Car Reviews
Honda HPD Civic Type R TC Race Car: Attacking the Track
Honda Civic Full Overview The official MotorTrend position on the Honda Civic Type R is pretty clear: It’s awesome. In fact, we think it’s the best front-wheel-drive sports car on the market. As good as it is, no street car is actually a race car. That said, you can absolutely turn a street car into a race car with the proper application of money, parts, time, and labor. Or you can skip all the hard work and hand Honda Performance Development (HPD) a stack of cash to build one for you. HPD calls it the Honda HPD Civic Type R TC, and the HPD people let us lap one. The “TC” (short for “Touring Car”) appellation is important because it refers to the SRO Motorsports race sanctioning body’s TC Class (formerly Pirelli World Challenge), which is roughly e...
2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee L First Look: The Longer, Three-Row Version Is Finally Here
Jeep Grand Cherokee Full Overview The fifth generation of the popular Jeep Grand Cherokee has been expanded—literally—by adding a stretched seven-passenger version that debuts as the 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee L. With consumers champing at the bit for more SUVs (and more Jeeps), Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is building on that momentum with a new addition to the lineup: a midsize-plus Jeep Grand Cherokee with three rows of seating for the first time. This is the mystery three-row SUV that FCA has been promising in its five-year plan, and which will be built at the new $1.6 billion Detroit Assembly Complex’s Mack Avenue Plant. Production begins this quarter, and the 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee L will arrive in dealerships in the second quarter. Why begin the new Grand Cherokee’s rollout...
2020 Chevrolet Corvette Z51 Pros and Cons Review: Great Bones
Chevrolet Corvette Full Overview The mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette feels like other exotic cars, which is a new sensation for anyone familiar with the Chevy sports car. Hopping from Ferrari to Lamborghini to Chevy, the Corvette affirms that we made the right choice last year when we named the C8 our 2020 Car of the Year. Let’s be clear: The mid-engine Corvette Z51 is a car designed around the driver. Yes, it’s easy to look at the strip of Chiclet-sized HVAC control buttons separating the driver from the passenger and make fun. But once you’re actually behind the C8’s funky steering wheel, you’ll realize that the controls you need as the driver are the easiest to get to, and you’ll thank the car gods that they’re physical buttons, not buried in a to...
2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S Pros and Cons Review: Just Shy of Perfection
Porsche 911 Full Overview Pros Absolute magic on a back road Wonderful GT car Insanely quick Cons Magic replaced by cold competency on the track Street tires only We thought it was gone. Banished. We believed the good people of Stuttgart, with a bit of help from Weissach, had finally cured the Turbo’s one remaining weakness. Charging valiantly into our 2020 Best Driver’s Car field, though, the 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S revealed that its Achilles’ heel remains. It’s easy to see why we’d think so. In two back-to-back comparisons earlier this year, both the coupe and convertible annihilated their challengers. McLarens and AMGs couldn’t hold a candle to the new Turbo S on the road. And frankly, things weren’t much different this time around. Just a few ...
2020 Lamborghini Huracán Evo Pros and Cons Review: More With Less
Pros Amazing engine Absolutely planted Outrageous handling Cons Body structure issues Infotainment UX No room for stuff Let’s be honest, the Huracán itself is just a gussied-up Audi R8, right? Sure, when Sant’Agata makes an all-in move with the likes of a Performante, it can win. But just a regular production car? In bocca al lupo. We probably should mention, however, that the Evo does get the Performante’s 630-hp humdinger of a V-10, which screamed loudly enough to break the sound meter at Sonoma Raceway even though we were at Laguna Seca. I kid. A little. We also had a nice demonstration of what a Performante with the ALA removed performs like. This year, our resident racer Randy Pobst went 2.85 seconds slower per lap in the Evo around Laguna Seca than he did in the Per...
2020 Ferrari F8 Tributo Pros and Cons Review: Thrills and Chills
Pros Missile acceleration Quick cornering Bumpy-road mode Cons Wooden brakes Too-light steering feel Looming snap oversteer In reviewing the 2020 Ferrari F8 Tributo with proper clarity, there is a need to go back a few years and admit with mild chagrin that our 2017 Best Driver’s Car–winning Ferrari 488 GTB might have been a ringer. This goes beyond Ferrari sending four factory techs to work day and night to be sure everything ran perfectly. (By contrast, Porsche traditionally sends Frank the PR guy, who watches the Italian antics with mild amusement.) Rather, the 488‘s testing numbers we posted were more akin to what the 661-hp GTB would have produced had it been chipped to 800 hp. And well-placed sources with deep connections say that might indeed have been the case. Bu...
