For 2010 the Lincoln MKX is offering available all-wheel-drive, standard heated-and-cooled front seats and available heated rear seats. And for 2010, its 265-hp engine and six-speed automatic transmission have been extensively refined to increase fuel mileage. Prices for the MKX start at $38,345 for the FDW version and at $40,195 for the AWD version.

The depressing reality of the new car biz? Most buyers aren't that interested in driving. For every one of us who savors the sheer joy of running a fast car through the gears, there are 10,000 others who couldn't care less. To most people, driving is a chore. They'd much rather be guzzling a soda, snarfing a burger, texting their buddies, and watching TV -- preferably all at once -- instead of enjoying the interaction with a finely tuned piece of machinery while getting from A to B.

It was associate online editor Mike Febbo's first time in this long-termer. "Power and torque are great, so good in fact that I would happily give up the close-ratio gears for a longer and more fuel-efficient sixth. I averaged 21.5 mpg on the highway. Grip is phenomenal. The car works amazingly well on smooth surfaces, but mid-corner bumps are an adventure at speed.

You're sitting a stoplight in your new 263-horse Mazdaspeed3. The street ahead is clear. When the light flashes green, you're going to excuse yourself from the rest of the herd rather rapidly -- including that brand-new 2011 BMW X3 xDrive35i right next to you. Dispatching it shouldn't be a problem, right?
Well, you had better hope whoever is behind the wheel of that crossover doesn't have similar aspirations. Because while you artfully Fred Astaire the Mazda's pedals, balancing wheelspin and boost to maximize acceleration, they'll merely slide the transmission into sport mode and step on the gas. Then the X3 will reach 60 mph in 5.6 seconds, matching your Speed3.

The Toyota Corolla should be any automaker's dream car, especially for the accounting department. The basic formula is this: Start with a tidy but not extravagant package that has earned a reputation for safety, value, and reliability. Then, make only the slightest of changes to limit superfluous development costs that would significantly affect the consumer price. Is that a brand-new powertrain and a totally redesigned suspension sitting in the lab? Maybe they'll see use in a couple more years, buddy.

It is just as easy to get a speeding ticket in this Mazdaspeed3 as it was in the last one, as evidenced by the, uh, paperwork handed over to some staff members in the last few months. But stints in traffic school took the violations off the books, and all was good again.

Dig through any sales literature on the 2006 Mercury Milan and one point becomes glaringly obvious: Mercury wants its new sedan to stand out as upscale and valuable in one of the market's most aggressive and important segments. This only makes sense. After all, American carmakers have lacked a genuinely competitive midsize sedan for years.

Maurizio Reggiani shakes his head with regret. Without a word, Lamborghini's R&D director indicates that manual transmissions have no future in his company's cars. Only a tiny fraction of customers choose a stick shift for their Gallardo, and Lamborghini's new Aventador comes with a fully automated seven-speed single-clutch transmission, and no manual transmission. Just 1 to 2 percent of the cars rolling out of the company's small Sant'Agata Bolognese factory are equipped with three pedals, Reggiani says.

There's nothing better than the sound of a big-bore V8 in the morning. That is unless you can lower the car's top at the touch of a button and enjoy it all the more, like we did in the 2007 Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG.

With prices starting at $37,665 for the FWD version and $39.555 for the AWD version, the 2009 Lincoln MKS redefines the American luxury. Next to the other new models from Lincoln, the MKZ sedan and MKX crossover, the 2009 MKS wants to bring the Lincoln brand into its right place on the luxury market.

Road Test editor Scott Mortara headed down the quarter mile in the bright-yellow Boss 302 Mustang, steadying his speed for Motor Trend's standard brake test, just as he's done a thousand times before. Back in the day, before anti-lock brakes and stability control systems and decent tires, you never knew quite which direction the car might be facing when you finished a brake test. These days, though, it's fairly simple: At about 70 mph, you grenade the brake pedal and hang on. The electronic nannies keep the cars nice and straight, and our sophisticated on-board data-logging equipment automatically captures the distance it takes to decelerate from 60 mph to a standstill.

"Ultimate," as an adjective, means "last or last possible, final" according to the Oxford American Dictionary. Of course, BMW's advertising wizards were thinking about "ultimate" as a noun ("best achievable or imaginable") when they wrote "The Ultimate Driving Machine" tagline.

There are Audi fanatics who consider the quattro all-wheel-drive system a product of divine inspiration. On the scale of man's most important inventions they rank it right up there with movable type and the microchip. Cars without quattro are drivable; cars with quattro handle as if they're being guided by a higher power.

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We had only driven two blocks in the test vehicle, a 2007 Saturn Vue Green Line, when my wife put a damper on the enthusiasm I was mustering for this budget hybrid.

"So this is one of those rattley cars," she innocently observed.

Let's cut to the chase. The last Dodge Avenger, introduced in 2008, was anything but a leader in the midsize sedan pack. Chrysler's four-door was mostly distinguished by its less than stellar traits: twitchy handling, eyesore cabin treatments, and a lackluster V-6. For 2011, things have changed dramatically.