It all starts on the outside and the first impression that the Stelvio Veloce gives off is one that no other CUV can match. Our test model had a base price of $49,725 and an as-tested price of $59,045. Yes, some $10,000 in optional equipment was added on top of the sticker and the vast majority of it elevated the experience for us as it would for an owner. The Alfa Rosso paint was a $500 up-charge and the red leather sport seats, which were very, very good, were an additional $750. The Veloce AWD package ($1,800) added the gloss black body kit, power adjustable seat bolsters, a limited slip differential, power passenger seat, blacked out grille, and the large aluminum paddle shifters behind the wheel. A $2,225 premium interior and sound package was added which added a leather dash and upper doors along with a Harman and Kardon 14-speaker sound system. A $700 Active assist plus package brought on a host of river supplement and aids like lane keeping assist, blind spot assist, the Alfa-Connect service, an anti-theft system and more. The upgraded 21-inch, signature Alfa five-hole wheels were shod in 255/40/R21 all season tires for $1,750, and this also included the pleasing gloss red brake calipers.

So that’s how the $59,000 price as achieved, but does the car live up to the price tag?

In short? Yes. Part of the reason I feel so definitive about this is the fact that I typically lament the lack of any sort of payoff from vehicles priced within $10-$15k of the Stelvio Veloce AWD. The styling of the Stelvio is very nice. It has aggressive lines that also flow very well, the signature grille is an attention getter, and the very nice stance and overall look of this vehicle stand up to the asking price. But it has to go beyond that. The 280hp 2.0L turbocharged four-cylinder engine, especially when engaged in sport mode is a perfectly feisty little beast. Backed by an eight speed transmission that is responsive and instantly reactive to inputs from the paddle shifters, you can literally drive this car like a little short wheelbase sports car and completely lose the fact you are in a CUV, it is that fun. Performance? The Stelvio Velove AWD will run the quarter-mile in 14.0-seconds and given the right conditions it will run into the 13s for sure. The torque band of the engine is very, very flat as should be expected in a turbocharged application, which means there’s a well of power to stick your foot into through the entire sweep of the tach.

Lastly, unlike so many four cylinder CUV entries, the engine is a willing partner in your pursuits. It is not moaning, screaming, or otherwise making noise and providing nothing back for all the racket. The engine sings through the rev range and sounds properly Italian. There’s enough sound dampening to know that the little mill is working but not so much that people will be wondering what all the fuss is about.

As I have said so many times before, if there is one place where you need to feel like your money is being spent wisely in this market, it’s the interior. Here, the Stelvio Veloce shines and shines again. The red leather seats up front were bolstered very well and were adjustable in all the ways to make drivers of any size comfortable. The screen is on on the small side for a vehicle of this price range but it is tastefully located in the dash and does not appear to be an afterthought as in so many other examples. The interface for using the screen is good with a rotating wheel that’s intuitive and easy to use. The steering wheel is thick and the steering is weighted suitably to allow a good performance feedback to the driver. HVAC and things like the seat heater control were easy to use and simply to reach. A normal shifter as a fine sight to see in the center console.

If there’s one pinch we have to give the Stelvio it is in the spaciousness of the back seat area. Yes, the driver and passenger can snug up to provide more room but with the sloping roofline and compact nature of the passenger compartment, this can get tight for larger passengers. Kids, car seats, and all of that action would be content as the day is long, but larger or older adults may not love this element of the Stelvio. If you regularly are hauling larger people, make sure you have them along on your test drive and get them into the back of the car to insure comfort and fitment.

The Stelvio has plenty of cargo room behind the rear seat, so much in fact that it almost seems a shame the rear seat could not be back an additional 2″ to free up more leg room. As you can see from this photo, it seems that the wheelbase/wheel wells prevented any more rearward expansion of the rear seating. The good news is that all the groceries, sports gear, and holiday gifts you can dream up will land back here with ease.

If there is a single element we loved the most about the Stelvio Veloce AWD it was this 2.0L 280hp engine. The tight gearing of the eight speed and the 306 pound-feet of torque that’s on top instantly, seemingly, takes your “normal” CUV and makes it fun. Pair this engine with perhaps the single best tuned suspension system in the whole class of cars it competes in and now you’ve got perhaps the first CUV I ever found myself leaving the house to drive for driving’s sake. Clearly the team at Alfa Romeo who was on this project has the enthusiasm for driving that we all share here and it showed. This car, unlike so many in the class, is not a commodity, it is an experience and a very good one at that.

