Kia is one of the only car brands sold in America that's never built an enthusiast's car. Sensible Swedish Saab offered the 900. Before their core clientele started losing their pulse, Buick ran the Grand National. Saturn looked to the Sky for salvation. GMC got caught up in a Typhoon. Even Hyundai has the Tiburon circling its enthusiast oriented customers. Kia? Nothing but cheap. Or… maybe not. "Being practical doesn't mean you have to take the joy out of life," their web copy proclaims. "That's the thinking behind the Rio. It's affordable and likes a good time as much as you do." What exactly does THAT mean?

"The Porsche Cayenne is a deeply misunderstood machine," RF told me before my test drive. "It's one of the world's fastest off-roaders, not a house-broken truck." Huh? Why would a world famous sports car maker (if not THE world famous sports car maker) tempt infamy by making a kick-ass mud plugger instead of a FX-style sports-car-on-stilts? The answer, I'm told, lies deep in Porsche's DNA. In the late eighties, Porsche jacked-up their 959 supercar and entered it in the grueling Paris – Dakar rally. In their second attempt, the German automaker scooped first, second and sixth places. "Take the entry level V6 off road," RF commanded. "Thrash it without mercy. THEN tell me what you think." Sounded like a plan.

Honda was the first automaker to offer Americans a car-based SUV with a third row of seats. It didn't matter that an Odyssey minivan was more fun to drive. Families wanted a third row without the stigma of a minivan or the bulk of a conventional SUV. The Pilot outsold all other midsize car-based SUVs. Then new competitors piled into the segment: Hyundai Veracruz, GMC Acadia, Mazda CX-9 and more. Honda lost its place at the head of the class. For the 2009 model year, Honda has responded with a fully redesigned Pilot. Have they done enough to reclaim their supremacy?

Ford's "premium" car lineup is engaged in a deadly game of last brand standing. Now that Jaguar, Range Rover and Aston Martin are casualities of war (i.e. someone else's problem), it's down to Volvo and Lincoln. Official denials aside, Volvo's the next to go. Lincoln must carry that weight (a long time). And so we meet the front wheel-drive-based Lincoln MKS, Ford's first post-Carmageddon (karmageddon?) luxury car. Has Lincoln's sibs' dismissal finally liberated the brand from badge-engineered mediocrity? 

The Ford Escape was the world's first hybrid SUV. Contrary to popular belief, The Blue Oval's gas – electric trucklette does NOT use Toyota's Synergy Drive. FoMoCo's hybrid cute ute shares some patents with ToMoCo, and that's it. And there's another idea floating around: Ford is artificially restricting supplies to limit their loss-per-vehicle. True dat. Until and unless Ford can find a way to reduce its costs, the automaker has capped production of "the most fuel-efficient SUV on Earth" at 25k special order units per year (so much for Bill Ford's 250k hybrid pledge). Tales of three month waits are not unknown. The question is, what, if anything, are we missing?

I love European "people's" cars. The Renault R4, the Fiat Uno and Punto, Peugeots 205 to 207, the early Golfs– they were all affordable and fun to drive with more character than Marcello Mastroianni. By the same token, I hate what Lee Iacocca called PODS. Lido was referring to Chryslers, but plenty of manufacturers have built cars for Poor Old Dumb Shits. PODS-mobiles are often Russian; Lada leading the pack. More recently, they hail from Korea or Malaysia. They're cheap to buy, miserable to operate and not at all economical to own (as CityRover owners found out). When considering Europe's cheapest car– the Romanian-built Dacia Logan– you have to wonder if the penalty box tradition continues.

I disagree with every review of the Lexus LS600hL ever written. Categorically. To a man, my colleagues misinterpret the most expensive Lexus as a misguided planet-saver that doesn't deliver enough mpg to justify its sky-high price tag. I view the ultimate hybrid as better driving through science. In fact, despite the dorky "hybrid" badges uglifying the LS600hL's flanks, Lexus didn't build this beast to sip fuel. They built it to go toe-to-toe with 12-cylinder Germans.

