Weaker than expected growth in the United States has led Carlos Ghosn to issue an even more ambitious goal; double Nissan’s sales by 2017.

Nissan North America sold 1,141,656 vehicles in the United States last year, with just over 1 million of those vehicles coming from the Nissan brand. To achieve Ghosn’s goal, Nissan will have to post 18 percent gains every year for the next four years.

Automotive News reports that some of the blame has been placed on production issues, while Nissan is also looking to boost efficiencies at the retail level to help increase sales. Nissan wants to double the number of unit sales per outlet by the end of fiscal year 2017, from 959. By comparison, Toyota sells 1,491 units per franchise while Honda sells 1,220. Adding dealers in the West, Midwest and Northeast is also a possibility.

To say that Nissan’s plan is aggressive is an understatement. When Volkswagen issued their call for 800,000 units in the United States, it set a target date nearly a decade into the future, and matched it with a strong product push targeted squarely at the tastes and budgets of U.S. consumers. While there’s still another 5 years to go, Volkswagen is already at 438,133 units in the U.S. as of last year.

With Europe in the toilet and Japan and China looking shaky, America is one side of Ghosn’s magic coin (the other being low cost cars), since it’s a locale where auto sales are not in freefall. Ghosn’s pursuit of marketshare for Nissan is reflected in the newest round of products, like the Versa, Sentra, Pathfinder and Altima, which emphasize comfort, interior space and value. In this context, their decision to slash prices to make their cars more competitive in online comparisons makes sense. With such a short timeframe and such a far-fetched target, every little bit will help move Nissan across the board.

The Ford EcoSport is a compact SUV which was first launched in Brazil way back in 2003. Now Ford has brought in the second generation model, which will go on sale in more than 100 markets across the globe. Based on the Fiesta’s B-car platform, the EcoSport is designed to attract buyers in emerging markets like China, Brazil and India. The vehicle measures around 4-meters in length (3,999 mm in India to duck it under the government’s 4-meter mark, without factoring in the spare wheel) and is no longer than a regular hatchback. The design is evokes mixed reaction and some might love it, while others might simply hate it. A large hexagonal chrome grille adorns the front while the spare wheel has been mounted on the tailgate at the rear. A black body cladding runs throughout the lower side of the car. The boot lid opener has been integrated inside the right rear tail light.

The dashboard comes form the Fiesta and is quite big. Comfort inside the cabin is top-notch with very supportive seats. Even leg room at the rear is good, with scooped front seat back and deep footwells giving good space to rear passengers. Quality inside leaves a lot to be desired. Many parts look cheap and are built to a price. Ford has skipped on some basic things like an engine cover, engine guard and twin-blade wipers. However, it has loaded the vehicle with features like SYNC, 6 airbags, parking sensors, push button start, keyless entry, hill hold assist, ESP, ABS, audio controls on steering wheel, 16-inch alloy wheels, etc. Some of these features are available only on the top-end Titanium variants. The trunk is quite small with just a 346-liter capacity, at least the rear seats can be folded (60:40 ratio) to increase volume to 705-liters. The cabin is well insulated with little outside noise creeping in. The audio system sounds fantastic for a factory setup, the AC is simply amazing and chills in no time even in 32 degrees C temperatures of Goa.

The Ford EcoSport will be offered in India with three engines. A 1.5-litre gasoline Ti-VCT motor with a power of 112 hp and a torque of 140 Nm, mated to both a 5-speed manual and 6-speed automatic. A 1.5-litre diesel TDCi with a power of 91 hp and a torque of 200 Nm, mated to a 5-speed manual. The third engine is the most talked about, it’s the 2012 International engine of the year, the 1.0-litre EcoBoost mill with 125 hp and 170 Nm of output. I had a chance to drive the EcoSport powered by the EcoBoost engine. This engine is claimed to give the power of a 1.6-litre engine while consuming 20% less fuel.

Performance from this 3-cylinder engine is fantastic, with extremely good refinement and good progress throughout the power band. There is turbo lag till 1600 RPM, after which the EcoBoost engine pulls cleanly in a linear fashion (no kick in the pants feel here). There are no issues with NVH till 4500 RPM, after which a slight amount of vibrations can be felt through the pedals. 0-100 km/hr should take less than 11 seconds and top speed is around 190 km/hr. This engine simply doesn’t feel like a 1.0-litre, 3-pot unit and also helps Ford to get excise duty benefits in India (sub 4-metre cars with less than 1.2-litre engine capacity in gasoline or less than 1.5-litre engine capacity in diesel are subjected to half the excise duty, 12% against 24%).

Ford cars are known to be very involving to drive, the EcoSport is no different. Handling is crisp and the steering is very light at low speeds and decently weighed at high speeds (could have felt heavier and offered more feedback like the Fiesta though). Ride quality is good both at the front and rear but the EcoSport feels a bit harsh on real bad roads, there are plenty of such roads in India. Braking is good too but there is a small dive under hard braking. The biggest spoil sports are indeed the tires, which have been specially developed for lower road noise and higher economy. They tend to lose grip early and start screeching.

The Ford EcoSport is clearly not a car for the developed world. It is too small with cost cutting at several areas. However for emerging markets, it’s an excellent bet. It has 200 mm of ground clearance and a water wading capability of 550 mm. With looks which will mostly please Indians and driving dynamics which are surefooted, the EcoSport is bound to be a success in India. It is already outselling the Renault Duster in Brazil, which although a bigger car, is not as feature loaded as the Ford. The EcoSport will be sold in Europe, positioned below the Kuga and there are plans to bring in a 4-wheel drive version as well.

Easy maneuverability in congested city conditions along with easy parking and low-cost of purchase are sure to win people’s hearts in Europe. Do you think the EcoSport makes much sense in the developed world?

Faisal Ali Khan is the editor of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the automobile industry of India.

Our last look at the Accord was back in September when we ran a two-parter (part 1, part 2) after being invited to the launch event. Yes, shockingly our invite wasn’t lost in the mail. As TTAC has said in the past, there are problems with launch events. Usually you’re running around in a pre-production car that may not be “quite right” yet, you have to split your driving time with some dude from another publication (shout out to Hooniverse on that trip).  Drive time is limited, and exclusively done on roads selected by the manufacturer. Sometimes you don’t get the trim level you want either. What I wanted was one step up from the base model, the mainstream EX and I wanted it on the same roads I’ve driven the other Camcord competitors. Here’s that review.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Exterior

Honda has long been known as a serious kind of car company. Press events are orderly, the Honda folks wear suits and their products are similarly starched. While we have a new corporate nose up front with a chrome “smiley” face and aggressive headlamps, the rest of the profile is buttoned up and professional. The large (and low) greenhouse says “I have kids,” an image that Honda has been embracing with their latest commercials, essentially admitting they are leaving descriptives like “sexy” and “dramatic” to Hyundai and Ford. I have to admit I am quite torn, I love the Fusion’s sexy sheetmetal making it my first pick in terms of looks, but oddly enough the “plain Jane” Accord is number two for me because it’s simple clean. The new Kia Optima is a very, very close third thanks its nose job for 2014. I’m not convinced that the Camry’s nose or the Sonata’s dramatic character lines will age well, let me know what you think in the comment section. Something important to keep in mind is the Accord has bucked the growth trend and has shrunk on the outside compared to the previous generation making it among the smallest in this segment. Good if you live in the city, bad if you were hoping for a Honda land yacht.

Typical for Honda, the Accord has no factory installed options to choose from, you simply pick your trim: LX, EX, Sport EX-L, or Touring. LX, EX and Sport models can be had with a manual or a CVT while EX-L and Touring models are CVT only with the four cylinder and auto only with the V6. Aside from the lack of fog lights in the LX and a tiny bit of black trim on the LX and EX models, the only visual clues to which Accord you’re driving are the wheels and exhaust tips. When it comes to sleepers, there’s nothing that fits that description like an Accord.

Interior

Honda’s interiors have long been known for their simple functionality rather than opulence or elegance and Honda is still singing the same tune. Despite being an all-new model for 2013, Honda hasn’t radically changed the interior design, opting instead for incremental improvements and more standard features. All Accords now get standard dual-zone automatic climate control, Bluetooth phone integration, a backup cam and active noise cancellation. Honda seems to have listened to the complaints from reviewers and customers and took a methodical and dedicated approach to making the Accord quieter on the road. In addition to the fancy noise cancelling software, there’s more foam, more carpet and a one-piece dash designed to prevent squeaks later in life.

Honda’s seat engineers seem to be designing seats specifically for my back lately. The Accord and the refreshed Civic both sport supportive seats that coddled by back and backside on long journeys. There is a caution I must toss in however, the lumbar support in Sport, EX and LX models is fixed and pronounced. If you need some adjustability in your back support, you’ll need to step up to a leather model to get it. 2013 has brought a raft of materials improvements to the Accord cabin from improved seat fabrics to more squishy dash bits and the ever-so-popular stitched pleather. Thankfully Honda spares potential owners the shame of faux wood trim, instead opting for a modern brown pattern that I found attractive. The trim and the style are not as stylized or futuristic as the competition, but controls are easy to locate, and consistent in their high quality feel.

Thanks to the Accord’s upright profile, getting in and out of the back seats is an easy task, something I can’t say of the Fusion. Once inside the height pays further dividends with more headroom than the coupé-like competitors. Despite being smaller on the outside and having a smaller wheelbase than the outgoing model, legroom is up by a welcome 1.3 inches in the rear and the trunk has grown to a [finally] competitive 13.7 cubic feet. On the down side, Honda forgot that sometimes people need to carry large items and three people, not possible in the Accord if you fold down the rear seat since it folds as a single unit.

Even base model Accords are well equipped with dual-zone climate control, auto headlamps, cruise control, backup camera, and a one-touch up/down window for the driver. Because of the comfortable seats and high level of standard gadgets, the Accord is the poster child of “easy to live with” like that comfortable sweatshirt.

Infotainment

Honda’s relentless drive to streamline options means a high level of standard tech on the Accord. All Accords get an 8-inch high-res screen in the middle of the dash, Bluetooth integration for speakerphone and audio, iDevice/USB interface, Pandora internet radio app integration and SMS messaging features if your smartphone supports it. (At the time of our drive, Pandora radio is restricted to Apple iDevices and SMS messaging to Android devices, Honda giveth and taketh away.)

Browsing the lots of my nearest Honda dealers, it seems the EX and EX-L models account for the bulk of purchases and lot space, not surprising since they straddle the middle in terms of price from $24,605 for a manual EX to $32,070 foe an EX-L V6. All EX models get keyless entry/go, Honda’s up-level audio system and their Lane Watch blind-spot viewing system. (Trust me, LW is more exciting than it sounds). Stepping up to the EX-L model or above gets you a higher resolution 8-inch screen and a 5-inch touchscreen LCD in the center of the dash that acts as the primary audio control interface. The addition of the second display allows you to see some audio information at the same time as the 8-inch display either shows you the navigation screen (if you’ve opted for it) or some other information source. Want to know more? Check out that video above.

Drivetrain

I know we’re here to dream of EarthDreams (which is quite possibly the worst thing anyone has ever named an engine family), but we should start out with that optional V6.  As before the V6 has cylinder deactivation tech, but Honda decided that the old system which would cut out 2 or 3 cylinders depending on the load was more trouble than it was worth, so for 2013 the V6 will only drop to 3 cylinders but the range of operation has been expanded. Thanks to the tweaks and a new 6-speed automatic, the V6 is good for 278HP and 252 lb-ft of torque while delivering 21/34MPG. The V6 has a well-tuned exhaust note and scoots to 60 in the same 6.2 seconds that the Altima 3.5 managed, but the Accord lags the Altima in real-world fuel economy by 3 MPG. This isn’t the engine you want.

What piqued my interest at the launch event was Honda’s new 2.4L direct-injection four cylinder engine. The engine and new CVT turned my impression of the Accord on its head. The engine’s 185HP still arrive at a very-Honda high RPM of 6,500, but thanks to the direct-injection sauce torque jumps to a [nearly] HP matching 181 lb-ft with a strong pull from idle and a peak at a decidedly un-Honda 3,900RPM. If you choose the 6-speed manual, you no longer have to rev the nuts off the engine to get the Accord in motion. Most shoppers however will findP a Continuously Variable Transmission under their Accord’s hood, although they may not even notice. Why? This is quite possibly the world’s best CVT.

Yes, I know I have a rep for the love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name, but I have my reasons for liking a CVT: fuel economy, mountain climbing, and maximizing acceleration in underpowered cars like the 107HP Versa. This CVT is actually pleasant to drive. I’m not sure how the boffins managed it, but Honda’s new CVT switches ratios quickly and crisply with a feel that is so close to a standard automatic the average person might not be able to tell the difference. If you have driven a Nissan with a CVT, you get what some call a “rubber band” feeling that pressing the throttle gets instant response but builds, levels, then after you release the throttle it takes a while for the engine to “return” to a dull roar.

The Accord on the other hand has the feeling of a downshift where the engine shifts to a high RPM almost immediately, then like a normal CVT, stays there while you accelerate and when you lift it drops rapidly like a normal transmission upshifting. Passengers in the car were confused, some thought they detected shifts and thought it was an auto, while a few realized it was just a good CVT. This is as it should be. If you need another reason to give the CVT a shot, the 27 city, 36 highway and 30 combined MPG rating should make a believer out of you. In my mixed driving I averaged a stout 32.5 MPG. If you absolutely must have the manual, you’ll be limited to four-cylinder LX, EX and Sport models (the V6/MT combo is Accord coupé specific). The manual will save you $1,200 at the register but cost you more at the pump with fuel economy dropping to 24/34 and in my testing the combined number was some 5MPG lower than the CVT.

The Accord has long been known for its double wishbone front suspension, a design that some prefer because of increasing negative camber gain as the suspension reaches the end of travel. On the downside it’s heavier, more expensive and according to Honda contributed to the NVH that owners and reviewers whined about. What does that have to do with anything? The wishbone is gone, replaced by a MacPherson strut arrangement like just about every other FWD car in the USA. Does it matter? Not really, most people would be hard pressed to tell the difference since the Accord is hardly a track day car. Or is it?

The mid-size sedan is the ultimate comprise car, just watch a sedan add some time. They are supposed to schlep the kids to daycare and then carve that canyon on your way to your impressive day job where everyone congratulates you on making the smart decision to buy the family car instead of the Mercedes roadster. Truth be told, any mid-size sedan carves corners with shocking aplomb, holds at least two car seats with ease, looks good enough to valet park and manages to keep from breaking the bank. You know, except for that Dodge Avenger I’m trying to forget. But I digress.

Honda made a big deal out of the weight reduction at the launch event, but in truth the 3,336lb curb weight merely represents a tend in the right direction and lands the Accord in the middle of the fray. What is different is how Honda chose to tune the Accord. Out on the road the steering is moderately heavy with a hint of feedback (more than can be said for most sedans these days) and the suspension is firm for a family car. The combination create a feel that I would almost describe as “Germanic,” something that paradoxically cannot be said of the latest Passat. When the feel and suspension are mated with 215/55R17 rubber on the EX and EX-L models, the Accord can dance with the best of the competition. The Sport model’s 235 width tires might sound attractive but beware, the rubber is bundled with new steering stops that increase the turning circle from good to enormous. My suggestion would be to buy a regular model, jump to 225s and deal with the occasional rubbing.

Thanks to a combination of excellent road manners, a surprisingly quick 6.8 second jump to 60 and the best mid-sized non-hybrid/non-diesel fuel economy we have tested so far and the Accord EX becomes my favorite four-cylinder mid-size sedan. It’s not as sexy as the Fusion, but it’s cheaper by a nose, more exciting than a Camry, more mainstream than a Kia or Hyundai (yes, I did use that as a factor because you know shoppers will) and statistically more reliable than some of the other options on the road. There’s always a “but” and here it is: the Altima 3.5 starts at $25,760, weighs the same as the four-cylinder Accord, clears 60 in 5.5 seconds and averaged a shocking (and totally worth it) 27.6 MPG during our week.

Hit it

• The best CVT ever created.
• Our average fuel economy was only 1MPG lower than a Civic.
• Excellent chassis dynamics.

Quit it

• Lane Watch is as gimmicky as it sounds.
• You have to upgrade to the EX-L to avoid the urethane steering wheel.
• I still don’t understand the split screen radio/nav situation. Someone explain that to me over a beer.

 Honda provided the vehicle, insurance and gas for this review

Specifications as tested

 0-30: 2.8 Seconds

0-60: 6.83 Seconds

1/4 Mile: 15.25 Seconds @ 93 MPH

Average Observed Fuel Economy: 32.5MPG over 659 miles

According to the “Infinite Monkey Theorem”, if you lock three monkeys in a room with typewriters for infinity, eventually they will produce Hamlet. By the same measure, should you lock three engineers in a room for infinity, eventually they will produce the perfect car. Ford has seemingly absorbed this philosophy through their European division, however, as most theorems go, instead of a the perfect car, they produced “Aston Martin Rapide part Deux, the Budget Restrained Sequel”.

The previous generation Euro Ford Mondeo 2.2 TDCi Titanium set up my expectations for the latest Ford Fusion/Mondeo when I flogged it around the Nurburgring in about 9 minutes. Capable, comfortable, attractive, and well screwed together, the Mondeo was the best car to wear the wrong badge. So now comes an even better looking, and supposedly even more capable version to both shores of the Atlantic (according to Ford). So does the Budget Restrained Sequel to the Aston Martin Rapide (or BRSAMR according to my Blackhawk pilot mentor, Lt. Col Mary Bell) match or exceed the high precedent set forth by the engineers in Cologne, Germany? Well, ja und nein.

