The grumblings coming out of the Windy City this auto show season have been clear. The GMC Acadia is aged and is barely getting a facelift after 6 model years on the market. But look closer folks. That large crossover you see with the gleaming red GMC badge is hardly an Acadia. No, that my friend, is a facelifted Saturn Outlook. Read more…
A Hybrid After Our Own Hearts
We’ve been putting our share of hybrids to the test over the past year. We’ve sampled Toyota’s offerings in the form of the popular Prius and their luxury brand’s Lexus CT 200h. We’ve sampled the family wagon Prius v as well as Chevrolet’s extended range plug-in electric car, the Volt. While each of these vehicles delivers varying levels of reduced consumption of gasoline, not one of them truly puts the electric motor to use for the full benefit of the driving enthusiast. When hybrids first happened on the scene, the enthusiast community couldn’t help but notice that the electric motors that assist (or in the Volt’s case, exclusively provide) propulsion had mountains of instantly available torque. We enthusiasts have had to settle for varying degrees of improved fuel economy with barely any fun thrown in. Finally, an automaker has stepped up to the challenge to use hybrid technology to actually make a sport sedan more sporting. Enter the Infiniti M35h. Read more…
Toyota’s Highlander has never been a vehicle to grab the attention of our automotive hearts. Its subdued styling and midsize packaging just doesn’t stand out in the crowd. Our all-wheel-drive test example was even painted a nondescript shade of beige. But setting out with low expectations can be good, because it’s then hard to disappoint. Read more…
Toyota dropped off an all-wheel drive Highlander Limited at the Automotive Trends garage this week. Timely since Mother Nature also stopped by with about two inches of snow for us to play in. Watch as Design Editor Gernand gives us a quick walk around of this beige family crossover.
Scion’s Basic Coupe Fails to Meet Some Basic Expectations
The low priced sporty coupe segment has been creeping upward in price during the last decade. The market used to be speckled with the likes of the Saturn SC, Ford Probe, Chevrolet Cavalier Z24, Mitsubishi Eclipse and Toyota Celica. Not one of those models exists today, but Toyota thinks it has an answer for the niche with the Scion tC. Starting at $18,275 the tC isn’t the cheapest coupe one can find, but does it offer enough sport to lure youthful car enthusiasts from straying to the used car market for their budget minded thrills? We tested a completely base tC to find out just how the Scion fares. Read more…
Not Your Typical Drop-Top Rental Car
A trip to Key West, Florida will confirm it. There is a market out there for flashy convertibles with high style and little need for performance. The number of rental-grade pony car convertibles in the southernmost point of Florida is nearly enough to make one decide to rent a white Camry sedan just to be different. Certainly Ford and Chevy don’t expect normal customers to buy a base convertible. Or do they? Read more…
Low Tech Meets Low Compromise in the Battle for Fuel Efficiency
It’s not as if Chevrolet has never attempted this before. Take a mainstream small car, make some powertrain tweaks and attempt to turn the vehicle into a hyper-mileage car that passes as conventional transportation. As General Motors’ entry-priced brand, Chevrolet has a long history–not all of it memorable–at marketing highly efficient vehicles. Some notable–scratch that, tragic–examples include the Chevette diesel, the GEO Metro XFi, and the Cobalt XFE. None of these vehicles set the sales charts on fire (a scant 324 diesel Chevettes were sold in 1986), so does Chevrolet’s latest hyper-miler, the Cruze ECO, have any chance at succes? Read more…
A Rally Car for the Family Man.
For a couple of decades now, journalists have attempted to claim that each new Subaru is the car that will make Subaru mainstream. The 2011 Legacy is no different, as Subaru’s flagship sedan continues to grow in size and stature. But have no fear Subie loyalists! The flat four-cylinder engine remains, as does the availability of a manual transmission. Read more…
The Gadgetmobile of SUVs
Muddy is an appropriate word to describe Land Rover’s LR4. Just as the British brand’s name invokes images of 4×4 vehicles traversing damp and muddy English terrain, it also recalls a muddy history of vehicular nomenclature. The LR-what? For those who care to keep track the LR4 is the replacement for the LR3 which was the replacement for the Discovery. We greatly miss the Discovery name mainly because we can no longer make Land Rover marketers cringe whenever we affectionately call it the “Disco.” However, we weren’t missing the Discovery’s tired old bones after spending a week in the high-tech leather-lined confines of the best value Land Rover in today’s showrooms. Read more…
By now the vast majority of die hard auto enthusiasts have either stayed up late to catch the midnight showing, or ventured to the theatre at a normal hour to watch Disney Pixar’s Cars 2. Children or no children, we have made viewing this movie a priority. After the delightful tale of Lightning McQueen, Mater, and the gang from Radiator Springs in the 2006 Cars movie, auto enthusiasts were begging for more. Cars 2 proves to take the franchise in a very different direction as our beloved automobiles venture away from Route 66 to exotic locations around the globe. Read more…
