|
danger of losing
their hard-earned, once- distinctive identity. Fortunately, the Le Mans version
is much like the GTO – that is to say cleaner and more elegant than the
cheaper Tempests – so that our Sprint-equipped test car was still quite
handsome. We’re not real sure about the painted, Ford GT-type stripe that runs
along the side to proclaim the name, but stripes continue to be very big out
there in enthusiast- land and the customers will probably like it just fine. The
Tempest’s seats have been redesigned for 1966, and they’re greatly improved.
The bucket seats in our test car were lighter and less bulky, and they seemed to
fit much better than before. The passenger’s seat can now be ordered with a
recliner, for which we are duly thankful, and both seats can be fitted with
optional headrests. The range of adjustment is very good, and the driving
position is as good as any American sedan we know. The rear seat is not the sort
of place where you’d want to spend a week, but it’s fine for children, and
they seem to be the ones who do most of the riding back there. As much as we
love the GTO, and all the noise we’ve made about it notwithstanding, we really
feel that the Sprint-equipped Le Mans will be a more useful car for most people
than its more exciting older brother. The more restrained performance of the
Sprint set-up can be called up any time the driver sees fit, while the GTO
driver will only be able to use the awesome potential of his machine about once
a month. Another important benefit that accrues to the Sprint driver is fuel
economy. On a 688-mile run from Detroit to New York City, we averaged slightly
more than sixty miles per hour on the turnpikes and our fuel consumption was 28
miles per gallon – which ain’t bad by any standard of measurement. And
don’t get us wrong
with all this talk
about sensible performance and good fuel economy, the Tempest Sprint is really a
very brisk performer. It’ll do an honest ten-second zero to sixty and it’ll
run forever at well over a hundred mph. The
ohc six-cylinder engine, with substantially less weight than Pontiac’s V-8
engines, also contributes to markedly improved handling. The car is better
balanced and it can be driven around corners at moderately high speeds with a
good deal more accuracy and less excitement |
|
than
most cars of the GTO/4-4-2 genre.
A funny thing that crops up here, though, is a change in steering behavior
between the six-cylinder Sprint and the GTO with its massive V-8. The
twenty-to-one manual steering ratio is quite fast enough for most
occasions in the GTO, but it simply doesn’t get the job done in the
Sprint. We were constantly surprising ourselves around the city when
we’d suddenly find that we just couldn’t seem to bend on enough
steering lock to negotiate a given corner at a given speed. Our experience
with this manual steering unit leads us to strongly recommend that anybody
who buys a Sprint-type Tempest should definitely specify the optional
power steering with its faster seventeen-to-one ratio. Evidently, we never
realized how much we relied on the throttle to swish the GTO around
corners, because we were utterly amazed at the slow steering in the
Sprint, where no such help from the throttle is forth- coming. The Sprint
suspension is just like the GTO, to all intents and purposes, and it works
very well, with only a tendency to bottom the rear suspension under
full-load conditions marring an otherwise good performance. It’s stable
and responsible and seems to be happiest when it’s being driven fast and
hard. The only major flaw in its overall performance is one that has
turned out to be common, in varying degrees, to all of the cars in the
Tempest line-up – it’s called axle hop, and it happens whenever you
really tramp down on the old brake pedal. It can be controlled, a little,
by lifting your foot when you begin to sense that the rear suspension is
shaking the car violently, but the minute you come down hard on the brakes
again... it happens again. It won’t occur in any ”normal” driving
situations, but a real Omigawd- we’re -gonna-run-into-that-idiot kind of
a stop will bring it on every time. It’s disconcerting, that’s what.
All we can suggest is that you try to avoid panic stops. Somebody at
Pontiac likened the Sprint concept to a low-priced Mercedes 220-SE, and he
wasn’t too far wrong. It’s faster than most European cars, as well as
most standard American V-8s, and it’s smooth and economical to a
fare-thee-well. The engine will wind to 6500 without a trace of effort,
and it makes a sound that’ll bring tears to the eyes of anyone who ever
wanted to own an SS-100 Jag. Pontiac feels that there’s a good market
for a six- cylinder performance car, provided the price is right. Well,
this Pontiac’s price is right. One of the Iowline Tempests, with the
full Sprint package, could be driven home by Joe Keen-type for
substantially less than $2500 – after the usual round of haggling.
Although we’re really turned on by the explosive nature of the
GTO, we must honestly admit that a fully-equipped Le Mans with the Sprint stuff
on it would be a more sensible and useful car – ego problems and
fighter-pilot fantasies be damned. This is a car that should change a lot
of ”expert” minds about six-cylinder engines. It might even start
another generation of imitators – try to imagine half-a-dozen different
makes that went fast enough, handled well enough, didn’t cost very much
to buy, and got twenty miles to the gallon. One is tempted to snort and
say, ”It couldn’t happen here!” But then, who’d have expected
Pontiac to get worked up about a six anyway?
c/o
|