At first glance, the BRSAMR looks gorgeous. The designers nailed the classic flowing lines coupled with a gigantic grill in near perfect proportions. The grill and headlights assemblies are remarkably well integrated, especially next to the nearly similar sized Taurus: making the Big Bull Barge look dated. Euro creases down the side with a fastback rear complete the effect of looking fast while standing still. But look closer. Ford sweated the details: the creases merge and flow in incredibly complex ways that make nearly every angle interesting to look at, with surprise and delight to behold. For example, the center high-mounted brake light: instead of slapping it inside the rear glass, Ford designers and engineers made a relief in the glass, a unique element for the brakelight that merges into the roof.  It provides a slight spoiler effect for the rear. This is functional, cleans up the air flow, and looks interesting. If they put that much thought into the brake light, that speaks volumes to the rest of the car…hopefully…

But it looks like an Aston Martin rip-off you say. Well…yes, and I welcome it. That’s like complaining Kiera Knightley looks too much like Natalie Portman. We need more beauty in this world, not more Malibus. Yet, the rear spoiler needs more elegant integration and when staring up close, the vertical front grill is massive. While it shall make a great zombie ram (take note Walking Dead producers, ditch Hyundai, you want the Fusion), I wonder how well pedestrians in crowded cities fare when the driver fails to look up while adjusting that MyFord Touch stereo.

Inside, the Fusion delights and surprises almost as much as the outside. I said almost…the dash swoops between the front passengers hiding a cavernous storage hole and elevating the multimedia interface within easy reaching distance of the driver and passenger. But what’s this? Fake wood on the door panels and dash? FAKE WOOD?!? Or is it tortoiseshell a’la Chrysler Sebring circa 2008. I can’t quite tell as the panels are small, and the sparkly element fails like a Twilight vampire. All I could ascertain was it was plastic, and unwelcome. Brushed aluminum, or even silver plastic would have worked wonders here…but I’m paid to criticize, not design, so Ford guys…fix this.

The other ergonomic foible that drove me up batty was the location of the manual shift mode buttons. The Toyota Camry had well placed paddles behind the wheel. The BRSAMR has a rocker switch on the side of the shift lever placed at a bizarre angle, while made of not the stoutest feeling plastic ever. This ergonomic misstep left me awkwardly angling my wrist to the point I left the BRSAMR in ‘Sport,’ hoping the magic transmission angel’s controlled shift logic avoided behaviors of a demon spawn. It wasn’t successful, but managed to remain on the level of annoying street preacher and not Westboro Baptist Church. Yet when pushed, the transmission snapped off shifts and downshifted in corners like a wizard. I guess it likes torture and not sedation. BDSM followers take note.

I shall now point out that the Fusion SE with the 1.6L turbo comes in manual. But I will only point it out, as the BRSAMR does not need it, nor will it add much to the enjoyment of the car. As I shall now explain, stay with me padawans.

The Fusion grips, steers and flows with aplomb… for such a large car. The steering feels a bit dead on center, but once past that, the wheel is accurate, well weighted, and precise. Turn into a corner, and the Fusion grips with minimal understeer, while giving decent feedback through the tiller. It’s possible to alter your line mid-corner without much drama, but then, the BRSAMR is heavy. You feel the suspension working overtime like a fat dude at Zumba. Body roll remains limited, but the alacrity in turn transition is just not there. The brakes stop, but the initial travel felt a bit vague as the big car tries to slow down. It makes commuting easier as you can lazily stomp on it with no finesse, but you are not driving a Focus, and you know it.

Ride quality remains good with firm, damped responses, although the optional larger wheels on my tester transmitted surface irregularities a bit more than I liked. Stick with the stock wheels. You aren’t fooling anyone that you are driving an expensive car, and if you are concerned about that, buy an old Lincoln for cheap, and get some 22’s… so you can indeed be ‘different’.

Overall, the Fusion was fun when pushed, but only just. Climbing back into my Audi A4 only compounded this impression. I wouldn’t mind trying to flog the Fusion, but I wouldn’t seek out any twisties just because I could.

Oh yeah, I forgot… the engine. Well, I heard something under the hood, but it was so smooth and quiet, I kinda forgot it was there. So did the acceleration curve. At 170bhp and minimal turbo lag, the engine proves adequate, if not mind blowing acceleration. It keeps the excitement down to levels where a Mormon girlfriend won’t leave you for the guy in the Camry, but won’t leave you trying to outgun the hipster in the diesel Golf.

So what IS the Fusion/Mondeo/BRSAMR? It’s simply the best looking, and nearly the most capable mid/full-sized sedan on the market. The Accord drives better. The KIA/Hyundai twins do the same for a bit cheaper, and the Malibu provides subprime financing fodder. Yet I give the Fusion the nod, as it looks good, drives well for a commuter, and has little things that remind you that cars should have character. Now Ford, make an SHO version…but don’t call it the ‘Rapide’.

A quiet and unnoticed getaway is hardly a fait accompli in the auto-centric city of Los Angeles, where street-parked Italian exotics are a given, and even the peons seem to manage to procure a Mercedes-Benz C-class.

The task is made especially difficult when your getaway car is an Aston Martin DB9.  But not for any of the obvious reasons.

On Friday morning, the generous folks at Aston Martin tossed me the key — erm, crystallized emotion control unit — to a vermilion example of its refreshed-for-2013 DB9 coupe.  Twelve minutes later, I was already on the road, to see if James Bond’s personal transportation would pass muster against the vapidity of style-conscious Angelenos.  That’s when I hit my first traffic jam.  And then a spot of late-winter drizzle descended from no place in particular, exacerbating the whole mess.  The traffic trudged for miles.  By the time I reached the outskirts of Santa Monica, my thoughts turned to a parking space and a cold drink, lest a valet attempt to wrest the DB9 from my hands.

That evening, following several rides given to friends, and glamour poses taken in front of homes worth half as much as the car in front of them, I decided to rest the DB9 in the aegis of my girlfriend’s apartment.  After an afternoon’s worth of driving, I hadn’t seen as much as fourth gear, or had the opportunity to truly answer the question that seemed to be on everyone’s mind: “So, how fast is it?”

The coupe from Britain with the six-figure price tag sat outside as dusk turned to nightfall.  Much to my girlfriend’s disenchantment, I vowed to check on the DB9 every hour until morning.  At midnight, I could hear stumbling barflies audibly ogling the carbon-ceramic brakes.  An hour later, I swore that I woke up not to the alarm from my phone, but to a pigeon defiling the DB9’s roof from the overhead power lines.  My overprotective instincts were working overtime.

Upon realizing that there were no power lines remotely near the DB9, I grabbed my overnight bag and headed for the door.  I was entirely sure that this was the same feeling of a nervous parent the first night that a newborn sleeps at home.  To my sleeping girlfriend, I texted, “I’ve left you for the DB9.  See you in the morning.”

I tiptoed down the staircase and slipped quietly into the cockpit to reacquaint myself with the driver’s seat.  For the first time, light shone on all of the gauges and switchgear.  The wanton aroma of buttery leather was all-consuming.  With tired eyes, I gazed ahead at the suggestive, 220-mph speedometer.  It’ll never happen on these streets.

At five minutes to three, the DB9 roared to life with typical, unrestrained aggressiveness from the engine bay that could wake the entire neighborhood.  I selected D from the push-button transmission, and slunk as respectfully as possible toward the highway.  A gentleman, standing on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard, turned his head up from his cell phone and smiled when he saw the DB9 approaching.  Two quick turns later, I approached the entrance to the freeway and depressed the aluminum shift paddle to slow the DB9.

It was a warm night on the west side of Los Angeles, and my night-owl routine from my time spent in Manhattan seemed about ready to pay off.  The roads were never this empty.

I couldn’t have been giddier as I stepped hard on the gas pedal to enter the highway.  The intuitive feedback gleaned from the DB9’s chassis, in perfect concert with its hellacious powerplant, made quick work of the on-ramp, and the subsequent transition to Interstate 10, which required the negotiation of four lanes of a banked overpass.  A rented Corolla sped by in the leftmost lane, doing about 25 over the speed limit, perhaps to the white-knuckled dissatisfaction of its driver.  A quick downshift and a blip of throttle caught me up to him.  I relished the routine.  Smile.  Quick turn of the head.  Approving but disbelieving faces from the backseat passengers.  Smile again.

All this, even as the DB9 nears a decade of production, with few major changes prior to the ‘13’s mostly mechanical refresh.

As I neared downtown, I took pleasure in the fact that I was not confined to the cemented cesspool of interlocking byways, on the daily commute.  The Garmin-sourced navigation system was suddenly of no use.  The V-12 seemed to have endless power, with no real effort required to access it.  I ran my hand along the soft, leather stitching that covered the center console, as well as every surface not bedecked in aluminum or suede.  Although the interior design is similarly old, it benefited from the careful restraint that Concours judges might one day commend.

When I finally reached home — following several quick exits, for the pleasure of obtaining screaming on-ramp performances every time — I was wide-awake, and somehow disappointed that the drive felt shorter than usual.  My personal car spent the remainder of the pre-dawn hours outside the garage, as the DB9 commanded deference, respect; payment of tribute would later arrive in the form of multiple trips for fuel, to the adoring eyes of passers-by.

I spent the remainder of my time with the DB9 flogging it every which way, making friends titter as the crimson beast sped breathlessly down on-ramps. (You never really know who your friends are until you offer to show up at their homes and places of business with a $207,000 conversation piece.)  I marveled at the crispness of Dionne Warwick’s alto inflection, as conveyed through 1000 Bang & Olufsen watts. I loaded its shallow trunk with a weekend’s worth of groceries, and prayed that the baba ghannouj would stay upright.  One expeditious adult passenger climbed into the rear seats, but not for long.

After 72 short hours of random acts of automotive kindness performed for friends, family, and total strangers, it became terribly clear that living with an automobile as special as the DB9 was an indulgence unto itself that ought to be shared with as many people as possible.  As your senses beckon you out for a joyride, and you simply cannot resist letting all 12 cylinders howl into the night, forget about trying not to wake the neighbors.

Luxury is about tasteful sharing of the wealth.  And the DB9 is a top-tier expression of luxury, beauty, and desire, without peer.

Who’s ever tried to make a quiet getaway, anyway?

I remember when the RX rolled onto the scene in 1998. It was truly the first successful crossover as we would know it today. While everyone else was trying to produce a truck-based luxury SUV, Lexus took the Camry/ES platform, put a jelly-bean inspired box on top and jacked the ride height up to 7.7 inches. The result was instant sales success. As we all know however, success has a price. The marshmallow-soft FWD RX lacked road feel, steering feel and sex appeal. Although it’s a bit late in the game, Lexus has decided to fix that last problem with the introduction of the 2013 RX F-Sport.

Click here to view the embedded video.

F-Sport is to Lexus what M-Sport is to BMW. (No, not M, M-Sport.) That means the RX gets a new grille, flashier wheels, some suspension upgrades, a new transmission and interior tweaks. You’ll notice I didn’t say “more power.” That’s because this is “F-Sport,” not F.

We should talk competitions first so we can discuss the F-Sport in the proper light. First up, the MDX. We need to cross that one off the list. Why? Primarily because it has seven seats, but also because the all-new MDX is being shown off in the next month or so. (Check back for an RX vs MDX overview at that time.) That leave us with the Lincoln MKX, Cadillac SRX, Volvo XC60 and the Audi Q5. Yes, in some ways the BMW X3 and Mercedes GLK compete, but their RWD drivetrains put them in a different league. Not to mention Mercedes and BMW owners don’t seem to see the RX as competition.

The nuts and bolts of the RX date back to 2009 when the platform received its third redesign, while the bumpers received a nip/tuck for the 2012 model year. The 2013 F-Sport builds on that refresh, retaining the new spindle grille but swapping horizontal slats for the signature F-Sport “squiggle” grille. Since our readers have complained we don’t offer enough subjective styling criticism, here we go. I’m feeling the love for Lexus’ F-Sport nose, especially on the RX. The new IS F-Sport takes the F-Sport squiggle theme to the extreme with lines going from the hood to the air dam, but the RX breaks things up with a body-colored bumper section in the middle. Overall I find the look elegant with just a hint of aggressiveness. My only issue is: every RX should look like this.

I’m not sure what Lincoln’s engineers were smoking when they styled the MKX’s nose, but it must have been some strong stuff. As much as folks think I dislike GM products, I find the SRX to be aggressive, bold, and stylish, all in good ways. The Q5 makes me yawn. Volvo’s styling has always struck a chord with me, but the Swedes aren’t known for bold and daring. The MDX? I can’t get past the beak. My personal style ranking would be: SRX, RX F-Sport, XC60, Q5 and then the MKX. Sorry Lincoln.

Interior

The 2012 refresh didn’t bring sweeping changes to the interior. In truth, aside from an infotainment software update and a new steering wheel, the only changes were to the color palette. That means we still get the slightly rubbery (but still soft) injection molded instrument panel dominated by an infotainment screen. The shifter still pops horizontally out of the dash, and we still have 2009-era plastics. Keeping the competition in mind, the MKX has an interior style I appreciate more, and has more soft-touch plastics. However, Lincoln’s interior quality is more of a mixed bag than the Lexus. The Audi Q5 strikes me as a little cheap on the inside, sorry Audi fans. The Volvo scores points in my book for diverging from the typical CUV interior style and ties with the SRX in terms of style, fit and finish and interior feel. The Lexus slots in second, followed by the MKX while the Q5 brings up the rear.

Back in the RX, the front seats are comfortable and supportive, just as you expect from Lexus, but the passenger seat doesn’t have the same range of electric adjustibility as the driver’s seat. In tune with the RX’s mission as an upscale crossover, (marketed towards buyers older than the RAV4 rabble) the rear seats are higher off the ground and more suitable for adult transportation. Thanks to the FWD based drivetrain, the RX has no differentiable “hump” in the rear making sitting three-across far less painful than RWD based crossovers. Cargo hauling is the RX’s strong suit with the largest hold of the bunch.

Infotainment

You won’t find many examples on dealer lots, but base RX models get a standard 7-inch “multi-information” screen in the dashboard. Available as a separate $860 option, standard on F-Sport and included on most option packages is the “display audio” system. Display audio bumps you up to an 8-inch LCD with a backup cam, HD Radio, rotary controller in the center console and the 12-speaker Lexus branded audio system. This middle system is my personal preference because it is the only way to get the 8-inch screen without Lexus’ joystick controller device.

Lexus calls the controller “remote touch,” I call it the most aggravating input method so far. Remember Volvo’s pop-up nav with the controller on the back of the steering wheel? This is worse. Don’t get me wrong, the system is easy to use; it works like a computer mouse: just point and click. My problem is two fold. First, you have to spend more time staring at the screen to operate the system than you did with the old Lexus touchscreen interface. Second, the location of the controller makes it difficult for your front passenger to use the system. If you want to know more, check out the video at the top of this page.

If SMS text-to-speech and smartphone app integration are must haves, be prepared to shell out $2,775 for that navigation system ($1,916 over the display audio system). Nearly three grand is a steep premium, even in this segment. On the flip side you do get full voice commands for your USB/iDevice, XM radio with XM data services, and Lexus tosses in the 12-speaker sound system.

I appreciate my tunes, do I’d also need to splurge on the $995 15-speaker Mark Levinson sound system. With 330-watts and a subwoofer, the system is a noticeable step up from the base or 12-speaker systems, but is not as impressive as the 650-watt system in the XC60, or the Meridian systems in the Range Rover Evoque. With the blind spot monitoring system ($650), the nav, up-level sound and parking sensors, our RX 350 F-Sport rang in just under $53,000 without destination.

Drivetrain

Since F-Sport isn’t about power, you’ll find an identical 270 horsepower 3.5L V6 engine under the hood of the RX 350 and the RX 350 F-Sport. This is the same smooth “2GR-FE” engine used in everything from the Toyota RAV4 to the Lexus ES 350. That also means this mill doesn’t benefit from Lexus’ direct-injection sauce used to increase power and torque in the IS and GS. With only 248 lb-ft of twist on tap at a lofty 4,700 RPM, the only competitor with less is the Volvo XC60 3.2. But we must compare apples-to-apples and that’s a problem here because Volvo also offers the most powerful engine in this segment at 325 HP and a whopping 354 lb-ft of twist from the 3.0L twin-scroll turbo in the XC60 R-Design.

To compensate for the power deficit, Lexus connected the V6 to the world’s first 8-speed automatic transaxle. The new U880F transaxle features a much lower effective first gear ratio at 17.31:1 vs 14.48 for the non-F-Sport model (gear x final drive) and a taller final gear at 2.28:1 vs 2.66:1. The new ratios make the F-Sport quicker off the line, quicker to 60 by 4/10ths and improves fuel economy by 2MPG on the highway. The 18/26 MPG (city/highway) score ties with the 8-speed Q5 3.0T for the best fuel economy, 2-3MPGs better than the Americans or the Swede.

Drive

The RX has never been known as a corner carver, something that is expected of a sports package. So Lexus stiffened the dampers, fiddled with the springs, made the optional low-profile rubber standard and dropped in a version of the cross damping system found in the CT hybrid hatchback. The system uses two braces with integrated gas-shocks, connecting the left and right side of the chassis (front and rear). The braces aren’t there to increase rigidity, but rather to absorb and compensate for body vibrations. I wouldn’t say the system makes a night and day difference, but driving the F-Sport back-to-back with a “regular” RX on broken pavement, there was a difference. Depending on what you expect from your RX, that difference may excite or disappoint. If you want a marshmallow soft ride with more shove, get the RX 450h. If you’re just interested in a polished ride, get the regular RX 350 since the F-Sport tuning seems almost at odds with the RX’s mission.

You notice I didn’t say: wider tired. Most companies include wider and grippier rubber in their sports packages, but that could have led to more road noise, lower fuel economy and a crashier ride. Those don’t sound very “Lexus” to me, and apparently the engineers thought the same. Pity. While this is an omission you can fix aftermarket, the narrow 235-width tires and hefty 4,510lb curb weight mean the RX lands at the bottom of the pack when it comes to grip. That means even the porky 4,430lb MKX manages to hustle through the twisties with more poise than the RX. If grip is what you seek, look no further than the XC60 T6 AWD R-Design thanks to the lowest curb weight and some seriously wide 255/45R20 rubber. You know, for this segment.

The case for the F-Sport starts to fall apartwhen you look at that $53,000 price tag and consider our RX lacked a few options like the heads-up display and radar cruise control. That’s a $7,000 premium over the faster Volvo XC60 T6, and a $3,000 premium over Volvo’s performance trimmed XC60 R-Design. Feature for feature, the F-Sport commands a higher price than the Lincoln, Cadillac or Audi as well, not to mention those Germans we didn’t talk about. Lexus counters with a reliability and dealer reputation that is second to none. But, you can have plenty of off-warranty repairs done to your Euro crossover for the difference. Still, the RX leases well thanks to a high residual value and I suspect that has something to do with its continued dominance when it comes to sales.