2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Pros and Cons Review: Ultimate Track Tool
Porsche 718 Cayman Full Overview Pros Supreme balance Fantastic teacher Great track tool Cons Jittery suspension Tire noise Underpowered This car has all the makings of a Best Driver’s Car winner: engine mounted in the proper place directly behind the driver and revving to a glorious 8,000 rpm, a delightful manual shifter (unique this year), unflappable carbon-ceramic brakes with excellent pedal feel, and sticky Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. This is a sports car that punches way above its 3,127-pound featherweight status. The 2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 lapped Laguna Seca quicker than a Ferrari 458, AMG GT 63 4Matic+, and various flavors of Nissan GT-R. Like any Porsche I have ever driven, I can tell it’s a Porsche in the way all of its controls have matched efforts and responses. N...
2020 Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe Pros and Cons Review: Defying Logic
Porsche Cayenne Full Overview Pros Supercar performance Well-hidden weight Great fun to drive Cons Sick-pumpkin appearance High price It’s an SUV “How do you explain it?” I asked the Porsche PR man standing along the K-wall at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Legendary wheelman/human lap timer Randy Pobst had just finished his hot laps in the 2021 Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe during our 2020 Best Driver’s Car, and something had gone, well, not quite right. Quite wrong some might even say. See, Porsche is owned by the Volkswagen Group, as is Audi, and Audi owns Lamborghini. At our 2019 BDC, Lambo’s Urus had set the SUV lap record at Laguna Seca, at 1:40.90. You maybe see where this is going. The Porsche, which stickers for $82,559 less than the Lambo, beat the U...
2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Pros and Cons Review: Lunch Money Stealer
Ford Mustang Full Overview Often, history is made simply by breaking a cycle. Sounds easy enough, but sometimes a thing hasn’t been done for a good reason. The GT500 has never been the best Mustang, just the one with the biggest engine. Not anymore. The 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 has changed history. “This car is the ultimate expression of what the American pony car can be,” pro racer Randy Pobst said after only driving it on the street. After driving it on the track: “God, that thing pins you to the seat running from corner to corner. It hooks up very, very well. That impresses me tremendously. Ford Performance has done a terrific job of setting up that chassis to put down power. I’m in love with the car.” “Now, this is what a proper Best Driv...
Dodge Daytona vs. Dodge Charger Daytona: What’s in a Name?
The 2020 Dodge Charger Daytona 50th Anniversary Edition is a marketing stab by the folks at FCA that capitalizes on the lunacy that was the original 1969 Daytona. As an homage to the original car, only 501 of these 717-horsepower beasties will be produced, a number that is supposed to mirror the 1969 production numbers. I miss having automotive heroes—those cars and trucks that, after flipping through the pages of the old buff books, would capture my imagination. Back then, I knew every option and engine code on every vehicle from nearly every manufacturer. Yet now, with the deluge of information we get via social media, I don’t commit as much to memory anymore. Today’s automotive culture is changing at a rate that’s faster than any modern-day vehicle. And while some OEMs...
1997 BMW M3 vs. 1997 Mercedes-Benz C 36 AMG: Classical Gas
BMW M3 Full Overview This comparison test between the BMW M3 sedan and Mercedes-Benz C 36 AMG was originally published on April 1, 1997. This comparison is between—inarguably—the two most desirable compact sedans ever built. The limited-production BMW M3 and Mercedes-Benz C 36 AMG are each so fantastic, so fundamentally tremendous, that this test could degenerate into a love-fest of praise. They’re quick, handle brilliantly, brake instantly, and are built with the structural integrity of a beryllium molecule. We could almost put the critical blinders on, engage WordPerfect’s excellent built-in thesaurus, and let the superlatives fly. Still, though this test will draw out the subtleties and distinctions, it will lapse into a few gooey gushes. Forgive us, we’re human. Neith...
Simply Stunning: Driving Five of Porsche’s Most Iconic GT Cars
Porsche 911 Full Overview Porsche brought five über-special 911 GT cars out to its Experience Center track in Los Angeles and let our own Jonny Lieberman lap them, around two dozen times each. These cars aren’t just some of the best Porsche 911s ever made, no, this quintet represents perhaps five of the best sports cars the world has ever seen. One of them might even be better than that. Was this the greatest morning of Lieberman’s life? Yes, only because his son was born at night. So, read on for his impressions of these epic Porsche GT cars—and which ones are best. 996-Generation Porsche GT3 RS See all 69 photos What Is It and Why Is It Special? A homologated street version of the 2003 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR race car. Lighter than a regular GT3, as a result of carbon-fiber bits ...
