Ford Taurus SHO Consumer Review

Ford Taurus SHO

There’s invariably somebody who would rather watch an elephant dance than see Savion Glover on the stage.

Ford has clearly aimed the 2013 Taurus SHO at the elephant watchers. I’m not very certain who that focus on demographic encompasses, however based mostly on my observations of SHOs on the road, its apparently restricted to middle-aged men while not sideburns. They’re the those that need a lumbering beast of a full-size sedan that’s been whipped into a comparatively nimble corner-carver — a contradiction in turns, if you’ll enable the pun.

After per week driving a completely loaded SHO (pronounced how Carol Channing would describe what one will with a needle and thread), i used to be completely impressed that such a automobile had been designed, and utterly unconvinced that anyone ought to really purchase it.
After per week driving a completely loaded SHO, i used to be completely impressed that such a automobile had been designed, and utterly unconvinced that anyone ought to really purchase it.

First, though, the basics: The fourth-generation SHO debuted solely in 2010, therefore the majority of the 2013 model updates are cosmetic. Most prominently, there’s a black, trapezoidal grill that echoes the 2013 Fusion‘s snout. The new, optional 20-inch blackout wheels look absolutely badass till you understand they’re primarily stylized hibiscus flowers. The sheetmetal is unchanged, and still as beveled and chamfered as an Art Deco chifforobe. Its slab sides have such a large amount of creases that I panicked anytime I saw the rear quarter panel, assuming the automobile had been grazed in an exceedingly car parking zone. The Taurus’ nonexistent sightlines and uselessly overzealous parking assist alarms mean you’ll most likely add some bevels of your own if you are trying to suit it in an exceedingly tight area.

Toyota Camry Hybrid Consumer Review

Toyota Camry Hybrid

Until I passed the radar-equipped eye of the native constabulary, no one had noticed the Toyota Camry i used to be driving.

“Do you recognize how briskly you were going?” the officer predictably asked. i used to be dumbfounded — before I’d been pulled over, the drive had been a complete blur. Outside of speed traps, the Camry beats Buster Bluth at being neither seen nor heard. That’s why customers am fond of it and enthusiasts hate it, and why I had paid scant attention to hurry limits or blue-and-white Crown Vics. Substitute a hazelnut latte for amphetamines and Terry Gross for Super Soul, and that i was Kowalski.

After I got off with a warning, the remainder of my week with a Cypress Pearl (gray) 2012 Camry Hybrid XLE (MSRP $30,021) was predictably uneventful. It’s a competent cruiser with a giant back seat and unobtrusive technology on the dash and underneath the hood, however the sedan incorporates a few shortcomings that keep it from being a pantheon of practicality.
On the road, the Camry proved to be pleasant and relaxed — good for drivers who care a lot of concerning the destination than the journey.

Outside, I found the Camry’s new look to be a colossal improvement over its predecessor, that suffered from identical bulbous front finish and tail that had unfold across Toyota’s lineup sort of a scabies outbreak at a Vegas motel. Designers smoothed down the older car’s outstanding schnoz and squared off the decklid for a cleaner, handsome look. From a distance, its lines were vaguely paying homage to the previous Alfa 164 — and not unattractive within the least.

BMW 2013 M6 Convertible Consumer Review

BMW 2013 M6 Convertible

BMW fanboys ritually enrapture themselves over the little blue, purple, and red “M” badge that designates the brand’s hulkier strains.

But these are divisive times for the Bayerische Motoren Werkes’ in-house performance search. The 7,104 “M” cars that created their manner into US driveways last year are however a sliver of the nearly quarter-million vehicles sold annually by the German manufacturer, nevertheless the boutique sub-brand is that the sacred cow which will lead the trustworthy to believe, or revolt and demand BMW has gone Buick with squishy steering feel and soft suspension.
The M6 is all grown up, with a big, subtle drivetrain, copious bells and whistles, all the pesky baggage that comes with middle age.

The lunatic fringe passionate about horsepower-inspired horseplay stalks new model specifications with fervor, and therefore the House of M has offered no shortage of variance over the years. for example, solely the primary 2 successive M5 models possessed constant engine layout, a naturally aspirated inline-6. Since then, a V8 dominated the roost till the V10 came along, an F1-inspired screamer that was each exhausting on the ears and therefore the fuel tank. Following that, the Munich-based cult proclaimeth the longer term would be turbocharged, despite earlier guarantees against M cars with forced induction.

Thus, the most recent M6 and its ragtop variant pack constant powerhouse because the M5 sedan, a 4.4-liter V8 with twin-turbos nestled cozily between the cylinder banks for tidier packaging and quicker response. This techy, direct-injected engine pumps 560 horsepower and five hundred pound-feet of torque — that commences at a leisurely one,500 rpm and doesn’t quit till the tach approaches half-dozen,000 rpm, just 1,200 rpm back of redline.

Performance parameters may be manipulated with opt for Your Own journey levels of options: A smattering of buttons round the shifter command everything from steering effort to throttle response, transmission shift patterns, stability management intrusiveness, and suspension damping. Buttons on the steering wheel may be programmed along with your favorite shortcuts to dynamic bliss, though it takes some fiddling to optimize the mélange of motoring variables, that I discovered throughout a day with the M6 Convertible on the highways and byways outside California’s sleepy bedroom community of Santa Barbara.

