It was a risky proposition: taking a series as fabled for its antics as Need for Speed and placing it into the cold, calculating hands of a simulation developer. That developer is Slightly Mad Studios, which has roots to the SimBin team that created the groundbreaking GTR on the PC. The resulting game... 

We’re slumming through traffic in downtown Geneva, Switzerland, making our way towards the French border where we’re about to spend a few hours flogging the 2012 Volkswagen Golf R along the twisty, narrow roads of the Alps. Right now, we’re focused on the Golf’s comfortable,... 

BACKGROUND Lexus immediately set new standards for refinement when it launched its luxury LS saloon in 1989. Now it’s trying to rewrite the rulebook for supercars. And when Lexus (backed, of course, by Toyota) decides that it’s going to do something new, it doesn’t do things by half: the LFA is... 

This isn’t our first sampling of the reborn Dodge Challenger. We’ve driven the SE, R/T and SRT8 variants before. However, this time it’s different. We’ve secured a Challenger SRT-8 with a six-speed manual transmission – and it’s a whole different breed of bull. The six-speed-equipped... 

In 1985, when few models really stood out from the midsize pack, Ford created one of the most influential vehicles of the late 20th century: the Taurus. Radically styled and intelligently packaged, the Taurus won the hearts and minds of millions of car buyers, and for over a decade, it was a dominant... 

We’ll just come right out and say it: Audi lost the plot with the last generation S4. Unlike the twin-turbocharged V6-equipped B5, its B6 and B7 brethren did little to stoke the flames in our collective hearts. The “S” simply stood for, “I paid more for a bigger engine and... 

Quality costs. Ask a recording engineer. For the same money you’ll burn on a pile of inexpensive, non-serviceable gear whose greatest virtue is that “it works,” you could alternatively purchase one channel’s worth of serious equipment. The trade-off is that the real kit sounds... 

Over its 61-year history, Lotus Cars has spent a considerable amount of time clawing its way back from the brink of insolvency. The company’s most recent bout with financial disrepair came in the early Nineties after the front-wheel-drive Elan proved a commercial failure (surprise!) and the... 

There’s a small group of enthusiasts who worship a car you just wouldn’t expect: the original Ford Taurus SHO. And I’m one of them. After years of searching for an example in good shape, I bought my very first vintage SHO, a 1991 Ford Taurus SHO Plus model (we’ll explain what... 

The Bentley Continental GT has been lauded and derided for being too much: too powerful, too fast, too easy, too big, too ubiquitous, and yes, too good. The convertible version, the Continental GTC, dismissed its roof but retained the excess. Now, Bentley has worked its “Speed” hocus-pocus... 

The 2010 Acura TSX V6 is something of a consolation prize. At the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, Acura showed off a new 2.2-liter four-cylinder diesel and said it would launch in the U.S. this year. A few months later in New York, Honda’s luxury arm showed off the all-new second generation TSX sedan,... 

In Europe, the humble station wagon holds a big-time slice of the family driver demographic, partly because ridiculous petrol prices make big SUVs and crossovers far too uneconomical. Americans, on the other hand, have a fundamental problem with the station wagon. We’re not sure if the wagon is...