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Here's
a very good reason to skip going
out to dinner once a month.
BY DAVE VANDERWERP, PHOTOGRAPHY
BY MORGAN J. SEGAL
October 2006
Here's
a very good reason to skip going
out to dinner once a month.
BY DAVE VANDERWERP, PHOTOGRAPHY
BY MORGAN J. SEGAL
October 2006
 Regularly
driving cars that are so impossibly
out of our price range makes it
difficult to be as sensitive to
the bottom line as someone signing
the loan agreement. But once in
a while, a car comes along with
a price that absolutely screams
at us. In this case, that number
is $2710 — the amount that
separates the 2007 260-hp Solstice
GXP from last year’s 177-hp
model.
Well,
Pontiac is charging five grand
over the base Solstice price,
or $25,995 in all, for a 47-percent
increase in horsepower and 57-percent
boost in torque with its new GXP.
That’s already a good deal,
but much of the optional gear
on the base Solstice, such as
a limited-slip differential, anti-lock
brakes, cruise control, and power
windows and locks — things
you’d want — is standard
on the GXP. So, really, it’s
just an extra $2710. Spread out
over a five-year loan, that works
out to an extra 50 bucks a month.
Skip going out to dinner once
a month, and you’re there.
This
2007 Solstice, and also the mechanically
similar Saturn Sky Red Line, packs
a punch of 260 horsepower and
260 pound-feet of torque from
a direct-injection turbocharged
and intercooled 2.0-liter version
of GM’s four-cylinder Ecotec.
Yes, the stodgy General is introducing
its first gasoline direct-injection
turbo at the same time as BMW.
Shocked?
The
Solstice has been a hit in its
first year, selling 11,546 copies
during the first six months of
2006, beating out the Mazda MX-5
Miata for roadster sales leader.
 When
we first drove the $20,000 two-seat
Solstice, we were won over by
its double-take-inducing styling,
unflappably rigid platform, and
competent handling. However, the
Solstice finished just shy of
the Mazda MX-5 in a December 2005
comparison test, in part due to
merely adequate power (177 horses)
from its somewhat harsh and lazy-to-rev
2.4-liter four-cylinder.
Besides
addressing that power complaint,
the GXP adds a stiffer suspension,
a taller axle ratio, and a shorter
third-gear ratio in the same five-speed
Aisin transmission. That new ratio
eliminates the previously large
gap between second and third gears,
and the base Solstice gets this
improvement as well. The stubby
shifter falls to hand and engages
positively but requires a little
more effort than we’d like;
a five-speed automatic is an $850
option. Stability control as standard
is another GXP addition, and it’s
not available on the base car.
It can be turned off, but even
when enabled, its intervention
threshold is satisfyingly high.
The
GXP looks mostly the same as the
standard Solstice, but a black
honeycomb front grille, a small
chin spoiler, and dual exhausts
distinguish the two. The four-wheel
disc brakes are unchanged, but
added grillework around the fog
lamps houses cooling ducts
that direct air to the front rotors.
 There’s
nothing like a big power boost
to enliven an already capable
chassis. Even though the GXP still
likes to understeer at the limit,
picking apart corners is much
more entertaining now that the
rear tires have a chance of breaking
loose under power. In fact, this
chassis so easily accommodates
the added power that we hope Pontiac
has plans to add at least another
50 horsepower, if not more. A
big flaw that will keep drivers
guessing, however, is nonlinear
steering with effort that doesn’t
seem to build appropriately.
The
engine is responsive, but it does
take a second to wake up from
idle, a penalty of the high-boost
turbo. After a startlingly abrupt
clutch engagement, the GXP pulls
smartly through the first two
gears, but by the top of third,
it starts to taper off. The sound
is now a constant moan as it oozes
through the revs; it’s not
invigorating, but gone is the
harshness as well as offensive
noise of the base Solstice. Interior
sound is 5 dBA quieter at wide-open
throttle.
