Top 10s: 1990s’ Japanese Sports Cars

By John LeBlanc Riding the wave of profits from their fast-selling mainstream models, a well-earned reputation for reliability and a low-valued Yen, Japanese automakers like Honda, Mazda, Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi spent the 1990s trying to one-up each other, making one great driving sports car after another.

First Drive: 2011 Nissan Leaf

[svgallery name=”2011_Nissan_Leaf_hirez”] Shockingly normal Driving the world’s first affordable and practical EV surprisingly uneventful By John LeBlanc NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE — With the launch of Nissan’s Leaf, the theoretical hype over electric vehicles that’s been building for the past few years finally meets the cold reality of today’s new car buyer’s wallet. Like losing weight or […]

The Crank: The General’s naming games

By John LeBlanc As part of Chevrolet’s recent small car religion— that includes the 2011 compact Cruze, next year’s Orlando compact tall wagon and a future Spark city car—an all-new subcompact  2011 Aveo, left and below, is on the way as well. We saw the production version last month in Paris, initially, next spring it […]

Paris 2010: Is it the end of the car, as we know it?

Story and photos by John LeBlanc PARIS — Woe be the modern automaker. With a lingering economic recession, ever-tightening fuel economy and emissions regulations and a younger population that is more interested in their next cell phone than their next set of four wheels, the global auto industry is seemingly under attack from all sides.

Top 10s: Dollar-per-Horsepower Bargains

[svgallery name=”Top_10_Perf_Bang_Buck”] By John LeBlanc Forget what your Granddad told you about the 1960s, right now is the Golden Age of cheap horsepower. A bad economy and a generation of drivers addicted to gobs of horsepower have created a near perfect storm for performance car junkies on a budget. But which new cars today offer […]

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