Automotive Reviews
Editorial
2006 Isuzu i350 Crew Cab
Dec 23rd
When you’re not sure of where to go next, it never hurts to take a step back and see where you’ve been. Isuzu is doing just that for 2006. We’re probably not the only enthusiasts who are happy to see that Isuzu is back. After a few years of declining sales and a shrinking porfolio, the brand’s future has been somewhat in doubt lately. Things aren’t completely grim, however; in the commercial market, Isuzu’s one of the best-sellers, and it’s been producing joint engineering products with General Motors for quite some time. It’s the Japanese brand’s SUVs that have faltered. In an effort to spread its sales base out again, Isuzu is returning to the pickup truck market that helped it get its foot in the door in the U.S. market in 1972. The i280 and i350 mid-size pickups are thoroughly modern, tough vehicles that come ready to work.
Don’t look at the i350 and assume that it’s just a thinly-disguised Chevy Colorado, either. The Colorado was jointly developed with Isuzu in the first place, and Isuzu was actually selling this vehicle in Thailand before the Colorado ever went on sale. So who did it belong to first? You be the judge. More >
2005 Kia Spectra5
Dec 23rd
Down in the automotive trenches, bells and whistles don’t matter much. Oh, sure, seat heaters and navigation systems are great, wonderful toys, but they don’t make the traffic any kinder, or the lines at the Wal-Mart any shorter. No, when you’re really in the thick of it, in the dog-eat-dog world of daily errands in suburbia, it’s the hardware that truly matters.
We had a pretty serious fight on our hands. Groceries and housewares had to be picked up and shifted from one end of Metro Detroit to the other. We were staring down the barrel of some of the nastiest roads Southeastern Michigan had to offer, about to cross the most heavily-traveled roads in the region…and it was ten minutes before rush hour hit. It was a task for a Marine battalion, but it was just us and the new Kia Spectra5. More >
2005 Hummer H2 SUT
Dec 8th
Go ahead and hate the Hummer H2 if you feel that you must. With a growing backlash against SUV prices fueled (no pun intended) by rising gas prices, it’s an easy target. Rather like hitting the broad side of a barn, in fact. Bear in mind, however, that Hummer has never pretended to be in the business of producing family vehicles or suburban-bully SUVs. The Hummer H1 and H2 exist to be the most capable off-road vehicles available for sale. Ambitious neo-Yuppies who buy H2s as ego boosters and never take them off pavement are giving these trucks a bad name, to be honest.
To underscore its capabilities, Hummer introduced the newest iteration of the H2, the SUT, to the motoring press by taking the trucks to Moab, Utah, an off-roading mecca. There, we drove the trucks on some of the most challenging trails to be had—most of which were marked very clearly, “Stock Vehicles Not Recommended.” The H2 had no problem tackling slickrock slopes and stepped hills of boulders that conventional wisdom considers to be the province of specially modified trail trucks. I drove H2s up some hills that were almost too steep to walk up. More >