Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i Car and Driver

early in the indoctrination process, a car enthusiast learns of the impossibility of a single vehicle that excels in every area. A low-slung, lightweight sports car is inherently at odds with cargo and passenger space. That’s why we’re all dreaming of and scheming toward having a diverse fleet at the ready, right? But these three cars are about as close as you can get to the do-it-all ideal, with adult-habitable back seats, hatchback cargo spaciousness, and track capability that lets them hang with sports cars from not that long ago. Plus, their mid-$40,000s prices are no higher than the new-car average. The newest nameplate in this bunch is the GR Corolla. It represents the third vehicle in Toyota’s increasingly impressive Gazoo Racing division arsenal. Based on the Corolla hatchback that…

TO SAY WE’RE SAD that Honda dropped the Accord’s previously optional turbo 2.0-liter four from the new 11th-generation model—only a few short years after it axed the nameplate’s manual transmissions—is an understatement. One of our favorite models is in danger of losing its mojo. While low take rates are largely to blame for those calls, history offers additional context: Satisfying sensibleness, not heady acceleration, has been the driver of the Accord’s success over the past 47 years, 37 of which have seen an Accord on our 10Best list. Fast-forward to today’s dwindling sedan market and looming emissions regulations, and the Accord’s survival depends on electrification playing a much greater role. You can still get a standard gas powertrain—a 192-hp turbo 1.5-liter four mated to a CVT—in the lowest Accord trims,…

“Aired down a Porsche 911” has never appeared on any bingo card we’ve held, and yet here we are, deflating our 911 Dakar’s tires before play commences on a massive Moroccan dune formation called Erg Chebbi. It’s not immediately clear how we’ll fare in the giant heaps of sand—a visit typically requires a rented Toyota Land Cruiser Prado or a local caravan outfitter. Thus far, we’ve been traversing desert hardpan and gaping like tourists at the odd meandering single-hump camels native to the area while attempting to avoid rocks and well-intended cairns hidden behind persistent hanging curtains of choking dust. It turns out that the erg, a dead ringer for Southern California’s Glamis Dunes, is literally the 911 Dakar’s sandbox. After all, the Dakar is essentially a quarter-million-dollar dune buggy…

One tour around the BMW M4 CSL is all you need to size it up. With its Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires, prominent ducktail spoiler, and deep front splitter, the CSL is clearly a track-focused thoroughbred. That impression continues inside, with an empty space where the rear seat used to be and standard carbon-fiber front buckets that scoot fore and aft but require an allen wrench for any angular or height adjustments. Lift the hood and you’ll realize it’s an immaculately built hunk of carbon fiber (as is the trunk), with stripes on top that are merely unpainted swaths that show through. A plastic engine cover blocks your view of the 543-hp twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six, but the exquisite birdcage brace that connects the radiator core support, strut towers,…

Hearing the Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe described as the “most fuel-efficient Jeep ever” gives us the warm fuzzies. It feels like a win for the world and makes us want to parade through an aisle at Whole Foods, high-fiving every farm-to-fork enthusiast until our palms turn red. But while the 4xe’s EPA-estimated 56 MPGe and 26 miles of electric-only range are good for a Grand Cherokee, the plug-in-hybrid option is an expensive one. That’s not to downplay the effort by Jeep to reduce its wonderfully luxurious SUV’s usage of gasoline. The Grand Cherokee, which was redesigned last year, is an absolute honey on the road. With a firm brake pedal, linear steering, and a smooth ride, the Grand Cherokee moves with confidence. Its lavish interior and robust four-wheel-drive system make…

Chipotle—or, as my family calls it, “Taco Bell with some book learnin’”—has an ingenious menu. There’s really only one dish, but the fast-food chain presents the basic ingredients in so many ways that a veneer of individuality disguises the homogeneity. The same can be said of Land Rover’s lineup, which stuffs the same fillings into different wrappers. You want a six-cylinder all-wheel-drive SUV? Have a Range Rover Velar, which looks like a smaller Range Rover Sport, which is a slightly smaller Range Rover, which is like a fancier Discovery, which is a more polished Defender. In this analogy, the Discovery Sport is a lifestyle bowl, and the Evoque is a quesadilla off the kid’s menu. The Range Rover Sport is a staple of the company’s SUV menu. The prior generation…

You can’t let some curbing stand in the way of a good lap time, particularly at Virginia International Raceway, where it’s best to clip almost as many as possible to set a competitive lap. Snake is one such section, and the Lucid Air Sapphire prototype I’m piloting glides over the concrete serrations as if built to do nothing else and then rockets toward the Climbing Esses. More care and selective curb skimming work better here. Next, the tight Oak Tree corner offers another light dose of apex clobbering. The right-hand detour into VIR’s inner loop comes up quickly, but the Sapphire’s humongous 10-piston front brake calipers squeeze trackworthy carbon-ceramic rotors to haul this cruise missile smartly down to turn-in speed without a hint of squirm or squiggle. The car bends…