Final verdict. If you are looking into a CUV as your next means of family or personal propulsion and you do not shop the 2024 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Veloce AWD you are cheating yourself out of perhaps the best example you can buy today. Passengers, friends, and of course those of us who spent the week in the machine were highly impressed with every aspect of the experience. it turns heads, can plant your backside in the seat, and can make you lean into apexing corners for fun…in a CUV. We’ve never driven another one like it.

The post We Drive It: The 2024 Alfa Romeo Stelvio Veloce AWD – Proof That The Italian Driving Soul Comes In Many Forms appeared first on BangShift.com.

For starters, it’s actually nice to see a company presenting a vehicle for what it actually is and what it’s most likely intended use and users are. Infinity, in marketing and selling the QX60 does not try to present this rig as some sort of escape machine designed to carry people into the wilderness for adventures. In the realm of SUVs, this thing is an indoor cat, one that is intended to swaddle its occupants in a luxurious, supple, and very quiet set of surroundings. There’s not a bunch of body cladding, not a bunch of angular styling lines that one would attribute to toughness or ruggedness. There’s no “trail rating” or anything of that nature. In so many ways, the QX60 Autograph is a luxury station wagon. With the basic bones of the Nissan Pathfinder underpinning it, the machine has a pleasant ride height and the entry/egress is far more passenger car that SUV. Running boards or similar steps are not warranted nor are they added.

Overall we found the exterior design of the QX60 to be really pleasing and while it does not have the visual impact of a more austere Mercedes, Land Rover, or BMW offering in this class, it still has graceful flowing lines that would blend very nicely at the country club or during a night on the town in a metropolitan environment. The doors are huge which equates to the ability to slide into your respective position in the interior without any wriggling or gesticulating that would wrinkle your nice duds on an evening out. Older passengers we had in the QX60 appreciated not only the right height but the generous room that awaited them inside.

Speaking of room. As a three row SUV, the QX60 packs a ton of it both with the rear seats up and especially when they are laid down. Getting into the third row seats is relatively easy when the middle row captain’s chairs are collapsed and slid all the way forward. Larger adults did not struggle to get into their seats and when they were seated, all of them were pretty amazed by the comfort and available leg room in what is typically not the most desirous seat to have in an SUV such as this. Third row passengers are not treated as second class citizens in the QX60 and it’s one of the best third row seating experiences available in this class of SUV from our experience.

The most impressive part of the QX60 and the one place where it’s as tested $69,000 price tag truly justified itself was in the interior. If there is one selling point in this class of SUV it’s the visual design of the interior as well as its functionality and comfort. While the QX60 may fall short to some of the more dramatic exterior cues of its competitors, the interior quality is 100% spot on and if we blindfolded 50 people and asked them to guess the manufacturer without any badging hints, we bet at least 40 of them would say that this was a German SUV. The leather quality was extremely high, the quilted stitching and very subtle white piping combined with the brown/saddle color was very nice. The black ash wood interior accents are very nicely done as well. In effect, when people are shopping this category of SUV they are truly making a buying decision on the refinement of the interior and how it makes them feel as they cruise down the road.

The driver’s area is very well executed in the QX60. While we were not totally crazy about the “virtual” buttons for controlling many of the HVAC functions (they’re likely not the best to use in winter when wearing a pair of gloves, for example) they did the job and once we were used to the needed level of force to operate them, it was pretty seamless. The screen jutting out of the quilted leather covered dashboard is a little odd but when looking at the layout of the dash as a whole, there wasn’t much in the way of other options to locate it. The sound deadening and insulation in the QX60 is 100% on point with any luxury SUV we have driven over the last several years. You glide down the road in virtual silence except for one particular element, which we’ll get to in a second. The leather wrapped wheel was pleasing and the shifter, a stylized sliding piece, fits the hand well but does feel a little chintzy when pulling the QX60 into gear.

If there is one area where the QX60 kind of tells on itself regarding its far more humble Pathfinder roots, it’s in the engine compartment. The 295hp V6 hooked to a nine speed automatic transmission has decent power but it’s constantly singing to high RPM to make it and as such you end up with more engine noise than other offerings in this class and it’s not of the sonorous rumbly kind, it’s of the screaming Infinity V6 kind, which definitely takes the luxury experience down a notch as compared to competing products. Acceleration is good for a very heavy machine like this. The QX60 can run the quarter mile in 15.2 seconds, the nine speed transmission really helping that program along. It is a thirsty rig as well. This is not to be wholly unexpected with a V6 having to really put in the work to move nearly 5,000lbs along. The QX60 has a 6,000lb towing capacity if hauling your boat to the lake is a buying concern for you.

