Motorweek; 1806

This time on a motorway. Another cab for the Corvette. A new interactive infinity and researching all right. So come drive with us next. Move to. TV's original automotive magazines brought to you by Castro's super clean cleaner the cleaner that has brake dust and grime from all types of wheels on contact no matter what age your car Castrol super clean all wheel cleaner and by Michelin. Makers of the zero pressure Michelin. Designed to let you drive up to 50 miles at 55 miles per hour with out air pressure. Just what you expect from Michelin. You're hosed. John Davis. Hello and welcome again to motorway. We're glad to have you with us as a nation of people on the go we've come to expect a lot from our

vehicles. We want them to be workhorses entertainment centers and even a temporary home away from home. But when it comes to high performance cars for many the credo is keep it simple. Well Speed brakes there's a new Chevrolet Corvette for 1999 that hears you loud and clear. Because the 1099 Corbat hard top was originally conceived as the car that bedpans were thought to have wanted for years Chevy planners envisioned a stripped down back to basics for that for true entry level sports car price. The reality of the final product however is not quite so simple. Chevy found that trying to be content a car is complex is the C-5 for that is easier said than done. The most obvious result of that process is the new solid roof which replaces the Corvette coupes removable top panel and large glass hatchback to give the hardtop a more upright profile with a longer rear

deck than the hatchback. A look similar to that of the Corvette convertible and means that like the convertible the hardtop gets a thirteen point five Civic but trunk that's over 40 percent smaller than the goo but it's still think are the most compact sedan. But while most Corvette owners don't need lots of trunk space they do want plenty of room and features for themselves. So Original plans to dump niceties like our windows didn't crank with Corvette vyle some bells and whistles were eliminated. But it's not back to basics. Our lots in cruise control also remain standard. The leather covered seats too but with one power adjustment or an AF movement the six way power adjustments were not even offered. And while there is a standard tilt the new power telescoping steering column is also not available nor is the new optional Head Up Display. But you still get to face the vets. Excellent analog gauge cluster. Air conditioning is also standard but without the Cuban convertibles dual zone control.

But music lovers listen up the entire stereo line is available to hard by the place where Chevrolet may no compromises is under the hard tops. Good they use is the same all aluminum 5.7 leader V8 engine as it simply delivers the same 345 horsepower and 350 pound feet of torque and to best use it the hard top comes with a manual gearbox. Normally a costly option as standard equipment. The automatic will not be offered right on Chevrolet and I hard with ninety two pounds less weight than they. Did from start to 60 in 5.2 seconds. The quarter mile class buy in thirteen point five seconds at 106 miles per hour. The reduced mass makes the heart the fastest of the new bets if only by a hair. And like all C fives we were delighted with the response of classic power. Every second or third shift was the only Deepak in an otherwise flawless drive train to get that and the rest of the car around corners.

Chevy has equipped the stiffer hard top chassis with its race ready Z fifty one suspension package buyers must do without the Cuban convertibles optional automatic damping control but they can add the new active handling traction system. But you must adapt to a noticeable reduction of ride comfort on public roads thanks to the sticker Springs larger stabilizer bars and bigger shocks. That plus the lower weight allows the hard top to handle like a smaller more connected sports car. Last grand tour more curved Konqueror. On our Test Track Lizzie 51 hard top really shines. This fifth generation Corvette sticks to the pavement like no poor back before and the hard top. The Pentagon and that's despite the two like feel of the Magnitsky are too variable effort power steering you dodge and weave around obstacles large and small like a frightened Jack Rabbit and the faster you go the more solid and responsive the hard top feel equally impressive are the breaks. An average of 107 people were required to stop from 60 thanks to the vet's huge

anti-lock equipped four wheel disk hardly entry level performance. But then if you've been listening carefully you know that the Corvette hard top has more in common with its fancier siblings than it was originally meant to the same goes for the price. The question mark carries a starting sticker of thirty eight thousand seven hundred seventy seven dollars. That's only three hundred ninety four dollars less than that of the coupe and even one option and you paid a price for fewer standard features but you do get the 6 speed so price won't make our list of hits though the superb Corvette engine the standard manual gearbox super sharp handling eye popping brakes and most serious sports car character do. Finding less favor with our staff is the only slightly lower price and resulting lowered levels just to save a few hundred dollars. But high price or low well stocked or deep content this is still a C-5 debt and in its purest hard top form even more of a growing dynamic driving.

