Interior Reviews

Hyundai Venue Full Overview A Mixed Bag of Materials As the 2021 Hyundai Venue Denim’s name suggests, its exterior and interior are covered in Hyundai’s Denim blue color. Inside, Hyundai uses blue faux leather and plastic throughout the interior. The genuine leather-wrapped steering wheel also gets the Denim treatment. Contrasting tan plastic makes the space look even more like a yacht club, for better or worse. See all 29 photos As good as the Hyundai Venue Denim looks, cheap-feeling hard plastic is noticeable. The elbow rests, which aren’t even padded on the SE and SEL trims, are covered with an ultra-thin layer of padding that doesn’t do much for comfort. The center armrest, also blue, offers a bit more support during longer drives. The rear seat gets the same ar...

Infiniti QX55 Full Overview The 2022 Infiniti QX55 is one of the Japanese luxury automaker’s best-looking SUVs in decades. Its crisp, wave-formed sheetmetal recalls the hugely successful Infiniti FX SUV from the early 2000s, which was one of the first performance crossover SUVs on the market. While it’s clear Infiniti designers spent much time loving the surfaces of the QX55 (and its more conservatively styled sibling, the QX50), you might be wondering if they spent as much time on the interior design. Read on to find out. Is the 2022 QX55 Roomy? I’m not quite sure what it is with fancy hotels in Europe, but so many of them feature beautiful-looking showers without any glass, which inevitably results in water absolutely everywhere. This is all a long, roundabout way of sa...

Chevrolet Corvette Full Overview When we crowned the new C8 Corvette our 2020 Car of the Year, it was after we’d tested a fully loaded car with all the goodies. Would our impressions have changed had a base Corvette been part of the evaluations? After all, the C8’s base price of $59,995 is pretty amazing, so Chevy had to have cut corners somewhere, right? We finally got our hands on a base Corvette, officially known as the 1LT trim. The midlevel trim is the 2LT, and the fancy 3LT, which is the most ordered trim level for the 2020 Corvette thus far (followed by 2LT and 1LT) tops out the range. We covered the performance numbers in our First Test, so the focus here will be on the interior. One thing that stood out during our figure-eight testing were the standard seats. Despite t...

Kia Sorento Full Overview There’s more to the 2021 Kia Sorento’s interior than just enormous screens. Kia’s least expensive three-row vehicle is new for 2021, and like pretty much every other redesigned vehicle, the new Sorento welcomes an increase in digital real estate. Great! But if you’re looking for a three-row SUV (or even a two-row midsize SUV), could the 2021 Sorento work, or should you stick with the full-size but excellent Telluride SUV? Check out our full review and then keep reading for interior highlights on two variants of the Sorento SUV we recently spent time with: the 2021 Sorento SX Prestige and the 2021 Sorento X-Line. 2021 Kia Sorento: Third-Row Space We won’t make you wait. If the Sorento attracts your attention because it offers three row...

Ford Bronco Sport Full Overview Here’s the overwhelming first impression the 2021 Ford Bronco Sport makes upon first climbing aboard: “Whoa, this thing feels big and substantial.” The long, broad, largely horizontal hood with is raised “fender sights” along the outboard edges lend a real sense of size and substance that make you doubt the fact that this trucklet in fact measures 7.8 inches shorter in length than the Ford Escape it’s based on, with a 1.6-inch shorter wheelbase. In fact, the two vehicles’ front overhangs are identical; it’s the Sport’s tail that’s bobbed. The Bronco Sport’s “Safari-Step” roof is 4.1 to 5.3 inches taller than the Escape’s, which enables higher, more upright seating in both row...

Forget Get Shorty’s dust-buster Olds Silhouette, this 2021 Chrysler Pacifica interior makes it “the Cadillac of Minivans.” That’s our assessment after recently crawling all over a pair of upper-trim Pacificas. In fact, its diamond-stitched upholstery might qualify the 2021 Chrysler Pacifica Pinnacle for consideration as the Bentley of minivans. Here’s our assessment of the midcycle-refreshed sixth generation of Earth’s most popular minivan. (At 15 million and counting, maybe it’s actually the Toyota Corolla of minivans.) <!– –> Color Us Impressed Sure, you can get an all-black interior if you’re into the Dieter/Schprockets aesthetic, but in these dour times, a splash of color really heightens one’s mood, so most Pacificas get some contrast color. Our favorite hue is Rodèo...

Behold, the only American car you can factory order and pick up at a dealership that features body assembly  completed by an independent coachbuilder, just as luxury automobiles like Duesenbergs—and Lincolns—often were in the classic era: the Lincoln Continental Coach Door Edition. Anyone can plainly see the extensive modifications the coachbuilders made in stretching the bodywork and reengineering those Rolls-Royce-aping rear-hinged—don’t-call-‘em-suicide—rear doors. But how did they do on the inside? Is this the Rolls-Royce Ghost of American luxury-car interiors? Let’s start off by noting that nothing much changes forward of the B-Pillar, so we’ll focus on the rear-seat experience here and refer you to our 2017 Lincoln Continental Black Label Interior Review for details on the cockpit, i...

The 2021 Toyota Venza’s interior is a cabin of extremes. After driving the Venza and exploring its interior, we’ve found the midsize hybrid SUV very satisfying and disappointing, depending on where you look. You’re So Fancy Although I’m not a fan of our loaded 2021 Venza Limited tester’s black and brown color scheme, the contrasting brown piping on the doors and dash really caught my eye. It’s a cool, premium detail in this segment, and best of all, it’s not relegated just to the Limited trim. The mid-level XLE gets the same style of piping, too. Tons of Screen Space An 8.0-inch touchscreen is standard on the base 2021 Venza LE model. That’s good, but we do wish there wasn’t such a big border around the infotainment screen, which comes ...

Rogue Sport: the very name suggests an impishness layered on top of a bad boy persona. Nissan introduced the Rogue Sport to the U.S. for the 2017 model year. It is sandwiched between the larger Nissan Rogue and the entry-level Nissan Kicks. The spunky Kicks has only been available in North America since 2018, and the much-improved third-generation 2021 Rogue is coming this fall. That makes the Rogue Sport, available in the U.S. since the 2017 model year, the oldest of the trio and a bit of a wallflower by comparison. We spent some time in a 2020 Nissan Rogue Sport SL AWD to see if sitting behind the wheel gives us the kind of vibe that the impish bad boy name implies. Top Trim and Extra Options Our loaner had a base price of $30,895 and was optioned up to $33,860 with the addition of premi...