F-450 Super Duty

How much truck is too much truck?

With its 24,500-pound towing capacity, medium-duty axles, commercial-grade frame and 176-inch wheelbase, Ford Motor Co.'s new F-450 takes consumer pickups into uncharted territory in terms of size and power.

The F-450 starts at $51,280, including delivery, and can cost as much as $62,000 and change for the fully loaded King Ranch model. The trucks have just begun arriving at Ford dealerships.

Just one body style of the F-450 is offered: a four-door crew cab with a pickup bed.

The only engine is the new 350-hp Powerstroke turbodiesel, teamed with either a five-speed automatic transmission or six-speed manual. Four-wheel drive is optional. The F-450's interior shares the same size and layout as the F-250 and F-350, but the vehicle's wheelbase is about 4 inches longer.

Ford's key selling point for the vehicle: It's the first pickup of its size that is ready to go to work right out of the box. No longer will truck drivers who tow and haul industrial-sized payloads have to buy a half-built truck and then ship it off to an "upfitter" to have a rear body section grafted on.

Before the 2008 F-450, the only way consumers could get a truck with the same towing capability was to buy what the industry calls a chassis cab model. That's a stripped-down truck with the drivetrain, frame, axles and cab but no rear body structure.
Then the buyer had to work with an upfitter to have the rear of the truck built for a specific purpose. That could cost between $8,000 for a bare-bones pickup bed to more than $20,000 or more for a fully equipped work truck. Chassis cabs are often made into dump trucks, flatbeds, tow trucks or work trucks with built-in storage bins.

Because trucks as large and as powerful as the F-450 are used mostly by companies and fleets, no automaker has offered a fully built truck the size of the F-450. The equivalent Chevrolet, GMC and Dodge trucks are available only as chassis cabs. Toyota and Nissan don't build heavy-duty trucks -- yet.

Ford studied the way that some Super Duty buyers were using their vehicles and found that many would overload the trucks to cut down on the number of trips to save time, said Robert Keller, Super Duty marketing manager.

"We knew there was demand out there from people who are towing," says Keller, 39. "The big RVs are heavier now with appliances in them and marble countertops and things like that. There are also bigger horse trailers."

Ford officials won't give a sales estimate for the F-450. But Ford has said that about 40 percent of F-series sales are Super Duty trucks. Of that, between 20 and 30 percent are F-450 or F-550 chassis cabs.

Ford sold 796,039 F-series trucks in 2006, so the potential market for the F-450 is sizable. If a third of F-450 buyers opt for the pickup, sales could be between 10,000 and 15,000 units a year. The F-450 is built in Ford's Louisville, Ky., truck plant.

2007 Volvo S80

“Take the new S80 for a coupla days and write a blog about it,” came the directive from road test editor Natalie Neff. I proceeded to go out to the parking lot where I promptly walked by this thing a few times before I realized I wasn’t looking at the old S80. Sure looked familiar. It’s all new? Looks like a slightly sleeker, less flabby version of the old car. So I read up on Volvo’s flagship and found it is indeed an all-new car top to bottom, now sharing basic architecture with Ford’s corporate C1-plus platform, also in the new Ford Galaxy and S-Max minivans. C1-plus is itself a bigger version of the C1 platform (Mazda 3, Volvo S40 and in some variation even the Land Rover LR2—Ford is really getting some mileage out of this whole C1 thing) and can be had with front- or four-wheel drive.

I slid inside and fired it up and holy crap: the dash and center console lit up like a proverbial Christmas tree. I can’t remember ever seeing so many green and orange and yellow warning lights flashing at me. The interior, by the way, is handsome and well done; the main instruments have pretty chrome-look rings around them and most functions are activated with buttons on the floating center console, like in the S40.

Anyway, this baby has more techno-gadgetry than any car I can remember; being a Volvo, much of it is aimed at safety. There are new side-impact airbags, a bunch of other airbags, dynamic stability and traction control systems (carry over), adaptive cruise control (I hate that—I can control stopping distances myself, thanks), a blind-spot warning system, personal car communicator—it’s all here. Wait a sec, what’s personal car communicator? This is a system for the truly paranoid: It tells you not only when your doors are locked, but also can detect the heartbeat of any murderers that might be hiding in the back seat (or if there’s anyone locked in the trunk). When I laughed at the ludicrousness of this, a colleague reminded me of the old saying: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they ain’t trying to kill you.

