The sub-compact crossover utility has been one of the fastest growing market segments in the industry over the past few years. As of the time I sit to write this in January 2016, there are 10 entries available in the American market with several more to come in the next few years including Ford, Hyundai and probably GMC. Of the examples I’ve driven in the past year including the Chevrolet Trax, Nissan Juke and Honda HR-V, each has elements to recommend it, but like Goldilocks looking for a place to nap they were each too hard or soft in some respect. Did Mazda get it “just right” with the CX-3?
I give up, the crossover utility vehicle is new station wagon. There I said it. For what seems like forever, I’ve been advocating the station wagon over SUVs and crossovers. However with the distinct exception of Volkswagen’s Jetta/Golf Sportwagen, Americans steadfastly refuse to buy them, even when an automaker like GM builds one as awesome as the late Cadillac CTS-V. Thus I am giving up the battle and accepting defeat. Buying cars is often an irrational choice but modern crossovers like the latest Kia Sorento have overcome most of my complaints and are about as rational as many customers will get.
The 2016 Nissan Maxima may have the long-running 4DSC badge molded into the rear turn signal lenses but I’m not going to classify this as a sports car. There, I said it, now let’s move on and talk about what this car actually is and what it’s about. The all-new eighth-generation of the flagship of Nissan’s car line launched a few months ago with a dramatic new design and a host of technical upgrades. After a preview drive last June, I finally got to spend some extended time with the Maxima just before Christmas.
Forty years ago, with the addition of three little letters to the compact Golf, Volkswagen established a market segment that persists to this day. The quick and sustained success of the GTI has since inspired virtually every automaker to create their own interpretation on the “hot hatch” idea. Over the years hot hatches have waxed and waned in popularity but they have never completely gone away and in recent years they have had something of a resurgence with cars like Ford’s Focus ST, Fiesta ST and my most recent ride, the Kia Forte5 SX.
Compared to the rest of the world, the American automotive market is an anomaly in ways. No where else will you find fullsize pickup trucks selling in such enormous numbers with the big trucks from Ford, GM and Fiat Chrysler being the perennial best-sellers for years on end. Move beyond our borders however, and so-called C-segment or compact cars dominate the market. For nearly five decades one of the continuous top-sellers in that space has been the Toyota Corolla in all its different flavors. While Corolla buyers elsewhere get to choose from a variety of body styles, Americans are limited to a four-door sedan unless they opt for the related Scion iM hatchback.
The American light vehicle market is a unique beast in the world. Nowhere else on the planet will you find so many full-size pickup trucks in use and representing such a large proportion of total vehicle sales. Through October, 2015, Americans bought 1.78 million fullsize trucks, 12.3 percent of the year-to-date total. It’s also the only market segment where the three Detroit based automakers have remained utterly dominant despite challenges from Japan. As the world’s largest automaker, Toyota looked at the profit margins that Ford, GM and Chrysler were pulling in on those trucks and it’s been trying to capture a piece of that pie for more than two decades with surprisingly limited success. In 2013, Toyota gave the Tundra pickup a major makeover and it’s better than ever – but is it good enough?
Don’t get me wrong, the Scion FR-S is by no means slow, but in comparison to a Mustang GT, Camaro SS, Challenger Hellcat or Tesla Model S, it has no hope of keeping up. But I have absolutely no issue with that. In fact, that is precisely what makes this car so damn appealing. At 200 hp, the FR-S has more than enough grunt to get around and have tons of fun without resorting to the type of antisocial behavior that’s likely to get you thrown behind behind bars or worse.
Cars hold a strange place in our lives. For most people, they are the second most expensive purchase they will make after a house. Many of us depend on them for personal mobility in modern life. But in many ways, cars are frequently the least rational big-ticket purchase we’ll make. If we were at all rational in choosing cars, we’d all be driving either a Prius or a minivan. There would be no SUVs or sports cars and only contractors would drive pickup trucks. But we are irrational creatures that buy cars for emotional reasons; the way they appeal to our eyes when we see them, the thrill we get from the roar of the engine, the rush we get from the acceleration.
While auto industry observers seem to be fixated on the idea that crossover utility vehicles are taking over the entire market, the reality is that in America, the midsize sedan segment is still huge and vitally important to mainstream brands. For Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Kia and Hyundai, midsize sedans are their top sellers and even at Ford and Fiat Chrysler, they trail only full-size pickup trucks. With so many sales on the line, no one can afford to stand still and Nissan is launching a major refresh of the Altima for 2016 that brings new style, technology and efficiency.
Over the years certain brands of cars have become inexorably associated with colors. Regardless of what is sprayed on in the paint shop, a Ferrari is always a deep scarlet red at heart. Anything built on the north side of the English Channel should be a dark green. High performance cars wearing a three-pointed star or four rings are silver arrows. The Toyota Camry? Beige through and through.
Beige is not an offensive hue. Quite the opposite in fact, it may well be the best camouflage color in the known universe. Instead of garish swirlies that are guaranteed to attract attention, automakers should just paint all their prototypes beige and spy photographers would never even see them.
Having now watched the first two episodes of the Starz series Spartacus:Gods of the Arena and re-watched last year’s Spartacus:Blood and Sand, I decided to go back and re-watch the 1960 Stanley Kubrik film based on the revolutionary gladiator. Wow, what a difference half a century makes. I’ve long been a fan of Kubrik’s work and he created some amazing films including Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket.
However, sitting down and watching Spartacus this afternoon I’m reminded that Kubrik also often needed a strong editorial hand on his work. Of course given his reputation as something of a control freak, it’s unlikely that he ever would have accepted such oversight in the final cutting of his films. Despite having won four Oscars, I found the movie to be very uneven and often plodding with long wordless sequences of the camera panning over the camps of escaped slaves or other scenes that really did nothing to move the plot forward or develop the characters. Both the dialog in many places and the performances also left much to be desired, although the bath scene with Laurence Olivier’s Crassus and Tony Curtis’s Antonius remains a classic. Don’t even get me started on the This three hour epic could have easily been cut by a third without losing anything of significance.
Aside from being set in a ludus (gladitorial school) in Capua, the modern iteration of this tale couldn’t be more different from the film. In typical modern fashion, the new Spartacus takes advantage (or is that disadvantage?) of lots of digital effects. Unfortunately, much of it used to produce gratuitous amounts of violence. Despite that, the story telling and character development in this modern iteration is actually quite good and goes well beyond what Kubric achieved 50 years ago. The back stories of many of the characters are quite fleshed out, especially in this second season which is actually a prequel. Andy Whitfield who played Spartacus was unable to film the second season after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
The full first season and each of the episodes of season two are available for streaming on Netflix and well worth checking out.
The sub-compact crossover utility has been one of the fastest growing market segments in the industry over the past few years. As of the time I sit to write this in January 2016, there are 10 entries available in the American market with several more to come in the next few years including Ford, Hyundai and probably GMC. Of the examples I’ve driven in the past year including the Chevrolet Trax, Nissan Juke and Honda HR-V, each has elements to recommend it, but like Goldilocks looking for a place to nap they were each too hard or soft in some respect. Did Mazda get it “just right” with the CX-3? 
