I just got back from the new car expo in my city, even managed to do a couple test drives and sat in quite a bit. In no particular order, here are some initial impressions.
Volvo S90. Best Interior (that I could sit in). Holy crap, what an amazing place to be. I was able to get to the car when no one else was crawling around it so I was able to close all the doors with the windows up. In an instant all the noise of the show disappeared and I felt like I
was a Japanese zen garden.
Ford Focus. This was a surprisingly good car to drive, even with the slushbox and NA 2.0L. The route covered broken urban streets, railroad crossings, and a few moderately quick stretches (I got it up to 50). For the size, the car was very quiet and composed, even over the rough stuff. The handling was responsive and I felt in touch with the road, but I was also very comfortable. The dash and interior were both stylish and efficient, it was a pleasant and modern feel without being dreary or annoyingly eccentric.
Ford Fiesta. This one felt more like a small car, it was a bit more bouncy and a bit less insulated (and comfortable) than the Focus. The car was nicely responsive to the throttle and took of eagerly. I was actually surprised with how well it got off the mark in the parking lot, I was expecting a much slower response. If I had to use a Clarksonism, the Fiesta is a bit like driving an excited terrier. As good as it was, I certainly prefer the Focus.
Honda Civic. For all the promises about the new "upscale" Civic, I was very disappointed. To start, the car was loud. Even sitting still in the parking lot I could hear the clatter of the valve train inside the cabin. The interior was very busy with a ton of farkles, I get that this was the top-end model brought out for demo purposes, but the layout was far from intuitive. There is also a grab-bag of textures going on, some of the buttons on the steering wheel were clear acrylic, but I could feel the sharp corners of the buttons because they didn't sit
quite flush. There is an annoying textured slider thing for your left thumb to control the volume on the stereo that feels more like a half-assed game controller than anything else. The wheel itself is a hot mess of buttons, switches, and odd controls that just seem crammed on any which way. The center stack fell victim to the "glue a tablet to it" approach to interior design, complete with an odd little switch at the top to adjust the brightness. The car is equipped with a god-awful CVT that resulted in a leisurely acceleration at WOT despite the cacophony of noise from under the hood.
The dash itself looked like the thing got up to 88mph and crashed head first into a 1980s digital dash. The center is a very nice (if somewhat busy looking) LED screen, but the temp and fuel gauges would look at home on KITT's dash, being a boomerang-shaped LED bar next to printed markings. The seats were not particularly comfortable and the whole car reeked of, "I see what you
tried to do there."
None of this was helped by the drive experience either. The Honda rep made Kiki sit in the back seat while I drove and he knew fuck-all about the car itself, every time I asked a question he tried to read it off the window sticker. He finally admitted that he worked for a marketing company and was just hired for the gig by Honda. It was pretty embarrassing, the college girl that did the Focus and Fiesta drives with us knew the answers to almost every question I asked about the car
and how else they could be optioned. Ford just blew Honda out of the water in terms of the car and the test drive experience.
Oh, and everything is done through a cell-phone style touch screen (not pressure sensitive), so if you are driving in the cold with gloves on: Fuck you, because you can't do a goddamned thing with the center display.
Mazda 3 Looks good, but the interior is still a bit "meh".
Kia Soul This car taught me that I'm old. The car is funky and cool, the interior is funky and cool. It's a nice practical car with lots of space, miles of head room, and the ability to move an entire dorm room. And I would absolutely never, ever buy one.
Ford Raptor I love everything except the size of it. Ford, if you give the new Ranger the Raptor treatment I will sell a wheelbarrow full of organs to have one. I especially like the integrated auxiliary electrical on the headliner, trying to add that to my XTerra will be a massive pain and probably run about $400 just for the control unit, having it from the factory is a great option for modders like myself. The interior was fantastic, the seats were amazingly comfortable, I really had no gripe about the vehicle other than it simply won't fit many places I want to go.
Mercedes Meh. I don't know, it just doesn't do anything for me. I don't like the styling and there is nothing about them that I find appealing. Even if I did have the disposable income to drop on one, I don't think I would. The most interesting one there was the G-Wagon, and that is a holdover from the 1970s (it still has the same door lock plungers we had on the family car back in the 80s).
BMW See: Mercedes. These are just unimaginative and boring.
BMW i3 That is all.