Lexus has, without a doubt, created the perfect RX. It looks better than the regular RX, goes faster, is more economical, and handles slightly better as well. If you’re reading this because you want the RX, then go ahead and buy one. If however you want the best handling and performing small luxury crossover, stop by the Volvo dealer. Want sexy? Check out the 2014 Evoque with the new 9-speed.

Hit it

• I have to admit, the F-Sport nose job works for me
• Lexus reliability reputation

Quit it

• Down on power compared to everyone else.
• Lexus Remote Touch. Enough said.

Lexus provided the vehicle, insurance and one tank of gas for this review.

Specifications as tested

0-30: 2.35 Seconds

0-60: 6.55 Seconds

1/4 Mile: 15 Seconds @ 92 MPH

Average Observed Fuel Economy: 19.2 MPG over 679 miles

The Range Rover Sport was launched in 2005 and Land Rover has sold 4,00,000 units till date. Evolved from Land Rover’s first concept vehicle, the Range Stormer (showcased in 2004), the first generation Range Rover Sport’s production has been stopped, as the second generation model is all set to go on sale in the next couple of months. Land Rover has announced pricing for the Sport in the UK, which starts at £59,995 for the base trim and goes up to  £74,995 at the top end. The second gen Range Rover Sport is all new and shares only 25% parts with the Range Rover. It uses an all aluminium PLA platform, which results in a weight saving of 420 kgs over its predecessor (when powered by the same engine). Land Rover states the new Range Rover Sport is “the fastest, most agile, most responsive Land Rover ever”. The British company claims a 30% improvement in handling over the first gen model. The new RR Sport does a lap around the Nordschleife in 8:35 minutes, which is fast for a full sized SUV.

We had a chance to drive a Range Rover Sport prototype at Jaguar Land Rover’s Gaydon test track. The vehicle we drove used a gasoline unit, powered by a 5.0-litre Supercharged V8 engine, belting out 510 PS and 625 Nm. This engine is mated to a 8-speed automatic gearbox, with a stick shift instead of the rotary gear knob found on the Range Rover. The reduction in weight is immediately apparent, the Range Rover Sport feels more eager to throttle inputs. The engine sounds sporty (it has active exhaust system) and acceleration is brisk with 240 km/hr coming on the speedo without any fuss. 0 – 100 km/hr takes just 5.3 seconds, impressive. In Dynamic mode, the dials change to red color and the response from the motor is more immediate.

Land Rover has given the new Range Rover Sport Torque Vectoring and Active Roll Control, which works fabulously to ensure the vehicle stays planted around corners. The former system sends torque to the wheel with the most grip, thereby adjusting the balance of the car. You can actually feel the torque vectoring system working, preventing understeer with power being transferred from the inside wheel to the outside ones. We turned through corners at speeds in excess of 100 km/hr and the Rangie was thoroughly planted. The steering wheel weighs up well and is immediately different from the standard Range Rover, offering tremendous feedback. High speed stability is excellent too and you never feel you are doing 200 km/hr as the noise insulation is spot on.

The Range Rover Sport will stay true to Land Rover DNA and will offer off-road capabilities which the competition simply can’t match. While we didn’t take the vehicle off-road, we have no doubts how capable it is, since it gets the same off-road systems from the Range Rover. Other features include heads-up display, reverse traffic detection, traffic sign detection, wading sensors, InControl car app, 23 speaker Meridian system with 3D sound stage, etc. The feature list is quite long actually but we will reserve our judgement till we test these systems ourselves.

You sit slightly lower in the Range Rover Sport and the ride quality is slightly on the stiffer side (specially in Dynamic mode). Some bumps do tend to filter into the cabin but overall the ride comfort is still excellent and there is the sense of waft-ability which is associated with its elder sibling. Due to the weight reduction, Land Rover will for the first time offer a 4-cylinder motor in the Range Rover Sport (2.0-litre gasoline mill producing 240 BHP). This would go on sale by the end of the year and will weigh 500 kgs lesser than the first gen model. The mileage has improved due to the reduced girth and the 3.0-litre TDV6 equipped model will return 37 mpg (a 7 mpg improvement).

Land Rover has given the Range Rover Sport an option of 7-seats, which they call Secret Seats. The last row of seats are strictly for children and there is no way an adult can squeeze in. These seats are best used on short journeys. Interior quality and finish is top notch with the dashboard taking cues from the Range Rover. The Sport is being targeted as a tourer and thus interior comfort is paramount, the company delivers well in that regard. Our first impressions are extremely positive, the new Range Rover Sport is undeniably a significant leap over its predecessor. The Brits have certainly caused the Germans a reason to worry.

Faisal Ali Khan is the editor of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the automobile industry of India.

Monday, May 6th, 2013 is a day that will live in infamy for this storied website. An egregious error was committed by our editorial staff, one so grave that it threatens to undo our credibility and achievements of the past decade that our founder, Robert Farago, and all subsequent contributors, worked so hard to achieve.

Our newest and youngest writer, Doug DeMuro, incorrectly asserted that the Infiniti G20, a slow-selling compact sedan that lived its life in obscurity, was somehow related to the Nissan Sentra. This is incorrect. Instead, the Infiniti G20 was the Nissan Primiera, a global premium sedan that was too nice to sell as a Nissan. Numerous readers were gleefully quick to correct young DeMuro’s mistake, weilding their superior knowledge with a sanctimonious fervor not seen since my last Generation Why column. Rest assured that DeMuro will have to do penance, in the form of a weekly article series extolling the virtues of General Motors.

To be frank, responsibility rests with myself and no one else. Not only am I an editor at this site, but I have a particular affinity for the smallest Infinti, one that I remember since my earliest days as a borderline-Aspergers car enthusiast. Despite  the G20 rivaling the WNBA in terms of popularity with the American public, I have long harbored thoughts of buying a clapped out P10 and installing an SR20VE motor. Somehow, things like credit card bills got in the way of that plan, and from now on, I have settled for following the MotoIQ G20 race car project.

Now that we’ve established that the Euro-transplant G20 was not the same thing as a Sentra, DeMuro’s whole premise is shot. The Acura ILX, which shares its underpinings with the Civic, is no longer a valid comparison. Good thing Acura still sells the TSX which is, you guessed it, a fairly slow-selling, modestly-performing sedan brought over from Europe and Japan (where it served as the global Accord) to help fill out the lower end of Acura’s lineup.

By now, you should all be familiar with the TSX’s technical dossier, since it’s been on sale long enough without undergoing any changes. I know this because the TSX launch in 2008 was the first press event I ever attended, and an eye-opening look into a career that allowed me to wear sneakers and an untucked shirt to a five-star restaurant. My assignment was to review the TSX for a men’s lifestyle magazine, and while I enjoyed the car quite a bit, I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about.

Having had the chance to get back behind the wheel four years later, I’m glad to see that my initial positivity was justified. The TSX is hardly the most powerful car in its class, with a 2.4L 4-cylinder making just 201 horsepower and 172 lb-ft of torque, and at 3415 lbs, it isn’t the lightest either. I would say it’s not the roomiest or has the most spacious trunk either, but I really couldn’t tell you. I was too busy driving the damn thing.

There’s not much out there that is will compel me to get in and simply drive for the sake of it. When I say this, I don’t want to come across as jaded either. It’s simply very difficult to have fun with most of today’s high-performance sports cars without seriously breaking the law, and most mainstream cars are technically precise, but not very much fun to drive.

The TSX, on the other hand, is just underpowered enough to really make you have to work the car hard, while rewarding you with enough tactile feedback to make even the most banal A-B drives entertaining. The 2.4L mill makes the car feel like a proper Honda, and the 6-speed manual gearbox is just superb. Mazda’s 6-speed manual in their Skyactiv cars is widely touted as being the best transverse manual gearbox in the ‘biz. But I think this one is better, but people have largely forgotten the TSX exists, allowing Mazda to claim the crown.

Inside, the TSX shows its age with a lack of any touchscreen, a finicky Bluetooth system and a smattering of buttons laid out with little rhyme or reason. I didn’t mind. It’s nice to feel a physical control rather than engaging in an awkward heavy petting session with a touch screen system. All the materials appear to be of a very high quality and the fit and finish is what one would expect from an Acura. It’s a good thing that the TSX’s cabin is such a nice place to spend time, because it ain’t pretty. The Acura “beak” front end makes yet another appearance here, more subdued than on the TL but still all too prominent.

The TSX remains quite popular with buyers around the same age as me, but at $31,150 for the 6-speed manual version, it would have to be my parents buying it for me.  As much as I like the idea of an imported-from-Japan-European-sedan with a real manual, no infotainment system and a badge that says “premium-but-not-a-douchebag”, I can think of plenty of choices, both used and new, that I’d blow my meager auto journo salary on before I bought a TSX. But for all of you Internet Tough Guy Product planners, this is the car – nay, the Honda product – you’ve been waiting for.

Almost exactly one month after TTAC first broached news of a possible compact rear-drive Chevrolet, TTAC commenter and GM North America vice-president Mark Reuss is still dropping hints about such a product.

Speaking to Automotive News on the prospect of a possible competitor to the Scion FR-S

“A really nice, light, rear-drive car that’s inexpensive — we know that rings a bell, that’d be a huge win for us if we had that.”

While reaction to the Code 130R was reportedly strong, Reuss said that the Code’s styling would not be put into production. Apparently, the Alpha platform would not be used either, echoing earlier comments by Reuss. That would necessitate another compact, rear-drive platform like GM’s former Kappa architecture, and of course, further variants to help make that venture profitable. Bring it on, GM.

Hello TTAC! For those who wondered where I went, I’m back from my global tour with the USAF. I am back in my native West Texas, attending Texas Tech University in pursuit of a Mechanical Engineering degree. As a break from finals, I test drove the best selling car in the US, with a decidedly continental Captain Solo slant. Thus far, I have consumed two overpriced lattes and wandered around Lubbock for 45 minutes in an attempt to organize my thoughts and come towards an unbiased conclusion about the baffling Toyota Camry.

I’m filled with competing emotions of loathing, rage, and acceptance. I loathed the way it drove, I raged at how the car failed to respond, and came to accept that Toyota did not design the Camry SE for me, but for the demographic lurking in the suburbs of sprawling cities whose main focuses are safety from anything that could harm them, and ignorance in the art of driving.

Toyota designates their sporty models with the badge of “SE”, to separate these offerings from their more pedestrian LE and XLE offerings. The SE’s dual exhaust tips hinted that the crisp lines offered more on tap than the general white goods Camry seen plodding along the commutes of America. The latest redesign of the Camry sports crisp, almost Euro inspired lines. Which results in fewer curves, making the rather large previous generation look bulbous. So, in the great vein of middle-class middle-sized sedans, the Camry looks like a car.

The Camry plies the middle road with no-risk styling, modernizing lines seen on a cabin birthed back in 2001. And the field left Toyota behind: the Fusion, Sonata, Optima and even the Mazda6 advanced the mid-sized segment. They look beautiful, futuristic, elegant, and attractive. Mr. and Mrs. Suburbia can drive something with distinction formerly relegated to the premium classes. Take note Toyota, before it’s too late.

The interior speaks more of the same: functional, useful, and up to date, with nothing distinguishing. Gone are the slick glass panels, now in matte black plastics. Then I detected misaligned buttons, plastic flash seams on the door panels, and mismatched fabric colors. They stand out like a hipster on Wall Street. Never in a Toyota product have I seen build quality issues like these! While minor and common in Chrysler offerings, if quality control Fail crops up in plainly visible areas, where else has Toyota gone astray?

Luckily the stereo’s touchscreen interface uses an adequate speaker system to speak to serene commuting levels. On bumpy roads, touching it without a ‘double-click’ is challenging. The tiller contains numerous buttons to mitigate this problem, all stereo controls (among others) are accessible here. Sadly the buttons protrude heavily into the sporting zone, threatening to change radio stations should you thrash at the wheel in an attempt at sporting prowess.

One major cost-cutting maneuver lies plain once you adjust the climate control. Both fan and temp settings must be adjusted continuously, as Toyota has not installed automatic climate control on the SE, unlike most of its rivals. The fan has a great range (with over 10 settings, wahey!) but once the cabin cools, position 1 wheezes cool air while 2 forces air hard enough to demand splitting the flow between your feet, the dash, and the windshield in order to get a comfortable, cool waft through the cabin. My kingdom for a superior rheostat!

So far, the Camry’s given nothing to inspire rage and loathing on levels not seen since Fox canceled Firefly. But one turn of the wheel brought all these emotions to the surface in a petrolhead rage.

I have not felt steering this bad since the days of British Leyland. The typical numb on-center feel and lack of feedback give immediate and distinct impressions of “toaster on wheels”. Or maybe “outdated and dumb Cylon”. Entering a corner, the steering firms up in a progressive but ultimately futile attempt at sport sedan prowess. I pitched the Camry SE into several hard corners and was rewarded with phenomenal understeer. Any lifting of the throttle in an attempt to tighten up the line resulted in eHarmony levels of rejection. The Toyota plowed ahead like a clueless tourist in Times Square, complete with abundant squealing.

The most recent Camry national advertisement has a typical couple exclaiming the sporty SE is “Grounded to the Ground!” Yes, the tires give ample grip, only noticeable in the minute the car is gripping. Then next comes the aforementioned squealing understeer: this is driving Novocain with track tires.

“But Capt Mike! It’s not a sports car!” you say.

Of course not. Yet in situations where steering feel warns of problems (hydroplaning, ice, collision avoidance) the Camry SE gives lifeless to the point of useless. Beating at the steering column with a wiffle bat and screaming like Yvette Fielding in ‘Most Haunted’ are more entertaining than trying to make the Camry hustle. It doesn’t move, flow, or have chassis alacrity all its rivals exhibit. If Toyota went for safe, they made boringly unsafe instead.

To its credit, in situations needing only straight ahead mindlessness, the Camry does demonstrate remarkable body control and damping. Never upset by rough surface, nor jounced by sudden bumps, the sportiest Camry remains calm, composed and quiet. The V6 pumps out a nice sounding, rev willing 268bhp coupled to a competent shifting 6-speed auto. The shift paddles behind the wheel respond quicker than most systems I’ve driven, yet lag behind the wonderful DSG and PDK systems of Audi and Porsche. (Given the asking price, no surprise there?) Shifts are smooth, and on downshift, the computer actually rev matches! It’s almost sporty: except when shifting, you are still holding onto that wheel and not an actual gear change lever…which kills my inner child.

Brakes? Yes. It has them. Progressive feedback, stops quick, anti-locks engage at the right time. The stability control only intrudes when your attempts at carving corners fails in a squealing mess, yet doesn’t kill all power like some systems that entirely remove the driver from throttle control.

So as I sit here at J&B Coffee across from Texas Tech, surrounded by hipsters, cowboys, students, and apparently a drag queen, have I come to a conclusion about the Camry?

Yes. Toyota built a sequel hoping people will line up like Twilight fans.

Fans completely devoted to something mired in mediocrity, while its competitors, namely the Ford Fusion, and the Kia Optima/Hyundai Sonata twins went for full reboot. Would I recommend the Toyota? 10 years ago, yes, but today, there are far better alternatives, purchased for less and are on-par in reliability. So I plead to Toyota: remember the Supra? The Celica? The 1st and 2nd-gen MR2? You CAN do exciting and beautiful, you just need to rediscover that passion and verve before you become the next GM circa 2005.

]]> http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/review-2013-toyota-camry-se-v6/feed/ 124 http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/requieum-2012-coda-sedan/ http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/05/requieum-2012-coda-sedan/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 23:30:36 +0000 Alex L. Dykes http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=487013 About a year ago Bertel, Ed and I ended up in Los Angeles for a PR meet/dine with Coda. No automotive event would be complete without a drive and our electrifying dinner was no different. Bertel and Ed wisely chose to leave the driving to me (although they did toss me in the trunk and close the lid later that evening). Since that night I have struggled to erase the Coda from my mind when today it all came flooding back. Coda has filed for chapter 11 protection. I know it’s bad form to speak ill of the departed, but this is TTAC so let’s have a review style requiem for the worst EV ever made.

Exterior

If you ordered your car by the inch, the Coda is what 176 inches of generic sedan would look like. Since Coda was a small California company without the deep pockets of Elon Musk, they did what any start-up with a screw loose would do: turn to China. Hafei was crazy enough to be smoking the same thing Coda’s dudes were, so they offered up their Saibo sedan as a donor car. Plain hardly begins to describe the Saibo. It looks like a cross between a 1990s Corolla and a 2000 Civic with some 1980s Geo tossed in. No problem, just call in a design firm. Sounds good right? They hired Pininfarina. Sounds even better, right?? Yea, except look what they came up with. Ouch. The result was a grille-free beige something that was so boring we failed to take a side-profile shot of it. You didn’t miss much.

Interior

The Saibo was based on a last-century Mitsubishi Lancer, sort of. Knowing this, I feared that the 2012 Chinese car would still be sporting a 1990s interior. Oh how I wish that were true. Instead, they attempted to “modernize” things by creating an interior that even Benz/Cerberus era Chrysler would have rejected. That’s fine when the Chinese version costs about $15,000, but with a starting price of $37,250, “bad” doesn’t begin to describe what’s happening here. The dashboard in the “production” vehicle we drove rattled and squeaked non-stop, the radio was a Best Buy special with no Coda customization, and the only “feature” touted was the leather wrapped steering wheel. In truth, the tiller was fairly pleasant to hold, except that when you moved it you were reminded it was attached to a Coda. Toss in the cheesiest gauges I have ever seen and an imitation Jaguar Drive Selector gear shifter that looked bad and felt worse and the cabin was complete. I think recalling the horror within is bringing back my PTSD, I need to sit down.

Infotainment

Seriously, they just used an aftermarket double-din radio. Check out Crutchfield for the review on that.

