The proliferation of rear-view backup cameras has been a good thing, and like a lot of technology started exclusively on high-end autos and is now trickling down to more affordable cars. Time was this feature was only found on rides with navigation systems, as the camera needed a screen to do its thing and the Nav screen was a perfect interface. Now small back-up camera screens are popping up in rearview mirrors and on the dash, and while some of these are almost too small to be of any real use (especially when backing up to a trailer) they are still good at alerting to you to both inert and nert items that may be in harm’s way as you back up.
Now the next step is . . . Surround Vision. Or, in Infiniti’s case, Around View. It honestly freaked my out the first time I backed up, because I wasn’t expecting this visual wonder. Now, I know it’s been on the market for a couple of years but this was my first exposure to it, and what we have instead of one backup camera there’s a total of four of the little wide-angle buggers located at the rear, front and in the base of the side mirrors. This gives you a view around the entire vehicle (in this case, an EX35 AWD), which is pretty wild tech juju when you think of it. The question is, will we soon get to the point where we never look out of the dad gum windows anymore?

First off, anybody who decides to name a vehicle after an X-Men character (whether they do it intentionally or not) is a bit of alright in my book. Of course “my book” is pretty much a pop-up affair designed for children and rarely, if ever, considered serious literature. But there you go.
Oh, and the Nissan Rogue? It’s a pretty cool little crossover SUV that has a really stout, quality feel to it and a surprisingly amount of ground clearance. It’s not as roomy as a lot of the competition, and the Constantly Variable Transmission is a tad vocal (and can be lazy at dropping the ration on occasion) but the Inline Four is spunky, quick and reasonably frugal. The option 360 value package on our tester had what is becoming more common on mainstream vehicles; a back-up camera in the rearview mirror. This is a very good thing, especially since rearward visibility is kind of poor (also a thing becoming more common on mainstream vehicles, sad to say). All in all it’s a lot of all-weather capability in a small, affordable package, and naturally I’m talking about the All Wheel Drive version which is what you need here in the Northeast (and has a button to lock the center differential when you have to challenge an unplowed hill). The Question is: how many realize the Rogue’s real name is Anna Marie? The Nissan Anna Marie does sound more like a giant cargo ship than an SUV, so I guess we should stick with Rogue. I would actually call it the Samwise, but that’s just me.

Well, here’s something you don’t see everyday: a manufacturer does an all-new version of a vehicle, and it’s actually smaller than the previous iteration. This is really unusual, as just about every time there’s a fundamental redo cars get larger (the universe is expanding, after all). The new Cadillac SRX is a sport-sport ute, and either wildly avant-garde in styling or another case of origami gone horribly wrong. As I mentioned it’s actually less roomy than its predecessor, which could be a function of the much more sedan-like rear roofline (Honda did that too, a few years ago with the CRX). Our test mule is powered by a 300-horse Turbocharged V6, and so far I have observed some good power but pretty expressive turbo lag. This is surprising, because until recently GM owned Saab and them there Swedes are amazingly adept at smooth turbocharging integration (especially with their V6). But, there you go. We have the All Wheel Drive variant, which I shall get to test in the snow as soon as I walk outside. The other version is a front-driver, which is another variation as the previous 2WD SRX was a rear-driver. I shall perhaps share more after I have more seat time. Lots of fun techie juju within, and I loves me the huge Panorama moonroof.

Suzuki has been a really fun company to watch the last few years on the automotive front, for while their motorcycle side has been a major player (and completely dominant in US Superbike racing) their car side has been a bit more stealthy when it comes to increasing their market footprint. But they have been coming out with some very interesting products, and their new Kizashi midsize sedan is a pretty big deal. My favorite feature? A very good (optional) AWD system that you can switch off on demand, reverting to pure front-drive status and therefore helping fuel economy when you don’t need the extra traction. The car seems well-built, comfortable, and while the CVT transmission on our test mule was a bit vocal the manual mode with paddle shifters on the wheel was very trick indeed. The lone engine is an Inline Four, which is spunky enough overall and delivered 22.6 MPG in mixed driving. The brakes are excellent. All told it’s a pretty fine car, and a pleasure to drive. Very nicely equipped, it was $27K, too. Look out, Subaru. Oh, and the name? Apparently it translates to “something good is about to arrive.” Now that it’s actually here, I think it may do well.

Infiniti is sort of a quiet warrior in the luxury/sports category, and I think in some ways that adds to the marque’s appeal. The rather fun M35x is a bit of sleeper but is really quick (I honestly think the M45, which has a V8 instead of the 35’s V6, is overkill), and loaded out the wazoo with high-tech juju. Some of it, like Infiniti’s Intelligent All Wheel Drive System, is great. But some of the other goodies and I didn’t get on that well. The Lane Departure Warning System I found to be a bit of a pain on country roads. This system “watches” the road and beeps to tell you if you wander out of your lane, and the incorporated Lane Department Prevention software supposedly uses selective braking to help keep you on the straight and narrow.
The problem I have with this is too many false alarms (when I’m moving around in my lane to pick the best line on curvaceous blacktop) and while cancelable the switch is less than convenient to get to and the default “on” position apparently resets every time you restart the car (although I’ll wager it’s possible to cancel it altogether, but I didn’t encounter this option). Another bit of e-wizardry I was not simpatico with was the Intelligent Cruise Control, which also watches the road (using freakin’ laser beams attached to the car) and regulates the following distance behind the vehicle in front of you. In this case, the system has trouble seeing from time to time and brakes rather abruptly, often when you’ve already moved into another lane to pass a slower vehicle in front of you. When it does see open road ahead of you and accelerates to your preselected speed, many times the transition (including downshifting the 5-speed automatic transmission) is a bit rough.
Other than these criticisms, I really enjoyed the car. Wonderfully quiet, comfortable, responsive and refined, it’s a very pleasant ride especially if you have to spend a lot of time on the road as I did. Very solid construction and a feeling of quality, which you should expect in the $50K plus price class. The All Wheel Drive was totally superb in the winter weather, too.

