Automotive Reviews
Posts tagged luxury
2011 Toyota Avalon
Aug 20th
This is one of those cars that many people forget still exists. The Toyota Avalon is known for inspiring phrases like “competently boring.” Toyota’s answer to just about every car Buick ever built could be said to have transcended its source material.
Then again, Buicks aren’t all that boring these days. Redesigned for 2011, the Avalon soldiers on as prime bridge-club transportation though, with a big back seat, plenty of power and appliance-like operation. It started out in 1994 as a slightly cushier Camry clone and aimed at mid-luxury brands like Buick, Mercury and Oldsmobile. In the years since, it’s outlived two of those marques and over the years the Avalon has become a very distinct and different vehicle from Toyota’s bread-and-butter sedans. More >
2011 Mercedes E550 Cabriolet
Aug 12th
The modern automobile is more than just a way to get from place to place. A car can be a statement of purpose and status, or it can be a simple work of art. It can be away to interact with one’s world, and an escape from that very same thing. The transcendent nature of the car is strong in convertibles, and the all-new Mercedes E550 cabriolet raises it to an art form.
Sharing underpinnings with the rest of the new-for-2010 E-Class, the new E550 cabriolet brings fresh styling, top-up and top-down comfort and radical new safety technology to the table, but that’s not all. This four-passenger droptop also exudes a confident and comfortable pleasure for life that rubs off all too easily on the driver. One does not step lightly into the E550. More >
2011 Jaguar XJ Supersport
May 27th
Elegant though it was, I have to admit that the Jaguar XJ was getting to be a bit of a hard sell. Its retro styling and sleek, cigar-shaped body were the epitome of cool twenty years ago, but Jaguar’s constant upgrades on the same theme just weren’t in keeping with the changing face of the luxury-sport sedan breed.
So, for 2011, at long last, Jaguar threw out the template completely. This was a big step for the British brand, whose lineup has always been strongly steeped in tradition. For the new XJ, Jaguar’s managed to produce a clean-sheet update that manages to incorporate just about everything that makes the cars identified by the chrome cats awesome. The 2011 XJ is close to being just what a modern Jaguar ought to be, in fact. More >