In the end, this top level QX60 Autograph which for just under $70,000 is by no means inexpensive but when aligned with similarly equipped competition, it looks like a downright bargain. In reality you have about a $10,000 favorable gap to the European competition in this same class. Mercedes and BMW options, as well as some of the Audi offerings would run you $80,000 or more for this level of equipment, options, and driving experience.

The problem Infinity will have is convincing those European shoppers to give this QX60 a look. The Infinity brand does not have the cache or panache of its competition and while virtually everything we experienced in the QX60 was on par with the competition, the engine noise from the V6 may be enough to dissuade more discerning shoppers.

If you are in the market for a luxury SUV we highly recommend driving the QX60 AFTER driving its competition. Perhaps your ears and your wallet will be better aligned once you experience potential sticker shock from its rival models in the category.

The post We Drive It: The 2024 Infinity QX60 Autograph All-Wheel Drive – Can It Hang With It’s European Competitors? appeared first on BangShift.com.

Dodge slid us the keys to a 2024 Dodge Hornet GT Plus Blacktop AWD model painted in Blue Bayou and let us cruise it around for the week. For starters, they have tried their best to maintain a performance image and at least some credibility to back it up. In the case of this Hornet, it had the 268hp engine and all wheel drive, which was snappy around town, but certainly not something that an owner of previous Dodge vehicles would lean on their fender and brag about as they did for so many years prior. The company claims this to be the quickest CUV in its class of sales competition and while that’s likely true, it’s not exactly fodder for scaring guys in the staging lanes at the local drag strip.

Underhood packaging is typically tight as it is in virtually all modern cars and SUVs. Will people eventually tune these little engines for more power? Sure. Is the fact that it is wrapped in the largely bland exterior of yet another semi-egg shaped CUV a detraction on the drivetrain? Perhaps. The engine is hooked to a nine speed automatic transmission that operated with a good degree of smoothness in regular around town driving. Engaging “Sport” mode made the throttle tip in more aggressive, perhaps to the point of annoyance, and also made the transmission hold gears into the little engine’s power band for a more snappy overall driving experience. The 2.0L engine, lastly, is not the most lusty sounding four cylinder out there, so even when the Hornet is at full song, it’s more of a pained scream than a Rebel yell.

Storage space was more than adequate in the rear of the Hornet. At this point, the world has conditioned itself to the CUV class sized vehicle with such frequency that many people now consider this “a lot” of storage space. For a small family it would be more than serviceable for the weekly errands and various chores of life like sports equipment haulage, band instruments, and even a decent amount of luggage for a road trip.

Rear seating room came at a relative premium and our typically oversized back seat riders were not raving about the leg room or the comfort of the actual seat itself. The Hornet in this trim, including the interior and all retails for just over $40,000 and frankly that struck me as high and I’ll get into it here. The materials of this upscale and up-optioned Blacktop edition just didn’t feel like $40,000. They felt like many closer to base model CUVs I have been subjected to over the years in rental fleets and other more workaday environs.

The layout of of the front of the passenger compartment was pleasing and simple. The thick steering wheel was nice and a good holdover from the previous generation of Dodge offerings. The seats were a little more bolstered than I expected, especially in the torso area and as that’s my preference, they get good marks. The screen, while small is proportional to the rest of the dashboard and it’s designed to be some sort of centerpiece of the interior. It all just fits and works together. Does it inspire one to get in and drive with the windows down to enjoy the world around them? No. Would be be an OK place to commute in on the daily? Yes.

The simple center stack was also welcome. A normal shifter, redundant buttons for HVAC controls and the touch element of the screen all performed as they should. Again, exemplary? No but these are the things you interact with most in the car and if they’re bad, the experience is totally shot. These work and in they also have a decently robust feel to them. There are elements of the Hornet that didn’t feel up to the price tag, but this part of the car met our expectations for the MSRP.

The heat extractors on the hood call back to some of the recently passed glory days of Dodge and the overall nose language is as close as they could get it within proportion to the last generation Charger. None of this is a bad thing, but it just strikes any true enthusiast as flimsy, right?

The problem with the Hornet is not that it is a bad CUV. It’s not a bad CUV. It’s a functional CUV that does offer enough horsepower to blow most of the other truly bland and boring ones into the weeds. The problem with the Hornet has nothing to do with the car itself, it has to do with timing and rollout. Following the “Brotherhood of Muscle” generation of Dodges is as thankless and impossible as a task can be in the automotive realm.

