Jumping to 2nd in monthly sales after just 6 months of availability, Mazda’s new CX-3 is a rising star within its subcompact SUV class. And it’s no wonder thanks to sporty styling, a standard 146-hp…

2016 Mazda CX-3 GS Road Test Review

MX-5 aside, the CX-3 is the sportiest looking new Mazda, but it's more Dakar rally raid than take it to the track on Sunday. It looks like it could go anywhere, although let's be clear, this isn't the intention. Rather, you'll look oh-so stylish pulling up to the ski hill in this subcompact SUV, and you'll get there using less fuel than the majority of snow slaying 4x4s.

Its variation on Mazda's new corporate face might be the best yet. Its large and proud yet tasteful grille is almost stately, and certainly more premium than some luxury branded small CUVs, while its sharp and narrow combination headlamps add to the little soft-roader's animalistic characteristics. Likewise, vertically stacked driving lights and fogs are particularly attractive while adding visual height to the design, these interrupted by a subtle front fender crease that flows past the bottom edge of each headlamp before arcing overtop the wheels and then bending into a beltline that swoops across the front Read Full Story
Scion has updated its 2016 tC with a fabulous new 7-inch Pioneer infotainment system, so now this zippy sports coupe offers state-of-the-art big screen connectivity. Along with 179-hp, 6-speed manual…

2016 Scion tC 6MT Road Test Review

Think of the tC as the Corolla's sportier two-door sibling. A brother from another mother, albeit the same dad. The dad is Akio Toyoda, indirectly at least. He's the man responsible for injecting some much-needed life into a Toyota namesake brand that was too staid and conservative when he took over as president and CEO of TMC in June of 2009, and the rest, as they say, is history. Scion, which is largely made up of reworked Toyota products not available here, has been a direct benefactor.

The tC preceded Toyoda's six-year legacy, if you can call half a dozen years of leadership a legacy. Either way, one of his crowning achievements thus far is the brilliant FR-S sports coupe that wears the Scion nameplate here in North America. Neither the FR-S or this tC is an all-out success story when it comes to sales, but both have boosted the image of Toyota's global operations and morale within Scion, while the result of Toyoda-san's focus on aspirational design and overall refinement Read Full Story
Want a luxury sedan, but your budget won’t allow? How about all the usual luxury features and more for less than $25k? Hyundai’s Elantra Limited is just that care, boasting proximity entry, pushbutton…

2016 Hyundai Elantra Sedan Limited Road Test Review

The Elantra remains as stylish as four-door compacts get, its curvaceous front fascia only upstaged by an even swoopier rear design, both bejeweled with beautifully detailed lighting elements normally found on much more expensive cars. My top-line Limited tester takes everything up a notch, with chrome ribs on the lower grille opening, more brightwork within its upgraded projection headlights, a touch more highlighting its LED side mirror turn signals, more chrome trimming the door handles, while stylish taillights hover over a chromed tailpipe poking through a cool matte-black diffuser-style bumper cap. Those headlights and taillights also get unique LED detailing, the former some of my favourite in the entire industry, while the stylized twinned five-spoke 17-inch alloys with metallic grey painted pockets add just the right amount of sport without taking away from this car's elegance. The car looks classy from head to toe.

No wonder the Elantra is such a big seller. Last year Read Full Story
Honda is cleaning up with its well-executed HR-V, much thanks to the same ultra-flexible rear Magic Seats as its Fit sibling. Today we review it in EX-2WD trim complete with fog lamps, side mirror turn…

2016 Honda HR-V EX-2WD Road Test Review

The new HR-V enters the fastest growing segment in the auto industry, but don't worry Honda fans, as early sales results show that it's fully up to the task of competing in its subcompact SUV class.

Despite three additional models joining this category for the 2016 model year alone, expanding the class to nine in total, the HR-V already ranks second in year-to-date Canadian sales as of September's close with 5,427 units down the road compared to 5,845 for the front-running Chevrolet Trax. I'm looking forward to seeing 2016 calendar year results, however, as the HR-V achieved this impressive feat after entirely missing out on the first half of the year, only hitting the showroom floor partway through June. How it fares against the others is at least as interesting, with the long-in-tooth Mitsubishi RVR in third with 4,398 sales, the all-new Mazda CX-3 in fourth with 4,353 deliveries (it's been available since May), Buick's long-running Encore in fifth with 3,642 sales, the segment Read Full Story
Despite being in its 8th model year Audi’s A4 still looks good thanks to a good initial design and a refresh for 2013, but this is its final year before a complete overall. Today we review the 220-hp…

2016 Audi A4 2.0 TFSI Quattro Progressiv S Line Road Test Review

Style is an Audi trademark, not that they can enforce it by law. We've witnessed others copy some of its design elements over the years and rather than fight back the German brand takes it in stride. Of course, buyers know the difference between an imitator and the real deal, and Audi has never been about aping the latest trend. They're an automaker that's made its mark with innovation, being the first premium brand to promote the merits of all-wheel drive en masse to the point where Quattro is a near household name. All other luxury brands have now followed Audi's AWD lead, while the Ingolstadt-based company was also one of the first to embrace turbocharged four-cylinder power, now another market mainstay.

On that note I suppose it could be said that Audi innovated the big grille era too. The A4's hexagonal singleframe grille is large for sure, but it's proportionally sized to this D-segment four-door fashion statement. S Line trim is standard kit, which means the grille gets Read Full Story
The Fusion Energi is Ford’s mid-size plug-in hybrid, and with 188-hp plus fuel economy equaling 2.7 L/100km, not to mention 32 km of EV range, it’s a large mid-size luxury sedan capable of mini-car…

2015 Ford Fusion Energi Titanium Road Test Review

Energi is Ford-speak for "plug-in hybrid", a name it's only given to two vehicles thus far, the C-Max Energi and this Fusion Energi. Two plug-in models, however, is one more than main competitor Toyota offers, while the domestic brand's Focus EV means that it's also ahead of the Japanese brand when it comes to 100-percent electrics.

Interestingly, there isn't a global brand that offers more plug-in models than the blue-oval, while Ford also makes a couple of regular hybrids, and even more importantly from an environmental perspective, its full lineup of cars, crossovers and trucks offer some of the cleanest, most fuel-efficient direct-injected and turbocharged gasoline powerplants in the industry, along with innovative dual-clutch and multi-speed manual and automatic transmissions. They've also got renewable bio-diesels running around Europe, trucks and vans powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), while the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle I Read Full Story
GM’s new line of mid-size pickup trucks have added a new competitiveness in their segment, and after a week in a Chevy Colorado Z71 Crew Cab 4x4 Trevor Hofmann gives his reasons why. With an off-road…

2015 Chevrolet Colorado Z71 Crew Cab 4×4 Road Test Review

Like what you see? You've probably noticed the new Chevrolet Colorado driving by and while many will know exactly what it is and had possibly been waiting for its return, many more will wonder where it came from. No matter where you fit into this scenario or some other unmentioned one, know that having the Colorado back in our midst is a very good thing.

GM had all but given up on the compact to mid-size truck segment a few years ago, as did Ford with its once best-selling Ranger and Dodge (now Ram) with its Dakota, all watching their once significant market share erode against Toyota's all-conquering Tacoma, but truth be told it wasn't the market that wasn't working for the domestics, it was that none of them bothered to update their trucks often enough to warrant buyer interest, while Toyota kept making theirs newer and better. The Big 3 abandoned the small truck market to Toyota, Nissan and Honda long before they discontinued production of their respective models, and instead Read Full Story
Nobody does retro muscle cars like Dodge, and this year’s updated Challenger is no exception. With revised styling front to rear plus a reworked interior the 2015 Challenger gets cool new Scat Pack…

2015 Dodge Challenger Scat Pack Shaker Road Test Review

Really, I'm not a kid anymore. I'm 50-plus, over the hill, on the downward slope and coasting, but wouldn't you know the latest Challenger Scat Pack Shaker had me feeling like a silly schoolboy.

It's been a while since I turned back not once, not twice, but three times while walking down the path to my home, yet this ballsy all-American muscle car has an all-consuming, overpowering pull on eyeballs. When passersby first heard and then saw this big red beast rumble past they either smiled widely or sneered in disdain, the latter obviously not amused by the unrepentant attitude toward environmental issues this car's fire-breathing V8 represents. In reality it's a lot cleaner than the old Volvo diesel wagons that show up at save the trees rallies, but of course it's no Prius. It harks back to the era I grew up in when people protested against "the bomb" while worrying about the coming ice age, how things have changed. The Challenger Scat Pack Shaker is the Classic Coke of the car Read Full Story