The good news about the new Acura TL is that it’s a nicer version of the Honda Accord. The bad news? It’s a nicer version of the Honda Accord. That’s the contradiction of the TL, which has been refreshed — and made a lot prettier — for the 2012 model year. It takes a fantastic, fun, ultra-reliable Accord and spiffs it up for the luxury market, packing it full of cool gadgets and adding sound-deadening materials to make it quiet on the highway. Read more…
Down In Power, But Still A Contender For The Sports Sedan Crown
In case you haven’t noticed, horsepower numbers are ballooning like Al Gore after public office and the new threshold for contenders in the sports sedan race is something north of 300 horses. Competitors from Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Infiniti and Lexus all offer up power ratings starting with a three, and even though Audi’s standard A4 can’t play with the big boys you can step up to the supercharged S4, which is available for about a grand more than the C350 that is the subject of this review and could certainly be considered a competitor. The problem for Mercedes is that their class entrant only puts out 268 hp, so even before delivery we were preparing to treat it as an entry-level luxury car instead of a true sports sedan. But when our baby Benz showed up wearing bright red paint, AMG wheels and cross-drilled brakes we knew the boys in Stuttgart weren’t going to let a horsepower deficit keep them on the bench. Read more…
Lotus Says the S Stands for Supercharged, We’re Thinking More Like Stupefying
Lotus, like other conventional automakers who like to drop an “S” or a “T” somewhere in the name of a car to denote the presence of a supercharger or turbocharger, would have us believe that’s all the suffix represents here. But Lotus is no conventional automaker, and one run through the gearbox of the quickest Lotus roadcar available and you’ll agree that a rechristening is in order here. My dictionary says something that is stupefying will “make somebody unable to think clearly because of boredom, tiredness, or amazement”. We can testify from experience that when piloting the Exige S it’s not boredom or tiredness you’ll be feeling. Even on the mind numbing interstates of Metro Detroit, where driving joy seems a thousand miles away, you’ll be too busy avoiding pot holes and lane-drifting, slack-jawed hooligans with cell phone cameras to ever get bored. Now being unable to think clearly because of amazement, that’s something you’ll experience with every flex of your right foot. That means one thing: this must be the Lotus Exige Stupefying Edition. Read more…
With the introduction of the Holden Commodore Concept Coupe at the turn of the millennium, it looked as if the designers at Holden had found a way to breathe some new life into GM’s slowly aging RWD midsize platform. By merely changing the roofline and stretching the front doors, the conservative sedan was transformed into an attractive coupe. Read more…
Harley-Davidson motorcycles are about power, style and freedom. So are pickup trucks. Read more…
