Top Gear has, over the years, been very good at explaining why they have their opinions. However, this is one time where they may not be right in my eyes. The Lexus SC430 has a lot of reasons behind it for being underwhelming. But, crucially, it never really ruined a nameplate. Lexus may have made a mess of the SC nameplate, but people are still buying everything else they make. The SC was bad, but it wasn’t a car that actually sent a brand into a tailspin. That, friends, represents far greater levels of failure–a level of failure that, in my opinion, has only been seen once or twice. However, I’m looking for a car that was bad for the same reasons as the sacrilegious Lexus, but did the job of destroying a reputation. Continue reading Top Gear was wrong. The Lexus SC430 was by far not the worst car ever.→
Hyundai has no secrets in its intentions. Since 2009, this company has managed to make itself look leagues better than almost everyone. When one company screws up in the news, Hyundai has a positive headline on the same page of the local newspaper. Somehow, they can make the entry-level Accent and Elantra and sell them in the same dealers as the high-end Genesis sedan, as well as the subject of this review, the flagship Equus. No other car company can sell a range as diverse as this under the same franchise roof. Hyundai bills the big Equus as a car to fight the S-Class for a much lower price. On paper, that’s quite a clear truth, but I had to drive it to see if that advertising line lives up to its billing.
Infiniti just seems to want to watch the world burn. For some reason they deemed it a good idea to rename their whole entire lineup, for no reason whatsoever. Every Infiniti is now named Q, with some meaningless number. The car you see here is the new Q50, the replacement for the current G37 sedan. As the replacement for the G, which is surely Infiniti’s best selling model of all time, the Q50 has big shoes to fill. This one isn’t an ordinary Q50, though, this is the much-anticipated Q50 Hybrid. So in addition to filling the G37’s shoes, the Hybrid must also make a case for itself in some new territory.
Briefly looking back, the G35 was the car that really launched Infiniti into what it is today. It was based on the same platform as the Nissan 350Z, making it a true 4-door sports car. What resulted was the car that gave the BMW 3 Series its most formidable challenge to date.
Boy has the world changed a lot since the G35 first came out. The emphasis in the luxury market is now on multitasking, both from the car and from the driver. A car needs to be comfortable, but also sporty enough for you to weave in and out of traffic at 90mph while you’re updating your Facebook status and texting your friends. The pure focus on driving is all but dead at this point, even BMW has made that obvious. While luxury cars must still be dynamically capable, and “fast”, the priority for most buyers is now on cool gadgets and hypothetical fuel economy numbers.
Looking at the Q50, especially the Hybrid, it is easy to see that it is a car built for our modern world. I must confess, that when I actually drove the car, I knew very little about it. Since my drive, I have been doing a lot of research to help with this article, and I am finding that the Q50 Hybrid may, in fact, be one of the most interesting cars on the market.
Have you ever been so stoned that you wondered, “Hey, what if my car… and the ground… were the same thing?”
Evidently, someone asked that very question at some point, and the stance craze was born. Slammed cars have all but replaced ricers as the automotive fad of choice, and now everyone wants to be “Hella Flush” in their mom’s Jetta.
It is a movement based entirely around vanity, compromising practical functionality in the name of style and form. There comes with it a rebellious undertone, projecting a level of pride in deviating from the automotive norm. Most people won’t “get it”, and that is the whole point.
So how does one go about conforming to the non-conformity of the Stance Movement? There is a lot more to it than just lowering your car, although that is an inevitability that you might as well just get out of the way. As said by Stance Works, “Low is a lifestyle”, so you’ve gotta really love it to live it low, bro.
