THE VINE AUGUST 5, 2010
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Gregg Easterbrook has an interesting look back at how car reviewers helped enable America's addiction to gas guzzlers—a trend that, in hindsight, helped bring down Detroit:
Because auto reviewers fixated on speed, carmaker executives paid too much attention to horsepower, not enough to manufacturing quality, MPG and safety. The excellent 2002 book High and Mighty by Keith Bradsher not only offers what reads, in retrospect, as a prescient warning of Big Three arrogance and slipshod management. The book also contains a hysterical description of an auto-reviewers’ junket during which Big Three publicists lavished favors on reviewers who, wagging their tails like lap dogs, later wrote press-release-like “stories” exalting the huge engines of the most wasteful new models.
Warren Brown, longtime auto reviewer for the Washington Post, once was among the offenders in this category, lauding max-horsepower, low-mileage cars intended for the super-rich: those were the kind he wanted to be loaned to drive for the week. When General Motors and Chrysler almost folded, Brown came to his senses and began writing about MPG and safety. So the scales have fallen from the eyes of the Washington Post, while Joseph White of the Wall Street Journal long has emphasized safety and fuel efficiency in his auto reviews.
Then there’s the New York Times. The “wimpy” Cadillac SRX has a “peashooter” engine with a mere 265 horsepower, and “takes a lazy 8.5 seconds to reach 60 MPH.” The Hyundai Genesis has “just 210 horsepower.” The Times recommended that Genesis buyers pay extra for the optional 306 horsepower big-block engine, and didn’t warn that this option drops the car to 20 MPG. The Mitsubishi Outlander has a “disagreeable” engine because it only cranks 230 horsepower. The Times lavished praise on the 355-horsepower Ford Flex, especially lauding a blazing time of zero-to-60 in 6.1 seconds, while never getting around to mentioning the car’s awful 18 MPG fuel thirst.
What's amazing is that the Times' auto reviewers continued to heap praise on big, manly engines (and ignoring features like mileage and safety) even after the GM bailout.
(Flickr photo credit: DRT Photo)
3 comments
Interesting idea. I once spent an agreeable evening with a couple of wine chemists in Napa who were opining that American wine was being ruined by reviewers. The argument it went something along the lines that published "scores" were much more likely to factor into US consumer's purchasing decisions than that of Europeans, but the American reviewers grew up drinking whiskey and hence preferred higher alchol and lower tannin levels than they felt suited wine.
- Nari224
August 6, 2010 at 3:47pm
The obsession with horsepower and 0-60 times has always mystified me. For one thing, HP does not equate to speed or performance; it's simply one variable in a complex equation in which the weight of the car is often much more important. For another, anyone who gets behind the wheel of a Ford Flex and expresses concern - even praise! - about the 0-60 time should have his journalism license cancelled. That's not why anyone has ever purchased, or considered purchasing, that car. If you care about getting to 60 from a stop in a very short time, the phrase "Ford Flex" will never, ever enter your brain during the purchasing process. And a Cadillac hitting 60 in 8.5? That's in line with the best American muscle cars of the 1960s and '70s, at least stock. Sure, it's not the 4.9 a stock 2010 Mustang GT promises, but then, once again, if you want to go drag-racing against pony cars, you don't buy a Cadillac in the first place. Here's the thing: Ask most people who've driven a lot of models to name the most fun-to-drive cars. Many of the cars on any serious auto buff's list will be lighter, lower-HP models, because responsiveness and nimbleness, not outright power, is what for most makes a car a pleasure to drive. Heck, take a look at the course of reviews of the Nissan 350 Z from 2003 to present. The tone of the reviews has generally gotten much worse, going from early press praising the Z as one of the all-time great driving experiences to the decidedly mixed reviews of more recent models. What changed? The Z got heavier as Nissan increased the engine from about 260 to about 310 horsepower. This from the same auto press that generally thinks that more HP is necessarily better.
- rhubarbs
August 9, 2010 at 2:11pm
Most drivers don't want actual speed. They want the *feel* of speed -- effortless acceleration. This can be accomplished with a light gas pedal and a good sound and easy forced downshifts, which are more efficient solutions than building in actual speed with a brawny engine. Cars today are plenty quick and have been for a good long while. Engineers of production cars are not prepping for a race; they're managing customers' psyches. The only reason customers care about horsepower as such is because the auto press and industry marketing make a stink about it.
- JakeH
August 11, 2010 at 11:45pm