Experience. Automobile magazine said that the heart is the heart with all of the trade offs. It's still not a truly stripped down street racer that a few fans might want but the 1999 Chevy Corvette heart is one heck of a serious sports car. And with the new millennium from missing more bloated sports and brain dead smart cars it's nice to know that someone is still listening to those of us who still love to drive. Coming up what we learn from crash and burn. Buying a used car is often compared to negotiating a minefield. One false step in that little cream puff can blow up in your face. So here to help you avoid the booby traps in your used car crusade is motor week's top tech Pat Goss. John sooner or later everybody needs to buy a car. And of course everyone would love to have a brand new car. But when they start looking at their budget you know a new car may not be in the in the picture because they can be very

expensive. So that means you start looking for a used car. Now is for sale by owner is that the best way to go. Well maybe maybe not. You see there are all kinds of people out here who pretend to be individuals selling their own cars who are actually dealers. They're what we call curb stoners and many of them are very very dishonest. The big thing is no matter how honest they are you're not going to get a guarantee or anything of the kind. One of the better places to buy a used car is from a new car dealer out of their used car lot. Now some of the things that you want to look for when you go out to buy this car one of the things that you don't look for for years people have been saying you look at the brake pedal pads and see if they're worn. Well if they are why of course you wouldn't want the car. You know what that pedal pad means if it's worn it means it's worn Nat's it it doesn't mean anything about the car because different driving habits will affect that in different ways. Forget it doesn't mean anything.

You want to look for things like Well what we see here we have on the underside of this hood overspray the car has been painted one an older car that's a plus. You know pain wears out over time. So an older car with new paint that's good newer car that's been repainted that generally means it's been in an accident walk away from it. OK now. Weatherstripping that's something you want to look for. Weather stripping is something that's difficult and expensive to replace. And if it is badly chewed up and worn well that means the car has probably been abused. Should you look in the newspaper Well you can get some kind of an idea as to what people are asking for cars as far as price goes. You have no idea what they are actually selling them for so it helps you a little bit. Should you rely on one of these books should it be the absolute gospel. No it should not. There are many books on the market. Each one of them will give you a different price for the same vehicle. You could average them and so on but the big thing is find a car that fits into your

budget and before you buy it you have to do through things number one. You have to have it checked by a technician. And number two you have to hand one of these. This is a carfax report. It tells the history of the automobile whether the odometer has probably been set back or not whether it's ever been salvaged or anything like that. Twenty bucks. Valuable information. And if you have a question write to me. If I select 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. Our car of the week is this very clean Oldsmobile Super 88 built in 1957 and I sure what Canada. It's owned by little money many of Sherbrooke Quebec and it features a Spanish Remick windchill pivot point suspension and textile interior. Now if you

have a car that stirs your nationalistic pride We'd love to see it. Just send two good color photos to Motor Week Owings Mills Maryland 2 1 1 1 7. Ask new car buyers to list their most important criteria when shopping for a new car and safety is usually right at the top of the list. And each year auto makers spend millions of dollars in research and testing and in an ongoing effort to meet consumer demands for safer transportation. This weekend while I Reporter Lisa Barrow looks at one car company whose safety research has taken them out of the lab and into the street. Sweden is famous for ice and snow but Gothenburg the second largest city in Sweden is also known as the headquarters of. In 1970 Volvo developed a traffic accident research program. Since that time they've investigated roughly 25000 accidents involving all of their models and the information they've gathered has been design engineer some of the safest cars on the road

today. Developing cost it's very important to understand what happens to the plants in different types of situations. And the only way to get this information is to look at the real accidents Vovo studies worldwide crash data that involves their vehicles. But locally within a 60 mile radius of Gothenburg. Crash investigators are actually called to the scene by police when there's a Valvo related accident with injuries. We start an investigation. The photo documentation exterior interior. Now after that follow up we're not showing. An inspection of the cars. What sort of things would you look for on the inside. Well it's very important to find out if the occupants a driver for instance have juiced the seat belts when it comes to the driver I would examine the steering outlets during heavy hay do and then after that we take the car out offshore to

our trash laboratory and there pick the thousand pieces of the safe to look at the different systems what has happened and also the information of probably the thoughts about the injuries to the occupants. My role in this team is to explain for the technicians the type of injury and the severity of the injuries. And together we try to find a connection between cause and effect. Interviews with crash victims and laboratory recreations of accidents also prove valuable in piecing the puzzle together. If the accident research team begins to see a pattern of injury to occupants It may mean a change in design. But one of the limitations we have to design around for example is the distance between the driver's foot. There's a steering wheel that has a driver on the front of the car that's the front wheels and I hear that's a critical distance that we'd like to maintain because of Nick in a crash situation. That's where we take up the the impact. So in

