Category: On The Road: Driving Impressions

After driving the Fiat 500 and 500 Cabriolet, I was ready to relegate it to the ranks of "chick car". Its high-style accents and accoutrements scream "feminine". But, now there is a Fiat a guy can be proud to drive - the Abarth model. Abarth Fiats have been high performance versions of Fiat car lines for decades since Austrian Karl Abarth began modifying them in the late '50s. This is America's chance to have the most up-to-date Abarth available.

When was the last time you can honestly say that you’ve driven a full-size car with 140 horsepower and it has been more than adequate?  Maybe the 1986 Ford Taurus with the venerable Vulcan V6?  Well, I was given the opportunity for some seat time with a 2012 Passat TDI clean diesel and it is Volkswagen’s newest sedan to hit American soil, err, actually be built on American soil.  While the styling may not be anything to get excited about at first glance; like a jelly donut, it’s what is inside that counts.

Ed Kim, AutoPacific's Director of Industry Analysis, was given a sneak peek at the Audi A3 e-tron plug-in electric.

Behind the wheel, expect the hybrid powertrain and CVT transmission to warm your heart towards saving the planet, not carving the pavement.

Sometimes things start out great and end up only OK, or perhaps worse. The smell of coffee in the morning. Most Superbowls. A full bottle of Patron. We recently had the opportunity to experience the Audi e-tron and came away excited by the vehicle, but wondering why we got to see so much of it.

It was about a year ago when I first got my hands on the new-for-2011 model year Jeep Grand Cherokee.  Looking bigger, better and more refined than ever, the Grand Cherokee had a few nit picks that could have made it just the teensiest bit better.  For 2012, Jeep decided to make a few of these changes.  Let’s check ’em out.

We love getting the chance to push these vehicles in a closed setting. In this environment, the GS more than held it’s own. But most vehicles are not purchased after a run through the slalom.

Honda just can’t seem to catch a break these days.  With the fallout from the tsunami, a profit sucking Japanese currency issue, the floods in Thailand, and the media in an uproar over the new Civic, well, Honda’s public relations team is working overtime.  So, is the Civic really the worst car out of Honda in years or has the segment just gotten that good?

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I need to give you full disclosure:  I love engines with forced induction.  Turbos and superchargers make me smile, well, most of the time.  My father had a Lincoln MKT EcoBoost when they first came out and I appreciated the idea of a turbo V6 but wasn’t particularly impressed with the the package.  The front-wheel biased all-wheel drive torque steer and transmission calibration never seemed to be as polished as I had hoped for in a vehicle of that price point.  It could use a dose of that torque vectoring system from the Focus to balance out the massive amount of power.  My opinion of the V6 EcoBoost from Ford was basically “meh”, as I never felt like the refinement was all there.  A stint in a Taurus SHO confirmed this [...]

There are two things that I have daydreamed about for years.  The first is an Audi RS 4 Cabriolet in my garage.  The second is to have a place to drive that RS 4, like, say, maybe, my own personal race track?  My dream got about as close to reality as it ever will a few weeks ago in a remote part of the Catskill Mountains.