Car Review

First Drive: 2012 Nissan GT-R

Invincible. According to Webster’s, the word means “incapable of being conquered, overcome or subdued.” The adjective is often used to describe something so superior that it’s nearly impossible to overthrow. Want to know what invincibility feels like? Strap yourself into the driver’s seat of the 2012 Nissan GT-R, and then press the start button.

Just three years after successfully launching its flagship performance vehicle on our shores, the engineers at Nissan have introduced a subtly but completely reworked supercar. The engine has more power, the suspension has been revised, the wheels are lighter, the seats have been redesigned, the brakes are bigger, the chassis is stiffer and the aerodynamics have been reconfigured to improve cooling and provide more downforce. This isn’t a manufacturer’s token “mid-cycle refresh” to boost sales; these are changes that improve the overall drivability and performance of the GT-R so significantly that most will be inclined to consider it nothing short of a second-generation rebirth.

This story really started three years ago this April. That was when we first drove the then-all-new 2009 Nissan GT-R, the spiritual descendant of a long lineage of epic Nissan Skyline sports cars.
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Review: 2011 Ford Explorer Limited

They call it a reboot. It happens all the time in Hollywood when a movie franchise falls flat. After a blockbuster wears out its audience with a string of lesser sequels, the studio starts over, retelling the story from an entirely new angle.

The best example is Batman. The combination of Michael Keaton and director Tim Burton produced critical acclaim and big box office numbers for the first two Caped Crusader films in 1989 and 1992. Then came a new director, Joel Schumacher, who just about killed the franchise with Batman Forever in 1995 and Batman & Robin in 1997. Eight years passed before someone in Hollywood realized the Dark Knight’s name could still fill theater seats, and the franchise was rebooted in 2005 with the dark and gritty Batman Begins.

The totally redesigned 2011 Ford Explorer is the Blue Oval’s Batman Begins. Ford’s most famous sport utility vehicle has desperately needed a reboot ever since the Firestone tire recall in 2000 made it Rollover Enemy Number One. Rising gas prices haven’t helped either, but the tire debacle hurt the brand badly, with the Explorer going from this country’s third best-selling vehicle in 2000 with 445,157 sold to just over 60,000 bought in 2010. But just like Batman, the Explorer name had value that Ford couldn’t let go to waste. And so the 2011 Explorer is the sport utility story retold by Ford from an entirely new angle. The question is whether or not the Explorer’s name can still put butts in seats. Read more…

First Drive: 2011 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum AWD

“Stop living in the past,” say countless advice purveyors across a broad spectrum of media. It’s good advice if you’re trying to get over an ex-girlfriend, but you pretty much have to live in the past to drop almost $90,000 on a body-on-frame luxury SUV like the 2011 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum. That’s $88,295 to be precise, making this the second-most-expensive Caddy available. (First place by a slight margin goes to the Escalade Hybrid.)

The original GMT400 Escalade was a hastily created rebadge of the GMC Yukon, designed as an answer to the then-popular Lincoln Navigator. But it was the next-generation model, based on the GMT800 platform, that became the bling king, while the Lincoln was largely forgotten. Much hype surrounded the launch of the GMT900 platform that underpins the third-generation Escalade, and early on it proved its mettle by besting the Range Rover in a head-to-head shootout. That was 2006. Some five years on, the Escalade’s shortcomings are beginning to manifest themselves. More on that later…
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Car Review: 2011 Scion tC

Historians William Strauss and Neil Howe are known for their theory that America goes through a repeating cycle of four periods: a High, an Awakening, an Unraveling and a Crisis. Depending on who you believe, we could be in an Unraveling period about to fall headlong into a major crisis, which our two historians call the Fourth Turning. But if we persevere and turn the corner, we’ll find ourselves back in High times once again.

We reckon the Scion brand is in about the same spot. It hasn’t had much positive to report lately, so the redesigned 2011 Scion tC gives the brand something to talk about while it works out how to improve on its initially strong showing in the U.S. Does the new tC portend a return to High times for Scion, or is it leading a parade lap right into the Fourth Turning?

The Scion tC’s lines are new for 2011, but they’re very familiar. That’s probably because its dimensions are identical to the 2010 model with the exception of an additional 1.6 inches of overall width.
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2010 Nissan Maxima SV Sport is a lot of car for a lot of coin

Front-wheel drive is a funny thing. When originally introduced during the Thirties in the Cord 810 (then later in the awesome supercharged 812) and the Citro?n Traction Avant, FWD was hailed as a major breakthrough, a wondrous technological innovation that allowed for lower ride height and greatly increased passenger space. Postwar consumers got a taste of the wonders of FWD with the iconic Citro?n DS. At the top of its game in the Sixties, General Motors reintroduced FWD to American consumers with two remarkable luxury coupes: the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado and the 1967 Cadillac Eldorado. Come the Seventies, Citro?n produced what is arguably the greatest GT coupe of that decade, the impeccable (and FWD) SM.

It’s not that RWD is always better than FWD. Only in this case, it is.

Roll the clock forward to the Eighties and suddenly everything was being tugged around by its front wheels. Honda, Toyota, Nissan, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler all jumped head first onto the FWD bandwagon and, for the most part, they haven’t looked back. Granted, Cadillac has rethought which wheels get driven, but with the exception of a dinosaur livery-mobile, there isn’t a single rear-wheel-drive Lincoln to be found. Even Volkswagen got in on the transversely-mounted engine madness. This left only the Germans – namely Mercedes-Benz and BMW – to seriously carry the rear-wheel drive passenger car torch for nearly a decade. Sure, Lexus and Infiniti brought out some heavy hitting RWD sedans along with a raft of FWD offerings (M30 I30, G20 anyone?), but Acura never bothered.