The 2023 Honda Pilot enters its fourth generation bigger, brawnier, and better at doing off-road stuff. Translation: No one will mistake the Pilot for a minivan anymore, even if it still donates its platform to the Odyssey. The TrailSport model ($49,695) is the poster child for the mid-size three-row SUV’s transformation. With all-terrain tires, steel skid plates, and a 1.0-inch lift for a total of 8.3 inches of ground clearance, it can go places previous Pilots couldn’t without breaking some molded plastic. The TrailSport features a trim-specific suspension with retuned dampers, unique spring rates, and a thinner front anti-roll bar that allows for a little more front-wheel articulation. It’s also the only model with a full-size spare tire. By making the TrailSport as capable as advertised, Honda hopes the new…

Beneath the purple skin specific to this commemorative Edition 50 Jahre that celebrates a half-century of BMW’s M Division, and shared by all M3 Competition models, is a stonking 503-hp twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six. With launch control engaged and the boost holding above 15.0 psi, the quickest-ever 3-series leaps to 30 mph in 1.0 second. The scoot to 60 mph takes 2.8 seconds, and the quarter-mile passes in 11.0 seconds at 124 mph. All-wheel drive comes standard on the Edition 50 Jahre and can be had on any other M3 Comp for $4000. It adds roughly 150 pounds to the curb weight, but the additional traction helps the 50 Jahre clobber its rear-drive counterpart by 0.7 and 0.6 second in the 60 and quarter-mile drags, respectively. There is a rear-drive mode…

We don’t suggest reading car magazines while driving (although we do suggest reading them at all other times). When you’re behind the wheel and need automotive content, your choices are listening to Jan & Dean’s “Drag City” on repeat or exploring some of the thousands of car-themed podcasts. Between well-known offerings, such as Adam Carolla’s CarCast and Matt Farah’s The Smoking Tire, and shows with a specific collecting, racing, or history theme, there’s bound to be a pod to match your driving style. We recently spent time cruising around Hollywood in a BMW M5 with former C/D editor-in-chief Eddie Alterman, talking about what makes podcasts such a good way to learn about cars. He should know—he hosts one, Car Show! with Eddie Alterman. Alterman’s interest in doing a podcast was…

It’s hard to believe McLaren has been in the road-car game for little more than a decade. (Granted, it was nearly 30 years ago that the McLaren F1 became the be-all and end-all for enthusiasts, but McLaren didn’t produce another street car for years afterward.) Since 2011, the storied Formula 1 brand has launched several root models and completely upset the supercar hierarchy that a pair of Italian companies had long dominated. And while all of those models, including the MP4-12C, the 570S, the Senna, and the 720S, have their own character, they’ve all shared a very similar set of components. The Artura is new, and not like your favorite streaming service’s latest round of reboots. New as in never before. Think Severance, not Bel-Air. For all intents, it is…

Upon Infiniti’s debut, the carmaker’s quirky ads, with rocks and trees but no cars, contemplated luxury. We’re doing the same after driving the revamped QX60, which seems uncomfortably close to its increasingly gentrified mainstream competitors. This redesign ditches the previous amorphous, bloblike styling for a tauter, modern appearance. “It looks like a baby Range Rover,” a friend said, and you could almost see the Infiniti blushing with pride. Under the skin, Infiniti no longer shackles the 3.5-liter V-6 to a continuously variable transmission. As in the closely related Nissan Pathfinder, the engine is now paired with a nine-speed automatic that snaps off crisp downshifts (more eagerly in Sport mode) and eliminates the droning and slurred response of the previous gearbox. The 295-hp V-6 hustles the all-wheel-drive QX60 to 60 mph…

Much like Formula 1 racing itself, the Vantage F1 Edition is a hilly telemetry chart of thrills and disappointments. One minute you’re captivated by the vocal range of the Mercedes-sourced twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8, growling and spitting through slower traffic; the next you’re rudely brought back to earth by the unavoidable rasp of the front splitter as it skims another layer of carbon fiber off its bottom on even the mildest driveway incline. The F1 Edition celebrates Aston Martin’s 2021 return to F1 racing and gets the visual tweaks expected of a motorsports tribute, with flashy stickers and a limited color palette based on the race car’s greens, whites, and grays. Aston ups the racy looks with spiky dive planes, a conveniently table-height rear wing, and the large front splitter, all…

“The average C/D reader will regard the Yugo not as a real car but, at best, as a carlike curiosity.”—TONY ASSENZA, C/D, APRI L 1986 Back in ’87, Yugo’s ad jingle said to “buy yourself some freedom, buy a Yugo.” The Yugoslavian-built car practically flew out of showrooms in its first three years, and nearly 40 years after it made headlines for its status as the cheapest new car in the U.S. at $3990 plus $389 destination, everybody still has a Yugo story to tell, a Yugo joke to crack, and a former Yugo owner to spoof. Show up at a Cars & Coffee in your Giugiaro-reskinned, Yugoslavian-built Fiat 127 clone and watch it out-Instagram every other car around it. Its sub-2000-pound curb weight isn’t the only small spec. The…