Drivetrain

Under the not-sexy-at-all hood of the Coda beat a 130 horsepower electric motor capable of delivering a stout 220 lb-ft of twist from zero to whenever it hit its redline (we weren’t told) through a single speed transmission. If that sounds OK, trust me, it’s perfectly fine. In fact, the drivetrain of the Coda was innovative and had nothing to do with their failure. Powering the motor was a custom designed lithium ion iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery that sported square rather than round cells for greater energy density and better cooling. The power pack under the floor was rated at 31kWh (larger than the Leaf) but because of the Coda’s weight, range was barely better than the Nissan. Unlike the competition, Coda installed an active thermal management system to keep the cells at the optimum temperature at all times to prevent the same sort of battery failures we saw on the Leaf in the Arizona desert.

Drive

So far, the Coda sounds like a boring little car with a bland interior, high-tech drivetrain with an advanced battery pack. In truth, the Coda sounded like a reasonable argument on paper and it looked like something you could live with in person… until you drove it. The Coda’s motor management software that had all the refinement of a science project. An elementary school science project. Acceleration was brisk but wasn’t in tune with the sloppy bumper-car pedal. As with most EVs, the Coda had regenerative braking but the system was bipolar providing either too little assist or way to much. Press the brake pedal down 10%, nothing. 20 %, nothing. 30% was where the “magic” started with the slightest resistance to forward progress. Between 31 and 40% things were peachy-keen but soggy. Press the stopper to 41% and everyone in the car will be dialing a whiplash injury lawyer.

Steering feel was horrid, but so is the feel in the Prius. Not much to say here.

So far everything I have described could have been lived with, you know, if someone gave you a Coda and you were unable to sell it. What absolutely could not be lived with was the ride. No 1990s Mitsubishi had a terribly polished ride to begin with, add Chinese tinkering, tinkering by a company that had never built a car before and 728 battery cells and you have a recipe for disaster. To compensate for the added weight, Coda jammed stiffer springs on all four corners and did nothing else. Crashy doesn’t begin to describe what my vertebrae felt on our 50 mile drive. If you think adding passengers would have improved things, we tried, there here were four of us in the car and we are all “American sized”.

Adding insult to injury, the EPA rated the Coda sedan the least efficient EV in modern history. No wonder they failed. Still, I’m sad to see Coda Automotive go because there will be one less voice in the EV conversation and auto journalists will have one less car to complain about. When you gathered writers together, someone will proclaim “there is no such thing as a bad car anymore.” Then somebody would remember Coda and we’d all have a good laugh before we moved back to complaining about the Prius. Now Coda is a fading memory, unless you are unfortunate enough to have one in your garage, then you won’t be able to forget. Or get it fixed. My condolences.

Coda gave me a free T-shirt at the Coda store, I still have it.

If you have a half million dollars in your pocket, you can be the opening bidder on a lot of 550 classic cars located at a family owned towing and storage lot in Apache Junction, AZ and listed for sale on Ebay right now. According to the ad, the business has been in operation since the 1960s and the lot is filled with cars from the 1940s through the 1980s, approximately 97% of which are complete with motors, transmissions and body parts. You can even negotiate to leave the cars where they are – that way your wife will never know…

Our beloved Ed Niedermeyer is back in the Wall Street Journal with another op-ed, entitled “Welcome To General Tso’s Motors”. I’m sure you can all figure out the gist of it. Check it out here. Anti-GM-bias police, grab your defibrillators.

Now waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit a minute!

Didn’t I just review a grey Nissan Sentra on these very (electronic) pages? Yes, I did, but it was the 2013 Sentra that I took on a long, dreary trip to Minnesota. I found it to be pretty decent but not quite ready to do battle with the class leaders.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at LAX just two weeks later and found the infamous Vodka McBigbra behind the wheel of a 2012 Sentra in about the same color, with about the same level of equipment. “I’m a #1 Gold Hertz Person now,” she said, “and I thought that meant I got a convertible, not this piece of crap. Isn’t that what it’s supposed to mean?”

“The ways of Hertz are beyond the understanding of mere mortals. Move it on over,” I commanded, with all the authority of a young George Thorogood, “it’s time for a time-shifted comparison test.”

“Can it be time for In-and-Out Burger first?”

My purpose in visiting Los Angeles was threefold. Purpose #1 was to compete in, and win, the ChumpCar race at Buttonwillow. That purpose was duly accomplished, at the cost of some misery and range-of-motion in my right hand; I’ll tell the story in the near future. Purpose #2 was to eat at the Sunset Grill, something that my friend Melisa had absolutely refused to do when I was last in the city. That purpose was duly accomplished and I really enjoyed chomping on a burger while examining the original 8″x10″ promotional glossy for a little band called Guns N’ Roses. Purpose #3 was to leave the Guitar Center Hollywood Platinum Room without buying anything. To make a long story short, I’m now the owner of a Fender Dale Wilson Jazzmaster. Oops. Two out of three ain’t bad. If anybody is forming a shoegaze band and wants a rhythm guitarist, I’m your man.

Let’s talk about the Sentra. I’m not in a mood to build tension in the audience today so I’ll come real with it: I’d rather have a 2012 Sentra than a 2013 Sentra, and the reason is no more or less complicated than the two hundred cubic centimeters that’s been removed from the latter. On paper, there shouldn’t be any real difference between the old car and the new one; the ten-horsepower deficit should be more than compensated for by the 150-pound weight savings and the trickier Xtronic CVT. There’s also something fundamentally dopey-looking about the 2012 interior, with its dash-mounted shifter and 350Z Upscale Disappointment Edition plastics. Nissan says, and Autoblog dutifully repeats, that the new Sentra is a “class-above” car on the inside and while that will never be strictly true in a world where the Ford Focus and Chevy Cruze are in the same class as the Sentra it at least definitely feels a class above the old model.

Between the fishing pier at Venice Beach and the inland dust bowl of Buttonwillow, there’s over a hundred miles of I-5 North. Once upon a time, the “Grapevine” section was an infamous car-killer, given a star turn in the song “Hot Rod Lincoln” and referred to in many a tale of post-war race-car towing. Today, the road’s been straightened out but it’s still steep, hot, and unpleasant. Last year, I pilloried the Daewoo Lacetti UAW Edition for its inability to climb I-5 without resorting to third gear. Faced with the same conditions, but with an additional one hundred and sixteen pounds of spectator on board, the Sentra just monsters it. Only when I call for a pass does the CVT bother to crank the revs past 3500; the rest of the time we’re relatively quiet and serene as we breeze past the “Turn Off Air Conditioning” signs and the RVs stranded on the roadside.

I won’t have a chance to practice at Buttonwillow; my first look at the track will come when I buckle in for my twilight-to-real-night first stint in the Los Cerdos Voladores Plymouth Neon. Best to warm up with a few aggressive approaches to 25mph exit and entry ramps. This Sentra’s no Miata — hell, it isn’t even an SE-R — but it is enthusiastic about trail-braking and there’s no fundamental problem with the dynamics. It feels materially less grown-up than the 2013 model. After listening to my helmet bang around the trunk a few times in what sounds like a potentially expensive fashion, I calm down and finish the drive to the track.

Sharp-eyed readers will recall that I was impressed with the 2013′s fuel economy. I’d like to give you a basis of comparison for the 2012 model, but two circumstances prevented that. The first circumstance was that the old car has no fuel-economy readout. The whole instrument panel is decidedly primitive and crappy-looking. At least it’s legible. The second circumstance was that the Chump Car race was a true 24-hour affair and temperatures in the desert dropped into the high forties at the night ground on. V. McB had brought plenty of “cute, fun outfits” to show off her amazingly singleminded commitment to Pilates, macrobiotic food, and saline enhancement, but none of those cute, fun outfits had long sleeves or pants. So she just fired up the willing engine of the Sentra, which responded with a roar, turned the heat up, and let the car run intermittently for six hours or so.

Those of you who love the planet are free to sob a little right now.

Naturally, calculating fuel economy for the 415 or so miles I drove the car was impossible after the Night Of The Idling Two-Liter. I will admit to benefiting from Vodka’s amazingly insensitive behavior during a brief ninety-minute nap between stints, in which I found the Sentra’s front seats to be nearly as pleasant and usable for sleeping as they are for driving. It’s a pretty comfortable car, maybe not quite as good as the new one and certainly not as quiet on the open road but not impossible to live with either.

On the way back to Los Angeles, tired and sore from two nighttime stints and a variety of lift-and-carry work after the trophy ceremony, I briefly fantasized that my next Sentra rental might be a 2011, and the one after that a 2010, and so on. It was an exciting prospect, really. The biggest issue facing this Sentra and its successor is that the old Sentras were just better, more enjoyable cars. The 2013 is lighter than the 2012, and that’s a step in the right direction, but wouldn’t it be better if Nissan could find a way to make the car enthusiast-friendly again? Surely the Versa has the biggest-people-box-for-the-lowest-possible-price segment of the market all sewn up. Can’t we have a little joy in the Sentra? Can’t there be a commitment to reduce the size along with the weight?

There’s a market out there for the first compact sedan that manages a return to the early-Nineties fundamentals of reasonable size, lightweight construction, and simple equipment. It might not be a huge market, but it can’t be any worse than trying, and failing, to beat the current Civic at its own game. In the meantime, if you’re looking for a cheap Nissan, consider this: AutoTrader currently lists 541 new 2012 Sentras in stock nationwide. You could do worse than trying to drive a hard bargain on one of them.

There’s a “problem” with the modern performance variant: they are too easy to review. You see, dropping a high-horsepower V8 into anything makes it good. Take the last generation Chrysler 300 SRT8. It’s interior was made from plastics rejected by Lego and Rubbermaid and you’d be hard pressed to tell it apart from the $9.99 rent-a-car special. The big difference with the SRT versions was that Chrysler stuffed a 425HP 6.1L V8 under the hood and a set of pipes that made the 300 sound like sex. The uncomfortable seats, crappy dash plastics and 1990s stereo were distant memories. If Chrysler had managed to fit the same V8 into the Sebring, it would have been the best convertible ever. This time is different. Before the 2013 300 SRT8 arrived, I decided I would not be seduced by Chrysler’s larger, meaner, sexier, more powerful 6.4L engine and review it like any other car. Can that be done?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Exterior

Our refrigerator white tester is impossible to confuse with anything else on the road. While there are still some Bentleyesque features, the 300 is solidly Chrysler metal from the long hood to the slim greenhouse. The 300′s tall and blunt nose is entirely functional and the bold sheetmetal is truly function over form. You see, the 6.4L pushrod V8 is very tall and very long, jamming it under a modern sloping hood to a aerodynamic nose simply wouldn’t have worked. That height dictates the beginning of the greenhouse around the front doors and that line continues rearward.

Out back, things have been brought up market with new tail lamps that don’t have the same bargain basement theme as the first generation 300. Despite the improvements there’s something unfinished about the 300′s looks to my eye. Perhaps the original 300 was so bold my expectations for a redesign were unachievable.

For SRT8 duty Chrysler swaps the stock wheels for wide 20-inch aluminum shod with 245/45R20 all-season rubber and the front grille turns black. Nestled inside the larger wheels are larger rotors with four-piston Brembo brakes (14.2-inch up front and 13.8 in the rear.) The rest of the SRT8 changes are subtle enough that they may go unnoticed unless parked next to a lesser 300. The same finlets that sprouted in 2011 are present on the SRT8 and there’s no ridiculous wing or funky chin spoiler to destroy the 300′s luxury lines.

Those luxury lines are important in another way, they help justify the SRT8 Core’s  $44,250 base price. The Core model is a new twist in Chrysler’s SRT8 plot offering a bit more than just a “decontented” ride. In order to get the $4,000 lower starting price the Core ditches the leather seats, HID headlamps and adaptive suspension. Core models can be distinguished by the 6.4L badge on the front fenders, more aggressive wheels and the blacked out halogen headlamps from the 300S.

Interior

Nevermore has an automotive interior gone from plastastic to fantastic so rapidly as the 300 and it’s all down to stitched cow. The SRT8 Core model and base SRT8 models make do with a slightly rubbery injection molded dashboard, a $2,500 option on the non-Core SRT8 takes you to a place hitherto the exclusive domain of six-figure luxury cars: the full-leather dashboard.  Trust me, the cash is worth it. Without the upgrade, the Camcord quality interior plastics stick out like a sore thumb, with it your passengers will be fawning over your french seams. While the 300 interior feels less expensive than an M5 or E63, it’s a better place to spend your time than a CTS-V.

SRT8 shoppers need to be prepared for a sea of black or some fairly striking red as they are the only two interior colors offered in the 300 SRT8 and carbon fibre is the only trim available. I’m not usually a fan of black-on-black interiors, but Chrysler thankfully breaks things up a bit with Alcantara faux-suede sections in the seats. SRT8 Core shoppers have less choice being offered only in a black-cloth configuration.

All models get reworked front seats that offer more lateral bolstering but still suffer from Chrysler’s latest seat-oddity: seat cushions you sit on rather than in. While not as pronounced as the seats in the Chrysler 200 Convertible we had, I had the constant feeling I was sitting on a large gumdrop. Despite this, the seats proved reasonably comfortable on my long commute despite the lack of thigh support this design causes. Just keep in mind that Alcantara can be a maintenance bear, so avoid spills and trousers made of rough fabric. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Just Google “Alcantara pilling” to educate yourself.

Thanks to the super-sized proportions, the 300 offers the same amount of rear legroom as the Cadillac XTS. To put that in perspective, that’s several inches more than a BMW M5, Jaguar XFR, Cadillac CTS-V or Mercedes E63, all of which could be considered valid SRT8 competition. The 300 is more closely aligned in terms of size to the next-tier up in vehicles, the short wheelbase 7-Series, Cadillac XTS, short wheelbase XJ, etc.

Infotainment

Chrysler’s 8.4-inch uConnect infotainment system is standard although the Core model cuts the nav software to keep the price of entry low. uConnect is proof that being late to the party has advantages. Chrysler had more time to work out bugs, or maybe they just had better engineers working on the system, whatever the reason uConnect runs circles around MyFord Touch and Cadillac’s CUE in terms of response time and reliability. To date I have not had a Ford, Lincoln or Cadillac test car that didn’t have a total melt-down that required me to pull a fuse to reboot.

The system combines radio, multimedia, climate control, navigation, Bluetooth and other functions into a single screen. While some functions have duplicated hardware buttons, others can only be controlled via the touchscreen. This is both good and bad. It eliminates the button array plaguing Buick and Acura models, but some functions take longer and require more “eyes off the road” time than a hardware button. Stabbing the right button with gloves on is also a challenge.

The latest software adds full voice control of your USB/iDevice and worked very well without the library size limitations Toyota products suffer from. MyFord Touch offers a wider variety of “commandable” items and more natural command syntax, but  uConnect has a more natural voice and faster processing. Sadly the Garmin navigation isn’t well integrated into the system looking as if you’d just cut a hole in the screen and put a portable Garmin behind it. The look isn’t surprising since that’s exactly what Chrysler did, except they did it in software, not with a razor blade. While it makes uConnect’s navigation option inexpensive and easy to update, the graphics and menu structure don’t jive with the rest of the system and nav voice commands are very different from other cars on the market. Chevy’s new MyLink’s interface is just as snappy as uConnect but offers more polished navigation commands and a more seamless interface.

SRT8 models get additional apps tailored to the vehicle (shown above). The SRT apps include a race timer, G-Force displays as well as several screens of additional gauges like oil temperature, incoming air temperature, battery voltage, etc. There is also a custom screen that shows exactly how much power and torque the ginormous engine is cranking out at any moment. If you want the latest in uConnect with 911 asist and 3rd party smartphone apps, you’ll need to wait until Chrysler refreshes the 300 with the same system the new Grand Cherokee and RAMs use. If you want to know more about uConnect, check out the video at the beginning of the review.

Drivetrain

OK, this is the section you’ve been waiting for. Chrysler didn’t just tweak the old 6.1L SRT engine from the first generation SRT8 vehicles, and they didn’t just grab the Challenger Drag Pack/Mopar Crate engine either. You heard that right, this is not the “392 Hemi” in the Mopar catalog. Instead, Chrysler went back to the drawing board, cast a new block and built the new 6.4/392 around the design framework of the revised 2009 5.7L Hemi. This means you get variable cam timing to improve power and emissions, and Chrysler’s Multi Displacement System to improve efficiency. The redesigned engine still uses two valves and two spark plugs per cylinder and a heavily modified semi-hemispherical design. With as much engineering time as they undoubtedly spent, I’m somewhat surprised Chrysler didn’t cook up a dual-overhead cam SRT engine. No matter, there’s something primal about owning a car with an enormous push-rod V8.

Chrysler didn’t stop at enlarging the displacement, power is way up as well. The new monster is good for 470 horsepower and a stump-pulling 470 lb-ft of torque. While that may not sound like a huge improvement over the old 425HP 6.1L engine, the new 6.4 produces 90 lb-ft (or one whole Prius) more torque at 2,900 RPM. But that’s not all. Thanks to the trick cam timing, the new engine out powers the old by at least 60lb-ft from idle all the way to 5,600 RPM. The old SRT8 was a stout machine, but back-to-back, it feels like it runs out of breath easily. The improved thrust takes the 300 from 0-60 in a quick 4.5 seconds and finished the quarter mile in 12.87 seconds at a blistering 113 MPH. Those numbers aren’t that far removed from the BMW M5, E63 AMG, or Jaguar XFR-S.

If you were hoping 2013 would bring the new ZF/Chrysler 8-speed transmission to the SRT8, so was I. Sadly, the only cog-swapper offered on the 300 SRT8 is the old Mercedes 5-Speed that the 300 has been using since 2004. I wouldn’t say the Merc tranny is bad, but it’s not exactly a team player either. The shifts are somewhat sluggish, particularly when downshifting, and the ratios are far enough apart that highway passing can be dramatic or anticlimactic depending on how far down the transmission is willing to shift. Driven in a vacuum the WA580 is an acceptable play mate, but drive that Grand Cherokee SRT8 parked next to the 300 on the lot and your eyes will be opened.

