2011 in Review: The worst car I drove for >$40k

By John LeBlanc Let me be clear: I’ve never understood the romantic fascination with late 1960s American muscle cars. They were poorly made. Space inefficient. Handled like a bag of squirrels. And consumed fossil fuels like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Yet here we are, four decades later, and the U.S. brands still […]

2011 in Review: The best driving experience

By John LeBlanc Over the course of any year’s worth of an auto writer’s work, you’ll find many reports of us driving new, fast cars on closed circuits and race courses. But many of these so-called “track” events are either hampered by a limited number of laps, limited number of cars, or a slower-than-hoped for […]

2011 in Review: The best car I drove for >$40k

By John LeBlanc While I drove much faster cars, and more expensive cars, a fossil-fueled luxury car, Audi’s audacious A7 Sportback 3.0T, was the “best” car I drove in the past 12 months.

2011 in Review: The worst car I drove for <$40k

By John LeBlanc Call all me crazy, but I always like to see a little progress in the machines I test-drive each year. Hence the disappointment in the “new” 2012 Nissan Versa sedan, a car that feels like it’s about 15 years old.

2011 in Review: The best car I drove for <$40k

By John LeBlanc Korean cars aren’t the punch line to a bad joke anymore. Rising from their former positioning as backwater makers of bottom-feeder cars with lowball sticker prices and extra-long warranties, the Hyundai and Kia sister brands have turned into builders of some of the most reliable, safe, smartly-styled, technically advanced and value priced […]