First Drive Reviews

Valencia, Spain may hug the Mediterranean coast, but this morning it’s a chillier than normal 45 degrees and the massive tires on the 2020 Porsche 911 have gone stiff in the crisp air. That’s no good when the next thing they’ll do is scrabble for grip during track laps that could...

It looked like heresy when Porsche released its first SUV in 2002, but it turned out to be a brilliant move. The Cayenne quickly took the mantle as the brand’s best-seller, and it became an adage that the Cayenne enabled Porsche to keep building sports cars. The move also turned out to be...

It’s not a hypercar, supercar, or even a sports car, and yet it’s one of the most hyped vehicles of the last decade. The Tesla Model 3 needs no introduction. The linchpin in Tesla’s Master Plan, the Model 3 is supposed to be an affordable, high-volume electric car. It’s not...

Corsa Speed builds quickly in the 2019 Lamborghini Urus on the North Course of The Thermal Club outside of Palm Springs, California. I look down between turns 9 and 1, and the digital speedometer reads 126 mph and climbing. It feels like 80. Still, I feel I need more power. That’s what...

The bar for mid-size pickup truck excellence is not high. It takes only a few minutes behind the wheel of the 2019 Ford Ranger to realize that, for the way most drivers use their trucks, it’s the best choice. Its 2.3-liter turbo-4 spools up its 270 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque with...

The corners are blind. An oncoming car, bus, or bicyclist could await on the other side. Please don’t be a bus. The lane is narrow. The SUV I’m in takes up almost all of it. There is barely any shoulder, and sometimes a guardrail sits right on the lane line and threatens to add an...

When the last mid-size sedan buyer exits the showroom in favor of a crossover SUV, Volkswagen will be there to turn out the lights. That’s the overriding thought about the 2020 VW Passat I drove in lightly camouflaged guise at the automaker’s proving grounds south of Phoenix. The...

The Audi e-tron SUV that goes on sale next spring in the U.S. isn’t just Audi’s first fully electric vehicle. It’s the luxury brand’s way of showing how an increasingly inevitable part of the future can fit right in and be a part of four-ring identity. In our first drive...

Ford launched the F-150 SVT Raptor almost a decade ago to thunderous applause. The reasons were fairly apparent. Big truck. Giant wheels. Pro-level suspension. Power. Most people just reveled in the way the overtly in-your-face Raptor tickled the funny bone of our collective truck-loving id; the...

On Isla Sorna, the fictional island setting for the “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” dinosaurs vaulted millions of years into the future and chewed up camouflaged Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUVs. The 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLE I find myself hustling through empty ranch roads outside of San...

The Range Rover has set a high bar for luxury SUVs. It was one of the first of its kind and few can compete with its ability to go anywhere, any time, in any weather in a leather-lined interior. Introduced for the 2013 model year, the current Range Rover has aged with grace, but it is aging as new...

My 2019 Porsche Panamera GTS test car came with ceramic brakes, rear-wheel steering, and a frighteningly thick booklet explaining the driving laws—significantly, the penalties for breaking them—in Bahrain. The words “jail term” appeared often enough to dissuade me from...

In Hales Corners, Wisconsin, last Saturday night a 14-year-old boy named Sam reached over and pushed down on his mom’s knee to get the family’s Chrysler Town & Country moving. Her foot went to the floor, the Chrysler Pentastar V-6 perked up, and the van accelerated at a modest clip...

Act One: Track time Four cars head out onto the east course at Thunderhill Raceway Park outside of Willows, California. The cars are Hyundais. Yes, Hyundais. This track can be terrifying, with a couple of blind crests, one of which leads to an off-camber right turn. I’m not too worried...

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...

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...

Stepping out of the Archer Hotel in Napa Valley’s morning light, it’s hard to remember the lineup of gleaming white and black cars aren’t German. They are South Korean Kias, and they are sharp. The first-generation K900 was head-scratcher with a price starting in the $50,000 range...

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...