Innehållsförteckning för January 2019 från MotorTrend

@Lohdown Our annual Of The Year awards celebrate the very best car, truck, SUV, and auto industry personality. They also capture a moment in time and serve as reminders, upon future reflection, that excellence comes in all shapes, sizes, and magnitudes. Some years we recognize a localized peak—a game changer whose impact is felt more deeply in one segment than across the whole industry. The Chrysler PT Cruiser (COTY 2001) fits that bill, as does the Nissan GT-R (COTY 2009). Sometimes our winners break ground for entirely new categories of vehicles, as the Lexus RX 300 did as the very first SUVOTY, in 1999. As moments in time go, 2019 will be remembered as the year of shifting archetypes—just look at this year’s winners. Then there are those rare vehicles…

MOTORTREND.COM Nov 30 Auto Mundial; Motorsport Mundial Dec 3 ROADKILL GARAGE, EP. 37 Dec 7 Auto Mundial; Motorsport Mundial Dec 10 DIRT EVERY DAY, EP. 85 Dec 12 DRIFT THIS!, EP. 1 (Series Premiere) Dec 14 Auto Mundial; Motorsport Mundial Dec 17 HOT ROD GARAGE, EP. 73 Dec 19 THROTTLE OUT, EP. 2 Dec 21 Auto Mundial; Motorsport Mundial Dec 24 ROADKILL, EP. 88 Dec 28 Auto Mundial; Motorsport Mundial SCHEDULE KEY: RACING ORIGINAL PROGRAMS NEW ROADKILL EXTRA & DIRT EVERY DAY EXTRA MONDAYS THROUGH FRIDAYS *Some content may be restricted by geographical location. The program information provided is subject to change. You wouldn’t know it from the way they spend most of their time on Roadkill—fixing whatever just broke, again—but Finnegan and Freiburger can wheel. But are they better…

BMW X2 WE LIKE Stylish, fun to drive WE DON’T LIKE Harsh ride, steep price tag, no space For a young, successful professional, a fun, stylish car can be a personal reward. The BMW X2 hits the mark for a dual-income no-kids household. For everyone else, though, it’s long on sport and short on utility. Our six criteria are weighted equally, but how well a vehicle performs its intended function usually gets the biggest workout. The X2 is clearly focused on looking good and being fun to drive, but even its strengths were points of contention. Several of us compared it to a hot hatch. Stefan Ogbac, though, called it “uninspiring,” Gordon Dickie called it “numb,” and Frank Markus split the difference, writing, “This is probably the fastest car around…

Jeep resists the temptation to dilute its climb-that-mountain capabilities for crossover softness. Look past the iconic grille, and you’ll see it. Behold the latest evolution of a seven-decades-old design, a soul-stirring affirmation of freedom, a surprisingly groundbreaking vehicle that shouldn’t work in the 21st century as well as it does. The new Jeep Wrangler is what crossovers want to be when they grow up, and it’s the 2019 MotorTrend SUV of the Year. Rarely do past and future coexist so beautifully. The thoroughly redesigned and re-engineered Wrangler finds its own path to modernization, resisting the temptation to dilute its climb-that-mountain capabilities for crossover softness. Even so, beach-bound cruisers and daily commuters will appreciate the upgraded pavement game, and off-roaders will admire how much more confidently they can traverse their favorite…

Chevrolet Silverado WE LIKE Updated exterior, 10-speed transmission WE DON'T LIKE Out-of-date interior, laggy 5.3-liter throttle response With fabulous new exterior styling, a fancy cylinder deactivation system, and an automatic trailer light test, the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 showed much improvement over the third generation. But its bumpy ride, passé interior, and hesitant 5.3-liter engine kept the Silverado from getting the Golden Calipers. “There’s nothing linking the neat exterior to the uninspired interior,” Christian Seabaugh said of the Trail Boss. “It’s just a sea of black speckled with bits of chrome and gray plastic.” Added Ed Loh: “Not budgeting a refresh for the interior seems a huge miss.” The cabin looks “cheap for the price,” Scott Evans noted. Ride quality was also an issue. Chris Walton felt impact bounces in each…

