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Driven: 2010 Volkswagen Golf
Driving enthusiasts of a certain age can perhaps remember the mid-1970s arrival of Volkswagen’s first front-wheel drive offering, the groundbreaking Rabbit. Compared to the rear-engine, air-cooled Beetles, Fastbacks, and Squarebacks that preceded it (cars that, while virtuous, were also quirky and past their prime), the Rabbit seemed as modern as tomorrow—a car that emphasized yet redefined VW’s core values. On one hand the Rabbit was perfectly sensible and practical, as the best VWs always are, yet it also had a soulful side, appealing to drivers with its taut handling, communicative steering, responsive drive train, and jaunty personality. Though not the least expensive “economy car” of its time, the Rabbit arguably offered more substance and value than its lower-priced competitors, serving up serious German automotive craftsmanship at an Everyman price.
Who Will Adopt Saab’s Orphans?
Saab is done for. So it goes. But, what of the brand loyalists? What will they do when they’re done swallowing sadness and it’s time to buy a new car? Who will offer a new home to the Saab orphans?
Here are the top ten brands.
Report: All-New Chevrolet Aveo To Debut At Detroit Auto Show
General Motors held a small event last night in Detroit (we weren’t in attendance) where new products were shown and detailed, and while no official information or product specifications have broke from that event, information has leaked out suggesting that we’ll see the next-generation Chevrolet Aveo in January at the North American International Auto Show. Additionally, Chevrolet re-confirmed that the global Spark minicar will be coming to America, slotted underneath the Aveo in the automaker’s product line.
Third Look: 2010 Ford Taurus SEL Is More Than Just A Good Value
With all of the coverage that we’ve given to the Ford Taurus SHO lately, it’s easy to forget that the bread-and-butter SE, SEL, and Limited models still offer a whole lot of goodness, even without twin-turbo EcoBoost V-6. We just spent one week with a front-wheel-drive SEL test car, and while the overall value proves to be the Taurus’s best selling point, this car possesses plenty of other good qualities.
First Look: 2010 Hyundai Tucson
The previous-generation Tucson, while trusty and capable, looked rather odd and never really separated itself from the more popular Kia Sportage that it shared (everything) with. This all changes for 2010, though. The new Tucson is more powerful, more economical, and much more appealing on the eyes.
First Look: 2011 Ford Fiesta
The Fiesta has been a success story in Europe for many, many years, and it seems like America’s biggest concern is how the Fiesta’s design would change once the car was brought to our shores. Well, as you can see by the photos, it’s slightly different, but in a way looks like a natural evolution of the Fiesta. Consider it a mid-cycle refresh, if you will.
First Look: 2011 Lexus LFA
After many, many rounds of spy shots, the final details and production images have been released of the much-anticipated Lexus LFA supercar, which will have a limited production run of 500 units and will be sold for — get ready — $375,000. (Start saving your pennies.)
Driven: 2010 Ford Taurus SHO
Charging into any of a thousand deep green tunnels of trees, twin turbos spin 170,000 rpm just in front of the firewall. The all-wheel-drive bites into the asphalt tossed across North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Only way deep, way hot into the corner do the tires begin to sound off. Nanoseconds before, the steering already communicated the impending understeer. The paddle shifter calls for a three-to-two downshift. It engages with a rev-match in 0.75 milliseconds. Nail the throttle for instant power. Clipping a leaf-strewn apex just for effect. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Driven: 2010 Kia Forte
While sitting around a candlelit table at Chandler’s Crabhouse in downtown Seattle, we talked with other journalists about our recent drive in Kia’s all-new Forte sedan—the replacement for the long-running Spectra. We discussed our generally lukewarm driving impressions, but still resolved that the Forte is a good competitor in the compact segment. One colleague said, “If I only write about the drive experience, it could come off as a bad review—but it isn’t actually a bad car at all.” So stay with us here, because while there may not be any juicy, exciting, sports-car-type bits about the Kia Forte, it’s still a perfectly adequate player in a segment that needs to appeal to the widest variety of shoppers. Think about the Nissan Sentra, Toyota Corolla, and Ford Focus sedans—these cars are tragically vanilla, but they still sell in droves. And so the Kia Forte comes to town, bringing with it a bigger pile of standard equipment, attractive design, and a very low price point. None of these cars are particularly exciting, and the Forte still manages to seal up the whole compact sedan package better than these aforementioned competitors.
Driven: 2010 Mazda3
When you think about driving along the mountain roads of southern California, your brain immediately fixates on images of Lotus Elises and Porsche Boxsters as potential quick-footed dance partners for a day of driving fun. But in reality, any car with nimble steering, a taught suspension, and a bit of pep in its step can give similar pleasures. Take our 2010 Mazda3, for example. We spent many hours throwing it through a seemingly endless series of back-and-forth, left-and-right turns, and walked away feeling quite satisfied. The previous generation 3 was seriously fun in these conditions. We’re happy to report that the new car is too.