The company who’s motto was “Domestic, not domesticated” has been made just that. The rebel spirit was wrung out of them by their European corporate overseers and it’s left us with a sensible little SUV on one side and an aging Durango on the other as the only two things the company has for sale at the moment.

If you are hell bent on buying a CUV, drive the Hornet. But do not drive it first. Drive offerings from GM, Toyota, and Ford first. If you are an enthusiast you may just find enough spark in the Hornet’s DNA to make your commuter car a more fun choice than the others. But be warned, the Hornet is not a member of the Brotherhood of Muscle. Those heady days have long left us. Temper your expectations, walk in with an open mind and if the salesmen is so kind, drop it in sport mode and deck it. It won’t set you back in the seat like a Hellcat but it also will prove to you that there’s still a flicker of Dodge DNA in there somewhere. Hopefully cars like the Hornet tide the brand over to its next performance renaissance, it can’t come soon enough.

The post We Drive It: The 2024 Dodge Hornet GT Plus Blacktop AWD -Brotherhood Of Muscle Where Art Thou? appeared first on BangShift.com.

For these reasons I was excited to get into the Volvo S60 Recharge T8 Ultimate Black Edition. This is a fully blacked out from the factory, 445hp (gas and electric combined), mid-12 second rocket ship that is interestingly tech heavy on some ends but is really a gracefully aging platform in other respects. We’ll get to all that here as we talk about this car, but understand one thing right off the bat. The price of right around $60,000 gets you performance, attitude, and that both stealthy and menacing presence only an all black sedan can derive for a boatload less than a German badge on the front would cost you.

This is a bad ass Swede and I am here for it.

If there is one thing we can say about the Volvo brand and its styling it is that through their whole history they’ve not exactly been risk takers or adventurers when it comes to busting out daring lines. The cars have, at least since the total box era of the 1980s, maintained a shapeliness that is classic and in my opinion ages well. It’s a very difficult exercise to call a Volvo “ugly” from almost any era. When it comes to the large sedan category we can perhaps lay the same claims across the board to companies like BMW and Mercedes. Audi has been the most stylistically forward of the companies in this space in my opinion whereas Volvo has been the most reserved and in both cases it has served the companies well. The S60 is large without feeling slabby, its ends are both blunted and rounded off, and the roofline does sacrifice some sexiness for interior functionality, allowing passenger comfort for even the tallest occupants. The rear plunge begins in the proper place as to not cause taller riders to feel the roof is coming down on top of them at all times.

In my opinion there are very few styles of cars that actually look good blacked out like this. Pickup trucks, SUVs, CUVs, etc never seem to look quite right when it comes to an all black motif. A big, low-slung sedan though? That’s where it’s at. The blackout of the front end makes the Thor’s Hammer style headlights really jump out when you see the nose of the car. The wheel and tire package fits the stance so well there are no large gaps to break up the all black visual and what seems to be a light smoke tint on the windows ties the whole thing together well. I’d not say the car looks intimidating but it does carry a highly enhanced sense of cool far beyond a typical white, beige, or perhaps gunmetal gray look.

Let’s talk about some of the practical stuff. The trunk is massive as you’d expect it to be in a sedan of this size. Any luggage, clubs, boxes, crates, whatever, the S60 will swallow them whole. Also, in the handy stuff to know department, the lift-over angle into the trunk is extremely low, making loading and unloading no problem at all. It’s a trunk, what more can I say?

Let’s move inside. I mentioned at the top of this story that there are elements of this car that are aging gracefully. Volvo interiors are one of those things. They are highly comfortable, they are roomy. As you can see here, leg room for days. You can also see there is headroom a plenty up there. As you know my regular passengers in the rear are both over six feet tall and they enjoyed the room they had to work with in the back of this car. The interior is not going to strike you as modern chic or cutting edge. If that is what you are looking for, the German cars tend to push harder on that. Let’s move to the front and I’ll tell you why I kind of like Volvo’s position here.

If you are looking for loads of whiz-bangery and widgets, buttons upon buttons, touch pads, you have come to the wrong place. If you are looking for what are almost inarguably the most comfortable seats in this class of automobile, an almost elegantly simple dash layout with minimal clutter, and max ease of use, you have arrived in the right place. This dash does look “old” when we compare it to things like Mercedes with incredible LED screens that wrap end to end and other luxury models that almost seem to be running out of ideas to improve their stuff beyond the visual gadgets and gags they can cram into the inside.