Buick Regal WE LIKE Impressive packaging, good-looking wagon WE DON’T LIKE Cheap interior, lackluster GS model The Regal TourX wagon and GS hatchback feature some clever packaging, but not much else stood out, with one exception: that beautiful wagon. It’s hard not to ogle it, and most judges praised its attractive sheetmetal. Both Regals offer spacious rear seats, and the GS (a sportback variant) can hold a surprising 60.7 cubic feet of cargo with the rear seats folded down and 31.5 with them up. That’s more than some crossovers. Packaging a car is not easy, and Buick did an excellent job. Too bad the rest of the interior is a disappointment. Many interior components are plasticky, and style is nonexistent (save for the front seats). The blinker stalk, something drivers…

Wind your mental clocks back about three decades. The year is 1985, Ronald Reagan just began his second term in the White House, and a new Korean car company was selling a Giugiaro-designed hatchback for the low, low price of $4,995. Americans couldn’t pronounce the brand’s name. (Hun-dee? Hi-yun-day? Hoon-dye?) And its little Excel did anything but. The wheezy econobox’s most notable performance credential was the LAPD’s dubious—later retracted—claim that Rodney King was driving one at speeds of 110 to 115 mph. Fast-forward to the present. How beyond belief is it that that same cheap and cheerful automaker—Hyundai—not only has improved so dramatically over the years that it has launched a luxury brand, but has also built a better BMW 3 Series fighter right out of the gate than the…

We are in a secure, pitch-black San Francisco parking garage, barely able to see the four prototype examples of the next-generation Porsche 911 Carrera. Of the 300 Pre-Series 2 (PS2) cars that exist in the hands of development teams around the globe, these are the only ones to have all the most recent updates. Effectively, we were to be embedded for a day with this 911 dev team, piloting the four closest-to-production examples extant. I wish I could tell you more about how the four camouflaged Carreras drove, but I signed an NDA that restricts what I can say about that. You’ll have to wait until the official 992 press drive in January to learn more, but let’s just say the switchbacks didn’t stand a chance. When it reaches U.S.…

@markrechtin How do you compare 36 cars against one another when the field comprises family sedans, touring coupes, hot hatches, sports cars, and minivans all in the same pack? This also applies to the wild varieties of SUVs and the differing capabilities of trucks big and small. You don’t. Or rather, you can’t. That’s why the MotorTrend Car, Truck, and SUV of the Year evaluations are so grueling. This year, our field of contenders for the awards hit 81 vehicles. Trying to place those vehicles, with sticker prices from $20,000 to $150,000, requires something more than a mere comparison test. That is why we rely on a tried-and-true methodology of six key criteria to level the playing field: 1. Advancement in Design: We dissect the quality of execution of exterior…

THE LINEUP ACURA RDX • BMW X2 BMW X3 • BMW X4 • CADILLAC XT4 FORD ECOSPORT • FORD EDGE • FORD EXPEDITION HYUNDAI KONA • HYUNDAI SANTA FE • INFINITI QX50 JAGUAR E-PACE • JAGUAR I-PACE • JEEP CHEROKEE JEEP WRANGLER • LAND ROVER RANGE ROVER VELAR LEXUS RX 350 L • LINCOLN NAVIGATOR MERCEDES-BENZ G-CLASS • MITSUBISHI ECLIPSE CROSS NISSAN KICKS • SUBARU ASCENT • SUBARU FORESTER TOYOTA RAV4 • VOLVO XC40 THE JUDGES Mark Rechtin, Executive Editor Angus MacKenzie, International Bureau Chief Alisa Priddle, Detroit Editor Scott Evans, Features Editor Christian Seabaugh, Features Editor Frank Markus, Technical Director Kim Reynolds, Testing Director Zach Gale, Senior Production Editor Stefan Ogbac, Associate Online Editor Miguel Cortina, MotorTrend En Español Gordon Dickie, Guest Judge If you’ve ever stood next to…

Acura RDX WE LIKE Winding road handling, excellent packaging WE DON'T LIKE Vague brakes, infotainment interface Acura has stepped up its game with the new RDX, but it’s reaching in trying to be all things to all buyers. There is confusion about what the RDX is trying to be. “It’s torn between luxurious like a Lincoln, sporty like an Alfa, or techy like an Audi; those can cancel each other out,” Christian Seabaugh said. With a powerful engine derived from the Civic Type R’s, the RDX sends power to all four wheels via Acura’s Super Handling All-Wheel Drive. We enjoyed it on winding roads in Sport+ mode, but it lacked the emotion we expected. Overall, “the drive, the package, and the cargo space at the price Acura is asking make…

