First Drives

Sitting down at the pre-drive briefing with Ford engineers ahead of sampling the refreshed 2015 Focus, water bottles clinked as we wet our whistles before Q&A. While pouring a glass, we noticed something stamped on the bottle label: "1L." One liter. We were palming the exact displacement of ...

Most everyone would agree that BMW offers a range of very attractive and well-proportioned coupes, sedans, crossovers and wagons. Yet there is one member of its family that has always struck us as a bit odd: the X6. Proudly coined "The world's first Sports Activity Coupe" by its German maker, ...

Rolls-Royce Director of Global Communications Richard Carter tells me that his storied employer is "a company that does not chase volume." In a perfect world, mused Carter, the carmaker would sell "one less" of its ultra-luxury vehicles than the fast-expanding world market demands. And, thanks ...

UPDATE: Ford has responded to our inquiries for curb weights on all models and released figures for all models. You can see a chart in the gallery and our article below has been updated accordingly. To learn more about the all-new 2015 F-150 and get an early read on its potential hero-or-zero ...

In cars, as in all things, there exists a huge chasm between what is possible and what is probable. It may be possible, for example, that within a few years, we'll be zipping around town in hydrogen-powered, autonomous flying cars. But the likelihood is that we'll all be driving four-wheeled ...

Predicting the future direction of Honda's compact CR-V would have been difficult based on the Civic-derived model that first arrived on our shores for the 1997 model year. The newcomer, selling alongside the body-on-frame Passport (a hastily rebadged Isuzu Rodeo), was a cute compact crossover ...

It's hard to love a minivan, but it's very, very easy to use one. More than any other kind of vehicle – save a panel van, perhaps – the minivan is the most appliance-like of four-wheeled transportation devices. And most minivan buyers don't need to love their purchases; they just need ...

Advertising firms have done an admirable job convincing consumers that the easiest way to find a best-in-segment car or truck is by looking at a few key metrics. In the most elementary terms, the vehicle with the highest horsepower, most gears in its transmission housing, lowest acceleration ...

Be it in the category of luggage, pocket knives, personal computers or cars, the concept of an all-in-one, do-everything product is attractive to a lot of consumers. Why fuss around with stocking your pockets with toothpicks and tiny saws, asks Victorinox, when one well-packaged device can offer ...

Oh, Porsche. Just as the dust settles over the 911 GT3's no manual gearbox kerfuffle, the Germans have gone and yanked the yummy naturally aspirated 4.8-liter V8 from the Cayenne S and replaced it with a twin-turbo 3.6-liter V6. Is nothing sacred in Porscheland? Perhaps not... but that's not ...

Every car has its definitive year. Whether it be the Chevrolet Corvette, the Ford Mustang, or yes, even the ubiquitous Toyota Camry, 10.2 million of which have been sold since 1983, every car has its year. For the Camry, that year was 1992. With son-of-Lexus styling, a clear sense of purpose and ...

At 50 years old, the object of fantasies, a tuner's dream, a movie star and more than nine million strong, it couldn't be truer to say that the Ford Mustang needs no introduction. This newest Mustang, however – making the biggest changes we've seen to the pony car since perhaps 1964.5 ...

Minivan sales have stagnated in recent years, and Kia tells me that no fewer than 15 models have been completely eliminated from the market since crossovers rose to prominence. So why in the world is the company not only sticking by the Sedona, but also actively investing in it, giving it a ...

Typically, when I approach a new vehicle launch, it's with a degree of optimism. Nowadays, we just expect that every new vehicle will pose a legitimate challenge to segment leaders. Mid-cycle refreshes, meanwhile, have taken on a greater degree of importance, as customers' preferences for the ...

I didn't get a chance to drive the Lexus IS F until 2009, two years after the car had gone on sale, but I still vividly remember the day it happened. Having piloted almost every other vehicle in the Lexus lineup at that point, I was stoked to finally get some wheel time in the V8-powered, ...

Germany's automakers seem to get their jollies by watching us scratch our heads. Instead of sticking to traditional automotive bodystyles, they've been deliberately blurring the lines between them and inventing new terminology with which to classify their creations. So we're left with low-slung ...

It ain't easy being the Mercedes-Benz C-Class. Up until now, the compact luxury sedan has had a tough job description: offer sufficient driving dynamics to allow it to compete with the lauded BMW 3 Series, while also serving as the lowest cost of entry into the coveted Mercedes-Benz portfolio. ...

Save for a few years of its century-plus existence, Cadillac has offered its unique brand of American elegance in two-door, fixed-roof bodystyles. Most of these cars were big, floaty barges, of course, though its most recent offering was the wedge-shaped CTS Coupe. But whereas the CTS Coupe was a ...

Immediately after landing at Washington's Dulles airport, an Acura representative handed me the keys to a 2014 TSX with fewer than 180 miles on its clock. The four-cylinder engine started and I pointed its signature beak towards a destination in Middleburg, VA. It was a curious move by the ...

What weighs 30,000 pounds? Big Ben's Westminster bell. A navy ship anchor. Or as we found out during our first drive program for the 2015 Ford F-Series Super Duty, seven pallets of cinder blocks loaded onto a dual-axle gooseneck trailer. The test was part of a raft of towing demonstrations that ...