I think it is fair to say that sitting in a Volvo about 10 years ago would give you a very similar interactive experience with the screen, the dash, the console, etc. If you have never driven one of these cars or interacted with this dash layout know one thing, the radio/HVAC/media interface is STILL one of the best in the industry and it was when it debuted. Keeping things simple in an evermore complicated world makes you stand out anymore and this, for me, stands out in all the right ways. Usable, simple, and verging on the timeless.

A couple more looks at the operator’s area of the S60.

The real fun of the Volvo S60 Recharge T8 Ultimate Black Edition lives under that big engine cover and there are a couple of hints as to what lends it aid with the orange connectors under there as well. The engine, under that tightly secured cover is a 2.0L four cylinder that is both turbocharged and supercharged. When the engine power and an additional 143 electrical hp are applied, the total output of the S60 Recharge is 455hp and 523 lb-ft of torque. All of this goes through an eight speed automatic transmission and what it all translates to is a 4.3-second 0-60 time and a quarter mile clocking in the mid 12-second range. Out of a Volvo sedan that no one would ever see coming.

The power delivery is relentlessly flat. You hammer the gas and the car just pulls and pulls and pulls. The combo of the turbocharger, supercharger, and electric enhancement means seamless delivery that is enough to put a smile on the face of any gearhead. Handling wise the chassis is tight but not overly so. We’re talking sport tuned but not at all rock hard or jarring. The 19″ wheel and tire package provides nice grip for sported driving and with our typical on-ramp and off-ramp testing the car always felt planted and composed even when we managed to push the rubber to the point of talking back to us.

So in the end, it is always a value question, right? For the $61,000 asking price for this car, you are getting a machine that would run you $80,000 and deliver similar results with a german badge. You are getting a more (in my opinion) unique, interesting, and driver centric car than any of the Asian large sedan offerings which are usually festooned with more gadgets and visual enhancements than is necessary.

This is sleek, this is safe, this is fast, this is a sleeper par excellence and one that you’d likely keep in your family for years to come as Volvo’s vaunted reliability is still among its greatest strengths along with an unassailable safety record.

Loved it.

The post We Drive It: The 2024 Volvo S60 Recharge T8 Ultimate Black Edition – Cutting Edge In Places, Aging Gracefully In Others appeared first on BangShift.com.

Because of the above stated experiences, I did not have the greatest of expectations when it came to cruising around in this Ford Escape ST Line Elite AWD model. Now, my previous experiences in ST badged Fords had all been positive. Their tuning both on the chassis and powertrain side of other models like the Focus ST back in the day, the Edge ST-Line, the Explorer ST, and others were on point and fun. But as I have witnessed first hand from other companies, the “factory tuning” angle can fall off significantly in looks and feeling when it meets a vehicle that falls on the cheaper end of the buying spectrum. My jaded self was expecting that with this Escape.

Well, color me surprised. Instead of all the horror I have previously shared and lamented, I was greeted to a 250hp mated to an 8-speed automatic, a really nice thick steering wheel with actual weight to its operation, a chassis that was shockingly fun to actually push around corners, very solid braking, and and interior that was far, far beyond what most in the class have to offer for the $41,000 asking price.

While this is BangShift and the definition of “fast” around here tends to sway far more to the hardcore side of things, this Escape, for a compact crossover SUV is fast. 6.9-second rated 0-60 time means that at full throttle the little 2.0L EcoBoost engine is making sweet noise and the transmission is making very nice crisp shifts through the first several gears on the way to highway speed. Torque steer was very, very mild, a testament to the torque vectoring and tuning that the Ford engineers have done with the platform. Honestly, within the first half hour of getting into the seat of the Escape ST-Line, both my sons and I were all kind of shocked at the experience we were having.

The interior is lacking in overall coloration as everything is black but the red stitching throughout is a cool and sporting accent to it all. A little more variety in here, especially on what is basically the top trim level would certainly go a long way to breaking it up,  but given the driving experience, if they are trying to sell me on this being a little more “racy”, I suppose I can buy it. As you can see the centrally mounted touch screen is easily accessed and while it kind of just grows out of the dash as opposed to having a clean integration, it was not a deal breaker for me because of its ease of use. Analog buttons are available for HVAC controls, which is always a huge win in our book. Like pretty much everything in every car ever, absolutism is bad. All buttons and no screen? Bad. All screen and no buttons? Bad. Screen and some buttons? Good. Gear selection is made with the Ford dial which you can see on the console here.

