Ask the Editor/B&B: What Should This Power-Loving Reader Buy?
TTAC reader Gerard Van Ginkel writes: I love your reviews. I drove the Golf R last week and it was nice but it didn’t compare to my RS4. I was wondering, of all the cars you have driven recently,...
View Article2017 Hyundai Elantra Sport: More Dash, and a Small Spoonful of Flash
Hyundai set out to make its Elantra hotter, and it’s happy to report that the sedan’s output now tops 200 horsepower in newly unveiled Sport form. The 2017 Elantra Sport brings a third engine choice to...
View Article2016 Mazda3 Wins Comparison Test, All The Losers Win Bigly In The Real World
Enthusiast praise for the Mazda3 began before the current-generation compact Mazda arrived in late 2013. Previous iterations benefited from hugely positive reviews. “We’re going to love the 3 once it...
View ArticleHere’s What an Ex-Volvo Designer Did For Poor Old Lada
Times are still tough in Russia, and your average Moscovite or St. Petersburgian doesn’t want to risk buying a new car — unless it’s a vivid, modern new Lada. Lada, the much-maligned butt of Western...
View ArticleThird Shoe Drops: Boatload of 2017 Honda Civic Hatchbacks Spied
The third addition to the Honda Civic lineup was recently spotted at a UK port, providing a glimpse of a vehicle we’ve only seen in prototype guise. The Honda Civic hatchback shown at the Geneva Motor...
View ArticleVolvo Readies Small Car Revival, Trademarks V40 Name in U.S.
Volvo is determined to make a splash in the U.S. small car market when the next-generation 40-series cars arrive, and it’s already laying the groundwork. The Swedish automaker filed a trademark...
View Article2017 Nissan Sentra SR Turbo Dashes IDx Dreams
Nissan is filling in all the unfilled niches today. The automaker unveiled a turbocharged variant of the sensible and unexciting Sentra today at the Miami International Auto Show, promising a...
View ArticleNo One Wants Your Worthless Small Car, and Its Retained Value Shows It
Is there a tiny pinpoint of light that can stir some meager hope in the heart of the compact and midsize passenger car segment? No, no there isn’t. Even as sticker prices for these vehicles rise and as...
View ArticleAce of Base: 2017 Subaru Impreza 2.0i
Sometimes a manufacturer churns out a base trim that — all things considered — might just be the primo choice for that particular model. Here’s an example. A few weeks ago, Ace of Base looked at a base...
View ArticleNo Fixed Abode: The Low Spark Of High Performance Compacts
Imagine a world without war. More specifically, imagine a world without the horsepower war that has dominated the automotive landscape over the past fifteen years. It’s easy if you try. The Corvette...
View Article2017 Mazda 3 5-Door Grand Touring Review – It’s The One To Have, Not The One...
American consumers acquire more than 200,000 new compact cars every month. Only 4 percent of those cars are Mazda 3s. Compact car buyers are far more likely to drive away from a new car dealer in a...
View ArticleComparison Test: 2017 Honda Civic Hatchback vs. 2017 Mazda 3 5-Door – Grins...
Until recently, American car shoppers generally treated hatchbacks with a level of disdain normally reserved for that fetid cheese you forgot about in the back of the fridge. It made sense; most of...
View ArticleCritical Praise Ignored, Mazda 3 Sales Keep Falling
“It’s the one to have,” we said of the 2017 Mazda 3 on the last day of November, “but not the one you’ll buy.” Pat TTAC on the back for such an accurate forecast, as the very next day, Mazda revealed...
View ArticleAce of Base: 2017 Mazda3 4-Door Sport
Sometimes a manufacturer churns out a base trim that — all things considered — might just be the primo choice for that particular model. Here’s an example. When we started this nonsense Ace of Base...
View Article2017 Toyota Corolla iM Review – Know Your Place
Long, long ago (2003), in a land far, far away (Torrance, California), Toyota’s American division woke from a fever dream of beige sedans, took a long, hard look at its life, and promptly embarked on a...
View ArticleChicago 2017: 2018 Hyundai Elantra GT Drops the Cute Act
Hyundai lifted the veil on the next-generation Elantra GT today at the Chicago Auto Show, revealing a compact hatch that dispenses with the “cute little car” template. For 2018, the Elantra GT grows in...
View Article2017 Chevrolet Cruze Hatchback Premier Review – Now Can We Forget About the...
It’s not easy to live down past embarrassments. In a junior high school basketball game, I banked in a free throw. Two decades later, do you think my older brothers have forgotten? More than two...
