First Drive Reviews

Aston Martins are known for two signature traits: drop-dead gorgeous looks and bad-ass soundtracks. But how do you maintain the band’s identity when you have to play a cover tune? If he were still alive, I’d tell you to ask Joe Cocker. Sometimes you get by with a little help from your...

Back in the 1980s, Porsche knew it could build an SUV. And it knew a Porsche SUV would sell well. It finally got around to building that first Cayenne in 2002. Instincts: correct. Since then, it’s sold more than 770,000 of them. It’s so successful, Porsche now sells a smaller Macan SUV...

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is widely recognized as one of the most luxurious full-size cars on the market, and with that luxury comes an exclusive price. But there is luxury and then there is luxury and there is exclusive and then there is exclusive. We already reviewed the 2018 Mercedes-Benz...

Land Rover has learned a thing or three since its sale nine years ago. First, pegging your future and bottom line on an all-SUV lineup can be rewarding (except when it isn’t). Second, British automobiles and reliability don’t have to be mutually exclusive (except when it is). Third...

Along its journey from builder of cheap but reliable transportation to budding luxury market player, Hyundai-Kia’s strategy has been “if you can’t beat them, join ‘em.” Or more appropriately, have them join you. When its cars looked like poor imitations of melting...

When I was a kid, "The Jetsons" promised me flying cars would be part of the future, and I would have a robot housekeeper. It’s the future, and I don’t have either of those things. Now, automakers are promising self-driving cars are the next big thing, and they will be on the road very...

A little evolution now and then is a good thing. That distorted maxim holds true for the Lamborghini Aventador. Originally released as a 2012 model, Lambo’s most-expensive supercar boasted loads of technology derived from Formula One, but it had some issues. It was heavy, it understeered on a...

Mercedes-Benz and Porsche have not always been adversaries. The two German automotive icons, hailing from east and north of Stuttgart, Germany, respectively, were once occasional collaborators. Not that you’d know that from behind the wheel of the 2018 Mercedes-AMG GT C coupe. This squat...

With the self-driving car on its way, our days as drivers are numbered. Eventually, some accursed batch of engineers in a shadowy automotive tech center will put all the pieces in place and birth the first truly autonomous vehicle. Assuming Skynet doesn't become self-aware shortly after and kill us...

In late August, exactly six next-generation 2020 Mazda 3 hatchbacks existed anywhere in the world. Each was a hand-built prototype, riding on a next-generation chassis and powered by a radical new 2.0-liter engine. We'll take two. But the car’s styling and design haven’t been...

Approach the 2018 Grand Cherokee Trackhawk and few external cues give away that this isn’t a normal Grand Cherokee SRT. The front fog lights are missing to allow more air to feed air-to-oil intercoolers, the quad-tipped exhaust features a shiny black chrome finish, Trackhawk specific wheels...

I'm headed to Autobahn Country Club in Joliet, Illinois, and I'm a little nervous. Just yesterday I took delivery of a 2017 Jaguar F-Type SVR Convertible, and today I'm going to drive it for one 20-minute session on Autobahn's 1.5-mile North Track. Thing is, I'm not sure I can handle this thing...

When an automaker says its concept vehicle is powered by unicorn farts, emits only cotton candy, and can accelerate from 0-60 mph in two shakes of a lamb's tail, don't believe them. What they are actually saying is, "If we ever develop the technology to build this thing, that's what it could do."...

When the new Ford F-150 was unveiled in 2015, it was the world's first aluminum pickup truck, an innovation that General Motors and Ram still haven't caught up with. Combined with a pair of twin-turbocharged V-6 engines, Ford's perennial best-seller pushed the art of the truck into an important new...

Term limits don't apply to the new car industry. If they did, the 2017 Nissan Frontier you see here wouldn't be a dead-ringer for the 2005 Nissan Frontier that hit dealer lots during George W. Bush's first term. A lot has changed since 2005. But not the Frontier. Sure, it's up for a redesign, but...

Audi Sport's slogan is "Born on the track. Built for the road." While most of us would love to test the limits of any Audi Sport model on a racetrack, we'd also be happy to merely have the opportunity to slide behind the wheel of any RS model for a week, especially if it's a $137,000 RS 7...

Neither jaw-droppingly gorgeous nor particularly utilitarian, the 2018 Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo is nonetheless highly endearing. It’s the latest in a line of cars from Porsche that seem to do little wrong either on paper or in reality. It's practically perfect, but not all that...

The 2018 Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid is an intensely busy machine. There’s nothing raw or visceral, two words nearly synonymous with Porsche, about this four-door hypercar, and yet it feels every bit the flagship it is intended to be. After on- and off-track drives around Victoria...

If you were going to design a sports car, you wouldn’t start with the layout of the Audi TT. You wouldn’t choose a front-wheel-drive architecture. You wouldn’t turn the engine sideways, and you damn sure wouldn’t locate it ahead of the front axle. Instead, you’d start...

Audi’s turbocharged 5-cylinder cars have a short but distinguished history. The Audi Quattro burst onto the scene in the early 1980s and won multiple driver's and manufacturer's titles in rally racing. In 1987, an Audi 5-cylinder was the first car to run up Pike’s Peak in less than 11...