japan cars

As a longtime diesel promoter, Volkswagen’s interest in hybrids has been strictly competitive, its corporate line an assertion that diesel is the better fuel-saving alternative. With the

, though, Vee-Dub has not only acquiesced to hybrid demands but has also built one of the best gas/electric vehicles on the market.

V-6, V-6, or V-6?

Aside from the hybrid option, there are two other engines available in the newly redesigned Touareg. But the 3.6-liter gasoline V-6—280 hp, 265 lb-ft of torque—and the

—225 hp, 406 lb-ft—are fully carry-over designs; both are competent and have been enlivened this year by a new eight-speed automatic transmission. That transmission, paired with a weight reduction of roughly 400 pounds over the outgoing vehicle, results in claimed fuel-economy gains of up to 20 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

There are few problems that more horsepower can’t fix or at least help you ignore. And as a perfect case study, we bring you the 2009 Subaru Impreza WRX. Our first impression of the new-for-2008 WRX left us hot and cold. Interior quality, overall refinement, and noise isolation were vastly improved, but the WRX lacked the thrill of the previous car. The engine was largely unchanged, and weight gain was nonexistent, but the WRX came off as more of an Impreza GT than the street version of a rally car, a trait its predecessors had in spades. Read the rest of this entry »