Crossovers & Station Wagons

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2011 Lincoln MKT Review: As Lincoln goes after today’s luxury vehicle buyer, it can’t simply offer big sedans or rely on the Navigator SUV to pull the load. The MKT crossover SUV offers comforts and high tech features galore in a distinctive package to attract luxury crossover intenders.

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2011 Lincoln MKT

2011 Mazda CX-9 Review: Mazda sells a broad range of cars in this country. I recently sampled the diminutive MAZDA2. At the other end of the spectrum lies the brand’s seven-passenger CX-9. A big car and a big success since its debut in 2007, it got some significant styling updates last year and continues in 2011 with minimal revision.

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2011 Mazda CX-9

2011 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport Review: Mitsubishi is well known among the young tuner crowd for its powerful Lancer Evolution high-performance sedan. Years ago, the Eclipse sporty coupe was a hot seller. The company also has marketed various SUVs through the years, notably the Montero. With the Outlander Sport, they are trying to get the best of both worlds, at an affordable price..

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2011 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport

2011 Kia Sorento Review: Kia is a brand on the move. While not quite as meteoric as the rise of its cousin, Hyundai, this Korean company has made the transition from joke to serious contender in less than 10 years. How can you tell? Just look at cars like this, the new 2011 Kia Sorento.

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2011 Kia Sorento

Kia Sportage Review: Back in 1995, when the midsized Explorer was king of the SUVs, Kia introduced its second model, the Sportage, a compact, car-based SUV. It actually preceded to market the vehicles that would come to dominate the segment, like the Toyota RAV4 and Honda CR-V.

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2011 Kia Sportage

Station Wagon Review: Despite a huge drop in gas prices in late 2008, it looks like people have abandoned big SUVs en masse. Major auto manufacturers are hurting, and the U.S. companies are hoping for a Wall Street style bailout from Washington.

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2009 VW Jetta Sportwagen

Crossover Review: A few years ago, my brother Bill called me from his home in Virginia. He and his wife, Debbie, were looking for a new car. They wanted good fuel economy, enough room for a couple of friends or some cargo on occasion, a reasonable price, and rock solid reliability.

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2009 Subaru Forester

Crossover Review: Pontiac's advertising honchos are quick to tell you their company builds excitement. They don't tell you Pontiac also builds boring Toyota knock-offs that are much more effective than Ambien.

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2009 Pontiac Vibe

Crossover Review: The 2009 Nissan Murano looks like its predecessor in many ways, but it has more creases and folds than the original Murano. It's a more modern look, but not necessarily better. Nissan calls the interior a "mobile suite." It's intended to be modern and warm, with ambient lighting and upscale materials.

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2009 Nissan Murano

Crossover Review: The new 2009 Dodge Journey may look like a tough SUV, but it's actually a car-based crossover with a practical interior similar to a minivan. If you need a super-practical ride for your family but don't want to be the target of a thousand soccer-mom jokes, Dodge thinks it has the vehicle for you. It's called the Journey.

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2009 Dodge Journey

CROSSOVER REVIEW: If you’re looking for proof of how far Hyundai has come in the last 20 years, go check out the Veracruz midsize crossover. Hyundai’s goal here is to give you Lexus level accommodations at a Honda price.

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2008 Hyundai Veracruz

CROSSOVER REVIEW: The Rogue, Nissan’s latest foray into the crossover segment, is meant for urban adventures. Even its optional all-wheel-drive system is designed for great cornering on road rather than for climbing over rocks or traversing rugged dirt roads.

2008 Nissan Rogue

Crossover Review: As you probably already know, crossovers are today’s name for what we used to call station wagons - they “cross over” between truck-based SUVs and car like cargo-haulers. Crossovers offer the practicality and higher seating position of an SUV, with the greater comfort and somewhat better fuel economy of a car.

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2008 Taurus X

Crossover Review: Lincoln was created to stand above the other Ford brands. The stunningly classic Mark II of the 1950s turned heads, despite selling in small quantities. The garish late 1950’s Lincolns flaunted their own controversial body panels. The Mark III and its successors were unmistakable. Today Lincoln is at a crossroads, and a crossover may be the future of the brand.

