First Drives

The 2017 Buick Envision’s arrival in the exceedingly popular luxury compact SUV segment is happening not a minute too soon. In fact, GM is arriving late to the party, but after the crisis in 2008, the manufacturer focused on developing key models that would help get it out of its …

Chevrolet's compact SUV has always been held in high regard among buyers in this segment. Sure, it may not have the reputation for reliability of the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4, but it has still managed earn consistent praise thanks to its efficient construction, practical equipment and good value. Here …

Last week, a number of Canadian journalists were invited to attend the media launch of the new 2017 Toyota Prius Prime, a plug-in version of the next-generation Prius that offers an electric range of up to 35 kilometres. As we found out, the Prime is much more than a juiced-up …

ESTEREL, Quebec – The stakes are high in the car business. One false move can be catastrophic, especially when changes to critically important nameplates are concerned. Imagine Ford screwing up the F-150 or Toyota messing about with the Camry—such moves would imply immediate doom. Mazda’s entire product lineup is fresh, …

All too often, we automobile journalists use the same yardstick for all vehicles. And that’s a mistake. It makes much more sense to determine whether the Toyota Avalon delivers what its clients are looking for, versus an absolute standard against which even the Porsche 911 GT3 RS is compared. Right?

GREENSBORO, Georgia – If you go back 25 years, the Nissan B13 Sentra SE-R was a big hit. Similar to the Mazda MX-5, the SE-R provided a lot of punch and precision from a modestly-priced compact car. It added that touch of pizzazz to the Nissan lineup, so for 2017, …

GREENSBORO, Georgia – The success of the Nissan Rogue crossover following its second-generation makeover is well documented. It currently sits fourth in the competitive compact SUV segment, where it used to languish in tenth position. To showcase how much the auto industry has changed in the last five years, back …

KLETTWITZ, Germany – It’s not every day that an automaker offers a journalist the chance to test drive a real race car. So when they asked me to get behind the wheel of the Porsche GT4 Clubsport and Clubsport MR race cars along with the production version Porsche Cayman GT4 …

CIRCUITO DEL JARAMA, Spain – It’s the sound that’s addictive. The husky, almost staccato sound that the TT RS coupe’s five-cylinder turbo engine made at full throttle on the Circuito del Jarama may as well be a hard drug. The evocative sound of the inline-five stems from its 1-2-4-5-3 firing …

SEATTLE (Washington) – How do you attend a Volkswagen presentation without addressing the elephant in the room? What’s going on with “Dieselgate”? The answer for Americans came right at the start of the presentation. Billions of dollars are going to be spent on rebuilding the manufacturer’s reputation and compensating car …