SILVIO CALABI: Opinionated at any speed

When the Acura Legend sedan arrived in the U.S., in 1986, we were already imprinted on Honda cars and motorbikes (not to say lawnmowers, snowblowers and outboard motors), so a luxury brand from the same company, while novel, was well received. Toyota and Nissan soon followed with Lexus and Infiniti, and it didn’t take long for distinct identities to emerge for each — identities that have changed little, if at all, in four decades. 

I cannot count how…

Minivans too have been upgraded in features and luxury. Although it is still true that no one casually-on-purpose drops the keyfob to a minivan on the bar at a posh club, hoping to attract attention, like pickup trucks these things are no longer the domestic drudges they once were. There’s no better exemplar of this than the latest, fifth-generation Honda Odyssey. Luxury, convenience, powered doors, abundant space and quiet pace... if Acura offered an even more upscale version, it…

Its name is longer than its wheelbase! Honda’s award-winning 2025 lineup of Civics spans 10 different models and begins with the $25,000 LX, so no surprise that the other end of the trim range is a car with the most syllables in its handle — the $35,000 Sport Touring, which has a new-to-the-Civic gas-electric hybrid drivetrain. 

Hybrid drive is part of the Civic’s Sport package, which is a tip of the hat to the fact that even mild electrification…

Love at first sight is always suspect. Heated glances across a crowded cocktail party, or parking lot, raise the pulse, but best to date for a while—you know, run up and down the rev range and through a variety of conditions, to stress-test the systems a bit, and then finally introduce your friends and family and gauge their reactions too. This is why carmakers lend us their babies for a week at a time—so the novelty can fade and their true nature shine through. …

A Tucson arrived some weeks ago, but it was a leftover 2024 model; the ‘25s were already at Hyundai stores and word was that important changes had been made. So we ignored it and waited, and here’s the pay-off: a shiny, up-optioned 2025 Limited with only 700 miles on it. Ah, that new car smell . . . 

 Even Tucson owners may have to look closely to see the changes from 2024 to ’25, though. Hyundai has redesigned the grille and the bumpers,…

Oddly, given the brand’s popularity across northern New England, passers-by still seem surprised that Subaru offers a vehicle this big. But 2025 will mark six years since the Ascent, a three-row SUV, made its debut. And in truth it isn’t that big; alongside a Chevy Suburban or Ford Expedition, it looks comfortingly compact. After owning smaller Subies, my son and his wife bought an Ascent as their family grew,…

This is Honda’s third go at an electric vehicle, after the experimental EV Plus and the low-volume, short-range hydrogen-powered Clarity and battery-powered Fit, and likely to be the one that makes it to the big time. A prologue is an introduction, usually to a work of music or literature—or, in this case, to a family of EVs that Honda will roll out in the coming decade. Thus a Prologue is a two-row crossover SUV-like vehicle that occupies the same footprint as Honda’s mid-size Passport. …

What is it about “black” that prompts some carmakers to apply it to the top trim level of certain models? Even if the vehicle is finished in, say, Radiant Red? Black is sinister, forbidding, grim, opaque . . . all things that no Honda ever was or likely will be. This 2025 Pilot Black Edition comes with all the available factory upgrades (except the Trailsport’s extra off-road features) plus black badges, exterior trim and 20-inch wheels and, inside, black floor mats and logo’ed leather front…

As a member of the Mid Maine Sports Car Club, I get to hang with interesting automobiles, including no end of vintage roadsters from Jolly Old England. If you’ve forgotten, or are too young to know, let me remind you that those things (c. 1950-75) are tiny. Today’s average overfed American would be hard-pressed, literally, to squeeze into a 1968 MGB Roadster, and that’s with the top down; a hardtop MGB GT? Get the…

Traditional full-size, body-on-frame pickup trucks—and their derivative “family-size” sport-utility vehicles—are said to be the most profitable items on the menu in Detroit. At the same time, our appetite for pickup trucks continues to grow. Is it any wonder that Ford, GM and Dodge keep coming up with new ways to put lipstick on the pig? And to compete tooth & nail, hoof & claw with each other in this particular farmyard?