Our
first acceleration times for the
GXP were somewhat slower than
Pontiac’s claims, and company
officials suspected our car may
have been delivered — and
then tested — with regular
fuel. After we retested with premium,
the GXP redeemed itself, blasting
to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds and through
the quarter-mile in 14.2 at 98
mph. Those times are big improvements
of 1.1 and 1.2 seconds, respectively,
over the base car. However, the
GXP requires two time-consuming
shifts to reach 60 mph, so it
often feels quicker than the numbers
show. It’s 0.1 second quicker
than a Boxster through the quarter-mile,
but it can’t quite keep
up with the lighter Honda S2000.
2007
Saturn Sky Red Line - Previews
Sky Red Line adds speed to sex
appeal.
BY STEVE SILER,
September 2006
 We
like the Saturn Sky on account
of its son-of-Corvette styling,
similarly slick interior and smooth
moves on twisty roads. However,
even from the get-go, we had significant
misgivings about other aspects
of this fetching roadster, and
its sister, the curvalicious Pontiac
Solstice.
With
the new Saturn Sky Red Line, which
we just sampled on a recent drive
through Santa Barbara’s
lovely wine country, Saturn has
rectified at least one of our
biggest complaints about the standard
Sky: lack of power. Indeed, the
new 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine,
endowed as it is with a monstrous
turbocharger, has 83 more horsepower
and 94 lb-ft more torque than
the 2.4-liter four-banger in the
standard Sky, which does remarkable
things for its character: not
only is this car a dancer in the
turns, but it’s a sprinter
in the straights. Saturn claims
a 0-60 time of 5.5 seconds with
a 13.9-second quarter mile at
100 mph. Believable? Sure. Fun?
Oh yeah.
Other
modifications include a slightly
stiffer suspension, a unique front
fascia with a different foglight/grille
treatment, as well as blackened
headlamp surrounds and a rear
bumper that has two fat rectangular
exhaust tips, a single reverse
lamp and a cute little “turbo”
badge on its cheek. Inside, the
Red Line gets leather wrapping
for that still-too-big steering
wheel, unique embroidery, metallic
sill plates, stainless steel pedal
covers and unique gauges with
a digital boost gauge in the Driver
Information Center.
Complaints
include the bucket seats that
have as much lumbar support as
a salad spoon, as well as the
pittance of storage either inside
the cabin or inside the clamshell
trunk. We hate that there’s
no way to flick and toss the top
into the trunk as you can with
the Mazda MX-5, as the top-stowing
process of a long-multi-step manual
affair. Oh well, you can’t
have everything.
But,
as the new Red Line shows us,
you sure can have fun with what
you've got.
2006
Chevrolet Corvette Z06 vs. 2006
Ferrari F430 vs. 2007 Porsche
911 Turbo - Comparison Tests
The
Sports-Car World Cup: Italy takes
on Germany and the U.S. on the
highways (and byways) of Germany.
Introduction
Third Place: 2006 Chevrolet Corvette
Z06
Second Place: 2007 Porsche 911
Turbo
First Place: 2006 Ferrari
F430
BY MARK GILLIES, PHOTOGRAPHY BY
MIKE VALENTE
 The
arrival of a new Porsche 911 Turbo
is an event that’s as significant
and riveting for car enthusiasts
as the winner of American Idol
seems to be for the majority of
adult Americans. The Turbo is
important because it has resided
at the pinnacle of the 911 line
since it first went on sale in
the U.S. in 1976 and has thus
been a perennial contender for
the title of best darned sports
car on the planet.
The
2007 Turbo is a development of
the Type 997 version of the 911,
which was introduced two years
ago in Carrera and Carrera S forms.
Externally, there’s little
chance of confusing it with its
lesser brethren, thanks to a huge
biplane rear wing, wider rear
wheel arches, stunning 19-inch
wheels, and more scoops than a
Baskin-Robbins shop. Inside, leather
swathes seemingly every surface,
but otherwise the car is differentiated
from cheaper 911s only by Turbo
graphics on the sills and gauges
and a unique shifter.