If you believe that there is no replacement for displacement, the 300 SRT8 will be your poster boy. Sure, the latest German twin-turbo V8s put down more power, but the American bruiser has something they can’t deliver: a raucous V8 sound track. Proving the point I had the opportunity at a regional media event to drive several Mercedes, BMW and Chrysler models back-to-back on Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. The M6 blew down the main straight at a blistering pace with a tame, almost muted exhaust note. You can thank the turbos in the exhaust for that. Meanwhile hearing the 300 SRT8, Challenger SRT8 and Grand Cherokee SRT8 blast down the straight at the same time nearly made me pee my pants.

So it sounds good and clears 60 in 4.5. What’s not to love? The tire selection. All 300 SRT8s come standard with 245 width all-season rubber all the way around. Chrysler does offer a summer tire package, but it’s not what you want either. According to the 300 forum fan boys, you can stuff some seriously wide 295 or 305 width rubber in the rear without rubbing and there are a few companies out there making wider replica wheels so you can retain the stock look. Going this route will do a few things for you. The most obvious if the improved grip in the corners which is already good, but a lightly modified 300 proved it has the ability to be excellent and second you’ll get better 0-60 numbers. In our testing the 300 spent so much time spinning the “narrow” all-season rubber, I suspect a 4.3 second sprint to 60 is possible. Of course, that rumored 8-speed auto may provide a similar performance bump, the new cog swapper dropped the Grand Cherokee SRT8′s 0-60 time by a full second.

When the going gets twisty Chrysler’s adaptive suspension (not available in the core model) and regular old hydraulic assist power steering conspire to create a modern Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide. In standard mode the suspension is moderately firm and compliant, soaking up roadway irregularities like a taut German cruiser. In Sport mode the system stiffens the dampers and attempts to counteract tip/dive and sideways motions. In Track Sport the dampers are set to their stiffest mode and the 5-speed auto gets downshift happy. On regular road surfaces the suspension never felt punishing, even on broken pavement, which translates to a slightly soft ride on the track, a worthy trade-off in my book, since few new cars are headed for the track anyway.  The decision to leave electric power steering off the table for the moment makes the enormous and moderately numb Chrysler have perhaps the best steering feel in this coat-closet-sized segment.

As before, the 300 SRT8 represents an incredible value compared to the other high-performance RWD sedans on the market. The difference is, this time around I don’t have any caveats attached to that. Our well-equipped tester rang in at $56,235 with every option except the black roof, up-level paint and tinted chrome bits. That’s about $12,000 less than a comparable CTS-V, and a whopping $40,000 less than a comparable M5 or E63. Of course the SRT8 isn’t going to have the exclusivity or snob value of the Germans and it’s less powerful for sure, but the fact that we can even have this discussion is saying something. While the 6.4L engine is undeniably intoxicating, the 300 SRT8 finally gets better under the harsh light of reality. Chrysler’s new-found ability to craft a desirable interior and competitive infotainment system mean you won’t have to “live with” much other than the 5-speed automatic. Give Chrysler a year or two and even that caveat may be lifted.

Hit it

• Sexy optional leather dash is a must.
• Endless torque.
• Bragging rights: My engine is bigger than yours.

Quit it

• Ye olde 5-speed should have been swapped for the sweet 8-speed this year. For shame.
• Rubbery dashboard in the Core model.
• AWD would make the SRT8 sell easier in the north.

 Chrysler provided the vehicle, insurance and one tank of gas for this review

Specifications as tested:

0-30: 2.08 Seconds

0-40: 2.8 Seconds

0-50: 3.66 Seconds

0-60: 4.5 Seconds

0-70: 5.73 Seconds

0-80: 7.0 Seconds

0-90: 8.83 Seconds

0-100: 10.54 Seconds

0-110: 12.5 Secodns

1/4 Mile:  12.87 Seconds @ 113 MPH

Average fuel economy: 17.8 over 566 miles

As the nation’s peacekeepers are learning to live without the venerable Ford Crown Victoria it is also a time to reflect on what police cars were like in the time before the Panther platform debuted in 1978 for the 1979 model year. In 1972, the cruiser of choice for the City of Lexington was the Ford Galaxie 500.

This particular car wears the blue and gold livery of the now defunct City of Lexington Police Department. In 1974 the government of the City of Lexington was merged with the government of Fayette County to create the Lexington- Fayette Urban County Government. All city and county services and departments were merged as well. This car was given as a retirement present to Chief E.C. Hale when he retired on June 1, 1972, which makes for a significantly better retirement present than the cheap gold watch I expect to get.

Chief Hale had served 40 years with the city department and passed away in 1974. The car sat on the street near his home, exposed to both vandals and the elements, for many years before his family returned it to the city. Originally a white unmarked unit, it was restored to patrol duty specifications and is now used for parade duties, although it still retains an official government property number (P# 0462) and its trunk is equipped with the fire extinguisher, first aid kit, and other equipment required by policy.

So what’s it like to drive a police car that’s older than you are? Kind of boring, actually. There’s a myth that runs through our popular culture that police cars, particularly the police cars of yesterday, were fire- breathing muscle cars equipped with “cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks, made before catalytic converters” that could run down the Mustangs, Barracudas, and GTOs stalking the nation’s streets with ease and sound like Death himself was chasing you while they did it.

1968 Ford Galaxie 500

Like all good myths, the myth of the invincible old police car is rooted in truth. I was once told by a veteran beat cop that back in the old days when you were alone at night in an alley, trying to avoid taking a beating yourself while handing out “wood shampoos” to unruly drunks and screaming for help on one of the original 10- lb Motorola portables that could be counted on to work 25- 30% of the time, you didn’t listen for approaching sirens coming to your aid because the sirens weren’t worth a damn and you couldn’t hear them half of the time anyway. Instead you listened for the roar of the secondaries opening up as your backup thundered down the final straight leading to your last known location. That’s how you knew the cavalry had arrived.

But P#0462 is not one of those mythical cars. 1972 was a rough year, automotively speaking. Newly introduced smog controls were strangling all of the power out of our engines. Of course, power was already down across the board, at least on paper, since the manufacturers had been forced to abandon their wildly optimistic gross horsepower ratings for somewhat more realistic net ratings. Police service vehicles were no exception.

And then, as now, the vast majority of cop cars weren’t sold with the biggest, most aggressive motor. This car left the factory powered by a measly 177 hp 351 Cleveland 2 barrel. 335 lb- ft of torque help offset that number when taking off, but acceleration is still best described as “leisurely.”

You don’t really want much more than leisurely acceleration, however, given the overly assisted power steering. When you read an article about a new car in which the author complains about the steering being “numb,” you have to understand that the author has either forgotten or has never driven a car from the days when power steering was an option on most cars. The goal was to make the steering so effortless as to enable the driver to steer with just a finger, a mission which was accomplished (and then some) in this particular car. The steering wheel feels completely disconnected from the front wheels and spins as freely as the plastic Fisher- Price steering wheel attached to a toddler’s car seat. I couldn’t imagine driving this car in an emergency situation with so little feedback from the road. The modern tires added during the car’s restoration would help, but not enough to overcome the soft suspension and drum brakes.

For non- emergency duties, particularly the parade details it serves in these days, the Galaxie works just fine. Visibility is great, as it is in most old cars, even though a passenger side wing mirror was an option not selected when the car was ordered. Every couple of years during our annual in-service training we go out to the skid pad and practice our low speed precision driving skills. Much of the course is done in reverse, backing down “alleys” and reversing into “driveways” built with orange traffic cones. I would rather perform those backing exercises in this car with only one external mirror than in a new Taurus with a video camera.

There’s plenty of room inside, especially with the bench seat. The car was equipped with air conditioning, which still works. I had assumed that the A/C was ordered on the car because of it’s intended use by the Chief and that the rank and file would have made do without it. I checked with a couple of old guys and was surprised to learn that by the early 70′s we were ordering A/C on all our cars. The optional AM radio in this car was a special feature reserved for commanders and it wasn’t until the end the decade before stereos became common in all of our patrol cars.

As far as emergency equipment goes the Galaxie seems almost naked with only the two rotating blues on the roof compared to the low flying alien spacecraft theme you get from a modern patrol car at night. Since P#0462 was originally an unmarked admin unit, it even lacks a spot light. The old mechanical siren with it’s long, drawn out fade when you turn it off as compared to the instantly silent electric models of today is a hoot to play with in the parking lot of Comm Tech until you start to get dirty looks from the people who are actually at work inside the building.

So what’s the final verdict on this piece of history? I left my drive in P#0462 with a greater appreciation of how difficult street work was back in the day, when your radio only worked half the time and your car handled like a yacht. Just getting to your call was an adventure. We tend to forget just how much basic automotive technology has advanced and what each of those improvements meant. How many accidents, for example, have been avoided by the simple recognition that maybe dialing back in a little resistance into our power steering systems was a good thing because it provides the driver with vital information during emergency maneuvers?

Like most historical artifacts P#0462 is best appreciated through the soft focus haze of nostalgia heavily saturated by myth. It’s most impressive when viewed from behind the cordon as it rolls slowly past you in a parade with blue lights slowly spinning and the low rumble of a V-8 punctuated by whoops and yelps from a siren that slowly fades away. Any modern police car, including the lowliest V-6 powered FWD Taurus, would run rings around this car and any of it’s four- barrel equipped brothers. But the crowds watching from behind the barricades don’t know that and I doubt any of them will look at a 2013 Taurus, Charger, or Caprice forty years from now and speak approvingly and with a touch of envy about how special those cars are with their “cop tires, cop suspension, and cop motor.”

How much car can you get in this country for sixteen thousand bucks? Well, you could try a base-model Elantra, or with a bit of sharp dealing you might come up with a Sentra. TrueCar thinks you might be able to sneak into a Cruze LS. Certainly you could get a Ford Focus, which might be the best choice if you can shift for yourself or you trust the PowerShift double-clutcher.

How about something a little bigger and more powerful? Would you be interested? What if I told you it wasn’t all that bad on a racetrack? What if you’re a subprime buyer?

With the current group of incentives, it’s possible to get a 2013 Avenger SE like the nearly-new one I rented last week for about sixteen grand. The bad news is that you don’t really want an Avenger SE. You want an Avenger SE V6 For an extra $2100 or so, you get alloy wheels and a six-speed transmission with AutoStick manumatic control to replace the prehistoric four-cogger. Oh, and there’s the minor matter of a Pentastar V-6, which enables the Avenger to crank out fourteen-second quarter-mile times at will.

Unfortunately for me, nobody wanted to rent me an Avenger SE V6 for a little trip I had to take to GingerMan Raceway last week. (If you’re curious as to what I was driving at GingerMan, you’ll need to click here.) In fact, they didn’t even want to rent me an Avenger SE. They wanted to rent me a Corolla. I had to beg and plead and cajole to get the Avenger. I did this because the Corolla is about my least favorite rental car ever. Compared to the Corolla, the Avenger is a Viper.

Well, maybe it’s not a Viper. But neither is it a Fleetwood Talisman. In fact, the Avenger is closer size-wise to the Corolla than it is to the Camry. Mitsubishi and Chrysler failed to correctly predict the Cretaceous explosion in mid-sized cars — or maybe they did but figured the LX cars would cover the high end. Either way, the Avenger is positively tidy in the modern context. Visibility’s decent all the way around despite the face-down-ass-up proportions stolen from the last-generation Charger. There’s a noticeable amount of extra space both front and rear compared to the compact cars but it’s not even Altima-sized inside.

I’m repeatedly told all over the Internet that the Avenger and 200 have a horrifyingly cheap interior despite the recent round of revisions. I’m not sure about that. The plastic’s about the same as what you get everywhere else (with the possible exception of the Cruze) and there’s a fair amount of actual metal trim which has to be a unique selling point at this price. If you can compare this to, say, a Mazda3 Grand Touring, which costs three grand more before incentives, and say there’s any real difference in materials quality or assembly, I congratulate you on your ability to perceive a difference that is nonexistent to me.

The seats, on the other hand, immediately impressed me as being positively medieval and after fifty miles I had a sore back. I’m used to knocking out five or six hundred miles before back pain sets in so this was an unpleasant surprise. I never got comfortable in the Avenger’s seats and no amount of adjustment helped. I recall quite enjoying the seats in the Chrysler 200, so make sure you try both cars if you’re thinking about buying either. There’s a difference there.

Luckily for me this was one of my shorter rental trips, with barely 315 miles between my front door and the registration tower at GingerMan. With temperatures swinging between 22 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit, every moment I spent driving an open-cockpit car was pretty miserable. I wanted to take a few friends out on the racetrack and thought about taking the Avenger. Naturally, my rental contract prevented doing something irresponsible like that. But as I was looking through the glovebox to find my rental contract just to make sure it prevented something irresponsible like that, a handwritten note fell out. This is what it said,

Dear Avenger Driver,

To save you the trouble of violating your rental contract to take this Avenger around the track, I’ve done it for you and taken some basic notes on how the car behaved.

First, the power. It’s not bad, really, and with just 3400 pounds to move it’s no trouble to hit 90mph on Gingerman’s back straight. What a shame there’s no AutoStick in this model! But the transmission won’t catch you out. Just hit the throttle a half-second before you know you’ll need it, because the four-speed will shift up a gear under hard braking and kind of loaf in the mid-corner.

Handling is remarkably neutral and the rear end can be manipulated with light trail braking. With the traction control turned off, the nose doesn’t push too badly. With better brake pads it would be suited to 20-lap runs. As it is, the pedal gets a little hard after five laps or so.

Steering isn’t terribly responsive but it’s honest and you’d be able to place the Avenger within a few inches of your desired apex. Body roll’s pretty good! A lot of so-called sporty German sedans roll more than the Avenger does.

The Avenger’s easily capable of catching mid-pack LeMons racers. They don’t like it when you do this. In fact, you’ll be able to pull the 944 that’s out there in the straights and hang with it in the corners. It’s far from an utterly hopeless track car. With decent tires it might surprise you. I bet the V-6 AutoStick is a corker. Thanks for reading.

Well, that was convenient. My drive home reaffirmed my hatred of the seats but after a long day in an unmuffled open car I appreciated the relatively quiet Avenger interior. It would be nice to have a little more clarity and power in the stereo; really, I think Ford still has the edge, no pun intended, in base sound systems. Not that you could even touch a Fusion for this kind of cash.

I wouldn’t buy this Avenger for the simple reason that a V-6 Chrysler 200 is far, far more satisfying and it doesn’t cost much more. As a way to carry four full-sized adults with reasonable pace and economy for a rock-bottom price, however, this humble Dodge is tough to beat. The buyers for the 2013 Avenger may be subprime, but the Avenger itself is pretty okay.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Before we dive into the Avalon, let’s talk competition. Back when the LHS and Park Avenue roamed the land, the Avalon’s competition was easy to identify and easy to overcome. Nearly 20 years later those shoppers are in a nursing home and Toyota is hunting for younger flesh in a more competitive market. We now have the larger-than-ever Taurus, a new Impala that doesn’t make me want to put my eyes out, the Azera/Cadenza twins, Nissan’s Maxima and the less-Bentley aping 300.

But wait, I’m forgetting one. The “elephant in the room” that is the Lexus ES. You see, the kind of shopper that needs a new car and immediately thinks “Toyota Avalon” is far more likely to cross shop the Lexus ES than the gangsta 300 or the Impala. (You know I’m right.) After spending a a week with the twins back-to-back, this comparison is even more valid.

Exterior

While the “I’m a bigger Camry” look is still going on, Toyota has injected enough creases and curves that my 33 year old eyes gave the Avalon a second look (of course, I did buy a 2000 LHS new in 2000, so…) It’s not as exciting as the new Cadenza, but Toyota’s efforts look better thought out than the 11/10ths Cruze grille Chevy put on the Impala.

The new rump features more chrome, dual exhaust tips and tail lamps that wrap well around the side and thankfully share no styling cues with the Camry’s funky “apostrophe” shaped lights. The engineers stretched the greenhouse over the trunk to increase the visual length of the car, a trick that worked on me until I looked at the spec sheet. At 195 inches, the Avalon is 6-inches longer than the Camry, but it’s several inches shorter than the Chrysler, Chevy and Ford. Since the ES and Avalon are now twins separated at birth, most of the dimensions are common except that the Avalon gets a bigger booty (and more trunk space in the process) and has a lower ride height giving it a more aggressive stance.

Interior

The exterior looks like a Toyota product. No news there. Inside is a different ball of wax. The interior is why you may have heard people saying they prefer the Avalon to its Lexus sister. If you recall from our review of the Lexus ES 300h, there were plenty of hard plastics within reach of the driver, and instead of a leather dash (like the 300 wears) or stitched pleather goodness like the competition is wearing, the ES stuck with an injection molded dashboard “faux-stitched” with real thread. In an unexpected contrast, the Avalon’s interior has a more premium feel, thanks largely to heavy use of (you guessed it) stitched pleather. The faux-cow in the Avalon may not be hand-sewn (Toyota is mum on the subject) but its liberal use on the doors, dashboard and center console beat every competitor (except for that Chrysler with the leather dashboard option.)

My lunch group was divided about the styling, some feeling that Toyota had gone too far and the rest thinking it was a bold choice for Toyota. I fell into the latter camp. Yes, there’s an enormous driver’s window defogger vent (in the picture above), but I appreciate the fact that a styling direction was chosen rather than just repeating the same “beige” the Avalon has been known for. That a group of adults in their 30s were arguing the merits of an Avalon interior is nothing short of revolutionary.

Compared to the Avalon’s Lexus sister, the interior has a more expansive and harmonious feel despite the heavily styled parts. I think I chalk some of this up to the tan-on-black color scheme our tester sported, but plenty of it has to do with dashboard shapes. Lexus’ two-tier dashboard and the “high and centered” position of the infotainment screen make the dashboard feel more imposing than the Avalon’s sweeping forms and less “bulky” dashboard on the passenger’s side.

The front seats are functionally identical to those in the ES with the exception that the number of power-motions varies by the trim level. The thrones are thickly padded and comfortable for long journeys but larger shoppers should know that they are more “bucket” shaped than previous models. Taller drivers and passengers will appreciate the largest cabin Toyota has ever built, including the LS 600hL. With 42.1 inches of legroom up front, 39.2 in the rear, and class leading headroom, the Avalon swallows those tall kids of yours more easily than any front driver this side of the Cadillac XTS. How does Toyota do this with a shorter sedan? They “skimp” on trunk space. Our tester’s 16 cubic foot trunk is nearly 25% smaller than the Taurus and 18% smaller than the Impala.

