Innehållsförteckning för January 2023 från Car and Driver

Winning a 10Best award is difficult. Successfully defending one is even tougher. To remain on the list, a car must provide a superior experience and unequivocally fulfill its mission. Even before you set it in motion, Cadillac’s CT5-V Blackwing struts like a winner. The 668-hp supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 puffs its chest as if it’s in a Corvette, because in a different life it was. Considering that GM plans to make its light-duty fleet fully electric by 2035, it’s hard to believe the company builds a supersedan that guzzles 13 mpg city and 21 highway. The version with the 10-speed automatic does get marginally better fuel economy, but the manual costs $3175 less, which will buy a lot of 93 octane. If your left leg isn’t strong enough to squeeze a…

The Honda Civic satisfies a wide range of needs. Looking for a thrifty highway commuter? The EPA says it’ll do 42 mpg. Fancy a bit of extra space? The hatchback fits up to 18 carryon suitcases, which is small-SUV territory. It comes standard with lots of modern conveniences and safety features, and the higher trims feature near-luxury-car equipment levels. If this sounds very rational, you’ve got the right idea. But if your estimation stops there, you’ve missed what makes the Civic great. The reason the entire Civic lineup wins 10Best is because even the most sensible models—the base Sport sedan and hatchback—are a joy to drive, with balanced chassis, refined road manners, and accurate steering. While the 158-hp 2.0-liter inline-four is sluggish, the optional 180-hp turbo 1.5-liter four satisfies. Even…

Our fact-checkers have emerged, coughing, from the dusty depths of the office archive with confirmation that the GR is the first Toyota Corolla ever to make its way onto a 10Best list. This is no ordinary Corolla. The GR looks, drives, and often sounds like the rally replica it’s not—Toyota’s current World Rally Championship competitor is a hybridized Yaris. Despite that, the GR Corolla possesses an abundance of the spirit we loved in such stage-honed specials as the Subaru WRX and Mitsubishi Evo. While 300 horsepower might not be exceptional for a modern hot hatchback, the GR’s way of generating it is. The big output comes from a tiny engine, a 1.6-liter inline-three with a turbocharger capable of making up to 26.3 psi of boost. This gives an entirely unsurprising…

As fun as it was to slide our TRX around in snow, the stock LT325/65R-18 Goodyear Wrangler Territory AT tires didn’t perform as well as we’d like in the white stuff. Unfortunately, searches for a direct winter-weather replacement came up empty, which led us to experiment briefly with a set of closely sized 35X12.5R-18LT BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2s. Setting us back $1476 from Tire Rack, they brought a tread design packed with biting edges that help the KO2 earn the three-peak mountain snowflake symbol missing from the Goodyears’ sidewalls. Subjectively, drivers reported greater traction and confidence in snow and slush with the BFGs, plus a slight improvement in the TRX’s road manners. At the test track when new, the KO2s provided 0.69 g of grip compared with the Wranglers’ 0.66…

Highs: Conventionally handsome exterior, upscale and user-friendly interior, largely free of EV weirdness. Lows: Mechanically identical to its Volkswagen sibling, ho-hum highway range, not as speedy as some rivals. When Audi’s e-tron electrified sub-brand first appeared, it was on the unremarkable A3 Sportback plug-in hybrid. The first EV to bear the moniker came three years later, when a larger, far more expensive SUV called the Audi e-tron hit the market. That ute’s lack of an alphanumeric model name was confusing, and things didn’t become any clearer with the arrival of the e-tron GT performance sedan. Now comes the Q4 e-tron, and its designation at least helps place it within the greater Audi lineup. Larger than a Q3 and tidier in size than a Q5, the Q4 50 e-tron Quattro is…

For over a decade, the Power Wagon has served as Ram’s burly off-road king. But it doesn’t offer Cummins power, and customers clamored for a stonking diesel off-roader with more towing capacity. Enter the Ram 2500 Heavy Duty Rebel. It gets some of the Power Wagon’s trail goodies, including skid plates and 33-inch tires, but not the disconnecting anti-roll bar. And only the rear axle features a locker. These small concessions facilitate 3140-pound payload and 16,870-pound tow ratings—nearly double the payload of the Power Wagon and over three tons more towing capacity. That maximum tow rating is for the base engine, a 6.4-liter V-8 with 410 horsepower and 429 pound-feet of torque. The Hemi is linked to an eight-speed transmission and a two-speed transfer case with part-time four-wheel drive. The…

