RideLust

So there you are, sitting around the house with that $30k in your pocket that you’ve allotted for the purchase of your next car. You’ve looked at some domestic new cars like V6 powered Mustang’s, Challenger’s and Camaro’s, as well as some imports like Subaru WRX’s, Nissan Altima coupes and the Volkswagen GTI, however nothing seems to fit your fancy. What about a good used car though? I mean $30K will give you the ability to purchase some pretty serious hardware. You can go the modern muscle route by way of a used BMW M5, Chrysler SRT and or Mercedes-Benz AMG. Get sporty with any number of used STI’s, a Porsche Boxster or BMW M3, or if you’re crafty enough, you can even delve into the world of exotics. I found this out first hand this weekend when my buddy Alan stopped buy to show me his new ride.

Read More…

Thumbs Up: Fast, comfortable and quiet; a GT car with a bargain price tag.

Thumbs Down: Improved automatic transmission still disappoints.

Buy This Car If: You’re looking for a solid bargain in a luxury sport sedan.

It’s easy to jump on the Honda / Acura bashing bandwagon these days, and many critics feel that Honda has lost its way. While concessions were made to get the new Civic to market at a certain price point, in a certain time frame, the 2012 Acura TL is proof that the automaker still listens to its customers and still builds aspirational cars. Read More…

Thumbs Up: Comfortable, capable and relatively entertaining.

Thumbs Down: Even with a racing pedigree, it lacks soul.

Buy This Car If: You like your entry level luxury with a dose of sport.

In 2006, I was commuting 110 miles per day, in New York City rush hour traffic. My two year old BMW 325 was turning into a reliability nightmare, and with the warranty about to expire it was time to find a new ride before my 3 Series did indeed “Break My Wallet”. I started by narrowing the search to a sedan, since I needed the 4 door people-hauling capability. It had to be relatively fuel efficient, since I was putting on over 30,000 miles per year. It had to be comfortable, since I was spending a minimum of 3 hours per day behind the wheel. Finally, it had to have a shiftable automatic and had to provide at least some entertainment value. Read More…

Honda's HSV-010GT. Image: Morio

Honda was well into the development process of an NSX successor when the global economy went south, forcing Honda to shelve the project. The car ultimately became Honda’s HSV-010GT race car, campaigned in the Japanese Super GT Series. That posed a problem, as Super GT cars were supposed to be based on production cars, and the HSV-010GT wasn’t. While not technically illegal, the absence of a road-going version of the HSV-010GT violated the spirit of competition, something Honda president Takanobu Ito hopes to put right. Last Friday, Ito confirmed that Honda has restarted development of a high end sports car based on the HSV-010GT race car. Read More…

When families gather for the holidays many things tend to get discussed around the dinner table. Topics of conversation cover everything from politics to how long we should cook the pasta. As we talked a family member inevitably brought up automobiles and we began to discuss brands we liked and brands we disliked. We hit on just about everything until someone posted the question of which brand was the most boring and or had the least amount of personality. As I thought about this I realized that it was actually a pretty good question. You see right now automobiles are so good that it’s really tough to purchase a bad car. Sure, some may have more gadgets and gizmos than others, but for the most part cars today are more reliable and better built than any other time in history.
Read More…

We here at RideLust have a bizarre attraction to wagons. Mike has one as a daily driver, and although I’m in between wagons right now, I’ve owned more than my share. They’re comfortable, give you plenty of room for car guy stuff (try fitting four mounted wheels and tires in a Mustang) and they fly under the radar, both literally and figuratively. I don’t have hard data to back up this assumption, but I’m thinking that wagon drivers get popped for speeding a whole lot less than sport sedan drivers. Even if a wagon is fast (like Mike’s Magnum SRT-8 or the Audi S4 Avant), cops just don’t give them a second glance.

Read More…

American consumers, we’re told, don’t like station wagons. Automotive journalists, on the other hand, love them. Why? Because they can have the entertainment value of a sedan (or in the case of Mike’s Magnum SRT-8, a very fast sedan) combined with the hauling capability of a crossover or SUV. Sadly, most manufacturers have given up on wagons in favor of unibody SUVs, because that’s what market research tells them customers will buy.

Read More…

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a time before SUVs, or maybe it’s because we always had one in the driveway, either way though it doesn’t matter because I LOVE station wagons. To me they really are the perfect vehicle, as they combine everything you need from a big SUV with the sporty performance of a nice 4-door sedan. Up until the mid-1980′s there really were no SUV’s on the road, just station wagons. Then in 1984 the SUV showed up and dominated the market for about 20 years, crossovers are out there as well, but I don’t much care for those. The above video gives us our first look at the new 2011 Acura TSX Sport Wagon and I must say that from a wagon guys point of view, I really like it. The wagon will start life with the base 201 hp inline-4 from the base Acura TSX sedan, but will hopefully then graduate to the 280 hp V6. Keep in mind that with wagon offerings from Cadillac in the form of the base CTS Sports Wagon and Audi’s A4 and A6 Avant’s, that Acura is going to have their work cut out for them to gain a foothold in this segment of the market.

Source: Youtube.com

We told you about Toyota’s latest recall, for braking system issues, on Friday. Honda, it appears, uses the same supplier for the brake master cylinder, which subjects them to the same seal failure issue if the wrong brake fluid is used. Owners of 2005 – 2007 Acura RL and 2005 – 2007 Honda Odyssey models will receive a notification from the manufacturer shortly, although a timeline for the recall has not been announced.

Read More…

Just a few weeks back we gave you a report on the most ticketed vehicles in America, based on data from ISO Quality Planning. Now, The Truth About Cars gives us a new list, this time from QPC, a division of Verisk Analytics. There are a lot of similarities between the lists, but the QPC data does include a few vehicles that the ISO Quality Planning list omitted. Do you drive a “spirited vehicle” (QPC’s term for a high risk car)? Read on to find out:

Read More…