Author Archives: Vincent Nguyen

I struggle with the new SQ5 because the Q5 is already an amazing mid-size SUV. There’s so much goodness I’d imagine one would struggle with the idea of anything better, right? The correct answer is, wrong. While the differences are subtle for what you can and cannot see, they might be just enough for the right buyer in search of a high performing vehicle that stands out from the rest of the crowd; especially when there are over 1.5-million first generation Q5 roaming the roads today. That’s where Audi’s S-badge comes in.

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Motorola’s Moto Z2 Force couldn’t have asked for a better - or tougher - test over the last week, as it became my go-to phone on back to back events. The tl:dr? It’s an evolutionary follow-up to the first-gen Moto Z Force, for better and worse. Full disclosure, I’ve always had a soft spot for the Z’s raw and rugged design when there isn’t a Moto Mod attached to the back. When I saw that it had loaded up with upgraded specs and a thinner design, I was mighty curious to see how the changes played out.

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I’m sorry, you’re called what? The Demon? The demon of what, you might also ask? It’s the torpedo of drag racers, born out an addiction to speed in a straight line, and its singular mission is to obliterate the competition on any drag strip. The specs say that the 840 HP V8 can propel this particular 4,275-pound missile from 0-60 mph in 2.3 seconds, and hammer out the quarter mile in 9.65 seconds at 140 mph. This is the world’s fastest production car, and it’s wearing an American badge.

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Supercars may be fast, but the cutting-edge of automotive technology is happening in luxury sedans like the new 2019 Audi A8. The fourth-generation of Audi's most luxurious car, the new A8 introduces Audi AI, a vision of smarter mobility including industry-first Level 3 assisted driving that, the automaker says, will eventually see all of its cars intercommunicating.

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The world’s moving towards turbochargers and Audi’s not immune to the change, and as a result, we have this new Audi-built 2.9-liter V6 twin-turbo engine. It’s at the heart of the 2018 Audi Sport RS 5 Coupe, described by Stephan Winkelmann, CEO of Audi Sport GmbH., as “the gran turismo among the RS models from Audi Sport." That means “elegant aesthetics with high everyday usability," something I got to test out in full on the roads of Andorra.

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I’ve seen countless concept or prototype cars at auto shows and press junkets over the years. Rarely does anyone ever get to drive them, because concept cars are, well, only concepts. One of kind and invariably hand-built, they’re obscenely expensive, too. Their primary purpose in life is to showcase new styling and new technology. Think of them as eye candy aimed to grab attention, from everyone and especially away from the competition.

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Bravo Honda, bravo. The 2018 Civic Type R is the company’s most powerful car ever to be sold stateside. Indeed, Honda’s people are unofficially referring to it as the fastest front-wheel drive “road legal racecar” on the road. In short, no, the “R” in the name plate isn’t just for show.

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That’s right folks, Honda’s turbocharging the all-new model year 2018 with a new 2.0-liter direct injection turbo-four. In a recent event held at Honda’s R&D facility in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, I got a taste not only of the new engine but also the similarly-fresh 10-speed automatic transmission the automaker has been working on. The fun didn’t stop there: wrapped up inside a Civic test mule was the Accord’s other engine option, a 1.5-liter turbo-four CVT, waiting for me to take it on a couple of laps at the proving grounds.

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This is the BMW Concept 8 Series, revealed for the first time today, and it's enough to give BMW fans palpitations. The return of the classic 8 Series nameplate is no mere show car tease, either. Sure, today it might be a concept, but very soon it'll helping shape BMW's return to the luxury coupe segment.

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It’s rare that a car stuns me into silence, but then again there are few cars quite like the new Aston Martin DB11. The storied British automaker has decided it’s due a reinvention, and this is the coupe it’s chosen to spearhead that process. It’s a Gran Turismo in both the classic sense of an elegant long-distance tourer, but also according to the modern definition of a car that possesses both organ-melting performance and superlative comfort, with no compromise along the way. Or, for shorthand, a car that wows.

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There are few moments in life so memorable that they burn deep into every single fiber of your body. For me, one such moment came the first time my index finger pushed up against the 2017 Ford GT’s ignition start button. Two years after the GT’s shock unveil at the 2015 North American International Auto Show, the build-up of anticipation until I was behind the wheel and seated inches in front of the mid-mounted 647 horsepower, 550 lb-ft of torque twin-turbo EcoBoost V6 engine could’ve gone one of two ways. As the hardly-tamed beast roared to life, would the GT live up to its supercar promise?

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Luckily, my fun in the sun with Mercedes-AMG’s new GT C Roadster in Arizona didn’t come to a premature end when my driving partner got a speeding ticket. The topless Solarbeam Yellow GT cruiser shot out as though the canyon had just given birth to it… and that happened to be the exact spot where we drove past the state trooper. I sat quietly in the passenger seat as he explained to the officer, “it’s this stupid car, it feels like it’s going 60…” only to have the officer reply “you’re really flying, I clocked you at 90 mph.”

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