Hyundai Elantra Surprisingly nice, especially with the full glass roof. I wish Hyundai was doing test drives so I could run it after the Ford. The interior was pleasant, I had no complaints. Things were nicely laid out and it seemed pretty well nailed together. It is a perfectly acceptable city hatchback, practical, and inoffensive.
Hyundai Veloster Turbo After the pajama-wearing sea-cow was done letting her snotgbblins walk all over the center console, jump on the seats, and try to smash the screen, I was able to sit in it. The seats in the Turbo are fantastic and the throw on the gear lever was about 20% shorter than the BRZ, which felt just about perfect. I was surprised that I fit in the car, but I'm not sure how much I would like it as a practical city hatchback due to the low seat height. The visibility out the back was not as bad as I expected, but I would want to get it on the road to see where the cross member for the hatch sits; I worry that it will be right at the horizon.
Subaru BRZ special edition. Not particularly comfortable for me and I noticed the shifter would benefit from a short-throw kit. To say the rear seats are vestigial is generous, I'm not sure that even my small dogs would be comfortable back there.
Lexus Everything is gray. Seriously, the entire display was gray, all the cars were gray, and there was almost no one there looking at them. I think even some of the sales reps were gray. The entire area looked boring, so I went to look at Toyota instead.
Toyota Tacoma TRD First, I am not a fan of the Tacoma. I have a somewhat irrational dislike for the vehicle, mostly because of all the Tacoma owners I know who could star in an episode of "I've Been on the Internet and I've found THIS!". That being said, I did want to like the new TRD and I tried to give it a fair shake. That being said, I fucking hate this thing. Toyota redesigned the hood of a lot of their vehicles, including the 70-series Land Cruiser, Hilux, and apparently the Tacoma. Toyota has been putting fake hood scoops on for ages, but now they raised the entire hood and recessed the fake scoop. This means the entire hood is very high, even at 6'4" I can't see a goddamned thing out the front of this vehicle. The Tacoma ahead of the one I sat in was probably 12 feet in front of the bumper and I could not even see the bottom 5" of the tailgate. Trying to take this truck off road would be absolutely miserable because you would have to memorize the trail a mile away before it disappeared beneath the hood. The roof is low, so the cab is very dark and claustrophobic, even the Veloster had better visibility. The seats were not particularly comfortable and the seating position was awkward for someone of my height, which was odd, because a shorter driver would not be able to see the ground at all out of the windshield. I would like to comment about the layout of the center stack and the dash, but I honestly don't remember it; which means it is probably the typical Toyota level of boring.
Toyota 4Runner TRD This one managed to hide behind the door when Toyota was handing out the new hoods, so you can at least see vehicles in front of you. The roof juts out quite a bit, so the cab is a bit dark and I would have trouble seeing traffic lights. Seriously, what is wrong with a sloped windscreen on a truck of SUV, Toyota? You don't have to make it vertical to make it look tough and utilitarian, I would like to be able to look up sometimes. The interior was okay, with nice big controls that are friendly to gloves, but it still falls short of the Ford trucks.
Toyota Land Cruiser For nearly $90,000 I expect to not have the plastic door handles from a Tundra. Also, the $30,000 GMC has a soft-drop tailgate, why is the tailgate on the Land Cruiser just slamming open before hitting the end of the string? Don't misunderstand, I would love to have a basic bare-bones Land Cruiser to buy, but if you insist on making this a bloated luxo-barge then pay attention to the details.
Toyota Corolla iM This is a hatchback version of the Corolla that was previously branded a Scion. While I'm not a huge fan of the side skirts and body kit, the car at least looks interesting. The interior is
far better than the "stick stuff on a frame and drape plastic over it" of the last Corolla and the cargo deck has plenty of space. It's actually a pretty nice looking car, I just hope the driving experience matches the looks and isn't the typical dreary Toyota drive-by-remote-control insulated feel. I asked if this was available to test drive, but they didn't have one available.
Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon. Not a terrible interior from GM, for a change. The 4WD shifter is in an annoying place and the key would drive me mad, being directly over my right knee on a weird cancerous bump sticking out of the steering column. The driving position is quite comfortable, visibility is good, and you can spec it out with lots of towing goodies, including an integrated trailer brake control, something I didn't see on any other truck in that class.