First Drive: 2012 Chrysler 200 Convertible

Rental redo Can a new name and look reform one of Chrysler’s worst-ever products? By John LeBlanc SAN DIEGO, California – The past few years have been crazy busy over at Fiat’s Chrysler Group. After its bankruptcy filing that left the Italian automaker in charge in 2009, the Chrysler’s been working hard to play catch-up […]

Road Trip: 2012 Aston Martin Virage Volante in Spain

RONDA, SPAIN—At the end of yet another long Canadian winter/spring, I found myself in the south of Spain. Better yet, for the first time ever, I found myself behind the wheel of Aston Martin’s new Virage Volante grand touring convertible. As an evolution of the existing DB9, the hardtop Virage and its cloth-top convertible Volante […]

First Drive: 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLK Roadster

[svgallery name=”2012_MB_SLK_350_hirez”] Pleasure for a pair Mercedes sticks with SLK’s longstanding mini-GT formula By John LeBlanc CANARY ISLANDS, SPAIN — Self-indulgence is at the root of any car with only two seats. You might as well hang a NO KIDS ALLOWED sign on the door handles. And the pleasure principal only multiplies when discussing a […]

First Drive: 2012 Aston Martin V8 Vantage S

RONDA, SPAIN—If you pick up on the clues, it’s obvious the CEO running the very British Aston Martin brand, Ulrich Bez, used to work at the very German brands BMW and Porsche, applying a very Teutonic (i.e. methodical) approach to the perennially money-losing British brand. First, upon the German-born Bez’s arrival at Aston Martin in […]

Road Test: 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder

[svgallery name=”2011_Porsche_Boxster_Spyder”] Along came a Spyder The last iteration of this generation of Boxster ends up being the best handling Porsche you can buy By John LeBlanc You’ll have a hard time convincing Porsche 911 diehards, but the German automaker’s entry-level sports cars – the convertible Boxster and its hardtop Cayman variant – are the […]

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