Test Drives, Trends & Events

The 2010 Hyundai Gensis Coupe (photo courtesy of Ryan Siu)

Somewhere between the world of the Gumball Rally and Cars & Coffee lies the event known as the Targa Trophy. It is a one-day rally event that starts and ends in the same place. This event features luxury brand sponsors, luxury brand cars, and luxury brand people. I was invited to compete in this event and I would be doing so with two friends; Tim Odell, an aspiring auto-journalist and Jonny Lieberman, a professional auto-journalist. The parking lot was already filled with oodles of supercar steel, aluminum and carbon fiber ranging from various Audi and BMW products to a Lamborghini Murcielago. Locating our ride for the event was easy; it's the 2010 Hyundai Genesis coupe - a seemingly meager entry wearing a badge unfamiliar to most in this set. More...

The auto industry is full of great taglines. Whether it’s BMW’s The Ultimate Driving Machine, Mazda’s Zoom-Zoom or Chevrolet’s Like a Rock, a company’s tagline is the one catch phrase that is designed to resonate with consumers. In some cases, companies like Ford Motor Company have more than one tagline, from Built Ford Tough to Ford. Drive One. There are two that really stick out the most and they come from my childhood: Have you Driven a Ford Lately and Toyota’s Oh What a Feeling…(you can finish the rest).More...

The 2009 Cadillac CTS-V is a stylishly-creased sports sedan with aggressive body lines.

A luxury sports sedan is a wonderful thing. A comfortable and well-equipped interior paired with an engine that has a little oomph behind it, and you can enjoy the fun with up to four other people. There are quite a few choices in this category; the Audi S6, BMW M5, and Mercedes E63 AMG spring to my mind right away. They are all German and they are all excellent. However, the most thrilling member of this class prefers Levi jeans stained with last night’s apple pie; The 2009 Cadillac CTS-V, the American embodiment of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hannibal Lecter. More...

Stylish with an aggressive stance, the 2009 Pontiac Solstice Coupe GXP gets it right in the exterior design category.

Making a basic sports car seems like it should be easy. Start with a two-passenger car then add a manual transmission that takes power from an engine with some pep and feeds it to the rear wheels. This is sports car 101. Sure you can expand on this idea and start playing with AWD or semi-automatic paddle-shifted transmissions, but that causes costs to rise and begins to take the driver further away from total control of the sports car. The 2009 Pontiac Solstice Coupe GXP gets a lot of this recipe correct on paper, in reality however it is a different story. More...