Automotive Trends

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…

 Proof That The Midsize Sedan Segment Is More Competitive Than Ever

     We’re not sure why, but when we think of the midsize sedan segment our minds tend to picture the Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, or maybe even the Ford Fusion or Chevrolet Malibu. For some reason we don’t immediately remember the Nissan Altima. We’d blame marketing except dealers managed to push almost 230,000 of them into American driveways last year making it the third best selling midsizer behind the Camry and Accord. Maybe we should blame ourselves. The press seems content to watch Toyota and Honda duke it out for first and occasionally devote a few words to how the domestic competition is stacking up against—you guessed it—the Camry and Accord. But Nissan has nothing to be ashamed of, as our week in an Altima 2.5 S proved. 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…

      It has been a good year for car cruises and the September Faith Missionary Church Car Show in Flushing, Michigan was no exception. Thank you to all who came out to enjoy the warm sunshine, great fellowship, sweet music and some exceptional examples of the automotive industry’s finest! Check out our extensive photo gallery of all the classic rides! 

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     A while back we were staring down a schedule featuring two consecutive Audis powered by the company’s latest 2.0-liter four cylinder. There was a time not so long ago that seeing such a pint size engine in a anything from a premium manufacturer like Audi would have spelled certain sales doom and a hearty round of “what were they thinking!” reviews from the automotive press. Having spent considerable time with these engines in various Volkswagen and Audi products, including an A4 that we tested and approved a few years back, we were confident we’d continue to like what Audi was offering. It didn’t hurt that both the A4 and A5 were equipped with the standard 6-speed manual transmission, an increasingly rare treat for us three-pedal fans.  But the question remains, does a four cylinder belong in today’s premium cars? 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…

Giving Camry Fans More of What They Want     

     We can’t understate the importance of the new seventh generation Camry. Since debuting in 1983 Toyota has sold 15 million around the world and moved enough in this country to claim the car sales crown for 13 of the last 14 years. So when it comes time to redesign the goose that lays the golden eggs you can bet Toyota does their homework. What they always discover is that Camry fans want more of the same, only better. They want roomier, quieter, safer, smarter and more efficient and that’s exactly what Toyota has given them with the 2012 Camry. Read more…

      It’s that time of the year again. Time for cars and crowds to descend upon the granddaddy road of them all, Woodward Avenue. So grab a frosty beverage and checkout our extensive gallery of all things automotive as we cruised up and down M1.  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…