By Jack Baruth
July 3, 2009
Forget Kowalski’s white Challenger, forget Steve McQueen’s Porsche 917K, forget Burt Reynolds’ Trans Am. There’s one movie car that really matters to the twentysomething car enthusiast, and I’m driving a nearly perfect example at full boost up a winding road. After less than ten minutes, my passenger is tired of me rapid-firing quotes at her: “I owe you a ten-second car.” “This will dominate all.” “There’s all kinds of family, Brian, and that’s a choice
you’re going to have to make.” Each time I floor the accelerator, there’s almost enough time to spit out another one of Dominic Toretto’s outstanding phrases (“I’M IN YOUR FACE!”) before the boost spools. When it does… watch out.
Review: Toyota Supra Single Turbo
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Posted in Car Reviews | Toyota | 32 comments 
By Frank Williams
July 2, 2009
Once upon a time, way back in 1959, a company called Datsun imported a funny-looking pickup truck with a small bed and tiny engine, giving birth to the compact pickup market in the U.S. After a slow start, the market grew, as did the competition. The 70’s brought onslaughts from Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, and even VW. After the dust settled, the small truck market in the U.S. belongs basically to the Toyota Tacoma, Ford Ranger, Chevy/GMC Colorado/Canyon (for now, anyway) and Nissan Forester---the direct descendant of the Datsun that started it all. Fifty years later, what hath Nissan wrought?
Review: 2009 Nissan Frontier 4×2 Crew Cab SE
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rating summary and performance review: 2009 Nissan Frontier 4×2 Crew Cab SE
Posted in Car Reviews | Nissan | 40 comments
By David Holzman
July 1, 2009
It was our first drive on the French autoroute. The highway, heretofore flat, began to climb, all but imperceptibly. Imperceptibly that is, except to the drivers of the Deux Chevaux, cars that look like old Beetles made of corrugated barn roofing. Suddenly, the Deux Chevaux were moving en mass into the far right lane, putt-putting ever more loudly as they struggled vainly to maintain momentum. “Ooooh!” exclaimed Miriam, my two and a half year old sister. “Dudebos fall out!”
Review: 1975 Citroen 2CV
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Posted in Car Reviews | Citroen | 37 comments
By Jack Baruth
June 30, 2009
Not everything needs to come with a warning label. A bag of peanuts shouldn’t have “Warning: contains nuts” on it. You know what I’m talking about here. But when I shyly asked the infamous “Agent 001” of Autospies to be my co-driver for the next day’s 2010 Taurus SHO twisty-road press preview, perhaps I should have had excerpts from my “Maximum Street Speed” editorials stapled to the functional sleeves of my Gulf-blue Kiton linen jacket. Kind of a warning label, you see. It would have saved him more than a little worry the next day . . . To say nothing of the dry heaves. But don’t worry: Ford’s latest SHOmobile isn’t nausea-inducing. Unless, that is, you are sensitive to the odor of disc brakes when their pads catch on fire.
Review: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO
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rating summary and performance review: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO
Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 56 comments
By John Holt
June 29, 2009
On paper, the Audi A3 TDI is an exercise in futility. The model shares platform bits with a
Golf Rabbit. It's smaller than a Jetta Sportwagen. It carries a lofty price premium; the diesel-powered A3 “boasts” the same engine that can be had across the street at the Vee-Dub for thousands less. It's not as fast, sporty or capacious as the rear wheel-drive BMW 335d. By any rational measure, the A3 TDI is an answer to a question that few Americans even thought about asking. Which is why it's better to judge the A3 TDI "in the flesh."
Review: 2010 Audi A3 2.0 TDI
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rating summary and performance review: 2010 Audi A3 2.0 TDI
Posted in Audi | Car Reviews | Sales | 46 comments
By Paul Niedermeyer
June 26, 2009
Let's get one thing straight: There are very few inanimate objects which inspire my personal appreciation, respect, and interest as much as the 2010 Toyota Prius does. It's a happy faced, slick, aerodynamically-optimized, practical, comfortable and dead-reliable vehicle which exists for the sole purpose of letting concerned Americans feel like they are making a small but genuine difference in their efforts to reduce their consumption of the world's finite resources.
Review: 2010 Toyota Prius, Take Two
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rating summary and performance review: 2010 Toyota Prius, Take Two
Posted in Car Reviews | Toyota | 91 comments
By Chuck Goolsbee
June 25, 2009
Summer 2005. My plans for a Vintage Car Rally Vacation evaporate. Rebuilding a very poorly rebuilt engine vacuums funds allocated for the purpose out of my wallet. What started as an odd knock became a horror show. My fussy ex-pat Yorkshireman mechanic in Chilliwack, B.C. removed the head and found the forensic remains of a car-related massacre not seen since
Pol Pot rode around in his '73 Mercedes. Just when I had given up on my dreams of a vintage vacation, the phone rang with an offer to co-drive an event in what many have called the world's first supercar: the Mercedes-Benz 300SL. I accepted the offer faster than Mr. Fangio could frustrate Mr. Ferrari.
Review: 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster
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rating summary and performance review: 1957 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Roadster
Posted in Car Reviews | Mercedes-Benz | 22 comments
By Martin Schwoerer
June 24, 2009
After a few seconds in the
Mindset, I was thinking: Whoa, this thing is fast. And Goddamn, it feels good. And then I remembered a movie I hadn't thought of in a decade, and it struck me: this doesn't seem like 2009, this is more like
Gattaca. You know: the sci-fi movie starring the
Studebaker Avanti, Rover P6 and Citroen DS Décapotable---all running with electric motors. They are breathtakingly, inimitably beautiful cars. In the movie, they only make a whirring noise. It's all very 2030, and somehow, it works. Of course, if you had an electric droptop DS at your disposal, then why would you drive a Swiss-made, electric Mindset? But I'm getting ahead of myself. So, what is this car about?
Capsule Review: 2010 Mindset EV
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Posted in Car Reviews | Other | 36 comments
By Jack Baruth
June 24, 2009
Don’t believe the hype. The 1986 Taurus was not “the car that saved Ford.”
Trucks saved Ford in the late Eighties and early Nineties, as consumer tastes moved away from the one-sedan-fits-nearly-all market in favor of the newly popular SUV. Nor can the 2010 Taurus save a Ford beset by problems on all sides. There are no longer enough potential mid-sized car buyers to make a huge impact on the company’s bottom line, and most of those buyers are really better candidates for the smaller, more affordable Fusion.
Review: 2010 Ford Taurus
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rating summary and performance review: 2010 Ford Taurus
Posted in Car Reviews | Ford | 102 comments
By Mike Solowiow
June 23, 2009
The
propaganda literature that accompanied the little batch of sleeping pills---complete with a waiver absolving the USAF of all liability---promised that I would awake refreshed and ready to battle desert ninjas. Sure enough, I awoke alert. But mentally, I wasn't all there. I was fully aware of my full potential, and could access it at will, but there was a disconcerting disconnect. No, I didn't drive the Cayman PDK in this altered state. It's the same feeling created by the German two-door. Yes, the paddle-shift Cayman is a full-on Porsche. It offers precise handling, a jewel of an engine and magnificent brakes. Yet the
Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe stood in the way of the Porker's legendary man - machine interface. It created dynamic doubts that I've never experienced in a Porsche before.
Review: 2010 Porsche Cayman PDK
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rating summary and performance review: 2010 Porsche Cayman PDK
Posted in Car Reviews | Porsche | 22 comments
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