Carmakers

2015 Lincoln MKC – A Worthy Compact Crossover

This entry was posted in cars Ford Lincoln reviews and tagged 2015 car review car reviews lincoln luxury crossover mkc on by (updated 3143 days ago)

2015 Lincoln MKC 02

Back in the spring of 2010 when Ford announced that it was finally going to euthanize its Mercury division, the company also announced a renewed commitment to restoring Lincoln to its former glory. Part of that included refreshing, redesigning and expanding the Lincoln lineup including a new C-segment model. At the time, most of us assumed we would get a production version of the 2009 Concept C, but four years later what we got instead was the 2015 MKC crossover.

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2015 Mazda6 Touring – A Sedan Saving the Stick

This entry was posted in cars Mazda reviews and tagged 2015 2015 Mazda6 car review car reviews mazda midsize sedan review on by (updated 3143 days ago)

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The 2015 Mazda6 represents an endangered species. Don’t worry, Mazda is in no immediate danger of going defunct, in fact it’s currently in a real renaissance period. What makes this particular car a dying breed is the fully manual gearbox.

For the 2015 model year, the number of midsize sedans available in America with a three pedal layout has dropped by nearly half. Both the Ford Fusion and Hyundai Sonata have lost their stick shift options as a result of extreme customer apathy, leaving only the 6, the VW Passat and the Honda Accord.

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2015 Chevrolet Silverado LTZ 5.3-liter, Trucks Have Come a Long Way

This entry was posted in cars Chevrolet reviews Trucks and tagged 2015 2015 chevrolet silverado car reviews chevrolet full-size truck review silverado on by (updated 3143 days ago)

2015 Chevy Silverado LTZ 18

Watching the evolution of the American pickup truck over the past 25 years has been a fascinating experience. Some time I recently spent with a 2015 Chevrolet Silverado demonstrated clearly just how far these most utilitarian of vehicles have come.

When I got started in the auto industry as an engineering student in the late 1980s, technology and trucks were two words that simply didn’t go together. Also not part of the truck equation were driving dynamics, braking performance, refinement or any kind of sophistication.

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2015 Nissan GT-R – Honestly Fast

This entry was posted in cars Nissan reviews and tagged 2015 car reviews godzilla gt-r nissan nissan gt-r on by (updated 3143 days ago)

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“Deceptively quick.” That’s a phrase often used to describe cars so quiet and refined that you find yourself self going faster than you planned sooner than anticipated. There is absolutely nothing nothing deceptive about the Nissan GT-R. In fact, aside from the Lotus Exige, this may be the most brutally honest car I’ve ever driven.

Brutality is utterly fitting for a car known to its fans around the world as Godzilla. Like the Exige, the GT-R offers exceptionally rapid acceleration and amazing handling. Yet despite certain similarities in character that I’ll come back to, these two sports cars couldn’t be more different in execution.

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2015 Cadillac ATS Premium – It’s Way Better Than the Caddies I Grew Up With

This entry was posted in Cadillac cars reviews and tagged 2015 cadillac ats cadillac car review car reviews review sport sedan on by (updated 3143 days ago)
2015 Cadillac ATS 01

For 2015, the Cadillac ATS and the rest of its siblings have abandoned the wreath surrounding the crest

Paraphrasing one of the last tag-lines from the now defunct Oldsmobile, “the 2015 ATS is absolutely not your father’s Cadillac, and that’s a very good thing.” In fact this ATS is the antithesis of what Cadillacs were when I was growing up in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Back in those days, Caddies defined the term land yacht. Actually aircraft carrier might have been a more apt description. When I was high school in the early-1980s, a friend of our family stopped by our house one day to show off the new Caddie that he had bought himself as a retirement gift after putting in his 30 years in one of the local steel mills.

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2015 Chrysler 200C V6, Finally a Real Midsize Competitor

This entry was posted in cars Chrysler reviews and tagged 2015 chrysler 200c car reviews chrysler midsize sedan review technology on by (updated 3143 days ago)

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When Chrysler unveiled the new 2015 200 midsize sedan at the Detroit Auto Show last January, the team from Auburn Hills was clearly trying to expunge the final remnants of the company’s lost decade under first Daimler and then private equity ownership. Chrysler’s new mainstream family sedan was certainly a huge leap forward from its disappointing predecessor in the aesthetic department, but could it compete with the class leaders from Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai and Ford? The only way to find out was to drive one.

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2014 Nissan Leaf Review – It’s Remarkably Normal

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2014 Nissan Leaf SV

2014 Nissan Leaf SV

Somehow in the eight years since I started writing about cars I’ve driven lots of electric vehicles but have never managed to spend an extended period with one until now. Having now spent a week with a 2014 Nissan Leaf SV, I can say that it’s a very good car regardless of how its propelled. That doesn’t mean it’s the best car for everyone in search of a compact hatchback, but for those whose lifestyles overlap with the limitations of today’s battery technology it’s a great choice.

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2014 Nissan Rogue SV – How Big Can Compact Get?

This entry was posted in cars Nissan reviews and tagged 2014 Nissan rogue car reviews crossover nissan review rogue on by (updated 3143 days ago)
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2014 Nissan Rogue SV AWD

Back in the mid-1990s when Toyota kicked off the modern compact crossover utility segment with the original two-door Rav4, these machines really were compact. But as with most vehicle segments, every succeeding generation seems to get bigger until a hole is created that enables yet another smaller segment to emerge. At first glance this seems to be the case with the redesigned second-generation Nissan Rogue that debuted last year as a 2014 model.

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2014 Dodge Grand Caravan Review

This entry was posted in cars Dodge reviews and tagged car reviews dodge grand caravan review on by (updated 3143 days ago)
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2014 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT Blacktop

There is absolutely nothing wrong with utility. After all, at least two major classes of vehicles, SUVs and crossover utilities claim the word as a middle name. Despite that, SUVs and CUVs are in fact far from the most utilitarian vehicles on the road. That claim belongs the classic minivan, including the progenitor of the class, the Dodge Grand Caravan.

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2015 Buick Regal GS AWD Review

This entry was posted in Buick cars reviews and tagged buick car reviews intellilink regal review on by (updated 3143 days ago)

2014 Buick Regal GS 10 It’s been more than four years since I last drove a Buick Regal and while it hasn’t changed all that much mechanically, the evolutionary updates to this midsize sedan have generally if not universally been a good thing. As I familiarize myself with the vehicles on the market today for my day job as an industry analyst, I got to spend several days with the performance pinnacle of the current Buick lineup, the 2015 Regal GS with all-wheel-drive and the operative word is smoothness.

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