Обзоры лучших машин

Archive for Июль, 2009

This year’s SAE World Congress was kicked off with a rousing speech by someone many of the engineers in the room may have wanted to throw vegetables at, California’s CO2-reducer-in-chief, Governator A. Schwarzenegger. By way of conciliation he conceded that perhaps Detroit hadn’t enjoyed as much regulatory support as it could have used in developing high-efficiency cars, and he concluded (about an hour late) with an offer to produce commercials for the Detroit Three’s green cars free of charge. Thanks, awfully. Once the hot air dissipated, we set out to uncover the hidden gems of future tech that always lie hidden amongst the booths of gaskets, seals, and hard-candy dishes.

Vengeance Power! SAE often serves as a launching pad for unconventional engines, most of which boast immense improvements in efficiency (what else would be the point?), and this rotary-vane design is no exception. Some of the basic advantages are shared with the Wankel rotary: intake and combustion happen in different places, reducing the chance of heat-related predetonation; there are fewer moving parts, because simple intake and exhaust porting means no valves are needed; and operation is inherently smooth, because no parts ever have to stop and reverse direction like pistons do. But the Vengeance design uses a round rotating element out of which eight vanes roll to follow the vaguely oval outer wall of the intake/compression/combustion/exhaust chamber.

The vanes are driven in and out of the spinning rotor by rollers tracing a path that just keeps their seals in contact with the chamber walls, which supposedly results in far less friction than in a piston engine of similar displacement. One of the big advantages claimed is the shape of the combustion chamber, which is designed to allow considerably more time for the exploding gasses to expand, extracting far more of the heat value from the fuel, all of which is expended on a vane that remains perpendicular to the output shaft to extract the work efficiently. How efficiently? Up to a claimed 53 percent when running on gasoline. Interchangeable combustion chamber bowls can quickly alter the compression ratio, allowing the engine to run on almost any combustible fuel, even syngas or hydrogen (which requires ceramic seals). Because the explosion has time to end before the exhaust port is exposed, far less noise and heat flows out the tailpipe.

Torque of the 640-cube eight-vane prototype is rated at 2500 pound-feet-plus over most of the low operating speed range of the engine, with power peaking at 551 hp at 1200 rpm. At a claimed weight of only 300 pounds it’s a dense power unit, and indeed the greatest interest to date has been for use as a pusher-prop airplane engine. It could also be an ideal tank engine, but the Windsor, Ontario-based Vengeance Power engineers say that with a 5:1 up-ratio, it could also drive a car through a conventional transmission burning whatever fuel was most advantageous. It’s a concept we’ll keep a keen eye on as development progresses.

The Monterey Car Weekend was founded around two primary events: the Rolex Historic Automobile Races held at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on the hallowed 18th fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Course. With the 2008 event weekend having come to a close, we bring you a selection of some of our favorite automobiles from the three days of fun at the track and on the links. From vintage racecars to classic touring machines, there’s something for everyone. Enjoy.

1912 Franklin Torpedo Phaeton
The air-cooled Franklin was a natural for desert racing as it faced no boil-over problems in heavy use, and in 1912 Los Angeles Franklin dealer Ralph Hamlin entered a race-prepped Torpedo Phaeton along with 12 other cars in the Los Angeles to Phoenix race. The 5064cc straight-six engine made 50 hp at 2300 rpm and propelled Hamlin to victory in an elapsed time of 18 hours 10 minutes 22 seconds. That original car later burned, but this one was reconstructed to the exact same specs in San Diego in the 1960s, and has been vintage-raced extensively since.

1916 National
National built cars in Indianapolis from 1900 to 1924, starting out in the electric car business, but switching to gasoline power when Arthur Newby took over as president. Newby was among the four founders of the Indianapolis Speedway, where the firm won the 1912 race at an average speed of 78.72 mph with a 490-cubic-inch four-cylinder (that car still holds the record as having the largest engine to win Indy). This one is powered by a 303-cu-in six with an aluminum crankcase and bodywork, iron cylinders, and wooden wheels. Its restoration was completed in 1999 and it has seen a lot of vintage racing action in the years since.

