You Might Just Forget You Drove To Work
I absolutely love my job. Most days I spend pondering the industry, debating our Executive Editor on all the fine points of the upcoming Camaro and Challenger muscle cars; or laying on my back in the front lawn gazing at the mechanicals tucked between the frame rails of a 1-ton pickup. The point is this: cars fascinate me. All cars, including everything related to and revolving around this industry. But occasionally, a car happens across my path that just does nothing for me. Read more…
The Ultimate Plebianmobile
Sometimes you just have to get out of the office for a few days and take a trip, change the scenery, and breathe some fresh air. But as an auto scribe you could hardly say I leave my work behind me. Oh I was on leave, but not on vacation. The good folks from Kia had a Sportage 4×4 ready and waiting for my critique as soon as my plane hit the tarmac at the Atlanta, Georgia airport. Read more…
A Little Bit 1949
Ever wonder what a 1949 Chevrolet Suburban would look like had it been designed in 2006. Well someone at GM did and the proof sits my driveway. Well, a cute bite-sized, economical representation anyways (I think in candy bar speak the term is “fun” size). Read more…
Gotta Love It
The latest Jetta is a competent car but its ultra-reserved styling and serious lack of go power combine to make it an ultra serious bore to drive. It’s the automotive equivalent of watching Sen. Joseph Lieberman give a speech about the latest techniques in stem cell research. Needless to say, the enthusiasts among us aren’t knocking down VW’s doors looking for beige 5-cylinder Jettas. Volkswagen is smart enough to know this and that’s precisely why the GLI exists. It packs strong turbo power, decidedly unreserved 18” wheels, and it’s not available in beige. For the time being the GLI is the sportiest offering in the VW lineup, at least until the new GTI arrives, so we had high expectations. Did we find some substance under all that style or is the GLI little more than a cosmetic package? Keep reading. Read more…
Practical With A Buzz
With the domestic automakers finally paying attention to their breadwinner family sedans, it is becoming increasingly necessary for the imports to keep their offerings fresh. Our first sample of the new batch, the Jetta, is setting the pace, with the Golf and Passat following any day now. Read more…
In A World Of Unleaded Regular, This One Is Premium
It isn’t often that a car in our fleet is referred to as brilliant. Nor is it often that we sing the praises of one that is deemed “entry-level”, featuring an automatic tranny, front-wheel drive, and merely a four-cylinder engine. But the A3 brings out the best in all of these descriptions. Read more…
For a long time, there was nothing grand about Suzuki’s Grand Vitara.
This small, ugly vehicle was the red-headed stepchild of SUVs, constantly getting one-upped by the Ford Escape, Honda CRV, Nissan Xterra, Jeep Liberty and other great competitors. The only good reason to buy it was the price, and even that was coming under attack as competition among mini-SUVs reached a white-hot frenzy, translating into dirt-cheap prices for vehicles that were much better than this one. 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…
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…
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…
