I’ve driven just about all the cars they’ve ever made. I remember flying on the Concorde to drive the 1979 Opel Kadett around Paris, back when automakers knew how to treat real journalists. Some cars appeal to the smart version of myself, which I call “Smart” Cracker. Other cars appeal to my lower instincts. That side…
Just because something’s not morally sound doesn’t mean that you can’t objectively enjoy it. Just ask Hannibal Lecter. Sure, he was a psychopath with a penchant for the finer things in life; things like illegally poached Beluga Caviar, authentic Paté du Foie Gras and well conditioned human livers. But at least he knew…
It’s hard to say something original about one of the best and most loved hot hatchbacks on the market, especially one that’s been on the market a few years now. Instead, I’ll just answer your questions about the 2016 Volkswagen GTI.
“Hey, there, it’s Travis again.” I was crouched on the side of the highway next to a Jaguar F-Type. “Remember how I just called and said that the car had egg all over it? Well now the bumper is kind of hanging off. I’m really sorry.”
As I’ve detailed before, the world of handing over “press cars” to journalists and important people has mores but not many rules. One of the most basic rules, unless specified otherwise, is that you review the car. In spite of this, many autojournalists have cars they’ve driven that didn’t get reviewed. I have a lot,…
There’s no five-star resort. There’s no gluten-free, farm-to-table luncheon. No thumping video presentation. At this press launch, there’s just a man, a creaky, folding metal chair, and a garage completely devoid of air conditioning on a day where the temperature threatened triple digits. Oh, and there’s also the best…
If you looked–really looked—at the 2016 Toyota Camry, you wouldn’t expect the leggy girls in short dresses who get into the clubs for free to climb out of it. It’s humbler than that. Maybe if the leggy girl got hitched and then moved out to the suburbs, maybe. And that’s why I like it so much.
In terms of automotive beauties, the Jaguar F-Type will most likely go down as one of the most gorgeous cars ever to grace our lowly asphalt. It’s the car that put Jaguar back on the radar for many of us, and I’m sure it’s classed up many a desktop wallpaper, too.
Determining whether a vehicle is good, bad, or something in between boils down to weighing what you get versus what you give up. If you want performance, you’ll have to give up practicality and giving up practicality means giving up usability. And when you give up usability, why have a car in the first place?
“You’re going to love it, it’s pretty much an F-Type with four doors,” a Jaguar rep told me on the eve of my drive in the all-new 2017 Jaguar XE. I think he oversold it a bit. The XE is a competent and sophisticated sporty-ish sedan with some of the best technology in the industry, but it comes up a bit short on the…
Jaguar wants you to think it just loves to be bad. It even hung a whole advertising campaign on that notion. So really, the biggest surprise about the new F-Type SVR is not its bewildering aggression, or its newly sharpened handling. The real shock is that it took Jaguar Land Rover Special Vehicle Operations two years…
“We want you to be able to drive 300 km/h (186 mph) and have a conversation with your passenger at the same time,” Nissan’s GT-R guru Hiroshi Tamura said in front of the gathered scribes, journalists, reporters and hangers-on. My mind wandered instantly. What kind of conversation would the average owner have in a 2017…
After driving the all-important, all-new and admittedly all-fantastic Volvo XC90 SUV, I was curious to see whether Volvo could cook up a mid-sized luxury sedan and wagon that can make one forget about the German or Japanese competition. After stepping out of the new Volvo S90 sedan and V90 wagon, I would say the job…
The third member of McLaren’s entry-level Sport Series is a 562 horsepower mid-engined supercar offering such a great ride that it has no real competition. Forget the Audi R8 or the Porsche 911 Turbo. If you want to cross the continent driving a proper rear-wheel-drive exotic, McLaren’s first hatchback is the correct…
Polestar did much more to the bluest Volvos for 2017 than just cutting off two cylinders and bolting on a supercharger. While the V60 and S60 Polestar look similar, they get more than 50 upgrades over a T6 R-Design, making for a completely different driving experience.
It’s not often that I get out of my Aston Martin, I get into another car, and I want that other car more than I want my Aston Martin. Usually I get into my aging Range Rover and I wonder why the automatic windshield wipers are on high even though it hasn’t rained in three weeks.
It was when I first noticed the fire-dancers and women writhing in transparent spheres on the water that I fully realized the degree to which Chrysler was Not Screwing Around when it came to the launch of their new minivan, the 2017 Pacifica. This vehicle is very important to Chrysler, and that’s why I had to bring my…
To Generation X, the letters “NSX” meant something. Maybe to the men and women of Minato, they meant “New Sports eXperimental,” but to us, they represented the dreams of our adolescence. Even in the 1990s, an elegant era of Japanese car design that brought us the best versions of the Mazda RX-7 and the Toyota Supra,…
The Cadillac Escalade earned its place as an icon with classic American automotive values: it’s big and sparkly. But it’s also lumbering and inefficient. Can Cadillac distill that swagger into something that gets half-decent gas mileage without boiling off all the mojo? I drove the new 2017 Cadillac XT5 to find out.
1. The first thing you need to know about the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse — the fastest convertible in the world with a 254 mph top speed — is that it is difficult to drive. Not because of its immense horsepower, or its gargantuan price tag, but because of other people.