#silviocalabi

• opinionated at any speed

  Subaru Outback Wilderness 

  Sat, 12/04/2021 - 8:00pm

  

  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 dragging...
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  Kia Carnival SX Prestige

  Tue, 11/23/2021 - 5:15pm

  

  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 product—it’...
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  Ford Bronco Sasquatch

  Thu, 11/11/2021 - 10:45pm

  

  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 Ford’s also-new Ranger truck. Do not confuse it with the...
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  Honda Civic 1.5T 4D Touring

  Thu, 10/21/2021 - 8:00pm

  

  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 of a...
• Opinionated at any speed

  Mercedes-Benz AMG GLE 63 S Coupe 

  Fri, 10/01/2021 - 9:15pm

  

  “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 of...
• Opinionated at any speed

  Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland L 

  Mon, 09/06/2021 - 8:30pm

  

  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, at all. Our mid-range, Trail-Rated Overland model L is a...
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  Ford Mustang Mach-E Premium AWD 

  Tue, 08/24/2021 - 1:30pm

  

  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 Mach-E arrived with almost 100 miles in the “tank,” which let me drive it and then plug it in that night. Now, after several days of normal use and charging inbetween, the battery...
• opinionated at any speed

  Acura TLX Type S

  Wed, 08/11/2021 - 1:00pm

  

  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 fields in...
• opinionated at any speed

  Acura MDX SH-AWD Advance

  Tue, 07/13/2021 - 1:15pm

  

  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 of all time. When it debuted, back in 2001, it wasn’t...
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  Hyundai Santa Fe ‘Calligraphy’ 2.5T AWD

  Sun, 06/20/2021 - 7:00pm

  

  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 with 277...
• Opinionated at any speed

  Ford F-150 4x4 SuperCrew King Ranch Hybrid

  Thu, 05/20/2021 - 8:15am

  

  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 rated for 24...
• Opinionated at any speed

  Chevrolet Bolt EV Premier

  Wed, 05/12/2021 - 12:00pm

  

  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 the garage and plugged it into a 120-volt outlet. The...
• Opinionated at any speed

  Toyota Tundra SR5 Crewmax 4x4 Limited

  Fri, 04/16/2021 - 4:30pm

  

  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 four-door, four-seat cab and running boards. And it is...
• opinionated at any speed

  Subaru Forester Limited

  Tue, 03/30/2021 - 8:30am

  

  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-generation 2021...
• Opinionated at any speed

  Land Rover Defender 110 SE

  Sun, 03/21/2021 - 7:15pm

  

  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 easy task—the old one had become an enduring...
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  Chrysler Pacifica Pinnacle AWD

  Sun, 03/14/2021 - 10:15am

  

  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 cargo within a...
• Opinionated at any speed

  Mercedes-Benz AMG E53 Sedan

  Sun, 03/07/2021 - 4:15pm

  

  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 presentation is about: digital features, functions, connectivity,...
• opinionated at any speed

  Lincoln Navigator 4x4 Reserve

  Mon, 03/01/2021 - 1:30pm

  

  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. Fortunately, these beefy flanks are protected by visual...
• opinionated at any speed

  Lincoln Corsair Reserve AWD

  Sat, 02/13/2021 - 11:30am

  

  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-row “...
• opinionated at any speed

  2021 Toyota Supra GR 3.0 Premium

  Wed, 02/10/2021 - 12:30pm

  

  “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 months ago, the first version of this newest Supra, the 2020...
• Opinionated at any speed

  Lincoln Aviator Grand Touring AWD

  Wed, 01/27/2021 - 6:30pm

  

  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 Drive. It adds an electric motor to the V-6 for a new...
• Opinionated at any speed

  2021 Mazda3 2.5 Turbo Premium AWD

  Sun, 01/10/2021 - 8:00pm

  

  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 gotten stale. It’s a five-door sedan, still small, but with a fastback, coupe-ish profile and...
• opinionated at any speed

  2021 Acura TLX SH-AWD Advance

  Sun, 12/27/2020 - 9:30am

  

