First Drive Reviews

A Dodge Durango might be one of the last vehicles you'd want to drive on an angry lap of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway's in-field road course. It's a 3-row crossover SUV, designed for school runs rather than running down the front straight. And yet, I'm doing just that, thundering (the wrong way)...

Americans love excess, noise, and bombast, and the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is as excessive, noisy, and bombastic as a car can get. But the ultimate Challenger is also a stunning piece of engineering, capable of nearly effortless straight-line performance unlike any car to ever carry a...

The Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is very, very fast. The Dodge Challenger SRT Demon is even faster. So naturally, rather than calling it a job very well done, Dodge is introducing a middle child, blending the looks of the Demon with the standard Hellcat's powertrain and attaching much larger...

R-E-L-A-X. Frankie said we should all do it. Aaron Rodgers famously said it when the Green Bay Packers started 1-2 in 2014 before coming within three minutes of a trip to the Super Bowl. And now, Mercedes-Benz, not content to build what it considers the best car in the world, wants S-Class...

With Lenin, Marx, and Engels literally looking down on us, my fiancée Mindy, a Hungarian taxi driver—whose name I never did catch—and I pushed a dung-brown 1982 Trabant with a dead battery down a hill. After a few feet, it sputtered to life, coughing out a constant stream of blue...

When you're slinking behind enemy lines, the last thing you want is to be detected. For the U.S. Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC), the next step in military vehicle technology marks its location with only a hint of water dripping out of its tailpipe. The...

It's 9,000 feet from Denver to the summit of Mt. Evans, the highest point accessible by a paved road in North America. That's 9,000 vertical feet. It's a heck of a climb, especially considering it only takes about an hour and a half to do by car. We set off in a 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio...

When I was just a wee lad, I spent countless hours in the sandbox playing with my Hot Wheels and Tonka trucks. The scale discrepancy didn't bother me because the Tonka trucks worked great for grading the sand into roads and freeway off-ramps for my Hot Wheels. I eventually lost countless Hot Wheels...

The Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet has a strange and winding 25-year history. It all started with W124-generation cars in the early 1990s, the first Mercedes models to bear the E-Class name. In the late 1990s, the E begat the CLK-Class Cabriolet for two generations, both of which were based on the...

Like all animals, humans are subject to various temptations. A salad is healthier than a burger and fries, but the whiff you get within a block of an old-fashioned burger joint is irresistible. Similarly, you shouldn’t buy another project car, but when will you find another like it?...

When you have an obscene amount of money, you should be driving a grand tourer. I recommend the Aston Martin DB11 or a Ferrari GTC4 Lusso. But what if you're not a sultan, an oligarch, or a tech innovator and still want what a GT can provide? You buy the 2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 Coupe. Priced from...

It’s a spectacular summer day in Montreal, and not just because it’s 80 degrees. It’s Formula One week, and the remote buzz is audible even downtown as F1 drivers crackle off practice laps at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. They turn one of the most peaceful places in one of North...

Those wacky Germans have found a way to explore every automotive niche known to man--and invent a few of their own. The BMW and Mercedes-Benz product lineups have grown to include every manner of coupe, convertible, sedan, crossover, coupe-like crossover, hatchback sedan, and veloco-transport, plus...

Italian cars are known for two things: driving passion and a finicky nature. So when I finagled my way into a 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio for a track day event, I was hoping that I would experience the former and avoid the latter. Instead I got a healthy dose of both. On Memorial Day, I was...

Codemasters' "Dirt 4" has beautiful graphics, immersive physics, delightful sounds, and intimidating weather. This isn't big news in a modern console-based racer. Where "Dirt 4" distinguishes itself is with a combination of accessible and advanced driving modes and an enormous variety of gameplay...

Check the tape: Maserati owned the U.S. comeback before Fiat and Alfa Romeo crowded into the party. Trident-clad cars could be found roaming streets in the U.S. for more than a decade before Alfa Romeo returned. Yet, despite being the elder statesman at the ripe old age of 15, Maserati had to wait...

The ascending shift lights dart along the tach, green to yellow to red, before the revs bounce and the 2017 Honda Civic Si stretches its legs in the tawny California desert. As the center-mounted exhaust bellows a convincing growl and a short throw from third gear easily finds fourth, the new Civic...

The letters and numbers on a car's trunk usually are its calling card, a shorthand mission statement. As writers, we'd suggest an edit on the 2018 Genesis G80 Sport decklid. Sport is a silly name here, and not because alphanumerics are arbitrary and terrible. This vehicle isn't sporty. It is quick...

At times, it has felt like Porsche’s myriad 911 configurations serve only to answer questions nobody was asking. But this is not one of those instances. After a few hours behind the wheel of a 2017 Porsche 911 Carrera 4 GTS Cabriolet, Porsche's wisdom becomes crystal clear. Sure, it's...

Vancouver Island is one of the most beautiful places in North America. An old-growth temperate rain forest, it is impossibly green, and it offers spectacular views of mountains, streams, inlets, and even fjords...at least when the fog lifts enough to see them. It's the perfect place for a...