Found this oldie in a dark corner of the interwebs…

GTO

Go back to 1964. While GM is not thinking about much besides moving some people around at moderate speed, a few engineers at Pontiac have other ideas. Borrowing from Ferrari (more on that later), they designed an option package for the mild-mannered Tempest. Ignoring GM’s self-imposed displacement limit of 330 cubes, they pulled a 389 cubic inch V8, new steering, and a funky dual exhaust together for an option package they would call “GTO”. As the line grew and matured, a manual transmission, improved rear end, and stronger styling would be added. This first of the sleepers, the GTO would take America by storm, outselling even the wildest expectations of the engineers.

Gran turismo omologato

Go back to 1962. You will find a Ferrari that wasn’t just a track car. One of the first few supercars, nitro you could take out on a date and bring home without worrying about the aftermath. A car you could drive to work on weekdays and wring out on the track on weekends. True homologation (omologato) was a bit questionable, with only 42 of the required 100 cars (for GT qualification) actually being built. Somehow this was overlooked in the racing circles, and Ferrari went on to torture opponents at race time. The Scaglietti coupe remains one of the most beautiful automotive designs to ever find its way into traffic.

Grand touring, homologated

Homologation is the process of making a car street legal. The Ferrari was homologated to participate in the particular racing class it was destined for. While some may question the roadworthiness of any Italian cars, it is always a concern of the manufacturers to have the cars meet any safety or other regulatory guidelines for driving on public highways by lay drivers. Homologation can mean adjusting the power to weight ratio, adding emissions controls, even modifying the traction control components. Homologation also means proving that the car is a true production model, not a one-off. Hence the 100 car requirement in the case of the Ferrari GTO.

The Pontiac GTO bore little resemblance to the Ferrari GTO. Not a race car, not even race-bred, it was a glorified passenger coupe that could go very fast and do it without attracting attention. With a final production run of over 32 000 in its first year, the homologation requirements for GT class racing were surely met! The Pontiac GTO was also assembled in the opposite direction of the Ferrari – chassis first, drivetrain second. It is generally clear to car enthusiasts that Ferrari operates in the other direction.

I have recently become very interested in homologation, largely because I have only recently learned what it meant. I have also been thinking about the unfortunate and impending demise of the W8 engine in the Passat, so I got around to tracing its lineage.

The W-series program seems to have started with the Nardo, a W12-based GT car which will never see real production. The goal of the Nardo program (named after the track on which many world records for speed were set by the car) was to produce a compact engine that would produce a maximum horsepower to weight ratio. With such a compact and powerful drivetrain available, homologation was the next step for the engineers at Volkswagen.

Street legal road racer

With the largest production vehicle at the time being the Passat (the Phaeton was still on the drawing board), power-to-weight ratio and engine bay limitations were examined and four cylinders were lopped off the W12 leaving the W8. The Passat chassis had been proven out in track circles through the V8STAR series, although not fitted with the W8 motor. A six speed manual transmission was added (likely from the Nardo program considering the weak stock clutches in other Passats) with four wheel traction to handle the power. Big brakes suitable for stopping such power completed the new drivetrain package. With the conveniently 4Motion Passat chassis readily available, the new drivetrain was inserted and a performance beast was born in the form of the W8 Sport option package on the venerable Passat.

Like the Ferrari, the Passat W8 Sport started with a motor. Like the Pontiac, the choice of chassis was an unassuming, nearly invisible family sedan. Given the introduction of the Rabbit GTi some 25 years ago, one would think that VW would remember their past success in making street legal road racers. The irony is not lost on this writer.

I suppose I’m mostly disappointed about the impending demise of the W8 Sport Passat because it was a GTO in both senses – a homologated grand touring machine packed into an otherwise unassuming package. A sleeper of the grandest proportions. I’m particularly upset about losing the wagons. The Americans have never had the guts to produce such an extreme vehicle. The Dodge Magnum is their best effort so far, but there is no stick (or even SMG) option. I find that to be a serious flaw.

I’m also sad that I didn’t realize how much could have been made of the car, particularly in advertising it. The ads for the W8 Passats flat-out sucked, but a phone call to the right people with mention of ‘GTO’ could have been made. I kick myself for not seeing it sooner, not figuring out how to make the program a success in the US. Nostalgia is a powerful tool, and VW has used it wisely in the New Beetle program. Why not haul it out again for this most glorious of cars? I don’t know.

So, goodbye, Passat GTO. You never really were, but I will miss you anyway.

You see it in car ads all over the net:

“Driven to church every Sunday by a little old lady”

“Grandma-driven”

“My elderly aunt had it for the last ten years and only put about 20K miles on it”

I recently took possession of a car driven by a little old lady – my mother-in-law. I have a new view on what “little old lady driven” means.

First, lets discuss the interior. A Little Old Lady is probably pretty fastidious, that’s how she got to be so old in the first place, so the interior is probably kind of clean. It might even smell like perfume. But she’s not as strong as she used to be, and getting in and out can be a chore. Look for wear and tear on any surface that could potentially be used a hand-hold. Cubbies suffer too, because as dexterity fails, it gets more difficult to operate the opening and closing mechanisms. Good bye, $250 center stack trim….. Hello permanent creases in the upholstery from the box of stuff that never made it to Goodwill….

Now, on to the drivetrain. The mysterious “O/D Off” button was never touched, and neither was the RPM range over about 3K. You’re going to be blowing carbon out that motor for a month. Check the suspension, too, because as vision fails, so does the ability to recognize potholes. CV joints and wheel bearings can take a particular beating. I’m still sorting out what the squeak in the driver’s front wheel is.

