2008: The Cars We Loved
“So, what was the best car you drove this year?” It’s one of those questions that routinely crops up during holiday party conversations once folks find out what we do for a living here at Motor Trend....
View Article2009 Hyundai Genesis: A Car Detroit Can Now Only Dream of Building?
I’ll let you into a little secret: the Hyundai Genesis came close to winning the 2009 Motor Trend Car of the Year title. You will recall Hyundai’s big rear drive sedan secured votes from two of the...
View ArticleCamaro V 6 vs Genesis Coupe 38
Last week I flogged the 210 horsepower, turbo four cylinder Hyundai Genesis Coupe 2.0T and wrote about it in my weekly Lohdown column.; Among the responses I received were the following pearls of...
View ArticleRidiculous to Sublime Sampling the BMW Group range, from Mini E to Rolls Phantom
BMW hosted an open house of sorts to share its latest developments on the technological, social responsibility, and product development fronts. It was billed and organized as a BMW University day, and...
View ArticleHonda Crosstour: Blockbuster or Bust?
It’s opening weekend of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and I’m racing against time and Mother Nature. I’m caught in a snowstorm on Interstate 80, wending my way through a blustery stretch of Utah’s...
View ArticleFirst US Spec Ferrari 458 Italia Brings $601,000 at Charity Auction
Ferrari donated the first North American spec 458 Italia so it could be sold to benefit the Haiti Relief efforts of the William J. Clinton Foundation.; The sale took place on the expansive grounds of...
View ArticleGM VP: Z/28 Coming, Cadillac Gunning for BMW, next gen Camaro to Alpha
“Our goal is Cadillac against BMW — very clearly. We will bring performance to these cars…and be on par or better than BMW.; That is our plan.” Those fighting words came from Karl Stracke, GM’s Vice...
View ArticleHow to clean the windows on a $2.6 million Veyron Super Sport
So the Veyroniest Veyron is pretty sweet, eh? Four turbos, sixteen cylinders, 1106 pound feet of twist and a single digit quarter-mile time. Indeed the Veyron 16.4 Super Sport is a 1200 horsepower show...
View ArticleThe Germanic Bastardization of Our Mother Tongue Marches On
“I’m not going to call it a shooting-brake,” The Editor-in-Chief of one of our competitors told me at last year’s Geneva Motor Show. We were discussing the Touring Supperleggara Flying Star, a...
View ArticleThe Hunchback of Nordschleife, Deutschland
Few cars receive focused animosity like the Porsche Panamera. From the grave “It’s not a Porsche,” to the grade school, “It’s really ugly,” insults come from all angles, aimed squarely at its...
View ArticlePick One for the U.S.: Cruze Hatch, Ford B-Max or Suzuki Swift
It’s attractive even in rental car maroon metallic, the Chevrolet Cruze hatchback. Like the Ford B-Max and the Suzuki Swift concept, it’s the kind of car most of you find cool and useful and ready to...
View ArticleCan Saab Become the Next Audi?
UPDATE – Saab Cars North America says it will receive 2012 Griffin models by the end of this May. The company notes that it does sell a 2.0T version of the 9-3 SportCombi, currently priced at $31,155...
View ArticleTrickledown Electrification
About six years ago I went to the dentist and got some bad news. A decade of hard, ugly living (my twenties) had left my gums as weak and diseased as an 80-year-old’s. The dentist said if I wanted to...
View ArticleCadillac or Commodore? The Zeta Dilemma
GM’s new Alpha rear drive architecture, which made its global debut under the new Cadillac ATS at the Detroit Show, is one of the most important pieces of hardware the company will launch this decade....
View Article4 Into 5? Not So Much
I attended the launch of the new 3-series and had almost nothing but nice things to say about the new 2.0-liter “TwinPower” twin-scroll turbocharged four-cylinder engine in that car. We were unable to...
View Article2012 New York Cab Confessions: Wildly Different Views of New York’s New Taxi
As you’ve already read in our Wide Open Throttle coverage of the New York Auto show, the NV200 Taxi is Nissan’s bold attempt to dive headlong into one of the largest taxi markets in world, New York...
View ArticleGoing Plaid in AMS Performance’s 1100-Horsepower Nissan GT-R Alpha 12
“WOW. I don’t think I’ve EVER hit triple digit speeds that quickly,” began my post-drive e-mail to Martin Musial, president and founder of AMS Performance. It wasn’t necessary to include some of the...
View ArticleGM Launching a Rear-Drive Renaissance. Will Buick Be Left Out?
General Motors is about to launch a rear-wheel-drive renaissance nearly equal in breadth to its wholesale shift to front-drive mainstream cars some 25 years ago. Remember the late-‘80s Cadillac Sedan...
View ArticleAn Electric Fork in the Road: The Big American Sedan is Back, with a Shocking...
Since 1949, Motor Trend has produced more than 750 covers. A few have been exceptional, more have been cringe-inducing (or at least hokey to 21st-century eyes), but all were attempts to capture a bit...
View ArticleTom Gale, the Man Behind the Original Viper, Speaks About the New One
Among Tom Gale’s many accomplishments during his tenure as Chrysler’s design chief was the original Dodge Viper Concept. I spoke with the retired designer and Car of the Year guest judge about his...
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