It never ceases to amaze me. There, I’ve said it. Oh, what never ceases to amaze me? Good Question. What never ceases to amaze me is how critical those in the motoring press (which now thanks to the InterWebTubes can be just about any schmo or schmoette) can be regarding the appearance of a new vehicle before they’ve actually experienced it in the flesh. When Honda announced their new Accord CrossTour, one website in particular that is very popular but regularly full of poopish prose (I shan’t mention them by name as they are backed by dangerous money), attacked the appearance of this sport wagon like it was the second coming of the Pontiac Aztek.
It isn’t. Oh, and let us all be thankful that Pontiac’s tribute to Bad Origami has vanished, but lament the fact that it may have helped pull the rest of the division into the whirlpool with it. I miss the G8 GXP already. Aussie Art and Muscle, baby.

But I digress.

What the CrossTour actually is is something far more stylish, fun to drive and very competitive in the all-weather sport wagon class. It goes up against Toyota’s excellent Venza, sure, but I also think it does battle with the latest Subaru Outback wagon although the latter has more cargo space. The CrossTour is a bit larger than the Accord it’s based on, has more ground clearance and an optional Real Time All Wheel Drive System. It still has all the Accord attributes people love, except there’s more room and is more able to combat the winter nasty. The higher chassis doesn’t seem to mess with handling as near as I can tell, although the steering seems a tad lighter than I remember on the sedan. The brakes are superb (60-0 arrived in an average of 117.5 feet). All in all, this is a pretty sweet package especially if you need more cargo space but not a full-on box. I’d like to see a Fusion, Altima, etc. take on this style as well because I think it makes all the sense in the world.

I do love it when you can pack a lot of kit in a reasonably small vehicle. The Mazda5 is basically a mini-minivan, complete with sliding side doors and a third row seat. You can get six people in the thing (as long as your third row residents are smallish in stature) and it’s a comfortable, flexible hauler. It’s little four-banger is no powerhouse, but the 5-speed automatic does a great job at finding the best gear to optimize acceleration. Lot’s of useful features and a sub-$18K base price make this a sharp little unit. I see it being used effectively on the Circus circuit, for you really could cram a mess o’ clowns in it.

The compact pickup, in case you haven’t noticed, really isn’t too awfully compact anymore. They have been expanding in every dimension, and the wild part of it is that in many cases these things cost nearly as much (and get about the same gas mileage) as their full-size counterparts. But, apparently they are just the right size for many folks, and they have become pretty stout and fun to drive. They also have always been (for most makes, anyway) some of the most reliable vehicles on the road. Toyota’s Tacoma is by far the most popular compact truck in terms of sales, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s comfortable, rugged, loaded with features and has a certain driver-friendly attitude (caused by excellent control placement and a nice, high driving position) that is very appealing. A strong 4-liter V6, 5-speed automatic, part-time 4WD and a SMC composite bed on our Double Cab 4X4 TRD-Sport tester are all very good things.

Also welcome is the back-up camera, and while it’s pretty tiny situated in the rear-view mirror as it is it still comes in pretty handy. This is becoming more and more common and it’s a damn good thing, because so many new vehicles, cars and trucks alike, are getting harder and harder to see out of when in retreating.

As is their wont, Volkswagen has once again resurrected an old performance favorite here in the US by unleashing the GTI (or as I like to say in speedtalk, JeetyEye) upon a segment of the population that longs for some serious scoot in their practical, affordable hatchback. It’s based on the new Golf platform, which as I said earlier (right below this, in fact) is bloody brilliant inside, outside and underneath. Instead of that wicked good Inline 5-cylinder, though the Jeety has a 200-horsepower 4-cylinder Turbo (or Tubbo, to those of you still residing Texas and did not flee the heat, as I did). My test beast also has the wild Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG), which is a clutchless manual that is therefore an automatic, and is a tranny I’ve sampled in VWs and Audis for a while and still am not simpatico with. That could be just me, though. More Testing!

It seems odd, when things happen that dominated a few news cycles, how it can change perceptions on things that have nothing to do with whatever happened that got so much press. For example, the Volkswagen Golf (which was back to being a Rabbit again here in the states and now is a Golf again) always was in my view a fairly weird name for I car. That said, the name is certainly not one that conjures up anything that timely or controversial, or at least it didn’t. But now, thanks to the whole Tiger Wood fiasco, when you say or see the word Golf isn’t there at least a chunk of the population who’s mind will drift to an Escalade hitting a tree, and a golfer with more money than Moses having (allegedly) multiple affairs? It’s just one of those odd cultural nomenclature collisions that comes out of nowhere.
As for the car, so far I think the new Golf is the best VW I’ve ever driven. The Inline Five is smooth and spunky, the 5-speed manual is perfectly geared and has precise feel and action, and the chassis is tight and well-integrated. Even the seats are superb with excellent lateral support and all this for a little over $18K. Very cool little car; loaded with features and imbued with an atmosphere of excellent build quality. Achtung, Baby!