Jeep's latest ads ask SUV buyers to believe that the new Grand Cherokee is a pleasure to drive on-road. It's a stunning example of "the big lie" (people are more likely to believe a massive deception than a little one). If there's one thing that the heavily revised Grand Cherokee does badly– like any two-ton SUV– it's handle on-road. The SUV floats alarmingly over dips and crests, shudders disturbingly over bumps and holes, and leans precipitously through the twisties. I'd no sooner blast a Grand Cherokee around a sharp corner than I'd drive an Enzo on the Rubicon.

Ah, the Rubicon. Also known as the McKinney-Rubicon Springs Road, the unpaved trail runs 12 miles through California's rugged High Sierra Mountains. On the official off-roaders' difficulty scale of one to 10, the boulder-strewn, gully-infested Rubicon rates a 24. (As one veteran mud plugger puts it, the only part of a vehicle that's not likely to break on the Con is the radiator cap.) To qualify as "trail rated", a Jeep product must have enough traction, ground clearance, maneuverability, articulation and water fording to tackle the Rubicon.

The great American SUV migration began in the station wagon. And why not? The land yachts of yore were foul-handling, gas-guzzling, fundamentally unsafe beasts. Trading them for taller, foul-handling, gas-guzzling, fundamentally unsafe beasts made perfect sense. The baby had a better view. And, to be fair, a flying disc offered better snow traction than a rear-wheel-drive station wagon. The genre's extinction was little mourned– especially by teenagers unfortunate enough to pick up a date in one.

Of course, times have changed. The all-conquering SUV is now PC poison, a pariah amongst the chattering classes. Enter, stage left, the Dodge Magnum. To lure mainstream America out of their SUVs, the Dark Lords of DCX have transformed the creaky Conestoga of our collective past into something infinitely more capable, stylish and desirable. The result could signal the much-anticipated death of the SUV.

Check out the standard features on the latest automotive delicacy. Electronic engine controls? Check. Variable valve timing? Check. Throttle by wire? Anti-lock brakes? Speed-variable power steering? Electronic stability system? All-wheel drive? HID headlights? Air bags, front and side? Check, check and double check. Archaic system of transferring engine power to the wheels requiring the use of 2 feet, 3 pedals, both hands, visual, aural and fine motor coordination to operate the car? Yep, got that too.

Of course, the last feature is actually a traditional manual transmission and clutch. It seems that engineering progress has reached everywhere in the enthusiast's car except for the footwell. Today's manual clutch is the same antiquated system that's been around for the last 100 years, and it's a fundamentally unsafe way to control a car.

I'm sitting at a traffic light on a nine-lane road bisecting a blight of car dealers, warehouse eateries and chain stores. My opponent is driving a white Elantra with almost enough body mods to disguise its humble origins, but not quite. I can hear the Hyundai's hamster wheel whining over the top of the Mustang's bellowing V8. Clearly, the Korean whip has about as much chance of outrunning the GT as an octogenarian jogger. And yet Elantra Boy is determined to get it on.

How do you sell a car? You'd think that all the major carmakers would have an established sales methodology by now. After all, every McDonald's sells its products in the exact same way, and they don't do too badly. Shouldn't companies selling automobiles have a prescribed system for sales interaction, from the moment a customer enters the fishbowl to the moment the saleman seals the deal? Wouldn't that make sense?

Oh wait. The manufacturers do have systems– it's just that no one uses them. Despite their ceaseless attempts to introduce a measure of science and civility to the automotive sales process, car salesmen still make it up as they go along. Sure, the guys and gals working the showroom floor feed the corporate maw the requisite paperwork, pretending to adhere to company policy. In reality, they pay no more attention to their erstwhile sales structure than they do to GQ's Fall Fashion issue.

OK, I'll admit it: I had it in for the Mercedes Benz C320 Sport even before it hit the drive. After my review of the C55 AMG, MB USA made it abundantly clear that they were unhappy with my opinion of the class from which it sprang. The suits viewed the C-Class as "prestige lite": a gateway drug to their bigger, better products. I saw the model line as a range of glorified German taxis for itinerant badge snobs. So when the C320 Sport Sedan arrived, I was ready to add fuel to my pyre.

The truth of the matter proved elusive. As soon as I found something to hate about the car, I'd discover something I liked. For example, the C320 Sport looks about as aggressive as a Dodge Caravan. The C's tiny mesh grill, petite rear spoiler and single chrome exhaust pipe are a pathetic attempt to inject sporting intent into a thoroughly banal shape. But the sedan is perfectly sized for spirited driving: low, small and relatively narrow.

The Toyota Prius, Honda Accord hybrid and Ford Escape hybrid are a major hit. The buff books rave about them, the Greens bless them and retail customers can't get enough (literally). While the mileage, environmental and PC advantages of vehicles powered by a gas – electric powerplant seems obvious, how much of this hybrid mania is hype?

Buyers pay a large premium for a hybrid Escape or a Prius, presuming that the increased fuel mileage makes them a better environmental citizen. While there's no question that the Toyota, Honda and Ford hybrids are more fuel efficient than their conventionally powered equivalents, the difference is nowhere near as great as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) numbers suggest.

At the end of my local car wash, the Peruvian supervisor offers customers a choice of air fresheners. The battered spray bottles are hand-labeled: watermelon, cherry, vanilla, pine, apple, strawberry, lemon, pina colada and new car smell. Needless to say, the scents are about as authentic as a velveteen Last Supper. The idea that someone would actually choose to submit their nostrils to such an egregious olfactory attack is a source of constant wonder. But hey, Ford still sells Thunderbirds, so I guess there's no accounting for taste.

Applebee's. Outback. Red Lobster. Mediocre eateries are carpet-bombing America's landscape with the sort of scorched-earth expansionist verve that would chafe Sam Walton. How is that, exactly? To a chain, most such restaurants have been designed to look, feel, and taste the same regardless of locale. Accidental tourists who dined in a Scranton Ruby Tuesday's have a sporting chance of finding the bathroom in the Seattle franchise without asking the waitstaff. Outsized, filling portions dominate, with the quantities served constituting something of an apology for the food itself. And yet, to gorge oneself stupid on basket after basket of Riblets is to leave feeling strangely bloated and unsatisfied.

So it is with Ford's new Five Hundred. Make no bones about it: Dearborn's 'Year of the Car' centerpiece is no gourmet's feast. More to the point, the Five Hundred is a blandly flavored proposition inside and out, enticing consumers on portion size, a smorgasbord of ingredients and a low price point. Like the themed restaurants in front of which it will inevitably park, the Five-Hundred is a blatant attempt to appeal to the lowest-common denominator, blueprinted to offend as few as possible.

Pontiac's ads proudly proclaim that their latest sports sedan is "the first ever G6"– as if the company somehow beat its competitors to build a G6. Which is what exactly? A car that gets 100 miles per gallon? Brings peace to the Middle East? Self-replicates? We all know the G6's REAL claim to fame: it's the first automobile personally bestowed upon every member of a studio audience by a chat show Queen, under false pretences. (Pontiac provided the vehicles, Oprah took the credit, recipients didn't like the taxes.) Otherwise, the G6 is a standard sort of car.

Come to think of it, that IS a major breakthrough. Pontiac has been making sub-standard cars for decades: front-wheel-drive machines with asthmatic engines, no handling and even less build quality. [NB: The new GTO is an Australian import.] The idea that GM's nominal performance division could create a machine that can hold its own in a class filled with talented, well-established Japanese contenders is about as credible as cold fusion. And yet, here it is.