The thick steering wheel is great and the first indication you are not in some dud of a little CUV that will feel as though it is sucking your soul as you take it across town. The wheel really made me engage with the ST and do so in a fun way. You WANT to clip and apex with this thing in your hands, you WANT to feel the chassis load and work pulling onto the highway when you have your mitts wrapped around this sucker. It’s part of what makes driving anything fun and thankfully, the ST bring this to the table as well. Digital dash display was clear and easy to read. Of course we dig physical gauges, but we were happy to at least have digital representations of those tucked nicely behind the wheel.

Interior room was on point in the Escape. With two sons that are both over six feet tall and one over six foot five, we learn very quickly what they fit in and what they do not. They both were in here with little to no complaint. I do think that the larger of the two would not be his most comfortable on a long road trip but I do not count that as a strike on the Escape but we have often found less interior leg space in other vehicles in this same class of competition. The sporty and interesting stitching carried over to the rear seats for a nicely finished look.

Of course utility is part of the game here and the storage space area in the Escape is seemingly large enough to do anything you’d normally do with a car. Of course dropping the rear seats expands that by more than double, but even with the seats up, this thing is plenty right sized for groceries, light runs to the local home improvement store, and whatever “normal” stuff happens on a week to week basis. If you need to haul six kids and also move gravel, tow an excavator, and provide camping for two in the back, this ain’t it, but if you are a “regular” family or owner without needs that aren’t extraordinary with frequency there’s plenty to work with here.

Here’s the real star of the show and his buddy. I’m talking about the ripper of a little 2.0L EcoBoost engine that makes 250hp and is mated to an 8-speed transmission that is down there somewhere, I promise. THIS is what makes the ST actually legit on the side of this Escape. You can roll your eyes all you want about calling a CUV a “performance” CUV but when you drive many of them, as I do, and one like this comes along, it’s a revelation. The Escapr ST is to this class of SUV what the Shelby GLH was to the small cars of the 1980s. It takes something staid and plain and makes it memorable and fun.

In closing, I didn’t just enjoy the Ford Escape ST-Line Elite AWD, it has landed on my short list of cars to consider for the next Lohnes family wheels. The driving experience is that good, the value at $41,000 list price is that good, and frankly I have not driven another car in this class that has made me do anything other than seek a quick way out of it or search in vain for some redeeming quality to espouse.

Ford has done a fine job in making a practical, fun, and fast transportation vehicle here. It can be as docile as you want it to be, it can be highly economical but consider this. You can take this thing to the drag strip and in the right conditions, it will run high 14-second elapsed times all night. With a small bit of tuning? This little monster can be in the 13s and it would be perhaps the coolest sleeper in the world at that point.

It’s a tight package and its loads of fun. Two thumbs up.

The post We Drive It: The Ford Escape ST Line Elite AWD – A Surprisingly Fun, Tightly Wrapped Package appeared first on BangShift.com.

For starters the sticker price on this 603hp, Emerald Green Metallic, loaded with options beast is $155,200. Before you slam your fist down in indignation understand that right now you can walk onto the lot of a Ford, Ram, or Chevrolet/GMC dealer and option a three-quarter or one ton pickup truck into the same financial zip code as this GLS63 AMG SUV. An F-450 Limited STARTS at $104,000. That’s still a long way from $155,200 but with dealer markup and additional options you can push it sky-high. So, if the money is your biggest take away here, you’ve missed the point. In 2023 Mercedes sold 8,989 EQS electric SUVs for the year. In the 4th quarter ALONE of 2023 they sold 7,552 GLS SUVs and while not all of them were packing the AMG greatness this one is, it tells a very clear story about what people want and what they are willing to pay to get it.

While we’ll touch on all aspects of the driving experience, we have to start with the drivetrain. Like all AMG models, the GLS gets a hand crafted engine. This one is a 4.0L V8 with twin turbos sitting in what would normally be the valley between the cylinder heads. The beast also has a hybrid assist mode which creates an overall package of 603hp and 627 lb-ft of torque. This is backed by a nine speed transmission and the power heads to all four corners with the trusty Mercedes 4Matic all wheel drive system doing the torque vectoring and management.

Call us all the names you want, but hitting the button to effectively open up the active exhaust, setting the transmission in sport mode, leaving the suspension in comfort and then hitting the streets is more fun than it should be. Coming in at just a shade over 6,000lbs, you experience the robustness of the construction of the GLS in a couple of ways. Firstly, it does not, nor should it feel like a Porsche 911. You’re aware, while driving, that the vehicle is large and heavy. It rolls along with confidence, never feels top heavy or like you are in a truck but it’s also no going to deceive you into thinking you’re going to hang with a Z06 around the bends.