Highs: 253-mile EPA range, practical interior, free of silly EV gimmicks. Lows: All work and no gimmicks makes it a dull boy, not so lively off the line, Chevy Bolt EUV costs less. A boring car isn’t necessarily a bad car. The Kia Niro EV might elicit a yawn or two when you’re driving it, but it’s remarkably adept at its intended purpose, which is to deliver an EPA-rated 253 miles of range (210 miles in our 75-mph highway range test). A bigger problem is its price. The Niro EV starts at $40,745, $12,550 more than the Chevrolet Bolt EUV and $1955 above the Volkswagen ID.4’s base price. Sizewise, the Niro EV is roughly midway between those two competitors. It would blend into the small-crossover landscape if not for its…

Highs: Quicker to 60 mph than the manual, active safety tech included, lots of drive modes. Lows: Carries extra pounds, a CVT just isn’t as fun as a stick, luxury price without all the luxury niceties. After decades of spitting fire and spraying gravel, the Subaru WRX has grown up. Now in its fifth generation, Subaru’s proto–rally car has attained a higher level of sophistication. For proof, see the new range-topping WRX GT. In other WRX models, the 271-hp turbocharged 2.4-liter flat-four still comes standard with a six-speed stick (the CVT is an option), but the GT is strictly a two-pedal affair. At $43,390, it’s also $5220 more than the old 310-hp STI, which is not returning. The automatic opens the door to a host of driver aids, while adaptive…

In your test results for the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning, you indicated that the interior sound level at idle was 29 decibels [“Silent and Violent,” July/August 2022]. Please explain. —Richard Maelhorn, Internet City, Earth What do you call a motor that’s not doing any work? That’s right, idle. Just want to get that out of the way if your question involves using that term in conjunction with an EV. More specifically, that result is an average of two 15-second measurements taken with a Brüel & Kjær 2250-L Class 1 hand-held sound meter (list price, roughly $9000) at either end of the straightaway we use for acceleration testing. We do this test with the vehicle in neutral and the climate control off. While electric motors are silent in this scenario, an…

During our EV of the Year testing, the BMW i4 M50 was a standout performer that got a lot of buzz. Mutterings like “I’d take this over many of BMW’s internal-combustion cars” could be overheard throughout the proceedings. But the i4 ultimately didn’t take top honors, partly because we weren’t able to sample the more mainstream single-motor i4 eDrive40 version as well. The experience nonetheless stoked our enthusiasm, and with both variants present at the 10Best proceedings, you can see we were not disappointed. The dual-motor M50 is seriously quick, with a 3.3-second dash to 60 mph. But its crushing 30-to-50-mph and 50-to-70-mph rolling-acceleration times of 1.5 and 2.0 seconds, respectively, are what really squeeze the air out of your lungs when you boot it out of corners on the…

The best cars are often narrowly focused—on cosseting luxury, or ferocious performance, or utter practicality. Set too many goals and it’s easy to arrive at forgettable mediocrity. The Chevrolet Corvette, however, defies the notion that you can’t please everyone. It’s a sophisticated grand tourer, a hard-edged track rat, an everyday grocery getter with dual trunks. It’s a targa or a convertible, relatively attainable or knocking on the upper cap of our 10Best price limit. Throw on winter tires and it’s completely usable year-round, wherever you live. And although it’s been three years since the mid-engine Corvette hit the streets, it still turns heads. Seeing one is an event, even now. The Corvette team hasn’t rested on its laurels, either, as evidenced by the spectacular new Z06. That audacious halo car…

We would never forgive this in any other car. The screen is tiny, the cargo room is stingy, backup cameras are grainy, and the cupholders are functionally nonexistent. Yet it’s worth spilling coffee on your best pants for a chance to commute in any of Porsche’s 718 variants. Piloting a Cayman or a Boxster resets everything you thought you knew about cars, giving you a perfect baseline. This is how it should always feel from the driver’s seat. We don’t care that there’s no massage option and the gauges aren’t digital and customizable. We’re here because we love driving, and so does the 718. With the bump in spending power for this year’s 10Best, we are finally able to include almost every 718 variant, from the base turbo flat-four up…

The final A80-generation Supra’s ascension to legend status—years after production ended—spurred Toyota to resurrect the name on an all-new model for 2020. Could today’s Supra be on track to become one for the ages? It’s looking that way. That the latest Supra is making its third appearance on our 10Best cars list isn’t just happenstance. For one thing, Toyota continues to hone the Supra, which now is the halo model for a range of GR-branded performance cars. For 2021, Toyota added a turbo-four engine option that dropped the price of entry. That same year also saw a boost in the inline-six’s output to 382 horsepower, putting it on par with its BMW sibling, the Z4. The car has also been treated to chassis refinements that deliver more linear steering, better…