  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 most well...
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  Hyundai Venue SEL

  Wed, 12/16/2020 - 7:15pm

  

  At 159.1 inches long—just 13 1 / 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 it the “ultimate urban partner.” The Venue is more than four feet longer than a Smart...
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  Mercedes-Benz 4Matics: GLC 300 Coupe and GLA 250

  Sun, 12/06/2020 - 7:00pm

  

  “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 seven GL models (in many trim levels) ranging in...
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  Cadillac CT5 Premium Luxury

  Wed, 11/25/2020 - 8:30pm

  

  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 brag that your new luxury sports sedan starts at a...
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  Honda CR-V Hybrid Touring

  Mon, 11/16/2020 - 6:00pm

  

  Compared to last week’s hybrid SUV from an up-market home-grown brand, this gas-electric Honda is a paragon of civility, and for much less money. It exhibits none of the dysfunction of that Detroit hybrid—no lurching transitions between gas and batteries, no wooden brakes, no sudden rushes of electric acceleration—and this one, a loaded Touring model, lists for just $35,950. That’s about the median price of an ordinary new car sold in the US today, but it’s a hybrid packed with everything Honda...
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  Silvio Calabi: Genesis G90 AWD 3.3T Premium

  Sun, 11/08/2020 - 7:00pm

  

  Sheer presence on the road is worth something, certainly—status expressed in acres of gleaming sheet metal set off by polished accents of metal and glass. Although the new Genesis G90 is a couple of inches smaller than a Mercedes S-Class sedan, it looks bigger and sleeker, ready to be turned over to a chauffeur. In fact, it’s a toss-up whether the front or the back is the best place to be. This exceptional car is sinfully comfortable and whisper-quiet. Would you feel differently about it if you...
• opinionated at any speedted at any speed

  2021 Honda Odyssey Elite

  Fri, 10/23/2020 - 7:00pm

  

  Let’s imagine that Honda has a minivan-design team of young parents who meet (or used to, anyway) in a well-lit, pastel-hued room where the electrical outlets are plugged and the floor is littered with Legos. They discuss how to separate squabbling kids, entertain them on long drives, clean up spilled Goldfish and monitor vital signs in the wayback. Then they send their list of must-have features to engineering and sales, who decide: 1, whether they can meet those needs; and 2, how much they’ll...
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  Ford F250 Super Duty 4x4 Crew Cab ‘Tremor’

  Mon, 10/12/2020 - 1:45pm

  

  The action in pickup trucks these days seems to be in the bed, with tougher liners, 5th-wheel trailer hookups, tie-downs, storage boxes, lights, power outlets and tailgates that open gently instead of crashing down like old toilet lids. Some trucks offer a split gate, which can open to the side, like a door, or fold down horizontally. Another option is a loading ramp, rugged steel sections that unbolt from the sides of the bed and hook onto the lip of the gate. The tailgate on this F250 über-...
• Silvio CALABI: OPINIONATED AT ANY SPEED

  Hyundai Sonata Hybrid Limited

  Fri, 10/02/2020 - 8:30pm

  

  The sedan is dead, they say, killed off by the SUV. But no one told Hyundai, so they upsized their Sonata into a big, sleek car with four doors and a trunk. A modern, grown-up sedan, that is. How modern? This one is not only a smooth and silent 50MPG hybrid, it also has solar panels in the roof, which can add two miles of electric-only driving every day. It’s also way more Web-enabled than I am, right down to a digital key in my smartphone. This sort of cleverness abounds—click a turn signal...
• Silvio CALABI: OPINIONATED AT ANY SPEED

  Volvo V60 T5 AWD Cross Country

  Thu, 09/24/2020 - 8:30am

  

  When you drive a Volvo, no one ever asks, “How fast is it?” or “How much horsepower has this got?” It isn’t that no one cares; it’s that we care about different things in Volvos. The usual questions are, “Is it as comfortable as it looks?” and “Do you feel safe in it?” And finally, “How does it drive?” So the answers, then, are: Yes, yes and very well. Over the five decades that I’ve known Volvos, they and the upper-end Germans have steadily converged in design, attention to detail, features...
• Silvio CALABI: OPINIONATED AT ANY SPEED

