BY PATRICK BEDARD, PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM DREW

Dearborn’s dreamboat was the MKR, a 2007 concept with an unforgettable face, warming the crowd for this near-luxury MKS.

To your list of things that will never happen, you can add one more: The hot-blooded pilotes of this staff will never rank this new Lincoln above a BMW, any BMW, in a comparison test. But the Supreme Court is not the only enclave of divided opinions; the contrarians among us think Ford has something going on here. (more…)

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BY ERIK JOHNSON

A turbocharger roosts under the HHR’s retro-styled hood.

As Chrysler uses Detroit’s annual Woodward Dream Cruise to roll out another snoozer special edition of the extremely long-in-the-tooth PT Cruiser”this time the Sunset Boulevard Cruiser, inspired by a street 2300 miles and several tax brackets away from Motown’s famed avenue”Chevrolet has decided to inject a little bit of muscle into the event. Make that a very little bit of muscle, because the bow-tie brand has seen fit to unleash upon the world the Chevrolet HHR SS, which is, of course, based on the diminutive HHR trucklet. (more…)

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BY TONY SWAN, PHOTOGRAPHY BY AARON KILEY

They were thinking of calling it the 501.

The elasticity of all-new gets a test here, as Ford stretches the words to surround this large front-drive sedan, known previously as the Five Hundred. Tepid sales and a new CEO led to the revival of a once-bright nameplate, even though that name had been dumped after years of sedans whose appeal seemed limited mostly to rental fleets. (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 JAKE HOLMES


A five-door hatch”and fun?”returns to the Elantra lineup.

Hyundai Elantra and sporty rarely have been synonymous, especially since the five-door hatchback model vanished in 2007. Since the Elantra’s redesign, the only option has been a sedan tuned more for the parking lot than an autocross. (more…)

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BY DAVE VANDERWERP

For its fourth go-round, the icon gets a can-do-no-wrong chassis and a beastly V-8.

Maybe you’ve been following the trickle of information flowing out of Munich ever since BMW showed the concept of the fourth-gen M3 at the Geneva auto show in March. (more…)

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BY JOHN PHILLIPS, PHOTOGRAPHY BY JEFFREY G. RUSSELL

A really big bang for the bucks.

Like the Tucson and Santa Fe before it, Hyundai’s third crossover SUV”and easily its largest”is named after a sunny tourist destination. In this case, the Mexican state of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, a region renowned for umbrella drinks and for depleting the wallets of bleary-eyed Americans. (more…)

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BY ERIK JOHNSON

The littlest U.S.-market Mercedes becomes one big bad-ass.

The Mercedes-Benz people must be wondering, is ze big deal about ze 2008 BMW M3 and its fee-eight? Our C-class AMG has had ein fee-eight for many years! (more…)

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BY ERIK JOHNSON

Munich’s poorly kept 1-series secret is out.

It’s officially official! BMW will be selling the 1-series coupe in the U.S.! Okay, so we realize it wasn’t the best-kept secret, but now that the company has issued a press release and we figure there’s no taking it back, we’re really beginning to get excited. (more…)

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The 2007 Mazda RX-8 is a 4-door, 4-passenger sports car, available in 3 trims, ranging from the Sport to the Grand Touring.

Upon introduction, both trims are equipped with a standard 1.3-liter, R2 , 232-horsepower engine that achieves 18-mpg in the city and 24-mpg on the highway. A 6-speed manual transmission with overdrive is standard. (more…)

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