A Good Car with a Little Something for Everyone
Canadian Auto Press

Is Ford enjoying a good year or what? It’s the only automaker of Detroit’s Big 3 not to need or accept government loans and therefore didn’t have to go bankrupt, and sales are up because of this plus its strong product lineup. It’s even profitable, which is saying a lot in this dire market. Now, adding icing to the cake, its new 2010 Fusion has made it onto the Top 10 sellers list in the US, about as good as it gets!

2010 Ford Fusion

That makes the Fusion the best selling domestic car, while Ford’s F-150, also on the Top 10 list, continues to be the best selling light truck. Why is the Fusion so hot? Styling always plays a key role, and it appears that Americans like the way the new car and its European inspired lines look, but the Fusion also delivers best-in-class fuel efficiency, an excellent full-hybrid alternative, and a Sport model that not only looks unique outside and in, but delivers agile performance.

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Practical Justification for Buying a Hot Hatch
Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press

When Mazda introduced the ‘Speed version of its much-lauded 3 in late 2006 as an ‘07 model, it really wasn’t up against much in the ultra-hot hatch category. Certainly the five-door wagon version of Subaru’s WRX would have to get the mention, although with 230hp and 235 lb-ft of torque it didn’t quite match the Mazdaspeed3’s output of 263hp and 280 lb-ft of torque from its turbocharged 2.3L four-cylinder. Just the same the Subie offered all-wheel drive to even that torque out while the ‘Speed3 was a bit unwieldy with all that grunt going through the front wheels. No, the natural predator to the ‘Speed3 was Dodge’s Caliber SRT4 that landed around the same time, a five-door as well and loaded to the gills with every option Chryco could throw at it, including a 285hp 2.4L turbocharged four with 265 lb-ft of torque. It was an even wilder beast than the Mazdaspeed3, itself a handful with one of the more rigid off the shelf suspension setups anywhere.

2010 Mazdaspeed3

Fast forward three years and the 2010 Mazdaspeed3 is upon us making the same substantial power from the identical MZR 2.3-litre DISI Turbo four-cylinder as its predecessor, yet the field of competitors has widened substantially. A new Golf GTI is much better and therefore it’s comparatively modest 207hp allows it to compete with the much faster Mazda in spirit, at least, whereas an all-new Mitsubishi Lancer Sportback Ralliart delivers one of the world’s most sophisticated all-wheel drive systems together with what might be the best paddle-shift actuated double-clutch sequential manual-automatic in the business for fractions more than the ‘Speed3, while a new WRX is much better and the Caliber SRT4 is still available. And I haven’t even mentioned new competitors at the bottom end of the premium segment or hot compacts that don’t have hatches. But Mazda hasn’t exactly been sitting on its heels.

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Just Another Orphaned Chrysler Concept?
Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press

200C? Was Chrysler messing with our heads? With the now reborn automaker’s past CEO Jim Press putting on his best game face despite the openly dour moods of some Chrysler executive staff, out rolled a bevy of well-known Chrysler vehicles augmented with pure-electric drivetrains. This was the work of the Auburn Hills automaker’s ENVI division, the play on letters taken from the first four of the word “environment”, a Chrysler project that the brand hoped would be the envy of rivals but has now been disbanded in place of individual EV projects headed by each brand.

2009 Chrysler 200C EV Concept

Chrysler had previously shown three of its ENVI EVs on September 23 of last year, when then-CEO Bob Nardelli showed up to an CNBC interview with a trio of electric vehicles, and later that day at Chrysler’s world headquarters to a gathering of automotive journalists, wowing viewers and onlookers and simultaneously giving new hope to Mopar fans and alternatively to critics of the production Chevy Volt who didn’t find it as sporty as the concept version shown last year.  The appropriately named Dodge Circuit, simply dubbed EV at that time and painted yellow instead of today’s orange, is about as sporty as cars come, having been built off of the backbone of a Lotus, while the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited EV and Chrysler Town & Country EV also received new paint schemes for Detroit, and no doubt some unmentioned upgrades. The Auburn Hills-based automaker showed another electrified Jeep that it hadn’t shown before, however, and the zero-emissions Patriot probably would have been its most doable EV yet, if weren’t for a wholesale change from the top down that will see compact Fiat models replace the Caliber-based Patriot and Compass. None are for sale, for the time being at least, but the company has big plans. But a 200C?

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Taurus Based or a Four-Door Mustang?
Canadian Auto Press

The Crown Victoria has had its days numbered for the last decade at least, but over the years has received one major and a number of minor updates to keep it current. Now only a fleet vehicle mostly sold to taxi companies and police departments, the Crown Vic appears to be officially on its way to the great auto scrap yard in the sky thanks to an announcement this week that Ford will build a new Police Interceptor for 2011, when the Crown Victoria was set to be canceled.

2009 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor

“We have heard the repeated requests from the law enforcement community to continue uninterrupted support of the law enforcement community,” stated Mark Fields, Ford’s president of The Americas in a press release. “Ford is answering the call with the new Police Interceptor – engineered and built in America.”

