Car and Driver

Disarming. If there was one word to describe Jean, it’d have to be disarming. C-SUITERS, ARISTOCRATS, and ego puffers didn’t stand a chance when Jean walked in. Walls fell, posing stopped, and everyone’s attention shifted to her. And she owned and satisfied every expectation. Every room was hers. Former Car and Driver editor and Automobile magazine editor-in-chief Jean Jennings died in December after a fight with Alzheimer’s disease. Fortunately, Jean lives on in the many, many people whose careers she sparked. C/D might not have digital director Laura Sky Brown, senior editor Ezra Dyer, associate managing editor Jennifer Misaros, deputy editor Joey Capparella, or deputy design director Nicole Lazarus without Jean. She gave me a chance too. With only four major car magazines and the internet still in its Netscape Navigator phase, becoming…

Disarming. If there was one word to describe Jean, it’d have to be disarming. C-SUITERS, ARISTOCRATS, and ego puffers didn’t stand a chance when Jean walked in. Walls fell, posing stopped, and everyone’s attention shifted to her. And she owned and satisfied every expectation. Every room was hers. Former Car and Driver editor and Automobile magazine editor-in-chief Jean Jennings died in December after a fight with Alzheimer’s disease. Fortunately, Jean lives on in the many, many people whose careers she sparked. C/D might not have digital director Laura Sky Brown, senior editor Ezra Dyer, associate managing editor Jennifer Misaros, deputy editor Joey Capparella, or deputy design director Nicole Lazarus without Jean. She gave me a chance too. With only four major car magazines and the internet still in its Netscape…

_SIC YOUR DOGS ON US AT: EDITORS@CARANDDRIVER.COM BUZZ KILLERS So let me get this straight. You drove an Aston Martin Vantage, a Porsche 911 Turbo, Gordon Murray’s GMA T.50, and the Ferrari 12Cilindri [November/December 2024]. What makes your cover? A $70,000 electric VW minivan. How the mighty have fallen. —Tommy O Saline, MI Your “Catch a Buzz” review was totally awesome [November/December 2024]. The Volkswagen ID. Buzz has all that this 67-year-old post-hippie but current surfer could want. The Competitive Set graph proved it to me. Except the base price. Unfortunately, I ain’t got Grandma’s money! —“Grateful” Ted Anthony Austin, TX The ID. Buzz is a $70,000 road-trip adventure van that can only go on a two-hour road trip before you have to start searching for a charging station. —Robert Bendetti Charleston, SC Having owned two Buses and…

_SIC YOUR DOGS ON US AT: EDITORS@CARANDDRIVER.COM BUZZ KILLERS So let me get this straight. You drove an Aston Martin Vantage, a Porsche 911 Turbo, Gordon Murray’s GMA T.50, and the Ferrari 12Cilindri [November/December 2024]. What makes your cover? A $70,000 electric VW minivan. How the mighty have fallen. —Tommy O Saline, MI Your “Catch a Buzz” review was totally awesome [November/December 2024]. The Volkswagen ID. Buzz has all that this 67-year-old post-hippie but current surfer could want. The Competitive Set graph proved it to me. Except the base price. Unfortunately, I ain’t got Grandma’s money! —“Grateful” Ted Anthony Austin, TX The ID. Buzz is a $70,000 road-trip adventure van that can only go on a two-hour road trip before you have to start searching for a charging station. —Robert…

THE ADAGE “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” justified automakers’ NASCAR efforts in the 1950s. But is boosting car sales still the reason manufacturers invest in motor racing? With sky-high budgets to compete in Formula 1, any additional sales attributable to a Sunday win likely aren’t enough to cover the massive costs. Automakers unable to stomach the hundreds of millions of dollars in annual spending it takes to field a competitive F1 team have plenty of other racing series to compete in, but even sales linked to success in one of these still may not net enough of a profit to cover the expense of competition. However, factor in potential vehicle sales from brand exposure in racing with the earnings from sponsorship deals, potential prize money, and—in some series—revenue-sharing models,…

LIKE ODOR-EATERS in workout shoes, a fuse doesn’t call attention to itself until it stops working. These circuit breakers have two states: letting power flow or abruptly interrupting that flow due to a spike in current. To fix your car in the event of the latter, you must first find the fuse itself and then attempt to remove the thing with the often uncooperative small tweezers an automaker provides for such extractions. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Enter the e-fuse. All fuses deal in electricity, but here, the “e” prefix refers to the device’s connected nature. E-fuses, which are placed into a computer chip, function like a mash-up of a fuse and a relay (basically an electrically powered switch) but with way more brains. Because e-fuses react more quickly…