First Drive & Video: 2013 Mercedes-Benz GLK-Class

By John LeBlanc GENEVA – There are plenty of advantages when you arrive late to a party. Looking back now, Mercedes-Benz seems to have benefited from not being one of the first to crash the luxury compact crossover festivities started almost a decade ago.

The Crank: Lexus looking to expand

By John LeBlanc After a 2011 the Toyota luxury brand would like to forget (there was that little issue of giving up its 11-year reign as the best-selling luxury brand in the United States), 2012 and beyond is looking very busy (and important) for Lexus.

First Drive: 2013 Lexus ES

By John LeBlanc NEWBERG, Oregon – Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: A once dominant Japanese luxury brand falls on hard times. Primarily due to decidedly conservative product development and a loyal-but-aging customer base. Said brand retrenches. Then comes back with a new, more aggressive design language (illustrated via a halo concept car), […]

First Drive & Video: 2013 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG

By John LeBlanc GENEVA—What is it about the guilty appeal of a stereotypical bad boy or bad girl? The kind of partner your parents and friends would never approve of. The type of relationship you secretly, deep down inside, lust after. That’s the problem I have with the updated 2013 Mercedes-Benz G-Class: it’s the bad […]

The Crank: Toyota’s Prius no longer niche

By John LeBlanc Remember when the original Prius went on sale in the late 1990s? As one of the first, mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid cars, the quirky Toyota was considered a cult car at best. Today, 15 years later, the Prius family—consisting now of four models, the original Prius hatchback, the Prius plug-in hybrid, the larger […]

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