We might expect a modern motor vehicle packing a three-cylinder, 1.5-litre gas engine to be an underpowered and dreary bottom-feeder. (Many a motorcycle has a bigger…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Oddly, given the brand’s popularity across northern New England, passers-by still seem surprised that Subaru…

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…

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…

As a member of the Mid Maine Sports Car Club, I get to hang with interesting automobiles, including no end of vintage roadsters from…

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…

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…

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,…

Judging by the sheet metal, the graphics, the electro-digitalia, some improvements in ergonomics and a few things that seem to be change for the sake of change, the new,…

Upon this blue Maverick’s arrival, my first thought was, Wait a minute—I’ve already done that one! But no; that was the hybrid version of the Maverick, which we…

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…

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,…

There’s no need to rehash last week’s explanation of PHEVs—Plug-in Electric Hybrid…

“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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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”…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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.”…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

“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…

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…

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—…

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,…

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…

Having earned my license 55 years ago, I can say that I’ve driven probably every generation of Mustang beginning with Lee Iaccoca’s mid-‘60s original. But in college, I discovered cars from…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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 “…