Football isn’t the only fall sensation. The chill in the air also brings the preview issues for those new cars you’ve had your eye on. Here’s the lowdown on the highlights.
Automobile fixes a gimlet eye on the BMW 4 Series, with design columnist Robert Cumberford issuing a 23-point critique that’s liable to make a dent no matter how beautiful she may appear. You can almost see the German design folks wincing: A sporty side vent behind the front wheel is “a visual cliche.” Fake “chrome” trim surrounding the front grille is really made of plastic, and looks “forced” as it stretches to connect to the headlamps. On the plus side, he praises the perfectly round steering wheel, which is “nicely laced with contrasting thread.” As for the dashboard, “there are pleasing curves instead of brutal geometry,” Cumberford notes.
If you think of cars as necessary evils (aka digging a hole and pouring money into it), then Consumer Reports New Car Preview 2014 is the magazine for you. In other words, what is the least money you can spend and still reliably get to the office, beach and the mall? It’s no surprise that the Koreans have this market down — Hyundai and Kia dominate the under $20K winning circle. But then there are the readers who have a yen for something racier, the Tesla bulls, for example, and CR has not left you behind. The mag gives Tesla a near-perfect road test score, and it costs $89,650, OK? For all the whining from Tesla short-sellers aghast at the electric car company’s $20 billion market cap, there is one tiny drawback: “Features such as Internet surfing can be very distracting while driving.”
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Car and Driver is a nerd’s dream, full of page after page of charts, numbers and talk of suspension and wheel design. Perhaps less expected is that C&D forces its nerds to also learn something about those less reliable and quirkier machines known as humans, including a cool feature on the man determined to bring the dirt tracks of the Eldora Speedway to the increasingly glossy world of NASCAR racing. Tony Stewart, a three-time NASCAR champion, is pushing his dirt tracks at a time when NASCAR is losing fans due to its lack of, well … grit. Given that it’s a consumer magazine, though, we can’t help but chastise C&D for playing down its most eyebrow-raising story on the auto industry: that Costco is now in the business selling cars. The wholesaler, known for selling toilet paper in bulk, doesn’t sell the cars directly, but connects members to dealerships “promising specific cars at specific prices.” Are houses next?
If you’re looking for Madison Avenue’s take on the psyche of the typical car enthusiast, look no further than the ads at the back of Motor Trend. “Size matters. Length and girth are important,” according to one product ad. There’s also a coupon for “Libido Max,” as well as a slinky lingerie model sprawled across a page that hawks “bedroom adventure gear.” As for cars, the content is decidedly less provocative. The cover story on BMW’s new 4 Series coupe reads like ad copy — boring ad copy.
The New Yorker spills what seems like a 55-gallon barrel of ink over the supposed Keystone XL pipeline controversy. The result is a 13-page story whose dullness unwittingly shows what a no-brainer it is for President Obama to approve the Canada-to-US oil conduit. The story’s reporting suggests that Obama will do just that. So who cares about a lengthy profile of the environmentalist protesters. “This is oil that’s going to be produced whether or not there’s a Keystone pipeline,” notes former Secretary of State George Shultz. “Get over it!”
New York, devoting this week’s issue to Mayor Bloomberg, puts the words “His Town” on the cover. Inside, we get a tougher critique than we recently saw in the New Yorker. But that’s not saying much. Bloomberg’s answer to the key problem of apartment rent being too damn high is notably weak. “It’s like the way we think that the music that we have is OK, but the next generation’s music is crap,” he says. Apparently, he thinks it’s crazy to say the Rolling Stones were better than Rihanna.
At a time when state funds for universities are drying up and the US faces an education crisis, Time declares on its cover that “It’s Time to Pay College Athletes.” Inside, we get a lengthy account of how incredibly unfair it is for college sports phenoms not to be compensated while they generate piles of cash for their alma maters. Well, we can think of a lot of students who aren’t getting a fair shake these days, shelling out upwards of $100,000 for a degree that doesn’t guarantee them a job, period, much less a stint in the NFL.