…

Volvos are . . . safe. Check. Elegant. Check. Comfortable, smooth, quiet, Swedish and green. Check, check, check, check. Green? Yes, for a car, anyway, especially this one. We’ve averaged 42 miles per gallon over about 300 miles, and with a fair portion of those miles on the highway. In town, the computer reported as much as 80 MPG, or the equivalent thereof, when the battery is topped up; this is a plug-in hybrid capable of almost 35 miles of local errand-running…

In Subaru’s family of five SUVs, the Crosstrek is the best-seller and also the baby—the smallest and least expensive. But it’s no longer a stripped-out loss-leader. Yes, with a starting price of $26,540, it’s still aimed at younger buyers who are just embarking on their earning years, but in comfort, convenience and features—and of course Subaru’s trademark utility and off-roadiness—it gives up very little beyond interior volume to its larger siblings. And it is…

Like a robin hopping across a lawn newly free of snow, the first rear-wheel-drive coupe of the year signals the end of winter. Except there’s always at least one more snow-rain “event,” which if nothing else helps determine a car’s year-round livability.

While we’d prefer not to drive a GR86 all the way through a northern winter, we now know that it could be done, especially with proper tires. Even on summer tires, in strong…

Good heavens, another car with a clutch pedal—this is beginning to feel like physical therapy. That’s what M/T signifies: manual transmission. This one has six speeds, actual toothed gears that engage a driveshaft. The shifter is notchy and precise, with a lockout to prevent accidentally selecting reverse while attempting to banzai away from a stoplight. Hyundai even provides a traditional e-brake lever between the front seats, for those handbrake turns we see in old…

There’s no need to rehash last week’s explanation of PHEVs—Plug-in Electric Hybrid Vehicles—but here we get a close look at a second one, a Ford Escape that also has a recharging cable, an electric motor and a larger battery. How does it stack up against last week’s brilliant Hyundai Tucson PHEV…

“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock.” You’re likely too young to remember this famous tagline from adman David Ogilvy, but it popped into my head the first time I eased Hyundai’s new Tucson PHEV out of my driveway. Hushed silence is a quality we associate with luxury, and this 2022 Hyundai is surely quieter than that 1958 Rolls-Royce. (No ticking clock, either.)

PHEV stands for…

Push the start button on the new MDX Type S and its electronic dashboard lights up in angry red—it means business! As the first Acura SUV to wear the Type S badge, it is powered by a V-6 turbocharged to 355 horsepower and 354 torques, and it rides on specially tuned adaptive dampers and Acura’s first adjustable air suspension. Other Type S baubles include 21-inch wheels, a Sport+ setting added to the drive-mode menu, and eye-catching red brake calipers. The front…

The top of the Jeep model lineup needs a bit of explication: Once upon a time, there was the full-size Wagoneer, favored by summer residents of big old seaside cottages in New England. Being of truck-type, body-on-frame construction, it begat a Jeep pickup, called the Gladiator, now long extinct. Eventually (after 30 years), the Wagoneer’s perch atop the Jeep lineup was taken over, in 1993, by a more modern, two-row crossover-type SUV called the Grand Cherokee.…

It’s a sweetie, this one—light (feeling), responsive, quick, willing and altogether satisfying. The 230i Coupe, re-done for 2022, is a throwback to the time when all BMWs, no matter their size, were exactly that—“ultimate driving machines,” one might say. It’s true even though a manual gearbox is currently no longer an option in the 2-Series.

But the 8-speed automatic is brilliant; so is this seemingly frictionless 2.0-liter, 255-…

After weeks in various new Broncos and Bronco Sports, I have to say I still don’t get the mad lust people feel for them. A few days ago, I parked this one in town and, as I got out, a passerby—male, middle-aged, reasonably well-dressed—stopped in his tracks and asked, a bit breathlessly, “How long did you have wait for it?”

(Oh, the angst and societal ills wrapped up in this sentence: Microchip shortages, supply-chain breakdowns,…

The redesigned GLS450 is one of nine G-Class SUVs that wear the three-pointed star—or one of 17, if we count all the AMG performance models. It’s the biggest one, too, at 17 feet overall, which is nine inches longer than a Volvo XC90 but 18 inches shorter than a Suburban. The base model, which we have here, comes with a 3.0-liter turbocharged and electrically boosted engine pushing 362 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque through a 9-speed automatic transmission…

The Outer Banks are 200 miles of barrier islands and sand spits imperiled by rising seas and erosion that lie between North Carolina and the open Atlantic. “Outer Banks” is a teen TV drama, too, a sort of “West Side Story” on the beach instead of in New York and with Kooks and Pogues in place of Jets and Sharks. And Outer Banks is also a version of Ford’s still-new Bronco Sport compact SUV.

Our example is a leftover ‘21 model, but…

Yes, it’s a mouthful, but then it’s quite a car, too—I mean a two-row, midsize crossover sport-utility vehicle (another mouthful). I’m hard-pressed to think of another one that combines so much performance, luxury, good design, refinement and evident quality in one package at “only” $64,045.

