When it comes to old Buicks, there’s great ones and there’s not-so-great ones. After 1972, the muscle car era was quickly coming to an end. New emissions regulations from the EPA, plus safety regulations from the NHTSA, were already working to put a stop to powerful engines and forced automakers to reconfigure their products to increase weight. Not long after that, insurance companies figured out that they had a hand in what consumers should buy, and skyrocketed the rates on midsize cars with massive engines–effectively ending the party. Continue reading 1973 Buick Century GS Stage 1 Sun Coupe at the 2015 Greenwich Concours→
Well, maybe you’re popular and have a lot of friends. Or, perhaps more likely, you haven’t been using condoms, but still won’t pull out before the job is done, because that would be disgracefully un-Patriotic. You wouldn’t want to disappoint Uncle Sam now, would you? Of course not.
But now you find yourself surrounded by screaming little bastards of various sizes, and you need a vehicle that can fit everyone, together, all at once… what joy! The car had better be extra comfortable too, because, with all that screaming in the back, it certainly won’t be easy to relax while you drive.
You could buy a minivan, but that’s just demeaning to your character. I mean you’re clearly an attractive person because you’ve been able to make lots of babies. So why buy a car that will turn you into a shmuck now?
You don’t want to sell out, and the best news is you don’t have to. There are plenty of nice and stylish SUVs out there that you will be delighted to drive the family around in. And Volvo has just brought a formidable new player to the game…
Meet the all-new 2016 Volvo XC90, which is a completely new flavor from the previous XC90. Where the old XC90 was too soccer-mom-ish, maybe a small step up from a minivan, the new XC90 is a suave and luxurious SUV. Eager to compete at the top, it’s new sense of style on the surface also comes with many clever improvements underneath. What we have here might be the most interesting 7 seater on the market.
Driving Impressions
I took a camera along for the ride, so you can see my realtime reactions to the car for yourself.
Last weekend down the street from my office, AnimeNEXT was in full swing. After a few drinks with a former manager of mine, I headed home, oblivious to the increasing levels of traffic (and the havoc it would create on the local streets of Franklin Township, NJ). As I approached the Crowne Plaza just before the intersection with Easton Avenue, a small hatchback with black wheels and white paint caught my eye. Continue reading 1985 Toyota Corolla AE86 Sprinter Trueno spotted in Somerset, NJ→
This past Saturday, I was in a conundrum. I knew that the local Elks Lodge up the street was putting on a car show, but I wasn’t sure if they’d let me put my Miata in the show. I decided to just drive it over and see what would happen. I was the first guy to show up in an imported car (there was already a Toyota Truck in the show) but they let me in for a few bucks and I gladly obliged, hiding the Miata, in all its scratched-up, four-cylinder glory, in between a few Corvettes. For my efforts, I was rewarded third in class for import cars–which came with a nice $25 gift certificate to the local Italian establishment, Mama Rosina’s.
In all, this was a very well-done show. While the variety of cars was a bit limited, the people made this a very friendly, neighborhood-type show, with people from all over the local area coming out to show off their best cars. We had everything from a 1956 Bel Air (that was all original and awaiting restoration) to a late-model Maserati GranTurismo, C7 Stingray, and a 2014 Super Snake that shook the ground on startup. Enjoy the photos from Riverside Park in Piscataway, New Jersey. Continue reading 2015 Elks Lodge Car Show (Lodge 2414) General Gallery→
While traipsing around Boca Raton, checking out Mizner Park, the high-end shopping district near the ocean, is always worth it. Whether you’re looking for a place to eat, a place to smoke a cigar and sip some whiskey, or just to chase down expensive cars (I was sort of doing all three), it’s got what you’re looking for. It definitely had what the owner of this eggshell-white G63 was looking for too. Enjoy the photos of this insane 4×4. Continue reading Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG spotted in Boca Raton, FL→
Chrysler, at one point, was all about really big cars. I’m not talking “big” in today’s terms. I’m talking “it takes up one whole city block” big. Chrysler didn’t do small cars until the late Seventies–and the proof was how they sold the 300. Continue reading 1967 Chrysler 300 Convertible at the 2014 Radnor Hunt Concours→
Our article on Elio Motors has been getting some decent buzz, and it’s inspired me to do a special, Elio Motors edition price game.
This is just for fun, but it’s also meant to illustrate the reality of the Elio’s $6,800 price. There are no other brand new cars even close to that range, and there sure as hell isn’t anything that will touch 80 MPG.
But with all that said, pretend you have $6,800 ready to spend. Do you buy yourself an Elio? Or do you scour the used car classifieds and find something a little faster or more practical?
See our picks below, and share yours in the comments…
A few weeks ago, my friend, Alex, sent me this photo of a crazy-looking car I had never seen before. He told me it was called an “Elio”, so I searched around on Google to find out more about it.
Made by a brand new company, Elio Motors, this 3-wheeler may well revolutionize the auto industry in the coming years. It may look fast, and far-out, but really it is economical and wonderfully simple. I had a chance to get up close with the Elio prototype at the New York International Auto Show this past weekend, and since then I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the Elio.
The Elio’s Proposition By The Numbers:
3 Wheels, 2 Seats, 3 cylinders, 60hp, 1,200lbs, and 84 MPG, all for a price of… $6,800.
If Cadillac has any chance of surviving as a luxury brand on this Earth, they needed a flagship. The XTS is a rental queen that’s only here so they have something to sell to livery fleets that’s FWD. The CTS is nice, but too small to be a true flagship. Luckily for us, GM had an ace in its hand–the new Omega platform. Cadillac’s been teasing us since 2011 for a flagship model to launch, and now, that day has come. Welcome, and welcome all, to the new Cadillac CT6. Continue reading The Cadillac CT6 just told you to Go Home and Get ya F***ing Shinebox!→
We went to the 2015 New York International Auto Show this past weekend to get up close with all of the cars we’ve been hearing so much about and commenting on in the last few months. NYIAS is always a fantastic time, but this year was the best it has been in 10 years. The show is a bit of a tradition for us to do with our friends, and this year we chose to forgo the press days so we could go with the group. I’ll admit up front that we didn’t get to everything that was at the show, but we had a blast with everyone. Here are our highlights and opinions on the cars we saw.
This is effectively an incognito BMW E39 M5, only even more well-rounded. It is the Cadillac CTS Vsport, not to be confused with the CTS-V, which is Cadillac’s full-throttle, “still hard as a rock after 4 hours” experience.
The CTS Vsport is very much its own thing, not just some “Diet CTS-V” with less calories. If the CTS-V is a big honking hamburger, then the CTS Vsport is grilled salmon filet. It is an entirely different flavor from the V, so get that comparison out of your head from the get-go.
A few weeks ago I had the privilege to drive a Tesla Model S P85D. The whole time driving it I was thinking that if someone had told me this was really the iCar from Apple, I probably would’ve believed them. The Tesla feels so much like an Apple product in car form, and that’s because Tesla has pilfered quite a few employees from Apple over the last few years. But here we are, just a couple weeks later and all of these rumors have surfaced about Apple’s “Project Titan.” Supposedly it is a sort of “iCar”, aimed to actually compete against Tesla.
This of course has gotten me thinking about the idea of Apple making a car, and how they might go about doing it properly. The following is my take on Apple making a car, the struggles they will face, and some possible ways they could make a successful product.
Mind Over Motor 