The Truth About Cars » Car Reviews

Review: Ford SVT Raptor

Jack Baruth — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:01:07 +0000

It would be difficult to conceive of a vehicle better-suited to demonstrating TTAC’s diversity of automotive reviewers than the massive and massively outrageous Ford Raptor. Robert Farago would have eviscerated it with a zero-star diatribe on the inadvisability of building three-ton boutique trucks with borrowed funds. Sajeev Mehta would rhapsodize about the graphics but demonize [...]

Review: 2010 Cadillac SRX V6

Sajeev Mehta — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:53:35 +0000

Since day one, the Cadillac SRX was a desperate underdog looking to dethrone the Lexus RX: Middle America’s CUV of choice. But the SRX was a muscular macho machine and the Lexus is an overstuffed Camry Wagon. Now, with a more mundane blueprint, Cadillac believes their latest SRX utility is “the new standard for luxury [...]

Review: GMC Terrain

Michael Karesh — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:15:52 +0000

Many people have questioned why General Motors needs so many brands. Why have both Chevrolet and GMC selling essentially the same vehicles? With the new GMC Terrain, we might just have an answer. Or not. The GMC Terrain essentially replaces the Pontiac Torrent in GM’s burgeoning Crossover linuep. Where the Torrent was a rebadge of the [...]

Review: Audi TT-S

Jack Baruth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:24:03 +0000

It is said of Frank Lloyd Wright that he was an unbelievably annoying and offensive man; worse than that, every home he ever built ended up with a leaky roof. More than eight years ago, the first major gathering of North American TT owners took place, not at a racetrack or in the banal confines [...]

Review: 1979 Mercedes-Benz 450sl “R107″

Chuck Goolsbee — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:39:51 +0000

Imagine it is thirty years in the future, 2039, and you are driving in a hard top convertible made in 2009. It has had three owners, and sports a healthy six-figures on the odometer. Would you expect it to leak, rattle, and/or squeak? Probably. Would you expect it to look dated and out of place as we [...]

Review: 2010 Audi S4

Michael Karesh — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:15:50 +0000

Once upon a time, S was for Audis what M was for BMWs. A decade ago Audi took an A4, added a pair of turbos to the V6, stiffened the suspension, plus-oned the alloys, and tagged the result the S4. A special driving experience that became more special (if less moddable) when the 250-horsepower turbo [...]

Review: Ford Fusion Hybrid

Edward Niedermeyer — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:45:58 +0000

At the risk of sounding older and crankier than I feel, it can be hell trying to find a car with a unique identity anymore. As our four-wheeled friends have become more refined, they’ve also become more homogeneous. Especially when sampling mass-market sedans, the distinctions are often subtle to the point of solipsism, and a [...]

Review: Porsche GT3

Sajeev Mehta — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:45:16 +0000

Quick: name a major multinational automotive motorsport series where a rear-wheel drive, naturally aspirated vehicle isn’t the dominant player in the field. Sure, there’s a turbo here and Quattro there, but the Porsche GT3’s template is the recipe for success from F1 to the 24 hours of LeMans. This simplistic design demands predictable power [...]

Review: Lexus HS250h

Michael Karesh — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:39:36 +0000

Every luxury car make seems compelled to explore how low it can venture in the American market without hopelessly devaluing the brand. Mercedes no longer offers the C-Class hatchback Coupe and has shied away from offering the A- and B-Classes in the United States. BMW hasn’t offered a semi-affordable four-cylinder [...]

Review: 2010 Lincoln MKT EcoBoost

Robert Farago — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:31:44 +0000

Remember the scene in Jaws when Quint is being eaten by a great white shark, where he kicks his legs at the beast’s head, trying to avoid its endless rows of razor-sharp teeth? I reckon Lincoln’s designers based the MKT’s snout on Bruce’s man-eating maw. Sure, there’s a touch of Hannibal Lecter’s mask to the [...]

Import Sport Sedan Comparison: First Place: BMW 535xi

Michael Freed — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:00:57 +0000

Stop typing in the comments section about how another BMW won another comparison. If the BMW came second fiddle to the Audi or the Jaguar, you would be typing that the BMW got second only because it got first so many times before, and we were wrong. So first, second or last, the BMW gets [...]

Import Sport Sedan Comparison: Second Place: Audi A6 3.0T

Michael Freed — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:38:52 +0000

After urbane styling and precise road manners made Audi a real player in the luxury sports sedan market with the late ‘90s A6, the Ingolstadt Werkmeisters took a more conservative route with the third-generation A6. It became larger, more architectural than haute couture, and softer. For 2009, though, Audi decided to give the A6 an [...]

