* Volvo's Two-million-mile ManIrv Gordon, the Long Island native who earlier this year became the first person to drive two million miles in the same car, a red 1966 Volvo P1800, is celebrating his milestone by taking his car on a five-week vacation in Europe-he expects to add another 5,000 miles to the odometer. Gordon, a 60-year-old retired science teacher from East Patchogue, Long Island, gained worldwide notoriety on March 27 when he turned his two-millionth mile in his Volvo while driving down Times Square during Volvo Cars of North America's 75th Anniversary event. Since his milestone, he's clocked another 25,000 miles touring cities such as Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami and Philadelphia. Irv purchased his P1800 in June 1966 from a neighborhood Volvo dealership for $4,150. In 1998, The Guinness Book of World Records honored Gordon's car as the vehicle with the "highest certified mileage driven by the original owner in non-commercial service." Gordon breaks his own world record every time he drives his celebrated car.
Notes From EuropeCoupes are cool in Europe, especially at the luxury end of the business, where big sedans have been steadily losing ground to two-doors over the past five years. That perhaps explains why DaimlerChrysler is planning to add yet another coupe-its fourth-to the Mercedes-Benz line-up.
The new car, code-named C219, will be built on the new E-Class platform and positioned between the new E-Class-based CLK and the next-generation CL, traditionally the range-topping Benz coupe. But here's the trick bit-this coupe will have four doors, although the rear pair will be virtually invisible.
Stuttgart sources state the car, tipped to be called the CLE, is intended to be a luxurious and sporty four-seater with styling cues borrowed from the SL roadster and high levels of standard equipment, including air suspension, speed-sensitive headlights and four-wheel drive. Powertrains will include DC's new family of direct-injection gasoline engines, the most powerful of which is the 394-bhp 450KDI, a 4.5-liter supercharged V8.
All this won't come cheap, with prices expected to match similarly equipped S-Class limos. But, based on current trends, European luxury car buyers won't mind a bit.
* You really want a GTI, right? But you've got a mortgage, kids who play soccer, two dogs and a vacation down the coast every summer to think about. No alternative but to stay sensible, right?
Wrong! How's a compact seven-seat minivan capable of 0 to 60 mph in under 8 sec. and 137 mph sound? It's got 17-in. alloys and 225/45 tires all around, sports suspension, a full complement of spoilers and skirts, and leather-trimmed Recaro seats. Oh, and it's made by GM.
The Opel Zafira GSi is probably the world's first performance minivan, although the VW Sharan with the 2.8-liter VR6 engine and five-speed manual transmission would hit 135 and was somewhat more rapid to 60 than your average Voyager. Unlike the Sharan, though, the Zafira GSi looks the part, and does a pretty good impersonation of a GTI through the twisty bits, too.
Based on the Opel Astra platform, the Zafira is a category-killer-a Golf-sized minivan that's genuinely capable of seating seven people in relative comfort. The third-row seats ingeniously fold flat into the floor when not used, allowing maximum load space, and the center row can be slid back to give the Zafira rear seat legroom rivaling cars two sizes bigger.