some companies designs will have a lot less of a front overhang to design around and some some cars can look rather sporty with a short front overhang. But we have to design around something a little longer and I think the safety aspect is very much a challenge for us. Although it is a Swedish company like to be seen as providing Swedish products. Sweden is a very caring society I think that cat comes out of safety is not there. We've extended our long term test of the dots to code a club cat s l t four by four by almost five months for two reasons one we needed a pickup to carry props around for Pat Goss two we like this truck a lot it is the perfect size not too big. It's really a mid-sized pick up a Dodge says the Dakota is the biggest of the compact and indeed it does have a full size bed plus for us it has been the single most reliable Chrysler product in the 18 year history of

motorways since April of last year we've logged twenty four thousand two hundred seven miles with just three minor clones of blown back up like you my CD player that refused to play and an oil pressure gauge. It is a bit slow to wake up in the morning. It turns out engine oil pressure is actually just fine and that's it. While we have groused about the fourteen point six mpg return by the twenty five point two liter V8 you'd be hard pressed to do that in any full size 4 by 4 pickup but it's rugged part time for my board system is capable of some serious off roading and doing that with the ride. Go turn your stomach. It's a great truck and we're going to miss this bit by. Taking the Dakota's place on our lot as the much anticipated Mitsubishi Galant sedan. At last the new mainstream family sedan with style. We can't wait to see how much substance there is to go with that style. And we will over the next year. But next week it's the doctor's turn if we put another motor week long term grotesque update.

From Sweden. Water. Lisa Beryl spends a lot of time on the open road but she always seems to make it back in time to keep us up to date on all the latest Motor News. With every automaker trying to cash in on the public's unquenchable thirst for sport utility vehicles the SUV segment now resembles a game of 52 pick up and drop the competition the new 1999 Land Rover Discovery series two. Now comes with an ace night in the hole. But to help you avoid one. A short for active cornering enhancement is a new system using sensors to measure lateral acceleration during cornering and steering maneuvers. Those sensors then trigger a hydraulic system that uses two piston lever devices to counter lateral body movement. Nearly eliminating body. Up to an exhilaration of point four Gs giving the discovery to a more stable field and greatly increasing the comfort of passengers especially those in the rear. Another Landrover exclusive is Hill Descent control with the push of a button when the vehicle is in low range. ATC automatically uses the braking

system to aid engine braking when descending steep rate. As long as there is no pressure on the throttle the system can be overridden by simply stepping on the brake pedal. If a slower descent is needed although still full time four wheel drive all differential locks have been eliminated replaced instead by a standard four wheel electronic traction control system that uses brake pressure to control wheel slippage and direct torque to the wheels with the most traction. A new discovery to also features electronic brake distribution. Set up that works together with ABS and automatically controls brake bias between the front and rear brakes giving the driver more control under heavy loads or when towing a new automatic self leveling rear suspension is also available although styling is decidedly evolutionary. The new discovery too is 6.5 inches longer and 3.8 inches wider front and rear tracks have also been widened to point one and two point nine inches respectively inside the dash and controls have been fresh in moderately and the rear now features new

forward facing jump seats. Three point seat belt and head restraints are present at all seating positions. And thanks to the larger body dimensions cargo space is up by fifteen point five cubic feet over the previous discovery. Under the hood the aging four leader V8 gets a new Thor induction system and a tronics 12:55 engine management system to source power to one hundred eighty eight and delivers two hundred fifty one pound feet of torque at 20 600 rpm. You should be able to discover the new 999 Landrover Discovery too in dealerships in late November. But pricing near or slightly lower than last year's levels and that's it for this week's Motor News. These latest photos from Honda show a finished prototype of the U.S. 2000 they all aluminum front engine roadster first seen at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1995 as the SS is expected to go on sale in the spring of 99 as a 2000 model. The x 2000 will be powered by a two liter VTech four cylinder capable of producing more

than 240 horsepower. Most of that power will hopefully find its way to the rear wheels. The six speed gearbox and give the German dominated two seat roadster segment hot new entry. It was back in November of 1989 that infinity Nissan's luxury car division opened shop and introduced its plush Q Forty five luxury sedan followed one year later by the near luxury G 20 while the Q 45 went on to establish itself as a force to be reckoned with. The G20 quickly settled mid-pack in a large field of luck so want to be. That is until his demise in 1996. Well guess what the G20 is back and now according to infinity it's a driver's car. But does the all new 1999 G-20 have what it takes to cut right to the chase. Yes. One look at this impressive list of standard equipment and the 1099 Infiniti G20