Anyone who’s driven one of the first nine iterations of the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution (a.k.a. Evo) approaches the tenth fully expecting chest-flattening acceleration and spleen-rupturing cornering. Obviously, the Evo X’s engine and chassis are bound (and determined) to continue the model’s budget supercar-killer tradition. But there’s another less welcome Evo tradition: denture destroying suspension and a Gladware interior. Will the Evo X’s ride quality and interior materials once again conspire to kill the love for all but the masochists among us?  

With all this media talk of a gas electric plug-in hybrid clean diesel hydrogen fuel cell future, someone forgot to tell Mercedes that the horsepower war is over. Sure, the new BMW M3 has a 414hp V8, trumped by the Audi RS4’s 420hp eight pot. But who gives a shit? The new automotive arms race: building and selling enough small, high-mileage, low-profit vehicles that various government agencies will let you sell large, low-mileage, high-profit vehicles. Meanwhile, the Mercedes C63 AMG.

"Nice Audi." Every time I rolled up in the glossy red A5, I heard the same refrain. Young, old, rich, poor– if the onlooker had a tongue, they wagged it at me and my Audi. And there you have it. The people have spoken. I find this curious for two reasons. First, das volk haven't driven it. Second, the A5 is a two-door variant of the new A4. Has anyone other than a nurse or desperate housewife looked at an A4 and exclaimed, "Nice Audi?" Perhaps so, but the ad hoc A5 admiration society still raises an important question: is it a nice Audi?

To my eyes, the Toyota Prius looks like an Area 51 reject: an ungainly sci fi fantasy devoid of charm or beauty. To its admirers’ eyes, the Prius is the latter day equivalent of a Model T or a VW Bug: an automobile whose virtues– and virtuousness– transcend the normal dictates of style. And THEN there’s the debate about propulsion, premiums and politics. It’s hard to think of another car that’s been this polarizing– for both manufacturer (Maximum Bob) and the end user (a.k.a. car buyer). And yet, just as sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes a car is just a car. Ah, but is the Prius a good car?

The fact that we’re even having this discussion tells you how far Audi’s come in the uber-sports sedan sweepstakes. Normally, this comparo would write itself. BMW M3 = driver’s car with super smooth, vicious punch. Audi RS4 = sure-footed supersonic GT with numb tiller. BMW fun. Audi fast. BMW wins. But since this contest was first mooted, The Boys from Bavaria have made the jump to V8 space, while Audi have finally figured-out how to make not dying entertaining. But has anything changed? 

BMW enjoys vast reservoirs of consumer goodwill. How else can you explain the German automaker’s ability to flourish despite recent engineering and design faux pas? General Motors would have been a lot further along in its death spiral if it had introduced indigestible shapes, indelicate Bangle butts, interminable run-hard tires, unfathomable iDrive and the ubearable SMG transmission. And so, the M3. Does the new M3 Coupe restore the roundel’s rep, or does it signal another misguided attempt to perpetuate the ultimate driving “lifestyle?” 

Let’s not dismiss the Pontiac G8 V6 out of hand. Sure, you give up a Smart-and-a-half of ponies with the less powerful powerplant. But 256 horsepower would have seemed like plenty even five years ago. (And the way things are going, it might seem like plenty five years from now.) For enthusiasts who’ve advanced beyond the raw thrill of gut-sucking torque, it’s not the meat, it’s the motion. Yes, Virginia, it’s possible for a car to be fun to drive even if it can’t flatten you against the seatback off the line. Ah, but does this G8 V6 fit this bill?

The GT-R is the blind date everybody’s been telling you about for months: incredible body, second in her class at Harvard, fabulous conversationalist, star athlete. Then you meet her. Yes, she has obvious “assets,” but nobody mentioned the halitosis. She graduated with a B.A. in accounting. She’s a great conversationalist, but her voice sounds like run-flat tires with three-inch sidewalls running over a concrete-aggregate rumble and tar-strip slap. She's an athlete, but a grunting shot-putter, not a Sharapova. In short, the GT-R is SO not a supermodel.