1932 Studebaker Indy Car
This number 118 car was one of five the Studebaker factory fielded in the 1932 and 1933 Indy 500 races powered by 336-cu-in straight-8s from the President line of luxury sedans. The running gear was all from stock Studebaker vehicles while the body and frame were purpose built by Herming Rigling of Indianapolis. Producing 200 hp, they were able to reach 140+ mph in the day. After 450 miles of racing in 1932 this one was ranked 7th when it blew a tire, slipping to a 12th-place finish.

1957 Townsend Typhoon
This car is literally a high-school study-hall doodle come to life. Frank Townsend, a Tucson, AZ student sketched the design in pencil and with help from a few friends built a Masonite and plaster buck from which the body was laid up and fitted to an Olds-powered Plymouth chassis. The front looks like an oversized angry ‘56 Corvette (though he drew it in 1954), and the rear features Cunningham inspired fins with holes drilled to bleed out high-pressure air that builds up behind the tires. Townsend appears to have been quite the accidental aerodynamicist, as the current owner reports the body exhibits laminar flow, which undoubtedly helps explain a top-speed-trial ticket from 1957 showing the car achieved 153 mph. The current owner rescued the rusting hulk from a field and restored it with Townsend’s help starting in 1999)

Yup, diesel sales are on the increase again, and it’s not hard to figure out why. Times is tight, as Desmond Dekker said, and people are looking to save wherever they can. Add that to growing green concerns amongst the populace, and that’ll be another selling point for oil burners. “But performance” some people might ask, “Really?”

Indeed, performance is also a viable reason for considering diesels these days. A while back, just for the heck of it, I looked into building up a VW Golf TDi as an eco-friendly rally car. The Golf is a good platform for that in general, but I was concerned about what could be done with the engine.

Turns out, you could do a surprising amount of fun stuff.

What I found is that there’s a fair level of chip tuning you can do for VW’s TDi mill. I didn’t actually go out and do it (lack of funds and garage space, as always), but just from a cursory research, it looked like you could drop in a chip and get those little guys cranking out upwards of 250 foot-pounds of torque. Which is impressive.

Now, I’m not saying that’s what is driving the current spike in diesel sales, but what is noteworthy is that the newer gen oilers have much better performance than the diesels of old, and even noticeably better than the TDis of not that long ago.

Indeed, the new Jetta SportWagen is quite a car all the way around. I’ve chatted up a few owners of the diesels, and they said that initially they were concerned about the lack of power, but the new version is great when you stand on the right-hand pedal. And on looks alone, the black with tan leather Jetta SportWagens are VERY classy looking cars.

Anyway, all this has contributed to diesel sales rising. June brought in record sales of latest-gen TDis since the release of the new lineup. And according to VW “Clean diesel TDi’s accounted for 81 percent of SportWagen sales, 40 percent of Jetta sedan sales, and 29 percent of Touareg sales.” Not bad at all.

And it’s likely we’ll see more of the new TDis on the street when VW rolls out the 2010 Golf TDI this fall.

The third Monte-Carlo Rally for Alternative Energy Vehicles took place over the last weekend in March and the new Ford Fiesta ECOnetic emerged victorious in its class.

The event, which uses the traditional Monte Carlo Rally roads was the first round of the FIA Alternative Energies Cup, which is organised around the most innovative environmentally friendly vehicles. The Ford Fiesta ECOnetic was entered in the class for fossil-fuel-powered cars with emissions of less than 120g/km of CO2 per kilometre. The class featured 28 cars from nine different manufacturers.

Three Ford Fiesta ECOnetic cars, entered by Ford France and driven by the “Drive Classic” team, delivered an outstanding result with first, second and fourth places in the class. This impressive result was coupled with Ford’s overall victory in the manufacturers’ classification.

Target Speeds, Minimal Consumption
The rally began simultaneously from two different starting points in Lugano and Clermont-Ferrand, and included three legs - the Parcours de Concentration, Parcours Commun and Parcours Final). The rally was run over 1000 km and included four “regularity runs” during which the teams were given the tough challenge to meet target average speeds while using as little fuel as possible.