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GM to Stop Building H2 and H3 in 2010
Canadian Auto Press

It should come as no surprise that Hummer sales are in the dumpster lately. With GM having left the brand to fend for itself during restructuring, year-to-date sales are off some 64% to 8,500 units, made worse by low dealer inventories of only 1,300 units compared to 7,400 vehicles during the same time last year, says Automotive News. Hummer has plans to see 25,000 units in 2010, however, which begs the question, how?

2008 Hummer HX Concept

While new Chinese owner Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Ltd and its new CEO Jim Taylor are looking to boost sales by actually marketing the brand, which hasn’t been done for a very long time, it’s going to take a lot more than marketing to set the brand straight. It’s going to take new models that are more in tune with today’s fuel friendlier market than the current mid-size H3 and full-size H2.

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Forza Motorsport 3 Turns a Racer’s Dream into White-Knuckled Reality.

The best thing about Dream Cars is – everybody has one. Paradoxically, the worst thing about Dream Cars is – nobody has one.

Forza Motorsport 3

Forza Motorsport 3, the latest video game racing epic from the gearhead developers at Turn 10, makes it possible for everyone to experience the exhilaration of owning and driving the world’s most exquisite road machines. Put it this way: if you dream about it, you can drive it.

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Ridiculously Expensive? Certainly. But Overpriced? Hardly.
Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press

So, just what does 1001hp and 922 lb-ft of torque feel like at takeoff? Absolutely nothing can prepare the mind, body and soul for such an otherworldly experience, and unless your name happens to be Alan Shepherd, Joe Engle, Joe Walker, Neil Armstrong or any of the twelve brave souls who manned the experimental X-15 back in NASA’s glory days, only time behind the wheel of Bugatti’s soul-stirring Veyron 16.4 can relate the g-force inducing sensation.

2010 Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport

If it weren’t for the paddle shifters connecting through to its 7-speed DSG transmission I probably wouldn’t have been able to lift my right arm to make the necessary shifts, so intense was the Veyron’s acceleration, its 8.0-litre, 16-cylinder, quad-turbocharged powerplant’s jet-like whine going about its business with a purposeful nonchalance, as if it hardly needed to interrupt its relaxed breathing pattern to send this near 4,200-pound supercar to 100km/h in just 2.7 seconds, the quarter mile in 10.5, and on to a top-speed that I’ll probably never experience yet apparently exceeds 400 km/h or 250mph (407 km/h or 252.9 verified). This particular Veyron is a Grand Sport, so depending on whether you have the targa-style roof closed or open it’s top speed will either be the staggeringly unfathomable aforementioned figure or 360 km/h (223.7mph), respectively, and with the unique canvas umbrella-style emergency bad weather top in place, a mere 130km/h (80.7mph).

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Truly One of the World’s Best
Tony Whitney, Canadian Auto Press

The Aston Martin DBS Volante I recently put through its paces is the latest in a long line of highly desirable sports cars from this fabled British automaker that goes way back to the earlier part of the last century.

2010 Aston Martin DBS Volante

Over the years, the cars have earned widespread fame (not least in many a James Bond movie) and successive generations have each improved upon the last despite periodic corporate upheavals. The “Aston Martin” name, for those who care about such trivia, came from the marque’s founder Lionel Martin, who attached the prefix “Aston” in honour of the once-famed Aston Clinton hill climb course on which he raced before and after the First World War.

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Upping the Subcompact Ante
Canadian Auto Press

Ford is banking on its newest subcompact to pull entry-level buyers into its showrooms come next summer, and after a day’s drive through just about every type of condition this side of arid desert heat at one extreme and snow on the other, it’s a clear winner.

2010 Ford Fiesta

The rain in Vancouver was torrential, especially during a special autocross section that pitted the little subcompact hatchback against other B-segment top-sellers including Toyota’s Yaris Hatchback, Honda’s Fit and Nissan’s Versa Hatchback. All were capable little performers, but only the Fiesta took to the track like a real autocrosser. This thing has legs, reminding me more of the original European-designed Focus than anything Ford has ever brought to us before, and quality is a lot better too, especially inside where it shines, literally in a few spots.

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Good Enough to Trek into 2010 Unchanged
Tony Whitney, Canadian Auto Press

It’s always interesting to evaluate the latest version of an import vehicle on familiar roads, but it’s better still to give one a thorough shakedown in the land of its creation. That’s what I did recently when I spent two and a half weeks touring England and Wales in a Land Rover LR2.

2009 Land Rover LR2

In the UK, the vehicle we know as the LR2 is dubbed Freelander II. About three years ago, the LR2 replaced Land Rover’s earlier Freelander model in Canada, but in its homeland the automaker decided to use “Freelander II” rather than go with an alphanumeric tag. The original Freelander was a fairly modestly equipped rig, but this time around there’s a whole lot more luxury, more room inside and a significant power increase. It’s far more of a “real Land Rover” than its predecessor.

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