Category: Car Reviews
2013 Ford Escape First Drive: A newer – and nicer – means of escape
San Francisco, CA – For a weekend escape, you’d be hard-pressed to improve upon San Francisco. With convenient access to Napa Valley, Marin County and Carmel, if the city doesn’t compel you to stay you’ll find any number of compelling reasons to leave. For those media invited to a ‘first drive’ of Ford’s 2013 Escape, [...]
2012 Infiniti G37xS Coupe review: It’s cool, but we wanted it cold
Usually when we have a sleek and powerful sports coupe for testing, we want fair skies and warm temperatures. Not so with the 2012 Infiniti G37xS Coupe. We wanted snow and ice. If that seems odd, consider that small, lower case “x” in the car’s name. It stands, of course, for all-wheel drive, a feature [...]
2012 Fiat 500 Abarth road test: A Mighty Mite that’s feisty, fun and frugal
First to arrive in the United States last year was the Fiat 500, a tiny Italian cutie that is best suited for duty in crowded urban areas or as a suburban runabout. And, then, along came the 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth. Oh, what a difference! Thanks to Abarth, the Italian manufacturer’s performance division, that sluggish, [...]
2013 Infiniti JX marks the spot
It wasn’t that long ago when people played favorites with manufacturers. Your dad was a Ford man because his father was and his father before him. Customer loyalty to a car brand used to be a given. Over the past 40 years, however, we’ve seen brand loyalty erode to the point of non-existence. Which is [...]
2012 Mazda Mazda5 Grand Touring review: Driving of the fittest
There are times when a particular vehicle is fitted for the task at hand we recently need to transport—by her self-description—a little old lady and a series of 18x18x18 inch boxes, get reasonable gas mileage around town, and of course, not feel like we were driving a penalty box. The vehicle that seemed so right? [...]
2012 Buick Verano road test: An upscale compact for a downsized world
With rising gasoline prices and and upcoming tougher fuel-mileage requirements, small could become the new big in the automotive world. If that’s the case, the 2012 Buick Verano should be well positioned to capitalize on a change in buyers’ preferences.. The all-new compact Verano has the ability to show many traditional bigger-is-better American car buyers [...]
2012 BMW 650i Coupe review: Practicality is overrated…but the 650i isn’t
Practicality is highly overrated. So is reasonableness and being logical. Because if one were serious about the transportation of human beings, one could move more for less than the $100,825 price sticker on our test 2012 BMW 650i Coupe. Or even, by eliminating all the optional extras, a mere $83,000. But the 650i Coupe isn’t [...]
2012 Cadillac Escalade road test: Still bold, but feeling old after all these years
No question about it, I enjoyed my time behind the wheel of the 2012 Cadillac Escalade. I loved the satisfying burble and growl of its powerful 6.2-liter V-8 engine. I enjoyed the smoothness of its six-speed automatic transmission, I marveled at the ease with which its 403 horsepower and 417 pound-feet of torque could authoritatively [...]
2012 Audi A6 3.0T road test: This German can wow the driver and the passengers
At first glance, the changes to the new 2012 Audi A6 don’t look that major, but a closer look at the German manufacturer’s newest generation mid-size sports/luxury sedan proves that the development team was hard at work. Although the 2012 sedan’s profile remains unmistakably Audi, you may notice immediately that there is a new front [...]
2013 Ford Taurus SHO first drive: Its eager disposition shines through on a dreary day
Three years into its product cycle, the 2013 Ford Taurus has received a number of refinements, revisions and upgrades designed to make it more appealing to the buyer of a full-size-sedan. There have been some design revisions — Ford calls them refinements — to give the SE, SEL and Limited models a more athletic appearance.. [...]
