During the Toyota Venza press presentation in gorgeous Farmington, Pennsylvania, we listened to Toyota describe the recipe for the perfect modern station wagon: Take one of the country’s most popular sedans—the Camry, natch—add more trunk room for your junk, raise the roof a few inches, and leave everything else where it is. The thing is, Toyota won’t call the Venza a wagon.

Nor, for that matter, does it consider the Venza a crossover, the term every other manufacturer calls its wagons when it’s too chicken to call them wagons. To describe the Venza, then, Toyota came up with a yet-undiscovered wagon-avoidance term: “the car, optimized.”

Mix of Highlander and Camry

Eyes rolled around the room. Isn’t “the car, optimized” the very definition of a wagon? Toyota’s feeling is that the Venza is about 70-percent car, 30-percent SUV, but in contrast to most crossovers and sport-utes, the Venza makes no promises of off-road dexterity. (Although, interestingly, the Venza offers the same 8.1 inches of ground clearance as does Toyota’s own Highlander.) It also doesn’t offer a third-row-seat option, so mechanically speaking, what you have here essentially is a “Camry, optimized.” Read more »

This 500-hp monster is the strongest commitment to the diesel engine yet.

Some folks are writing off the diesel. The future, they say, lies in electric vehicles, with hybrids as the transition technology. Diesel fuel is expensive, they continue, and there is the further popular conception that diesels are not “clean.” In reality, a diesel typically shaves 30 percent off fuel consumption, and diesel fuel savings are even more substantial at high speeds. New technologies make burning diesel clean as—if not cleaner than—gasoline combustion.

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The Mercedes C63 AMG Performance Package costs £3210 and promises to turn the four-door saloon from Affalterbach into an M3 beater. For your money you get uprated brakes and suspension, a limited slip differential and a steering wheel trimmed in nappa leather and Alcantara.

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We love the Honda Fit. Roomy inside and more fun to drive than a team of coked-up sled dogs, we’ve awarded it a place on our 10Best Cars list two straight years, and it decimated the competition in a seven-car comparison test. Of course, that was the old Fit. There’s now a new model, completely redesigned for 2009, and a few of us in the office have had a chance to take a spin behind the wheel.

And here’s where the problems start. After nearly every drive of a new car, we tend to gather and discuss our individual impressions. More often than not they jibe. When they don’t, though—whoo, boy—expect some fireworks. Regarding this new Fit, we agree on its character—more refined, slightly less frenetic—but we don’t all share a similar outlook on the vehicle’s appeal. West Coast bureau chief Steve Siler, for example, bemoans the car’s newfound maturity and loss of ultimate tossability. On the other hand, associate editor Erik Johnson is more than happy with the changes, finding value in showing people that affordable, fuel-efficient small cars don’t have to be refrigerator boxes with Radio Flyer stickers on the sides and dashboards made of string cheese. Read more »

Just past the curve in which Bruce McLaren bought it, and right before the corner where Niki Lauda had his face burned off, we ­realize the truth: General Motors must still be mad about our review of the 1980 Olds Omega Brougham. The company is trying to kill us.

Back in 2004, GM rolled the last steaming clod of asphalt onto its Milford Road Course (MRC), a 2.9-mile handling circuit at the company’s proving grounds an hour northwest of Detroit. The “Lutzring,” as employees have dubbed it in honor of GM’s meat-eating vice-chairman, Robert Lutz, plunges 135 feet from hilltop to trough and was pieced together like bathroom plumbing from some of the more treacherous corners in motor­sports. The 20 elbows, kinks, and blind whoop-de-dos are crowned by the 45-degree banked “Toilet Bowl,” which resembles the Nürburgring’s Karussell and which has already had its guardrails replaced at least twice. Only 16 of GM’s 266,000 employees are permitted to drive the MRC.

Naturally, a man-eating track you’ve never seen before is just the place you want to be in a 638-hp Corvette you’ve never driven before. Read more »