HERE’S HOW OUR OTHER LONG-TERM VEHICLES ARE FARING IN THEIR 40,000-MILE TRIALS: ARRIVAL: SEPTEMBER 2022 MILES: 6699 OBSERVED MPG: 16 Like so many eager Bronco owners, we had to wait for the factory to build our rig, but we’ve finally welcomed a Ford Bronco Badlands for a 40,000-mile test. The Bronco was a 2022 10Best winner, and we were anxious to add the big, beefy off-roader to our long-term fleet. We knew we needed four doors for practicality and, yes, the seven-speed manual gearbox. The four-door Badlands starts at $48,185, and we added the High Package equipment for $2790 and the Sasquatch package for $4090, the latter netting us 35-inch tires. The towing package ($595), hard top ($695), heavy-duty front bumper with tow hooks ($575), cargo-area protector ($120), and all-weather…

The Morgan Plus Four—released in 1950 as the Plus 4 and a descendant of the 1936 4/4—has steadfastly defied a changing world. It remained in production, looking much the same as ever, with a less than robust steel chassis, an antediluvian sliding-pillar front suspension, and a leaf-spring rear axle beneath a classic 1930s ash-frame body. Until now. The company founded by HFS Morgan in 1909 has boldly ambled into the future. It has revitalized its cars to maintain their vintage charm while injecting previously unheard-of comforts, practicality, and safety—enough that Morgan will return to the U.S. market in the second half of 2023, ending its latest regulatory-driven absence. The company’s red-brick factory in Malvern Link, Worcestershire, still cries “ye olde.” There, its workers largely hand-build fewer than 1000 cars a…

An SUV for the track sounds as ridiculous as a supercar optimized for off-roading. And yet, Lamborghini says that around a typical racetrack, its new Urus Performante is quicker than the original 2015 Huracán. After experiencing the Performante on Italy’s Vallelunga circuit, we believe it. Lamborghini adds 16 horsepower to the 2022 Urus’s twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 for a total of 657 ponies, while the 627 pound-feet of torque is unchanged. The Performante exhales through an even raspier exhaust, and the eight-speed automatic boasts reduced shift times. A new Torsen center differential can send more torque rearward, where an active diff apportions it side to side. The Performante rides 0.8 inch lower and ditches air springs for steel coils, losing the ability to vary ride height but sharpening handling. Lamborghini also…

Should an EV look different from a gasoline-powered equivalent, or is electric power now just another powertrain choice, like picking between a four- and a six-cylinder engine? BMW’s redesigned 7-series comes down firmly in the latter camp with the i7. Substantial and elegant, the new 7 has presence. Some of that is down to sheer size: This BMW is the largest car in its segment by a fair amount. The sedan’s 212.2-inch overall length is just over five inches greater than before—though the wheelbase grew by just 0.2 inch (there’s no short-wheelbase version). It’s also almost two inches wider and is 2.6 inches taller. The height increase is mainly due to the 4.9-inch-deep underfloor battery compartment, which houses a 101.7-kWh pack good for an EPA-estimated range of 296 to 318…

Back when cars only had three manual speeds and reverse, the possibility of mixing up the gears was minimal. At least you had a one-in-four chance of getting it right. But after the popularization of the automatic transmission in the 1950s, the controls for gear selection became a question of both design and ergonomics. In 1971, the Department of Transportation mandated automatics use the PRNDL—say “prindle”—layout. The impetus of this law, like so many automotive regulations, stemmed from the 1965 book Unsafe at Any Speed, in which Ralph Nader called out General Motors, Studebaker, and Rambler for using confusing transmission designs that put Reverse after Drive. Nader cited crashes resulting from drivers missing the intended gear and accelerating in the wrong direction. The PNDLR pattern was dangerous, he asserted. Plus,…

There is only one question on the FAQ page for the Self Racing Cars (SRC) website: “Why would I come watch this? It seems boring.” I kinda thought the same when I was invited to see the SRC group at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Why would I watch that? But the SRC event coincided with the Velocity Invitational, a gathering of vintage race cars that sounded very not boring, so I headed to Monterey to see what line self-driving race cars take in the Corkscrew. Backward is the answer, at least for the Lexus CT that Point One Navigation brought out. The red hatchback ran the course in reverse—and in Reverse. “Our test driver says it was faster than he was,” says Daniel Gruver, director of product for Point One.…

What’s the old saying? Nothing is certain but death, taxes, and the Accord making C/D’s 10Best list? This year is a little different in that Honda is shaking up its offering with the 11th-generation model. Our favored powertrain, the turbo 2.0-liter paired with a 10-speed auto, is dropped from the lineup. For 2023, you get a turbocharged 1.5-liter paired with a continuously variable automatic transmission or the hybrid. That’s it. On paper, the new Accord looks like much less of a contender without the blue-chip enthusiast bent of the 2.0-liter combo. We barely got over the Accord dropping the manual transmission following the 2020 model year. In both cases, Honda couldn’t make a business case to keep them, so tough love it is. Flirting with single-digit take rates will do…

