Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Mercedes E350 4Matic, Part 3

You love Mercedes! The big EZ makes you feel safe, secure, satisfied, loved, respected and admired. The sedan s four-wheel-drive let s you believe you don t have to pay for/install snow tires every year. You enjoy driving, perhaps more than you should. · Speed Merchants: No · Fashion Victims:...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe, Part 1

Car and Driver got 12, but they had the Tahoe for at least a week. I drove it for twenty-five minutes AND I had to endure a salesman named Vito He Wishes It Was His Real Name Corleone telling me that veal piccata is God s gift to the casual...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe, Part 2

Someone in GM s design department(s) glimpsed the swan inside their ugly truckling and set it free. By adding gentle curves to the Tahoe s front, back and sides; sorting out the stance and sweating the details, they ve created an elegant yet powerful truck, whose balanced proportions make it...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe, Part 3

The Tahoe looks sharp, drives plush and coddles (five passengers) wonderfully. It ll tow a boat, ford a stream, plug some mud and save GM. Maybe. It s not a car. We re talking eleven miles per gallon, real world. Given the plethora of equally capable, more spacious alternatives, that...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Audi A3 3.2 Quattro DSG, Part 1

The manual transmission is dead. Long live DSG. Yes folks, it s true: the Direct Sequential Gearbox is ready to turn tripedalists into I remember when you had to coordinate your hands and feet like a flamenco dancer to drive to the record store old fogies. The last time I...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Audi A3 3.2 Quattro DSG, Part 2

You know this small station wagon thing is out of control when an Audi hatchback is a miniature version of a miniature version of the A6 Avant. With its gaping maw (never shown with a US license plate), the A3 s front end simply overwhelms the rear. Although we understand...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Audi A3 3.2 Quattro DSG, Part 3

The A3 has the world s best gearbox, and it isn t afraid to use it. $40k for a hatchback? · Speed Merchants: · Fashion Victims: · Treehuggers: No · Mack Daddies: No · Tuner Crowd: · Hairdressers: No · Penny Pinchers: No · Euro Snobs: · Working Stiffs: No...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Lincoln Zephyr, Part 1

Can someone please explain the existence of the badge-engineered Lincoln Zephyr? First, are there really potential Zephyr buyers who don t realize that the new model is nothing more than an expensive, tarted-up Ford Fusion? Seriously. I live in an alternate carniverse. For all I know, Lincoln salesmen spend a...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Lincoln Zephyr, Part 2

The strict horizontality of Lincoln s trademark waterfall grill makes the Zephyr look small (which it is) and gives its snout more than a passing resemblance to Richard Kiel's jaws. Lincoln's ertswhile designers achieved a similar reverse Tardis effect at the rear using over-sized tail lights. In short, it's a...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Lincoln Zephyr, Part 3

Because you re a badge snob who doesn t feel the need to read our review. Because it s an expensive Ford Fusion. · Speed Merchants: No · Fashion Victims: No · Treehuggers: No · Mack Daddies: No · Tuner Crowd: No · Hairdressers: No · Penny Pinchers: No ·...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Review: 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo SE, Part 1

Of all the thrills provided by a performance-oriented hyper-exotic automobile, my favorite is the singularity. In physics, a singularity is the point of mass density where gravitational forces are so great they distort space and time — and then the whole shebang collapses into a black hole. The Lamborghini Gallardo...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Review: 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo SE, Part 2

The Gallardo is bedeviled by its details: a snout that drops a hair too precipitously, oversized air intakes and headlight openings, etc. Taken as a whole, the Gallardo looks a bit like a mid-80's Countach with all the addenda removed (rear wings, side skirts, haunch-mounted air intakes, federalized bumpers), that's...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews: 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo SE, Part 3

When you were a penniless pre-pubescent pistonhead, a poster of a white Lamborghini Countach poster held pride of place on your bedroom wall, right next to the soft core porn shot of Cheryl Ladd in a bikini. Even though you eventually learned to see the Italian be-winged behemoth as a...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews, 2006 Volkswagen Golf GTI, Part 1

I've recently been accused of being a car hater. I understand the diss; I've written a lot of hateful things lately. But that's only because I've driven a lot of hateful cars. If you, dear reader, seek pusillanimous pabulum, there's an entire rack of that shit down at Barnes &...

May 19, 2024

Jalopnik Reviews, 2006 Volkswagen Golf GTI, Part 2

When BMW Bangled their boxes, breasts were beaten. Now that VW has proven they can't leave well enough alone — applying the rules of Analytic Cubism to an iconic masterpiece — how long before drivers seeking understated luxury head-off to their Hyundai dealer? Oh wait... Two-liter, shmoo-liter. This high-tech handbag...

May 19, 2024