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Fast-Car Nation: A Buyer's Guide - 2000 model sports cars - Evaluation
American Visions, August, 1999 by Hank Chase
Glorious, stirring sight! The poetry of motion! The only way to travel.--Toad of Toad Hall, upon first encountering a motoring car, from The Wind in the Willows
Ninety miles an hour is the speed I drive.--Jimi Hendrix, "Crosstown Traffic"
Particularly for those who think the internal-combustion engine is one of mankind's finest achievements (vroom!), this season brings great joy: the new model year starts in the fall. Buyers can choose new-model-year (2000) cars that feature reduced 0-to-60-mph times, shorter braking distances and enhanced safety features, or they can realize substantial savings by purchasing a brand-new car that will shortly bear last year's model date. Either way, drivers win. To celebrate the season, we solicited some 1999 test-drive cars and turned them over for comment to American Visions' car guy (whose past acquisitions have included a Jaguar XK120 and an E-Type Jag).
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MERCEDES SLK230
Space precludes listing all of Mercedes-Benz's virtues, and none of their vehicles has a significant vice (well, OK, even Automobile magazine raised an eyebrow a couple of years ago at the ecological impact of the since-evolved ne plus ultra 600 SEL, so we are reduced to quibbles. Cruising at 85 mph in a Mercedes SLK230 convertible, I get the urge--an irresistible compulsion, should this become a legal matter--to drop the hammer. But when I downshift from fifth to fourth and floor the pedal, the SLK simply accelerates swiftly rather than surging forward. The 2.2-liter supercharged, double-overhead-cam (DOHC), 16-valve, in-line four-cylinder engine does not push me back into my seat as it glides easily up to 105 mph before I back off; it's as if the car disdains any display of raw power. Of course, the absence of a hammer is relative: This roadster will manage 0 to 60 mph within tenths of a second of the times of the Porsche Boxster and the 2.8-liter BMW Z3, and you'll eventually attain 140 mph.
Anyway, the SLK amply compensates for the absence of neck-snapping acceleration with its seamless harmony of form, function and fun. Who else but Mercedes would bring you the mechanical marvel of the first one-button electric-hydraulic retractable steel hardtop? Simply sitting in the driver's seat and going from hardtop to convertible, or vice versa, within 25 seconds always draws an appreciative crowd. And the belt-driven compressor gets a lot of torque (200 pound-force feet at 2,500 to 4,800 rpm) out of the relatively small engine. The braking is excellent, even with the standard 225/50VR'16 rear tires, beating both the BMW Z3 and the Porsche Boxster in the 80-to-0-mph and the 60-to-0-mph ranges. Finally, I quite like the squat, clean, muscle look of the car.
Just so you don't think that infatuation has led to a loss of all critical faculties: Forward vision isn't great; the small steering wheel tends to block the view of the upper range of the tachometer; with the top down, you have all of 4 1/2 cubic feet of cargo space; and for some drivers, it's all just too neat, tidy and refined.
JAGUAR XK8
I know Jags, and the new S series and the XK8 are no Jags. I mean this in the best sense: The XK120, the XK140 and the XK 150 had a gear that was only good for pulling tree stumps, and both they and the E-Type were regularly done in by their electrics. Ford's acquisition of Jaguar earlier this decade, however, reinforced the English company's relatively recent focus on quality control (represented by the replacement of Lucas as a supplier of electrical components). Among the welcome results: Unlike the 1950s and '60s, today one no longer has to develop an intimate relationship with the factory in Coventry to get spare parts. Instead, Jaguar's signature graceful lines and Connolly leather have been married to vehicles that stay on the road (and how!) instead of in the shop.
I really fancy Jaguar's new S sedan. Its elliptical vertical-bar grille recalls Jaguar's wonderful drop-head coupes of four decades ago, and its V-8 iteration will get you to 60 mph in under seven seconds, despite a curb weight of 3,770 pounds and an automatic transmission. Still, I lean toward the lines of Jag's 2+2 XK8 coupe, whose sloping roof brings back memories of the E-Type.
Each of the new Jags has a 4-liter, DOHC, 32-valve V-8 with continuously variable cam phasing that generates a maximum torque of 290 pound-force feet. With this engine (the S also comes with a 240-bhp V-6), you can easily live without supercharging or the annoying whine of a turbo. These strong torque curves are achieved with a five-speed automatic transmission that generates only one complaint: It, rather than the driver, determines where the shifts will be made.
BMW Z3
BMW's Z3 has put Spartanburg, S.C., on the high-performance map. The Munich manufacturer's first venture into U.S. production, its recognition that there is a market for a small roadster (thank you, Mazda, for the Miata!), and the addition of a 2.8-liter in-line six transplanted from the BMW 328i have narrowed the gap between roadster and true sports car. The Z3's wide rear track, its road-gripping 225/50ZR-16 tires, and BMW's typically razor-sharp handling keep the car stable whether in tight S curves or in high-speed, decreasing-radius curves; the additional 49 bhp (relative to the 1.9-liter in-line-four of the first iteration of the Z3) and the recalibrated set of gear ratios give you plenty acceleration coming out of the corner; and the slick-shifting five-speed transmission lets you employ that acceleration to a good end. Top speed is 135 mph--and that's computer-chip limited.
