By: Tim Plouff When you have the best-selling vehicle in its segment—small/mid-size pickup trucks—and you’ve led the class for a long time, you can become complacent and avoid risks. After all, customers are telling you that they like what you are offering, so why make dramatic changes? Toyota’s small pickup truck, the entry level vehicle […]
By: Jeffrey Zygmont My only gripe against the Mazda3 is that its six-speed manual transmission can’t be paired with all-wheel drive. But that’s a personal complaint, not a professional one. As an impartial and experienced auto writer, I can’t quibble about Mazda’s decision to offer a six-speed manual transmission only in a front-drive version of […]
By: Jeffrey Zygmont Infiniti – as the luxury-vehicle brand of Nissan – rounds the corners and smooths the edges of its big QX80 sport-utility vehicle, which helps set it apart from its very close cousin, the Nissan Armada. Both are essentially the same super-sized wagon. And both have the same problem du jour. Now that […]
By SCOTT WASSER My first reaction after receiving the invitation to visit a Lucid Air studio was, “No thanks; I stopped doing that sort of thing after graduating college.” Then my NEMPA colleague, photographer Kevin Nguyen, explained that a Lucid Air studio is an unconventional and elegant car dealership, not the kind of place where […]
Spring is in the passing lane and running at wide-open throttle, with the busy month of April behind us and May is off and running. After a two-year hiatus, the New York International Auto Show returned to host the automotive industry’s latest and greatest, and Earth Day shined a bit more light on the advancements […]
By Tim Plouff Drivers of a certain age will remember when, and how, Toyota and then-named Datsun, gained their toe-hold in the American automotive market. It was 1968 and two tiny pickups appeared first in California, but soon swept across the country as these compact, rear-drive, econo-box pick-em-ups created more than a niche category. The […]
