When the invite from Fiat Chrysler came in, I hemmed and hawed. The event in question was an off-road drive of the 2020 Jeep Gladiator, along with other off-road-oriented Jeep and Dodge rigs, taking place at an off-road park in west-central Indiana. This was a regional event — media invitees all came from Chicago, Detroit, and Indianapolis.

If I hadn’t already driven the Gladiator in March, I’d have gone without a second thought. That’s why I hesitated – I’d driven the truck on the launch, and I’ll learn more from a second-look that takes place over a week-long loan (I have one scheduled) than I would from a few more hours of rock-crawling. Was it worth the time out of office?

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As much as I’d like to write every review the instant a loaner car leaves my site, sometimes travel or other duties take precedent and the review gets back-burnered for a while. Sometimes, a long while. That’s usually okay – I take notes and have a pretty good memory for each vehicle. But on rare […]

I’m a casual racing fan, at best. That may sound weird coming from a car guy, but I’ve come to learn over the years that being into cars doesn’t obligate you to be into racing.

I’ve had stints of deeper fandom in the past. Teenage me talked my dad into taking me to Indianapolis for the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race way back in the ‘90s, and I used to risk ridicule (particularly the R-word, indicating a crimson-hued neck) from my suburban peers by wearing NASCAR t-shirts to high school.

But times and interests change. The NASCAR and IndyCar drivers I grew up watching got old and retired. NASCAR kept messing with the rules while Tony George damn near killed Indy car racing with the CART/IRL split. Furthermore, I’ve always gravitated towards baseball, football, basketball, and hockey even more so than racing, and there’s only so much time on any given Sunday. Sometimes other sports took precedence.

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Recently, august buff book publication Car and Driver published a piece of content dubbed “How to Pack Like an Automotive Journalist.”

The piece doesn’t appear to be sponsored content – it reads as if C/D polled staffers for recommendations, and followed it up with revenue-generating links for readers to click if they want to buy said items.

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Hello out there in TTAC land. This is your regularly scheduled reminder that Monday is an American holiday, so we’ll be taking the day off.

More or less, anyway. A stray post or two may show up. But yes, we’re going to be relaxing/BBQing/respecting the fallen troops/vacationing/whatever on Monday. We’ll be back at it at full-tilt boogie on Tuesday. (Read More…)

Y’all are probably gonna flay me for what I am about to write. I know, because one of our contributors took it on the chin (no pun intended) earlier this year after writing up the 2020 Corolla sedan. That’s okay. I can take it. You guys out there fling arrows at us sometimes and we’re […]

The howling denizens of the Internet may not be a representative sample of real life, but they are loud nonetheless, and they’ve seemingly had it in for the Toyota Supra since the wraps came off. It’s too much a BMW, they say. It doesn’t feel like a real Supra, thanks to all those German parts […]

The large-car class is a weird place these days. Not exactly a ghost town, but not exactly a hotly contested segment, either. Rear-drive remains the purview of the Dodge/Chrysler bunch, while the rest of the segment consists of entry-luxury cruisers (Toyota Avalon, Lexus ES) and semi-sporty cars such as the Acura TLX, Nissan Maxima, Buick […]

This year’s New York Auto Show left me feeling a bit baffled. The 2018 edition was fairly eventful, both in terms of what was shown at the Javits Center and what I experienced during my off hours (no one randomly approached me on 8th avenue attempting to sell me cocaine this year), but this year seemed, as a fellow employee of our corporate mothership said, “chill.”

Not too chill – the morning was busy. And there was at least one important reveal after lunch.

Still, compared to 2018, the 2019 edition of the New York International Auto Show felt a tad more relaxed.

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Designing cars is a mix of art and science – and it’s about more than just looks.

Especially when the brand you work for has a lot on its plate. In the past year, Nissan has launched all-new models that represent a departure from the past (Kicks), updated others significantly (Altima) and not so significantly (Maxima and Murano), and has a few older models in the lineup that are getting very long in the tooth (Z, Frontier).

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One of my personal auto reviewer “rules” is that I try to test any vehicle I drove on a press junket later, at home, even if it’s months later (and even if it’s many months before I get around to writing about it). I do this because the potholed roads and unpredictable weather of the city […]

Today’s crossover craze may be in part a rebuke of minivans, but that hasn’t stopped Chrysler from putting effort into the class. After all, if the company that more or less invented the modern version of the people-toting minivan was offering up a subpar effort in the class, that wouldn’t reflect well on it. Chrysler […]

Volkswagen’s latest iteration of the Jetta is a well-rounded commuter car, but a tad boring. VW had an easy fix for that in mind – just implant the heart of the GTI hot hatch along with some Golf R bits. Boom, instant sports sedan. There’s been a GLI version of the Jetta since 1984, and […]

Jeep engineers and PR folks wasted no time in telling media, assembled in Sacramento to drive the all-new 2020 Jeep Gladiator mid-size pickup, that this truck is more than just a Wrangler with a pickup bed slapped on the back. Technically speaking, it’s true — there are key mechanical and structural differences. So no one […]

Life is often a matter of timing. Ask Kia about the difference between the 2020 Kia Telluride crossover and its last attempt at something similar – the Kia Borrego. Remember the Borrego? I do. That body-on-frame SUV wasn’t a poor vehicle – I drove one, briefly, and liked it – but it came to market […]