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2007 Lincoln MKX

San Francisco: This is a station wagon on 'roids. The 2007 Dodge Magnum combines a muscular shape with up to 425 horsepower to create one of the wildest grocery-getters on the road.

2007 Dodge Magnum R/T

San Francisco: While the GMC Acadia looks like a traditional SUV, it’s actually a car-based crossover vehicle. The solid unibody construction is rare on such a big vehicle. Plus three rows of roomy seats make the Acadia almost as spacious as a full-size SUV, but thankfully it comes without the sloppy road manners that typically mar vehicles this size.

2007 GMC Arcadia

San Francisco: It holds my bass. That’s only the first of many virtues of the 2007 Suzuki Forenza Wagon. Add to the package a very affordable price, elegant European styling inside and out, and a long list of standard equipment and this wagon is a very nice ride.

2007 Suzuki Forenza Wagon

San Francisco:  Saturn showrooms are bursting with new products, including this week’s feature car, the Outlook. As an eight-passenger crossover SUV, it’s the largest Saturn ever, and an entire new market segment for this rejuvenating GM brand.

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2007 Saturn Outlook

San Francisco: As buyers continue their exodus away from expensive truck-based SUVs, Acura is hoping to cash in by entering the crossover field with a new model, the RDX. This sporty wagon is focused like a laser at the so-called entry premium market, which is expected to grow fivefold in the next few years.

2007 Acura RDX

San Francisco: Not since the hatchback demise of the 70s, the advent of the minivan in the 80s, and don’t forget the current SUV craze, has the wagon been such a popular vehicle of choice for people on the go and for families to get going. If only they made wagons like the Saab 9-5 SportCombi back in the 80s and 90s.

2006 Saab 9-5 SportCombi

San Francisco: The Dodge Magnum combines a muscular shape with up to 425 horsepower to create one of the wildest grocery-getters on the road. Other than an SUV-like ride height, the Magnum's interior laid out like an ordinary sedan. It's practical, comfortable and easy to step in and out of.

2006 Dodge Magnum

San Francisco: Station wagons are slowly coming back into style, perhaps because people don't want to give up the cargo space of their SUV but still want to save money at the gas pump. The Suzuki Forenza Wagon has SUV-like versatility with the price of a compact car.

2006 Suzuki Forenza

San Francisco: Crossover utility vehicles (CUVs) are the rage today. Over the last ten years, sales of car-based vehicles that act like SUVs have boomed from essentially nothing to about 2.5 million units. Subaru has been in the thick of it from the start, with its sturdy, comfortable Outback.

2006 Subaru Forester

San Francisco:  A sharp body on Ford's Freestyle crossover vehicle looks too tall to be a station wagon but too squatty to be an SUV. Just like the rest of the vehicle, the styling is a compromise. The 2006 Freestyle's cabin is laid out like an SUV with three rows of roomy seats, but it has the high-quality materials and construction you'd normally expect in a nice sedan.

2006 Ford's Freestyle

San Francisco:  With gas prices growing, some people are becoming disenchanted with hulking SUVs and are reconsidering the good old fashioned station wagon as family transportation. You can’t buy a Ford Country Squire with fake wood paneling anymore, but there are several compact wagons that perform people and cargo moving duties quite well. The 2005 Suzuki Forenza is one of those.

2005 Forenza Wagon

San Francisco:  Ford Motor Company relies on its broad line of sport utility vehicles to generate profits. The problem is that sales of big SUVS are dropping rapidly, as much from changing consumer tastes as the rising price of gasoline. For 2005 the all-new Freestyle represents Ford’s foray into the crossover market.

2005 Ford Freestyle

San Francisco: Mazda, part of Ford’s global arsenal of brands, has two missions, one overt and the other covert. The overt mission, visible to car shoppers and TV viewers, is to offer excitement and fill niches in the marketplace.

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2005 Mazda6 Sport Wagon

San Francisco: When Chrysler introduced the Pacifica in 2004, it was a fantastic family vehicle with only one problem. Many families couldn't afford it. The Chrysler Pacifica now starts at $24,315 for 2005, more than $5,000 cheaper than last year's base model.

