Compact Car

It's never been a better time to be a car shopper. While the auto industry has been hammered—and hard—the past 4-5 years from bankruptcies and earthquakes, to competition from unexpected quarters (i.e., Hyundai and Kia), the survivors are stronger than ever and hungry for you, the consumer, to ...    Read more

Toyota ran away with the Japanese sales crown for May, beating Infiniti and Honda—both of which also enjoyed a lucrative month—by a wide margin. With a staggering 202,973 units sold, Toyota closed out May of 2012 with an increase of 72.9 percent, or 87.3 percent when unadjusted for 26 selling ...    Read more

Rock stars may have driven Beetles once, and the Woodstock parking lot may have been filled with them, but Volkswagen is taking the rock and roll association with the Beetle to its inevitable conclusion thanks to Fender. It's something the company's threatened to do ever since its partnership with Fender, which ...    Read more

The Ford Fiesta is a compact car that competes against the Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit, and especially Korea's offerings: Hyundai Accent and the Kia Rio. Seemingly new to most of today's Americans, the Ford Fiesta has been around since the late 70's and 80's. Ford replaced the Fiesta in the ...    Read more

Last week, Fiat and Mazda announced they were partnering up to develop the next-gen Alfa Romeo roadster. The automotive press and the car community then wondered if the partnership would go even further, especially after Fiat stated it was open to allowing Mazda to build in its Fiat ...    Read more

The 2013 Ford Focus ST, a 252-horsepower, high-performance compact car, has been hotly anticipated in making its U.S. debut since the original version launched in Europe in 2005. The car goes on sale in the U.S. carrying ultra-high expectations with it. But before it hits showrooms, Ford doesn't seem to want ...    Read more

The lure of China, India, and Brazil, and the prospect for new growth, are firmly on the map for the world's second largest automaker. According to a recent report in Automotive News, Toyota is looking to emerging markets to help spur future growth. The automaker is planning to create eight ...    Read more

We can thank Ford for reminding us in a not-so-thinly-veiled advertisement that driving on the most frequently traveled day of the year can be "stressful"—just in time for Memorial Day to roll around. But apparently it's true: between gas prices, traffic, and fellow rage-inducing motorists, driving on the weekend is ...    Read more

The debate of which city having the worst traffic in the country has been going on ever since cars started being mass-produced. While cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Boston are notorious for stop-and-go traffic during rush hour (or any time of day, month, or year in Los Angeles for ...    Read more

General Motors has not one, but two files open on its vehicles by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, always an uncomfortable position for any automaker. The first involves the Chevrolet Malibu midsized sedan. According to the NHTSA and GM, certain model year 2013 Chevy Malibu models have a software issue ...    Read more

After a tumultuous six years in Dearborn Michigan, Ford received news from Moody's Investors Services this afternoon that its credit level has been bumped up from junk to investment grade. This effectively closes one of the roughest chapters in the Blue Oval's history but there are still a few more ...    Read more

With bloated prices at the pumps, it should come as little surprise that Americans say fuel economy is the number one factor when considering the purchase of a new car. Still, it’s surprising. In a recent Consumer Reports survey, Americans chose fuel economy over quality, value, safety, and performance. And ...    Read more

Remember the Life Ball Mini Cooper S Roadster we showed you a little while back? Well, the charity auction's over, and the winning bid is in: €54,000. In America's Monopoly money fun bills, that's equivalent to $68,998. Well, at ...    Read more

In a page taken from Tony Stark's management handbook, Toyota president Akio Toyoda was candid when asked what vehicles he liked from the competition. Speaking to a group at his inauguration as Chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, the grandson of Toyota's founder Kiichiro Toyoda called out his favorite ...    Read more

Summoning its racing heritage from the 1960's, the John Cooper Works sub-brand from Mini has announced its lineup of 2013 models will boast a new engine, promising more power while sipping on less fuel and leaving a smaller carbon foot-print behind. The new-generation 1.6-liter four-cylinder twin-turbo engine is rated at ...    Read more

Eeveryone hates getting traffic tickets. Not only does the citation lighten your wallet, in some states your driving record will take a hit, while other states increase the price of your auto insurance. Now, thanks to Insurance.com's new "Uh-Oh! Calculator," you can see just how ...    Read more

This week began with the 2013 Ford F-150 shedding the camouflage that once covered the full-size light-duty truck's front-end. BMW's M branch, the performance wing of the German automaker, celebrated its 40th birthday on Wednesday and in honor of the milestone, we've compiled a list of the top five BMW ...    Read more

Former Ford CEO Harold Arthur 'Red' Poling passed away last Saturday at his home in Pacific Grove, Calif. at the age of 86. Poling helped navigate the Blue Oval boys through some turbulent economic times back in the 1980's and can also be attributed with saving the automaker from the ...    Read more

Americans, seeing the economy still in flux (and politicians worse than useless during election year) continue to keep a keen eye on gas prices. General Motors fuel economy engineers Ann Wenzlick and Beth Nunning recently took the 2012 Chevrolet Cruze LT for a typical workday drive to figure out the ...    Read more

Everywhere you look someone is gripping tightly to an iPhone, Android, or some other type of smartphone, because whatever the need, there's an app for that. As so, Hyundai announced it launched a refreshed version of Blue Link, an app that can control and peek into a variety of vital ...    Read more

Buick's petite Encore mini-ute is getting a bow-tied stablemate. The unfortunately-named Chevrolet Trax (a name that seems to draw in every "rad dude" reference from the mid-90s) is Chevrolet's European answer to the Buick Encore compact crossover, spoken in a French accent—when it makes its debut at the Paris Auto Show later this ...    Read more

This isn't your 2013 BMW 1 Series. The U.S. isn't getting the hatchback, as BMW met less-than-rave reviews the last time the automaker sold a three-door in the States. However, what you are looking at, if you squint a little, is the future of the BMW ...    Read more

While many states have already outlawed texting, grooming, reading, and eating while driving, Rhode Island is taking distracted driving to a whole new level. Representative Peter Palumbo, a Democrat from Cranston, R.I., has presented a bill that would outlaw dogs from riding in the lap of the driver. If this ...    Read more

Just over five months after being introduced at the 2012 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, the first Dodge Dart has rolled off the assembly line and is ready to go on sale to the public. The very first Dart at Chrysler's Belvidere production facility in Illinois was dressed ...    Read more

Not even a week ago, automakers from all over the globe agreed to a new standard for electric vehicle charging, called the Combined Charging System, or CCS. Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, Audi, BMW, Daimler AG, and Porsche have been lobbying for the use of single-pug system (a.k.a. CCS) ...    Read more