View ArticleKia Quietly Kills Off a Model You’ve Already Forgotten About
We’re not talking about the K900 flagship sedan, as Kia’s luxo barge actually gets people talking — mainly due to its slow sales and LeBron James connection. No, the model lying in the casket this...
View ArticleThe Mitsubishi Lancer Lives! (Sort Of)
As Mitsubishi prepares to launch a new small crossover, the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross, Mitsubishi’s car lineup continues to shrink. The Galant died in 2012. The Mitsubishi Lancer, it was revealed...
View ArticleNew Four-Cylinders on the Way from Mercedes-Benz
Like Steve Austin’s doctors, Mercedes-Benz engineers realized they had the technology to make the brand’s four-cylinder engines better than they were before. Better, stronger…smaller. As the automaker...
View ArticleMercedes-Benz A-Class is Coming, Could Start Below $30,000: Dealers
Get ’em young and get ’em poor upwardly mobile. That seems to be Mercedes-Benz’s rationale behind the upcoming A-Class sedan, which should arrive in the U.S. later next year. According to dealers who...
View Article2018 Hyundai Elantra GT First Drive Review – Sidle Up to the Hatch Buffet
Years back, a neighbor of mine worked as an electrician’s apprentice while we both occupied different corners of a sketchy four-plex. Good guy. When an emergency arose, especially if the emergency was...
View ArticleWe Know Crossovers Are Killing Midsize Sedans, but Now Compact Cars Are...
Through the first-half of 2017, midsize car sales plunged 18 percent as nearly every nameplate in the category suffered from declining sales. Year-over-year, sales of the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord,...
View ArticleQOTD: Do We Deserve an American Small Car?
If you’re a believer in the idea of authentically American small cars, then you’ve had a rough couple of years. The last compact or subcompact to be engineered ground-up by an American corporation was...
View ArticleHyundai Rolls Out Pricing for Crossover-fighting 2018 Elantra GT; Entry...
Hyundai, as we told you last month, has a pretty competent little hatchback on offer for 2018: the newly restyled, revamped, and (Hyundai hopes) reinvigorated Elantra GT. Sporting a mature...
View Article2018 Hyundai Elantra GT GLS Review – Wouldn’t You Really Rather Have a Car?
Back in late June, Hyundai’s Canadian division bundled myself and a group of fellow journalists into a Quebec hotel, then proceeded to explain how crossovers are eating the compact car’s lunch. The...
View ArticleWill Buyers Wait Until 2022 for a Next-generation Honda Civic?
The lifespan of an average car-model usually lasts a half-decade before the automaker shells out for a full redesign, unless it’s a Nissan Frontier or Lincoln Navigator. That’s more or less the rule at...
View ArticleHyundai Accent Ditches Hatchback for 2018 Redesign
With sales slipping, Hyundai has decided to trim some fat on the fifth-generation Accent. While a hatchback remains available for the rest of the world, the automaker has indicated the U.S. will...
View ArticleFourth-generation Ford Focus Goes Upmarket, Spawns an Active Variant Of Course
Rarely does one hear an automaker point out that the next generation of a popular product is headed downmarket. Even when a vehicle is repositioned in a lower end of the market, “downmarket” is the...
View ArticleThis Is the Next Mazda 3…‘s Silhouette
The 2019 Mazda 3 will be previewed by a concept at the 2017 Tokyo Motor Show on October 24th. Realistic enough to represent an accurate vision of what the fourth-generation Mazda 3 will look like, but...
View ArticleOnce Again, Canada Gets a Mercedes-Benz the Americans Can’t Have
There’s more to living in Canada than just higher taxes, polar bear incursions, and brutally cold weather. For some reason, denizens of the Great White North are allowed to enjoy more choice at the...
View ArticleAlready a Gas Sipper, the 2019 Volkswagen Jetta’s Fuel Economy Nears the Head...
The next-generation Jetta, now virtually indistinguishable from other cars when viewed from the side (but unmistakably Volkswagen in its front and rear styling), has plenty of newness on offer, having...
View ArticleSmallest ‘Real’ Mercedes-Benz Sedan Updated for 2019 – Honest!
There’s significant changes in store for the freshened 2019 Mercedes-Benz C-Class, though you wouldn’t know it from a casual glance. German automakers aren’t known for messing around too much with...
