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John Phillips: Nissan Pathfinders Remembered
-Last month, we tested the new Range Rover, and I deployed C/D’s long-term 2013 Nissan Pathfinder as a photo/chase car. We drove both SUVs as far up Montana’s Bitterroot Mountains as immaturity...
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Interview: Former GM CEO Ed Whitacre
-C/D: When you first got to GM, you said, “Nobody knows the mission.” Did you ever think, “I can’t fix this?”-EW: Oh, of course. I thought, “What have I gotten myself into?” But I forgot about that...
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New Cars for 2014: Phillips Eulogizes Suzuki and Fisker
-Lest We Forget: Fisker Automotive, age 5.-Cut down in its youth, Fisker Automotive recently succumbed to an overdose of naïveté and random acts of mismanagement. The company will be mourned by Karma,...
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John Phillips: How to Add Excitement to Endurance Racing
-In endurance sports-car racing, it used to be that strategy was king. If you had a two-car team, for instance, one car might be the tortoise, the other the rabbit. What’s more, at the drop of the...
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John Phillips: “Turn Up the Boost. I Don’t Care. See What Happens.”
-Over the decades, a few Porsches have pumped me blind with endorphins, including my own 1974 911S Targa that I comprehensively blew up in Sylvania, Ohio. But none more electrified me than the three...
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John Phillips: Thursday Nights in Lolo, Or: Car Culture in Montana
-When I moved to Montana, I reluctantly bid adios to fast cars. Or so I thought. Last fall, I found myself in Missoula, renting a Jeep Liberty from Thrifty’s avuncular manager, Owen Kelley. He glanced...
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Interview: Lee Iacocca Talks Chrysler Then and Now, And What’s in His Garage
-C/D: What’s in your garage these days?-LI: Carroll Shelby used to tease me with, I have the first Shelby in my garage.” I’d respond, “Well, I have the first Viper in my garage,” and I still do. It’s...
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John Phillips: Yet More Complaints, Straight from 10Best
-During 11 consecutive days last month, I drove Car and Driver’s long-term electric-blue Subaru BRZ from Montana to Ann Arbor, then drove all 60 of our 10Best nominees, then drove back to Montana in...
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John Phillips: Car Jockey to Hackle Jockey and Back
-Twenty-some years ago, C/D’s editor-in-chief, William Jeanes, recruited a new managing editor whose job it was to improve our writing. “He is, to some of you, an instrument of torture,” William said...
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John Phillips: You Absolutely Need Winter Tires. Seriously
-Now that I live at the end of a 1.75-mile gravel driveway cut rudely into the side of a mountain, I’ve gladly installed winter tires—don’t even think of calling them “snow tires”—on five different...
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2015 Subaru WRX STI First Drive: It’s the Most Extreme Subaru Road Car—Ever
-Prior to the drive preview of the 2015 Subaru WRX STI in Carmel, California, the car debuted at this year’s Detroit auto show. At that point, everyone had discovered that the STI’s 2.5-liter engine...
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The Subaru WRX STI’s WRC Days Are Behind It, Focus Shifts to Endurance Racing
-In its glory days, Subaru bagged World Rally Championships in ’95, ’96, and ’97 and eventually held eight Rally America titles. More recently, though, Subaru’s motorsports division—led by Toshiya...
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John Phillips: All That Glitters is Les Gold
-As I shuffle into a sunset that promises daily crashes on my Hoveround while wearing orthopedic socks—all the while shedding body parts like a Lotus Europa—I’m at least watching less TV. These days,...
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What I’d Do Differently: Chris Bangle
-C/D: You quit BMW in 2009. Any regrets?-CB: Seventeen years in that job is a long time—three generations of most models. For this next phase, my wife and I started a design company in Italy. But, in...
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John Phillips: That’s the Plan for Saab, Alfa, Datsun, and Mitsubishi?
-I learn a lot from the trade publication Automotive News. For instance: Saab’s new owner has restarted production of the Saab 9-3 Aero sedan in Trollhättan, Sweden. Sales will be “initially focused”...
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John Phillips: A Winter of Discontent
-At dawn on February 8, I climbed into C/D’s long-term BMW X1 and set out for Carmel, California, where I was to drive the new Subaru WRX STI. When I headed out, we had 36 inches of snow on the ground,...
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From the C/D Archives: Our Original Test of the 1997 Plymouth Prowler
-Last time we wrapped our hands around a Prowler, “Tonya X” wrecked the thing (C/D, 1996 April Fools’ issue). Well, not totally, but she tore off both front wheels, planted a blue spruce in the engine...
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John Phillips: On the Topic of Tacos
-In March, William Clay Ford Sr., 88, died of pneumonia. Pneumonia? How could that be? The man was stubbornly loyal to his “studies in mediocrity,” the phrase Detroiters affixed to coaches for the...
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John Phillips: A Truck Saves the Day
-Over the past 45 years, I’ve had some fun with trucks, but I’ve never wanted to own one. For 30 of those years, in fact, that was also my general feeling about wives. In truth, I did briefly possess...
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John Phillips: Capturing the Allure of Ginger
-This month, let us consider two men—two has-beens, as in, each has been a success in the automotive biz, honing skills that led to gratifying careers involving no cars at all. READ MORE ››-
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