This is the third Genesis vehicle we’ve covered in a year and a half, and it is every inch as impressive as the previous two, the…

A robin redbreast hopping about the soggy lawn may be the first sign of spring at your house; at mine, it’s the arrival of a real car after four months of winter-worthy AWD sport-utes. This year, it was a Honda Civic—and a few miles behind the wheel reminded me how enjoyable a lighter, smaller, more responsive vehicle can be. Driving is fun again! 

In fact, I got two Civics, back to back: a loaded hatchback (“Lunar Silver”) and an Si (“…

Referring to its 50-plus years of building off-road motorcycles, ATVs and similar rugged vehicles, Honda likes to say that it has “a long history of getting dirty.” This new-for-‘22 TrailSport variant of the company’s midsize Passport SUV fits into that category too—although the functional differences between this and the everyday Passport are minor.

The TrailSport’s front and rear tracks have been extended 10 millimeters (less than four-tenths an inch) beyond the standard Passport’s…

Hyundai has done something clever here, and it makes me wonder why these things are still so rare—namely, SUV-based pickups. This is a Tucson, a Hyundai two-row crossover sport-ute, with the rear portion of its roof cut away to expose a 52-inch truck bed with a sliding cover, a tailgate and steps molded into the bumper. Presto, the 2022 Santa Cruz!

We older folks say, “Oh, like the El Camino!” and our kids say, “Oh, like the Honda Ridgeline!” Not wishing to be lumped in with its…

You may remember the GV80 as the luxury SUV that Tiger Woods wrecked last February while he was in California for a golf tournament. Genesis—Hyundai’s Lexus, if you will—sponsored the tournament and loaned a demo to Woods while he was in town. 

Photos of their GV80 crumpled up like an old shoebox, not to mention an ambulance taking away their celebrity driver, were not what the Genesis PR team had in mind when they handed Woods the key. But…

Whenever I saw a Ford Bronco Sport on the road—and by now I’ve seen a lot of them—my first thought was always: “Oh, someone who didn’t want a ‘real’ Bronco! Someone who just wanted the look.”  

Having now spent a week in each, a Bronco and a Bronco Sport, I realize it’s time to apologize to Sport drivers: You may have wished to flaunt the nameplate, but in truth…

It’s war in the Compact SUV jungle, where family-friendly crossovers with two rows of seats and all-wheel drive fight it out for billions in sales. Victory hangs on a value triangulation: Buyers want looks, ease of use and low monthly payments; sellers push pricing as far as they can without quashing sales.

The Tucson has always done well for buyers and for Hyundai alike, and now the all-new-for-2022 Tucson sets the C-SUV bar higher yet—it’s that much snazzier-looking, sweeter-driving…

A new trim package for Subaru’s all-wheel-drive Outback wagon, called Wilderness, is available for 2022 and it’s not just cosmetics. This variant stands taller (9.5 inches of ground clearance) on longer-travel shock absorbers and springs and the bumpers have been tucked in. For off-roaders, this means 20.0 degrees of approach angle (up from 18.6º), a “breakover angle” of 21.2 degrees (up from 19.4º), and the departure angle—how steep a surface the new Outback can descend from without…

Don’t call it a minivan and don’t call it an SUV, although it resembles both. Kia says it’s an MPV, for multi-purpose vehicle—“combining luxury, capability and flexibility into a whole new kind of vehicle.” It’s a replacement for Kia’s Sedona minivan, but one that’s so different, and so much larger and more high-tech, that it warrants a new name.

We might quibble with “Carnival,” which suggests a load of adolescents having a piñata party in the back, but there’s no arguing about the…

In reviving the Bronco, its very first SUV (b. 1965, d. 1996), Ford seems to have cast a critical eye on the Jeep Wrangler and said, “Right, we’re going to build a vehicle with the same off-road cred, but minus the faults.” Ford succeeded, especially with this Sasquatch variant. 

From some angles it looks Jeep-ish and from others Land Rover-y, but the new Bronco is a mid-size body-on-frame sport-utility vehicle that shares a skeleton with…

In a way, the new-for-2022 Civic reminds me of Mercedes-Benz’s C-Class cars: They’ve both grown up. And whereas we once bought them because we couldn’t afford the fancier models, now we buy them because we just don’t want a bigger car. They’ve caught up with the rest of the family in value, refinement and overall swank.

