It’s Not a Radar Detector. It’s Trapster.
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If you've read our recent "War of the Worlds" supercar comparo (ZR1 v 599 v GT2 v GT-R), undoubtedly you noticed some decidedly non-standard graphics on the white-knight Ferrari 599 GTB. Kinda looks like, wait, is that a little blue cartoon police car stuck on there? And what’s that word below it -- Trapster? Has Ferrari changed the name for the 599 Fiorano?
Actually, Trapster is a new, geopositioning-based anti-ticket technology all driving enthusiasts will want to know about. Invented by the Ferrari's owner, computer whiz Pete Tenereillo of San Diego, California (the 599 makes a nice billboard, eh?), Trapster is designed to work with or even replace your radar detector. And it's free.
Here's how Trapster works: First, download the free app to your iPhone 3G, Blackberry, or Garmin/TomTom nav unit (other devices also support Trapster; check the company’s Web site -- www.trapster.com -- for more info). With Trapster installed, simply drive. Spot a radar cop or red-light camera up ahead? Just tap your phone/nav device to report the location of the trap to the Trapster community. Everyone in the MySpace-like social network benefits -- including you. Because Trapster is two-way, traps reported by other Trapster users are automatically called out to you (using voice warnings) whenever you get near them. Trapster monitors your location via the Skyhook Wireless Wi-Fi and cell-tower-location positioning system; the Skyhook info is also enhanced with GPS positioning data.
"Red light camera!" the voice on my iPhone cautioned as I drove down a Southern California street. Sure enough, up ahead I found the fixed camera unit, waiting patiently for a chance to drain me of some cash. Mobile radar cops are obviously harder to pin-down, but the live, constantly updated Trapster reports will get more and more accurate as more users join the family.
Does Trapster need thousands of users to work effectively? Not necessarily. Tenereillo tells me only about ten active users can effectively cover major urban roads. Sure, you can simply passively monitor the system, but Tenereillo says about 40 percent of Trapster users actively provide trap reports. Again, all you need to do is tap your mobile device to "file" a report. Yes, miscreants can try to "game" the system with false reports, but other users have the ability to rate trap reports (agree/disagree) to build confidence in the real ones.
Clearly, Trapster needs a large and involved user base for maximum effectiveness, but given the spirit of our great democracy, why shouldn't it work? In the 1970s, CB radios first tied truckers into an anti-"smokey" web -- now it's time for 21st Century iPhone and Blackberry owners to enjoy the same "united we stand" power. What's more, not even the best radar or lidar detectors can match the potential real-time, cop-ahead situational awareness offered by a lively Trapster network. Even the speed cops themselves stand to benefit: If drivers are being made even more aware of their presence -- and thus minding their speedometers -- aren't the police more effectively doing their jobs?
Go ahead and take Trapster for a test drive. You've got nothing to lose -- except your license.
2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year Contender: Hyundai Genesis
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Yogi Berra's great line, "deja vu all over again," has often been repurposed to automotive occasions, but it's hard to think of a better one than this case of the new Hyundai Genesis luxury sedan. Way back in 1989, Toyota introduced a big luxury sedan it called the Lexus LS 400 -- a car, Toyota declared, that would charge the imperial gates of M-B and BMW wearing nothing more than naked value, zenlike quality, and premium performance.
Where Yogi's deja vu comes in is that, almost 20 years later, Hyundai is not only reenacting Lexus's yellowing battle plan, but using it to do to Lexus what Lexus did to those one-time fat and happy German luxocar builders.
No, Hyundai's Genesis isn't a separate brand as Lexus is. But it's a car so apart from anything the Korean firm is associated with that it might as well be. Like those early Lexi, the Genesis has that same many-luxury-cars-morphed- into-one appearance. The shape is more Andy Williams than Placido Domingo. And of all the Genesis's many impersonated Lexus qualities, the most notable is its steering feel, which replicates the LS's highly oiled, precision-bearing, sensation, spot on.
So, too, the car's silky yet quick acceleration. In V-8-guise (a 290-horse V-6 comes standard), 60 mph can be dialed up in as little as 5.0 sec. Yet, even in ordinary go-with-the-flow acceleration, the Genesis's all-new 4.6L, 368-hp V-8 (*using premium fuel raises output to 375 hp and 333 lb-ft) is such a refined sweetheart that Deutschland's and Japan's brightest engineers ought to be sensing the hot breath of their South Korean counterparts on their necks right about now.
