Ahead of last year’s NASCAR’s season finale in Phoenix, my friend and fellow car nerd, Bozi Tatarevic, asked Mazda to borrow a CX-90. I borrowed another Mazda for the weekend, the CX-70, which is the CX-90’s nearly identical stablemate. (Bozi wanted to see how the engineering of these cars differed. I just thought it would…
The era of electric vehicle saturation is upon us, and Maserati has joined the party. It’s a trio, all named Folgore—Italian for lightning, and a clever way to bring Maserati’s flavor to electrification—made up of the GranTurismo and GranCabrio, as well as the Grecale SUV. I got to try the biggest and baddest of them…
Is Ferrari even Ferrari without the V-12? The engine layout has been essential to the brand since 1947. Sure, Ferrari makes incredible V-8s, and its new hybridized, turbocharged V-6 makes just as much power as engines with twice the cylinders. But nothing will ever be as elegant or magical as a 12-cylinder symphony. Ferrari’s first…
Rolling up the last mile on Hollywood’s infamous Sunset Strip in the 2025 Mitsubishi Outlander, an SEL model equipped with all-wheel drive and a Premium Package, the immortal words of the classic Simple Minds tune reverberated through my head. Don’t you forget about me. No, the 1980’s anthem wasn’t playing on the SUV’s new Yamaha-designed…
I won’t further lament the slow death of the V-8. I won’t bemoan the fact that there are fewer than 30 manual cars left on the US market. Hell, I won’t even bring up the fact that Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge have all but given up on the four-door muscle car genre entirely. Instead, I’ll…
The modern Mini Cooper has always appealed to a certain type of person. Small yet premium, sporty not shouty, and with a strong whiff of manufactured kitsch, BMW’s Oxford-built hatchback aims for yuppies but lands more with older folks as a third or fourth car. While the newest iteration tries hard to break free from…
It’s a good recipe: Take a gorgeous, carbon-fiber Italian supercar, subtract weight, add a bit of power and a decent chunk of downforce, and you get something like the Maserati GT2 Stradale. A more track-focused version of the MC20 supercar, the GT2 Stradale seems like a very promising thing. And after driving it… well, I…
I love it when carmakers have a sense of humor. Selling the newly NACS-plugged Hyundai Ioniq 5 for $55,400 with unpainted bumpers, a 1.0-inch lift, and all-terrain tires is one of the best ideas I’ve seen in the last year. I’m not totally sure who it’s for, but it proves that a little humor goes a long…
Toyota treats the GR Corolla like its favorite kid. Every year so far, there’s been a tiny update that guarantees a minuscule increase in performance, and for 2025, it’s another brace of subtle changes that add up to make a tiny difference. Oh, and there’s a new front fascia that looks like Shredder. For 2024,…
Nokian isn’t a very big brand. The Finnish tire maker, known best for its peerless winter rubber, can’t hold a candle to behemoths like Michelin or Pirelli in terms of volume or range of products. Yet its new performance-oriented all-seasons can compete with the big dogs. The tire, classified as an “ultra-high performance all-season,” is…
