Car Review

Jeep has announced that they will be unveiling the all-new 2018 Wrangler at the LA Auto Show coming up later this month. Jeep is one of our favorite car brands since it has managed to transcend being "just another truck" and instead is a full on lifestyle brand. If you haven't had the opportunity to drive a Jeep, it's a different sort of feeling than any other off-road vehicle out there and we can't wait to get our chance to get this one dirty once it's ready for testing!

The Chevy Tahoe is one of my favorite big SUVs and that's because it is apologetically big and powerful, yet still fun to drive. Chevy has made it even better this year by offering a new trim level, "Custom" where they've removed the third row, made a towing package standard, and added a few cosmetic tweaks as well. What you're left with is the perfect truck for pulling everything you need for the weekend and tons of cargo space inside, along with a super comfortable ride and great tech to help you get there safely.

This is a different sort of Raptor review. The Ford Raptor is hands down the most fun truck or SUV that I've had the chance to test - ever. While most reviews focus on it's extreme off road abilities as a Baja racing truck that you can buy from a dealer vs building your own. The truth is that the truck goes way beyond that and after spending a few days testing it out with my wife and another couple during a getaway to Borrego Springs, California, I'm even more impressed. This is far more than just "dad's toy"!

One of the challenges - and frankly the thrills - of having a 4x4 truck is seeing how capable it really is. The challenge with that though is that sometimes the line between awesome fun and danger is blurred and you never really learn except by making mistakes. That's why I absolutely love the fact that the state of California along with some local off road clubs created this amazing park located just east of San Diego with marked challenges and obstacles ranging from the absolutely insane to beginner. This also gave us the perfect place to test out and compare the TRD Pro trucks that Toyota had given us to play with.

While I love horsepower and off road capability, there's something to be said for a practical car that is affordable, handles well, and has an amazing fuel economy. While a hatchback hybrid like the Kia Niro certainly isn't the sexiest car I've driven recently it performed incredibly well. Considering that it got more miles per gallon than the three trucks I'd be driving later in the week COMBINED, that was pretty impressive! While I knew the Niro would be perfect around town... what about going over mountains with tight turns and steep grades?

Virtually every man I know has an appreciation - if not an outright love of cars. While some are simply dull practical machines to get back and forth, many of them are in fact works of mechanical and artistic triumph that deserve to be celebrated. That's one of the reasons why I love the annual Fabulous Fords Forever show. It's more than just an exotic car show, but rather it's a celebration of passion for one of my favorite automotive brands - Ford Motor Company. 

The Mazda mx-5 RF was never meant for a guy like me and frankly I can't drive with the top down but that doesn't stop me from enjoying it. It is one hell of a car! The engineers at Mazda did a spectacular job when they created this vehicle. It has everything that the soft top version does and really nothing more than a different top. However, it feels like a totally different car, but with everything that was great about the original. If you are in the market for an affordable roadster but live in a climate where a soft top might not be practical, this is the car for you!

Last month I got invited to drive two new Mazda's in San Diego - the CX-5 and the MX-5 RF. After weeks of counting down the days till I could get behind the wheel, when I saw the itinerary I was crushed to see that I'd be sitting in design seminars for as much (maybe more?) time than we'd actually be behind the wheel. Nothing quite made sense. After all, this was a car launch event and driving matters... right? After some initial disappointment though I decided to simply make the best of the situation and try to learn something. I'm glad I did! While there was the minutia of how many bushings were created and how sound were avoided by adding an extra micron of padding here and there, the ultimate takeaway was something greater. Mazda guys really live and breath a design philosophy that quite frankly has created some of the finest cars in the industry today. 

At first glance, the 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk doesn't look much different than it's brothers in the lineup, but once you begin to look deeper it becomes more intriguing. There are bold red tow hooks popping out on the front, a black stripe covering the hood, better off road tires, and it rides a bit higher. Inside though are all the things I liked about the Grand Cherokee that we reviewed previously. What Jeep has done is created the Grand Cherokee that it should have made before... and I loved driving it for the week that they let me borrow it. For this trip, we set out to the Miramonte Resort in Indian Wells - part of greater Palm Springs for an epic adventure on and off the road.

Anyone that's ever done the drive home from Las Vegas to Southern California after a weekend getaway can tell you how terrible the traffic is. This normally 4-5 hour trip can instead become 8-9+ hours of bumper to bumper rush hour traffic where you are forced to be at 100% attention on roads that would normally compel you to look around and enjoy the drive. So, instead of fighting that fight a few weeks ago, I decided to take the long way home and discovered a fantastic road trip that was a lot of fun to drive in the 2017 Flex that Ford gave to us for the trip.