Infotainment & Gadgets

The Avalon comes in four trim levels, three of which have no available options for the picking. Things start with the $30,990 XLE which comes well equipped with 8 speakers, a touchscreen audio system, Bluetooth integration, dual-zone climate control, keyless go, and a heated 8-way power seat for the driver. The $33,195 XLE Premium tosses in a moonroof, backup cam, an extra speaker, and an auto-dimming rear-view mirror. For $35,500 the XLE Touring adds navigation, shift paddles, driver’s seat memory, fog lights, 18-inch wheels with 225-width rubber, and Toyota’s Entune data services. Our tester was the top-of-the-line Limited which starts at $39,650 and gets auto-dimming side mirrors with puddle lamps, HID headlamps, 11 JBL speakers, rain sense wipers, three-zone climate control, heated rear seats, ambient lighting, a color HVAC control panel, and a passenger seat with eight powered directions instead of four. Limited buyers can further option their car with two technology packages, for $1,750 you get radar cruise control with pre-collision warning and automatic high beams and for an extra $200 Toyota will integrate a wireless charging mat into the console.

On the infotainment side it is important to remember that Toyota makes two different systems that share nothing with one another. The picture above is the 7-inch system in our Limited tester and the picture below is the 6.1 inch “display audio” system in lesser Avalons. The 6.1 system has more basic graphics but is more responsive and is designed around an “app” model where things like navigation (available only on the Touring trim) are just another “app” available via the “apps” button on the dash. The 7-inch system uses XM Satellite data services while the 6.1 uses your paired smartphone for dynamic content. The 6.1 provides a fairly basic navigation experience, but it is easy to use and very responsive. The 7-inch system (only on Limited) is the familiar Toyota/Lexus system that’s been around for several years that has been updated with Entune data services, smartphone app integration and voice commands for controlling your media device ala Ford’s SYNC. This is the same software used in the Lexus, except without the atrocious “Remote Touch” joystick.

Going back to the ES comparison, since the Limited model uses essentially the same system, driving the ES and Avalon back to back served to solidify my dislike of the Lexus pain stick. The exact same interface is considerably easier to use, less distracting and more intuitive when you can glance at the screen and stab the option with your finger.

Drivetrain

The 3.5L V6 is buttery-smooth, but churns out a less-than-thrilling 268 HP and 248 lb-ft of twist. For reasons I don’t understand, Toyota has yet to fit their D4-S direct-injection system which would make it more competitive on paper (the competition are all around 290 HP). (Ford of course still offers the insane 365HP twin-turbo V6.) Proving that horsepower isn’t everything, the Avalon’s light 3,461lbs curb weight allows it to scoot to 60 in 6.25 seconds, among the fastest in the group behind the 365 HP Taurus SHO and the 290 HP Maxima (thank the Nissan CVT). While we haven’t been able to get our hands on the new Impala, expect it to be fairly quick thanks to its low curb weight as well. Meanwhile the 300 V6, LaCrosse, Azera, MKS and plenty of others will be seen in the Avalon’s rear view mirror.

The only major change for 2013 is the fitting of paddle shifters to the 6-speed automatic transaxle in Touring and Limited trims. With the paddles comes revised software that blips the throttle on downshifts. Don’t get too excited, since this cog swapper is just as up-shift-happy and down-shift-resistant as it was before.

For $2,360 on XLE Premium and $1,750 on Touring and Limited you can opt for Toyota’s 200 HP hybrid system. This is the same setup under the hood of the Camry and ES 300h and increases the Avalon’s MPGs from 21/31/25 (City/Highway/Combined) to 40/39/40 resulting an a savings of $900 per year at $4 a gallon. The trade off is the loss of one full second on the run to 60, well worth the cost in my book.

Drive

For 2013 the Avalon has ditched the wallowy ride synonymous with the model in favor of stiffer springs and a more buttoned down demeanor. Thanks to the new found corner carving skills and a curb weight that is 600lbs lighter than the Taurus, the Avalon is more engaging, composed and nimble than the heavy Ford. Notice I didn’t say “handles better.” The reason the Taurus clings onto first place in our road holding test is down to rubber, seriously wide 255/45R19 rubber (Taurus Limited.)

The Hyundai Azera and its Kia cousin are well-priced alternatives. While the Avalon beats them handily in terms of interior refinement, the Koreans have plenty of power (293 HP) and coupled with a curb weight that’s only 150-200 lbs more than the Avalon they are quicker off the line. Thanks to more aggressive rubber and excellent suspension dynamics the pair is also faster around a track. Of course, shoppers in this segment don’t really care about handling limits and that’s a problem for the dynamic duo because their refinement quotient is still a notch below the new Avalon.

Nissan’s Maxima is fairly light at 3,565lbs and has one of the more powerful engines at 290 HP and 261 lb-ft of twist. Thanks to the low starting ratio and step-less nature of the Nissan CVT, the Maxima burns rubber on its way to the best 0-60 time in this bunch of 5.6 seconds. Of course I can’t talk Nissan without admitting that the CVT isn’t the “sporting” choice because of the “rubber-band” like feel they impart but I don’t think its much of a problem in this segment. On the down side, the Maxima is starting to show its age in a stable of products shifting to a new design language.

The Chrysler 300 is the odd man out. I’m including it because some of our readers would have complained if it had been left out. The problem is the 300 appeals to an entirely different sort of person, both because of its aggressive looks and its RWD drivetrain. Still, the 300 V6 would be my personal choice in this shootout, but I have to acknowledge that a bold RWD American sedan isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Chrysler’s smooth 292 HP V6 and the slick ZF 8-speed automatic are no match for the 300′s higher curb weight making the 300 slower to 60 by nearly a full second. Although I prefer the RWD dynamics of the 300, the heavier curb weight means the Avalon is the nimbler choice. On the flip side, the 300 Luxury Series (the most appropriate cross shop) has a gorgeous full-leather dash and the ride of a full-sized luxury sedan.

That brings us full circle to the elephant in the room: the 2013 Lexus ES. Our Avalon Limited tester has so far knocked the ES to its knees by delivering a better interior, nearly identical feature content, and an easier to use infotainment system. Of course, siblings fight dirty and the Avalon kicks her sister while she’s down by handling better thanks to stiffer springs and wider rubber. When you factor in the Avalon’s lower sticker price and the reality that the Avalon and ES are likely to be as reliable as one another and cost essentially the same to maintain, you have to ask yourself how much that Lexus logo is worth to you. Even outside the direct Toyota vs Lexus comparison the Avalon is highly competitive with an excellent interior, plenty of power, huge back seat and a price tag that isn’t as frightening as the “luxury” alternatives. I never thought I would say this about the Avalon: it’s the aggressive sister that knocks down her stuck-up twin and steals the boyfriend by promising to be a cheaper date. Since I like my women cheap and feisty, I’d take the Avalon up on her offer and only think about the ES once a year at family reunions.

Hit it

• The best interior with a Toyota badge.
• Never thought I would call an Avalon “nimble.”
• “Better” than the Lexus for less.

Quit it

• No ability to add navigation to the base display audio system.
• 268 HP is nothing to brag about in 2013.
• Smaller trunk than the competition.

Toyota provided the vehicle, insurance and one tank of gas for this review

Specifications as tested

0-30: 2.55 Seconds

0-60: 6.25 Seconds

1/4 Mile: 14.51 Seconds @ 98.8 MPH

Average Fuel Economy: 23.2 MPG over 534 Miles

Redesigning retro is a herculean task. You need to change the vehicle enough to be worth the effort, meanwhile maintaining an iconic retro theme. If you don’t change enough, shoppers won’t see a reason to trade in their old flashback for the new time capsule. Change it too much and you’re left with a caricature. The task is so daunting that few even attempt it. (Just look at the one-hit-wonders: PT Cruiser, HHR, SSR and Thunderbird.) VW on the other hand is different. After all they continued to build and sell the same Beetle with minor tweaks for 65 years straight. If anyone can tweak retro and convince people they need it, it’s VW. Sure enough, 2012 was the best Beetle sales year since 1973. As a chaser to VW’s revived retro-mojo, the Beetle is now offered sans-top and VW tossed us the keys to a brown-on-brown model for a week so we could get our 70s on. Can you dig it?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Exterior

This Beetle, like the old “New Beetle,” sells on nostalgia and cutesy-bubbly good looks. In fact, the first words anyone utters upon seeing a Beetle are: “aww, its cute.” See the problem? How many guys buy “cute” cars? Recognizing the problem, VW set out to “butch things up” with the second generation FWD Beetle. The bubbly-fenders, round headlamps and “smiling” hood lines haven’t left but they have been joined by VW’s corporate “Gillette” grille,  sharper corners and more “masculine” tail lamps. (Or so I’m told.) The redesign also adds an incredible 3.5 inches to the Bug’s width and 5 inches to the length. The extra length means the Bug’s side profile is no longer semi-circular, something of a loss for retro fans. The wider stance and crisper creases do make Herbie look meaner, but the ginormous fenders make him look fatter as well.

Since nostalgia sells, VW offers the Beetle in decade-themed editions. There’s an all-black ’50s edition, a periwinkle turbocharged ’60s edition and the chocolate brown ’70s edition VW lent me (perhaps they knew I’m a child of the ‘ 70s?). Should you not care for VW’s packaged time-travel holidays, you can order your ride a la carte. Any way you order it, your bug will come with a black or beige canvas top which opens in 9 seconds while traveling up to 31 MPH. Why does that matter? Because you can go topless at a stoplight without fear that you’ll hold up traffic when it turns green. Volkswagen manages this feat by having the top drop onto the deck lid rather than going inside the trunk like most modern convertibles do. As a result the operation is faster since the trunk doesn’t have to open, the mechanism is less complex and the classic look of the Beetle ‘vert (with the top that looks like a canvas spoiler) is retained.

Starting at $24,995, sawing the top off your Bug will set you back $5,000 vs the coupe. If that sounds spendy, keep your top on, the convertible premium is higher on some of the competition. The 70s edition convertible (as tested) comes in one trim level with no options at $28,595, $5 more than a base turbo convertible. If you feel like burning oil, the TDI convertible starts at $28,690. The 60s convertible which represents the “top of the line” drop-top Beetle tips the scales at $32,395.

Interior

Bug defeminization continues on the inside with fewer round shapes, more creases and VW’s flat-bottom steering wheel. True to the retro mission you’ll find large portions of body-color-matching trim parts inside. That worried me at first but VW appears to be using high quality coatings as none of the painted bits showed signs of scratching like low-mileage PT Cruisers. As a close relative of the Golf and Jetta the Beetle borrows heavily from the communal parts trough, however, that parts sharing doesn’t extend to automatic climate control or power seats.

Despite the lack of power adjustability, front seat comfort in the Beetle was excellent on my long commute. Sadly finding a comfortable driving position took more time than I bargained for due to the bizarre recline knob. The fact that the recline mechanism is controlled by a knob is odd enough, but its position on the side of the seat is awkward to use. If you regularly share cars with your significant other, this could be a sore spot. The Bug’s rear seats have become a tad more spacious in this generation, but should still be considered “emergency” back seats due to a severe lack of leg room. On the bright side, the tall roofline means there’s enough headroom in the back for the average adult to sit upright.

Once upon a time there was no option for leather seats in the Beetle and we have now come full circle. Like a number of other manufacturers, VW has been slowly killing off real cowhide in their cars. For 2013 the only upholstery option in the Beetle convertible is V-Tex leatherette.

Because the lid doesn’t collapse into the trunk, the cargo slot remains 7.1 cubic feet when motoring topless. While that doesn’t sound like much space, it is a huge step up from the old Beetle’s 5 cubes. That’s the difference between an adult fitting in the trunk and not. (You’ll have to watch the video for that explanation.) Unlike most convertibles, the rear seat has a trick up it’s sleeve: it folds down (50/50) to reveal an honest-to-goodness cargo opening.

Infotainment

Sorry ’70s fans, our chocolate brown Bug didn’t come with a built-in CB radio. Burn! Instead shoppers will need to get hip with the 21st century, VW style. Base drop-tops get an AM/FM radio, single slot CD player, Bluetooth speaker phone/audio streaming and VW’s USB/iDevice interface (MDI). Working your way up the ladder, the next stop is the touchscreen audio system which adds HD Radio, SiriusXM Satellite Radio and am MP3 compatible CD reader (why is there no 1990s edition?).

’60s and ’70s edition models come standard (optional on other Bugs) with VW’s 5-inch touchscreen navigation unit (RNS-315). This is the same system found in VW vehicles from the Golf to the Passat. Unlike VW’s large-screen nav unit, this one stores the map data on 4GB of built-in flash memory meaning the database is smaller and less detailed. Compared to the latest offerings from the competition, VW’s nav system is slow, less polished and less intuitive. Instead of using a USB port like everyone else, VW still uses a short proprietary cable in the glove box, a pain if you use your cell phone as your music library. An MDI-iDevice cable comes with the bug, but if you’re not an Apple fan you have to buy the corresponding cable separately from your dealer. Shaking salt on the infotainment wound is a distinct lack of voice commands for your music library, something that is rapidly becoming universal. On the flip side, the 9-speaker Fender speaker system is rad to the max. VW: do me a solid and give the Bug some much needed infotainment love. Dig?

Drivetrain

You won’t find a air-cooled engine in this Beetle, this isn’t the ’50s. Base Beetles (and the ’50s and ’70s edition models) use VW’s refreshed 2.5L inline 5-cylinder engine which gets a 20 HP bump to 170 at 5,700RPM while torque creeps up to 177 lb-ft at 4,250 RPM. The sole mate to the 5-banger is an Aisin-sourced 6-speed automatic, not the 6-speed DSG. If you need more shove, you can opt for VW’s ubiquitous 2.0L turbo, good for 200 ponies and 207 lb-ft of twist. A first for America (as far as I know), VW’s topless cruiser can now be had in oil-burning form with the same 140 HP 2.0L TDI powerplant as the Jetta. Both 2.0L mills are mated to VW’s slick-shifting 6-speed manual transmission or for $1,100, VW’s latest 6-speed dual-clutch DSG transmission.

VW’s 5-cylinder engine has received a bad rap in the press due its unusual exhaust note but I found the funky burble strangely pleasant. Liking the exhaust note is important because you’ll be hearing quite a bit of it as you try to motivate 3,200 pounds of convertible. The “half-V10″ is smoother than the current crop of VW 4-cylinder engines and with the bump to 170 HP it is perfectly serviceable for most drivers. The 6-speed slush box is fairly typical for the compact segment: eager to up-shift, reluctant to down-shift and far less engaging than VW’s excellent DSG units.  Thanks to some efficiency improvements we averaged 26.2MPG over 620 miles of mixed driving in the 2.5 even though the EPA rating is 21/27 (city/highway).

Drive

The 2.0L turbo is underpowered when you compare it to the modern crop of direct-injection 2.0L turbos from the competition. The engine also has something of a split personality, being both rough around the edges and high maintenance with its coarse sound and appetite for premium gas. If you are willing to pay the toll, your reward is the fastest 0-60 time of the bunch, a full 2 seconds faster than the 9.2 second run our 2.5L tester scored. Is it worth it? Yes. If for no other reason than to get the DSG “automatic” or the 6-speed manual, both of which are more driver-oriented than the tranny choices coupled to the 2.5. Despite sporting a higher 21/30 MPG rating, it wasn’t  cheaper to operate than the 2.5L thanks to its hunger for expensive gas and my heavy right foot.

I had only a limited opportunity to test the 2.0L TDI, but it’s exactly what you would expect. It’s slower than the 2.5L, has only a slight diesel burble inside the car and gets incredible mileage. What you might not expect is that it’s only $1,200 more than a comparably equipped 2.5L Beetle Convertible which is a great deal, if you can find one. Thanks to its 28/41 MPG rating (with the DSG), the TDI can get you from your Berkeley loft to Burning Man and back, if you treat it gently. And important consideration to maximize your funkadelic weekend and make it back to your human studies class on time.

The Beetle coupé uses the same torsion beam suspension as the Jetta and Golf in normal trim and a variant of the GLI’s multi-link suspension when equipped with the turbo engine. Thanks to the extra weight and a desire to maximize trunk volume, all convertible Bugs get the multi-link setup. The suspension swap makes the convertible feel almost as composed as a turbo Beetle coupé on broken pavement, a notable improvement over the base coupé. That doesn’t mean the convertible has any sporting aspirations however, the topless Bug has been tuned for a softer ride, more fitting for a boulevard cruiser.

When the going gets twisty, the polished city ride begins to fall apart. Despite being 20% more rigid than the New Beetle convertible, there’s still plenty of body flex and a hair of cowl shake. This isn’t unusual for a mass market soft-top, but I had hoped for a ride more similar to the stiffer EOS hard top. If your top is up, expect some occasional squeaks from where the top meets the body on broken pavement (even dealer provided testers suffered from this problem.) If the top is down, just expect a less rigid ride than you will find in the Beetle coupé. That’s not to say the Beetle is a wet noodle on winding roads like ye olde La Baron, but it’s certainly not up to the same standard as the new Mustang or Camaro convertibles and even the Chrysler 200 seemed more rigid on the back roads.

How well the Beetle accelerates and handles is unlikely to matter to prospective convertible shoppers. I’m not kidding. There isn’t a drop top I can think of that has better performance metrics than its hard-top donor car, that’s just the nature of the beast. Convertibles are all about open air motoring and style, something thee Beetle, despite all of its flaws, still has in spades. VW’s infotainment options feel like they are stuck in 1990, the lack of power front seats and automatic climate control irk me to no end, and the 2.0L engine needs a testosterone injection, yet the Beetle’s topless charm is enough for me to overlook its flaws. The Bug’s price is even right when you consider a topless Chrysler 200 starts at $27,100. There is only one “problem:” Herbie’s still cute.

Hit it

• Unique 5-cylinder engine note. (I know, I’m crazy.)
• Going topless at 31MPH is handier than I thought.
• The TDI is an excellent value.
• Still cute.