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First Look: 2011 Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet

Bet you didn’t know the origin of the word “cabriolet.” In the horse-and-buggy era, the word was applied to lightweight open carriages pulled by two horses and used primarily for pleasure rides in fair weather. The word was pinched from the French verb “cabrioler,” meaning “to cavort” — move about carelessly, playfully or boisterously — or “to cut a caper.” The next installment in Mercedes-Benz‘s long line of “cavorters” isn’t exactly lightweight, but it promises to extend pleasure driving well beyond the traditional fair-weather season, thanks to a new innovation dubbed Aircap.

Aircap is engineered to work with the headrest-mounted neck-warming Airscarf to make top-down driving comfortable in the chillier weather that prevails in the U.K., Germany, and other northern climes where convertible sales are strongest. The challenge presented to engineers was to provide a largely draft-free top-down driving experience for all four passengers, ruling out those mesh screen gizmos that render the rear seat unusable. They started work in the 1990s and developed several solutions that were functional but aesthetically unpalatable.

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2009 BMW Z4 sDrive30i is an easy lover

BMW‘s storied history of building roadsters dates back to the original 328 of the 1930s. However, there have been gaps in the brand’s open-top lineage, including one extended stretch through the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. After a dalliance with the bizarre European market Z1, BMW finally got serious about roadsters again in the ’90s with the introduction of the Z3.

Earlier this year, the Munich brand introduced what’s essentially the third generation of its modern mainline roadster (discounting the aforementioned low-volume Z1 and the Z8) in the shape of its all-new BMW Z4. Upon its introduction, the esteemed Mr. Harley took our first crack at the new “E89″ at its Southern California launch last spring and came away with mixed feelings.

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First Drive: 2011 Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-CELL

Southern California fuel-cell devotees rejoice! You are about to get a second chance at blazing the trail toward long-range, quick-recharge, electric motoring that leaves nothing but pristine steam in your wake. So stop coveting thy neighbor’s Honda FCX Clarity and commence groveling to your Mercedes-Benz dealer in hopes of getting a crack at leasing one of 60 B-Class F-CELLs that will become available in SoCal late in the spring of 2010.

The B-Class, for those who don’t follow the tri-star’s home-market offerings, is a larger, roomier riff on the A-Class compact, both of which were developed with a sandwich floor construction designed to accommodate fuel tanks, exhaust systems, and even some of the combustion drivetrain beneath a slightly elevated floor. The design works well enough for the mass-market combustion vehicles, but it seems optimized for fuel-cell duty. The entire 80-kilowatt fuel cell, 1.4-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, and three 10,500 psi hydrogen tanks fit completely out of sight without impinging on the passenger or cargo space of the petro-powered variant. Those tanks refill in three minutes and hold 3.7 kg (8.2 pounds) of hydrogen, good for a claimed 285 miles of driving on the U.S. EPA combined cycle. Mercedes claims that makes this the longest-range electric-powered production vehicle. That equates, engineers claim, to 85 miles per diesel fuel gallon equivalent on the EPA cycle. Impressive, given that the fuel-cell hardware adds 550 pounds to a B200 turbo with equal performance (9.6 seconds, 0-62 mph).

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First Test: 2009 Audi R8 5.2 FSI Quattro

How much is half a second and 105 horsepower worth to you? You’ll want to ponder that question if you’re in the enviable position of having to decide between the V-8-propelled version of Audi’s R8 two-seat, mid-engine exotic or the newly introduced V-10 edition. When the cars are similarly configured, the ten’s two additional cylinders command a premium of nearly $10K apiece.

Are they worth it?

It’s at this point our test drivers get all philosophical and existential. Is a 2001 Beringer Private Reserve a “better” Cabernet than a 2002 Quintessa? Do we prefer Angelina Jolie to Jennifer Connelly? “GoodFellas” or “The Sopranos”? It’s debates such as these that keep the MT water cooler boiling.

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Review: 2010 Suzuki Kizashi GTS is up for the Challenge

The 2010 Suzuki Kizashi will change the way you look at Suzuki. To put it bluntly, the Kizashi is the strongest evidence yet that Suzuki’s automotive division is no longer operating on autopilot in the States. And what’s more, the brand is showing serious confidence. Consider the vehicles against which the automaker wants you to cross shop its Kizashi: the Acura TSX and Audi A4.

Suzuki has launched a promotion called the Kizashi Test Drive Challenge that will pay $100 to anyone who test drives a Kizashi and still decides to buy the more expensive TSX or A4. After spending some quality time with the model, we don’t envy those potential Acura and Audi customers who are unprepared for how difficult their decision is going to be.

For the longest time, Suzuki subsisted in the U.S. market by selling mostly rebadged versions of other automakers’ vehicles, all of them forgettable and none exceptional. Historically, the brand has been wedded to General Motors through products like the three-row XL7 that is built atop GM’s ubiquitous Theta platform, to say nothing of the Forenza and Reno, versions of models developed and built by GM’s South Korean subsidiary, GM Daewoo. More recently there’s the Suzuki Equator mid-size pickup, a refaced Nissan Frontier introduced in 2008 that doesn’t even appear on the company’s U.S. website anymore.

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