first drive

I knew it was a softball question, but I asked it anyway. It's pretty standard for automakers to offer up some examples of competitors when they invite the media to drive a new vehicle for the first time. If not stated outright, it's just as standard for some journalist to query about the ...

We all knew that Mercedes-Benz couldn't afford to resist the small SUVover segment for much longer. After all, it seems to be the fastest-growing segment in the galaxy, and in particular, it's the premium niche of that class – led by the hugely successful Land Rover Evoque and BMW X1 ...

In December, I put the 2015 Subaru WRX through its paces along some incredibly challenging roads in northern California, and to say I walked away impressed wouldn't really do my feelings justice. Say what you will about the way it looks, the new 'Rex is an awesome car, full stop. When it comes to ...

Bentley still appeals to those with an appreciation for strong, Old World traditionalism. Cars wearing the storied Flying B have been discussed in wood-paneled drawing rooms by men wearing earthy tweeds and corduroy through clouds of fragrant cigar and pipe smoke, for decades. It is a company ...

If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone from Mini refer to 'go-kart-like handling,' I'd be retired, living on a beautiful piece of coastline somewhere in the Caribbean. Perhaps even on the shores of Puerto Rico, where Mini chose to launch its latest Cooper and Cooper S hatchbacks. As ...

In excess of 475,000 heavy duty pickups were sold in the United States last year – the capable workhorses represented more than 25 percent of the year's full-size pickup volume. But unlike the passenger-car segment, where dozens of makes and models are constantly competing for supremacy, ...

I would soon find out that nothing – not mud, not snow and not even a rushing stream of mountaintop runoff acting as a de facto roadblock to vehicles with lesser capabilities – would stand in the way of the 2014 Ural Gear Up making its way to the top of Snoqualmie Pass outside the ...

Let's be honest, Rich America. When you drive your fullsize luxury sedans, you don't clock any laps of the Nürburgring. You don't view your car as an alternative to air travel, ready to wheel between countries at triple-digit Autobahn speeds. Heck, you don't even take the long way home. ...

Three cheers for the handbrake. For driving enthusiasts who live in climates where the winter months produce seemingly endless days of snowy, icy conditions, nothing cures the seasonal blues quite like finding yourself on an empty road, pulling the handbrake, halting the rear wheels and happily ...

In spite of a recent hiccup in sales that's led to the departure of Volkswagen of America CEO Jonathan Browning, the brand behind Das Auto says its metrics have improved everywhere else. According to the charts we were shown during a recent drive of the brand's lineup, its US sales have doubled ...

We know a number of BMW owners who reside in the Munich brand's core demographic – upper-five- and six-figure professionals who like to keep their automotive brand credentials as highly respected among their peers as their alma maters or the letters after their names. Before heading to Las ...

This is it. This is the nasty cat we've been hankering for most. Whereas the Jaguar F-Type convertible remains the company's purest expression of lifestyle fun and expendable income, it's this coupe version that originally stole our eyeballs and never gave them back when it debuted as the C-X16 ...

About 20 seconds, and 30 miles per hour. These are, if not the most heart-thumping statistics you need to know before continuing to read the rest of this review, the most pertinent to get out of the way. What are they? The amount of time it takes, according to our stopwatches, for the ...

The year 1994 was a really good year for German performance fans, because it was that year when Audi released its very first official RS model (for "RennSport," or racing sport), the RS2 Avant. Recently, I was invited to participate in a three-day leg of the Audi Land of Quattro Alpen Tour, a ...

Having already driven and reviewed the 2014 Acura RLX this year, colleagues Steven Ewing and Jeffrey Ross poured several thousand words into apprising it, then someone took the safety off the Comments and flipped them to "Fully Automatic" because those two reviews and four brief posts were hit by ...

Midsize crossovers like the Toyota Highlander tend to play a thankless role in the life of today's modern family. That's really too bad. With the ability to hold several hyperactive kids and tons of cargo while keeping everyone safe and comfortable in all kinds of climate conditions day in and ...

Every time I drive a Subaru WRX, I wish one of my parents had taken some weird, top-secret spy job that would have forced us to relocate to Finland when I was a kid. I could have learned the art of rally-style car control as a young lad, and in my adult life, sought out a ...

Where the current roadgoing Ferrari coupe with its rear-mounted V8 can go beyond this Speciale edition, I don't know. The 458 Italia and Spider already hold a very dear place in the hearts of anyone who has driven them on a sunny day over great roads or tracks, and I was pretty sure nothing could ...

"Do not pass the factory driver in the 911 Turbo S." Fifteen minutes later, I'm skeptically pondering that admonishment as I strap into the carbon-fiber tub of the Porsche 918 Spyder, the German automaker's latest supercar. With even a cursory glance, the two-seat, gasoline-electric hybrid, with ...

As the year of 1972 was drawing to a close, my father had finally saved up enough money to buy himself his first new car, and his heart was set on a Chevrolet Chevelle SS. And no wonder – the midsize Chevy Super Sport had earned a reputation for performance with rugged good looks to match. ...