The amount of sound proofing and noise reduction in the cab is just amazing and it lends a very powerful air to the entire GLS AMG experience. Other than the very nice rumble of the 4.0L V8, you do not get road noise, wind noise, or even passenger noise if you’re doing a proper job with the radio. Simply put, it feels like $155,200 as you’re rolling along. The one thing our knuckle dragging selves would like? More exhaust noise in the cab when the pipes are opened up in sport mode. Rolling the window down gives you the really beautiful residual note from the tailpipes but a few more dB in the cabin would be welcomed.

As far as exterior impressions, styling, and overall looks? The Emerald Green Metallic paint was very interesting. It is so dark that it fooled the majority of people initially into thinking it was black. Even in these photos, it’s sometimes hard to discern the exact color tone. It’s our opinion that if it is wearing an AMG badge, it should be a dark color. The AMG badge tells a story in an unto itself and the fact that the car which wears it has power for days and more capability than 99.99% of owners will ever tap into. A good dark, deep color choice backs that AMG badge and lineage up well in our estimation.

Mercedes is obviously a conservative company, generally speaking, when it comes to styling and the GLS is no different. This is what their buyers want. It is refined, it is muscular, and it’s not going to make the neighbors come running to the windows for its looks, but they may come peeking out when they hear the exhaust rumble by. There are plenty of big dollar SUVs out there with more dramatic styling, but for us? We like the classic refinement of the M-B approach.

The most expensive option on the whole rig are the wheels. The 23″ AMG monobloc forged rollers in matte black will run you $5,650 on their own. That’s a wild spend for wheels that didn’t really do a whole lot for us looks-wise. The darkness of the green paint matched with the matte wheels isn’t our favorite look. These wheels in a more argent color, maybe even polished up chrome, would really serves as some visual pop. The overriding darkness of the whole package wasn’t our favorite.

As this is a three-row SUV there’s room for days in the cabin. As you can see here, with the third row up (it is electronically controlled) rear space is still generous for whatever hauling you’d need to do. Whether that is food, small furniture, sporting equipment, you name it, it will fit. With the third row down, you can really employ the U (utility) in the SUV title. While we have to guess that a vehicle like this would typically not be used for any sort of actual taxing work, there’s ample room to move your kid into college or transport your vintage magazine collection to the local historical society if you’d need to.

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The interior is what is going to make or break a buyer’s experience with this level of purchase, right? If it does not FEEL like the money you are spending, chances are you’ll be seeking another option. From the materials to the layout, to the fact that the GLS has a scent injector in the HVAC system, the stops are out in the effort to make the driver and passengers understand that they’re cruising in style. The seats, both front and rear are very good and the Bahia Brown and Black exclusive Nappa Leather not only look classy and timeless, but the quality shines as well. The rear HVAC controls are easily reachable and the fact that the second row is a pair of captain’s chairs gives everyone ample room to get comfortable and adjust their seating position to the most suitable for their frame. We do have one bone to pick with the interior, though.

The steering wheel is ridiculous. There are more than 20 different buttons and functions, many redundant, built into or onto the steering wheel. There are the paddle shifters, there are small LED screens which are also dials to select drive modes (Sport + shown here) and the stop/start function as well as setting up the active exhaust. There’s radio buttons, home screen buttons, telephone buttons, cruise control, a button with a star on it that we never figured out, and the list goes on.

For a machine that is so refined and beautiful in its simplicity in every other way, the steering wheel is bizarre. If this thing were sitting in a dedicated sports car or high performance sedan designed to be fine tuned in its driving experience it would still likely be a mild annoyance but more sensible. In this thing? It’s just ludicrous and speaks to that need to make it “feel” like the buyer is getting every penny of their $155,200 back in some form.

On the plus side, we give props to the fact that the GLS AMG has a truly beautiful digital display screen that flows its way across the dash as well as tactile and easily used buttons for HVAC and other basic functions on the dash. Touch screens are not our favorite around here and while we understand many people do like them, giving the option of being able to hit a switch or physicl button is 100% better than having only the distracting touch screen to poke at. Outside of the clown car steering wheel, the interior is simple, classy, and refined.

Final impressions? The 2024 Mercedes-Benz GLS63 AMG is the most refined hot rod of an SUV we’ve ever driven, and we’ve driven many of them. It’s just loud enough, it’s just big enough, it’s just heavy enough, and it’s just brutally fast enough to make it a very fun machine to drive around. The fuel economy? The way we drove it we were able to get about 14-16mpg around town and with very little highway driving it was about 20 mph on flat ground and that dropped rapidly through the hills.