Let’s not forget the Civic’s roots, either, which in North America go back to the Honda 600 micro-car. I first saw one in Montreal circa 1970. It was barely the size…

“Whoa—it’s like a fighter plane in here!” said one of my neighbors. Well, it’s like that behind the wheel, too. AMG is Mercedes-Benz’s tuner division, the skunkworks where mad scientists take ordinary high-performance Mercs and turn them into extraordinary higher-performance Mercs. This one, for example, is armed with a 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged and electrically boosted V-8 that can churn out 603 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque.

There was a time, especially in the early days…

The “L” is for long, and this stretched version of the familiar Grand Cherokee is what Jeep is offering families while they await the arrival of the even larger (and more deluxe and pricier) 2022 Grand Wagoneer. Since boatloads of two-row, 5-passenger Grand Cherokees have been sold over the years, Jeep must have reasoned that offering a variation with a third row of seats and upgraded, updated amenities couldn’t hurt. 

And it doesn’t hurt,…

Electric vehicles never used to reach me in Midcoast Maine. They didn’t have enough range for the run from the press garage near Boston—that or the delivery driver would have had to hand me the key and say: “Here’s your car. But you can’t use it until you’ve recharged the batteries overnight.” 

Those days are gone. The…

The low stance, the blacked-out trim and wheels, the red brakes and low-profile tires, the flared exhaust trumpets, the spoiler and the absence of chrome all signal “hot car!” With this Type S, Acura—that is, Honda—introduces the performance version of its latest TLX sedan, which debuted late last year.

Acura says the Type S is “precision crafted.” I’m not certain what that means, exactly, but all Honda products, from snowblowers to outboard motors to cars and crossovers, lead their…

This Performance Red Metallic clear-coat paint helps our 2022 MDX make a brilliant first impression. Even the crew at the boatyard zeroed in on it—three of them were admiring the vehicle when we got back to shore. 

The sheer presence of the new MDX, Acura’s three-row SUV, makes a statement, too. It’s high, wide and handsome, as the saying went, with subtle details. This is the fourth generation of what Acura claims the best-selling luxury SUV…

Santa Fe is a pleasantly upscale midsize city in New Mexico; calligraphy is the art of well-executed penmanship. Somehow, Hyundai has applied both to a car to denote the top trim level of its midsize, two-row SUV—a pleasantly upscale vehicle, especially well executed for 2021. Ah, now I get it.

For 2021, the made-over Santa Fe comes with a choice of three new powerplants: a standard 2.5-liter, 191-horsepower Four available with front-wheel or all-wheel drive; a 2.5-liter turbo Four…

Pickup trucks being the Swiss Army knives of motor vehicles, Ford now offers a choice of six powertrains, three cab styles and two bed lengths for its brand-new-for-2021 F-150 series. Throw in the long list of options (functional and/or posh) and trim styles and we have a vehicle that can range from a $30,000 V-6-powered wheelbarrow to a $75,000 hybrid-powered mobile workstation.

A hybrid—that is, gas-electric—pickup truck? Yes, indeed, and high time, too. Ford says this beast is…

The Bolt harkens back to the Volt, Chevrolet’s hybrid of 2011-19, except that the latter was a sedan with a gasoline-powered generator that charged the electric motor’s batteries while the current (get it?) car is an all-electric hatchback powered by a large battery pack that needs to be plugged in to recharge. 

The Bolt arrived on a Wednesday morning with about half a “tank” remaining. I grabbed the charging cord from the trunk, ran it into…

A pickup truck that’s spec’ed out as a work machine rather than a statement is pretty rare, at least in U.S. press fleets. It’s possible to glam up a top-line Tundra with the Nightshade Special Edition package, but even with every possible option (a combination safe in the center console, anyone?) I was able to boost the price tag to barely above $61,000.  

That’s atop a starting price of $41,020 for the Crewmax 4x4 Limited, with its generous…

Two impressions always come up upon sliding behind the wheel of a Forester: First, it’s like sitting in a fishbowl, or a penthouse apartment—it’s so open and airy-feeling. The Forester’s tallish, squared-off cabin is not large, but there’s head-, elbow-, shoulder- and legroom, a bit of extra height, and what feels like acres of glass. For a compact SUV, the Forester punches above its weight, space-wise.

The second impression is that Subaru has made good use of time. This fifth-…

It was a shock when Land Rover pulled the plug on its Defender model in 2016, an automotive classic if ever there was one. LR said it had a new version in the works; left unsaid was that the old one couldn’t meet U.S. (and other) safety and emissions standards. 