Our test car here in Detroit had the Yamaha-built 4.4-liter V8 (added no doubt to better compete with the Audi A6, BMW 5 Series and Mercedes E-Class), shared with Volvo’s XC90 ute. All-wheel-drive is standard with the V8. A Ford 3.2-liter inline six is also available and Volvo thinks 70 percent of S80 buyers will opt for it.

The first night I got lucky with a little overnight snow dusting, perfect for trying the 311-hp V8, the six-speed automatic and the awd system. In the dry, Volvo says the S80 will blast to 60 mph in 6.5 seconds. This morning in the snow I found I could tromp on the gas and this baby would just smoothly hook up and go; excellent grip and a nice growl coming from the V8.

The automatic damping has three positions, normal, sport and dynamic, but I liked the normal mode best: Not too harsh, but the car didn’t wallow and there wasn’t much body roll. I didn’t drive it enough to need to fill it, but the little miles-per-gallon meter on the dash said I averaged 15 mpg. Not great.

Overall, it felt quite German, which I’m sure was Volvo’s aim in the first place. There were a couple little glitches: One, this particular car actually had a couple squeaks and rattles, one of which was in the B-pillar right by my left ear—extremely annoying. With less than 2000 miles on the car that kind of surprised me. Two, when I left the office a warning flashed on the dash: “Headlamp failure—get service immediately.” I got out and checked the lamps and they looked fine and I never saw the warning again.

Do you want one? With a $48,045 base price ($56,025 as tested) it’s nearly ten grand cheaper than most of the main competition, the BMW 550i (base price $58,500), Mercedes E550 (base price $59,775) or A6 (base price $55,300). The Volvo doesn’t have quite the driving dynamics of the Audi or BMW, nor quite the Mercedes’ panache, but it’s a good combo at a good price.

2007 Infiniti G35

The stylish and lithe second-generation G35 can count itself among the rare automotive species that inspire drivers to continually test its performance limits.

The first-generation G35 represented a risk for Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.’s flagging Infiniti luxury brand in 2002 when it launched in the U.S. as an ’03 model. The G35 sprang from the FM (Front Midship) architecture that also underpins the Nissan 350Z, G35 coupe and Infiniti FX cross/utility vehicle.

Most formidably, the first-generation G35 would do battle in the fierce lower luxury segment, which has nearly 20 competitors and is known for chewing up and spitting out weak players.

But the G35 has more than held its own, managing a solid third place in 2005 by racking up 68,728 deliveries. Only the BMW 3-Series and Acura TL sold more. More importantly, the first-generation G35 helped spark a product renaissance at Nissan and Infiniti that continues today.

However, the outgoing model needs reinforcements in this tight segment. This year, the Lexus brand is on a tear with its new IS and ES sedans. The ES already has wrestled its way to third place past the G35 and is neck-and-neck with the Acura TL for second place, according to Ward’s data.

The brisk-selling IS is bearing down hard this year on the fifth-place Cadillac CTS and the first-gen G35.

But now that the all-new G35 is gracing U.S. showrooms, it will pull closer to the almighty 3-Series and further outpace the CTS, Mercedes C-Class, Audi A4 and others.

The cavalry has arrived, riding on the second-generation unibody FM chassis that Infiniti says is 40% stiffer than the first, isolating annoying vibrations.

Following the sedan, an all-new G35 coupe arrives in mid-2007 as an ’08 model. Incidentally, Infiniti says it will introduce a third new vehicle in fall 2007.

The footprint of the new G35 is extremely close to the model it replaces. Wheelbase is unchanged at 112.2 ins. (285 cm), but the new car is 0.8 ins. (2 cm) wider and 0.5 ins. (1.3 cm) shorter than the old G.

Despite looking beefier, the car gains only 29 lbs. (13 kg) in rear-wheel-drive, 5-speed automatic guise, tipping the scales at 3,497 lbs. (1,584 kg).
Brushed aluminum finished to resemble Washi, a Japanese rice paper.


The outgoing G35 was attractively styled, and Infiniti wisely retained the sheet metal’s overall shape. At the corners, however, the styling is a bold departure. Headlamps and tail lamps wrap around the corners, bulging like an athlete after months of hard weight training.