THE LINEUP CHEVROLET SILVERADO FORD F-150 GMC SIERRA RAM 1500 THE JUDGES Ed Loh, Editor-in-Chief • Kim Reynolds, Testing Director • Chris Walton, Road Test Editor • Scott Evans, Features Editor Christian Seabaugh, Features Editor • Miguel Cortina, Managing Editor, MotorTrend en Español • Kelly Pleskot, Associate Online Editor Behind the scenes at 2019 Truck of the Year It was gone. Washed away. I was driving our last evaluation loop of the day, piloting the Silverado Trail Boss down a dirt access road toward the 50-foot-tall mound we’d drifted our trucks around the previous night. But just 18 hours before this beautiful Friday afternoon, a midsummer storm had suddenly and ferociously blown through northwestern Arizona. Concrete pipes meant to channel the rainwater under the road were now fully exposed. With…

Americans ask more of our trucks than we do of any other vehicle. In any given week, the average half-ton pickup might find itself commuting like a sedan, hauling a bed full of bricks and sand, towing some Jet Skis, navigating muddy ranchland, or exploring off-road trails. It’s no wonder that we bought 2.8 million of the things last year. The best-selling pickup in the United States last year—and indeed in every year for the past four decades—has been the Ford F-Series. But our 2019 Truck of the Year should give pause to prospective Blue Oval loyalists (or buyers of any truck, for that matter) because there isn’t a truck out there that so precisely hits the diverse needs of the segment better than the 2019 Ram 1500. The fifth-generation…

THE LINEUP AUDI A6 AUDI A7 BUICK REGAL FORD MUSTANG FORD TRANSIT CONNECT GENESIS G70 HONDA CLARITY HONDA INSIGHT HYUNDAI ACCENT HYUNDAI ELANTRA HYUNDAI VELOSTER KIA FORTE LEXUS ES 300 LEXUS LS 500 MERCEDES-BENZ CLS-CLASS NISSAN ALTIMA TOYOTA AVALON TOYOTA COROLLA HATCH VOLKSWAGEN JETTA VOLVO S60/V60 THE JUDGES Ed Loh, Editor-in-Chief • Mark Rechtin, Executive Editor • Angus MacKenzie, International Bureau Chief • Zach Gale, Senior Production Editor • Jonny Lieberman, Senior Features Editor • Christian Seabaugh, Features Editor • Frank Markus, Technical Director Chris Walton, Road Test Editor • Michael Cantu, Associate Online Editor • Tom Gale, Guest Judge • Chris Theodore, Guest Judge The world has changed a lot since we awarded our first Car of the Year calipers to Cadillac in 1949. Cars went from being the…

Audi A6 WE LIKE Class-leading interior, incredibly quiet cabin WE DON’T LIKE Road noise from 21-inch tires, fake exhaust tips The A6 moves to a new platform with a choice of suspensions that make for the best-riding A6 in a while, albeit one that’s a bit firm on uneven surfaces. Zach Gale said the A6’s excellence “sneaks up on you.” The 3.0-liter V-6 replaces a supercharger with a turbo and is now a mild hybrid with a standard 48-volt system. Judges called it quiet, smooth, and capable. The ride is crisp and sharp, Frank Markus noted, but it was still possible to get a slide going on the handling course. The transitions from one corner to the next are wonderfully precise. Kudos to the acoustics team—the cabin is almost unnervingly…

It’s been 32 years since I first drove a Hyundai. I can still remember it, a droning yellow Excel hatchback with a tan interior that smelled like an oil driller’s armpit. As I walked into the office of the magazine where I was working, I glanced back at the parked Hyundai and noticed the turn signal had fallen out of the front bumper and was hanging by a wire. These guys, I thought, have a lot to learn. Three decades later, I voted to make the Genesis G70 our 2019 Car of the Year, the first Korean-made vehicle ever to win the coveted award. Entirely designed, engineered, and built by Hyundai, the dynamically accomplished and beautifully finished G70 is the real deal, a premium compact sport sedan good enough to…