Quit it

• VW’s base navigation system is getting old.
• 200 ponies from two turbocharged liters isn’t anything to brag about.
• Reclining a seat using a knob is an exercise in frustration.
• Still cute.

Volkswagen provided the vehicle, insurance and one tank of gas for this review

Specifications as tested

0-30: 2.98 Seconds

0-60: 9.2 Seconds

1/4 Mile: 16.83 Seconds @ 83 MPH

Average Fuel Economy: 26.6 MPG over 620 Miles

It’s no secret that Infiniti is looking to diversify its manufacturing footprint. As part of a broader Nissan strategy to localize production and escape the yoke of yen fluctuations, Infiniti will soon be setting up shop in China and at Nissan’s Sunderland facility in the UK. Next on the list is another North American site.

Right now, the Infiniti JX is the lone Infniti product built outside Japan, but that will have to change under Nissan’s new strategy. Infiniti President Johan de Nysschen told the Wall Street Journal that in addition to the United States and Mexico, Canada is also an option for the new plant.

Calling Canada a “compelling alternative”, de Nysschen said

“Canada also has the potential now with free-trade agreements and discussions to be a very viable source of production exports to Europe,”

Canadian Industry Minister Christian Paradis is expected to meet with de Nysschen in Hong Kong this week. A new factory is expected to cost around $2 billion, or about half of what expansion would cost at an existing facility, and would add 2,000 direct jobs. Some government investment would likely be provided in exchange for the plant. Toyota received $34 million from both the Ontario and Canadian federal governments to re-tool an existing plant to produce Lexus SUVs, and that sum was on the very low end of the scale for auto plant investment.

However, Canada offers some advantages compared to the other jurisdictions, namely a looming free trade agreement with the European Union. This arrangement has been cited in the past as a compelling reason for Audi to build Q3s and other vehicles in Mexico, especially those small premium crossovers, which are in demand on the continent.

Mitsubishi showcased the Mirage hatchback at the 2013 New York Auto Show. The Japanese car maker will put the vehicle on sale in America, but not India – a more natural market for a subcompact hatchback.

The Mirage is powered by a 1.2-litre, 3-cylinder gasoline engine which produces 74 HP and 100 Nm, mated to a 5-speed manual or CVT transmission. The 5-door hatchback uses re-enforced impact safety evolution body structure and comes with a host of features including 7 airbags, traction control, active stability control and a 140-watt sound system.

People in the USA don’t like to buy hatchbacks while it’s the exact opposite in India. In the Indian market, more than 70 percent cars sold are small cars. However Mitsubishi doesn’t sell the Mirage hatchback in India, where it sells only SUVs like the Pajero, Montero and Outlander. The company is struggling in India and it is surprising to see them not offer volume products in the Indian market, even after knowing there is demand for it. Do you think Mitsubishi has messed up its product planning in the past few years?

Faisal Ali Khan is the editor of MotorBeam.com, a website covering the automobile industry of India.a

When Alex Dykes checked out a pre-production Sentra in Napa, he was favorably impressed.

When I was given a Sentra SV with just 812 miles on it at the rental counter this past Friday, I was unfavorably depressed; I had to cover 1,380 miles round-trip from Columbus, Ohio to Winona, MN in just 40 hours and I’d been hoping for a Grand Caravan, if only for the way the Stow n’ Go makes sleeping at rest stops a genuine pleasure. Still, this was a rare opportunity: a chance to check out a like-new production car for the totes-reasonable sum of fourteen dollars and seventy cents per day.

Regulators, mount up.

What do you get for $18,030? Well, if you liked the design similarities between the Sentra and the G37 before, you will love them now. Inside and out, the kinda-little Nissan pays tribute to the bionic-panther swoops-and-creases corporate template. You might like it, or you might not, but the overall look is considerably further upscale than the previous Sentra could manage, perhaps because the Versa is becoming more expensive and putting some pressure on from below. To my considerable surprise, the SV trim level doesn’t have auto headlights, but it does have those goofy, derivative LED running lights that are becoming standard equipment everywhere from Aston Martin to Volvo. Their implementation here is particularly half-hearted; they aren’t bright and since the Sentra has plain halogen lights the effect when the headlights are on is kind of two-tone. Blech.

The interior has none of the fake wood or nav-screen options of Mr. Dykes’ test vehicle. It’s all silver and grey in here and it is remarkably reminiscent of the dreary first-gen G35. I wouldn’t expect any of the painted trim to stay that way for long. On the positive side of things, every bit of plastic in the car felt higher-quality than what I recently experienced in a Toyota Sienna that cost a solid ten grand more. I’m guessing Nissan has some red-trim tricks up their sleeve for an enthusiast model, as they did for the original six-speed Sentra Spec V. A moment of silence for that underappreciated sedan, by the way, and I say “moment of silence” because the QR25 in whatever SE-R Spec V you’re remembering has probably long since blown up.

Insofar as the Sentra is mostly designed, engineered, and built in North America, it seems odd that the seats are so tiny. The thigh support barely reached past my perineum and of course at this trim level the seat isn’t going to tilt to rectify the deficiency in bolster length. I cannot readily conceive of anyone who would both find this seat comfortable and be of legal driving age. Nor is the rest of the Sentra particularly spacious. A common test that I use in compact cars is to “sit behind myself” by adjusting the front seat for comfort and then seeing how bad the accommodation is in back. The Sentra failed that immediately so I tried a next-generation approach, if you will, seating my just-turned-four-year-old son in his car seat behind me. His legs were trapped against the back of the driver’s seat.

“I don’t like this car, I want to sit in the Por-sha, it’s more comfortable.” When your compact car can’t seat a child as well as an aircooled 911 with the passenger seat jammed forward, that might be a problem. Assuming, that is, you want young families to buy your car.

That’s a reasonable assumption with this Sentra because they sure as hell aren’t targeting enthusiasts. The CVT-equipped 1.8-liter is just adequate in this application. The four-cylinder Altima I drove to Nashville a few months ago had considerably more pep to it. Rather oddly, it was also possible to confuse the CVT with mild acceleration; it would hold steady at a high-torque rev level as it’s supposed to then randomly jerk to a higher or lower rev range. It might have been a quality-control issue.

Which brings me to quality, or lack thereof. The fuel door release broke on the fourth fillup, leading me to pull the cable out from behind the broken release level as you see below:

Vodka McBigbra’s Hyundai Accent has the same problem with the hood release, but that car is eight years old and has been to hell and back under her so-called “care”. The “fix” in both cases is the same: forget the chintzy latch and just pull on the cable. This is barely forgiveable on an old Hyundai. Had I just paid $18,030 for my new Sentra, I’d be inclined to be testy about it.

My Minnesota trip plan called for me to leave my house at 2am and drive the 627 miles to the church in Winona in no more than ten hours and thirty minutes. Taking any longer than that would cause me to miss rehearsal, which would be unfortunate since the sole reason I was going was to perform as the guitarist at a wedding. (Yes, I play Christian music in churches sometimes. Where is your God now?) After an hour in the car I was reasonably certain that leg pain from the mini-seat was going to make meeting that time goal difficult, but after the first fillup I started crossing my legs like LJK Setright, operating the accelerator with my left foot and the brake with my right. That solved the problem and I made the drive in a touch under nine hours and fifteen minutes including the usual septet of stops at Chicago tollbooths.

On the move, the Sentra was more than good enough. Wind noise was low, the stereo was usable, the dashboard was clear and bright, the steering was trustworthy and almost sporty, and the ride was perfectly acceptable. Better still, I averaged a reported 41.6mpg for the first thousand or so miles of the round trip, until a loathsome load of adulterated gasohol dropped me to a 39.7mpg average. My fillup receipts support an approximate 40-mpg calculation. Combined with the low cost of the rental, the Sentra’s remarkable economy of operation made it considerably cheaper to drive to Minnesota than it would have been to take any of the cars I own. Were it possible to rent this particular Sentra again and again for trips, I’d probably do it and just get used to the small seats and the field-expedient fuel door release.

Now for the $18,030 question: Where does this car sit among the competition? I haven’t been able to try out the new Civic yet, but I know the rest of the field reasonably well. Against the Toyota Corolla, I’d take this Sentra and a solid kick to the testicles. Not even close. If you’re the type of person who can only buy a Japanese-nameplate car, don’t consider the Corolla unless you are driven solely by considerations of retained value. Compared to the Focus, which I consider to be the class leader, the Sentra looks and feels cheaper and doesn’t offer the same kind of features. On the plus side, it costs less and might retain value better, to say nothing of the CVT’s likely durability advantage over the troubled PowerShift double-clutcher. Against the Elantra, the Sentra feels simply better in almost every way that matters but it falls behind on power and seating. I’d place my bet on a 150,000-mile Sentra over the equivalent Elantra. It’s quieter, more solid, and it’s vastly more relaxing to drive on the open road.

With that said, if it’s a roadtrip you’re after the ol’ Daewoo Lacetti Democratic Party American Labor Edition is tough to beat. It really is. It’s a bigger, (much) heavier, bank vault of a “compact” car that in the higher trim levels takes a stab at being prestige-esque. During your next GM Red Tag sale it might be possible to get a Verano for a couple grand more than the Sentra. I’d consider that seriously as well.

While I’ll cheerfully rent this Sentra until it is retired from duty, I sure wouldn’t bother to buy it. To get my business, Nissan would need to put Recaros in it, make a six-speed transmission available in conjunction with all the goodies, and maybe butch it up a bit with some big “R” badges. Of course, at that point it would need power to match the looks so a pressurized high-revving two-liter wouldn’t be a bad idea. That would be a poor man’s G37. No, wait. The G37 is the poor man’s G37. It would be a student-level G37. Until something like that happens, however, Nissan will have to be content watching buyers for that car go to Volkswagen, Mazda, Dodge, Honda, Ford… heck, pretty much everybody but Nissan. What’s up with that?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Exterior

Lexus’s new styling direction has been somewhat controversial, which is probably a first for Lexus having subscribed to the “simple is elegant” mantra since 1989. While I wasn’t sure about the new “spindle” grille on the 2011 GS and I need to see the 2014 IS to figure out if I like it, the spindle on the LS suits me just fine. The problem in my mind is the proportions. The LS’ blunt nose, wide stance and long hood just work while the shorter snout and more pronounced spindle on the IS seem a bit too “try hard” to me at the moment. In addition to the blacked out grill you see above, F-Sport models get a lowered stance, Brembo brakes, revised suspension tuning and unique wheels. The cost for the added kit? $12,080 over the base LS 460′s starting price of $71,990. Out the door at $84,965 the LS 460 F-Sport undercuts a similarly equipped BMW 740i M-Sport by nearly $2,000. Mercedes? The 295HP V6 S400 starts at $92,350. If you thought the LS sells on reliability and value, you’re right.

Interior

Most manufacturers spend the cash on the outside of the “sport” model leaving less of the budget for interior tweaks and so it is with the F-Sport. We get some tweaked seats, aluminum pedals, a black Alcantara headliner and Lexus’ hallmark wood trim has been swapped for aluminum. The rest of the standard LS’ split-level dash remains, dominated by a large 12.3-inch LCD. Befitting a vehicle this expensive, the interior in our tester screamed “attention to detail” with perfect seams, high quality materials and perfect color matching.

That price tag is important to keep in mind. While the LS F-Sport ranges from $84,965 to $88,115, even the “lowly” 740i can be optioned up to $111,295 if you’re not careful. As a result you won’t find some of the expensive options on the BMW like a full-leather dashboard, heads-up display, night vision, or fancy ceramic knobs. Of course, few 7-Series shoppers check those option boxes and the more you add the more there is to go wrong. Lexus’ mantra has long been to keep things as simple as possible by offering high levels of standard equipment, bundling options in packages and steering clear of any gadget or gizmo that could go wrong within a warranty period. Few BMW shoppers load their 7-series to the gills anyway, so 90% of shoppers will find all they seek in the F-Sport’s black-only interior.

The F-Sport’s 16-way power driver’s seat and 12-way passenger’s seat have beefed-up bolstering and embossed logos on the headrests.  While I found the seats to be very comfortable for my 6-foot frame, the GS’ 18-way seats offer a wider range of motion and customization. Thanks to the thicker bolstering on the seat back and bottom the F-Sport will hold you in your seat should you decide to drift on your way to the financial district. All F-Sport models come with an F-Sport specific steering wheel based heavily on the standard LS tiller. An electric tilt/telescoping steering column with memory is standard.

Lexus’s flagship sedan is as much about the rear occupants as the front. To that end the F-Sport still has a three-position rear throne with outboard “buckets” and a high-mounted center seat. Thanks to the typical RWD “hump” and the bucket-like design of the outboard seats, the center spot should be left to homunculi. Ditching that 5th person will make the rear more comfortable anyway and four full-sized American adults will have no headroom or legroom issues in even the short wheelbase LS. Befitting the “adult” tastes the LS is designed to appeal to, the rear seat cushions aren’t sitting on the floor providing more thigh support than your average sedan. As you would expect with any vehicle this size, the LS sports a large 18 cubic foot trunk.

Infotainment & Gadgets

Widescreen infotainment systems are all the rage and 2013 the LS up to date with a large 12-inch LCD in the dash. Positioned in its own “pod”, the screen is higher and closer to the normal sight lines of a driver than before. The system ditches the intuitive touchscreen interface Lexus has used for the better part of a decade for the Lexus joystick (it’s officially called Lexus Remote Touch.) I won’t beat around the bush, I hate it. I am however open to suggestion, so please post your thoughts and experiences with Remote Touch in the comment section below.

My issues with LRT are: it occupies a great deal of room on the center console,and it takes far more hand-eye-brain coordination than a touchscreen. Every time I am in a Lexus I find myself glancing at the screen and fiddling with the little control pad far more than when I’m in a competitor’s luxury sedan. This increased distraction hasn’t gone unnoticed by my better half who constantly nags me about keeping my eyes on the road. Want to enter an address using the on-screen QWERTY keyboard? It’s obvious why Lexus won’t let you do that in motion.

To soften the blow Lexus throws in the same media device voice command interface as the other Lexus and premium Toyota products receive. The system is snappy, managed to figure out every command I threw at and has a more natural sounding voice than MyLincoln Touch. Helping counter the nagging Lexus Remote Touch caused (see how that’s not my fault now), the available Mark Levinson sound system can drown out even the most shrill mother-in-laws.

Perhaps reinforcing that Lexus focuses on the “meat” of the luxury segment and not the one-percent, you won’t find the same level of gee-wizardry in the F-Sport as some of the Euro competitors. You won’t find night vision, a full-leather dashboard, expensive ceramic knobs, massaging front seats, heads-up displays or full-LCD instrument clusters in the Lexus showroom. Instead, Lexus doubles down on perfect seams, quiet cabins, a high level of standard equipment and quantities of wood that would make Jaguar blush. New for 2013 is an optional collision prevention system that augments the collision warning system from last year’s model with the ability to fully stop the car while traveling at low speeds to prevent an accident. Much like the system Volvo has been stuffing in their cars since 2009, the system is active from about 5-24 MPH. Lexus has also tweaked their radar-based dynamic cruise control to now take the LS to a complete stop and take off again in stop-and-go traffic.

Drivetrain

The naturally aspirated luxury car V8 is an endangered species now that BMW, Audi and Mercedes are embracing turbo love. Lexus is the lone holdout using the same 4.6L naturally aspirated V8 engine the LS 460 debuted with in 2006.The direct-injection mill produces 386 ponies at 6,400 RPM (dropping to 360 in the AWD model) and 367lb-ft of twist at 4,100. Power delivery is typical of a medium-displacement DOHC V8; there is enough grunt at the low end to chirp the wheels, torque builds in a linear fashion and most of the “go” happens near red-line. The observant will note the F-Sport is down on power when pitted against the latest in German twin-turbo V8s putting the F-sport at a serious disadvantage when stoplight racing. In terms of power, the LS 460 compares most directly to the 740i with BMW’s turbocharged six-cylinder engine. On the bright side, the F-Sport’s engine is incredibly smooth and has one of the best engine sounds on this segment (you can thank the turbos for messing up the German symphony.) Why didn’t Lexus drop the 5.0L V8 from the IS-F into the F-Sport? The world may never now.

For F-Sport duty the LS gets a few software tweaks and performance-themed upgrades. The 8-speed automatic has been reprogrammed to rev-match downshifts, there are some snazzy shift paddles on the steering wheel, and there’s a Torsen limited slip differential out back. F-Sport tuning adds variable gear ratio steering to the electro-mechanical power steering unit and an additional “Sport+”  driving mode for the engine, transmission, steering and suspension systems

Drive

The naturally aspirated V8 defines the way the F-Sport at the dragstrip. Because the engine needs to rev to 4,100 RPM for torque to peak, it lacks the immediacy and urgency you feel from the twin-turbo Merc and Bimmer. The 8-speed automatic uses closely spaced low gears to help improve off-the-line performance allowing the F-Sport to hit 60 in 5.47 seconds. That’s a hair slower than the BMW 740i and half a second slower than the 750 or S550. However, if a great soundtrack is more important to you than shove, consider that turbos interfere with classic V8 sounds due to their location in the intake and exhaust plumbing. Further boosting the high-revving V8 howl, Lexus dropped a sound tube into the intake to pipe more “V8″ into the cabin.

The mission of sport packages is primarily to improve looks, and secondarily improve handling. That makes Lexus’ decision to put an air-suspension in the F-Sport a bit unusual. You see, there are three basic types of adaptive suspension systems. The first uses a strut filled with a ferromagnetic fluid whose viscosity changed when electricity is applied (GM and Audi like that one). The second is a more typical gas-filled strut with an electronically controlled valve to alter damping characteristics (Volvo, Ford and Chrysler use this one). Last is the air-suspension. Unlike the other two, air systems don’t just alter the damping, they are also involved in maintaining (or altering) the ride height. This means they both damp and keep your car off the ground. By altering the pressure in the internal air bags, ride firmness and height can be adjusted. While air suspensions have a pedigree (everyone from Rolls Royce to Jaguar uses one) having a vehicle ride on four small “Aero Beds” leads to an unusual feel when the road starts to curve. I’m no stranger to this technology, my own Jaguar Super V8 uses a similar system, and it delivers a similar feel. There’s a reason  Jaguar ditched the system for their new breed of corner-clawing kitties.

