First Drives

Volkswagen Jetta Full Overview Debuting for 2019, Volkswagen’s current A7-generation Jetta represented a meaningful step forward for a nameplate that had lost some of its luster over its previous few iterations. It impressed us enough, in fact, to earn a third-place ranking among compact sedans in our MotorTrend Ultimate Car Rankings. How’s it holding up against the ever-increasing competition? To find out we spent a week in a range-topping GLI model in Pure Gray and fitted with the Autobahn Black package, which left it a few red wheel stripes shy of aping the 35th Anniversary model we tested in 2019. Now, this GLI isn’t the Jetta that ranks as our third-best compact sedan. Our class rankings focus on the highest-volume variants, which in the compact-sedan class would be ...

BMW 4-Series Full Overview Let’s get the barf emojis, raised eyebrows, and pointing and snickering aimed at the redesigned-for-2021 BMW 4 Series‘ new flared nostrils out of the way now. The huge dual grille openings resemble many things—buck teeth, the nasal passages on a bare skull, etc.—but few will recognize that they mark a return to the original tall, skinny kidney grilles applied to early BMW models a century ago. Historical footnotes aside, the weird face tragically distracts from the rest of the 4 Series design, which is svelte and attractive, like a three-quarter-scale 8 Series coupe. The controversial front end at least gives the new 4 Series a talking point, because behind that schnoz there isn’t a whole lot to write home about. And that’s sort of an issu...

Jaguar F-PACE Full Overview The bestselling vehicle for Jaguar, the British marque long known for its luxury cars, is now an SUV: the F-Pace. And while “F-Pace” might not be a household name, most people would immediately recognize one as a Jaguar—and feel a pang of envy as it drove by. That’s because the F-Pace is quite the looker, and has been since its launch for 2017. Unfortunately, any excitement you felt usually faded when you climbed inside the cabin, where the quality of the materials and overall ambiance didn’t live up to the luxurious promise of the sheetmetal. Time spent fighting with a glitchy infotainment system only added to the disappointment. None of this is news to Jaguar Land Rover, which was very aware of the F-Pace’s shortcomings. So while ...

Ferrari SF90 Stradale Full Overview When I first learned Ferrari was offering up a plug-in hybrid supercar with hypercar aspirations, I didn’t think much of it. I knew a bit about the sausage-making, and in some ways the SF90 Stradale is yet another update of the F8 Tributo platform, which dates back to the decade-old 458 Italia—and truthfully there’s some circa-2004 F430 marrow and sinew to be found within the new car’s anatomy. I assumed it would be nothing more than a heavier iteration of the same old, Maranello-flavored, mid-engine V-8 supercar with much too much power for anybody’s good. Boy, was I wrong. How It All Works Our own European bureau chief, Angus Mackenzie, wrote up an incredibly detailed first look of the SF90 Stradale, which you can read here. I&#...

Volkswagen Taos Full Overview When Volkswagen first announced it would bring a subcompact SUV to the U.S., we harbored hopes we’d get the nifty little T-Roc, a cool crossover from the automaker’s European lineup. Instead of the T-Roc, though—or at least something derived from its bones—we were surprised and perhaps a little disappointed to learn the 2022 Volkswagen Taos is based on the same platform as the larger Tiguan. The Tiguan is not exactly a favorite of ours; we rank it number 12 out of 13 compact SUVs. But now that we’ve had our first drive in a production-spec Taos, we see why VW did what it did. Basing the Taos on the Tiguan pays dividends in space and practicality, but it also extracts a penalty in driver appeal and value. The Taos Is Bigger and Nicer Than You ...

Very few people on earth get telephone calls like this one from Aston Martin: “We’re thinking of doing a one-off car and wondered if you might be interested?” And yet, according to Simon Lane, director of Q and special projects for Aston, that’s the (paraphrased) question asked of the eventual owner of the wicked Victor supercar. Apparently, Aston found it still had a low-mileage carbon-fiber monocoque and V-12 engine from a One-77 prototype (that’s the 77-unit jaw-dropper that made its debut more than a decade ago), and the brand’s Q division thought it’d be a shame to just leave it in storage. So ideas began to percolate. First, the “lightly used” structure was sent back to its original supplier, Multimatic, to be restored to as-new s...

The 2022 Aston Martin V12 Speedster costs the equivalent of a million bucks and doesn’t come with a roof. Or even a windshield, for that matter. It’s expensive and impractical and breaks no new ground in terms of its layout, technology, or design. It’s a rich person’s toy, a 12-cylinder, twin-turbo plaything for people with money to burn—a pointless automotive frivolity. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Let’s be real, though: With a handful of exceptions like the Ford Model T, Volkswagen Beetle, Citroën 2CV, and the original Mini, among others, the automobile has rarely been simply about rational transport. If it was, we would all drive sensible hatchbacks or multi-function minivans rather than lusting after snarling 600-horsepower perform...