Does the Genesis have what it takes to score the 2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year honors? Find out on Nov. 18
What SUVs Are Meant For
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Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking once famously remarked: "No one needs a 911." Not many people need an SUV, either. Oh, sure, plenty of folks have convinced themselves they do, but in most cases what they actually buy is a high-riding station wagon with faintly macho styling: Some 50% of all SUVs sold in the U.S. are actually two-wheel-drive models, and so about as useful off the pavement as the Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Go figure.
I was thinking about this over the weekend as I tiptoed a Land Rover LR3 through a forest ablaze with fall color on the 8000 acre Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Tricky climbs, heart-stopping descents, deep waterholes, nasty ruts, chassis-twisting undulations: It was a walk in the park for the LR3, our 2005 Sport/Utility of the Year winner.
I learned to drive in an early 1960s Land Rover Series II with about a million miles on the clock and no synchro on first or second gears. It went damn near anywhere, that old Landie, but it was a visceral ride; all sweat and muscle when the going got tough. In the LR3, Land Rover's impressive Terrain Response System, which electronically links all the vehicle sub-systems -- suspension, differentials, throttle, transmission, braking -- and optimizes them to suit the surface you select from a menu on the center console, does most of the heavy lifting.
One thing hasn't changed, though: Although you might be travelling at little more than walking pace, serious off-roading is driving every bit as technical and challenging as hot-lapping a racetrack. You're constantly thinking about the physics at work in the interplay between vehicle and surface; always aiming to place each wheel with millimetric accuracy. The most notable difference is that, if you make a mistake off-roading, you usually have a lot more time to think about it as the consequences unfold before you in slow motion.
The Land Rover LR3 is a lot like a Porsche 911: Function has been transcended by fashion. Many owners buy the style or the badge rather than the ability; few have any real idea what their vehicle can do, and fewer still have gotten anywhere near the limits of its performance. Demonstrating to folks what the Land Rover badge really means is the idea behind the Land Rover Experience Driving School.
The Land Rover Experience Driving School at Biltmore Estate (it uses land around the stunning 250-room Biltmore House built by George W. Vanderbilt in the late 1800s) is one of four in North America. The others are in Manchester Village,Vermont, Carmel, California, and Montebello, Quebec. The schools offer everything from one-hour tasters for people who have never ventured off the blacktop, to full-day advanced winch-and-recovery techniques for those who understand that a four-wheel-drive vehicle, however accomplished, does not transcend the laws of physics.
As we noted during this year's Sport/Utility of the Year evaluation, the term SUV is now applied to everything from high-riding hot-rods (BMW X6, Infiniti FX) to 21st-century riffs on the traditional full-size station wagon (Ford Flex, Chevy Traverse). Form following marketing, I guess. Like a track day in a Porsche 911, my drive in the Land Rover LR3 at Biltmore Estate was a welcome reminder of a deeper truth, however: Form still follows function.
2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year Contender: Honda Fit
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Open the dictionary to "right car for the times," and you're likely to see a photo of the all-new 2009 Honda Fit subcompact. Version 1 (2006 in the U.S.) of Honda's cheeky five-seater quickly began selling far beyond its projected rate of 50,000 units per year. With the new, Generation II model, Honda may well move nearly twice that many.
The Fit is a ball to drive. The 1.5L four-cylinder, breathing via VTEC, spins to its 6600-rpm power peak (117 hp) like a puppy on the loose, urging the Fit from 0 to 60 mph in 8.3 sec. Sports-car thrust it isn't, but the Fit is so happy at its work you almost don't care. The five-speed manual (a five-speed auto with paddles is optional) works better than units in cars costing far more; it flicks through its gates with a light touch. Clutch takeup is syrup-smooth.
You won't mistake the Fit for a Porsche, but on the twisty stuff you won't feel let down, either. The diminutive, 16-in. 185/55 tires hang on with 0.81 g of grip -- nipping on the new Mazda6 GT and the Audi A4 -- and steering forces build up nicely through the wheel. Stopping is the Fit's weakest performance parameter; the brakes need 138 ft for 60-to-0-mph stops.
