The 2013 Dodge Dart is one of the most important production debuts at the North American International Auto Show and Executive Editor Brandon Dye explains why in this Video Highlight from the show floor. Read more…
This year no debut earned more applause than the announcement that the Acura NSX Concept would be entering production within three years. Check out this video of Executive Editor Brandon Dye sharing the highlights of the returning Japanese supercar. Read more…
One vehicle that we have been anticipating for months is the all-new 2013 Ford Fusion. We spotted several heavily disguised mules around Detroit that made us anxious to see just what Ford had up its sleeve. When the fresh sheetmetal was rolled onto the turntables today we were far from disappointed. As contemporary as Ford has kept the Fusion, the new model leaps forward with an attractive 6-window greenhouse complemented by a low Aston Martin-like grille rather than the chrome 3-bar piece formerly decorating the car’s nose. Read more…
Properly covering an International Auto Show requires a lot of hardware and the AT Crew brought enough gadgets to produce a 24-hour cable news channel. Unfortunately the show doesn’t open until tomorrow and we’ve got things to say today so we repurposed our hotel suite into a makeshift soundstage and set the camera rolling. We highlight some of the expected stars of the show and go on the record with our predictions for North American Car and Truck of the Year in the best 36 minutes you’ve ever seen produced in a hotel living room.
While we have always regarded the GM large crossovers as great vehicles, the fact of the matter is their class-leading days are firmly in the rear view mirror. Editor Dye discusses this while driving the most premium of the GMC grade, the Acadia Denali. It is still a great vehicle, but at the end of the day this crossover was designed in an era of hard interior plastics and, like many Americans, needs to lose a few pounds. Read more…
Stand by because the heroes of automotive banter are back in front of the video camera. In our season premiere we cover GM’s hotly anticipated new vehicle of the century: the Chevrolet Volt. We would be remiss to give it all away here, but in a nut shell, the boys are smitten. Read more…
Chasing a Dream
It is 3:24 in the morning and I am sitting bolt upright in my bed, awake a whole six minutes before my alarm starts blaring. There is a 2011 Mini Cooper S Countryman All4 parked in the driveway gassed up and washed with clothing and gear for four days. The reason? A Roadtrip! The culmination of a great story, not just the beginning of one. Read more…
True station wagons are a rare bird in the United States automotive landscape. Americans want their wagons high-riding so they don’t feel like they’re driving their grandparents Ford Country Squire to work. Our European brothers, however, embrace the wagon because of its low riding sedan characteristics and added utility. Watch as Editor Muxlow defends the honor of the station wagon to the land of the red, white and blue. Read more…
Love At First Charge
It’s not often that we anticipate testing a vehicle as much as we did with Chevrolet’s Volt. That’s because it’s not often that a vehicle comes along packing a powertrain as revolutionary as GM’s Voltec system. And it was because of this advanced propulsion system and its lightning paced development that we were preparing ourselves to overlook a few rough spots in the days before the vehicle’s delivery. We figured that if mighty Toyota still hadn’t sanded off all the sharp edges on its hybrid powertrain after three generations of Prius development the Volt and its more advanced, but still first gen, technology could be a bit of a half-baked science experiment in the real-world hands of our editors. The truth, it turns out, is that GM has managed to surprise our jaded staff with the level of refinement we enjoyed in our production-spec Volt. It’s so astonishing that it’s difficult to put into words, but we’re confident that after digesting both our written and video reviews you’ll understand our level of admiration for what the General’s best and brightest have accomplished with the world’s first extended-range electric vehicle. Read more…
By now you’ve read all about what the 2011 BMW 1M Coupe is capable of. The 1M is an amazing machine. So when a friend of Automotive Trends decided he needed to add a 1M to his collection we were more than willing to tag along, document, and aid in its retrieval from the BMW Performance Center in Greer, SC. On its maiden voyage home to Michigan we stopped by the Tail of the Dragon for a bit of fun. More in depth coverage is coming, but the raw footage above pretty much speaks for itself. Enjoy.
