The smallest Toyota is the Yaris hatchback. (Bud Wells photo)
The automotive mix continues.
Toyota has returned a hatchback to the Yaris subcompact lineup for 2020, after a year’s absence; it is a version of the Mazda2 and produced in a Mazda plant in Salamanca, Mexico. Pricing falls below $20,000.
It’s the smallest car sold by Toyota in the U.S. The little Yaris, from a rear corner, somewhat resembles the long-gone Chrysler PT Cruiser.
The Yaris in the subcompact field outsells Chevy Sonic, Ford Fiesta and Fiat 500, but trails the Nissan Versa, Honda Fit, Mitsubishi Mirage, Hyundai Accent, Kia Rio and Mini Cooper.
The new hatchback at 161.6 inches is approximately the same in overall length as the Honda Fit hatchback. It provides 15.9 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats. Legroom is limited for the rear seating area.
The front-drive Yaris is rated at 32/40 miles per gallon from its little 1.5-liter, 4-cylinder engine generating 105 horsepower with a 6-speed automatic transmission. It edged past the 40-mpg mark on a 55-mile drive out east of Eaton and back, and its overall average for 125 miles was 38.9, that’s impressive. A Sport mode quickens the shifts and tightens the steering feel.
With sticker price of $19,705, the Yaris Hatchback XLE is dressed up with leatherette seats and leather trim for its dash, steering wheel, shift knob and park brake handle. It also adds low-speed precollision braking, rain-sensing wipers, 7-inch color touchscreen display, Bluetooth/AppleCarPlay/Android Auto.
The VW Golf GTI at Jeffrey Lake, near Brady, Neb. (Kurt Wells photo)
Right around 350 bucks is all that separated sticker prices on two new cars I drove back-to-back for review in The Post.
The 2020 Mini Cooper SE is fully electric coupe.
The 2020 Volkswagen Golf GTI 2.0T Autobahn rolled in at $37,415; almost matching that is the ’20 Mini Cooper SE all-electric at $37,750. Close in price, yet far apart in their respective market niches.
The Mini, with a limited range of 110 miles, is for short-distance runs, so, on a spring morning, with 93 miles of all-electric range showing on the Mini’s info screen, Jan and I headed for Costco 25 miles away near Fort Collins. The load of groceries we purchased wouldn’t begin to fit in the Mini’s tiny 7.5-cubic-feet of cargo space, so we dropped the rear seatbacks, then nearly filled the entire space.
The Golf GTI, though, is launching its eighth generation, dating back 45 years, as a leader in the “great-handling hot hatch” category. It’s meant to be driven – so, we did, 600-mile round trip to Jeffrey Lake near Brady, Neb., joining Kurt and Tammy Wells for two days of the Memorial Weekend at their lakehouse.
A mile from my home on the return drive, a mechanical issue shutdown the GTI. It seemed to be a clutch problem, and I limped it home in 2nd gear with no shifts.
Since the 1970s, I’ve driven for review approximately 95 new Volkswagens; this is the first VW ever towed away from my home. I remember a Fiat towed away in the ‘70s, an Audi in the ‘90s, a couple Fords more recently for sidewall tire punctures, and the first Dodge Charger Hellcat I drove was loaded onto a transport, after emptying most of its crankcase of oil, and hauled back to Detroit.
The 2020 Golf GTI performed with a 242-horsepower, 2.0-liter, 4-cylinder engine and 6-speed manual transmission in front-wheel-drive configuration. Optional is a 7-speed, dual-clutch automatic transmission.
The newest GTI is a bit longer and sits lower than previously. Its comfortably bolstered front sport seats were plenty supportive over the lengthy run to the Nebraska lake. With more than half of the driving on Interstate highways, the GTI averaged 30.8 miles per gallon. We visited cemeteries at Sterling enroute and at Wray on the return.
The new Golf GTI sits on a wheelbase of 103.6 inches, is 168 inches in overall length, with curb weight of 3,062 pounds. It is fitted with lane-keeping assist and autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian and cyclist monitoring.
A favorite of youthful drivers around the world, the GTI made its premiere at the Frankfurt International Motor Show in 1975. More than 2.3 million have been produced. The 2020 model is built at Puebla, Mexico.
The McLaren 570S in the beauty of Rist Canyon. (Bud Wells photos)
Roars from my garage on numerous startups during Father’s Day weekend were from the English-built 2020 McLaren 570S Spider. What an absolute treat for this old dad.
This beautifully structured superperformer drew admiring stares and waves almost everywhere, from backing out of my garage to parking in a Starbucks lot to pausing among four women and a guy in a classy, age-restrictive neighborhood and out onto the roadways of northern Colorado.
Finished in elite vega blue, the $233,000 McLaren 570S boasts 562 horsepower/442 lb.-ft. of torque from a twin-turbocharged, 3.8-liter V-8 engine mounted midship and 7-speed dual-clutch seamless-shift automatic transmission in rear-wheel drive. It will run 0 to 60 in barely over 3 seconds, with a top speed of 204 miles per hour. Throttle and suspension can be set from normal to sport to track. Bright yellow calipers draw attention to its huge ceramic brake discs, 15.5 inches in front and 15 at the rear.
The McLaren 570S Spider with top down and butterfly doors up.
