#AWD

While no one was looking, the Toyota Highlander had its 25th birthday, originally showing up in the calendar year 2000 as a 2001 model – causing the sort of mathematics chicanery in which us mere mortals would actually identify the thing as being twenty-three years old, not twenty-five. Anyway.

Criticize the Bronco Sport all you want – it shouldn’t bear the Bronco name, it should have been the Maverick whilst the Mav shoulda been the Ranchero, and so forth – but there’s no denying it is a healthy seller for the Blue Oval. A new Sasquatch package is likely to push those sales even further north.

The tri-shield brand continues to revamp its product lineup, announcing major revisions to the Enclave, its entrant in the murderously competitive three-row midsize crossover segment.

The steady stream of teasers for the 2025 Infiniti QX80 continues apace, and it appears your author has drawn the straw to act as yer guide in this matter until the thing actually drops later this month.

When American Motors introduced the Eagle for the 1980 model year, followed by Audi beginning Quattro sales here a year later, it was finally possible to buy cars—not trucks—that powered all four wheels with no confusing decisions demanded of drivers. Toyota's response to this was the All-Trac AWD system, which first appeared here in 1988 models. Here's one of those first-year cars: a Camry All-Trac found in a Denver self-service yard recently.

Now they’ve binned everything that is not an SUV, Lincoln is free to spend its allowance as it sees fit on new clothes and tech for its crossover lineup. To be fair, that style of vehicle is the beyond-dominant preference of most shoppers in the Lincoln demographic – and the brand would be ill-advised to walk away from those profits. Doesn’t make us pine any less for a Continental with coach doors.

The motoring world has known about the Equinox EV for some time, ever since the company spilled some electric beans at CES in Vegas earlier this year. Now, the folks at Chevy are ready to talk specifics – including trim levels and estimated driving range.

Chasing the active lifestyle crowd, or perhaps cluing in that the CX-5 is an excellent machine but there’s room on the lot for a variant with a smidgen of off-road cred, Mazda introduced the CX-50 earlier this year. Think of it as a CX-5 in hiking boots and an L.L. Bean coat.

Now, the brand is taking it a step further with the CX-50 Meridian, a trim that brings all-terrain tires and a smattering of exterior accents to imply it’s ready for the trail – or at least that gravel patch at the mall.

Stylists at the Exploding Galaxy have tweaked the front end of their Outback and Legacy models for 2023, with a wide-mouth mason grille now bookended by redesigned LED headlamps. There’s also a smattering of new technology, all of which the company figures is worth a $1,000 price hike.

And, in the fine print, we learned Subaru is now charging different Destination & Delivery charges for different states.

Even though everything in the General Motors universe looked pretty shaky in 2009 and GM-affiliated Suzuki gave up on its attempts to sell Suzuki-badged cars in America in 2013, somehow an interesting new Suzuki midsize sedan managed to appear on our shores for the 2010 model year: The Kizashi. Just under 23,000 Kizashis were sold in the United States and Canada during the car’s 2010-2013 sales run, and I’ve found this clean ’11 in a yard just south of Denver, Colorado.

There’s an argument to be made Mazda is the little car company that could. Representing a sliver of the American market compared to its larger competitors, the Hiroshima-made vehicles are typically infused with the type of driving fun that’s seemingly been surgically removed from the vehicles with which it competes.

Actually, the term ‘Hiroshima-made’ is no longer totally correct. With the introduction of the 2023 CX-50 crossover you see on these digital pages, Mazda now has a manufacturing footprint in this country to the annual tune of 150,000 vehicles. It’s only fitting they’d deploy this new capability for the type of rig most Americans prefer: An all-wheel-drive crossover with an off-road attitude.

This 2022 model year marks the introduction of a fifth-generation WRX – that all-wheel-drive hooligan that some of us first discovered on the screens of a PlayStation. The car has gone through several permutations over the years, including some ill-advised styling choices, but has never left the psyche of most gearheads as one of the preferred turbocharged tools for sliding around a dirt-covered back road.

For 2022, the WRX adds a new top-of-the-line GT trim, featuring electronically controlled dampers that can tailor the dynamic performance to the driver’s preferences. But – hang on a minute; according to the bumf, that trim is only available with a CVT!

The humanity.

Some of us who are rapidly approaching a certain age will clearly recall when Lexus (and Infiniti, to a lesser extent) first showed up on the luxury car scene and promptly took the establishment to school. Fast forward 30+ years and we find an upstart Korean brand attempting the same thing – and being largely successful.

The GV70 plugged an important hole in the Genesis lineup, given the perpetual thirst of Americans for crossovers and SUVs. Its unique lighting treatments might be a love-it-or-leave-it affair, but there’s no denying this thing brings the goods to a cutthroat segment.

Mazda had elected to make all future CX SUVs default to all-wheel drive, rather than front-wheel drive, as it continues to shift its products upmarket. However, the announcement was curiously hidden within the marketing materials for the refreshed CX-5, rather than being allowed to stand on its own.

From the 2022 model year onward, all Mazda products carrying the CX designation will come equipped from the factory with i-Activ all-wheel drive. For now, this pertains exclusively to the U.S. market and will undoubtedly result in vehicles carrying a higher price tag. AWD typically requires shoppers to tack another $1,500 (give or take) onto the MSRP and we doubt Mazda will be giving away the extra parts for free.

Fresh off the line for this model year, the new QX60 turns Infiniti’s offering in the brutally competitive luxury crossover segment from a long-in-the-tooth ride to a modern new whip with screens and tech galore. Snicker if you will at my choice of mentioning those two features off the top, but customers spending in excess of 50 large on a rig like this tend to be entranced by those items.

There is a quartet of trims on tap for the 2022 QX60, all of which are propelled by the same engine and transmission combo. Our man Tim had the chance to sample a top-shelf trim in the tony environs of Napa Valley, but is that the one to get? Let’s break down the options and find out.