First Drive Reviews

I’m hustling through the Spanish countryside getting a back massage, attacking roundabouts with gusto in a car that can sprint from 0-60 mph in less than 5.0 seconds, and my passenger is sound asleep. This car does just about everything well. It’s quiet, fast, smooth, spacious, and...

Embedded deep in the Namibian desert, surrounded by orange sand that looks like it was imported from Moab, we discovered one of the unexpected benefits of driving an electric car: Giraffes don’t gallop away as you creep up on them. The noise of the tires slowly crushing loose rocks and sand...

Ford’s ST badge hails from Europe, where it’s adorned a couple of decades’ worth of Cougars, Pumas, Mondeos, Focuses and Fiestas. In the U.S. we’ve danced with the Focus ST and Fiesta ST—but as of next year, those Ford cars won’t be sold anymore, as the company...

In Jackson, Wyoming, things get a little weird. More than a half a million people live in the entire state, most of them in modest small towns never far from staggeringly beautiful wilds. Jackson’s the same, just different. It's filthy rich, overrun by Cheneys and Gateses and their ilk. The...

It’s probably cold down here in the bottom of a disused quarry, with the wind howling and rain approaching Biblical. I can’t say for sure, but I turn up the 2019 Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro’s seat heater anyway. The trail guide yelling through the wind at me from the top of a slick...

Braking at the same point in turn 1 of Budapest’s Hungaroring circuit as when driving the 570S, the 600LT stops well short and then has to be driven to the turn on the throttle. It's not exactly the fastest way around, but I’m keeping my instructor happy with a conservative...

The red mist has just descended upon me, and that’s a good thing. It’s my second four-lap stint in the 2019 Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-Door Coupe on the Circuit of the Americas outside Austin, Texas, and four-time DTM champion Bernd Schneider is leading the way in an AMG GT-R. He just took...

I didn’t kill the little orange traffic cone on purpose, but nor did I have much regret for its demise, which was in the name of science. Or at least, research. Lamborghini requested that I run my first laps in the new track-centric Aventador SVJ (Super Veloce Jota, a name borrowed from its...

The route south from Seattle to Yakima, Washington, winds through the Mount Rainier National Park. Streams and valleys bracket the road, the scenery changes from green to brown, and Mount Rainier stands majestically in the distance, snow-capped even in September. The 2019 Mercedes-Benz A-Class is a...

“Underway on nuclear power!” That was the message from the USS Nautilus following its 1954 launch as the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. From behind the wheel, the optional 335-horsepower, 380-pound-feet, 2.7-liter twin-turbo V-6 in the 2019 Lincoln Nautilus is silent and...

Muscle cars of the 1960s generally did one thing well. They ground out tarmac-ripping power and torque, hurtling their body-on-frame selves straight down the road or the dragstrip with astonishing acceleration. But squiggly roads, braking zones, or enduring a track meet for longer than 15 minutes...

Believe what you’ve heard about the blissfully open and unfettered stretches of the Autobahn. These long, gently curving and pencil-straight stretches of German highways are the last bastion for drivers to flex their figurative muscle and courage, directly proportional to the angle of their...

The new Mazda MX-5 Miata we got in the U.S. in 2016 wasn’t really the car it was supposed to be. According to Mazda North American Operations manager of vehicle dynamics Dave Coleman, Mazda wanted to use a 1.5-liter 4-cylinder engine worldwide. Pushback from the U.S. allowed installation of...

Horsepower Hill at Club Motorsports is a 14-percent grade at the scenic road course carved into the side of a mountain in Tamworth, New Hampshire. It’s a heartbreak climb uphill for most cars, but it’s child’s play for the 2019 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye. One big number...

Ignore the flashy, high-tech vehicle wrap, a cross between pixelated camouflage and hunting orange. The 2019 Audi e-tron is a non-event from inside, and that’s just what its maker intended. When it goes on sale next year, the e-tron electric crossover SUV will be the anti-Tesla. Its...

Growing up in Sindelfingen, Germany, as the daughter of a Mercedes-Benz engineer who worked on three generations of the E-Class, Jennifer Schefczik heard the same thing over and over. “Child, the E-Class is always about style, safety, and comfort,” her dad told her. Some 20 years later...

Twelve-cylinder engines are an endangered automotive species. Only a handful are left: Mercedes and Maybach share one, and so do BMW and Rolls-Royce. Ferrari has its holdout—and it’s impossible to leave out Bentley’s W-12, though its offbeat cylinder layout makes it an outlier...

Getting behind the wheel of the Lamborghini Huracán Performante Spyder is like knowing the secret handshake for an exclusive club. You have to be able to afford the price of entry, know the strange rituals to simply operate the car, and understand the dark art of the ALA active aerodynamics...

Chad was running late, and we were already pressed for time. This entire plan was rushed and slapped together via a phone call and a few text messages over the weekend. The Keen Project Safari 911 build No. 2 by former race car driver Lehman Keen was in Minneapolis for a short time to celebrate...

While I wait for my turn to attack the track at Tamworth, New Hampshire’s Club Motorsports in the 2019 Genesis G70, I notice some of the car’s details. The diamond-quilted nappa leather upholstery looks like it was sourced from a Mercedes-Benz S-Class. I shut off the traction control...