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The Most Important Cars of the Year Retro design, ludicrous levels of horsepower, new American muscle, and diesel's bid to save the planet -- here's a look at the cars, trucks, and SUVs that embody the NEWEST AUTOMOTIVE DEVELOPMENTS.
If you've lately harbored suspicions that BMWs have grown soft (6-series) or overly complicated (M5), drive the new Z4 M Coupé and apologize to yourself. This is a strange and wonderful car, built for the sole purpose of intense, focused driving. The cabin is tight, with nary a cubbyhole for the modern man's gels, unguents, and creams, and the majority of the car's footprint is taken up by its long, phallic hood, which covers a monster straight-6 that we will touch on later. There is barely enough glass in the car's greenhouse to achieve photosynthesis. No matter. I lust for this gloriously impractical two-door not only because its fixed roof transforms the Z4 Roadster's cubist shape into one of aquiline smoothness, but because that roof imparts a stiffness and continence to the body that funnels all the car's energy to the road. Thus the suspension is so informative that you can feel the tires deform as you apply power; even the nastiest highway-expansion strips can't knock this car off-line; and the kielbasa-thick steering wheel seems to read your mind. Power comes from the M3's 330-hp bulldog of a straight-6, which, when installed in this chassis, makes even the M3 look docile. The M CoupŽ wants to go hard all the time, but unlike the M5 and M6 -- which are so aggressively antisocial and missilelike that they seem to crave nothing more than to plow into a row of stopped autobahn traffic -- the M Coupé is fun at 30 miles an hour. It makes a trip to the dry cleaners feel like a lap on the Nürburgring.
Chuckle at the Escalade's faux jewel-encrusted headlamps and blinding chrome wheels, but there's no arguing that its popularity derives from its swagger. And no one can accuse it of false advertising. Though it does more braggin' and boastin' than an early Run-DMC record, the Esky delivers no matter how it's pressed into service. Need to pack up the family for a road trip? No problem, especially with the eight-inch DVD screens in back. Need to take your drunken friends to a Michelin-starred restaurant? You'll get a prime parking spot. This new Escalade is about 10 times as well built as the outgoing model, with a 403-hp 6.2-liter V-8 that makes this the most powerful (but not the thirstiest) full-size SUV in the world.
The creationists would have a hard time disproving this one. Although the Jeep worked pretty well from the start, there's no way a vehicle could so master the off-road environment without generations of real-world testing. For this new model, the first ever to offer four doors, the Wrangler brings off-road essentials you'd never have packed without 60-plus years of experience: foldaway fenders that keep mud from clogging the wheel wells, a three-part removable roof, an electronically disconnecting front stabilizer bar, and so on. So the Wrangler is this year's model of evolution, but note that the other best vehicles on the planet are equally Darwinian: the Porsche 911, the Chevrolet Corvette, the Honda Accord, the Ford F-150. And there's no way these cars are going to get left out of textbooks. Not on my watch.
This is a full-size muscle sedan that reaches back into the past for its dimensions, its power, and its name, and into the future for its astounding ability. I say this even though I mostly rode shotgun in it, barking out pace notes on a rally through Newfoundland in which I nearly navigated my driver and myself into the sweet hereafter. This two-ton muscle sedan, hotted up with a huge 425-hp V-8, posted the fastest times in our class when we weren't crashing into things. It wasn't just the 6.1-liter Hemi V-8's doing, either; the chassis was derived from a Mercedes-Benz design, and it has a way of making the fastest roads seem slow, in the same way that, for Gretzky, the puck slowed down. Because its athleticism seems divorced from its bigness, the Charger SRT8 is the best of the new wave of muscle cars, but ask me again when the new Chevrolet Camaro Z28 arrives.
FORD HARLEY-DAVIDSON F-150 What's more American than Ford? How about Harley-Davidson? Throw in a frosty Bud and you've got 75 percent of life's essentials. Indeed, the brilliance of the Ford-Harley alliance, now in its ninth model, extends deeply into U.S. soil. The Ford Harley-Davidson F-150 proffers the yin and yang of Americana: Ford is the sensible, hardworking type; Harley is the outlaw. The truck expresses both in balance. It's utilitarian by virtue of spaciousness (the Super Crew features four doors) and all-wheel drive, yet orneriness can be heard through its blatting exhausts. This is co-branding done right.
For an entire generation of Americans, diesel engines will forever be associated with the 1978-'85 Oldsmobile V-8 that deposited most of the soot still lingering over New Jersey. Although Americans rejected these oil-burners, Europeans have been steadily developing diesels since then, making them quieter, more fuel efficient, more powerful, and cleaner, this last bit helped by that continent's low-sulfur diesel fuel. Now, however, low-sulfur diesel is becoming more prevalent in the U.S., and the first car able to fully capitalize on it is this Mercedes E320 BLUETEC (in 45 states, at least; our air-quality standards are tougher than Europe's). It not only gets astounding mileage of almost 40 mpg; when equipped with the pending urea-injection system ("AdBlue" in Mercedes argot; "piss" to you and me), it will be legal in all 50 states and strip out greenhouse gases. Think of the coming wave of diesels as the functional opposites of most hybrids: In diesels, high mileage is assured, and emissions are improving.
Yes, it was a good year for Mercedes. Flex your right foot in this most powerful member of the S-class, and its bi-turbo V-12 achieves a wormhole scenario: 604 hp wells up faster than you can mouth the appropriate words. If I weren't so in awe I'd say it's an absurd manifestation of the horsepower contest currently raging among carmakers, particularly German ones. There may be an end in sight to this one-upmanship, though: Even the AMG's new 6.2-liter V-8 is about 100 hp short of this one.
Retro design is easy to do the first time around, infinitely harder the second. The Miata, however, was inspired by an idea as much as a look, which has been the secret to its staying power. The 1989 original, arguably the first "retro" car, eschewed the sports-car tech of the day (turbochargers, four-wheel steering) in favor of simplicity. It was a perfect imitation of an old-school British ragtop like the Lotus Elan, only reliable, which is why it became the best-selling roadster in history. Looking to modernize the car 17 years later, Mazda started with a blank slate. It commissioned fresh ergonomic research, laid out new engineering studiesÉand wound up with almost exactly the same car. The MX-5 reaffirms the soundness of the original. Its purity keeps the sports car at its most essential, and its evolution keeps the retro movement relevant.
Toyota's Prius gas-electric hybrid is a groundbreaking car, and it looks it. Its wacky podlike shape has become visual shorthand for a certain kind of spelt-munching, bumper sticker-happy Huffington Post-er, a group with which you may or may not want to cast your lot. The Camry Hybrid, however, is recognizable only by small badges on its bodywork, the very same best-selling bodywork that ornaments America's suburbs like some kind of rolling picket fence. So this is an under-the-radar greenie, not to mention one with a full hybrid system that can run solely on battery power (as opposed to the partial-hybrid Honda Accord), produces almost no grungy tailpipe or evaporative emissions, and can get up to 40 mpg under the right circumstances. And it does so without soliciting an FBI phone tap. These are perilous times; if you want to make a contribution to a cleaner planet quietly, we suggest the Camry Hybrid. Just be sure you pack lightly: The battery pack eats up much of the trunk. By: Eddie Alterman (December 2006)
WENNER MEDIA: RollingStone.com | Us Online
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BMW Z4 M COUPE 
CADILLAC ESCALADE 
JEEP WRANGLER 
DODGE CHARGER SRT8 
Price range $36,225-$39,225
MERCEDES-BENZ E320
MERCEDES-BENZ S65 AMG 
MAZDA MX-5 
TOYOTA CAMRY HYBRID