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2005 Chrysler Pacifica

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San Francisco: The new Dodge Magnum is a great station wagon with only one problem: Dodge won't call it a station wagon.  Instead, the marketing geniuses in Detroit demand we call it an Active Hybrid Sport Crossover Utility Something-or-Another Vehicle, but they're not fooling anybody. It's still a station wagon, and a darn good one at that.

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2005 Dodge Magnum RT

San Francisco: In order to expand its product line beyond the 9 3 and 9 5, which is owned by General Motors, Saab is marketing the 2005 9 2x built by Subaru as its entry-level vehicle. GM holds a 20-percent interest in Fuji Heavy Industries, Subaru’s parent. Incidentally, to get an SUV into Saab dealer’s showrooms, soon it will offer the Saab 9 7 that shares its platform with the Chevrolet Trailblazer and GMC Envoy.

2005 Saab 9 2 x

San Francisco: The Pacifica is a great looking vehicle. Don’t just take my word for it. It’s at a dealer near you. Steve Sowinski, the Senior Designer of the Pacifica, calls it the "Handsome Protector." Nice name but it sounds somewhat masculine and Pacifica is a lady, at least it was at the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939-40. Pacifica was an 80-foot statue by sculptor Ralph Stackpole, created as the theme lady for the Exposition.

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2004 Chrysler Pacifica

SAN FRANCISCO:  Car and Driver magazine used to "customize" cars. Not the lead sleds of the ‘50s, no, they built a series of performance cars. Cars like the Blue Max, a road-going version of Mark Donahue’s TransAm Camaro. Cars like the Boss Wagons. One such Boss Wagon was a M-B Turbo Diesel from around one of the gas crunches. Mercedes has the makings of one fine Boss Wagon in its C320 Station Wagon

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2002 Mercedes-Benz C320 Station Wagon

SAN FRANCISCO: Forget about all of today’s lumpy, dumpy Active/Sport/Rugged/Utility "crossover" vehicles. This is a station wagon, baby, and it dares you to have a problem with that. As tautly menacing as Mike Tyson’s fist (and with even more power behind it) the S6 Avant will take your grocery-getter preconceptions and pound them into the pavement.

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2002 Audi S6 Avant Station Wagon

SAN FRANCISCO:  Station wagons are making a comeback as people who never plan to drive off-road see they offer the convenience of a small SUV with better fuel economy as well as handling and riding nicer. They are very popular in Europe where BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, and Saab all build station wagon versions of their excellent sport sedans. Many of these are now offered in the North American market as well. Now, Volkswagen is offering a wagon version of its best selling Jetta.

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2002 VW Jetta Station Wagon

SAN FRANCISCO:  Anyone who’s read my columns regularly knows that I really like Subaru’s. So it should come as no surprise that I was smitten with the new Outback H6-3.0 VDC, even if its name is a mouthful. I’ll try to decode the name for you, at least the new stuff.

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2001 Subaru H6-3.0 VDC

SAN FRANCISCO:  Starting with the original Beetle, Volkswagens have been known for their ability "to go in the snow." Now VW is offering the ultimate snow-going VW, or for that matter, any slippery road condition - the Passat with 4MOTION. 4MOTION is an all-wheel-drive option on Passat sedans and wagons equipped with V6 engines and five-speed automatic transmissions with Triptronic®. This includes the GLS V6 and up-scale GLX V6.

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2000 VW Passat GLX Wagon

SAN FRANCISCO:  Audi's new Avant line (Avant is the Audi word for station wagon) continues to impress consumers as one of the best-built wagons on the market today. The A4 line offers both a powerful Turbo-charged 1.8 liter-4 cylinder and a smooth running 2.8 V6, the latter of which our test vehicle came equipped with. Finished in a deep blue metallic, our A4 Quattro all-wheel drive wagon became a topic of conversation everywhere we took it. Many spoke of the performance and German build characteristics, which are exactly what one expects from the land of Volkswagen-Audi.

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'99 Audi A4 Avant Quattro

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