Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution Review

If you've seen my photo, you know that my boy racer days are (or should be, anyway) long over.So imagine my surprise when, on my way to pick up my daughter from ballet, a car pulls up next to me at a stoplight and starts revving like crazy. I glance over and there are two teenage boys...in an older Mitsubishi Evolution...drooling over the new one I'm driving.I roll down the window."Hey, dude! Nice car!"(I'm still trying to figure out which would have been worse..."dude" or "sir".)I say "Thanks, yours too.", roll up the window and accelerate normally when the light turns green. This mystifies the boys who roar ahead and fall back, finally timing...

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Nissan Altima Hybrid Review

In the past decade or so, I've probably driven 20 or more hybrids...ten of them Toyota Priuses. But the Nissan Altima Hybrid is the only one where someone stopped me...in traffic...wanting to talk about it. We were at a stoplight and he and his wife motioned furiously for me to roll down the window. I thought maybe I had a flat...or a fire. Nope. They noticed the rather discreet "hybrid" badge on the trunk. It was a short red light, so a short conversation.Until the next red light...when he had more questions. It took two more stoplights (by then I'd just left the window down) for him to get to the big question: "What kinda mileage you getting?"I...

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Jaguar XF/Jaguar XF Supercharged Review

As a single finger touches the button on the console, the eye is drawn to motions in the cabin...the instrument cluster lights up...the air conditioning vents in the dashboard rotate into open position and a round knob glides upward from the console where it had previously been flush with the surface.That's the first five seconds inside the new Jaguar XF. And it's meant to send the message that, nice as it was, the English gentleman's club era is over at Jaguar. No more cars meant to evoke the 50s and 60s (or reruns of Inspector Morse on PBS).The exterior of the XF (which replaces the S-Type) sends the same message. Leaping cat hood ornament?...

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Saturn Astra XR Review

Small cars needn't be cheap. Not as in price tag, but as in materials and craftsmanship. Unfortunately, there's a history in this country of domestic automakers not doing their best work on small cars and of foreign automakers "Americanizing" the products they sell here (the low point of which had to have been the 1978 VW Rabbit and its color-keyed "Americans like this stuff" interior).GM should be applauded for what it's done with the Saturn Astra. It has taken the car known as the Opel Astra in Germany, put it on a boat and shipped it to the States. Period. Yes, that means you actually have to read the owner's manual to find out what the symbols...

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Mercedes-Benz ML 320 BlueTec Review

Noise? No.Smell? No.Slow acceleration? No.Trouble passing emissions? No.Must not be a diesel, right? Think again. Mercedes-Benz new BlueTec has done what a lot of people said was impossible just a few short years ago...passed tough new emissions testing in all 50 states without substantial and expensive reformulation of diesel fuel.How clean is it? Well, I stood by the tailpipe of our idling ML320 test car last week and couldn't detect a trace of diesel smell. Those tough regulations have kept many diesels off the U.S. market for the past few years. A shame, too, since diesels have huge benefits including great fuel economy and long engine life....

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Ford Focus Coupe Review

Just in time for rising gas prices (and tightening consumer credit), Ford has freshened the Focus Coupe.This is a great time to have a competitive product for under $20,000 (under $18,000 is even better)...and the Focus, decently equipped, can slot in around $17,000. For that, you get a roomy (by subcompact standards) coupe with better-than-decent performance and very good fuel economy. We'd pass on the trick lighting that can make the footwells and the cupholders light up in seven different colors...but we'd definitely keep the SYNC audio system that allows you to hook up your iPod or other digital music device and then control it by voice....

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Ford Mustang Bullitt Review

(Note: This is a 2009 model. Read the review of the new 2010 Mustang GT here.)If, in 1968, Ford had introduced a car that looked like the 1928 Model A, there would have been more stockholders selling shares than dealers selling cars. But pop culture is a funny thing...and a 40 year flashback can work...as long as it's the right 40 years.The Ford Mustang Bullitt is a car that trades on two images...one, of a car...and two, of the man who drove it: Steve McQueen. The 60s were full of cool cars on TV and in the movies, but you don't see Dodge trying to rush a Dodge Dart GTS Mannix edition to market, do you? Steve McQueen was beyond cool (for the...

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Toyota Prius Review

Once strange, the shape of the second-generation Toyota Prius hybrid is now instantly familiar...the Beetle of the new milennium. Given how many have been sold and are on the street, it's hard to remember that Toyota was taking a big chance a few years ago with a radical design. In fact, they were. In 2004, they sold 54,000 of them. Last year, it was 181,000...with 190,000 expected to leave dealer lots in calendar 2008.Sales figures aren't the only thing that has grown on the Prius...so have sales prices. The 2004 model was a loss leader at $20,000 base...and most buyers kept it simple. The Prius we drove recently started at $23,770 and got the...

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Infiniti M35 Review

Some guys like convertibles. Some like coupes. I like 'em all, but I have a strong appreciation for sedans. Not only do you get practicality, you also get the most structural rigidity...which translates into security, handling and feedback.Infiniti's M35 is a jewel, pure and simple. After 15 years of an automotive identity crisis, Nissan's upscale division has found its place in life the past 5 years or so...making Acura salesmen work harder. A silky smooth 275-horsepower 3.5 liter V6 with a five-speed automatic move the M35 with authority...and still deliver 16 city MPG and 23 highway, according to the EPA. If you bought one without options,...

