And we'll see if it shaken or not on our next motor week long term road test update. Time now for a general purpose novice as you brings us up to date on all the latest Motor News. For two years enthusiasts have waited for Porsche to release the new 911 Turbo. Well now it's here and it looks like it was well worth the wait. Based on a heavily modified version of the current 9 9 6 platform the 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo is bigger bolder and more sophisticated than ever before and more powerful the

liquid cooled 3.6 liter twin turbo flat 6 engine makes four hundred twenty horsepower and four hundred thirteen pound feet of torque while not big gains from the previous 911 Turbo. The torque curve is now steeper and broader with peak power available from 20 700 rpm up which we put to good use on the narrow roads of the south of Spain where we first drove the 911 Turbo. The 911 pulls through all six gears or five if you order the first time automatic tiptronic guess. Factory numbers of 0 to 60 miles per hour and four point two seconds with a top speed of one hundred eighty nine C more than possible. Power is delivered to the pavement through Porsches most efficient will drive yet. Power to the front wheels ranges from 5 percent in normal driving to 40 percent when traction is scarce. The drive system is electronically linked to Porsche stability management system. For proper power delivery no matter the attitude of the car which is generally pointed the way the driver wants thanks to the telepathic steering and lowered MacPherson front and multi-lingual

suspension derived from the 9/11 GTA 3 race car. As for the massive display TCS with fixed mana block four piston calipers ceramic discs are an option. Together they deliver a driving experience that is remarkably secure and fearless. The 18 inch rims do transmit most jolts directly to your seat but it never upset the car or our stomachs outside. The latest 911 Turbo boasts a wider aerodynamic look that is tamer than previous 911 turbos. It relies on complex curves rather than on sharp angles and appendages to project its awesome power statement. Even the legendary whale tail spoiler is minimized replaced by a hydraulic extendable wing that deploys at 75 miles per hour. And spending a very fulfilling day driving the new 911 Turbo. We can truthfully report. That it's the most seamless blending of raw power and sophistication that Porsche has ever produced and for that matter. Anyone else. The 2001 Porsche 911 Turbo arrives in dealer showrooms

this fall with a base price of one hundred eleven thousand seven hundred twenty five dollars and that's it for this week's Motor News. Recently while on safari in the frozen Savannah's of North America our operatives disguised as fun loving tourists snapped these photos of day use first four door SUV which could be on the market as early as next year. About the size of Ford's explore this beast will have four wheel drive capability and probably be powered by four and six cylinder engines. The name is not yet been determined but De You officials have confirmed it will not be called the zebra. When we first tested Oldsmobile Alero coupe and sedan 18 months ago we praised its tight nimble handling. It's punching four and six cylinder power plants and it's very competitive pricing. But at the time a four speed automatic was the only transmission and we felt that a manual would go a long way in enhancing the Alero

sporting nature. Well apparently so did Osmo Bale. Now the LRO comes standard with a get track five speed manual. So now that we've gotten our wish were we right. Of course we were. We know about these kinds of things right. But seriously all inflated sense of self-importance aside I will admit to great fun being had with bringing out the powerband and the 2000 also below but the eight of us usually acquired five speed manual transmission. But as is usually the case when you get what you wish for you find out you want more of a match with a 4 cylinder is fine for starters. A V-6 would be better. Still the Twin Cam 16 about 2.4 leader 4 with 150 or so per hour and 155 pound feet of torque is nearly as large and powerful as the V-6 is that some import brand competitors brand it and the Alero is a lot less money.

It told us the sixty eight point three seconds trimming three tenths off our runway clock early in the year when testing the four cylinder four speed automatic Alero the quarter mile was conquered in sixteen point two seconds and eighty seven miles per hour. We like the way the torquey big for buying our polls strongly and consistently throughout the powerband the gearing of the Get seems well matched. If only a little more effort could be made taking some of the rubbery feel out of the cable should we have less restrained praise when it comes to the handling characteristics as the geometry of the Macpherson strut and try league rear suspension has been dialed in to produce a nearly neutral handling front wheel drive car. Indeed it's not until pushed in our emergency lane change exercise that the road demonstrates the cornering ports associated with having so much hardware over the front wheels with speed sensitive rack and pinion steering delivers quick and precise turn ins with a moderate amount of feedback. Any roll bars have front and rear keep the body roll in check. Although our testers noted feeling tossed around during side to side transitions.

But unless you're cutting cones in a construction zone that will be a problem when you're ensuring compliance suspension and 170 protections associated with back road transit. And while the interstate drive is slightly choppy it's not annoying enhancing the driving revery is a comfortable ergonomically cabin and the fact you can get the sedan and Coupe are GOP. Tester came with a cone of cloth covering the supporter front also came with the optional six way power front seat for the driver that faces a standard tilting steering wheel the leather wrapping comes courtesy of an option package and an easily read cluster of gauges. Came with the optional 100 watt dynamic bass audio system with an auto reverse cassette deck CD player and six speaker layout. It's well worth the extra 350 bucks. It along with a logically placed climate controls on a neat feature simple easy to operate controls several of the staff six footers remarked on the Romanists

and some of that room this carries over into the coops where as well. There you'll find nearly the same room as offered by the Alero sedan behind a split folding seat back you'll find a most generous fourteen point six cubic feet of grocery hauling trunk space you will need a whole lot more space than that when it comes to hauling the Alero to a stop. We average stuff from 60 in a scant 110 feet with the front and rear disk or will ABS system for getting high marks in pedal steel and stability. Ice on our tester is eighteen thousand one hundred eighty five. Throw in a couple of options were out the door first still modest one thousand eight hundred fifty dollars a slightly cheaper GX model is available and so is a top of the line. With the addition of the 5 speed manual transmission. I will. For more sporting a little truth and we're trying not to laugh hardly paranormal success go to our heads will be channeling thoughts of fires leading Alero with turbos B6 and close ratio six speed tranny

ports that you will build HQ fellow disciples are welcome to join in. I hope you'll join us next week for more motor week. When will slip behind the wheel of BMW is marvelous M5 and find our way and Nissan's new Pathfinder. Jennifer has not checks out the Ferrari challenge. Pat Goss has tips on keeping your car's interior pristine. Well I also have another long term road test update and all the latest Motor News. I'm John Davis we'll see you then. To learn more about Motor Week TV's original automotive magazine visit us online at PBS dot org or America Online keyword PBS motor week has been brought to you by Priceline dot com with Priceline dot com you name your own price for new cars. All makes and models of cars trucks sport utility vehicles minivans and more. When you log on to Priceline dot com you name your own price and buy the duplicate or truck bed coding kid the truck bed protection that you can apply yourself with rolled brush or spray. It's the rust

and impact resistant coating that fits any size bed. Duplicate truck bed coating kit and by pep boys no matter what you drive Pep Boys Over 27000 items in stock virtually any part for any car with all the name brands you know plus a service based af with certified technicians Pep Boys parts tires accessories service to order a video cassette of this program call 1 800 4 2 2 0 0 6 4. Or send one thousand ninety five plus 495 shipping and handling to Motor Week Post Office Box 5 5 7 4 2 Indianapolis Indiana 4 6 2 0 5. The. The. Good. The earth.

The boxes where. You. Was this. PBS.