This left Land Rover with a headache familiar to Jeep, Porsche and other makers of four-wheeled icons: How to attract new buyers without leaving the faithful weeping in disappointment…

No one walks into a bar, tosses the key to a minivan on the counter and hopes someone asks what he’s driving. But to the extent that a minivan can be a sleek and handsome symbol of personal style, Chrysler’s refreshed-for-2021 Pacifica is probably the one. Particularly this luxed-out $55,000 Pinnacle version with its tasty biscuit-hued quilted-leather boudoir, I mean interior.

A minivan—a box with wheels at the lower corners—is highly space-efficient; to schlep the most people or…

This isn’t your elderly aunt’s E-Class. We’ll get back to that, but first—consider how new cars are introduced to the press these days. Instead of junkets to exotic locales, where we put the “product” through its paces, cars now debut on Zoom. 

We log in to hear from a couple of engineers and a PR person who’s there to keep the techies from getting windy about 48-volt electronics and 64-bit processors.

But that’s often what the…

In other English-speaking countries, a full-size SUV is a Range Rover, which fills many British country roads from hedgerow to hedgerow. But here in XXL-land, it takes something like this Lincoln Navigator to really flesh out the meaning of “full-size.” I’d be nervous driving it anywhere in England except a multi-lane motorway. 

Even here in New England, the Navigator can be a squeeze. Threading it into my driveway takes a two-point turn.…

The Corsair is the smallest-but-one of Lincoln’s newly extended family of four SUVs. In descending size order, they are the Navigator, Aviator, Corsair and Nautilus. The three smaller ones are unibody-type crossover vehicles. The size-XXL Navigator is a full-length body on a Ford F-series truck platform, but you’d never know it by the sprightly way it drives. Family resemblance is strong across the lineup.

The Corsair—corsair, btw, is a 16th Century term for a pirate—is a two-…

“That’s a Toyota?”

Yes, it really is a Toyota. It’s the latest Supra, the two-seat sports/grand touring car that Toyota has produced, off and on, since Jimmy Carter was President. The last Supra, from 1993 to ‘98, was then the most expensive Toyota ever—around $35,000, as I recall, and the twin-turbo version was also the most powerful Toyota. Today’s Supra is out-priced and out-powered only by the lofty Land Cruiser. 

A few…

Thumbs up to Lincoln for offering us a gas-electric hybrid Aviator able to cover about 15 miles on electrons when conditions are just so. But here’s the rest of the story: second-tier hybrid engineering at a first-tier-plus price. 

The standard Aviator has a 400-horsepower twin-turbo V-6 and a 10-speed automatic transmission. Want more power yet? Instead of a V-8 option, Lincoln offers this plug-in hybrid called the Grand Touring All Wheel…

The license-plate holder on the car reads, “Feel Alive”—evidently the latest take on  Zoom-Zoom, Mazda’s tagline from its “What Do You Drive?” campaign. Which continues, “At Mazda, we believe if it’s not worth driving, it’s not worth building.” 

This one is worth building, and driving. Think of it as the ride a driver might move up to when maturity beckons and the boxy silhouette of a hot hatch has…

Knowing that Acura is Honda’s upmarket brand, you might expect its re-designed and re-engineered new TLX to be a plush and whisper-quiet “mature” sedan—a Lexus by another name, perhaps. But you’d be wrong. And possibly surprised.

In fact, Lexus, worried that its cars are “boring” to driving aficionados, might follow Acura’s lead: This TLX “delivers precision-crafted performance to premium sports sedan enthusiasts.” The maker also calls it “simply the best performing, best handling and…

At 159.1 inches long—just 13¹/₄ feet—this subcompact Hyundai crossover is nearly a foot shorter than a Mini Countryman.

The Venue is the smallest ute I’ve ever driven; its turning radius is so tight I nearly clipped the boulder at the end of my driveway when I was backing out into the street.

Three Venues could fit into my two-car garage with room left over for the motorcycle and snowblower. 

Hyundai calls…

“G” in Mercedes-speak is for geländewagen, which means “off-road vehicle” in German. At 41 years of age, the original G-Class is the second-oldest model in M-B’s lineup—a boxy, body-on-frame ex-military vehicle that now starts at about $130,000. The GL series, however, are crossover SUVs that are much more “accessibly” priced. The least of them, the GLA 250, starts at about $36,000 without 4Matic all-wheel drive. 

In all, there are…

The CT5 is a new Cadillac, aimed directly at the BMW 3-Series, the C-Class Mercedes-Benz, the Alfa Romeo Giulia, Acura TLX and the many others of that ilk. It was conceived as Cadillac’s sports sedan, an important benchmark to the Young Executive demographic, and it hits that target not in the bull’s-eye but somewhere out near the edge of the 9-ring. 

Detroit is still focused on delivering price first. It believes that it’s good to be able to…