  The Mercedes-Benz AMG GLS 63 

  Wed, 09/16/2020 - 9:00pm

  

  This is Mercedes-Benz’s newest and most spectacular SUV—a full-size luxury war wagon with a 603-horsepower chip on its tailored shoulder and a toothy, Killjoy-the-clown grille that will alarm anyone who finds it leering in the rearview mirror. Best to pull aside and let the big Benz rocket by, or it might flatten you. Just for fun. Imagine an all-wheel-drive S-Class sedan on stilts with two more seats and sufficient aggression to spank nearly any sports car in a blast off the line. But if all...
• SILVIO CALABI: OPINIONATED AT ANY SPEED

  Toyota Supra GR Premium

  Sun, 08/30/2020 - 10:00am

  

  “That’s a Toyota?” Yep. It’s the latest Supra, the two-seat sports/grand touring car that Toyota has made, off and on, since Jimmy Carter was President. The last Supra, 1993 to ‘98, was the most expensive Toyota ever—around $35,000, as I recall, and the twin-turbo version was also the most powerful Toyota. This new GR Premium model costs $56,615 with everything from radar cruise control to a touchpad and one of those magic buttons that clicks back and forth between hair-raising and sedate...
• Silvio CALABI: OPINIONATED AT ANY SPEED

  It’s just a little thing, but....Hyundai Sonata Hybrid Limited

  Fri, 08/21/2020 - 9:30pm

  

  The sedan is dead, they say, killed off by the SUV. But no one told Hyundai, so they upsized their Sonata into a big, sleek car with four doors and a trunk. A modern, grown-up sedan, that is. How modern? This one is not only a smooth and silent 50MPG hybrid, it also has solar panels in the roof, which can add two miles of electric-only driving every day. It’s also way more Web-enabled than I am, right down to a digital key in my smartphone. This sort of cleverness abounds—click a turn signal...
• SILVIO CALABI: OPINIONATED AT ANY SPEED

  It’s just a little thing, but.... 2020 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon

  Fri, 08/14/2020 - 7:30pm

  

  The new Jeep Wrangler may be “little” next to an SUV, but it is still an outsize vehicle. Modernizing it with seat heaters, LEDs and a Web-linked computer is putting lipstick on a pig. A rutted road will scramble your brain. Cutting a corner with any accuracy depends on luck. Tire roar and wind noise are deafening. And don’t even think about an emergency lane-change on the interstate. A Jeep Wrangler is domestic fare like the Mustang, the 4X4 pickup and the H-D hog—machines from an earlier,...
• SILVIO CALABI: OPINIONATED AT ANY SPEED

  It’s just a little thing, but... 2020 Subaru Outback Onyx Edition Wagon

  Mon, 08/03/2020 - 6:15pm

  

  One of the pleasant “little things” in the Subaru Outback is the switch for the e-brake, which is near the shift lever on the console. E-brake means emergency brake or electronic brake. To set it, we no longer step down hard on a pedal hidden in the leftmost bowels of the footwell; instead, we press a button. But too many carmakers hide this button in the lower left corner of the dash—they think we expect it to be where the pedal used to be. In fact, it should be just where Subaru put it...
• Silvio Calabi: Opinionated at Any Speed

  The 2020 Honda Civic Si: It’s just a little thing, but....

  Wed, 07/22/2020 - 7:45pm

  

  To anyone who enjoys cars, the Si—the sporting Honda Civic—strikes the right balance between old-fashioned, involved, three-pedal driving and creeping digitalis, the blight of beeps, chimes, LEDs and prompts meant to protect us. The Si’s safety systems in no way intrude on its dynamic integrity and fun. Electronics mess up only the throttle response, which would be quicker if there were an actual wire connecting the pedal to the gas—which in turn would make heel-and-toe downshifting possible...