First Drives

Porsche Taycan Full Overview Credit Subaru for unlocking the secret to selling station wagons to Americans in 1995. Faced with slumping sales at the start of the SUV boom, Subaru added plastic body cladding (and a suspension lift a year later) to the Legacy wagon, called it “Outback” and, as other manufacturers such as Volvo can confirm, the formula worked. With the new 2022 Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, the German marque hopes the tactic will yield similar results for its performance-oriented all-electric station wagon. See all 33 photos How Separates the Cross Turismo From the Regular Taycan? Similar to how the Tesla Model Y is basically a Model 3 with a minor suspension lift and a different roofline, Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo is pretty much a dual-motor all-wheel-drive...

Jeep Wrangler Full Overview A Jeep Wrangler with a plug and an electric motor is finally here. The Wrangler 4xe—pronounced “four-by-e,” like “four-by-four”—mixes a battery, electric motor, and turbocharged gas I-4 engine to deliver up to 49 MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) and 21 miles of electric-only driving range. These plug-in hybrid specs likely are as foreign to the off-roaders and sun-lovers who typically shop Wranglers as the usual Wrangler figures covering ground clearance, breakover angles, and water fording depth are to everyone else. In theory, plug-in hybrids combine the most useful elements of electric and gas vehicles, offering silent, engine-off motoring for shorter commutes and cross-country travel fueled by readily available gasoline. Their real-...

Porsche 911 Full Overview “Point of diminishing returns” best defines the new 2022 Porsche 911 GT3. It’s a description Porsche GT chief Andreas “Andy” Preuninger mentioned more than a half-dozen times in reference to the new 911 GT3 during his media briefing about the new car. Why? Emissions regulations constrained the GT3’s engine development, and the 911’s existing suspension architecture limited the model’s grip and handling performance. But where most automakers might say, “good enough,” and continue printing money, Preuninger said he and his team worked within their constraints to somehow once again build one of the best Porsche 911s we’ve ever driven. What Makes the New 911 GT3 Tick? On paper, when comparing the new 99...

Hyundai Tucson Full Overview The all-new 2022 Hyundai Tucson makes finding its central theme impossible: With its polarizing exterior styling, relaxing cabin, and unexpected driving character, this compact SUV embodies contrasts that somehow blend into a pleasantly cohesive whole. And the takeaway from that whole? If you work for Honda or Toyota, you might want to pay serious attention to the new Tucson. It’s Less Shocking in Person We’ll begin with the obvious: the 2022 Tucson‘s exterior styling. With aerodynamic concerns turning most SUVs into look-alike blobs, designers at most automakers use sheetmetal surfacing to manipulate reflections into forming the vehicle’s “lines.” Hyundai has done the opposite with its compact SUV, using sharply creased pane...

The Toyota Land Cruiser is dead. Long live the Lexus LX570. Should anybody miss America’s Most Expensive Toyota? Should we rightfully be singing hosannas because this snazzy Lexus version only costs $995 more to start (or even $1,335 less than the last Land Cruiser Heritage Edition we sampled)? Maybe not. Is the Lexus LX570 Luxurious Enough? Luxury has been liberally applied to this gussied Toyota Land Cruiser in the form of shiny zebrano-like walnut wood veneers, red perforated semi-aniline leather seats, and lovely stitched materials adorning the dash, door uppers, and center console. And yet the legacy architecture hamstrings the LX570 with old-fashioned artifacts like the small, low-resolution info screen between the analog dials and the generations-old infotainment display that ...

Bentley Continental GT Full Overview The limited-edition 2021 Bentley Mulliner Bacalar was intended to be one of the stars of the 2020 Geneva Motor Show. But COVID-19 had other ideas, and with Geneva’s sudden cancellation, Bentley was forced to forgo the pomp and circumstance of launching the Bacalar at an event that has in the past hosted the debuts of style icons such as the Jaguar E-Type and Lamborghini Countach. Instead, Bentley’s first two-seat car in 90 years was revealed via a direct data dump into media inboxes around the globe. In the end, it didn’t matter. All 12 Bacalars were quickly snapped up without a single customer having seen an actual car, and not one canceled their order even as the pandemic threw the global economy into chaos. Anxious Bentley boss Adri...

We’ve been told that our cars must change, that they pollute and maim … and this can no longer be; Congress and DOT have decreed it. Some believe that this is only a phase we’re going through, that it, like all things, must pass. In our hearts, though, we know that it’s true and it really will happen. Still, those of us who love cars hope and work toward the end that there will somehow remain some trace of the excitement that we cherish in the breed of antiseptic transport modules that is to follow—vehicles conceived without emotion like test-tube babies in sterile laboratories. The Safety Cars are coming; we’ve already seen their ESV vanguard. Padding, periscopes, and airbags: the wave of the Future. “The present-day concept of the automobile is outmode...

Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross Full Overview Mitsubishi is picking up speed. Not dramatically—think a brisk walk compared to its prior shamble—but the Japanese automaker is on a bit of a roll with its new products. We were duly impressed with the all-new, ground-up redesign of the 2022 Outlander, a three-row SUV that bodes well for the company’s direction. Conversely, the Outlander drive program also slotted us behind the wheel of the refreshed 2022 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross, a compact SUV that reminds us the brand still has work to do. That’s not to say the 2022 Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross is a bad compact crossover. But the old—and new—Eclipse Cross isn’t at the top of our list of favorite small SUVs. The refreshed model somewhat relegates the old version to memory, but it’...