Weekend Driver San Diego

Here’s a great package of stories on buying an electric car, from the LA Times. http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/electric-vehicles/la-fi-autos-ev-mainbar-20110828,0,6689205.story

I really had mixed feelings about the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. Here’s a beautifully and very distinctively styled car, equipped with an eager 3.8 liter V-6 engine that puts out a V-8-like growl, six-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters pushing power to the rear wheels, big brakes and sticky tires that keep the car on the [...]

The vid I put together a few months ago with auto editor Mark Maynard and TV car guy Dave Stall has passes 2,000 views! Take a look for yourself. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQCD1eYEbTs]

In the battle of crossovers — what us older generation might have called tall station wagons — there’s a variety of sizes and styles. Mazda’s long-running CX-7 fits into the small-midsize category… smaller than some, larger than others. It’s best attributes are sporting driving for the segment, power if you don’t mind buzzing at higher [...]

My recent trip to a couple of ghost towns in the desert was via a 2011 Kia Sorrento. It really reminded me why SUVs are so popular: they can go many places comfortably where we wouldn’t trust a car. The new for 2011 Sorrento is a car-based SUV with three-row seating and a nice but [...]

Jeep’s new Grand Cherokee is the latest generation of the iconic SUV and it keeps up with the times while keeping true to expectations. On my easy off-road trip through Proctor Valley, the Grand Cherokee had no problem with the dirt. I had the Selec-Terrain system on automatic, so the 4×4 high and other traction [...]

In downtown San Diego, we sometimes see new cars that folks have driven up from Mexico. Brands and models not available in the US but available in Mexico. Here’s one that sent me scrambling for the web… an Audi A1. A competitor to the Mini and other sub-subcompacts, it just launched last August. I wasn’t [...]

The 2010 Corvette Grand Sport Convertible was a real blast on an afternoon of cruising. As you might expect, it turns heads wherever you go and my test car, with the Jetstream Blue metallic tintcoat paint just glistened in the Southern California sun. Allowing quick escape from gawkers is what’s under the hood. In the [...]

2010 Nissan Frontier Website The Frontier proved it was up to the morning’s task, easily (thought not smoothly) rolling over the rocks, cracks and crevices in Bear Valley Road. Comfortable, though busy on the highway, the Nissan came equipped with shift-on-the-fly four-wheel-drive high and low, high ground clearance and 265/70 R16 OWL BF Goodrich Long [...]