2013 Bentley Continental Review: Nobody gets a pass any more. This applies even to the folks who cater to the recently derided one percent—that is, the people who own most of the wealth. It is the reason that a company like Bentley of Great Britain, whose customers are solidly insulated from the 99 percent, cannot be profligate even as it seeks to deliver the finest goods available. It is a …
2013 Acura RDX Review: Actually, you can walk that cat back. Just ask Acura about its sport-oriented crossover utility vehicle, the RDX. Added to the lineup just six years ago, it complemented Acura’s upscale, full-size crossover, the MDX. But it never quite caught on. Its best year was 2007, its first full year on the market, when 23,356 were sold. In 2011, sales totaled just 15,196. The RDX’s driving dynamics …
2012 Chrysler 300 Review: With the demise of the Lincoln Town Car and its corporate siblings, the Mercury Grand Marquis and Ford Crown Victoria, we’re witnessing the vanishing of an era. The American automobile scene once was dominated by elephantine rear-drive sedans and station wagons with big-bore engines—imported from Detroit, as the advertising slogan asserts. Now, with only a couple of exceptions, they are gone. Ford’s biggest sedans are the …
Remember the Hyundai Azera? It was a very nice and contemporary sedan, and if it got left behind the flurry of Hyundai’s recent leap into high-style vehicles, that is no longer the case. The all-new and restyled Azera is just being introduced as a 2013 model and it steps to the front of the class as perhaps the most dramatic example of Hyundai’s self-acclaimed “fluidic design.” In the process, it …
Tags : Luxury | |
2012 BMW 328i Review: It’s amazing what a few inches more and two cylinders fewer can do for a car—especially one as storied as the BMW 3-Series. Half of that equation is attractive and makes sense. The other part, at first blush, seems risky until you understand it. On the sensible side is the incremental growth of the 2012 BMW 3-Series. Compared to its 2011 predecessor, the sedan is nearly …
BMW 3 Series Review: MONTEREY, CALIF. — All is fair in love, war, and auto manufacturing introductions, apparently. But if it’s BMW, some things seem unfair. BMW summoned North American auto writers to drive the new generation of the BMW 3 Series — a sedan that leads every other car maker to boast about using it as the benchmark for any new vehicle. Auto journalists pretty well follow the other …
2012 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG Review: Believe it or not, in this era of hard times, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, there still are multitudes of people out there with a lot of money. They are not movie stars, corporate titans or professional athletes, but people you likely have never heard about. They are people who spend six-figure sums at high-end auctions to buy 1970s-era muscle cars that can …
Tags : Luxury | |
2012 Buick LaCrosse Review: The 2012 Buick LaCrosse, a nice entry-level luxury sedan, now offers a hybrid system to stretch gas mileage. Last year I loved the top-level LaCrosse with its strong 300-plus horsepower V6. This time, the tested Premium I Group with E-Assist features the entry-level LaCrosse’s 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine, which is not as peppy. The “gold mist metallic” test car had 182 horsepower, and that was noticeably less …
