Reviews : Car Reviews And News

You can argue that the art of driving is disappearing from today’s world. Whether it be autonomous cars or Uber or millennials more worried about their smartphones than actually wanting to drive, gone are the days of the Sunday drive.

The Ford Escape has one of the longest running histories in the compact SUV space. The original Escape hit the market back in 2000, sharing underpinnings with the Mazda Tribute. Lots of competitors have come (and a few have gone – including the Tribute) from the market over the last 15 years, so I was curious to see if Ford’s been able to keep up with the evolving market for SUVs and crossovers.

Even before the whole Dieselgate scandal broke, Volkswagen was leaving me feeling uninspired. Their recent designs have been so conservative. As much as their luxury brand Audi is exciting both inside and out, many Volkswagen vehicles are too bland for me.

Volkswagen is sitting on an opportunity. Actually, opportunity is not the right word. Considering the outside forces currently acting against them, they have an outcome to determine for themselves. I won’t go into detail about those outside forces, but I’m going to weigh in on the type of outcome they can potentially make for themselves.

When Jaguar first announced that they’d be entering the already crowded luxury SUV market, there were lots of people out there wondering if it would be the right move for a brand whose heritage is steeped in sports cars like the classic E-Type and the modern classic F-TYPE.

Frankly, today’s automotive marketplace offers few choices when it comes to drop-tops. Cruising convertibles for four passengers are particularly rare these days. The days of going for a drive, with no place to go, the top down and the wind in your hair are few and far between.

About a year ago, I had the opportunity to spend a week with a C7 Corvette Stingray, and I absolutely fell in love with the car. The current generation of Corvette not only looks amazing, it’s on a performance level with cars costing significantly more money.

Today’s pickup trucks have to be big and durable and tow an RV, while carrying a palette of bricks in its bed. Right? WRONG! The small truck segment is back and growing, proving that bigger doesn’t mean better.

Over the last several years, Lincoln has worked diligently to become relevant to today’s buyers, bringing to market a series of cars which have finally started to differentiate themselves from their Ford counterparts, and to compete with European and Japanese luxury car makers. 

Driving is supposed to be fun, or at least that’s what I believe. We spend far too much time inside our vehicles for us not to get some pleasure out of them. That’s what the Mini brand counts on.

When Lexus introduced its RC luxury sports coupe a couple of years ago, there were two cars which looked very similar on the outside, but had very different personalities in terms of performance and ride. Now, the muscular RC F, sporty RC 350, and winter-friendly RC 300 AWD are joined by another brother – the RC 200t, a car that is visually and functionally very similar to the RC 300 and 350 – though with a smaller, lighter engine, focused more on fuel economy.

There’s a delightfully entertaining thing on YouTube that I’d stumbled across called the Tough Truck Challenge from the Clark County Fair in Ridgefield WA. As you can imagine, it involves putting a truck through the paces on an offroad course, but there’s one stand out video that features an older Durango being beaten to the point of limping away.

Whoever says money can’t buy happiness lied. Because if you have roughly $200,000 to spend, you can buy a lot of happiness and a lot of horsepower. I was fortunate enough to spend a week with the 2017 Audi R8, which offered up plenty of happiness.

What happens when you take the lovable Mazda MX-5 Miata and change out the engine and exterior design for a little Italian flair? You end up with the 2017 Fiat 124 Spider. I recently had a chance to drive the new roadster in sunny San Diego to not only see if the new car is any good, but also to see how it compares to the crowd-pleasing Miata.

They grow up so quickly, don’t they? Sure, this could apply to anyone (like me) who has children as they grow and mature in the blink of an eye. Why am I waxing so sentimental? Well other than the fact that my daughter is about to start to high school, my tester this week has been growing up and maturing.