certainly appears ready to do so. Another look at the bottom line in the G20 is even more attractive as high content and reasonable price were two important characteristics. They caught our eye when we first encountered the G20 in 1990. To seventeen thousand five hundred dollars back then price of twenty two thousand four hundred ninety five dollars. It's still well within reason. In fact our top of the line g 20 touring model with the leather and convenience package rang up at twenty four thousand six hundred ten dollars which is not bad at all when you consider that it's just slightly higher than the base price of an Audi. But in today's highly competitive near luxury market it takes more than an impressive list of goodies and of matching price to win over new buyers styling can be equally important. And when it comes to distinguishing styling the G20 comes up short and it's not that it's unattractive based on Nissans European premier a sedan the G 20 beefy low slung air dam with its integrated fog lamps to stop by a

small rake chrome trim grille which sets the tone for the G20 overall win cheating wedge shaped profile that flows to the rear borders where the G20 T is for touring model. It's a sporty looking spoiler and so do a lot of other sports sedan pretenders out there and that's the problem. The g 20 could be one of any number of cars on the road. Slipped behind the wheel of the G20 riding on a two inch longer wheel base and offering more interior volume than its predecessor begins to distance itself from the other lookalikes. Equipped with the optional convenience package tester features leather faced bucket seat driver's car his comfort and support or adjustments for the pilot and heat for both front occupant leather wraps steering wheel a standard face is a well-designed dash with a sloping center stack. At the top of the stack or the climate controls will auto mode and just below the 100 watt Bose AM FM Cassette CD stereo system. Both have been moved

closer to the driver for any use. I also stated on the dual front and side airbags that protect both head and chest and side impact collisions. In the rear with thirty six point eight inches of headroom and thirty four point six inches of leg room. The g 20 is not spacious. It is comfortable however and room is average for a compact sedan and the 60 40 split seat back does forward for access to the large fourteen point two cubic feet of cargo space in the trunk. Under the hood the G20 offers only one power plant and it's the same as three years ago and all aluminum two liter dual overhead cam 16 four cylinder borrowed from the Nissan Sentra se ratings are one hundred forty horsepower and one hundred thirty two pound feet of torque. But one can choose between a four speed automatic or a 5 speed manual transmission line run with whiskey or banger with the 5 speed manual. Did manage to haul ass to 60 in a respectable 8.5 seconds and on our way to a sixteen point three

second 90 mph quarter mile. On our way down from 60 the 4 wheel disc or channel ABS equipped brakes for sports sedan capable bring us to a halt in a very stable 100 1000 feet abs back through the brake pedal was very active but non-threatening. There is no doubt the system is working for you and it took only a fast trip through the slalom to erase any doubt about the G-20 being a true sport sedan. The engine speed sensitive rack and pinion steering has a good on center wheel and just the right amount of understeer for predictable turnout. Time to side transitions are also predictable and reassuring. As the rear grip of the G20 is nothing short of astounding. And that's due to the new rear multi link beam suspension. It keeps the tires more upright in cornering and controls. Why do you roll in straight line driving on uneven surfaces. The original G-20 is unique multi link system with oil Springs and stabilizer bar still in place. Working together they enable the G20 to distance itself even further

from the rest of the luxury sports sedan want to be offering a nimble and compliant right under all circumstances. But is it enough for the 999 Infiniti G20 teeth to break completely free of the smothering masses of its class with no six cylinder engine available. Probably not but there is much more to a quality sports sedan then power and the Infiniti G20 t compensates with the balance of performance and luxury that is most impressive. And anyone who decides to own Infinity's new driver's car will find that that decision was very easy and a lot of fun to live with. I hope you'll join us next week for more motorways. Well test the all new 1999 Toyota Solara coupe and Ford's latest incarnation of the Windstar minivan. Plus tips on emissions testing from Pat Goss and what's all the rage at the 1999 Paris Auto Show. I'm John

Davis. Well see that. To learn more about Motorola TV's original automotive magazine. Visit us at PBS online at the Internet address on your screen. Motor Week has been brought to you by Castro super clean all wheel cleaner the cleaner that releases brake dust and road grime from all types of wheels on contact no matter what age your car Castrol super clean all wheel cleaner and by Michelin makers of the zero pressure Michelin. Designed to let you drive up to 50 miles at 55 miles per hour with out air pressure. Just what you expect from Michelin. To order a video cassette of this program call 1 800 4 2 2 0 0 6 4 4 send 1095 plus 495 shipping and handling to motorway Post Office Box 5 5 7 4 2 Indianapolis Indiana 4 6 2 0 5. This. Is PBS.