SILVIO CALABI: Opinionated at any speed
Silvio Calabi has been reviewing cars since Ronald Reagan removed the solar panels from the White House. He lives in Camden.
Acura TLX Type S
The low stance, the blacked-out trim and wheels, the red brakes and low-profile tires, the flared exhaust trumpets, the spoiler and the absence of chrome all signal “hot car!” With this Type S, Acura—that is, Honda—introduces the performance version of its latest TLX sedan, which debuted late last year.
Acura says the Type S is “precision crafted.” I’m not certain what that means, exactly, but all Honda products, from snowblowers to outboard motors to cars and crossovers, lead their… Read more
Acura MDX SH-AWD Advance
This Performance Red Metallic clear-coat paint helps our 2022 MDX make a brilliant first impression. Even the crew at the boatyard zeroed in on it—three of them were admiring the vehicle when we got back to shore.
The sheer presence of the new MDX, Acura’s three-row SUV, makes a statement, too. It’s high, wide and handsome, as the saying went, with subtle details. This is the fourth generation of what Acura claims the best-selling luxury SUV of all time. When it debuted, back in… Read more
Hyundai Santa Fe ‘Calligraphy’ 2.5T AWD
Santa Fe is a pleasantly upscale midsize city in New Mexico; calligraphy is the art of well-executed penmanship. Somehow, Hyundai has applied both to a car to denote the top trim level of its midsize, two-row SUV—a pleasantly upscale vehicle, especially well executed for 2021. Ah, now I get it.
For 2021, the made-over Santa Fe comes with a choice of three new powerplants: a standard 2.5-liter, 191-horsepower Four available with front-wheel or all-wheel drive; a 2.5-liter turbo Four… Read more
Ford F-150 4x4 SuperCrew King Ranch Hybrid
Pickup trucks being the Swiss Army knives of motor vehicles, Ford now offers a choice of six powertrains, three cab styles and two bed lengths for its brand-new-for-2021 F-150 series. Throw in the long list of options (functional and/or posh) and trim styles and we have a vehicle that can range from a $30,000 V-6-powered wheelbarrow to a $75,000 hybrid-powered mobile workstation.
A hybrid—that is, gas-electric—pickup truck? Yes, indeed, and high time, too. Ford says this beast is… Read more
Chevrolet Bolt EV Premier
The Bolt harkens back to the Volt, Chevrolet’s hybrid of 2011-19, except that the latter was a sedan with a gasoline-powered generator that charged the electric motor’s batteries while the current (get it?) car is an all-electric hatchback powered by a large battery pack that needs to be plugged in to recharge.
The Bolt arrived on a Wednesday morning with about half a “tank” remaining. I grabbed the charging cord from the trunk, ran it into the garage and plugged it into a 120-volt… Read more
Toyota Tundra SR5 Crewmax 4x4 Limited
A pickup truck that’s spec’ed out as a work machine rather than a statement is pretty rare, at least in U.S. press fleets. It’s possible to glam up a top-line Tundra with the Nightshade Special Edition package, but even with every possible option (a combination safe in the center console, anyone?) I was able to boost the price tag to barely above $61,000.
That’s atop a starting price of $41,020 for the Crewmax 4x4 Limited, with its generous four-door, four-seat cab and running… Read more
Subaru Forester Limited
Two impressions always come up upon sliding behind the wheel of a Forester: First, it’s like sitting in a fishbowl, or a penthouse apartment—it’s so open and airy-feeling. The Forester’s tallish, squared-off cabin is not large, but there’s head-, elbow-, shoulder- and legroom, a bit of extra height, and what feels like acres of glass. For a compact SUV, the Forester punches above its weight, space-wise.
The second impression is that Subaru has made good use of time. This fifth-… Read more
Land Rover Defender 110 SE
It was a shock when Land Rover pulled the plug on its Defender model in 2016, an automotive classic if ever there was one. LR said it had a new version in the works; left unsaid was that the old one couldn’t meet U.S. (and other) safety and emissions standards.
This left Land Rover with a headache familiar to Jeep, Porsche and other makers of four-wheeled icons: How to attract new buyers without leaving the faithful weeping in disappointment.
No easy task—the old one had… Read more
Chrysler Pacifica Pinnacle AWD
No one walks into a bar, tosses the key to a minivan on the counter and hopes someone asks what he’s driving. But to the extent that a minivan can be a sleek and handsome symbol of personal style, Chrysler’s refreshed-for-2021 Pacifica is probably the one. Particularly this luxed-out $55,000 Pinnacle version with its tasty biscuit-hued quilted-leather boudoir, I mean interior.
A minivan—a box with wheels at the lower corners—is highly space-efficient; to schlep the most people or… Read more
Mercedes-Benz AMG E53 Sedan
This isn’t your elderly aunt’s E-Class. We’ll get back to that, but first—consider how new cars are introduced to the press these days. Instead of junkets to exotic locales, where we put the “product” through its paces, cars now debut on Zoom.
We log in to hear from a couple of engineers and a PR person who’s there to keep the techies from getting windy about 48-volt electronics and 64-bit processors.
But that’s often what the presentation is about: digital features,… Read more