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Volvo XC70 Review

Timing is everything. Eight or nine years ago, Volvo took their V70 station wagon, added all-wheel drive and called it the "Cross Country". Sales were modest. So about five years ago, Volvo whipped up a bigger crossover SUV on the S80 sedan platform and called it the XC90. Sales were much stronger, thank you.Now, though, fluctuating gas prices have a lot of drivers thinking bigger is not necessarily better. Just in time, Volvo brings us...the Cross Country...but now it's called the XC70.Frankly, it's a great move...bolstering a strong product with an association to the popular XC90. The XC70 is everything a Volvo wagon should be...strong, safe,...

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Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid Review

Would a 38 percent increase in fuel economy put a full-size SUV back on your shopping list? Chevrolet is hoping the answer is yes, because that's what they've done with the Tahoe Hybrid.Putting a gasoline/electric hybrid system under the hood of the Tahoe runs the EPA estimated gas mileage up to 21 city/22 highway. Hybrids' ability to run on purely electric power at low speeds and to shut off at stoplights and in drive-throughs means bigger gains in city driving than on the open road.Driving the Tahoe Hybrid is like driving any other Tahoe...very pleasant...made more so by the fact the gas gauge is taking a lot longer to move off of "F"...and...

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Subaru Impreza 2.5GT Review

Somewhere out there, there must be a group of drivers for whom the Subaru Impreza is too mild and the Subaru Impreza WRX too wild...because Subaru has just split the difference with the new Impreza 2.5GT.The 2.5GT looks like the rally-inspired WRX...but instead of the 265 horsepower turbocharged intercooled engine mated to a 5-speed manual, it comes with a 224 horsepower turbocharged intercooled engine coupled with a 4-speed automatic. Now, before you start bemoaning the loss of those 41 horses, that's actually the same power output as the '08 WRX...so the WRX gets a big boost and the 2.5GT moves in to take its place, at least as far as horsepower...

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Audi Q7 Review

Don't like a certain vehicle after a test drive? Try one with a smaller engine.Now, that may seem all wrong (especially coming from a car guy), but every now and then, the weight of the bigger engine goofs up the handling just enough to make the extra power anything from unpleasant to unusable.Case in point: The Audi Q7. The first one of these I drove about a year and a half ago had the V8 engine...I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was something about it that was just....un-Audilike.A recent week in the 3.6-liter V6 made it clear...it was the handling. See, the Q7 is a big SUV (based on the same platform as the Volkswagen Touraeg and...

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Audi TT Roadster Review

Sleek.What was once a study in half-circles is now a lithe, svelte machine that oozes grace well beyond its small size.The redesign of the Audi TT makes the coupe look better, too...but the true impact is on the roadster. Put the top down on one of these and just see if the restaurant valet can bring himself to do anything other than leave it up front where it looks so good. There's a lot in the way of performance to recommend the TT roadster, too. No, it's not a fire-breathing monster, but 200 horsepower in a fairly light body mated to a six-speed automatic is way more than adequate...and returns better than average economy. The EPA says the...

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Pontiac G8 Review

My driver's ed car in high school was a big Pontiac sedan...a 1972 Catalina...with a 455-cubic inch V8 engine. Just perfect for three not-yet-licensed 15 and a half year olds and a teacher with what may have been narcolepsy. Mr. Walkup's snore (usually about 20 minutes into the 90-minute class) was the signal to my best friend and myself (the third student was an exceptionally timid girl) to bury our right feet to the floorboards on the wide-open stretches of U.S. 395 between Bishop and Mammoth Lakes, California. That was probably the last big Pontiac you could do that in and have any fun. Emissions regulations, insurance surcharges and the Arab...

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Volkswagen Passat Station Wagon Review

Forget who killed the electric car. Who killed the American station wagon (my vote is the movie National Lampoon's Vacation and its four-wheeled co-star, an early-80s Ford Country Squire that looked like the J.C. Whitney Parts warehouse exploded around it)? Whoever it was, it drove us into the arms of the minivan and the SUV. And now with the minivan considered as uncool as wagons ever were and gasoline credit card bills prompting re-evaluations of the wisdom of SUV ownership, a lot of smart drivers are saying "What we need is a....station wagon".Fortunately, the Europeans (who also didn't abandon the utilitarian hatchback the way we did here...

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Honda Accord Coupe Review

I've got a friend I've known for 21 years. We've always talked cars, as most guys do (especially, I guess, when one of the guys writes about them). He's owned classic Chevys from the 1940s, a couple of 70s and 80s Mazda RX-7s and most recently has been the owner (along with his wife) of his-n-hers Lexuses. So imagine my surprise when he said "You know what I really want? The new Accord." I must've looked stunned, because he quickly added "The coupe. It's really hot-looking."Now understand: I've been recommending Hondas in general and Accords in particular to friends for about 25 years now. It's my standard "you can't go wrong" recommendation....

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Range Rover Sport Review

Lusting after a Range Rover but can't quite swing the $80,000 (typically equipped) price tag? How about a near look-alike that lets you keep $20,000 in the bank? The Range Rover Sport is actually based on the mid-size (for Land Rover, anyway) LR3, but re-bodied to look like the big Range Rover. Unless you're especially observant (a few inches missing from the overall length and a less-upright rear window are the biggest giveaways), you've probably looked at Sports and thought they were the flagship.On the inside, Land Rover has created an ambiance that suggests you're not settling for less...and an extra $3,000 buys still more...the Luxury Interior...

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