Har(d)ley-A-Davidson F-150
There is a hitch about special-edition vehicles: They have to keep getting more special or the latest attempt risks being showed up by an earlier version. This commonsense lesson is taught on the first day of Special-Edition Vehicles 101, but Ford must have been asleep in the back row, or at the very least, sketching GTs instead of notes. All of this is relevant because it explains our disappointment with the 2006 Harley-Davidson F-150. In short, we’d rather have a pre-owned 2003 edition in our garage than this latest “greatest” version. Let us explain. Read more…
Bad Badging
The Sunburst Orange Chevy Cobalt in our fleet was wearing the two most revered letters in GM performance history, but we weren’t fooled. You see, Chevrolet actually offers two Cobalt SSs and one of them is worthy of the legendary designation and the other is little more than an appearance package. The subject of this review is the poseur. It may have SS badges glued to an attractive coupe body, but this was no Super Sport. Read more…
Ivory Soap used to advertise that its product was 99 and 44/100ths-percent pure.
Mazda could have said the same thing about the Miata when it was introduced in 1989. The first Miata was about as pure as sports cars could get, offering only the bare necessities of transportation so that it could focus on its core mission: fun for the driver. Read more…
Funny Name For A Serious Contender
To satisfy my not insignificant curiosity I turned to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary to see just what a Vitara is, because, as is often the case, no one here had a clue. As it turns out, neither does Webster. About the closest match was Viterbo, which I thought might be some kind of forced induction, but is actually someplace in central Italy. So I looked up grand and found several definitions, one of which is “very good”. Now we’re getting somewhere. It appears that whatever a Vitara is, this one is very good. Judging by the vehicle I just spent a few days with, a Vitara is a small SUV that can now compete with anything in its class without excuses. Read more…
No, you don’t have to plug it in.
That’s the answer to the question lots of people asked about the 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. They simply couldn’t figure how a big, muscular SUV with great power and acceleration could get the same gas mileage as some four-cylinder compact cars.
But, thanks to the miracle of gas-electric hybrid technology, that’s exactly what this SUV does. Read more…
Stereotype Slayer
We Americans like our stereotypes. For instance, everyone knows the English have bad teeth, the Chinese are short and the French are cheese-eating cowards (OK, that one may be true). Likewise, nobody argues with the American perception that diesel cars clatter like a junior high band, are slower than a chess tournament and smoke like the Marlboro Man. Except Mercedes-Benz, who has been changing consumers’ opinions one test drive at a time since the E320 CDI debuted as a 2005 model. Read more…
Bye Bye Bubbles
Which came first, the razor or the car? Our crack research team dove into the history books to find out. When they reported back they all had smooth clean-cut chins and a $1,200 fuel bill. They were dismissed immediately. Read more…
TALIHINA, Okla. — It’s sunset on the Talimena Scenic Drive, a two-lane stretch of asphalt that winds through one of the most gorgeous landscapes in middle America: the ancient Ouachita mountains in eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas.
I’m hours away from the constant craziness of big-city life, having traded pollution and traffic gridlock for miles of wide-open roads and pure, 75-degree mountaintop air, if only for a weekend. There’s virtually no civilization out here aside from a few towns that could make the cover of the Saturday Evening Post if they were a bit less scruffy, and the views from around each bend take my breath away for their Ansel Adams-style serenity. Read more…
Aching for an Autobahn
So you want to go fast? You want something that will rule the left lane with an iron fist and fear no competition. If its 0-60 mph time doesn’t start with a 3 then your grandma might be interested but you’re not. You want the latest racing technology and materials so exotic NASA doesn’t even use them. The exhaust note must strike fear into the heart of pedestrians and send enthusiasts’ pulse rates racing. If you expect climate control, a navigation system, change from a $75,000 bill and if you absolutely must blow through the quarter mile in less time than it takes to read this sentence, then there’s really only one choice. You need a Z06. Read more…
Audi’s Former Hot Shot Plays Second Fiddle These Days, But The Music Still Sounds Good.
If you’re a regular reader of these pages then you know cars from top to tailpipe and the fact that the S4 is no longer the baddest boy in the Audi garage isn’t news to you. If you stumbled onto this page courtesy of the geeks at Google then allow us to catch you up.
Audi has made a wonderful entry-level luxury sedan called the A4 (it has also gone by other names) for a long time. Some years back, perhaps after renting American Graffiti, engineers at the four-ring company decided a big ‘ol engine (they actually used turbos for a while) in their itty-bitty sedan would be a lot of fun. Thus began the history of the high-horsepower A4, appropriately renamed S4, presumably for super but possibly for Sweeeeeet! In 2006 the highest-performance Audi remains the 340hp S4, but that is set to change when the 415hp RS4 arrives on our shores in July. Read more…