MOTORTREND.COM It’s redemption time for the guys and their 5.0 Mustang. Back in Episode 66, Tony and Lucky brought a stock ’85 Mustang to the track with a trunk full of speed parts to see how much faster each part would make it. Spoiler alert: not much. Not because the parts didn’t work, though. Between timing problems, internal issues, and soaring ambient temperatures as the day dragged on, they only got 1.13 seconds out of the elapsed time even after swapping the exhaust, intake, ignition system, and even the heads and camshaft. Big fail. Back in the shop, they discover just how bad things got at the track. They trace the timing problem to a loose harmonic balancer, but that’s the least of their problems. The bottom end was on…

Other magazines gather some cars, drive them around, and vote on which ones they like best, but that’s not how we do it. Our rigorous and regimented Of The Year programs are designed around repeatability—testing every vehicle in the same conditions on the same roads and proving grounds back to back to ensure no vehicle has an advantage or disadvantage. Each program requires a different set of tests unique to the type of vehicle. This is how we do it at SUV of the Year. PHASE 1 Hard Data With the typical contender field regularly surpassing three dozen vehicles, automotive proving grounds have become our location of choice for data collection. We were invited back to the Honda Proving Center, located 130 miles north of our Los Angeles headquarters, where…

Technical director Frank Markus is finalizing the road loop schedule before the rest of us have hit snooze on our alarms. Every staff needs someone like Frank, or else these logistics fall apart. Half of our finalists are new nameplates. Taking them on our 27.6-mile loop is always a surprise. Front-runners can reveal weaknesses; contenders that barely made the cut can shine. Long and Winding Road. Beatles, 1970. The impressive little Hyundai Kona with its cheeky interior reveals a busy chassis on the rough roads surrounding Tehachapi. The Kona EV prompts a debate about charging times and range. It has no problem with either and shows up the high-performance I-Pace, which needs a lot more juice to pull off its sporty acceleration and handling. The I-Pace has a shorter range…

With 11 variants at this year’s TOTY, our judges and testing crew were busier than ever. Under the searing early-August sun, we hooked up trailers while the test team gathered every byte of data during two days at FCA’s Arizona Proving Ground in Yucca. Our “frustration tests” continued the next day when we towed a John Deere excavator up and down Davis Dam, measuring acceleration on the way up and cruise control overrun each truck allowed on the way back down, followed by looping every truck on a circuit with freeway stretches, winding roads, and elevation changes. The MotorTrend Truck of the Year award is a battle for working-class bragging rights. No vehicle encompasses Americana more than the full-size pickup truck, and Motown knows it. For 2019, three of the…

This is the 14th year MotorTrend has scoured the automotive landscape to produce its Power List. We discern the most influential and transformative people of the past year, the ones who make this elaborate industry hum and whirl, speed up and bog down. As the powertrains of tomorrow transition away from diesels, optimizing gas-engine efficiency and adding electrification, so too do the faces change with the times. There are always CEOs and other C-suite executives on our list, but we look for the people further down in the trenches whose efforts create a buzz. We love this industry and want to reward a job well done. And we try to find the new faces that reflect the trends, new tech, and sometimes new companies that populate the automotive landscape. This…

Whenever we tell people what we do, invariably their thoughts go to fast cars, smoky burnouts, and tire-shredding drifts. And yeah, we do have our fun, but the key behind any of our tests—especially when it comes to the Of The Year program—is a very basic scientific principle: reproducibility. Here’s how we ensure it at Car of the Year. Battling for this year’s honors: 20 vehicles with 36 variants representing sedans, wagons, coupes, and a minivan. 1. High-Speed Oval With its 120-mph speed limit, the oval allows us to test a contender’s highway acceleration and passing performance, wind and road noise levels, stability, and active safety measures such as radar cruise control and lane keep assist. Meanwhile, the rough road section perfectly mimics the surfaces of California’s I-5, I-105, I-110,…

As the discussion begins, the conservatively styled A6 emerges as a worthy rival to the segment benchmark, the Mercedes E-Class sedan, one judge reckoning it to be the best-handling A6 of all time. “It’s the only car here to dip into 24 seconds on the figure-eight test,” Walton notes. The elegant A7 is regarded as easily the best of the German four-door coupes (that semantic battle has been lost), though that’s not enough for features editor Christian Seabaugh. “There’s a see-through wrapper of dullness around it,” he shrugs. Everyone loves the clean, stylish, high-tech interiors in both Audis, though there’s plenty of discussion over the merits of having to dive through touchscreen menus to make simple function changes. That said, judges agree the Audi system is intuitive and easy to…