This is absolutely one of those automotive exploits that exists purely because there’s enough people in this country who want the size, the prestige, the horsepower, the speed, and the sound of a rig like this. Mercedes-Benz does not need to build this so much as no one needs to buy it, but isn’t it the most glorious thing that they do and that people cannot shovel their money out fast enough to get their hands on one?

The EVs we spoke about at the beginning of this piece will ever have the type of cache a machine like the GLS63 AMG has. Mercedes even seems to realize this, like every other manufacturer does at this point. Sure they may be faster, they may be packed with more tech than a spacecraft, but they do not strike at the hearts and minds of the general population like a rumbling, snarling, large, imposing looking battle wagon like this does. Depressing a rheostat to the floor and whizzing ahead of a guy in a Challenger R/T is one thing, opening up the exhaust in this monster and coming out of the hole at full wail and beating the same guy to the next stoplight is not just better with your exhaust bellowing into his grill, it’s worth about $155,200.

The post Heavy, Haughty, and Downright Hilarious: Driving The 2024 Mercedes-Benz GLS63 AMG – The Cure For The Common EV appeared first on BangShift.com.

In 1990 Audi decided to appeal to a larger audience with the all-wheel-drive technology and developed the Coupe Quattro. This was a naturally aspirated five banger engine with four valves per cylinder, five cylinders, and a little more than 160hp. While down on power to its bigger brothers, that would be cool, right? Believe it or not, the conservative MotorWeek staff was begging for more engine in this car and that’s interesting to us. To make 0-60 in 8.7 seconds ain’t bad. Nor is the 16.8-second quarter mile, but they wanted more and we probably would have wanted more as well.

Audi had its issues in the 1980s and 1990s but we’ve always been a fan. The quirky nature of their cars back then and the fact that diehard fans of the brand always defend it to the death make this a car we want to drive.

Press play below to see this cool vintage MotorWeek road test on the 1990 Audi –

The post Not So Hot Hatch: The 1990 Audi Coupe Quattro Delivers The Grip And Apparently Not Enough Rip appeared first on BangShift.com.

The engines in the S4 have evolved and changed over the years. This particular car was powered by a turbocharged inline five that was rated at 227hp and 258 lb-ft of torque. The four-valve engine was basically a streetable version of the rally engine that Audi engineers had been tweaking on for years.

The styling of the car is  boring as boring gets and maybe that’s why I think this 1992 version is cool and very German. No one cared a lick what visual pop it had because they knew the performance and mechanical pop was where people had their hearts set and boy were they right.

Check Out This MotorWeek Review Of The 1992 Audi S4 – A very 90s hustler

The post New In ’92: Check Out This Review Of The 1992 Audi S4 – A Performance Sedan A Cool Sleeper appeared first on BangShift.com.

We remember laughing at these cars in the 1990s and early 2000s when they were no longer “cool” and their market value had cratered. Like the C4 Corvette it did battle with, the 928 has aged pretty well and the market for them is once again swelling as schmucks like us who grew up in the 1980s try to recapture some part of our youthful love of cars.

This is a pretty comprehensive review and it definitely got us thinking about the good old days of the late 1980s and how excited we would get to spot one of these suckers on the street. They were flashy, expensive, and yes, the “other” 5.0 of the ’80s.

Press play below to see this 1987 Motorweek review of the Porsche 928S4 –

The post The Other 1980s 5.0: This Look Back At The 316hp 1987 Porsche 928S4 Is Pretty Cool appeared first on BangShift.com.

A collaboration between said Rover group and Honda is what birthed the car with Honda handling the drivetrain development and planning and Rover handling the chassis, the body, and the interior. English luxury with Japanese reliability   would make an awesome pairing for buyers! The problem is that no one cared. Oh, and there were better cars.

The cars were only sold for three years with the bulk of their 35,000 total unit sales happening the first year and then tailing off into nothingness pretty rapidly after the 1987 Stock Market crash and other factors simply crushed the car market. They were not an easy sell when times were good. When times were bad? The few buyers out there were not willing to take a chance on such a large investment. Especially on a car company they had never heard of.

They were kind of odd, kind of weird, and kind of good. Check out the review.

Press play below to see this awesome review of the 1987 Sterling 825 SL sedan –

The post Forgotten Failure: When Is The Last Time You Saw Or Thought About A Sterling 825 SL?! appeared first on BangShift.com.