Hey, watch the leather, man. Photo by Basem Wasef/Wired

The cockpit is welcoming enough, with firmish however friendly seats that, just like the drivetrain settings, don’t lack for adjustability. Sensing a trend here? Yep, aspects of this automotive are geared toward your nephew, not you, despite the restrained instrumentation (typical BMW) and therefore the cinematic, landscape-oriented nav screen that, as additionally seen within the new 3-series, sadly doesn’t disappear beneath the dash.

Scion FR-S Consumer Review

Scion FR-S

Scion’s 2013 FR-S sports automotive succeeds on the foremost vital level: It’s fun to drive.

Too dangerous Toyota couldn’t have had slightly additional fun with the name. The FR-S is thought because the Toyota GT-86 within the remainder of the globe, and even wears GT-86 badges on its front panels. The name brings to mind the expression, “86-ed,” restaurant slang that means a menu item has sold out, a client has been banned, or one thing has otherwise been eliminated.

Imagine a tv business whereby a Gen-Y hipster driving a GT-86 bests a competitor on a twisty road. At the end, we tend to cut to a close-up of the winner as he appearance straight at his nemesis in a very VW or Hyundai and says, “You’ve been 86-ed!”

The actual TV ads for the Scion FR-S aren’t the maximum amount fun, thus it’s an honest issue the automotive is. it's a playful rear-drive character and curvaceous styling that ought to build it a hot commodity among Scion’s under-30 target market.

The design represents a revisiting of the past for Toyota, evoking a time when the corporate turned out cheap, rear-wheel-drive performance cars just like the Nineteen Eighties enthusiast-favorite AE86 Corolla. Toyota’s Nineteen Sixties Sports 800 and 2000 GT are cited as ancestors. The FR-S, that starts at $24,930, is additionally Scion’s initial correct sports automotive, augmenting the more cost-effective, simply “sporty” tC.

The FR-S (“front-engine, rear-drive, sport”) was reportedly caught up to appease Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who asked, “Where is that the passion in our lineup?”
Scion’s stress here is on driving character, not massive performance numbers.

So absent was the eagerness that Toyota looked outside its company boundaries and developed the FR-S in cooperation with Subaru. As a result, most of the FR-S’ engineering and mechanicals — like its FA20 two.0-liter, four-cylinder boxer engine — come back from Subaru. Subie can sell its own, nearly identical version — the BRZ — at a rather higher worth purpose.

The car’s styling is set by useful components underneath the sheetmetal. for instance, the engine could be a flat, horizontally opposed four-cylinder, enabling an occasional hood line that highlights the front wheel arches. From the driver’s seat, the advantages are an occasional cowl and therefore the ability to put the automotive visually using those bulging arches. Also, the gaping grille is flanked by intakes with integrated fog lamps, guaranteeing adequate engine and brake cooling with minimal aerodynamic penalty. With these low-slung curves, the Scion’s silhouette is vaguely Toyota 2000-esque. Its trapezoid-shaped rear incorporates a diffuser, twin exhaust and 12-element LED hind lights.

The car's front-end styling is dictated by its flat engine style. Photo courtesy of Toyota Motor

This useful approach continues within the cockpit, where the black instrument panel is dominated by a giant tachometer, a comparatively straightforward center stack and a flat glovebox space. Imagine the central satnav/audio show pulled out, wires casually hanging, and it smacks of a stripped-out race automotive interior. the material seats are comfy and bolstered enough for serious track work with engaging double-stitching. The steering wheel is, appropriately, Toyota’s smallest, measuring simply fourteen inches in diameter.

McLaren 2012 MP4-12C Consumer Review

McLaren 2012 MP4-12C

Supercars ought to seem like sex. this can be what the voice within my head has been insisting since i used to be fourteen years previous, when the exact same (if slightly less mature) spirit guide led me to hold a Lamborghini Countach poster higher than my bed and doodle Ferrari Testarossas everywhere my Pee Chee folders.

But somehow, to my eye, the McLaren MP4-12C doesn’t quite strike a nerve the manner old skool überexotics once did. Eye-popping curves and salacious silhouettes are time-honored ingredients of the exotic automobile formula. Like Vegas strip clubs or the pool bar at the Delano in South Beach, the meek needn't apply — and if they are doing, they higher damn well have an honest reason for loitering in that rarified company.

And that the McLaren MP4-12C, whereas comely and sleek, isn’t the foremost visually charismatic player during this pumped up, pornographically endowed slice of the automotive stratosphere. Waist-high and swoopy, the McLaren might not be a shrinking violet within the topiary of supercars, however neither is it as sensuously engaging because the Monica Belucci-in-a-negligee Ferrari 458 Italia, or as intimidating because the oh-shit-the-mothership-has-landed Lamborghini Aventador. Even its alphanumeric moniker has a lot of in common with C-3PO than any vehicle have to be compelled to. automobile geeks unite: Your steed is here, and solely you may get the four-wheeled joke.

But the proof, as they are saying, is within the pudding. Or the dihedral doors, that open up and out to permit easier entry into the cabin, one in all countless McLaren details built with an uncanny instinct for style purity. Bisected by a slim center partition, this cockpit exemplifies levels of functionality usually related to military aircraft. The windshield is taller than it's wide, and therefore the proportion is meant to assist you see apexes and place the front wheels — visually identifiable by the slight humps on the front finish — precisely where they have to be. The multimedia screen is oriented vertically so as to assist achieve the vehicle’s target dimensions, and therefore the large tachometer is that the instrument equivalent of a Jumbotron. the middle console dials, cryptically distinguished with single letter labels, click into place just like the switchgear of an F22 Raptor — all the higher to boost your jet pilot fantasies whereas loping down your favorite boulevard.