A Midlife Makeover For The Best Selling Small SUV
The small SUV class has been doing well for quite some time and the same can be said for Ford’s Escape. Nevertheless there have been some new competitors who are trying very hard to steal the title of Best Selling Small SUV from the Blue Oval. Chief among these is Chevrolet’s handsome new Equinox, which has been well received by consumers and critics alike. Ford knows this and refreshed the Escape for the 2005 model year to try to maintain its lead spot in the sales race. Is the midlife makeover good enough to keep the Escape out front? You’ll have to keep reading. Read more…
Ford Free of Style?
The suits must have finally tired of watching paying customers bypass the Blue Oval store on their way to make a down payment on a Chrysler Pacifica, because it didn’t take long for Ford to jump onboard the crossover train. It may be a few years late to the party but Ford’s entrant is here nonetheless. The Freestyle is the vehicle that the bean counters hope will claim a piece of the ever-expanding crossover pie for the house that Henry built. But to do that it will have to offer generous doses of comfort, value, safety and drivability. A bit of style wouldn’t hurt either. Read more…
Every time I get behind the wheel of a Lexus, I think, “This is how all cars will feel in 10 years.”
It’s not the technology that gives a Lexus the ahead-of-its-time feel, nor is it the styling. Heck, any company can install a few gizmos in a car and call it luxury, and there are plenty of examples of cars that look cutting-edge when they’re born only to look totally ridiculous when they age.
Read more…
Another Alternative For The “Ain’t Gonna Drive A Minivan” Club
They’re out there. They’re all around us. They are the people who will not drive a minivan simply because—it’s a minivan. Focus a bright light on them in a dark room and they’ll squirm, but admit they like the higher seating, the ample room for kids and cargo, and the comfortable ride. And they will also let you know, in no uncertain terms, they’d rather walk than arrive in the most un-cool of vehicles. It is because of people like this, and some very successful marketing, that SUVs have replaced the minivan as America’s portable people hauler of choice. Yes, you heard right. The traditional minivan segment is no longer growing by leaps and bounds. This is particularly true of the domestic vans, which face ever-stronger competition from the likes of Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. Despite a slight increase in sales so far this year, minivan sales peaked in 2000. So the segment isn’t dead by any means, but at best, future sales graphs will likely resemble a plateau, at worst, the backside of Mt. Everest. Read more…
This is a Tacoma?
Can’t be. A Tacoma is a dinky little Toyota truck with dinky little doors and a dinky little bench seat. There’s no way this truck — a big, tall, four-wheel-drive, four-door, honest-to-goodness truck — could possibly be a Tacoma.
It’s just not dinky enough. Read more…
It seems like only yesterday that Nissan was bragging about its stylish new Altima. Sales were hot when it was introduced in 2002, but they’ve cooled somewhat in the face of new competition, especially the ever-present Toyota Camry and Honda Accord.
But fear not, Nissan fans. An updated Altima is already on the way for 2005. Read more…
A Touring Sedan Fit For Seville
Well, I can say this for certain, that is GM has managed to move light-years ahead with the new STS over the previous generation model. No longer is the STS’s sole boasting point a sweet engine. Accompanying the now longitudinally-mounted Northstar is a new performance oriented tranny, chassis, and rear-wheel drive to boot. Finally, the company that once called itself the standard of the world is willing to step back up to the plate with a serious ballplayer for the major league. Read more…
Ever since the Japanese earned a reputation for building top-quality cars, American automakers have been copycats.
In fact, today’s American cars are in many ways hard to tell apart from their Japanese rivals after decades of copying the technology, construction, materials and even styling of their competitors from the Far East. Read more…
The 6 Gets A 6-Speed
The Mazda6 has been a shining example of what a sport sedan from a mainstream automaker should be. We’re not talking BMW or Infiniti here. This is Mazda, purveyor of increasingly desirable, affordable cars with sporting intentions. And the 6 has been near the top of our favorite sport sedans list since its debut as a 2003 model. Since then it has offered plenty to like, (sharp style, 220hp, available manual) all for around $25k. Luckily, Mazda knows not to let a good thing go bad. So for 2005 they’ve upped the ante in the midsize sport sedan market by including the segment’s first 6-speed automatic transmission. The only people not happy about this? Mazda’s competitors. Read more…
If you want a glimpse at the future of automobiles, take a ride in this Lexus.
It’s not a “car of the future” in the sense of GM’s Autorama show of the 1950s, which featured cars with wild styling and out-of-this-world gizmos that never made it into your garage. Read more…
