Just after the Acura press conference, I ran into Chrysler hot shot Ralph Gilles giving the NSX concept the evil eye. Gilles, as you should know by now, is known for his many Pentastar design contributions, including the Chrysler 300 and, lately, as the company’s design chief and CEO of the new SRT performance division. [...]

While taking in the all new Dodge Dart I ran crossways an old friend and stud car Mazda car designer Derek Jenkins.  I sat back in the cut watching as Jenkins and a colleague examined the new Dart from top to bottom; jumping behind the driver’s seat, poking and prodding materials and taking pictures of [...]

DETROIT — The 2012 North American International Auto Show has barely opened to the international press, and already the hottest rumor on the show floor is that Chrysler/Fiat is working on a replacement for the Dodge Challenger. It will be called Barracuda (though probably not Plymouth) and could be ready in time to launch for [...]

“We broke a lot of our own rules,” says Dave Masch, chief engineer of the highly anticipated 2013 Cadillac ATS, Cadillac’s new 3 Series fighter. He’s a GM lifer, and that term carries a lot of baggage — GM lifers are supposedly dull, plodding, buttoned-down company men who worship system and process over product. They [...]

My nephew Nick turns 16 at the end of the month, and unlike many of his automotively blasé peers he’s itching to get behind the wheel. And with Uncle Frank visiting for Christmas, what better time to go shopping. The budget: $3-4 grand. The challenge: Choose as reliable a used car as the last two [...]

I turned 16 in 1991, and that means that the first time I drove a Range Rover was in 1990. Yes, I was only 15-years-old. Let me explain. My friend’s father was an editor at “Trailer Life” entrepot and from time to time he’d get press cars. Typically 4×4s and typically the Livingstone family would [...]

Compact or midsize in 2012? That will be the big question, as Ford, Chevrolet, Honda and Nissan play catch-up with Toyota, Hyundai and Kia, and release new midsize sedans later this year. Despite the growing strength of compacts as car prices rise and smaller cars get better and more well-equipped, Ford is now predicting that [...]

…or how I spent the week before Christmas driving the better part of 1000 miles in our long-term 2011 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD, pulling around an old trailer with a similarly old “race” car. The Chevy Silverado in question is actually the third Motor Trend long-term truck to have had the pleasure of pulling around [...]

In July 2008, I covered a new (to me) technology that promised to let us drive a mile in someone else’s carbon footprint by scrubbing CO2 from the region and turning it into hydrocarbon fuels. But back then, the known processes required more energy input than the resulting fuel contained, rendering the exercise pointless. Recent [...]

A friend recently asked me, “What’s the best sports car for the money?” “Easy,” I told him. “The Mazda Miata.” He didn’t look convinced. I explained that for about as much as it costs to buy a Toyota Camry LE, the MX-5 Miata offers the purist’s recipe of fun: rear drive, manual transmission, lively engine, [...]