With its butterfly (dihedral) doors opened and the top in place, there is no smooth manner in or out of the driver seat; it is much less a chore with the top dropped. The spider stands just under 4 feet in height and its ground clearance is a tight 3.7 inches. With the touch of a button by the driver, the low-slung car will raise by 1 ½ inches and avoid scraping the driveway curbing, then as speed reaches just over 35 miles per hour the car lowers to normal diving height.
Mike Ward, the dealer out south near C-470 who operates McLaren Denver and six other luxury marques, mentioned that the 570S is the entry-level machine for McLaren. It is overshadowed by the 720S, with that much (720) horsepower. Ward said his store had sold 200 McLarens in three years. There are 26 McLaren dealerships in the U.S. The closest to Denver is at Scottsdale, Ariz., owned also by Ward. High-end businessmen and women are buyers of most McLarens, he said.
The McLaren company, launched by Bruce McLaren in 1963, today operates at Surrey, Woking, England, where the McLarens are hand-built. Among options pushing sticker price of the review model to $233,780 are Bowers & Wilkins audio and $4,780 for upgrade to twin-spoke lightweight wheels.
My final drive in the supercar was on a Monday morning, over through Loveland to Masonville and on north through Rist Canyon to Fort Collins. The well-planted McLaren, of carbon-fibre construction and responsive with adaptive dampers, fears no cornering, and it conquered every one of the hundreds of twists of Rist. Among others I’ve tested on Ritz road are Chevy Corvette Grand Sport Coupe, Porsche Carrera, Ford Mustang GT, Chrysler 300 SRT8 and Fiat 124 Abarth roadster. The McLaren’s fuel mileage was 18.9.
Seat controls, out of sight at the front inner corner of the bottom cushion, made seat and seatback adjustments on the 2020 McLaren 570S Spider a guessing game at times. I questioned, too, the small, 2-inch-square brake pedal pad for a super-performing auto such as that.
From an onlooker’s vantage, though, the McLaren drew nothing but “oohs” and “aahs.”
Its fluid style was well-received. “What a beautiful car; I love it and I don’t even know what it is,” said Colleen Callahan of Greeley. After being told it is an English-built McLaren, she said, “My late husband had a Sunbeam Tiger,” a rare sports car also from England in the mid-1960s.
Here are optional items which pushed the price of the McLaren from a base of $208,800 to sticker of $233,780:
Ignition key,
MSO Black Pack,
tyre pressure monitoring system,
Pirelli P Zero tires,
ceramic brakes with yellow calipers,
twin-spoke lightweight wheels,
nose life,
parking sensors,
rear parking camera,
battery charger,
branded floor mats,
carbon fibre interior components,
carbon black leather steering wheel,
carbon black alcantra headliner,
electric steering column,
electric and heated memory seats,
luxury pack,
jet black interior theme,
nappa sport interior trim,
soft-close doors,
stealth exhaust finisher,
sports exhaust,
vega blue exterior paint,
satellite radio,
Bowers & Wilkins audio,
transportation.
Laura Tilley, McLaren public relations manager, reminded me before delivery of the 570S that I am restricted to only 250 miles of use. I’d completed the Rist Canyon drive and was heading home when the odometer’s trip computer registered 250.0, and I . . . . . the quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s head, the quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s head, the quick, brown fox jumped over the lazy dog’s head, the quick,
(Forty years ago last month, in May 1980, I drove for a week a new ’80 Porsche 924 including an afternoon to Pueblo Motorsports Park where I joined the late, famed Porsche race driver Bob Hagestad, who also owned and operated Bob Hagestad Porsche Audi dealership on West Colfax Avenue in Denver. Following are excerpts from my column which appeared in The Denver Post.)
Riding into a sharp curve at 100 miles per hour with Bob Hagestad gives a hint of his race-driving mastery. The convincing moments are in completing the curve in a lower gear with RPMs approaching 6,500.
Hagestad’s race Porsche, with which he hopes to earn a national championship this year, is one of the few sports cars that will outsprint, out-handle and brake better than the standard 1980 Porsche 924.
The 2.2-mile Pueblo Motorsports Track southwest of Pueblo is marked by 10 curves, four of them sharply defined, and lots of hills. “Brake, shift and hit your point on the curve,” Hagestad said. “It’s a matter or concentration. A race driver works the curves over and over, race after race, year after year.”
Quality of the German-built Porsche 924 is outstanding. Doors snap shut tightly, body is quiet and solid, interior fit is perfect, braking is good and the engine is smooth and responsive. The car corners exceptionally well.
The little car weighs 2,600 pounds and sits only 50 inches high, with ground clearance of 4.9 inches. Turning circle is a narrow 30.8 feet. During a week of driving the sports car, fuel-mileage checks were 31.7 on the highway and 24.3 in town.
Horsepower rating is 115 for the 121-cubic-inch, 4-cylinder engine, which is slanted 40 degrees. The only practical purpose for the slant is for a lower hoodline. Its top speed is estimated at 120 miles per hour; a peg on the car’s speedometer stops the speed indicator at 85.
The 924 carried a base price of $15,970. Addition of two-tone red-and-white paint, removable top, air conditioning, electric outside mirrors, Grundig AM/FM cassette with equalizer, 15-inch alloy wheels and a $1,960 sports group boosted the window sticker price slightly above $20,000.
Because of less body movement from the stiff suspension, Hagestad’s racing version felt much safer at high speeds on the race track than did the stock 924 I was driving.
