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Subscribe for free @www.autolive.co.za Page 12Cocooned in Merc’s CLSNo place to hide! Hope the bodywork wasn’t too badly pitted.By Stuart JohnstonAt one stage we wondered whether all those NewAgers were right about 2012 being the time whenthe planet would devolve into a different life-formaltogether. The sky was darker than a governmentallimo on a moonless night, and yet it was mid-day.Next thing, we were being pelted <strong>with</strong> hailstones as loud as pistol shots and as dense as shotgunblast.The Mercedes CLS was a nice place to be interms of personal injury protection, but we fearedfor the sheet-metal of this brand-new R700 000 carand searched in vain for some place to protect itshitherto pristine bodywork. Uh uh. No handy carportsout here in the Hekpoort region, and parkingunder a tree didn’t seem so smart as the wind washowling too, as those old blue gums looked wellaged.Sorry, Mercedes PR team, but we did our best.Within minutes the road had turned into askating rink, and the traction control was employedto a point where the car wouldn’t exceed 40 km/h. Itried to get it to go faster, but the sensors on the rearwheel hubs said, like Amy Winehouse once sang,no, no, no.Traction was not forthcoming. The old F150pick-up in the rear-vew mirror obviously didn’thave traction control, driven by some crazy farmer,as he loomed closer and closer, and then shotoff into the driveway of what was presumably hissmall-holding. That, or he finally lost it, and therejust happened to be a handy driveway where he leftthe roadAnd all the time, me and my co-driver, freelancejourno and actress Karin Petersen, werecringing as the hailstones landed on that beautifulfour-door-coupe bodywork.We never did discover how bad the damage,if any, was to the car, and to the other cars on thelaunch of the new diesel version of the re-styledCLS, known as the 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY.It actually employs a 2,2-litre diesel motor, thefour-cylinder unit rated at 150 kW, and <strong>with</strong> an impressive500 Nm of torque. The motor is also to befound in some models of the E-Class and the C-Class.The transmission is Merc’s 7G-Tronic system, whichis a very good match to this engine, and providesseamless, effortless forward motion, excepting onroads pelted by one of the most severe hail stormsin memory, as experienced on that day a week agowhen the car was launched to the SA media.Some 170 000 examples of Mercedes’ previousgenCLS have been sold since the shape was introducedback in 2004. Previously it was available inV6 and V8 versions, but this is the first four-cylinderoffering, and it was obvious that Mercedes wereconcerned as to how a “mere” four-cylinder versionof such a stylish car would be received.I feel that the engine is in fact perfectly suitedto a car of this style and nature. The CLS is moreabout appearance than performance, and althoughthere are much more potent V8 and AMG versionsavailable, they are much pricier. The CLS 500, forinstance, costs R1,1 million, whereas the CLS 63AMG goes for R1,35-million. Why not save betweenR400 000 and R650 00 in an era where speedis increasingly becoming superfluous on our roads?And the CLS 250 is not slow. For sure, <strong>with</strong>good traction and an accelerator fully depressed,The road on a South African Spring day!Traction control prevented the Merc fromexceeding 40 km/h.the forward urge is of the unobtrusively-brisk ratherthan the super-quick variety, but the figures stillpoint to a top speed of 242 km/h and a zero to 100km/h time of around seven-point-something seconds.Allied to this, the official consumption claimfor the car is an impressive 5,1 to 5,3 litres of dieselconsumed for every 100 km. Translate this intoreal-world terms of between 6,5 litres and 8,5 litresper 100, depending on your driving style and trafficenvironment, and you have an extremely economicalproposition.The car is still laden <strong>with</strong> equipment to makeyou feel pampered and standard-fit items includethe COMAND APS multimedia system,<strong>with</strong> a 40 gigabyte Navigation hard-drive, andLINGUATRONIC, <strong>with</strong> a text-to-speech functionthat enables you to listen to SMS messages sent toyou by cell-phone.An option that we would definitely specify atR12 500 is the LED headlight fitment, which notonly provides an excellent safety factor in terms ofvisibility to other road users, but looks super-coolto boot.Does the new version of the CLS still look super-cool?I admit to being totally knocked out bythe original, because it was such a bold statementfor Mercedes-Benz to make back in 2004 (the conceptmade its debut at Frankfurt in 2003).It was a marrying of old-world sleekness <strong>with</strong>modern aerodynamics, and it definitely put highstylebefore any practical considerations. In fact,the CLS four-door coupe continued a tradition ofMercedes coupes that goes way back, and manyreaders will remember the CE and SEC versionsof the E-Class and S-Class as being prized modelsfrom the ‘70s and ‘80s. The only difference was, herewas a coupe <strong>with</strong> four doors!So well did the CLS sell that the likes of BMWand Audi followed <strong>with</strong> similar style models, noneof which were as successful as the original CLS. Butnow we have the latest model and gone is the dedicationto sleekness. Instead, there is the aggressiveshovel-nose that