Author Archives: Vincent Nguyen

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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For nearly twenty years, Audi Sport was known as quattro GmBH, but with cars like the 2018 RS 3 the performance division is embracing its more public persona. There’s brand equity in “Audi”, and Stephan Winkelmann, Audi Sport’s CEO is under no illusion about how much potential that has for his line-up of unusual, rip-roaring cars. Winkelmann’s next job, he tells me, is to bring the brand to a whole new level.

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This is the 2018 Range Rover Velar, and it's officially A Big Deal for Land Rover - not to mention new territory. The Range Rover Velar doesn't replace an existing model but, instead, slots into the so-called white space between two. So, it's larger than the Evoque, but smaller than the Range Rover Sport, with a 113.15-inch wheelbase.

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One of the cheapest, most basic phones at Mobile World Congress this year has probably got more attention than all the smartphone flagships combined. The Nokia 3310 isn't trying to squeeze the LG G6 from your hand, and its physical keys aren't going to give the BlackBerry KeyOne any sleepless nights, but it possesses a retro charm that has the Nokia booth here in Barcelona buzzing. Turns out, there's a good reason for that.

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I used to be a fan of QWERTY keyboards on smartphones, but as auto-correct for on-screen keyboards improved and devices slimmed down with a focus on touch, the charm of a physical 'board faded. BlackBerry wants to bring that back, though, with the BlackBerry KeyOne, a brand new smartphone that differentiates itself from the crowd with its physical thumbboard under a touchscreen. I spent some time trying the KeyOne out here at Mobile World Congress 2017.

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If at first you don’t succeed, go back to basics and squeeze out the best of the best features minus all the gimmicks: that’s just what LG is doing with the highly anticipated G6. It's 2017, and it’s abundantly clear that, since the launch of the G5 and the abject lack of interest in the whole "module" concept, it’s time for the Korean mobile phone manufacturer to make a sharp about-turn and focus on what matters most: making a solid phone. That being said, when I met with LG’s designers for both devices in South Korea earlier this month, it was made abundantly clear that the design of the G6 was already being considered in parallel with the G5. That helps explain why the two phones feel so very different.

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