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…)

Posted by admin | 2 Comments »

BY ALISA PRIDDLE

Does Nissan need a Miata fighter?

Nissan is trying to figure out if there is room in the market for an entry-level sports car that is smaller, more lightweight, and more affordable than the 350Z.

The Japanese automaker is interested in a front-wheel-drive sports car that could compete with the Mazda MX-5 Miata, Pontiac Solstice, and Saturn Sky, Nissan North America vice-president in charge of product planning and strategy Larry Dominique tells Car and Driver in an interview. (more…)

Posted by admin | 1 Comment »

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…)

Posted by admin | 1 Comment »

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…)

Posted by admin | No Comments »

BY STEVE SILER, PHOTOGRAPHY BY HOLLY REICH AND THE MANUFACTURER

We’re not getting this V-8 diesel here, but we can tell you that the current Q7 flagship lacks soul and that Audi’s B&O doesn’t stink.

At the tail end of our first drive experience of Audi’s mouth-watering A5 and S5 coupes, we were thrust into the driver’s seat of something entirely different in pretty much every conceivable way: the newly minted Q7 4.2 TDI. Some of us rolled our eyes at this, since this particular oil burner, positioned as the current flagship of the Q7 line in Europe (until the V-12 TDI launches), won’t be making it stateside any time soon. (more…)

Posted by admin | 1 Comment »

BY JAKE HOLMES

Original owners get free maintenance as long as they keep the car.

Want to keep your car till death do you part? Buy from Chrysler, and you can, with a new lifetime warranty on Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge vehicles. (more…)

Posted by admin | 2 Comments »

BY STEVE SILER

The Lancer crosses over.

To build some anticipation for September’s Frankfurt auto show, Mitsubishi has given us a sketchy glimpse of the crossover concept that will be gracing its stand: the Concept-cX. (The c is for compact, the X for crossover, but there’s no explanation on why one is capitalized and the other isn’t.) (more…)

Posted by admin | No Comments »

BY STEVE SILER, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE VALENTE

A new car and a new naming system, neither of which we’ll see here.

Hyundai’s fetching new C-segment hatchback, the i30, is yet another cool hatchback that we won’t be getting here. But that’s okay, we pretty much already have it in sedan form as the Elantra. (more…)

Posted by admin | No Comments »

BY ALISA PRIDDLE

A next-generation Quest for North America is likely, but the styling will be very different.

As Chrysler prepares to try to shake up the minivan segment with a new generation of its people-mover coming in September, and with Ford and General Motors exiting the market, Nissan is prepared to ante up for a few more hands. (more…)

Posted by admin | No Comments »

BY JARED GALL

Volkswagen’s new soft-roader aims upmarket with computing power for navigating jungles both urban and leafy.

Sport-utility-vehicle builders do well to heed the Boy Scout motto of Be Prepared. The question is to what extent? Honda didn’t add a factory snorkel option when it redesigned the CR-V, and focus groups voted nay on a six-inch body lift to allow for more suspension travel on the latest Cadillac Escalade. (more…)

Posted by admin | No Comments »