BMW’s X6 hasn’t exactly been wowing the nation’s auto critics, averaging only 74 in published reviews. So BMW might be a bit anxious as to how the costly M version is received. Fear not. Car and Driver took the 2010 BMW X6 M out for a spin, and suggests that it’s a cheaper, faster alternative to the Porsche Cayenne:
On May 19th, the Obama Administration announced a mandatory average fuel economy threshold of 35.5 for all new cars by 2016. Fair enough. But you can actually buy such a vehicle today, so why wait? According to CleanTech Blog, six new cars meet these official guidelines already: Ford Fusion Hybrid, Mercury Milan Hybrid, Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, Honda Civic Hybrid, and the Smart ForTwo.
In fact, however, eleven new vehicles already surpass the 35.5 threshold, at least according to the True MPG figures compiled by www.fueleconomy.gov. Here’s how they rank, review wise.
Here’s a holiday enconium, courtesy of Ben, one of the MotorMouths crew:
Ah, mom. You confounded car dealer’s preconceptions by driving convertibles with manual transmissions for most of your life. And when you decided to buy something sensible for your 69th birthday, you picked a Honda Fit. Prescient, as always; a few months later we launched MotorMouths, ran the numbers on Click for more
A certain car-centric movie is winning at the box office, but losing among critics — garnering a mere 26 points on RottenTomatoes.com (our meta-colleagues). Ah, but what of the mechanical stars? Well, the Fast and Furious rides are customized hot-rods of older models, thus not really available to shoppers. Just for the sake of argument, though, here’s basically how they grade out:
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We got some love today from the hep folks at Thrillist.
Like Rotten Tomatoes for whips, MM takes reviews from respected newspapers/mags (Car and Driver, Road & Track, etc), assigns a 1-100 Click for more
Here’s a little peek behind the MotorMouths curtain, courtesy of the new issue of Time magazine. From left to right, that’s Nick, John, and David. (Time managed to reverse the IDs, which might be one small reason that print is dying.) Behind the scenes are Ben and Jeff, who actually do most of the work on this thing. So there you have it. Nice to meet you.
Okay, this is cruel. But sometimes we run across old reviews that simply cry out for, ahem, examination. Case in point. 1983. Apple introduces the Lisa computer. M.A.S.H. ends. Microsoft Word is released. America West Airlines debuts. And Car and Driver declares the AMC Alliance a 10 Best Car of the Year. Enjoy the enjoyable hilarity after the jump. Click for more
Cars.com crunched the numbers on which new cars languish on showroom floors, and which move like hotcakes. We wondered whether these stats showed any correlation to the average score each model receives from critics. Yep, they do:
April’s here! Time to update our Toughest/Easiest Critics Report. Based on the average score they awarded to vehicles reviewed during the first four months of 2009, the hardest-grading publications are:
