BY ERIK JOHNSON AND STEVE SILER

The all-new Fit is fun to drive, practical, and pretty cool. So why can’t we agree on it?

We love the Honda Fit. Roomy inside and more fun to drive than a team of coked-up sled dogs, we’ve awarded it a place on our 10Best Cars list two straight years, and it decimated the competition in a seven-car comparison test. Of course, that was the old Fit. There’s now a new model, completely redesigned for 2009, and a few of us in the office have had a chance to take a spin behind the wheel. (more…)

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BY MARK GILLIES

In case the F430 wasn’t fast (or good) enough.

The great thing about the 430 Scuderia”a faster, lighter, and even more compelling version of the F430”is that Ferrari didn’t have to make it. Automakers create new versions of their existing models to stimulate sales, but with North American waiting lists at two years for the F430, Ferrari didn’t need to drum up showroom traffic.

Ferrari people say the primary reason for building the Scuderia is that it showcases the company’s racing technology in a street car. Another reason is that, historically, Ferrari has built more extreme versions of its entry-level sports car, going back to the F355 Challenge in 1995. And Lamborghini, its northern-Italian rival, has just introduced the Gallardo Superleggera, while Porsche, its perennial competitor, is continually making go-faster versions of the 911. (more…)

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BY STEVEN COLE SMITH, PHOTOGRAPHY BY JARED HOLSTEIN

The ‘all-new’ Liberty gets no powertrain improvements and a Dodge Nitro“like makeover. Will a Trail Rated badge and a mondo sunroof be enough to make it sell?

Jeep debuted the Liberty for model-year 2002 as the replacement for the 18-year-old Cherokee. The company was hopeful that it could move maybe 160,000 copies of the Liberty in the U.S. per year, and even now, the little SUV that could still does. Jeep sold 133,557 of them in 2006”that’s down from almost 167,000 in 2005, but it’s still a respectable number.

The company figured a six-year model run is long enough, and so the second-generation Liberty debuts at the New York auto show. To what extent Jeep is changing the looks of what has been, next to the Grand Cherokee, its bestseller”well, that’s a bit of a surprise. As with the larger Commander, Jeep has taken the 2008 Liberty in a moderately retro direction to the point where, as the photos suggest, it looks like a slightly shrunken Commander and uncomfortably close to its mechanical twin, the Dodge Nitro. And since the Commander has not exactly been flying out of dealerships, even with $3000 rebates, we’d suspect there’s a little trepidation at HQ in Auburn Hills, Michigan, not to mention at the assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio. (more…)

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BY AARON ROBINSON

The graying roadster attacks the track.

Warning! Auto racing is spectacular and exciting, but can be dangerous! The Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course posts this caution next to the drivers bathrooms, so it’s probably worth repeating in this introduction to the Honda S2000 CR. For the CR”the initials stand for Club Racer”is about rubber-chunking, brake-burning, wall-fanning track work. You wouldn’t really want the shale-stiff CR for anything else, which is perhaps why Honda plans to sell only 1400 copies of the circa-$38,000 CR in 2008. (more…)

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BY STEVE SILER

Japan’s Eagle has landed.

Infiniti relentlessly pursues a sporty image as much as Lexus claims to relentlessly pursue, well, you know what. So it surprised us somewhat that Infiniti chose the stodgy ol Pebble Beach Concours d Elegance to unveil”officially, anyway”what is arguably its sportiest ute yet: the G35-based EX35 crossover. Think of it as a G35 wagon. Or a mini FX35. We see a spiritual descendant of the 1980 AMC Eagle wagon built upon one of the world’s most prolific and capable platforms and stuffed with a swank interior. (more…)

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BY STEVE SILER, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGAN J. SEGAL

The quickest BMW you can get that doesn’t start with an M (until the 135i arrives, that is).

It used to be easy to write about the BMW 3-series. For the most part, we knew what we were gonna say before we ever got in the car. On the other hand, there were nuances about the character of the car that were extremely hard to put into words to convey just how good these cars feel. But we’d try, and it usually came out in the form of unbridled praise for perfect steering, elegant interior simplicity, and a brilliant ride-and-handling balance.

Maybe BMW got bored of hearing the same thing over and over again, because suddenly we had to come up with new words to describe the 3: controversially styled, technologically overwrought, and now this: quicker with the automatic. (more…)

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BY MARK GILLIES

Wrong Name, Right Car: As Usual, Europe gets a quality car that won’t be seen on these shores.

As car names go, Cee’d is about as off the mark as they get, giving Merkur a run for its ill-advised money. Kia says it was named for good reason. Since the car was designed and is built in Europe, Kia took the initials for the European Economic Community”CEE in some countries”and added ED for European Design. Okay, maybe that’s not such a good reason, but Ceeed would make even less sense, hence the extraction of an e and the addition of an apostrophe. (more…)

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BY MARK GILLIES, PHOTOGRAPHY BY AARON KILEY

Hard to believe it’s a Porsche, Hard to believe it’s a sport-ute.

The Cayenne has always seemed an anomaly. On one hand, it has generated the cash that allows Porsche to continue building the sports cars we love, which is a good thing. On the other, a 5625-pound vehicle is antithetical to the creed of light weight and efficiency that Porsche has historically followed. (more…)

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BY LARRY WEBSTER, PHOTOGRAPHY BY AARON KILEY

Inner Beauty: The new-for-2008 Vette doesn’t look much different, but more power, better steering, and an available inteior upgrade address the car’s few shortcomings.

From a list of 22 new and notable features on the 2008 Corvette, item 12 caught our eye: improved steering feel. (more…)

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BY RAY HUTTON

The emperor’s new clothes.

This isn’t the first time Volvo has produced an all-new car that looks just like its predecessor. Clearly, the Swedish purveyor of sensible sedans and wagons is afraid of alienating its clientele. (more…)

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