The Helpful Critics

I don’t like minivans, I should say that right off the bat, just to give you an idea where I’m coming from. When station wagons went the way of the dodo in lieu of them, I wasn’t excited. They’re more versatile, sure, but they’re hideous, hog the road, and invariably cost more than many are […]

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I’ve reviewed a lot of cars in my career, and there’s always something to like about each of them, some more than others. I went in to the review of the Nissan Altima expecting a hum-drum, mid-sized, mid-range car, but it has more going for it than I expected. It’s as comfortable as any Altima […]

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Even in the days when petrol-swigging SUVs where the very staple by which the Big-3 kept their quarterly dividends within investor expectations, Chrysler made the criticized decision to start scaling back the super-size equation. They began work on the Chrysler Pacifica (under various test names) long before gas became priced alike liquid saffron, so when […]

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A couple weeks ago I ran a review of my 1987 Nissan Pathfinder, and somebody at Nissan must have suffered a case of the burning ears, because this week I was asked to review the all-new 2007 Nissan Pathfinder. It’s a very different car, and a good car, but in very different ways. It’s bigger, […]

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To be honest, I picked up Party of One because of the clever cover photo. A single sheep, looking forlorn in a sheep-ish sort of way, with a snazzy title to boot. I was pleasantly intrigued when I read the first few pages of the first chapter. Finally, a justification for those of us who […]

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As a regular reviewer of the widest variety of shiny new cars, I’m better known for my work in those of the brand-spanking variety than those simply “new to me”. Every once in a hundred or so blue moons, however, a car is invented twenty-years ago that deserves runaway praise… or ridicule, but this time […]

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BMW has always been legendary for comfort, luxury and uncommon performance. My friend in college had one when we worked at the Olive Garden together, and despite its age it was an eye catching car that was easy to drive, comfortable to ride and as pretty as you’d hope for what he could afford. Times […]

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Ford’s Super Duty models are the heavy-hauling monsters in Ford’s full-size pickup truck line. Much like the bright orange equipment you find tearing down houses, these trucks are built, at least ostensibly, for work. Not just work, but serious work at that. The F-250 is the three-quarter-ton version, while the F-350 is the full-ton version, […]

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