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    Matt Davis

    Matt Davis

  • Driving the Volkswagen Golf Sportsvan: every young Euro family’s dream

    The new Volkswagen Golf Sportsvan showed up at last year’s Frankfurt Motor Show, as a successor to the humble Golf Plus, which sold a not so humble 900,000-odd units in its life without the United States or Canada even being aware of it.

  • Driving the LaFerrari, the superlative modern supercar

    It would be a bald-faced lie to tell you that the promise of driving Ferrari's LaFerrari didn’t make this professional supercar sampler nervous as hell. I've done deep testing on every Koenigsegg, various Bugatti Veyrons, and each model crafted by Pagani, and yet the bottoms of my feet filled with sweat and my fingers fumbled as I reach to open the swan door of “the” Ferrari, at the hallowed test track of Fiorano not far from Maranello HQ.

  • Driving the 2015 Porsche Boxster and Cayman GTS, the modern day Dino

    Every time Porsche has come out with a GTS – starting with the legendary 904 Carrera GTS in 1963 – it has been a clear anthem to sporting thrills and impeccable style. They’re not meant to sell a lot, but four-wheeled specialty items that these days can exceed $100,000 never are.

  • Driving the BMW i8, the world's most advanced car

    How does it work? More than any other new vehicle, the BMW i8 requires this explanation up front — not just for the dull process of turning energy to motion, but for the whole enterprise of a $135,700 supercar designed for maximum eco appeal with styling from the 23rd century. And last week, I was among the first to find out. In BMW engineer speak, the 2015 i8 is properly called a “plug-in electric hybrid sports car” — one with a 129-hp electric motor driving the front wheels and a turbocharged,1.5-liter three-cylinder engine with 228 hp driving the rear axle. Since I last drove a prototype of the i8 in August, some fine-tuning of the all-important software and electrical power unit has been done by the Munich madhatters, but the i8 remains the giddy thrill and conversation piece it was then.

  • Driving the 2016 BMW X5 eDrive, the plugged-in SUV

    Automakers worldwide have gradually (some would say grudgingly) attempted to make their high-profit and highly popular SUVs as efficient and clean-running as their lower weight passenger cars — namely through the grafting of a plug-in hybrid system.

  • How the final Pagani Zonda R became a $5 million supercar

    Pagani Automobili founder and inspired soul Horacio Pagani has a thing for the number five. He frequently creates limited runs of five units of his limited-run original Zonda, and the newer Huayra is certain to follow suit. What should be the final, final units of the Zonda are five Zonda R track-maniac cars that are aero-licious to our non-millionaire eyes. The R sales started in 2009 and this last one shown in Geneva is the best one yet.

  • Inside the tech that makes the Lamborghini Huracan a raging bull

    A V-10-powered replacement for Lamborghini’s company-saving Gallardo has been eagerly awaited since just before the global Great Recession changed all of our lives. At the upcoming Geneva motor show we’ll finally have the public undressing of the new Huracán LP 610-4, a car that's quicker and more powerful, while spewing 50 percent less CO2 into the atmosphere. Even bulls think about the environment now.

  • BMW flashes a carbon-fiber wheel of its near future

    A few days ago, BMW held a press introduction of various carbon-fiber accessories, designed to eventually filter their way into several BMW, Rolls-Royce, and maybe even Mini models. The best of the bunch was this handsome full carbon-fiber wheel, shown here in 20-inch size, set to join the options list for BMW's "i" series electric vehicles by the end of 2014.