First Drive Reviews
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The 2020 Ford Explorer Hybrid cop car has enough power to catch the bad guys and incredibly grabby brakes that can throw a perp into a rear-seat barrier.
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First drive review: 2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 gets a grip on its mission
The logo is a snake. The engine sounds a rebel yell upon startup, and from there only shouts more, more, more. The tires are steamrollers meant to provide grip on a racetrack. It sits low and lean, and looks downright mean. It’s the anti-SUV. It’s the 2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350, and...
Kirk Bell -
First drive review: 2020 Toyota Supra is fast and frenetic
It’s late in the day at Summit Point Raceway, the warm sun of a late West Virginia spring is starting to pack it in for the day, and I’m still working on smoothing out my hamfisted ways behind the wheel of the 2020 Toyota Supra in my few remaining laps on the track’s Shenandoah...
Kirk Bell -
First drive review: 2019 Volkswagen Arteon puts SUVs on notice, if it’s not too late
The 2019 Volkswagen Arteon delivers good performance and impressive utility in a stylish package.
Andrew Ganz -
First drive review: The 2020 Jaguar XE puts gravity on hold
With the 2020 XE, Jaguar puts its compact sport-sedan hopes in simple turbo-4 power, excellent handling, and a best-in-class warranty.
Martin Padgett -
Review update: 2019 Audi A8 L takes it easy
After almost 500 miles behind the wheel of the 2019 Audi A8 L, we share some things we like and don't like about Audi's flagship sedan.
Kirk Bell -
We drive the 2019 Jaguar F-Pace SVR, and find the 550-hp, V-8-powered performance SUV brings new meaning to the words "performance SUV."
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First drive review: 2020 Hyundai Sonata doubles down on sedan segment in style
Pulling out of the 123-story Lotte World Tower into the crush of Seoul’s morning traffic in the 2020 Hyundai Sonata, the striking symbolism isn’t lost on me. The 1,819-foot tower is new, the fifth-tallest building in the world, and the tallest in Korea. This engineering marvel...
Matthew Askari -
First drive review: Sweet on the 2019 Mercedes-Benz E 53 AMG sedan
The 2019 Mercedes-Benz E 53 AMG is conflicted. The pugnacious luxury sedan that arrived this year is sandwiched between a Hammer and a scythe. No, really. The former was a 1980s wonder machine that helped set the table for a tradition of sleeper sedans, and the latter is a modern-day...
Aaron Cole -
First drive review: 2019 Mercedes-Benz CLS 53 AMG is adulthood served
The swoopy four-door AMG coddles passengers in luxury and delivers V-8 power with 6-cylinder consumption.
Aaron Cole -
First drive review: 2020 Jeep Gladiator is armored for battle
The 2020 Jeep Gladiator brings all the right hardware to the mid-size pickup truck fight. It’s even dressed for battle. Pundits might argue that the 2020 Jeep Gladiator is a Wrangler with a pickup truck bed, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. The Gladiator shares its retro design that...
Andrew Ganz -
First drive review: 2019 Volkswagen Jetta GLI channels GTI better than ever
The Tail of the Dragon sits at, or near, the top of any list of great driving roads in America. This 11-mile ribbon of U.S. Highway 129 between Tennessee and North Carolina entices enthusiasts with more than 300 turns and 1,000 feet of elevation change. Unfortunately, it also attracts...
Kirk Bell -
“Sweaters and lunch,” my co-pilot points ahead. The flock of sheep being herded across the road ahead can’t tell the difference between our Range Rover Evoque and the grass they crop. Their herder smiles at our SUV, waves, and keeps his charges off the broken pavement while we buzz along a ridge framed by a sea so vibrant blue it has its own Crayola. I’m bald, so this is the one Grecian formula I aspire to: sun, sea air, and the promise of salty local feta for lunch. MORE: Read our 2020 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque review The Evoque’s a Birkin bag of an SUV, a...
