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.
Lincoln Navigator 4x4 Reserve
In other English-speaking countries, a full-size SUV is a Range Rover, which fills many British country roads from hedgerow to hedgerow. But here in XXL-land, it takes something like this Lincoln Navigator to really flesh out the meaning of “full-size.” I’d be nervous driving it anywhere in England except a multi-lane motorway.
Even here in New England, the Navigator can be a squeeze. Threading it into my driveway takes a two-point turn. Fortunately, these beefy flanks are protected… Read more
Lincoln Corsair Reserve AWD
The Corsair is the smallest-but-one of Lincoln’s newly extended family of four SUVs. In descending size order, they are the Navigator, Aviator, Corsair and Nautilus. The three smaller ones are unibody-type crossover vehicles. The size-XXL Navigator is a full-length body on a Ford F-series truck platform, but you’d never know it by the sprightly way it drives. Family resemblance is strong across the lineup.
The Corsair—corsair, btw, is a 16th Century term for a pirate—is a two-row “… Read more
2021 Toyota Supra GR 3.0 Premium
“That’s a Toyota?”
Yes, it really is a Toyota. It’s the latest Supra, the two-seat sports/grand touring car that Toyota has produced, off and on, since Jimmy Carter was President. The last Supra, from 1993 to ‘98, was then the most expensive Toyota ever—around $35,000, as I recall, and the twin-turbo version was also the most powerful Toyota. Today’s Supra is out-priced and out-powered only by the lofty Land Cruiser.
A few months ago, the first version of this newest Supra,… Read more
Lincoln Aviator Grand Touring AWD
Thumbs up to Lincoln for offering us a gas-electric hybrid Aviator able to cover about 15 miles on electrons when conditions are just so. But here’s the rest of the story: second-tier hybrid engineering at a first-tier-plus price.
The standard Aviator has a 400-horsepower twin-turbo V-6 and a 10-speed automatic transmission. Want more power yet? Instead of a V-8 option, Lincoln offers this plug-in hybrid called the Grand Touring All Wheel Drive. It adds an electric motor to the V-6… Read more
2021 Mazda3 2.5 Turbo Premium AWD
The license-plate holder on the car reads, “Feel Alive”—evidently the latest take on Zoom-Zoom, Mazda’s tagline from its “What Do You Drive?” campaign. Which continues, “At Mazda, we believe if it’s not worth driving, it’s not worth building.”
This one is worth building, and driving. Think of it as the ride a driver might move up to when maturity beckons and the boxy silhouette of a hot hatch has gotten stale. It’s a five-door sedan, still small, but with a fastback, coupe-ish… Read more
2021 Acura TLX SH-AWD Advance
Knowing that Acura is Honda’s upmarket brand, you might expect its re-designed and re-engineered new TLX to be a plush and whisper-quiet “mature” sedan—a Lexus by another name, perhaps. But you’d be wrong. And possibly surprised.
In fact, Lexus, worried that its cars are “boring” to driving aficionados, might follow Acura’s lead: This TLX “delivers precision-crafted performance to premium sports sedan enthusiasts.” The maker also calls it “simply the best performing, best handling… Read more
Hyundai Venue SEL
At 159.1 inches long—just 131/4 feet—this subcompact Hyundai crossover is nearly a foot shorter than a Mini Countryman.
The Venue is the smallest ute I’ve ever driven; its turning radius is so tight I nearly clipped the boulder at the end of my driveway when I was backing out into the street.
Three Venues could fit into my two-car garage with room left over for the motorcycle and snowblower.
Hyundai calls it the “ultimate urban partner.” The… Read more
Mercedes-Benz 4Matics: GLC 300 Coupe and GLA 250
“G” in Mercedes-speak is for geländewagen, which means “off-road vehicle” in German. At 41 years of age, the original G-Class is the second-oldest model in M-B’s lineup—a boxy, body-on-frame ex-military vehicle that now starts at about $130,000. The GL series, however, are crossover SUVs that are much more “accessibly” priced. The least of them, the GLA 250, starts at about $36,000 without 4Matic all-wheel drive.
In all, there are seven GL models (in many trim levels) ranging in… Read more
Cadillac CT5 Premium Luxury
The CT5 is a new Cadillac, aimed directly at the BMW 3-Series, the C-Class Mercedes-Benz, the Alfa Romeo Giulia, Acura TLX and the many others of that ilk. It was conceived as Cadillac’s sports sedan, an important benchmark to the Young Executive demographic, and it hits that target not in the bull’s-eye but somewhere out near the edge of the 9-ring.
Detroit is still focused on delivering price first. It believes that it’s good to be able to brag that your new luxury sports sedan… Read more
Honda CR-V Hybrid Touring
Compared to last week’s hybrid SUV from an up-market home-grown brand, this gas-electric Honda is a paragon of civility, and for much less money. It exhibits none of the dysfunction of that Detroit hybrid—no lurching transitions between gas and batteries, no wooden brakes, no sudden rushes of electric acceleration—and this one, a loaded Touring model, lists for just $35,950.
That’s about the median price of an ordinary new car sold in the US today, but it’s a hybrid packed with… Read more