Posts from ‘First Spin’
2022 Toyota Corolla Cross XLE
This past July, Toyota sold the 50-millionth Corolla. The well-known, workaday compact car has been in production for more than 55 years and remains one of Toyota’s best sellers. In America, the Corolla is currently offered as a four-door sedan or hatchback, and now the name enters the incredibly popular crossover SUV market with introduction of the 2022 Corolla Cross.
First Spin: 2022 Infiniti QX60
2022 Infiniti QX60 Autograph
The product-planning teams at major automakers typically develop detailed demographic profiles of the consumers they’re targeting with their new vehicles, sometimes going so far as to create a hypothetical ideal target customer. Infiniti has done just that with its redesigned-for-2022 QX60 three-row, 7-passenger crossover SUV. Her name is “Claire.” She’s smart and stylish. She’s a leader at work and someone friends come to for advice. She’s a mom, and like most people today, she’s very, very busy.
First Spin: 2022 Toyota GR 86
2022 Toyota GR 86
As American new-vehicle buyers continue to choose SUVs in significantly greater numbers than traditional passenger cars, affordable cars of any type are less prevalent than they were as recently as five years ago. Enthusiast-friendly examples are a rarer breed still. When you sharpen the search to affordable, track-ready, rear-wheel-drive sports cars, you quickly determine they are approaching unicorn status.
First Spin: 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz
2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz Limited
Though clearly a small pickup truck, Hyundai calls its new-for-2022 Santa Cruz a “Sport adventure vehicle,” and to the company’s credit, it is unlike any other car or truck currently for sale in the U.S.
2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee L Summit Reserve
Despite being one of the oldest basic designs in the midsize-SUV segment, the Jeep Grand Cherokee is consistently one of the best-selling vehicles in its class. However, the Grand Cherokee has never offered one key feature that would allow it to compete more directly with rivals such as the Ford Explorer, Honda Pilot, and Volkswagen Atlas—a third-row seat. That changes with the introduction of the 2021 Grand Cherokee L, an all-new model that kicks off the Grand Cherokee’s fifth generation and comes standard with a third row of seating for 6- or 7-passenger capacity.
First Spin: 2022 Nissan Pathfinder
2022 Nissan Pathfinder
With the redesign of its long-running Pathfinder midsize SUV for 2022, Nissan seems to be trying to have its cake and eat it too. Stylistically, the new Pathfinder gets a sharper-edged, beefier look that recalls the rugged styling of the truck-based, body-on-frame Pathfinders of the 1990s and early 2000s. Underneath, however, is a heavily modified version of the more family-friendly, crossover-style unibody architecture that the Pathfinder has been built upon since 2013.
First Spin: 2022 Hyundai Tucson
2022 Hyundai Tucson Limited
By Don Sikora II
The Tucson is the best-selling Hyundai vehicle worldwide, and the most popular Hyundai SUV here in the United States. For 2022, it’s been redesigned with eye-catching new styling, several new features, and, for the first time, available hybrid and plug-in-hybrid powertrains.
First Spin: 2022 Infiniti QX55
2022 Infiniti QX55 Sensory
We’ll admit that when the first wave of fastback-roofed sport-utility vehicles started hitting the market, kicked off by the BMW X6 back in 2008, we didn’t really “get it.” Why would an automaker take a vehicle that’s primarily designed for utility—heck, the word is right in the name!—and deliberately turn it into something less practical?
First Spin: 2021 Lincoln Nautilus
2021 Lincoln Nautilus Black Label
The Lincoln Nautilus midsize 5-passenger crossover debuted for 2019 as a thoroughly revamped version of the Lincoln MKX. In fact, the Nautilus was a key part of Lincoln’s transition away from the alphabetic (and not particularly well received) “MK” naming convention the brand began using around 2007. The 2020 model year saw the debuts of the all-new compact Corsair compact SUV (which took the place of the MKC) and Aviator three-row midsize SUV (which essentially replaced the MKT). These vehicles bookended the Nautilus in Lincoln’s model lineup, and they also introduced new interior/exterior styling themes and a further refinement of the Lincoln brand’s “Quiet Flight” design philosophy—all elements that weren’t fully formed at the time of the Nautilus’s introduction just two model years prior.
First Spin: 2021 Buick Envision
2021 Buick Envision Essence
Well, believe it or not, we’re already almost at the end of Buick’s first full model year as an SUV-only brand. The LaCrosse large sedan and Cascada convertible both said sayonara after the 2019 model year, and Buick’s last traditional passenger-car holdouts—the midsize Regal Sportback hatchback sedan and Regal TourX wagon—were dropped after the 2020 model year.
