Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:31:35 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Alan Wellikoff :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Alan+Wellikoff istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/ford-freestyle-mercurial-if-not-quite-a-mercury/11525/ Fri, 1 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EST Freestyle. Sure, it's a name implying a certain versatility, but it's also one from which you can infer something of this vehicle's mercurial nature. Based on the same Volvo-developed platform as was the Ford Five Hundred, you can reasonably view the Freestyle as the Five Hundred's car-like station wagon. Looking at it, though, we see a midsize SUV; inside, it resembles a seven-passenger minivan. In fact, Mercury's minivan, the Monterey, also uses the Freestyle chassis. The Freestyle's free... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/ford-five-hundred-a-revival-with-many-virtues/11196/ Fri, 25 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Back in the days of deep-offset hypoid axles and Cruise-O-Matic drives, Ford would offer up the suffix 500 to denote a chrome-clad exaltation of the previous year's line-topper. Thus, the Fairlane sired the Fairlane 500 and the Galaxie gave way to the Galaxie 500. The Galaxie 500 would go on to take on an XL designation, an example of the runaway badging that once brought us a Ford LTD Crown Victoria LX. No matter: Weighing down a fender with a string of names long enough to embarrass an exiled... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-ford-escape-hybrid-oxymoron-with-high-gas/10815/ Fri, 18 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST The price of a barrel of oil dropped slightly this week, but as it's still well over $50, indications are that, by summer, expensive gasoline might become the next story to dominate the airwaves. Of course, given the times, other luridly logo-ed events could eclipse news of a big gas hike. Even so, the driving public might not adapt to a spike in pump prices with the same equanimity as it did last season. On talk radio, callers might demand a September 11-style commission on the soaring price a... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/chryslers-300c-forward-look-without-the-fins/10470/ Fri, 11 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST In its latest effort to "re-invent the American sedan," Chrysler has reinvoked one of its greatest achievements. The 1957 Chrysler 300C represented the third year of Chrysler's first 300 series - which included the fastest American production cars then made. Resembling something designed in a grand mal of space rapture, the '57 300C came in sport coupe and convertible form to stand at the pinnacle of Chrysler's mid-century "Forward Look" ethic. Never mind the role that its 392 cubic-inch Hemi... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-chrysler-town-country-touring-quietly/10118/ Fri, 4 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST Life is a bit like an auto show: It always seems to be dazzling you with sexy creations, while more worthwhile offerings bide their time in the waking-world equivalent of a third floor viewing area. So it was with Chrysler's excellent but unsexy 2005 Town & Country minivan at a recent car show we attended. Of course, any minivan has a problem appearing sexy. And if its sad association with the shuttling of suburbanites weren't enough, anything made in North America is going to have to... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/pontiac-g6-is-a-great-car-especially-if-oprah/9758/ Fri, 25 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST The newly introduced Pontiac G6 got the best kind of send-off when Oprah gave 276 of them away to guests on her talk show. For the studio audience, receipt of this midsize bit of lucre meant a surprise tap on the shoulder from the IRS. For Pontiac, the celebrated maker of coupes, it turned out to be quite a coup. Until this season, when the G6 came along to phase it out, Pontiac was also the builder of Grand Ams. A popular, if hideously air-scooped, compact with a plastic hood, middling engine... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-lacrosse-puts-buick-back-in-the-game/9493/ Fri, 18 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST The sleek new LaCrosse takes the field as Buick's larger replacement for its similarly front-wheel-driven Century and Regal sedans. As the older cars' monikers imply, they had been around for quite some time. It makes you wonder if Buick isn't reworking its aging midsize family models into a breezily named new car as an inexpensive way to take on such competitors as the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord. Midsize Buick's marketing director, Mark Hines, responds that the LaCrosse's new handle is... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-hummer-h2-suts-military-look-is-merely/9120/ Fri, 11 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST When first we reviewed the Hummer H2, the country was about to embark upon the Iraq war. Now the military-style geschäftwagen reports back, front and center. We're not talking about the humvee-derived Hummer H1, but rather the H2, which looks military, but only as a display of homefront bravado. And while the world has added a couple of democracies since the time we first reviewed this truck, the new H2 SUT has only the addition of a tiny 3-by-5-foot pickup style cargo bed at which to point... