First Drive: 2010 BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo
This week, we've been focused laser-like on the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show. Focused, precisely, on the moment we could leave the un-air-conditioned halls and Frankfurt's grey dinge for the Portuguese coast and a tour of Lisbon behind the wheel of the 2010 BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo.
We're just back from the first drive of the "GT," as it's abbreviated on the trunk. And like the silhouette promises, it's not exactly like anything you've seen from BMW before--but there's an awfully familiar feel to it on the road. If you thought it was impossible to slice the crossover segment any thinner, you were wrong: the Gran Turismo sits somewhere between the 5-Series sedan, the Touring station wagon, and the X6 coupe-ute in mission and appeal.
You'll never confuse the 5-Series Gran Turismo for a "true" gran turismo. It's simply too tall and too large to fit the vision of an Italian-style four-seat coupe, or even a tread-shredding American musclecar. In the looser sense, though, it's every bit a grand tourer, with swift reflexes and luxuriant accommodations sized for people grown beyond Garanimals.
The highlights of the Gran Turismo include that long, tapering roofline, more masterfully executed than the sideview on a Benz R-Class, and a rethought cockpit that streamlines ergonomics and BMW's recent tilt to dark, complex dash designs, while it siphons off plenty of the visual clutter and distraction of the older cars in its lineup. Tradition represents inside with wood and leather, but the technology's integrated better into the Gran Turismo's style, with a lump or two left to digest (the Tron-style shift lever and the iDrive controller are like seldom-used punctuation marks; you notice them before you comprehend).
Then, of course, there's the expected joys of a good BMW drivetrain. Here, it's a revamped single-turbo six with identical output to the 3-Series' twin-turbo engine, and a new eight-speed automatic without paddles to shift but with joystick control through the gears. A 400-horsepower twin-turbo V-8's actually the first to arrive in the U.S. later this year, with the six and optional all-wheel drive due by spring of next year.
A brisk lap of national parks near Lisbon went too quickly to soak up all the turquoise scenery, but it did remind us that of all the cars with drive systems assimilated by the Borg, BMWs have fared the best. Digitized steering and suspension control in the Gran Turismo swing from "comfort" mode to "sport plus" with some natural progression, though the steering slows down considerably when you dampen the car's handling ambition. It feels appropriately BMW, even if it's not quintessentially BMW.
And for the Gran Turismo's reason for existence, we're a fast fan of the limo-like rear seats and the flexible cargo area. Fitted with two rear seats and a console, the 5-Series GT does a convincing impression of a first-class cabin, depending on the airlines you frequent. The seats can be reclined, heated, ventilated, and stimulated with massaging functions. When they fold forward, panels that separate passengers from cargo can be opened for quick and easy access to luggage or, maybe, a box of Cinnamon Life on its way home from the grocery store. From another angle, the Gran Turismo lets you load in cargo through a trunk-like opening, or open the whole tailgate to expose a package shelf and seatback that both move and move out of the way when Costco gets too tempting. There are elements of crossover vehicles here, to be sure--just wrapped in a much more elegant bow.
It's a puzzle to some shoppers, but the 5-Series Gran Turismo's very specific mission is a mission accomplished. It's utilitarian in the highest sense. And it's unique: only the Mercedes-Benz R-Class and Lincoln MKT approach its second-row seat comfort and neither performs as capably, though both have a third-row seat in exchange. Without tarring the GT by comparison, the old Chevy Malibu Maxx had the same idea, only minus the execution part.
We're giving the 2010 BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo a preliminary rating of 8.2 out of 10 in TheCarConnection.com's rankings of new cars and trucks. We'll revisit those numbers when pricing and safety information are updated, and when we get behind the wheel of the V-8-powered 550i GT later this year. In the meantime, get a more detailed road test, photos, and related news here:
The Bottom Line: 2010 BMW 5-Series Gran Turismo
This story originally appeared at The Car Connection
Study: Risk of Crash While Texting Is 23 Times Higher
Newly compiled results from more than six million miles of observed driving suggest that it's the act of taking one's eyes off the road, more than the cognitive distraction of talking or listening on the phone, that's most dangerous.
The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study included data—all gathered 'naturalistically,' meaning via camera systems and instruments in real-world driving—for dialing a cellphone, talking/listening to a cellphone, and reaching for an object. That data was also gathered for both light-vehicle drivers and truck drivers, where text messaging was included.
According to the findings, dialing was 2.8 times as risky as non-distracted driving, while talking/listening and reaching for an object were 1.3 and 1.4 times as risky, respectively. Truck drivers were at much higher risk when dialing a cellphone, with 5.9 times the risk of crash or near-crash event compared to non-distracted driving; reaching for an object was also far riskier for the truck drivers, at 6.7 times that of non-distracted driving, while the risk of talking/listening was unchanged versus driving with no distraction.
The real shocker was text messaging; for the truck drivers, texting brought 23.2 times the risk of a crash or near-crash event. The research showed that text messaging brought the driver's eyes away from the road for the longest time of all the tasks; for the trucker, it was the equivalent of covering the length of a football field at 55 mph without looking at the road, the researchers said.
"Recent results from other researchers using driving simulators suggest that talking and listening is as dangerous as visually distracting cell phone tasks," state the researchers in a release from the Institute. "The results from VTTI's naturalistic driving studies clearly indicate that this is not the case."
The researchers say that while cognitively intense tasks such as emotional conversations or books on tape can have a more measurable effect in the lab, they might not have the same effect in real driving tasks.
"Using simple fatal crash and phone use statistics, if talking on cell phones was a risky as driving while drunk, the number of fatal crashes would have increased roughly 50 percent in the last decade instead of remaining largely unchanged," the researchers argue.
Among the recommendations from the VTTI researchers are that texting should be banned for all drivers; that users migrate to voice-activated hands-free systems to that they don't have to take their eyes off the road; and that all cellphone use should be banned for teen drivers.
The New York Times also cites a new University of Utah study, based on laboratory research rather than real-world observation, that suggests the risk when texting to be eight times higher than when not. According to the Times, only 14 states currently ban texting while driving.
[Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, via New York Times]
This story originally appeared at The Car Connection