That limited vision? The slowed reflexes? The deteriorating range of motion? Oh, man. They all add up to one thing – “I didn’t/couldn’t see it!”, and that means paint. All over the body. Usually belonging to other vehicles and stationary objects. The tears of a hundred parking bollards in this case. Plan on at least a solid eight hours of wheel work just to get the worst of it off the sheet metal. The plastic bumpers might be a lost cause, and we’re not even at the scratches yet.

If the paint is suffering, you can be sure the metal is, too. Look for misaligned panels (what? Oh, no, she/I never hit anything!), deep scratches, and other small dings that throw some serious shade on Grandma’s health condition.

Needless to say, this could have been a total cream puff, but in reality, it’s a damn mess. Because little old lady. Next time you read that in an ad, think twice. You don’t want to deal with parking bollard tears. They kind of melt into the paint and stay there.

Urgh, another rental. Wait, I have a blog, so I can tell you all about it!

I got to Enterprise yesterday and was asked if I wanted to upgrade to something roomier than the midsize I booked. Uh, no. Thank you, but no. I asked for something smaller, and the manager just sighed, wandered off, and eventually handed over the keys to a brand new (seriously – 102.3 miles on the odometer) 2017 Hyundai Elantra. I took it home, loaded up my stuff, and headed out to visit a plant in the middle of OH. Possibly the most boring road trip ever.

The stripper rental car was doomed when Volkswagen decreed in the early 90s that all cars shipped over to our shores should have at a minimum air conditioning. By the early 2000s, Honda had caught on, and by the mid-2000s, it was almost impossible to find a true stripper any more. There isn’t even a delete option for most automotive features now, so good luck with sweating. All this change has meant that your average rental car is now actually a decent place to be, like this Elantra.

The Elantra I got was a bit of a surprise to me. The 2016 was ok, but not something I would consider renting again. The 2017 has a few tricks up its sleeve that make it a particularly good choice at the counter, the first being the incredibly adjustable front seat. Yes, I am swooning about a seat that is otherwise kind of stiff, not particularly supportive, and not really pretty either. The shear range of positioning is what makes this seat so great: in fact, the entire ergos for the car are far better than I expected, and frankly, might set a standard. The vertical adjust on the driver’s seat is nearly six inches. This means that I, as a person who does not enjoy the Actros or Mack seating position, can get the seat (and my H point) down to somewhere sensible. Forward and backward are manually adjustable and also generous. The seat is missing lumbar adjust, something that would prevent me from purchasing the car. Regular notched seatback angle is also impressive in range.

Complementing the extreme seat manipulation is a very adjustable steering wheel. It pulls out about five inches and has significant up and down motion. While it might not look like an F1 car on the outside, those of us who prefer the F1 seating position can almost get there. And still see out of the greenhouse. One noteworthy feature – the seat is nearly perfectly in line with the steering column. Otherwise perfect ergonomics have been ruined by misalignment of these two critical parts, so it’s nice that Hyundai has taken care here.

The rear window has a nasty fogging effect from its internal lamination that obscured vision in the lower driver’s quadrant. At first, I thought I had the generous AC cranked too far up, but the rear defroster did not help. Some investigation and reduction in solar angle of incidence revealed the tell-tale dot pattern of optical adhesive. Otherwise, visibility was very good, even with the seat all the way down.

The stereo works pretty well, and was minimally difficult to figure out. The base stereo and button-intense control surface seems almost quaint in today’s world of full-color TFT touchpads. XM works as expected, with three bands available for presets. The preset function is super-easy to use. I would recommend this stereo for technophobes, it’s straight out of 1995, but with more words on the screen.

Climate control controls were scattered and took me a few minutes to sort out. Seriously, though, GM-level AC in this thing.

Riding down I75 in Detroit, the car started beeping at my, with no indication in the instrument binnacle of the source. I quickly learned how to operate the steering wheel controls, the various functions on the dash, and a few other odds and ends before realizing that my purse, coat, and adapter bag were enough weight to trigger the passenger airbag/seatbelt interlock and warning. Ooops. I swished my purse and coat to the floor and the beeping stopped. The angle of the late afternoon sun had made the warning light on the center stack very difficult to see.

The car struggled with grooved pavement and winds, with very unsteady tracking. The first one hundred miles or so of the two-hundred mile trip were difficult. Once I was through the grooves in Michigan and the construction zones in OH, the car started to settle down a bit. The sensitivity may be related to the tall-sidewall tyres the car is shod with, or to air in the steering rack. I don’t know, but it was super annoying and made an otherwise pleasant ride into a more stress than it should have been.

The engine is plenty powerful for rental abuse, and the transmission is remarkably not annoying. In sport mode. In regular and eco modes, it is a dog. Way too much lag off the line. Gear-hunting was rare, downshifts were smooth, and no clunks or lurches. No shifter weirdness because the shifter is like the radio – an artifact, but a very welcome and pleasant artifact. If it ain’t broke… you know, don’t “fix” it.

The interior is not upscale, but it’s also not downscale. It’s extremely neutral. Hyundai uses a better quality hard plastic and textures it to avoid surface glare. The upholstery is smooth, but looks to be a fine knit that may pill or pull. Time will tell. No one is going to mistake this thing for a Genesis, that is for sure, but it’s noticeably better than a Corolla. The trunk includes a rear seatback release button and is roomy.

It’s a car with decent looks and controls. It’s boring, but predictable. Overall, you won’t go appreciably wrong by selecting the 2017 Elantra at the rental counter.

(pics coming soon)