Import Sport Sedan Comparison: Third Place: Jaguar XF

Michael Freed — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:23:42 +0000

If there’s a counterpoint in this test to the GS350’s robotic rationality, it’s the Jaguar XF. If the Lexus makes perfect sense to the kind of people who see car buying as an equation to be solved, the XFR is the only choice for right-brained aesthetes. It screams sex appeal like nothing has since Sofia [...]

Import Sport Sedan Comparison: Fourth Place: Lexus GS350

Michael Freed — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:51:40 +0000

Lexus should include a PlayStation 3 with every GS350 they sell the public, so the new owners can take their new vehicle for a spin around the Nurburgring in “Gran Turismo.” That way they’d be able to safely enjoy their new Lexus and not waste a single penny in gas. Either way, the driving experience [...]

Import Sport Sedan Comparison: Sixth Place: Infiniti M35x

Michael Freed — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:13:52 +0000

Luxury sport sedans have a lot of boxes to tick. In a segment where high price points have not prevented a a crowd of competitors from gathering, every contender must develop a unique identity that sets it apart from the pack. This means a combination of performance, character, quality and feel that makes the car’s [...]

Import Sport Sedan Comparison: Fifth Place: Mercedes E350

Michael Freed — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:22:31 +0000

When my dad hit middle age in the ‘70’s, his first reaction was to park a Mercedes in our garage – a ’75 450SE, which my mom nicknamed “Heinrich.” The Mercedes sedans of that era weren’t beautiful cars, but damned if Heinrich didn’t turn heads – it was obvious that someone important was driving it. [...]

Review: 2010 Lincoln MKS

Jack Baruth — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:39:42 +0000

Fifty-three thousand dollars! I’m tempted to say it again! Fifty-three thousand dollars! What are the chances that any American-branded sedan could be worth this kind of money, particularly in our newly cost-conscious era? Mr. Farago has repeatedly pummeled the “MKTaurus” on these pages, and that was before the price of Lincoln’s big sedan cleared the [...]

Review: 2010 Buick LaCrosse

Michael Karesh — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:42:47 +0000

“The company’s survival depends on the success of this car.” Though regularly trotted out, this statement is almost always BS (not to be confused with the Bertel kind). Typically when the hyped new car fails, the company seems to somehow scrape by. But the 2010 LaCrosse might just warrant such an extreme statement, at least [...]

Review: Nissan 370Z Touring

Jack Baruth — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:22:27 +0000

The “Z-car” has been with us now for forty years, but let’s be honest: most of those years were fairly disappointing. The original 240Z was a fabulous car that richly deserves its place in history, and the 1990 300ZX Turbo was a singular statement of high-speed style, but the story of the Z is too [...]

Review: Tesla Roadster

Martin Schwoerer — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:19:21 +0000

I’m anything but a Trekkie, but a recent drive in the Tesla Roadster made me think of the Starship Enterprise. To be more precise, the Enterprise a second after warp speed has been deployed. Imagine for a moment that your brain is Captain Kirk and the “gas” pedal is Scotty. When Scotty receives the warp [...]

Test Drive: 2011 Hyundai Sonata Y20 [Korean-Spec]

Walter Foreman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:37:38 +0000

Hyundai’s on a roll. It wasn’t too long ago that the only things its cars generated were pollution and repair bills. Today, however, Hyundai cars are generating awards, increased sales, and most importantly, opinions. Read the comments section of any post on anything Hyundai, and people will have something to say. Many have good [...]

Nearly New Germans Comparo: First Place: Porsche Cayman S

Jack Baruth — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:51:35 +0000

It’s difficult to put a price on cynicism in this day and age, but allow me to make a suggestion: $13,900. Four years ago, the newly-introduced Porsche Cayman 3.4S retailed for $58,900. The mechanically similar Boxster 2.7 was $45K flat. That nearly fourteen-grand price difference would have purchased a well-equipped Hyundai Elantra, but at Porsche [...]

Review: Chevrolet Cobalt XFE

Sajeev Mehta — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:53:58 +0000

With my previous Chevrolet Cobalt XFE encounter in mind, visiting three dealerships in search of an XFE tester came as no surprise. Ironically, the dealer formerly associated with “Mr. Big Volume” (a.k.a. Bill Heard) had one XFE-badged Cobalt that survived last month’s Cash For Clunkers shopping spree. Like the surprisingly respectful staff at [...]

Review: 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class

Michael Karesh — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:58:45 +0000

I’m old enough to remember when Mercedes used the tagline “engineered like no other car in the world,” and no one questioned it. When the 1986 W124 E-Class was introduced, Car & Driver proclaimed it “the best car in the world.” In the quarter-century since, Mercedes’ position in the automotive pecking order has become less [...]

Five Minute Review: Toyota Prius

Roman Mica — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 23:51:25 +0000