Despite the F-Sport having a lowered ride height over the regular LS and the air suspension being tweaked for a firmer ride, the system is firm but floaty. Sort of like over-inflating that air mattress you pull out for overnight guests. (My Jaguar feels exactly the same and so does the Mercedes S-Class.) That doesn’t mean the F-Sport is a land barge, it just means the feeling is unusual. Feelings aside, the F-Sport handles extremely well thanks to grippy low-profile rubber and Lexus’ variable gear ratio steering system.

VGRS (as Lexus calls it) has a more natural and direct feel than BMW’s active steering system, especially on close-quarter mountain switchbacks where you’re sea-sawing the wheel as you alternate mashing the stop and go pedals. The system fools you into thinking the F-Sport is lighter and more balanced than the BMW when in reality they very similar. At 53:47 (front:rear), the F-Sport is a bit heavier in the nose than the near-prefect 50:50 BMW 740i (but not far off the heavier 750i), but the Lexus hides it well, only giving up the secret when you’ve hit the limit and the nose begins to plow. Compared to the heavier 750i or S550, the LS feels lighter on its feet. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, after all, BMW is the new Meercedes. While I would take the more neutral vehicle, I know a majority of real-world owners prefer a car that leans toward understeer. (Fear not, if your foot is mashing the go pedal, the F-Sport will get all kinds of tail-happy  on you.)

Out on the highway or driving through pot-holed downtown streets, the air suspension makes more sense because it soaks up pavement imperfections like a Cadillac Fleetwood, which is after all the raison d’être of the Lexus brand. While I think I would have demanded the engineers swap the airbags for some steel coils, I don’t think that would make the F-Sport sell any better. Without more shove, the F-Sport will never be direct competition for the new breed of German luxury sedan. Instead the F-Sport is quite simply the best looking Lexus to date and the most dynamic large sedan the Japanese have ever built.  Is that enough to regain the sales crown? Only time will tell, but the bold grille, F-Sport model and low sticker price sure can’t hurt.

Hit it

• Well priced luxury car without a discount brand cachet.
• Impeccable reliability reputation.
• The F-Sport isn’t as demure as a modern 7-series but not as flashy as a Maserati, etc.

Quit it

• The Lexus joystick device is my least favorite infotainment input device.
• Fewer gadgets and gizmos are available compared to the BMW 7-Series and Audi A8.

 Lexus provided the vehicle, insurance and one tank of gas for this review

Specifications as tested

0-30: 2.215 Seconds

0-60: 5.47 Seconds

1/4 Mile: 14.09 Seconds @ 100.4 MPH

Average Fuel Economy: xx MPG over 585 Miles

My takedown of the Ford Police Interceptor Sedan Taurus generated almost two hundred comments. Having recognized what the people want, I immediately began scheming for rides in the Ford’s two major competitors in order to give it to them. An E-mail, followed by a visit to the municipal sales manager at Lexington’s Freedom Dodge- Chrysler- Jeep- Fiat and I was provided with a 2012 Dodge Charger Pursuit for a weekend evaluation.

Mr. Jim Sawrie is the cop car guy at Freedom Dodge and generally keeps a demonstration unit on hand equipped with a center console, protective barrier, and a lightbar. He stripes his demo cars up in various ways, even aping the decal package Lexington PD uses a couple of years ago. He gave his current model a pretty basic decal job, plain enough that you wouldn’t think it would ever be mistaken for a real police car. So, of course, when I stopped to take photos of the car near downtown Lexington I was approached by a guy who wanted to know which Federal alphabet agency was represented by the acronym DEMO.

“DEMO? Why, that’s the Department of Energy Military Operations Command. The “C” is silent and for your safety and in the interest of National Security, you need to move along…”

I can’t really blame the citizen for his concern. Even in refrigerator white and with minimal markings the Charger screams “Official Government Business” as loudly as the Crown Vic ever did. “Beautiful and intimidating,” was how the supervisor in charge of the fleet of Chargers being run by a neighboring agency described it when I called to get his views on the Dodge’s long term durability.  Compared to the plain- Jane styling of the Caprice and the bulbous, dog-with-it’s-butt-in-the-air look of the Taurus, the Charger’s long, low, and wide profile definitely has the most character.

That exterior design helps make the Charger’s interior a much more comfortable place to get to the business of police work, especially compared to the Taurus. I donned my gunbelt and spent much of a Saturday morning driving around with it on. The center console Mr. Sawrie had chosen to install in the car was fairly wide, starting at 11 inches wide at the base of the center stack and tapering to 9 inches wide by the time it reached the area of the seatbelt buckles. Even with a full gunbelt, I had plenty of room without the console pressing in on me, although a slightly narrower console wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Note to equipment vendors: Just because you have the space doesn’t mean you have to fill it.

The extra space makes entering and exiting the front seats of the car very easy, particularly when doing so quickly. Both the front and rear doors open 90 degrees, further than the doors on a Crown Vic and much further than on the Taurus with it’s nylon retntion strap that retards the opening of the front doors. Getting into the backseat is very tight, particularly for a prisoner with his hands secured behind his back. The Dodge’s low roofline is the main culprit here, particularly the way it slopes sharply back towards the “C” pillar. The routine admonition given to prisoners by cops all over the world to “Watch your head and knees” becomes more meaningful when herding perps in and out of a Charger instead of a Crown Vic. Seriously, jailbirds. Watch your heads.

The interior was quieter than I expected, even at highway speeds when air turbulence around the exterior spotlight mounted on the “A” pillar and around the lightbar tends to create a lot of wind noise in marked police vehicles. I was also surprised by the visibility. I had expected that the Charger’s low slung roofline would create a driving experience similar to that of the Taurus. That wasn’t the case at all. While blindspots still existed, particularly with a protective barrier installed, I never felt closed in and blind the way I did when driving the Taurus. Parallel parking, even without the benefit of a rearview camera, was fine.

Controls for the HVAC and stereo were handled primarily through the Uconnect touchscreen, although there were redundant controls for both mounted below. A USB outlet and auxillary port are standard. I found Uconnect to be easy to learn without resorting to the owner’s manual. The car was equipped with optional Bluetooth and paired quickly and easily with my Samsung phone. An option like Bluetooth is probably not taken up by most departments, but perhaps more of them should consider it. Like it or not, fair or unfair, the simple reality is that the cellphone is a vital tool to most patrol officers and one that will be used while driving. The nature of the job will simply require a certain number of distractions to the driver and any technology that can reduce those should be embraced, even if it costs a bit more per unit.

The car I drove was equipped with the 5.7 L Hemi V-8 and included cylinder deactivation. If anything the cylinder deactivation programming is over- aggressive. It seemed as if everytime I glanced at the instrument cluster, the computer was advising me that I was in ECO mode. The transition between four and eight-cylinder operation was relatively seemless and definitely makes a huge difference in fuel consumption. I averaged 15 mpg over 168 miles of driving. (I simulated the time spent idling in a normal patrol shift by leaving the engine running every time I got out to take photos of the car.)

That’s actually pretty good for a police car, particularly one with the 370 horsepower of the Charger’s Hemi V-8. Put your foot in it and all attempts at ECO management vanish with a roar. Testing by the Michigan State Police recorded a top speed of 152 mph. I believe it. In fact, the Hemi might be too much. Had I been given a Charger instead of a Crown Vic when I first hit the streets at age 22, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be here to write these articles today.  For most departments the 292 horsepower 3.7 L V-6 and a top speed of 141 mph would probably be a better choice.

Power is routed to the rear wheels through a 5 speed automatic, which includes Chrysler’s Autostick system. A column mounted gear selection lever is a welcome touch although it makes using Autostick almost impossible. The selection buttons for up and down shifting are mounted on the shift lever, which puts them in an awkward position for use during performance driving. I tried Autostick out on a twisty road near my home and found it nearly impossible to use while maintaining control of the wheel.

Control is definitely something you want to maintain. Overall the Charger is incredibly stable, but the Hemi will sneak up on you. The Crown Vic doesn’t particularly like to be hustled through the curves and responds with a certain amount of float and instability. Consequently you’re more aware of your speed as you approach corners in a Crown Vic.

The Charger hugs the road much better and builds your confidence until you glance down at the digital speedo readout as you enter a curve and HOLY CRAP THAT’S TOO FAST! I can report that the brakes  and the traction control work very well and kept me from having to have any awkward conversations with Bertel and Mr. Sawrie.

At least the bill wouldn’t have been too high. Fleet price for a Hemi powered Charger Pursuit starts at $23,585. For reference the most comparable civilian trim level, the Charger R/T, has a base MSRP of $29,995. For the budget minded municipal fleet manager, the V-6 powered Charger Pursuit starts at $21,949, undercutting the price of the cheapest Ford by $790.

Cheap is not usually considered a compliment and Dodge has a reputation, probably undeserved, for poor quality. My own agency’s experiences with Pentastar products has been negative. We were all issued Fords when I started in 1997, but the last of the old Diplomats had only been retired a couple of years before. No one I know who had the misfortune to have been issued one has anything good to say about them. When the previous generation of police Chargers hit the streets in 2006, we actually bought a few of them for use by detectives. Three out of eight developed transmission problems in the first two years of service.

Kentucky Law Enforcement Memorial

With that track record in mind, I called a nearby agecy that has switched exclusively to Chargers and asked how their cars have held up. The sergeant in charge of the fleet, Mister “beautiful and intimidating,” reported that their experience has generally been positive. One unit had gone through three motor mounts in six months, but my source felt that was more an issue of operator error than a failure of the car. Front ends tend to need replacing around 75,000 miles. Unlike Lexington’s experience he’d only had to have two transmissions rebuilt and both of those were in cars that had done over 120,000 miles. He only had one of the new generation of Charger in his fleet, but it seemed to be holding up as well or better than the older cars.

His major complaint was that the Chargers cost more to repair than the Crown Vics did. That’s probably going to be a complaint with all of the new generation cop cars, however. The second-best thing about the Crown Vic, after it’s size, was it’s simplicity. In a fleet maintenance situation simplicity usually equates to “cheap to fix.”  All of the new models are significantly more complex.

Still, Dodge’s quality problems seemed to have mostly been resolved, at least in my source’s experience. The testimony of one fleet manager may not be evidence of a turnaround in and of itself, but it appears that the Charger has made significant inroads into the police market in Central Kentucky.

The introduction of the first generation of Charger was the first real challenge to Ford’s domination of the police market in a decade. The second generation appears to be better than the first, while still undercutting the price of the Taurus. I concluded my review of the Taurus by noting that the competition was nipping at Ford’s heels. I was wrong. With the new Charger, Dodge has passed them.

Freedom Dodge of Lexington, KY provided the vehicle and one tank of gas for this review.

Your humble author’s affection for the Pentastar-powered Chrysler minivans is relatively well-known within these electronic pages. In the interest of examining the so-called “alternatives”, however, I’ve been attempting to rent non-Chrysler minivans during my travels. A 36-hour unscheduled trip to San Francisco gave me a chance to do just that, deliberately walking past the six Corvette droptops in the Hertz #1 Gold Choice spaces and picking up a Toyota Sienna. The things I do for you, dear readers! My appointment was a couple of hours inland, in Lodi, CA; the thought that I was pedaling a minivan away from the ocean when I could be driving a topless ‘Vette along it had me sobbing lightly behind my Prodesigns.

I was eventually able to screw my courage to the sticking-place, as it were, and get on with business. What follows is a 388-mile review of the Toyota Sienna LE, but there’s one little catch: if you want one just like my test vehicle, you’re out of luck.

For 2013, Toyota has discontinued availability of the 2.7-liter paint-shaker four-cylinder in the Sienna. As we’ll soon see, it won’t be missed by most potential buyers. All Siennas are now powered by the appears-in-just-about-everything Toyota 3.5-liter V-6. The equivalent 2013-model V-6 Sienna to the one I drove would cost you a whopping $30.980 plus the usual reprehensible Toyota-dealer stripe/tape/paint protection/frottage charges. That’s a full eight thousand bucks more than the Caravans I normally rent would cost before incentives. It also represents a considerable price increase over last year. The 2012-model-year four-banger Sienna I rented would only cost you $26,990, assuming you could find a time machine or a dealer with some overstock, and that about splits the difference between a Caravan SE and the current Sienna LE.

This generation Sienna acquired what John Updike would call “minor fame” as the chosen ride of a swaggering MILF, but the gap in desirability between the fully-loaded SE and this poverty-spec LE is apparent from two hundred feet away and becomes more so as you draw closer to the thing. Opening the door reveals an unpleasant sea of elephant-testicle polysomethinglene in a color best described as “dirty ivory”. The odd texture molded into the door panels can’t hide a series of waves and ripples seemingly baked into the plastic during manufacture. I was initially willing to attribute the warping to 31,600 miles in the California sun, but even where the tinted windows protected the plastic, there were visible finish imperfections. If Toyota was trying to channel the spirit of the original K-car-based minivans, they’ve done it; I remember similar defects all over the place in those ancient Voyagers. Of course, the current Caravan is well beyond that standard, and comparing it back to back with the Sienna the much cheaper Dodge comes off as the upscale contender.

While the Chrysler minivan’s dashboard has always been intended to mimic that of a traditional sedan as closely as possible, the Sienna goes the other way, splaying an array of oddly oversized controls over an asymmetrical plastic wave between driver and passenger. The climate controls are frankly ridiculous, particularly the fan control which uses two buttons and multiple LEDs to unsatisfactorily accomplish what’s done with a single knob in better cars. Blank panels are everywhere. This van doesn’t appear to have any features except cruise control. The steering wheel has no secondary buttons whatsoever. Perhaps the kindest thing one could say about the Sienna’s controls is that they would all be easy to operate using gloves. They’re also perhaps deliberately optimized for Toyota’s aging customer base. The Avalon’s like that, too; every button and knob in the thing appears to be designed for people suffering a combination of Alzheimer’s and loss of motor control. The 12-volt outlet is too close to the floor — this is one detail that the Sienna has in common with the Caravan. One bright spot: the stereo is actually pretty decent. My two current test tracks (“English House” by Fleet Foxes and “My Activator” by 100s) were easily capable of annoying pedestrians in the vicinity and, in the case of the latter song, earned me a knowing nod from a stunning chica working the Jack-in-the-Box drive-through.

While the Sienna has about the same mouse-fur bucket seat for the driver you get in the cheaper Chrysler minivans, the story is completely different for rear-seat passengers. Chrysler offers their outstanding Stow N Go seats as standard pretty much everywhere in the lineup. They work just like you’d expect, folding quickly into the floor without fuss and turning the Caravan into a very capable work van in the space of five minutes. The Sienna, on the other hand, has two very conventional and very large bench seats in back. They’re well-bolstered and, for this writer at least, are usefully more comfortable than the Stow N Go. If you never expect to do anything with your minivan besides drag people around in it, the Sienna scores a big win here. If you need flexibility, the Chryslers are untouchable in that regard.

On the move, it’s quickly apparent that the Sienna and Caravan are from two entirely different schools of vehicular-dynamic thought. Simply put, the Sienna sucks as a driving proposition in every way that matters. The engine is completely gutless and feels thoroughly overmatched in this application, lugging against too much gear before giving up, changing down with an audible clunk, and hellishly moaning at its retro six-grand redline. The brakes feel completely worthless in hard usage, although that can probably be at least partially attributed to the miseries of rental life. Fast lane changes in the Sienna are positively nautical; my Town Car is noticeably better at controlling its body motion in the same situation. In the evening cut-and-thrust around the SFO airport, I gave up early and resigned myself to being dive-bombed for lane position again and again. My knee repeatedly turned off the low-mounted cruise control, exacerbating the situation somewhat and no doubt further alienating my fellow motorists.

I had hoped that the Sienna’s futuristic shape might pay off in wind noise reduction, but it was louder inside than the Caravans by some margin. There’s an extra A-pillar window as a consequence of that sleek silhouette, but as far as I can tell it’s completely worthless in actual use and I’d rather have a lower sticker price with a GM-style modesty panel shoved in the gap.

After a pair of 115-mile jaunts in the Sienna, I was more or less sick of the thing and I looked forward to returning it as soon as possible. From the wavy interior plastic to the gutless engine to the total lack of surprise-and-delight features, my tester van felt like an extremely cynical effort to cash in on the brand loyalty earned by other, far superior Toyota products. It’s worth noting that Toyota has never really had a killer app for the minivan market, unless your idea of the perfect family wagon is a supercharged suppository shape with the engine somewhere under the driver’s ass. It’s hard to imagine any reason for purchasing this current offering other than naked fear that the competition won’t be as reliable. I would suggest that these fears should be partially mitigated by the fact that one could buy three Caravans for every two Siennas one might hope to own.

It is true, however, that I have seen many an utterly miserable-looking old Sienna continuing to plow away with a quarter-million miles on the clock. Perhaps this Sienna is meant to anticipate a similar future by already looking crappy at 31,600 miles. Perhaps it would never get any worse. It’s hard to tell. If it still looks like this years from now, that wouldn’t be so bad. I also wonder if Toyota’s decision to drop the four-cylinder was such a great idea. Yes, it’s very slow, and yes, it’s very coarse, but I trust it more than I trust any Toyota V-6. If I had to drive a Sienna for the next decade and cover all the expenses myself, I might be tempted to choose the four, even though it barely clocked 22mpg in my unenthusiastic stewardship. There’s no possible reason to own a Sienna other than the explicit expectation of Land-Cruiser-in-Africa-style long-term durability, and the 2.7L would be an asset on that particular balance sheet.

I’m a car guy, you know? I like cars and I can usually find a reason to get enthusiastic about almost anything I drive. The Sienna LE 2.7L was a rare exception. I disliked it from the moment I backed it out of its stall at Hertz and realized it didn’t have parking sensors, and our relationship never got better. I’m not saying you should buy a Caravan over this thing — some people have been too badly burned by Chrysler minivans to ever give them a second chance. I am, however, saying you should choose something else. Even the most die-hard Toyota fan deserves better than this.