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First drive review: The 2019 BMW X7 has grit, grille, and grandeur
Somewhere on the interstate between Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, it finally clicks, like the incessant drops of rain on the glass. We’re not getting any decent weather on this first drive of the 2019 BMW X7. No useful turns, either. The descent into Low Country evaporates all hope...
Martin Padgett -
First drive review: The 2019 Subaru WRX STI S209 has zero chill
In the shadow of an active volcano, a pop-up city rises up and shouts in unison. The noise bounces off the tarmac and visibly shakes the delicious vapors that rise from nearby food trucks. The young women in long ponytails and short blue satin shorts who cheerlead from a low stage have to be...
Martin Padgett -
Luxury SUV rumble in the Rockies: 2019 Audi Q8 vs. 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE450
Ask me if I consider luxury crossovers to be vital to the human experience, and I’d say probably not. Ask me again on icy roads, in the middle of a blizzard, on an interstate in the middle of Colorado, while being massaged in my seat? Different answer. Luxury SUVs have a time and place and...
Aaron Cole -
First drive review: The 2019 BMW Z4 sDrive30i revives the roadster
Coachella is a town, not a thing. For the 356 days a year when Boy Pablo and Childish Gambino aren’t in residence, it’s a prosaic farm community, where highlighter-pink and yellow signs hawk Medjool dates, shaken fresh from the trees that tower over checkerboards of agri-business green...
Martin Padgett -
First drive review: 2019 Ram 2500 Power Wagon conquers nearly anything
If it can’t climb up the hill, it’ll just pull itself over the hill. That’s life for the 2019 Ram 2500 Power Wagon. For 2019, the Ram 2500 Power Wagon loses some weight, gains some useful technology, refines its edges, but loses zero capability. I flew out to Las Vegas to put the...
Joel Feder -
Among the hottest toys of the 1970s were the Kenner Super Sonic Power (SSP) race cars, which employed a central spinning wheel that propelled them over jumps, down the stairs, and into furniture legs in houses everywhere. The utter ubiquity of these toy cars led to innovations, such as a spark emitter on the spinning drive wheel to add excitement. They also evolved from regular dull molded plastic to luminous hues in a shiny chrome finish. Preferences are influenced early in life, and I’m left to guess that some McLaren product planners spent their formative years pulling the rip cords...
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First drive review: 2020 Bentley Continental GT Convertible offers a break from the digital world
“Digital detox.” That’s what Bentley design director Stefan Sielaff promises in the 2020 Continental GT Convertible, and the opportunity sounds appealing. We are so inescapably immersed in the digital, the synthetic, and the artificial that a retreat to reality and authenticity...
Dan Carney -
First drive review: 2020 McLaren 600LT Spider sounds serious, delivers on the track
Arizona Motorsports Park sits beside Luke Air Force Base outside Phoenix, so visiting drivers are treated to a non-stop free display of air power courtesy of F-16s and F-35s. The base is home to the F-35 demonstration team, whose preparations for the 2019 air show season provided overhead...
Dan Carney -
Review update: 2019 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro yearns to get lost, and found
Twenty minutes from my front door is nowhere. And that’s somewhere I want to be. That’s true for many of us who live in Denver. It’s probably true for the 30 people who will move to Denver today, the 30 people who will move here tomorrow, and the next day, too. The greatest lie...
Aaron Cole -
First drive review: The 2020 Volvo V60 Cross Country is Swedish perfection on wheels
The sun bathes Lulea, Sweden with light for less than eight hours during the middle of the winter. It rises over the Gulf of Bothnia and its small, frigid islands and sets behind the charming and colorful town scattered with red, yellow and white buildings. As pretty as this small city near the...
Joel Feder -
First drive review: 2019 Maserati Levante GTS completes a beast
Italian cars are known for four things: beauty, speed, noise, and a special feel. Fail on any of these and the car feels authentic like ravioli from a can. Maserati’s Levante is the Italian automaker’s first crossover SUV. It’s beautiful, but base models weren’t fast...
Joel Feder