STORY LINE:     BLOWERS/TURBO CHARGERS: GAS & DIESEL - THE FUTURE CAR IS … almost HERE

I always enjoy driving … piloting-if you will, a fast touring sedan. Drag racing is okay, but for those who really enjoy motoring-cruising, a touring sedan and high speeds is the ultimate. That is an arena-high speeds-that is best left to closed courses for simple safety concerns. And the cost of fuels, well, the rest of the world pays way more for their petrol then we do here.  As we have all seen recently, gas is getting a little more costly. But, to the story at hand, with blowers, turbos-gas/diesel.

A few weeks ago I had the chance to short road test a new Mercury Marauder with an intercooled supercharger. Interestingly enough, shortly thereafter, the monthly meeting of the APA (Automobile Press Association) held at the DAC (Detroit Athletic Club) featured the Honeywell Company who own Garret … the Turbocharging people. Let’s do the Mercury Marauder first.  

Jerry Barnes of TRILOGY MOTORSPORTS picked me out of  a crowd-fortunately for me-as a group of us were examining the Marauder club lineup at Wild Woody’s cruise night on a late Sunday afternoon. Now a typical factory Mercury Marauder is FMC’s answer to the Chevrolet RWD  Impala SS last built in 1996. The Marauder name as applied to Mercury was once a model lineup in Mercury cars from the ‘60s, and was what Mercury labeled their ‘FE’ engines last century. The new Marauder is an excellent road touring type car with a very taught ride/handling combination, an excellent 4.6 DOHC modular with AOD, and an interior to match with bucket type seating/console. It’s a well balanced factory built performance touring sedan. 

Enter TRILOGY MOTORSPORTS with the application of an intercooler supercharger with roots type blower for 460HP (390@rear wheels) and 425ft-lb torque (360@rear wheels). With 9.5 lbs boost the Marauder runs 12.9 in the quarter mile. Whats wrong with power, comfort and fuel mileage in the 30mpg range and all in a 4,500 lb. package. This is the future and it’s here now. Should you want to check out this vehicle and TRILOGY; www.mercurymarauder.net  and www.trilogymotorsports.com.  Oh … and I drove the Marauder. It’s barrels of unsuspecting instant fun. And as a passing note, Lidio at Alternative Automotive has one that he drives daily … it runs in the 11’s.

FUEL MILEAGE is going to become a huge concern-as if it isn’t already. As I stated earlier here, the rest of the world pays groups more for fuel than we do here in the U.S., and that’s changing lately as we weekly witness escalating U.S. prices. In Europe the diesel is the vehicle of choice with some 70% of the market place. We Americans unfortunately have a bad taste for the compression fired motored cars yet we do not really understand them. The Europeans do, soon we likely will.

Martin Verschoor, Vice President of Worldwide Engineering & Technology/Honeywell Turbo Technologies-and this guy knows his ‘stuph’-was the speaker at the APA meeting and briefed the attending audience of automotive journalists on the genuine attributes of turbo technology and it’s application to diesel and gasoline  fueled engines. Bosch representatives were on hand to answer fuel rail questions …. and let us loose to the streets of Detroit with gas and diesel turbo cars from other parts of the world, unlike anything we have here.   

ROAD TESTS. Diesel Turbo: VW Touareg V10 5 liter DOHC 313HP@3750 rpm, 552lbs-ft torque@2000 rpm. This vehicle looks/size like a Chrysler Pacifica, had a 6-speed automatic AWD and does 0-60 in 6.2 seconds and 140 mph top speed, 18/23 mpg. BMW 330d I6 24V 3 liter DOHC 204HP@4000 rpm, 301lbs-ft torque@1500 rpm. Typical ‘Beamer’ sedan, 6-speed manual and does 0-60 in 7 seconds, 26/45 mpg. MINI Cooper I4 16 valve 1.4 liter DOHC 75HP@4000 rpm, 132lbs-ft torque@2000 rpm. A MINI with a diesel and 6-speed manual, 0-60 in 13.5 seconds and 41/55 mpg.  MB E320CDI I6 24 valve 3.2 liter DOHC   204HP@4200 rpm, 368lbs-ft torque@1750 rpm. A big 4dr sedan Mercedes with automatic, 0-60 in 7.5 seconds, 27/37 mpg.      

Gas/Turbo: Garrett prototype Jeep liberty I4 16V 2.4 liter DOHC with 241HP, 0-60 in the 9 second area, 18/24 mpg.  And a couple of Australian Ford cars/UTE the size of a Taurus in the mid 20s for mileage with 0-60 in 6.0 seconds. And a Ford Focus with 2 liter (that’s about 125CID) 0-60in 6.4, 20/37 mpg.

The diesel vehicles were so quiet, I would never have known that they were in fact compression fired, power that would make you a believer with no typical odor and/or smoke. Do keep in mind that in reading/rereading the above engine specs, a liter is equal to about 61.5CID.

Turbocharging and blowers, were used to ‘em here for high performance gasoline application. If fuel costs keep rising-count on it, you may very well see the joint venture GM/Isuzu engines coming out of the Dayton, Ohio plant … turbocharged/intercooled and in your Cadillac.