The pairing of Pascal Aimé and Stéphanie Aimé took their Fiesta ECOnetic to a convincing class win and also claimed first place in the overall regularity standings. They led home the team of Alain Jongerlynck and his son Greg, who finished second in the fossil-fuel category, just 40 points behind their team-mates. The third Fiesta ECOnetic driven by Gaël Brianceau and Stéphane Césaréo finished fourth. With this convincing team performance, Ford France secured first place in the final manufacturers standings.

“We are particularly pleased with this result,” commented Alain Jongerlynck, who drives for, and also manages the “Drive Classic” team. “Pascal (Aimé) had great confidence in the outstanding fuel economy of the Ford Fiesta ECOnetic plus its excellent chassis. On the final night, Pascal decided to go for performance while we chose the opposite strategy, focusing primarily on fuel consumption. In the end, these two approaches complemented each other and there was barely anything between us at the finish.

“We both achieved very similar fuel consumption. Over 540 km of competitive stages, we used a total of 18.77 litres of fuel,” Jongerlynck added. “This equates to an average of just over four litres per 100 km – in spite of the fact we were running over mountainous rally stages, and had to achieve a challenging target average speed. The last night was particularly difficult in fog and rain.”

Ford France Managing Director, Jean-Luc Gérard, said: “This winning performance was achieved with standard production Fiesta ECOnetic cars, and demonstrated the model’s potential for outstanding fuel economy. Competing in the Monte-Carlo Rally for AEVs highlighted not only the engine’s exceptional energy efficiency but also its power and torque, coupled with a chassis that delivers impeccable handling.”

The Ford Fiesta ECOnetic is powered by the Ford 1.6-litre Duratorq TDCi engine, fitted with a standard particulate filter. It develops 90 bhp and 204 Nm of torque at 1750 rpm, while emitting just 98g of CO2. Compared to the previous generation Fiesta, the new ECOnetic model uses 160 litres less fuel over a distance of 20,000 km. In the extra-urban cycle, it achieves fuel consumption of just 3.7 l per 100 km.

Fiesta’s impressive list of awards and accolades include ‘Car of the Year’ in two major British automotive publications, and has been voted National ‘Car of the Year’ in Scotland, Croatia, Greece and Ireland. Following nominations from readers of Spain’s Car and Driver magazine, Fiesta was given the ‘Woman’s Car 2009′ award.

With European sales in January and February totalling 59,600 the Fiesta is the best-selling Ford model in Europe so far in 2009. Since it made its debut in August 2008, sales of the new Fiesta have totalled 120,300 and the car is already making a significant contribution to Ford of Europe’s market share improvement.

Good news for summer: Mazda is said to be working on a small roadster based on its home market Mazda2. Yes, they already make the Miata, one of the best sportscars ever made, but a new, small addition to the family could be fun as well.

The Mazda2 is one of those Japan-only supermini cars that are Honda Fit-sized, and designed to offer as much practicality in as small a space as possible. Recently, there’s been news that the Mazda2, which is sold in Japan as the Demio, will hit the Euro market, and there have been rumblings that it could make it over here to combat rising fuel economy and emission standards. If the rumors of a Mazda2-based roadster turn out to be correct, it would be smaller than the MX-5 / Miata, and if released in Europe, would compete against the likes of the forthcoming Renault Twingo CC, the Opel Tigra and the Peugeot 207 CC.

There’s no word on the roadster’s top as far as construction and operation but sources point to it being a retractable metal roof. They’re all the rage these days, and give you the best of both worlds (roadster and hardtop coupe), so it would be a good choice from the product planners.

As far as engines are concerned, we’re looking at 1.3-and 1.5-liter gasoline mills and the possibility of 1.4- and 1.6-liter turbo diesels, at least for non-North American market, and maybe here if the MPG/emission stuff really hits the fan. Sadly, this would mean a front drive layout, so there goes the handling, but you can’t have everything I guess.