View ArticleNow That the XC40’s a Hit, Volvo Wants More Small Cars
Volvo, back from near death and feeling pretty pleased with itself, wants to capitalize on the modular platform found beneath the XC40 compact crossover. With 80,000 orders for the new-for-2018 ‘ute...
View Article2019 Mercedes-Benz A-Class: Like the CLA, but Less Awkward
Listen up, Millennials. Don’t believe this small crossover stuff you’re hearing from the diverse and sexy members of your social circle. Mercedes-Benz says you don’t need one to feel fulfilled. That’s...
View ArticleRare Rides: This 1975 Chevrolet Is Both Vega and Cosworth
An enterprising GM executive, a British tuning company, and a compact hatchback came together in 1975 to make a very special, limited-production Chevrolet. It’s the Cosworth Vega, naturally. This Vega...
View Article2019 Hyundai Elantra Refresh Actually Refreshing
Currently the seventh best-selling sedan in the United States, the Hyundai Elantra is an fairly important model for the Korean brand. Sound engineering and some inoffensive bodywork has also made it a...
View ArticleAAA Study: Depreciation Costs Rising Among Smaller Vehicles; Your Beautiful...
Not to hammer too obvious a point here, but the decreasing popularity of a certain car model, combined with increasing incentivization, can seriously influence that model’s depreciation. Ask Cadillac...
View ArticleRare Rides: A 1993 Fiat Tempra, the Practical Sedan for America
The looks of an old Volkswagen Jetta, the reliability of an old Italian car, and the inconvenience of right-hand drive. All of your dreams can come true in today’s Rare Ride — a Fiat Tempra. It made...
View ArticleQOTD: The Last Compact Car Left Alive?
Continuing sadness. That’s all this writer feels when he gazes at the small car space these days, what with GM culling the Cruze, Ford’s Focus inventory dwindling like SPAM supplies before a hurricane,...
View ArticleRare Rides: A Tiny and Stylish Saab 99 From 1973
Saab was always a fan of the number nine, and it proved its dedication to the special digit by using two nines for their pre-900 era compact executive car. Let’s take a look at a little blue Saab 99....
View ArticleRare Rides: A Base Model Nissan Sentra Wagon From 1982
What’s Datsun, Nissan, and Sunny all over? It’s this pristine Nissan Sentra wagon, hailing from 1982. The Sunny line started back in 1966 as a compact car which touted fuel efficiency and economical...
View ArticleRare Rides: The 1987 Nissan Be-1 – a Little Retro Ride
Today’s Rare Ride is a Nissan Be-1 from 1987. As the first of four Pike cars, it set the stage for the upcoming Pike cars and commanded immediate attention from consumers. Come along as we check out...
View Article2019 Mazda 3 First Drive – A Cohesive Compact?
We travelled to the small and traffic-free city of Los Angeles last week to check out the newly revamped 2019 Mazda 3, the first product launched under the automaker’s equally new premium philosophy....
View ArticleRare Rides: The 1989 Nissan S-Cargo – It’s Van Time
Today Rare Rides takes a look at another one of Nissan’s special Pike cars from the turn of the Nineties. This tiny van is definitely the oddball of the Pike family. It’s an S-Cargo, from 1989. The...
View ArticleRare Rides: A Microscopic American Motors Metropolitan From 1962
Recently, we featured a grandiose convertible Hudson once owned by actor and car enthusiast Steve McQueen. Today’s Rare Ride came originally from Nash, the other company which combined with Hudson to...
View Article2019 Mazda 3 AWD First Drive Review – Holding It All Down
Earlier this year, Mazda showed off its all-new 3 sedan in Los Angeles. The new compact’s intent is to impress a revised, upscale image on the brand. While the 3 delivered in quality, overall...
View ArticleRare Rides: A Beige Plymouth Champ – American Malaise From 1980
Rare Rides has featured a couple of Plymouths before, both of which were sporty and boasted two doors. Today’s Plymouth also has two doors, but is perhaps not quite as performance oriented as its...
View ArticleRare Rides: The 1981 AMC Concord Keeps it on the D/L
Vehicles from plucky AMC are always welcome here at Rare Rides. Thus far, the series has featured a Metropolitan, a concept Van, a Matador Barcelona, and a very tasty Sundancer. The latter is a cousin...
View ArticleBuy/Drive/Burn: Forgotten Offerings From Lexus in 2012
Car manufacturers don’t always strike a chord with consumers, and even studious brand Lexus is not immune from model flops. Back in 2012, the company offered three compact vehicles nobody wanted. Today...
View Article