It’s the kind of news no car company wants to hear: a recent crash test by the respected Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) resulted in a “poor” rating not only for Toyota’s Camry, but also for the brand’s RAV-4 SUV and Prius V. Also dinged was Audi’s A4. The test, according to a Forbes   [Read More]

Seven years ago, as part of a road test of a Buick Lucerne, I took it to a retirement home, showed it to the residents and quoted some of their remarks on the car – this, of course, was a nod to Buick’s reputation as the preferred ride of elderly folks. Buick was not amused.   [Read More]

Auto makers love to trot out concept cars at the big international auto shows and Lexus is no exception. At the Frankfurt auto show the other day, Lexus unveiled the LF-NX sport utility vehicle, a smallish SUV in roughly the same family segment as its Toyota sister, the RAV4. But check the visuals in this   [Read More]

It was that last scene in “Casablanca,” at the airport, when Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) play out the end of the picture. Some of the movie’s great lines — Ilsa says, “But what about us?” and Rick answers, “we’ll always have Paris” — are there and there’s also a lovely 1940 Buick   [Read More]

I took a friend who’s an upholsterer for a ride in the 2014 Imperial Blue Bentley Flying Spur. He makes very fine (and very expensive) pieces. In the Bentley, he cast a professional’s eye on the careful stitching of the ivory leather upholstery (Bentley’s calls the color “linen”) and pronounced it flawlessly done. He looked   [Read More]

Gas is finally going green in the auto industry. Of this year’s five finalists for the prestigious Green Car of the Year Award, all five are old -school petro-powered with not a single electric in the running. The award is given out each year by the Green Car Journal. Autoblog reports the winner will be announced  [Read More]

The recent Lambrecht auction in Nebraska showed us the story of a Chevy dealer who decided to hang on to his surplus stock and put some 500 cars in a field and leave them there for half a century or so. The result was an auction that drew 3,600 buyers and ultimate sales of $2.5   [Read More]

To celebrate 90 years of making motorcycles, BMW Motarrad has unveiled the new nineT, a 1170cc beast of a naked pavement pounder. Okay, so, it’s pretty much a Ducati Monster, but we’re not complaining, this thing is totally bad ass, just take a look: [Read More]

The new movie “Rush” is about the fierce rivalry between Formula One stars James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1976 racing season. In my wholly subjective opinion, it’s one of the best racing movies to come along, better than such stalwarts as “Le Mans” and “Grand Prix.” In “Rush,” at least, the actors are   [Read More]

“Ghostbuster” fans are hoping to buy and restore the iconic Ecto-1A from Sony Pictures. An Instagram photo of the famous station wagon sparked an outcry from fans and prompted a group to organize a petition asking Sony to allow the group to buy the car and then restore it. The windshield, front hood and other   [Read More]