Of
course, the real reason the Turbo’s
base price of $123,695 is about
40 grand more than that of a Carrera
S is because it’s a showcase
for Porsche’s most high-tech
performance pieces. The horizontally
opposed 3.6-liter engine isn’t
actually the same one found in
the Carrera but is a development
of the dry-sump unit fitted in
the previous-generation Turbo
and GT3 and the new GT3. It has
a bigger bore and shorter stroke
than the Carrera engine and also
uses a separate crankcase and
cylinder blocks. (The Carrera
engine is cast with the crankcase
and cylinder blocks as one unit.)
In
common with the outgoing turbo
engine, VarioCam Plus variable
camshaft timing is used to alter
valve lift and timing, and the
exhaust valves are sodium filled
to aid cooling. Unlike in the
previous engine, the twin turbochargers
feature variable vanes. At low
rpm, the vanes close to speed
up the exhaust gases and reduce
turbo lag, but they open at higher
speeds for maximum power. The
turbo bearing cases are now water
cooled. The upshot is an output
of 480 horsepower and maximum
torque of 457 pound-feet. (With
the optional Sport Chrono package,
there’s an overboost function
that increases turbo pressure
by about 2.9 psi, giving maximum
torque of 502 pound-feet.)
Like
all 911 Turbos going back to the
1995 993, this one has all-wheel
drive. The outgoing model used
a center viscous coupling, but
the new car features an electromagnetically
controlled clutch pack at the
center differential. This is a
major component of the Porsche
Traction Management system. Reading
data from the onboard sensors,
PTM shunts torque between the
front and rear axles to reduce
understeer or oversteer, to preload
the clutch for maximum traction
at launch, or to minimize wheelspin
on slippery surfaces. The Turbo
also has the Porsche Stability
Management (PSM) and Porsche Active
Suspension Management (PASM) stability-control
and electronic-damping systems.
A rear-locking differential is
optional (our car had it) on models
fitted with the six-speed manual
transmission, but not on cars
that have the five-speed Tiptronic
manumatic.
The Sports-Car World Cup
Introduction
Third Place: 2006 Chevrolet Corvette
Z06
Second Place: 2007 Porsche 911
Turbo
First Place: 2006 Ferrari F430
 Taking
its cue from the Carrera GT, the
Turbo has six-piston front-brake
calipers, which here act on 13.8-inch-diameter
vented discs. There’s the
option of even larger 15.0-inch
discs with the $8840 ceramic composite
option. Thanks partly to aluminum
doors, the new Turbo weighs about
the same as the outgoing car,
but it’s still the porker
of this group at 3514 pounds.
We
were expecting the ’07 Turbo
to be special, but just how good
is it? To find out, we traveled
to Germany and brought along a
Ferrari F430 and Chevrolet Corvette
Z06 for comparison. Those both
provide similar amounts of horsepower
and performance for wildly differing
amounts of money — a base
of $65,690 for the 505-hp Corvette
and a whopping $174,535 for the
483-hp F430.
For
various reasons, Ferrari couldn’t
provide us with a car because
the company was at full stretch
with the launch of the 599GTB,
but we suspect it was gun-shy
about putting its car up against
the Corvette. However, Gerrit
Schumann, an Internet entrepreneur
we know in Germany, generously
lent us his car for a couple of
days. He wasn’t too keen
on our running standing starts,
having fried a clutch when using
the launch-control function, so
we took the standing-start acceleration
and braking results from our “Lords
of Envy” comparison [C/D,
August 2005]. In Europe, we stormed
the German autobahns and back
roads and tested at the magnificent
Papenburg facility in northern
Germany, which features a 7.6-mile-long
high-speed oval and a replica
of the short course at Hockenheim,
home of the German Grand Prix.
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