2008 Jaguar XJ

Jaguar will beef up the styling of its stodgy flagship XJ sedan for 2008, hoping that a stronger road presence will carry the car to 2010, when the next all-new XJ arrives.

The redone XJ debuts at the Geneva show, with the aluminum-bodied car getting an aggressive lower front air scoop, an XK-style vent in the front fender and a trunk-lid spoiler. While the facelift creates more road presence, Jag appears to be compromising the car’s elegance in a bid to boost weak sales.
When the new XJ arrives in 2010, it will get its cues from the sporty S-Type replacement XF—and likely will share a pair of supercharged powerplants with the lesser Jaguar sedan that goes on sale in 2008. Jaguar is planning two supercharged XF sedans, a break from tradition in which the supercharged engine is usually reserved for a single, performance-oriented R-badge derivative.

At this September’s Frankfurt show, Jaguar will announce that the XF will feature a 4.2-liter, 420-hp, supercharged V8, but it won’t wear an R badge. Instead, the supercharged XF will serve as the range-topping model, without the more extreme wheel and tire combinations, sport seats, body kit and specially tuned chassis typical of an R-badged Jaguar. A base model equipped with a naturally aspirated 4.2-liter V8 also will be offered.

The XF-R will appear in early 2010 with an all-new 5.0-liter supercharged V8. This British-designed V8, Jag’s biggest-capacity eight-cylinder ever, has direct injection and borrows only basic design concepts from the venerable AJ-V8, first launched in the 1996 XK8.

2008 Mitsubishi Lancer

The biggest problem for the new Lancer might be that it’s not an Evo.

The Evo is coming, probably in less than a year from now, and it is based on the same C platform on which rides everything from this base Lancer to the Outlander, with one other vehicle coming up soon that might or might not be a wagon. The Dodge Caliber even started out as a C-platform car. While the 2008 Lancer is a much better car than the Lancer it replaces, with a much stiffer frame and better ride isolation, it is still not nearly as much fun as we imagine the Lancer Evolution X will be.

That might not be entirely fair, but the whole time we drove these new Lancers, we kept thinking of things that could be done to improve their sportiness, all of which probably will be done on the Evo.
Nonetheless, this new model is a solid car. The new Lancer is 56 percent stiffer torsionally than the car it replaces and offers 50 percent better bending resistance. It has higher torsional rigidity than even the Evo IX, for instance.

That stiffness allowed engineers to tighten the suspension and increase antiroll bars front and rear. It also gets a larger rack and pinion for increased precision in steering and a better back-flow valve to reduce kickback through the steering wheel. The brakes on the GTS model are straight from the larger, heavier Outlander, so we expect fairly short stopping distances.

The Lancer gains 1.4 inches in wheelbase and 2.3 inches in track, which also helps its cornering stance.

The 2.0-liter, dohc, MIVEC four-cylinder driving the front wheels is stout enough to accept turbocharging on future models, but, being normally aspirated, it just isn’t enough to take advantage of all that stiffness. It makes 152 hp (143 in California!) and comes with your choice of a good five-speed manual or yet another CVT.
The base five-speed-manual DE model felt like the best trim level for enthusiast Lancer buyers who can’t wait for the turbo models of this car. The shifter throws were a half-inch shorter than before. The base car, riding on 205/60R-16s, felt light and nimble from behind the wheel. Engine and road noise isolation were nearly luxo-like. At 94.8 cubic feet, the interior volume was just a little roomier than the previous Lancer’s and felt as if it would be quite comfortable in a daily commute.

The marketers tried valiantly to make the now-ubiquitous CVT tranny seem sporty, but with those magnesium paddle shifters and a shift map that attempts to make it feel as if it’s changing gears, as with all other cars that attempt this, it pretends to be a performance trans. But it helps EPA mileage.

A drive over mountain roads in a top-of-the-line GTS manual with 215/45 tires on 18-inch wheels and a sport-tuned suspension didn’t change our overall impression. The Lancer is a perfectly adequate small car but not as fun to drive as we had hoped for with all that stiffness. It needs more power, less weight or both. Though the block is now aluminum instead of iron, saving almost 60 pounds, by the time you add all the stiffening material that made the chassis so strong, as well as seven airbags, the car pays a price in straight-line performance.

Aw, we wouldn’t whine as much if it weren’t for that Evo X that’s coming a year from now.