Nothing lasts forever in life. There will always come a time when you must say goodbye to friends, pets, loved ones, or in this case a possession which you hold very dear. Sometimes when things part ways the situation is tragic, but other times it is for the best, and you are excited for what is to come next. I am happy to say that my situation is the latter of the two. After nearly three years lovely with my Mazda Miata, it has come time for me to let it go. I just recently graduated college, and life is changing such that having two sports cars will no longer be ideal for me. So with that, I would like to take a look back at my experiences with the car, and what I have learned from it along the way. Continue reading Road Review: Miata Farewell→
The whole idea of Acura in America is to market a higher end Honda product to people who have had a Civic or Accord in the past, but now have more cash to spend. Given Honda’s great reputation, Acura has enjoyed healthy sales over the years. The TL, which is based on the Accord, has been a strong contender in the middle of the Acura range since the late 1990s. However, up until recently, it was hard to consider the TL a real competitor in the true luxury car realm because it was only available in front wheel drive. Acura has wised up with the current generation TL, and has fitted their SH-AWD system to all but the base model. This means the TL is now going head to head with the rest of the luxury segment on their own, complete terms, and that raises the stakes a bit.
The Honda Civic has gotten a bit of a bad rap over the years, being the stereotype platform for “ricers”. In fact I actually just saw The Fast and The Furious, the film that single handedly started the ricer craze, shortly before writing this article. In popular culture Honda Civics are always modified in ridiculous ways, looking like something you’d find in a kid’s cereal box. However, those who really know about Honda’s history know that Honda has made some really fantastic cars over the years. There were of course the NSX and S2000, which were both rear wheel drive. But there have also been cars like the Integra Type R, which is one of the best handling cars of all time despite it being front wheel drive. The fact is that Honda really does have the proven knowhow to make a fantastic car. They have had a lot of racing experience over the years, and history has proven that when they make something good, it is usually really good. So with this in mind, I decided to try out the current Honda Civic Si to see how it fits in with Honda’s past lineage of affordable performance cars.
Saw this very intense Nissan GTR at the Cruise Night in Hopewell, NJ last Friday. It certainly turned heads when it rolled up, and to my knowledge it belongs to Interstate Motorsports, a new exotic car dealer in the area. I’m not sure exactly what has been done to this GTR modification wise, but it definitely doesn’t seem stock. One thing I must point out though, is the Ferrari badge on the back… it nearly ruined the car for me because it is entirely tasteless. The sweet color and wheels saved this GTR, but there is really no excuse for being fake, especially at this level. That said, it was comical hearing people walk by and say “nice Ferrari” while I was taking these photos. Enjoy.
In this segment of Drive’s Chris Harris on Cars, Chris pits the Porsche 997 Turbo S, the new Audi R8 V10 Plus, and a Litchfield tuned Nissan GTR against each other on the road and track. Enjoy.
We went to the evening cocktail event at the Amelia Island Festivals of Speed event, and they had some cars lit up in som interesting ways. It made for some cool shots, highlighting specific parts of each car. We also went out on the show field, and took a few shots of some supercars with some nightly dew on them. I like how these shots came out so I figured I’d share them. Enjoy.
The recession had a serious effect on the American automobile market. We all know what happened to the Big Three. However, there are a few small Japanese companies that are definitely worth mentioning because they seem to hang on either by a thread, or by a sizable rope, in the US domestic market. Subaru, Mazda, Suzuki, and Mitsubishi are the four non-major Japanese players in the US market. Well, they were. One of these four announced late on November 5, 2012 that they were pulling their automotive arm from the US market. So, allow me to say…and then there were three. But soon, I think there will be two. Continue reading Why Suzuki is out of the car market in the USA, and why Mitsubishi is next.→
There were many new cars revealed at this year’s New York International Auto Show. I was in attendance for the Preview Night last Thursday, where I had access to many new cars, both those revealed at the show and those from recent shows. Like every event I go to, I covered what caught my eye. As many of you may know, I don’t do news in the proper sense because I like to be a little more authentic. What follows are my impressions of the cars as I saw and experienced them at the show, and my opinions of them overall. Enjoy, and please let me know your thoughts on any of them in the comments.
Mind Over Motor 