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-cadillac-sts-the-advance-of-seville-ization/8759/ Fri, 4 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST From the time that Elvis was handing Sevilles out to showgirls, Cadillac has been promising to deliver sedans with the performance to match certain well-bought European brands. It did this in the belief that those Americans so Euro-besotted they'd drink a Mad Cow milkshake if it came from Provence would also buy an American car if it had the superior traits of a Mercedes or BMW. Thus, the Seville engaged in an ongoing effort to halve the qualitative distance between itself and these cars - a... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/with-the-2005-s40-volvo-rules-and-rolls/8404/ Fri, 28 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST Volvo, which means "I roll" in Latin, introduced the 2005 S40 last year as evidence that it also knows a thing or two about how to rule. The compact S40 incorporates all the virtues of performance, safety, and supernal good looks we've come to expect to find bolted onto Volvo's Scandinavian nameplate. With this car, all these qualities are available in a more affordable sport sedan package. How much more affordable? Well, the $23,000 base price of one of the new Belgian-built S40s runs about... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/chevrolet-ssr-has-plenty-of-surface-style/8082/ Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST In a single package, the Chevrolet SSR expresses the national yen for speed, feigned utility, top-down driving, and the compound curves of yore. In fact, our arrival at the Greenwood Country Diner was enough to make every farmer, country gent, waitress, and cook drop what they were doing to come out and gaze at the pickup in an all-American tableau of mute admiration. Inside the abandoned eatery, pots of coffee blackened on hotplates - but out in the lot, we all feasted our eyes on Chevy's... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/kia-gets-generous-with-its-2005-spectra/7739/ Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST The four-door Spectra sedan is Kia's lower-priced alternative to such cars as the Ford Focus, Honda Civic, and Toyota Corolla, which, to paraphrase the late Rodney Dangerfield, is a tough crowd to go up against, particularly after receiving a poor frontal collision rating by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. But the Spectra answers whatever advantages these Japanese and American competitors might offer in terms of refinement and resale value with its low pricing, impressive... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-volvo-v50-has-style-and-drive/7394/ Fri, 7 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST From the forward thrust of its fish mouth grill back across its sleek flanks and raffish roofline, the new Volvo V50's function-chasing form generates emotion by scorning emotionalism. First, it's a station wagon - that is, a two-box vehicle designed for the optimal use of its space. Now there's a quaint concept in a world in which "town homes" are built on the scale of old insurance company headquarters and television ads hawk soda by showing mile-high Gen-Zs diving over mountain ranges in a... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-lexus-rx-330-sets-the-standard-in-its-class/7040/ Fri, 31 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Well, the RX 330, Lexus's near-flawless crossover SUV, is back for another model year. Little wonder, too, as the popular five-seater that takes on the likes of the Acura MDX, Cadillac SRX, BMW X5, Infiniti FX (and, we suppose, any midsize premium sport-ute daring to show up with an "X" emblazoned somewhere on its nameplate), has sold pretty well. While we can now report that - tada! - a standard-equipment-powered rear lift gate distinguishes the 2005 RX from its immediate predecessor, it's... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/subarus-changing-legacy-is-apparent-in-the-2005/6790/ Fri, 24 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Once the preferred transport of hacky-sackkicking New Agers, Subarus have dawned upon a new age of their own. Consider the 2005 Legacy. The wheelbase and track have been increased not only to improve the midsize car's ride, but its handling and interior space as well. The Subaru's engine now also sits farther down, lowering the car's center of gravity for reduced lean in tight curves. Similarly, redesigns of both front and rear suspensions further benefit handling while at the same time... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-mini-cooper-convertible-a-small-wonder/6476/ Fri, 17 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST The Mini began as the British Motor Corporation's answer to the European "bubble cars" (including BMW's hilarious "Gogomobile") launched at the end of the 1950s. As eccentrically English as Orwellian socialism, the car reflected designer Alec Issigonis's goal to provide room for four adults and their luggage in the smallest space possible. He achieved this by outfitting the car with a traverse mounted engine and front-wheel drive system - a daring bit of engineering for its day. But it was the... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2004-infiniti-qx56-a-large-and-luxurious-suv/6141/ Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Just look at all 5,631 pounds of the new Infiniti QX56, with its Freightliner grille, oddly contoured roof, and canted C-pillar that makes the truck's rear section resemble a soldered-on portion of trailer. You have to wonder just what Nissan's designers were thinking before they set out to style the thing. Well - as it turns out they were thinking, "Let's bring together as many American focus groups as possible so to learn just what upper-middle-class Americans want a luxury SUV to look like."... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/smooth-and-stylish-scion-tc/5767/ Fri, 3 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST The introduction of the Scion tC coincides with Toyota's extending sales of its new marque from coast to coast. The tC sport coupe is a two door hatchback that will supplement Scion's entry-level xA and boxy xB in reaching out to the American youth market. The car, which the government rates as getting between 23 and 30 miles a gallon, is larger than Toyota's sporty Celica and aims at offering enough style, performance, and quality to make it competitive with BMW's Mini-Cooper and Acura's RSX... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/aristocratic-but-rugged-2005-range-rover-hse/5425/ Fri, 26 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Twice I've seen the Queen of England driving. The first was in some grainy WWII footage, and the uniformed Elizabeth, then a pretty princess, was whipping past home-front hedgerows in what was probably a lend-lease Dodge Power Wagon. The second shot was taken more than two generations later. The Queen, her royal visage framed by a headscarf, was doggedly making tracks down a muddy estate road in a Range Rover. Of course, that Range Rover was not the 2005 model reviewed here. Her Majesty's... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/heavy-duty-hard-hauling-2005-toyota-tundra/5092/ Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST You load 16 Tundras, and what do you get? Well, 743 cubic feet of load space for one thing. It's an area seemingly big enough to provide your pickups' combined cargo beds with an Arctic wilderness designation and subsequent petition for oil drilling rights. Come to think of it, that could be good news, as each unit of your 36-ton fleet's going to be burning fuel at a rate of between 15 to 18 miles a gallon. You also get combined hauling capacity of 113,600 pounds (that's 7,100 a truck), and 64... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/elegantly-engineered-2005-mercedes-clk500-coupe/4759/ Fri, 12 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST It was starting to rain as we drove the new Mercedes CLK500 coupe, so figuring we'd take it easy, we slowed down to let the passing signs write their own song of the open road. Turn Right to Eighty-Three Make a Winning Bet Welcome Scott and Barbralee Slippery when Wet There was no ensuing Burma Shave sign, so we took the slippery-when-wet sign as an indication of the roadbed's condition and not that of newlyweds Barbralee and Scott. Good thing, too, for the now glistening byway was at its... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/audi-a4-comes-painfully-close-to-perfection/4390/ Fri, 5 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Here's advice for those in search of l'amour as well as l'automobile: When confronted with something (or someone) that's as painfully near perfect as is the Audi A4 Avant, you can regain lost composure by focusing on its minor flaws. In this way - depending on whether it's a person or a car that has you trying to reassert self-control - excessive nose hair or tire roar can be of useful service. In the Audi's case, we spotted three things that kept it from rolling atop its 18-inch wheels into a... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/hondas-new-civic-si-has-plenty-of-go/4026/ Fri, 29 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST Here's a vehicle for the civic minded who also want a car that can move. The Honda Civic Si hatchback has been around since 1986, when it debuted as a roomier alternative to the two-seat Civic CRX Si. Designated by its initials as being both sporting and fuel-injected, this car supplements Honda's lineup of outstanding sedans with an equally outstanding and racy - three door. This competes with VW's Golf GTI and Ford Focus's SVT subcompacts. All Civics are front-wheel driven, four-cylinder cars... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2004-volkswagen-golf-tdi-a-no-nonsense-well/3669/ Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST Regular readers of this column might recall that the Golf isn't the first Volkswagen TDI we've reviewed this year. Past columns critiquing the VW Passat and Jetta turbodiesels approvingly noted the cars' performance and fuel economy while using them as a basis for snide remarks about the part played by diesels in 1970s pop culture. For the benefit of less constant (or newly arrived) readers, we've assembled this handy summation of our conclusions: First, that diesel engines constitute an old... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/rugged-and-bursting-with-fun-the-2004-honda/3311/ Fri, 15 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST In a display of marketing confidence, Honda plucked the concept version of the Element from the auto show circuit to give it a real-world introduction in 2002. That year saw the appearance of several boxy retro dream car prototypes, and the Element's Pacific War lines made it stand out. In fact, Honda targeted this first Element at Gen-Y males who (as we implied in its review) would go for an SUV that looked like it served in wartime Borneo, even if they had no idea when that was. Save for the... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/diesel-goes-high-tech-with-the-2005-mercedes-benz/2950/ Fri, 8 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST Well Toto, we're not in a Kenworth anymore. In fact, there's never been a diesel quite like this one. In an automotive first, Mercedes began producing passenger diesels in 1936, three years before the one in which Toto and Dorothy ran in theaters. A period of worldwide strife followed, but soon after you could acquire Mercedes diesels here in America. Sales of these peaked in the 1980s, a victim of clean air legislation and the taint given all such engines by the General Motors versions of them... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/new-beetle-convertible-is-an-exercise-in-joy/2585/ Fri, 1 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST When 1930s Germany greeted the first preproduction Volkswagens, the coalscuttle-fendered cars were called KdF (or "Strength through Joy")-Wagens. Thus, the new German "people's" car laid claim to the idea of joyfulness even before the first regular model left the Bauhaus confines of its factory - and sooner than there was a production convertible in which to overrun surrounding countryside. That had to wait until the nasty business of 1930s countryside overrunning was definitively settled. The... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/silverado-ls-1500-hybrid-pickup-is-one-smooth-car/2247/ Fri, 24 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST Just when it seems safe to think of automotive hybrids as ephemeralized sylphs, along comes a hulking hybrid called the Chevrolet Silverado. This mobile oxymoron is a big American body-on-frame truck. It can roll into view with its Vortec V8 sounding, its four-speed automatics shifting, and its optional Quadrasteer four-wheel steering systems maneuvering about. The Silverado offers 57 cubic feet of cargo-box room, hauls up to 7,500 pounds of trailer weight, runs peripheral electric equipment on... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2004-ford-svt-cobra-coupe-a-piece-of-hotrod-heaven/1890/ Fri, 17 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST More Viper than mere pony car, the 2004 SVT Cobra is the most powerful regular-production Mustang Ford ever built. Ignore the two-plus configuration - the SVT Cobra is a sports car in the American fashion, with a supercharged V-8 that starts with a rumble and uncoils out of its basket at the first millimeter of accelerator travel. This motor, equipped with go-faster elements such as an air-to-water intercooler and aluminum-alloy cylinder heads, can produce 390 horsepower at 6,000 rpm. Working a... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-saab-9-2x-a-better-name-might-be-saabaru/1576/ Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST Let's start out by saying what anyone a scrap of car savvy can see for themselves: Saab's 9-2X is based on Subaru's all-wheel-drive subcompact, the highly regarded Impreza WRX. This move - undertaken to expedite Saab's entry into the market for sporty compacts now enjoyed by the Acura RSX and Volvo S40 - marries Europe's quirkiest cult-brand to that of Japan. The result is a distinctive (albeit conventionally powered) hybrid that can appeal to everyone from Eurocentric Bobos with a love for all... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/dodges-powerful-hard-driving-magnum-rt/1308/ Fri, 3 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST Alerting all to its "racing technology," this Dodge Magnum has an "RT" appended to its name. It's too bad there's no "Y" there for extra-Y chromosome. This full-size Dodge tends to have things - especially guy things - in excess. Forget for a moment the Dodge's HEMI V8 engine and 18-inch wheels - all that any doubter need do is look at the car. Beginning with a crosshair grille big enough to seem like the bug inhaler on a Durango truck, the rear-drive Magnum's got the 1970s styling to suggest... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-chrysler-pacifica-a-safe-and-luxurious-ride/942/ Fri, 27 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST When we reviewed the 2004 Chrysler Pacifica in these pages last year, we began by praising the midsize sport-ute for its innovative design, smart interior, and rakishly handsome styling. Then we finished with criticism for its woeful lack of grunt. For good and for ill, we can report that Chrysler's 2005 version of its Canadian-cobbled crossover hasn't forsaken these traits. However, that's not to say that the second-year Pacifica has nothing new to warrant your attention. First off, the... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2005-toyota-corolla-a-great-ride-at-a-nice-price/608/ Fri, 20 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST Kids today won't remember the Toyota Crown, but then neither will today's geezers. Now forgotten as a U.S.-market Toyota, it was the Crown's sad fate to have been the car replaced by the first stateside Corolla. The Crown hit the dusty trail in 1968. When its replacement came Coroll-ing along, it was hard to see how a subcompact with a name like an after-dinner cigar was going to do better than its regally ensconced forebear. However, by the time 1970 arrived, Toyota had upgraded the Corolla's... ALAN WELLIKOFF http://www.nysun.com/motoring/2004-pontiac-gto-coupe-a-revived-icon/190/ Fri, 30 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EST Just about every domestic make of car has its icons. Cadillac's pink El Dorados, Chrysler's art deco Airflow, and Lincoln's first Continental all come to mind. As for Pontiac - well, despite its decades of stripper Catalinas, Impala-based Parisiennes, and Bonnevilles with hood-ornaments that grotesquely affixed Chief Pontiac's head to what looked like the airframe of a Stratofortress; its iconic image is the legacy of a car that - like some mythic beast - was sired by a Tempest. The Tempest...