WINNER: SCOT BURNER They say genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. In the case of Scot Burner’s new Guinness World Record, we’d say it’s 99 percent inspiration. He earned the certificate for fastest mile driven in reverse, averaging 48 mph lapping his C7 Corvette around the National Corvette Museum Motorsports Park racetrack in Kentucky. We did something similar in 2011 with rental cars, which got four of our staffers banned from Avis for life. Turns out loss prevention has no sense of humor. If Burner’s feat inspires you to make a run for a record, find a Lincoln Town Car. As our decade-old story can tell you, it’ll do a terrifying 63 mph in reverse, 9 mph faster than the highest speed Burner saw. Hertz may still…

OPERATING COSTS FOR 40,000 MILES SERVICE Dealer Visits • Scheduled ................................ 7 • Unscheduled ........................... 6 Days out of Service ................... 4 Unscheduled Oil Additions ............................... 0 qt Damage and Destruction ............................ $31 LIFE EXPECTANCIES Tires ........... 80,000 miles Brake Pads • Front ........ 85,000 miles • Rear ......... 90,000 miles WHAT BITS AND PIECES COST Headlamp ............... $1710 Engine Air Filter ........ $65 Oil Filter ...................... $11 Wheel ..................... $1260 Tire .......................... $333 Wiper Blades, L/R ..................... $25/$25 Front Brake Pads .... $302 FIVE-YEAR DEPRECIATION Depreciation data from Black Book, based on 12,000 miles per year. SERVICE TIMELINE October 15, 2021 151 miles Long-term test begins. December 7, 2021 5695 miles Dealer performs oil change, rotates tires, and retorques the improperly tightened front anti-roll bar links and rear track…

ARRIVAL: JULY 2022 MILES: 6302 OBSERVED MPG: 19 The Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing earned a spot on our 2022 10Best list and set a sub-three-minute time at Lightning Lap thanks to its 472-hp 3.6-liter engine, crisp handling, and rich feedback. So naturally, we ordered one for a long-term test, with the standard six-speed manual gearbox instead of the 10-speed automatic. We also matched the Electric Blue exterior ($625) with blue brake calipers ($595) and 18-inch bronze-colored wheels ($1500). The cabin is outfitted with heated and ventilated bucket seats that are perfect for Michigan’s ever-changing weather. The CT4-V Blackwing has been stellar so far, quickly amassing heaps of praise for its driving dynamics, particularly the sharp and responsive steering and gearbox. And the car is also excelling at the daily commute thanks to…

Highs: 700 horsepower, monster-truck presence, surprisingly graceful on-road manners. Lows: Not 703 horsepower, can’t lock the rear diff in two-wheel drive, it costs how much? The day began with weather that would scare Jim Cantore, when the gales of November came to the sand dunes of Michigan’s Silver Lake State Park. The thoroughly soaked mounds provided almost too much traction. Not for the guy in the rented Buick Encore, but enough to make even the steepest of dunes only a minor inconvenience to the 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor R. When you’ve got 700 horsepower and 37-inch beadlocked tires, wet sand may as well be interstate slab. The Raptor R is the long-awaited (but maybe not inevitable) zenith of the Raptor brand. In a world with no Ram TRX, would Ford…

What’s the best way for Acura to improve upon its new Integra? Give it more power, better tires, and an upgraded chassis. So we’re pleased that the Integra’s upcoming performance variant, the Type S, takes its powertrain from the delightful new Civic Type R and includes numerous handling upgrades. We drove a prototype of the Type S at Honda’s proving grounds in Tochigi, Japan. Slated to arrive this summer, the new model should offer the 40-plus crowd an alternative to the raucous Type R. Mechanical details are slim at this point, but we know that the Integra shares the Type R’s turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four, six-speed manual transmission, limited-slip differential, and front-wheel-drive layout. In the Integra, this engine should at least match, if not exceed, the Civic’s 315 horsepower and 310…

If you had a performance division with 50 years of glorious history, would you celebrate it by introducing a plug-in-hybrid SUV? That’s exactly what BMW has done with the new XM—the M division’s first electrified car. The SUV rides on the X7’s platform with slightly shorter overhangs. It’s powered by a 483-hp twin-turbo 4.4-liter V-8 coupled to a ZF eight-speed automatic that incorporates a 194-hp electric motor. The combined output of 644 horsepower should motivate this $159,995, 6000-pound lump to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds. If that’s not quick enough, a Label Red version will offer over 735 horsepower for an additional $25K or so. Looking a bit like the iX with horizontal kidneys, split headlights, and exaggerated details, the XM adds twin roundels etched into the top corners of…