“Aw, nuts,” I said to myself when I stepped out of the Volkswagen R32.  “Now I’ve got to add another parking spot to my dream garage.”

Even though construction materials for dream garages are cheap, I don’t say that as frequently as you might think.  This time I had a good reason to because the unassuming Volkswagen Golf you see here is a very special car indeed.  The 2004-only R32 is the hottest Golf ever to grace U.S. shores.  It’s also the first North American Golf with 4Motion all-wheel drive (which …

We’ve driven the Acura RSX plenty of times since its introduction in 2001, so when the updated 2005 version arrived we decided to do something different with it.  Acura’s sport-compact hatch is the darling of legions of car modifiers and cruisers everywhere, and its prowess on the track is undisputed.  But how well-equipped is the RSX for a road trip?  We packed up a handsome copper-colored RSX Type S and headed to the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, to find out.

For 2005, the RSX Type S gets a minor …

For some reason, it seems like every time I get a Volkswagen GTI, I end up at a car show.  My drive in the 2003 GTI VR6 was no exception; within hours of picking the car up, I was hanging out in a parking lot with a bunch of Subaru WRX owners, talking shop.  It’s a testament to the GTI’s name and ability that this unassuming hatchback was able to draw nods of favor from guys who were used to 300-plus horsepower super-sedans.

Volkswagen’s GTI has been around for a long …

The Ford Motor Company has always been a relatively conservative brand.  Ford rarely gets too caught up in the fad of the moment, preferring instead to stick to mainstream vehicles, for mainstream folks.  And even when the Blue Oval brand does jump onto the bandwagon, it usually hedges its bets somewhat.  The most radical-looking new car from Ford, the unabashedly retro Thunderbird, is a very conventional beast under the skin, developed as it is from existing products.  For the most part, the marketing folks at Ford just don’t go for …

Like it or not, this is the muscle car of the future.  When the Playstation Generation hits forty and goes looking for that car they always wanted when they were young, stupid and broke, the 2002 Acura RSX will be one of those on the list.

That’s hard for some sports-car purists to swallow, because the RSX, like many Acuras and most Hondas, doesn’t have much in the way of a personality.  The quirks and nuances that endeared thousands of drivers to MGs, Mustangs and Alfa Romeos are all but absent …

227 horsepower.  All-wheel drive.  You probably don’t need to know what a rally car is to appreciate all that’s wonderful about the 2002 Subaru WRX wagon.  But just in case you do, we’ll explain it anyway.

The largely European sport of World Rally Championship (WRC) racing involves a driver, a navigator, and a car sturdy enough to thrash as fast as possible over nasty, twisty unpaved roads, through mud, snow, or ice.  The navigator’s job is to call out directions to the driver; the driver’s job is to execute the specified …

With the new Mercedes C230 Sports Coupe’s surprisingly low price, there are bound to be a lot of drivers new to Mercedes running around out there in the next year or so.  To those Mercedes neophytes:  Welcome!  You’re about to learn what that three-pointed star is all about.  Even though it’s at the bottom of the lineup, the C230 Sports Coupe doesn’t lack for any of the qualities that make a Mercedes what it is.

As part of Mercedes’ attempt to broaden its appeal in the US, the C230 Sports Coupe’s …

We happened upon an impressive, chaotic scene during the Volkswagen GTI’s stay with us.  An import custom-car show had just closed for the night, and the roads were filled with bespoilered and bewinged compacts, all painted bright colors, cruising slow and throbbing bass into the night.  The GTI actually fit in reasonably well with this crowd, as our test car was painted in vivid “Tropic Orange Metallic.”  But after a few minutes of 10-mph cruising, we’d had enough of wasting the driving-oriented GTI.  We got out of line, sped past …

After six years on the market, even the most car-ignorant onlooker knows what a MINI Cooper looks like.  This stylish subcompact is one of the big reasons that small cars are turning all respectable on us, after all.  With premium appointments and entertaining performance as well as fantastic fuel economy, the MINI Cooper was one of the first cars to prove that diminutive dimensions don’t necessarily have to mean a cut-rate ride.

Everybody recognizes the MINI, but considerably fewer will notice that for 2007, it’s all-new.  This cheerful little hatchback has …

Volvo’s been taking a number of new directions lately, so with that in mind this sporty little dart shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. Besides, there’s a market for premium compact hatchbacks, isn’t there? I mean, BMW tried in the early 1990s, and that didn’t work. Mercedes took a shot too, with the 2001-05 C230 Sport, and that one bit the dust, too. Does Volvo think it can succeed where those worthies have failed?

Okay, perhaps that’s a bit more cynical than is called for. The fact of the matter …