Around town, the SRX fears neither pothole nor rippled pavement.

We ended up driving the Buick Rendezvous Ultra back-to-back with the Lincoln LS, and were surprised to find a comparison between the two.  These disparate vehicles share similar levels of luxury and refinement, and we found ourselves choosing the multi-tasking over the sporty LS more than once.  Sure, the Rendezvous is about as sexy as a hamster, and similarly proportioned to boot, but it’s so darn useful that the handsome LS wound up parked more often than not.

The Rendezvous was a significant departure for Buick when it debuted in 2002, …

Regardless of what you know about its origins, the Cadillac XLR is not just a Cadillac Corvette.  It’s true that this big, two-place sedan shares platforms (and an assembly line) with Chevrolet’s legendary sports car, but the wide-track stance and the woof from the exhaust are the only things that are the same.

This high-tech grand tourer for two is a direct attack on German luxocruisers like the Mercedes SL, and it underscores Cadillac’s intent to remain a powerful force in the luxury market.  Like the SL, the XLR has a …

It’s not just the starched and pressed good looks of the Infiniti M45 that made us think of it as the automotive equivalent of a good butler.  It’s the subtle ability beneath the traditional-looking body.  Combining the 4.5 liter V8 found in the Q45 with a smaller body, the M45 (Infiniti’s first “M”-badged car since the M30 of the early 1990s) aims to be a full-scale sports sedan, like Lexus’ GS430 or Lincoln’s LS V8.

Like the old M30, the M45 is a square-rigged car.  This car is the embodiment of …

So there we were, cutting a swath down our favorite curvy, hilly four-lane, with an athletic car obeying our every move.  Big 20″ wheels and low-profile tires held fast to the road.   A responsive 315-hp V8 pulled us up the hills with ease and confidence, even at super-legal speeds.  Cradled in well-bolstered, luxurious leather chairs, with a GPS and 6-disc changer along for the ride, we could have had three passengers, too, and they’d have enjoyed surfing through traffic and feeling the g-forces through the turns thanks to the comfortable …

Good news!  The traffic-stopping looks and technological wizardry of the $92,000 Mercedes CL500 coupe are now available in a smaller, more convenient package!

That is in no way hyperbole, either.  Last year’s CLK was an excellent car, a perfect wallflower that would take you to the most expensive restaurant in town in style and then beat the pants off of a Ford Mustang GT on the way home.  That car’s still here, under the surface, but now it’s drop-dead gorgeous.  We think the new CLK500 is one of the best-looking cars …

Back in the 1960s, the initials “KR” meant King of the Road, as in Carroll Shelby’s high-powered Mustang GT500KR.  These days, there’s another KR roaming the freeways, but this one’s a truck, and “KR” means “King Ranch.”

Ford’s King Ranch edition, introduced on its full-size pickups in 2001, is a marketing package produced with the help of Texas’ King Ranch.  This giant ranch takes up a space approximately the size of Rhode Island in south Texas, and has been a fixture in the ranching industry for many years.  The decision to …

A long hood and bold two-bar Mercedes family grille give this vehicle a more assertive look than the snub-nosed ML-Class, and if the upright windshield makes it look a bit like a Subaru Forester in formal wear, that’s not an entirely bad thing.

Storming along the high banks of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway at almost 130 miles per hour, we knocked off a quick heel-toe downshift for the upcoming turn, dove into the left-hander without a hint of brakes, trusting the capable chassis to keep us on the pavement, and realized that no one would ever believe we were talking about a Volvo.

No one except the Volvo faithful, of course.  Hard-core fans of the “Swedish bricks” remember the screaming yellow T-5R wagons of 1996, and the audacious performance which it brought to …

Redesigning pickup trucks is a hard business, requiring balance between strength and style, and the new F-150 is a good example of a successful update.