Fuel economy is down a bit from the previous model but still checks in at 27/33 mpg city/highway. Not bad considering there's room for four adults (even five for short trips) plus "magic" rear seats that effortlessly fold down -- creating a huge flat cargo floor (and nearly 60 cu ft of room).
Does the Honda Fit have what it takes to be the 2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year? Find out on Nov. 18.
Photography by Brian Vance and Julia LaPalme
Ford Gets Phased -- Using Free Energy
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Variable valve timing is ancient history. You already know that twiddling the intake and exhaust valve timing and overlap helps broaden an engine's torque curve and that most engines do this by inserting a gizmo in between the camshaft and the pulley for the timing chain or belt. And as you well know, this widget uses engine oil pressure to advance or retard the cam relative to its pulley.
What you may not know is that relying on engine oil pressure limits the performance of these "cam phasers" at engine start-up, when the oil is cold and thick, and at low engine speeds when the pump isn't producing much pressure. Well the clever engineers at Ford noticed the oil pressure in the chambers that move the cam one way or the other experiences a little wiggle before and after each cam lobe opens its valve. That's because the high pressure of the valve spring wants to slow the lobe down just before it pushes the valve fully open, and then tries to speed it up when the valve starts closing. Instead of fighting this back-and-forth wiggling, Ford decided to harness it, using these little pressure pulses to advance or retard the cam.
The system is elegantly simple. Engine oil pressure is fed to the cam phaser, but very little or no oil flows to it or through it. Instead, the pressure needed to move in one direction is supplied by the pressure spikes from the opposite chamber and vice versa. A simple three-position spool valve allows oil to flow in either direction or not at all. The system works a bit like a ratchet wrench.
This Cam-Torque Actuated variable valve timing system reportedly reduces oil-pump flow requirements by 25% relative to conventional VVT systems, for a claimed fuel-economy boost of 0.4% on Ford's 3.0L Duratec V-6-powered Fusion (CTA's first application). But the real benefit is that the system can start rotating the cam about 350 rpm earlier than oil-pump-pressure systems and can ramp up much faster, achieving the full 47 deg (crankshaft angle) advance by 1500 rpm -- that's 40 deg more advance at that point than the old system. The overall net result (other engine improvements include tweaks to the cylinder head and intake for better breathing, 10.3:1 compression, and flex-fuel capability) is an extra 19 hp and 23 lb-ft of torque with improved fuel economy (thanks largely to the new six-speed automatic). Expect this elegantly simple and cost-effective system to migrate throughout Ford's VVT engine lineup.
2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year Contender: Dodge Challenger R/T
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The 2009 Dodge Challenger is more fun than a renaissance festival. Just to catch a glimpse of the Challenger from any angle is to turn the clock back to the happy-go-lucky free-love decade of the 1970s. So faithful is the reinterpretation of nearly every character line and design flourish, even the interior looks period correct -- right down to the shiny black plastic dash and door panels (it works, really). The Hemi's rumbly roar and the manual six-speed's pistol-grip shifter (complete with trigger notch) are the best parts. Everything's so familiar, it's just inflated to 8/7ths scale.
Some of that familiarity breeds contempt. Authentic-looking pull-up door handles will have the fingernailed set relearning to open doors with their knuckles. The sound made by closing the doors or trunk lid is disconcertingly Nixon-era, and access to the Challenger's rear compartment is woefully inadequate: Either laboriously motor the power driver's seat forward or grapple with the coupe world's worst manual seat release on the passenger side. Once back there, the seats are commodious, though cavelike on the visibility front.
Built on full-size LX sedan underpinnings, the Challenger looks, feels, and drives big. If you insist on flailing away at the accurate but lifeless steering, the R/T will hustle around turns, but you'll feel loads of body motion and weight transfer. It really excels at the smoky burnout and the dragstrip hustle. The 0-to-60-mph-sprint takes 5.1 sec and the quarter flashes by in 13.6 at 104.9 mph, tying the lighter, larger Pontiac G8 GT to 60 and besting it in the quarter mile.
Can the Dodge Challenger take home the Motor Trend Car of the Year award? Find out on Nov. 18.
Photography by Brian Vance and Julia LaPalme
