Car_and_Driver_USA_July_2017

knocked all the
branches right off the
ugly tree, but what do
I know? I also can’t
see paying extra for
blue jeans that are
ripped and faded
before I put them on
for the first time.
Must be getting old.
—Rick Vornbrock
Lethbridge, AB
I just wanted to
comment on your
write-up of the Civic,
Golf, 3, and Chevy
Cruze. Everything
seemed fair enough
except one thing:
premium fuel. I get
that only the Honda
“required” premium,
but the others would
have benefited from it
also. I know for sure
the Golf would have.
Feed a Golf 93-octane
premium and you can
expect a bump of
almost 20 horsepower
and about the
same torque, all the
while gaining 2 to 3
mpg as well. I know
this as fact from not
only personal experience,
but it used to be
on the APR website
based on its testing
as well. I can only
assume that the
Mazda and Chevy
would have appreciated
the good stuff,
too, maybe the Chevy
a little more with the
turbocharged engine,
but both nonetheless.
Would the Golf have
won? Probably not,
but it sure would have
smoked the others
and probably tied the
Civic in the longer
tests.
—Reynaldo Torres
Batavia, IL
Few new cars require
premium fuel,
although most
turbocharged
engines recommend
high-octane gas to
make full power. For
that reason we
tested all the cars in
the comparo with 91
octane (the highest
available in California)
to give the
turbocharged cars
the best possible
acceleration and
power—Ed.
It’s like you guys are
reading my mind. In
“One-Car Wonders,”
Robinson wishes
BMW would build
“low-mileage E36
wagons.” This is
exactly why my 1998
M3 sedan is a keeper
and its garage mate, a
2005 Legacy GT
wagon, a fast and rare
unicorn with its turbo
and manual transmission,
is not. I seem to
have found the one
Subaru that is (much)
less reliable and
(much) more expensive
to fix than an E36,
“. . . ROBINSON
WISHES BMW
WOULD BUILD
‘LOW-MILEAGE
E36 WAGONS.’
THIS IS
EXACTLY WHY
MY 1998
M3 SEDAN IS
A KEEPER.”
Editor's Letter:
Pamela Yates was kind enough
to invite me to the final fete
for her husband, Brock, the man
we came to call “the Assassin.”
The memorial service was held in
upstate New York, in April, and I
can assure you that there was
nary a poltroon, milksop, or
pecksniff in attendance.
As my bosses keep reminding me,
I’m extraordinarily lucky to have this
job. The luckiest part is that it allows
me to meet guys like Yates. Through
adventures as varied as the coastto-coast
Cannonball and the writing
of such inflammatory genius as The
Decline and Fall of the American Automobile
Industry, Brock embodied high-speed rebellion, shattering
the rules that served to limit our freedom. He stoked
young men’s fantasies of driving fast and not giving a shit.
And he along with David E. Davis Jr. and Patrick Bedard
formed the Holy Trinity of this magazine. When I met him,
it was post-post-Cannonball, he had waxed famous, and I
half expected him to be someone who thought his name
preceded him. If anything, meeting Brock was better than
worshipping him from afar. He had a way, as one of his doctors
said at the memorial, “of bringing you in.” He made you
a co-conspirator, his eye ever a-twinkle. Brock succumbed
last year to Alzheimer’s disease, and what’s cruelest to me is
that a guy so full of life could be saddled with a disease so
intent on extinguishing its force.
His friends and family came from around the country to
tell stories about him, about his essential humanity. As the
oratory piled up, one of his oldest friends, the well-traveled
executive Clint Allen, said: “I sort of feel like Zsa Zsa Gabor’s
eighth husband on their wedding night. I know what to do, I
just don’t know how to make it interesting.”
Brock was a guy who loved fast, loud, outrageous cars
because he loved the guys who built and drove and mastered
cars like that. His idol was the hard-living moonshinercum-NASCAR
driver Curtis Turner. The story goes that
Brock, while reporting on the Daytona 500, approached
Turner’s car on the grid. Brock looked into the cockpit and
found Turner asleep, five minutes before the race. Those
were his drinking buddies.
We got the best of Brock, as did so many others. He
wasn’t just a magazine writer—he was a screenwriter, an
author, a broadcaster, an organizer, and the consummate
husband and family man. What became clear to me as I sat
in that room, amazed to find myself there, is that Brock
wouldn’t have been Brock without Pamela. He called everyone
“teammate,” but Lady Pamela was his crew chief. Like
David E.’s Jeannie, she was his foundation. That teamwork
allowed him to be who he really was, a guy hopelessly in love
with life and all the best stuff in it.
—Eddie Alterman
012 . CAR AND DRIVER . JUL/2017
Sic your dogs on us at: editors@caranddriver.com or join: backfires.caranddriver.com