is a hall-mark of all latest-generationMercs, and the once-sleek flanks have growngreat bulging wheel-arch flares, as used on the currentS-Class. Personally, I think the new car is nowherenear as classic or eye-catching as the original,although it still has an undeniable presence.Because the launch ride of the new four-cylinderversion was so hamstrung by one of the mostintense hail storms in recent memory (at least wherewe were, in the Magaliesburg region) I can’t tell youmore about every little nuance of the car, as most ofour concentration was spent on staying on the roadand out of trouble. But I can tell you that this car,at R700 000, makes sound economic sense whencompared to the other CLS models in the range,and it’s understated performance perhaps even enhancesits aura of stealthy elegance. We’ll analyseit in more depth when we get one for a test in themonths to come. ■
Subscribe for free @www.autolive.co.za Page 13Toyota Boxes CleverThe Toyota 86, of which there is an almost identical Subaru version available already in Europe, is one of the mostinteresting Toyotas to be produced for years. Its mechanical specification makes for some hugely entertainingreading, as does the driving experience in general.By Stuart JohnstonMy only sadness regarding my first taste of the 86is that I had an automatic model for test. Giventhe car’s purist sporting nature, all the six-speedautomatic did was make me wish every time Iclimbed into it that I had a manual model, whichI believe has quite a delightful gear shift. But moreon that later.The 86’s most unusual attribute is undoubtedlyits engine, which is very much a joint development<strong>with</strong> Subaru. Having had such vast experience <strong>with</strong>boxer (horizontally-opposed piston) engines overthe past half a century, it was natural that Subaruwas left to design the crankcase and cylinder endof the engine. Where Toyota’s engineering expertisecame in was in at the upper end, or maybe thatshould be at the extremities, given that a boxerengine’s cylinder heads are stuck out in the windstreamon either side of the low-slung engine.Toyota brought its experience <strong>with</strong> direct petrolinjection to this particular party, and it is indeeda happy occasion. The motor revs so freelyand seamlessly that one is hard-pressed to recognisethat it’s a horizontally-opposed motor. PerhapsLooks a bit like an early Hino badge, butwhat it says is 86, flanked by opposingpistons.it’s due to the particular intake and exhaust configurationof the 86, but there is an almost completeabsence of the off-beat warble that characterises“pure” Subaru offerings. It simply takes on a slightlyharder edge as it revs way past its power peak of6 600 rpm, to an electronically controlled red-linecut-out at 7 400.Toyota engineers worked extremelylong hours to arrive at this particularengine sound by playing around<strong>with</strong> the intake and exhaust timingon the variable camshaft sprockets.Toyota engineers worked extremely long hoursto arrive at this particular engine sound by playingaround <strong>with</strong> the intake and exhaust timing on thevariable camshaft sprockets. They were in fact sopleased <strong>with</strong> the engine sound they achieved, thatthey channelled some of this sound into the cabin,via a rubber duct. This was done so that outside thenoise from exhaust and induction is still well <strong>with</strong>inthe ever-stricter noise pollution limits that are beingimposed on manufacturers in the more sophisticatedregions of our planet.The idea reminds us of the days when teenagedhot-rodders fitted side-draught Webers to theirMinis, and as their was no space left over for the intaketrumpets, they removed the speedo, so you hadthe engine drawing fresh air directly from the spotwhere the speedo once resided!The amount of expertise that has gone into the86’s air-and-fuel induction is quite mind-boggling.The D-4S injection system uses two injector systemsper cylinder, and employs both direct injection intothe cylinder as well as port-injection into the intakeports. The port injection system comes into play atlower engine revs, and apparently there is simultaneousport and direct injection at high rpm, above5 000 rpm.The pistons have been specially designed tomake best use of the direct injection system, <strong>with</strong>a “flared dome” shape that swirls the direct injectionfuel spray towards the spark plug area. There isno doubt as to the engine’s dynamic efficiency, as ituses a high 12,5:1 compression ratio.Apparently Chief Engineer Tesuya Tada consideredtwo types of engines for this car, these beinga rotary design and a boxer, saying that these small,low configurations were under consideration becausesuch a low-slung engine was needed in a lowsports car to comply <strong>with</strong> ever-stringent pedestriansafety laws.While the car has sporty overtones in its enginenote, it has sporting characteristics in much moreimportant areas. The fact that the Boxer engine hasa low centre of gravity obviously helped the Toyotaengineers in arriving at a very dynamic handlingpackage. It uses MacPherson struts up front anddouble wishbones at the rear, and, as already mentioned,a rear – wheel-drive layout, something wehave seen more recently in Lexus cars <strong>with</strong> theirBoxer four-cylinder is a joint venture between Toyota and Subaru.continued on next page
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