Driven: 2010 Chevrolet Camaro, Decisions Decisions…
The obvious comparisons surrounding the all-new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro pit the reconstituted pony car against the Mustang and Challenger. Well duh. We submit, however, that the obvious overlooks something right before your eyes; a Camaro versus Camaro face off.
Driven: 2010 Kia Soul Sport
When an automaker launches a new vehicle, there’s usually a lot of corporate enthusiasm built in. All of the engineers, executives, and public relations people get really excited about their latest and greatest offering, and in turn, they hope that the automotive press feels that excitement, too. The Kia people are no different in this regard but, given the automaker’s rather bland current lineup, it’s been harder for them to sell it.
Driven: 2009 Mazda RX-8 GT
The Mazda RX-8 continues to have us puzzled as to why more of these aren’t on the road. No, the rotary engine isn’t four-season friendly, and neither is the car’s rear-wheel-drive, but when the weather is right, the RX-8 really shines. For 2009, a re-worked exterior sports a slightly more aggressive fascia, and while our Grand Touring model doesn’t have all of the beefy visual add-ons found on the R3 (a new model for ’09), we still had a lot of fun throwing this Mazda into bends and revving the twin-rotor engine way up past 8000 rpm.
Driven: 2009 Hummer H3
The Hummer H3 is an interesting vehicle to drive in light of our nation’s fuel crisis. Off-road enthusiasts and Hummer loyalists appreciate the H3’s off-road capability and style, but the H3 is becoming tougher and tougher to see to new consumers and the automotive press alike. Our test car’s sticker price is just a notch below the $40,000 mark, and while that might seem like a bargain to some, we’d search elsewhere for our SUV needs.
Driven: 2009 Suzuki Equator RMZ-4
The auto purist inside nearly every enthusiast still pines for the now far-gone days when automakers, conceived of, built, and sold each of their creations – owning both the process and the results from cradle to grave. Of course the results of such one application engineering weren’t always laudable, and the process was (and is where and when it still happens) inherently more wasteful than the modern practice of building multiple vehicles on the same or similar running gear. And yet even today, platform sharing vehicles, especially those between two distinct parent companies, are often dismissed with a “badge engineered” label and cast as being somehow less good than the earlier product with which they share an architecture.
Driven: 2009 Honda Fit Sport
Even though the original Fit debuted in 2001, we Americans were deprived of the little Honda that could until it finally arrived Stateside in 2006. After years of successful sales in Japan and Europe (where it sold as the Jazz) the folks at Honda decided to see how the diminutive hatchback would do in the bigger-is-better United States auto market. At that time, a gallon of regular unleaded still cost less than three dollars and consumers were lined up for miles waiting for new crossovers and sport-utilities to hit dealer lots. Not even Honda had anticipated that the Fit would sell roughly 80,000 units each year in America.
Driven: We Drive the 2009 Mazda6
Hard as it may be to fathom, we automotive journalists get things wrong every once in a while. Despite perpetually cheering for the 2003-2008 Mazda6’s ragtag charms and dynamic excellence in a crowd of somnambulant sedans, it never really sold. Nevermind that it was a wieldy package and fun to grab by the scruff on winding roads, it languished on showroom floors while far duller drives poured out of showrooms like so many bags of rice. Heck, we even heartily applauded the availability of a segment-best three separate body styles (sedan, wagon, and touring), as well as a genuine high-performance variant, the Mazdaspeed6. Still no dice. Great handling and a multiplicity of formats are evidently no substitute for outright size and power in the family sedan stakes. Not that we’re bitter or anything.
Winding Road’s Top Twelve Cars Of 2009
Over the past twelve months we’ve driven or reviewed (and often both) something on the order of 250 vehicles. Be it on some far-flung and usually stunning road served up by an automaker for a new car launch, or on the slightly more humble highways and byways that surround our Michigan and Texas offices, we’ve had a fair taste of what was on offer in the automotive universe during 2009. We figure the very least we can do is to tell you which ones we liked best.
Winding Road’s Guide To Winter Driving
Despite the April Issue indication you may have noticed on the cover of this month’s Winding Road (check out our full new issue at www.magazine.WindingRoad.com), it’s actually just around the middle of the long Michigan winter as we write this. That’s bad news for anyone who values anything in the way of a short sleeve or a naturally occurring tan, but it’s surprisingly good news for us driving enthusiasts.
We lean towards that group of people that embrace four full seasons in all of their glory, and love to drive through each of them. Which is why we’ve been paying special attention this year to the motive joys that can be had when our world is white. Be it driving a sports car or a convertible, with a new set of snows or in a frigid testing environment, we’re into winter driving. Find out why.
