Sports car drivers are fetishists. Where a normal person looks at the new Porsche 911 Carrera's front end and sees a pair of headlights, an enthusiast instantly discovers that The Sultans of Stuttgart have ditched the "fried egg" shape of the previous 911's illumination, and returned to the old air-cooled car's circular headlamps. Porsche-philes will also clock the subtly reshaped nose, and the new, tidier headlight spritzers. It's sad, but the 911 does that to people. The Carrera is one of those rare machines that can turn a disinterested driver into a raving car nerd.

It's not about looks. The appeal of the 911's gently evolving design is more or less lost on the non-cognoscenti. There's no question that this, the latest 911 iteration, is more attractive than the one it replaces, even if it's difficult to identify the exact cause (the smart money is on the wasp-waisted flanks and purposeful rump). Still, as beautiful as it is, the revised shape is no radical departure, no newfound siren song to lure converts into the 911 fold. No; the essence of the Carrera's transformative powers lies behind the wheel.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Imagine you've driven 165mph in a Volkswagen Phaeton W12 on a derestricted German autobahn. Now imagine you're driving a Porsche Carrera GT (CGT) on a three-lane American highway with no traffic, one mile visibility and perfect weather. Do you put the hammer down and try to better your personal land speed record, despite the obvious risk to life and license? Do ya? Do ya punk?

Well, of course not. That kind of egocentric accelerative exuberance would be criminally irresponsible, regardless of the conditions. Anyway, your [imaginary] right foot rests atop an accelerator hot wired to a 605hp, race-bred, V10 engine. The car holstering this brute weighs just 3043lbs. It's a Porsche. So what the Hell, you muck about a bit, change gears, play around with the throttle, that kind of thing. I mean why not? It's not like you're headed for work or anything.

Once upon a time, a car's identity was buried deep in its DNA. In these days of multinational parts and platform sharing, brands are born in a marketing memo, then programmed onto a computer chip. Even the most discerning car hack struggles to tell where a Mercedes SLK ends and a Chrysler Crossfire begins. All […]

The Chevrolet SSR is a two-seat pickup truck with a folding metal hardtop that drives like a– hold on a second. Where did THAT idea come from? “Hey guys, what we haven’t built yet? How about a convertible pickup truck!” Normally, corporate bean counters file such creative flights of fancy under “H”, for “Humor them and they’ll design a car we can sell to the rental companies”. But lo and behold, here it is! So, um, what is it?

The first time I gave the Ford GT's go-pedal a really hard shove, I discovered that it's one of those rare cars that can transform its pilot into a passenger. In other words, when I dipped my right foot that little bit too far towards the floor, I found myself hanging on, rather than driving.

The Audi TT isn't so much a sports car as a handbag on wheels. I'm not saying TT drivers are girly men. The difference between a dignified brief case and an adorable handbag is style, not utility. But let's face it: the TT is a fashion statement first, a car second. Admirers are less likely […]

Yes, it's another one of those lumbering leviathans whose sole purpose in life is to Hoover-up the world's precious oil reserves and belch-out planet killing hydrocarbons– until and unless it mows down a bunch of blameless economy car drivers. Actually, Nissan designed the full-size Pathfinder Armada SUV to transport seven/eight people in comfort, safety and style. So let's cut the automaker a bit of slack, delete the letter combo "PC" from the PC and get on with it, shall we?

It's not as easy as it sounds. C'mon, an "Armada"? Didn't anyone have the cojones to remind Nissan Supremo Carl Ghosn that the word "armada" has been a synonym for naval military disaster since 1588? Granted, the average American's knowledge of European maritime history is only slightly better than their grasp of nuclear particle physics. But it's still an inauspicious name– especially for families mounting an amphibious assault on their local pool.

So there we were, barreling down the highway in a Lincoln Navigator. The music on the DVD suddenly swelled, filling the cavernous SUV with orchestral thunder. The kids were watching The Pirates of the Caribbean; the bit where Captain Jack Sparrow enters the harbor on a sinking skiff. Although the scene is played for laughs, the music is magnificent: grand yet lyrical, suffused with romance and adventure. Grasping the big Lincoln's wood and leather helm, I felt like the captain of a huge vessel heading for the open sea. At that moment, the SUV's enormous size and endless creature comforts made perfect sense. I was piloting a first-class ship of the line: safe, fast and well-provisioned. The only cloud on the horizon was…

The Sierra Club. SUVs may own the road, but Gaia's guys and their media minions have captured the moral high ground. Where unlimited consumerism was once considered a good thing, Americans are now instructed that their family truck triggers global warming, kills Bambi and endangers US troops. Never mind that many anti-SUV crusaders live in air-conditioned mansions with heated pools. SUVs are bad. The bigger they are, the badder they be.