Who said you can't have practical and fun in the same car? Our first experience with the Mitsubishi Outlander was last year's model and frankly it wasn't our favorite experience. This year though, the Outlander has been completely updated and so I was super excited to give it another chance.

Some SUV's are made for carving a path through the jungle... and others are perfectly designed for attacking the suburbs. That's not to say that those two are exclusive, but after driving the 2017 Nissan Armada around San Diego for a week I can say that this beast felt at home driving through gated communities, soccer fields, and strip malls. There's no suburban challenge too big for this beast... except when it came time to find a place to park. Simply put, this SUV is huge and Southern California parking spaces are tiny. However, despite the size, the Armada comes equipped with plenty of sensors and technology to make even that challenge manageable.

Recently, we were hosted in Bluffton, SC with Mazda to explore some of what the Lowcountry has to offer. I've personally never worked with Mazda in this capacity, but the experience was definitely one to remember. The Mazda brand is all about lifestyle and how its vehicles can make the perfect companion, whether you're enjoying some back roads or living it up in the city. Because of this, we had the opportunity to experience some very memorable activities in a beautiful setting.

I've had a chance to test out the Wrangler and Renegade Trailhawk, both are rugged, and fun off road vehicles that I can't wait to drive again. However, the Grand Cherokee is a slightly different beast. While it still maintains a very high level of capability, if feels at home cruising the open highways and urban roads in comfort. Whether you are taking the kids to soccer practice, giving your client a ride to the airport, or picking up bags of mulch for that weekend project, the Grand Cherokee is going to make you feel good doing it.

The Toyota history museum in Torrance is closed.

While Detroit may be known as "Motor City", Los Angeles is absolutely a Car Kingdom with the US Headquarters for numerous Asian manufactures including Mazda, Toyota, Kia, Hyundai, and Honda. Because of this, it shouldn't be surprising that there are some amazing automotive museums in Southern California that chronicle this perspective of automotive history. We recently got invited to visit the Toyota USA Automobile Museum in Torrance and I learned a lot about the impact that Toyota had on the American industry as well as just how integrated Toyota is in the US industry and how it got there.

The Jeep Renegade is an interesting beast and initially I let my biases cloud my judgement but I quickly realized that this is "more than just a Fiat". Last year I had the opportunity to test out the 500x that shares the same platform as the Renegade and while it was a fun experience, at no time would I have ever thought that it could possibly be turned into a mountain scaling dirt monster. But somehow the guys at Jeep made it happen...

A short time ago, the concept of a "luxury sedan" from a Korean manufacturer would have been something to scoff at but Hyundai has clearly worked hard to set new standards for quality, comfort, design, technology, and elements of luxury in it's mainstream products over the past several years. As a fan of their entire product line, the one piece I hadn't touched was the Hyundai Genesis sedan... until now!

Yeah, I'm weird - I like to pair my travels with just the right car. So, when I set off on a road trip to Electric Daisy Carnival, I had to get something electric. Unfortunately, reality set in and the drive from San Diego to Vegas is about 330 miles, far to long to use for an EV without stopping for an hour or two for a recharge. Hyundai had a solution though and offered me their plug-in hybrid Sonata to test out. As I was about to discover, this was the perfect vehicle for our trip as it was comfortable, stylish, has amazing gas mileage, and while it has an incredible range (up to 600 miles with both gas and electric fully charged) it can do nearly 30 miles on pure EV too!

A few months ago I tested out the Mazda MX-5 Miata and this weekend Fiat invited me to meet her hotter, more fiery Italian sister. Both of these ladies are spectacular to drive and fun to look at, but it seems that Fiat has done the impossible and improved on what many people consider to be the perfect roadster. This is a car that collectors will love but so will those of us simply looking for a way to satisfy our desire for freedom on the open road!

One of the things I LOVE to do is test a car out and spend enough time with it to really feel comfortable that I "get it". All too often I just have a few hours to drive them and the review is more of a confirmation that the stuff in the press release is true and a chance to get pictures to support the talking points. That isn't to say that those opportunities aren't valuable but it's a far cry from spending 8 days driving a car more than 2,000 miles up mountains to 8,500 feet and below sea level in the desert. That's what we did earlier this month during our #LetsGoPlaces Road Trip with the 2016 Toyota Avalon.