The Crank: My 2011 World Car of the Year is…

[svgallery name=”2011_Audi_A8L”] By John LeBlanc The seventh annual World Car of the Year awards, which yours truly is a judge, announced its top ten finalists for 2011 this week.The overall winner for WCOTY—as well as winners for World Performance Car, Green Car and Design of the Year—will be announced at this year’s New York show in April. Before then, […]

The Crank: Is Infiniti der neu BMW?

[svgallery name=”2011_Infiniti_M37_Sport”] By John LeBlanc For Crank readers with any kind of automotive historical context, you probably already know that when Nissan’s Infiniti premium brand launched in the late 1980s, it’s original Q45 sports luxury sedan was seen as a direct shot at Germany’s Ultimate Driving Machine brand, while Toyota’s also-then-new Lexus was left to […]

The Crank: 2011 CAJ Best of the Best nominees released

By John LeBlanc Here’s the deal. If you’re reading my blog, it’s safe to assume that you’re one of the wisest, sharpest, most knowledgeable car enthusiasts on the planet. So it goes without reason that if yours truly is to put his name behind an annual new car award, it’s going to be the “best” […]

The Straight-GOODS/Sports Sedans

2010 Acura TL SH-AWD Base Price: $48,490 Driver Must Haves: The ability to ignore the non-German badge The addition of a new manual gearbox allows the TL into The Goods for the first time. Granted, you have to pony up for the loaded $48,490 SH-AWD Tech to get to the new six-speed stick, but it’s […]

First Drive: 2010 BMW 5 Gran Turismo

[svgallery name=”535i_GT_pics”] Story and photos by John LeBlanc LISBON–BMW’s been kicking around the idea of a “tall sedan” for some time. Industry types first labelled spy photos of the shorter-than-an-SUV, taller-than-a-wagon new Bimmer as a future V-series – “V” as in versatile. Perhaps “versatile” was too plebian for BMW’s marketing team, a bit too populist […]

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