6 DECEMBER 2019 ~ CAR AND DRIVER
Backfires
SIC^ YOUR^ DOGS^ ON^USAT:^ EDITORS@CARANDDRIVER.COM^ORJOIN:^ BACKFIRES.CARANDDRIVER.COMEXPLAINEDILLUSTRATIONBY^ CHRIS^PHILPOTcar as they would if there
were a manual version.
—MS
Burke, VA
Delta should play Nirvana’s
“On a Plain” during the
boarding process—Ed.I find it humorously ironic
chief engineer Juechter
thinks that after this car,
the Corvette will be around
long enough to piss people
off by going back to round
taillights. Good one, Tadge!
—Ken Chapman
Advance, NCThe C8 is here. Nothing else
matters. Time to consider
rebranding to C8 and Driver.
—Ron Ammar
Princeton, NJ
Metallica's most com-
mercially successful
album, 1991’s self-titled
Metallica, featured “Noth-
ing Else Matters”–Ed.TANKING
I’m guessing you’ll get a
lot of mail pointing out
that Corvettes have had
dual fuel tanks since 1997.
Add this one to the pile.
—Chris Visser
Falls Church, VA
Just yours and six
others—Ed.STOP CRASHING
My first thought on opening
the September issue to page
66 [“Walked Away”] was,
Wow, lowering the front end,
moving the bumper forward
and up, and dropping theIn the September issue, you had an
enlightening article about new Porsche
brakes titled “Dust Busters.” In it, you
stated that the brake dust that accumu-
lates on wheels comes from the rotors, not
the pads. If that were true, then that dust
would be iron particles and thus would
stick to a magnet. Well, it doesn’t, which
means it’s pad dust. Care to explain?
—George Knab, Buffalo, NYWe should have said the brake dust that accu-
mulates on the wheels comes primarily from the
rotors. Dust from the pads is certainly a part of
the mix, but only a small portion. With impres-
`VcR`]RPV¼PVaf2/0/_NXR``Nf`aUNa& ]R_PR[a
of the brake dust on a wheel is ferrous metal mate-
rial. That comes mostly from iron rotors, with a
smaller portion originating from the pads, which
are made up of as much as 30 percent steel. The
metallic dust particles are often hot enough to
melt into a painted wheel’s surface. Your magnet
is too weak to pull them free—Ed.the control afforded by the
paddles; never mind the
faster shifting; never mind
the structural and packaging
advantages. It’s time for C/D
to get over the quasi-reli-
gious nostalgia for manual
transmissions. It’s a wonder
you don’t advocate manual
control for spark advance.
—David McMillin
The Woodlands, TX
Nevermind was Nirvana’s
best album—Ed.One of the best parts of
driving a sports car is being
able to be in control. I believe
one of the best ways to
feel in control is being able
to physically shift gears
yourself. I love the new
C8 Corvette, but it’s being
offered only with an auto-
matic transmission. Although
the car may be able to shift
faster with a dual-clutch
automatic, drivers won’t get
quite as much joy out of thefront edge of the roof a
few inches really improved
the looks of that Civic.
—Bob Boyd
Te mecula , CAMs. Hart is a prime example
of what is wrong with so
many drivers today; they
don’t stay focused on driving.
—Brian Thorn
Sun Lakes, AZI’m awfully glad that the
young lady in “Walked
Away“ was only slightly
injured after she “drifted
into oncoming traffic as
she searched for a tissue.“
But it would be common
decency to tell us what
happened to the poor bas-
tard she hit, not to mention
everyone else on the road.
—Kevin Goff
Atlanta, GA
They were uninjured—Ed.MELLOW YELLOW
In the “Land of the Free”
road test in the Septem-
ber issue, the test results
for the 2020 Porsche 911
Carrera S have its top
speed as 191 mph, but in the
story and in the picture on
page 53, you show that it
is 196 mph. Which is it? Is
the speedo that far off?
—Ed Kemmerer
Novi, MI
It is largely down to an
optimistic speedometer,
but in addition to speedo
error, the tire diameter
expands slightly due to
increased heat at very highCALIPER ROTORBRAKE PAD