First Drive Reviews

I awaken at the Dorint Hotel on a cool, dewy May morning. The surface of the famed Nürburgring-Nordschleife rests just a few feet outside my window, and it, as well as the plentiful surrounding greenery, is shrouded in a pea soup fog. Mid-May shouldn’t be this cold. The temperature...

It launches to 60 mph quicker and weighs less than a Ferrari 488 GTB. It slays the quarter mile faster than a Bugatti Veyron. It'll take on all comers on a road course. And it’s from an automaker that got its start in earnest in 2010. We took the 2018 McLaren 720S to California’s Ortega...

Born into a prizewinning family, the 2018 Porsche 718 GTS may never be the champion of anything—not in the Porsche lineup at least. That doesn’t mean it’s not a winner. The 2018 Porsche 718 GTS adds 15 horsepower and 8 pounds-feet of torque above the Cayman S or Boxster S, cuts...

The scene in the rearview mirror of the 2018 Porsche 911 Carrera T is remarkably clear. It’s all high-definition vineyards and crystal-clear coastline, for as long as I dare look back. Why it’s so clear: Engineers fitted thinner rear and side windows that are not only 6 pounds lighter...

Our ideal garage is full of weird French hatchbacks, Japanese kei cars, German wagons, and Volkswagen vans. But as North Americans, we’re stuck admiring these wondrous oddities from afar. Aside from the tragic Volkswagen Routan, the U.S. hasn't seen a new VW van since the Eurovan disappeared...

The day begins in a Sequin Blue 2019 Bentley Continental GT at the exclusive Kitzbuhel Country Club in the Tyrolean region of Austria. Set against verdant rolling hills and tooling through storybook villages, it would be easy to think one is lost in a fairy tale. This car’s cabin is outfitted...

An air of practicality sweeps over Porsche these days. It’s not unlike the strong winds coming off the Mediterranean Sea on the warm spring day when I find myself behind the wheel of a 2019 Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid pushing toward the French coast from hilly Provence. This warm, humid breeze...

The 2018 Aston DB11 Volante just may be the grandest of today’s grand touring cars. A 2+2 convertible with a sensuous shape and 503 German horses under its clamshell bonnet, it’s a beautiful means of getting you wherever you want to go. We drove the DB11 Volante on the California coast...

We’re far off charted roads, somewhere in France’s L’Occitanie region, on some family estate where wine and off-roading are baronial hobbies, when I first take a peek in the rearview mirror. As I crash a 2019 Mercedes-AMG G63 through trashcan-sized holes and muddy slip-n-slides...

No one car can do it all, but the 2018 Volkswagen Golf GTI comes pretty close. VW’s hot hatch is almost as happy snaking through twisty canyon roads as it is doing adult stuff like hauling home lumber for a weekend project from the corner big box hardware store. Slap a roof rack on top and...

Automaker family portraits are like most of ours. See that mohawk in the back? That’s the Honda Civic Type R. The blue-face scoundrel flipping the bird? Hello, Ford Focus RS. Every family has someone bound for the pokey—even short stretches, but the 2018 Volkswagen Golf R skips hard...

What’s the biggest sacrifice you’ve ever had to make? Drip coffee at home instead of a drive-thru latte? The middle seat in back, in coach? Okay, breathe. The base 2018 Porsche Panamera won’t trigger any gasps like those commonplace horrors. We’ve driven all kinds of...

The giant blades on the lazy-looking wind turbines that dot southern Portugal produce the sound of a passing jet, only it never goes away. I know this because the irresistibly photogenic windmills got me out of the 2019 Aston Martin Vantage’s driver’s seat. Not much else would. The...

My mom's moving saga never ends. It's the gift that keeps on giving for a son who wants to help and has occasional access to pickup trucks. Recently, a 2019 Ram 1500 was available to me and that meant I became delivery boy once again. This time she needed an oven moved, along with a few bikes, and...

In the four minutes and 34 seconds that I get behind the wheel of the 2019 Jaguar I-Pace, I could listen to “Moby Dick” (Zeppelin, not Melville), make a bag of popcorn, or charge the electric Jag for about 20 miles. Ideally, I’d like to do all three. But I get four minutes and 34...

Feel. It's what makes us fall in love. It's what drives our passions. And it's what made auto enthusiasts revere BMW's M cars for years. But even as it got faster around a racetrack, the BMW M5 lost some of its magical feel in its last two generations. The M5 is redesigned once again for 2018, and...

Burnt coffee, unlined trousers, post-Achtung Baby U2. Life is rife with mild disappointments. With four fewer cylinders under its hood than its W-12 cousin, does the V-8 Bentley Bentayga deliver another? Math with us here for a moment. A W-12 Bentayga with 600 horsepower lashes out at 60-mph runs...

I’m barreling down the longest straight at The Thermal Club’s South Palm Circuit at over 100 mph, and I’m thinking this isn’t right. The 2018 BMW X2 isn’t made for a racetrack—it’s especially not exciting after driving several laps in the new M5—but I...

“Best RACE Experience With Shifter in Manual.” That message flashes across the instrument cluster after I twist the drive mode selector past Dynamic and into Race in the 2018 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrifoglio. I dutifully oblige, slotting the electronic shift lever left from Drive and...

The 2018 Buick Regal GS wears lots of letters and words on its flanks and in its cabin. Two you won’t find? “Gran Sport.” That moniker’s a relic of an era when rear-drive Buicks prowled the roads, leaded fuel their Muscle Milk. Today’s Buicks lean heavily on recently...