Posts Tagged ‘first drive’
2009 Audi Q7 V12 TDI Diesel – First Drive Review
Written by nitram on October 9, 2008 – 09:13 -
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.
First Drive: 2009 Mazda RX-8 R3
Written by nitram on September 11, 2008 – 09:38 -
“Wow! Is that the new electric sports car?”
That’s what the excited young driver of a big Ford F-150 with a biodiesel sticker ran up to ask just after I’d parked the latest version of Mazda’s RX-8 sports car, the R3.
The fashionably scruffy passer-by obviously hadn’t seen the chromed exhaust pipes or heard the engine, and I’ll never know if he was referring to the two-seat Tesla Roadster or the upcoming Fisker Karma sedan, but the interaction serves to show that even five years after its introduction, the rotary-powered RX-8 is still turning heads, and it’s still rare enough on the street for those who don’t keep up with the enthusiast press to think it’s the latest and greatest.
2009 Chevrolet Traverse – First Drive Review
Written by omeganet on July 4, 2008 – 15:33 -
Saving the best for last might not have been GM’s intention when it finally introduced the fourth and final version of its acclaimed Lambda full-size crossovers—the others being the Buick Enclave, the Saturn Outlook, and the GMC Acadia—but after our short first drive of the 2009 Chevrolet Traverse, that seems to be the case.
The New Malibu Maxx
The Traverse we first saw at the 2008 Chicago auto show was clean and classy, and the production version enters virtually unchanged, save for an ever-so-slight reshape of the headlamp lenses to claim a segment-best 0.33 coefficient of drag. Not accidentally, the Traverse’s fascia bears a resemblance to that of the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu, which is great-looking itself. Other nice details include an upswept rear window, flush-mounted roof rails, and mirrors with LED turn signals on LT and LTZ models.
Malibu influence can be found throughout the Traverse’s interior. The center stack cascades down toward the shifter and is tastefully decorated with silver trim. Illumination patterns also follow those of the Malibu. Read more »
