Yeah, yeah, I know this game came out in November of 2008, and that it’s almost a whole year later, AND that Need For Speed: Shift is coming out in slightly over a month, but I still feel the need to give a commentary on this game. Until I saw the light of games like DiRT, Test Drive Unlimited, and Forza Motorsport 2, I was a big Need For Speed fan.

Need For Speed: Most Wanted was (and still is) one of the greatest “arcadey” racing games ever made (those police chases almost become zombie-horror-survival-esque with their one-versus-infinite feel), so it was natural for EA: Blackbox to try to replicate that feel after two games that didn’t do so well (Carbon and ProStreet). Did they succeed? Read on to find out.

A Failed Attempt?

Indeed. Most Wanted’s concept worked wonders the first time. Carbon was an undeniable flop of a game. ProStreet was a completely different breed of game (a faux-sim, if you will), so it doesn’t count, although EA’s CEO John Riccitiello thinks it’s comparable:

I thought it [Pro Street] was an okay game, in terms of gameplay. It’s not good… …Undercover will be a much better game.

Wrong you are, John, because Undercover is pretty damn poor. I know I enjoyed ProStreet, which I traded in to get Undercover, a lot more. It’s a better game overall, because it’s not trying to be Most Wanted; it’s original. Enough about comparisons between the Need For Speed games… time to talk about Undercover by itself.

The Good

I’m starting with the good so you can see that I just don’t blindly hate this game, and because there is actually a surprising amount of good in this game (just not right stuff, unfortunately). The map, Tri-City, is colossal. It’s got 109 miles of roadway, which only loses to Test Drive Unlimited out of the games I’ve played. The map has more than enough polygons, as to not have the jarring “ride” of TDU, and they manage to make the visuals of a moderately boring desert-combined-with-coastal-town (yeah, I was confused too) quite beautiful with the lighting and shaders the game’s graphics engine employs. Speaking of the graphics, the cars look absolutely amazing as well. The paint shades look excellent and you can definitely and easily distinguish between the finishes available for the paints (see my matte black Veyron as an example, although excuse the poor quality of the image). The attention to detail is also excellent, except when the cars get damaged, in which case the damage looks rather generic and it’s not exact (for instance, swipe the left front quarter panel only and the whole front bumper appears scratched).

Then comes the car list, which I personally think is the best they’ve had in a Need For Speed yet. You’ve got everything from the old Corvette Stingray to the Bugatti Veyron, including a little personal favorite of mine, the Volkswagen R32 (again, see my image below). Europe, Asia, and America are all represented, although the representation from Asia could be a little bit stronger. At least they have the R35 GT-R.

The last good thing about the game I’d like to touch on briefly is the soundtrack. Every Need For Speed has had at least a few good songs on its soundtrack (well, except Carbon maybe), but this one definitely takes the cake. As well as representing very well-known names such as Justice, Nine Inch Nails, and The Whip, Undercover features some interesting and fun tracks from slightly less mainstream bands and artists such as Ladytron, Ojos De Brujo, The Pinker Tones, Mindless Self Indulgence, and The Fashion. I have not yet switched to my own music streaming from my iTunes Library while playing this game, which is something I usually find myself doing fairly quickly with Need For Speed titles. Hell, it’s actually an iPod-worthy soundtrack.

The Bad… Uh-Oh

Oh boy. Here it comes. I actually don’t even know where to start. Factual inaccuracies? Good idea.

And yes, as a disclaimer to possible fanboys, I know this game isn’t a sim, but damn, these errors are truly unforgiveable. Here are a few, NOT ALL, by any means, but a few:

• Possibly a deliberate error, the pricing of cars in this game is ridiculous. A Nissan GT-R is $225k while the Veyron is $325k, and an Audi S5 is $115k.
• It is commonly known fact that the Lamborgini Gallardo LP560-4 and the Audi R8 are very, very closely related and that the Gallardo is the better performing of the two by a considerable margin. Why, then, is the Gallardo less expensive and in a lower performance tier than the R8 in Undercover?
• The Veyron is a tank, weighing in at over 4000 lbs. How can a police-equipped Porsche 911 Turbo (with a very heavily rear-biased weight of 3500 lbs) perform a PIT maneuver on a car with a mid-mounted W16?
• The A.I. in this game can handle a car on the highway at 200 MPH like doing a slalom on foot. No human will ever have such reflex. They also can spin you out with great ease, like the police, but if you try to do the same to them, it’s like hitting a brick wall.

As you can see, this Undercover has absolutely zero regard for physics, and this becomes even more apparent as you progress through the game, unlocking cars that handle better and upgrade parts to increase handling even further. I was at Lime Rock a few weeks ago (yes, I know, I know, a post about that is STILL in order), and I watched as the Acura LMP1 car tore through corners at over 80 miles per hour with complete control. This morning in Undercover, I took a hairpin turn in the Veyron (which, if I may point out, is not a stellar car for insane handling) at 160 miles per hour, flat out, no brakes, nothing, and did it cleanly, too. Seriously, what were they thinking?

It’s clear that they tried to mimic Most Wanted, but they honestly could not have made the game look more like it AND be less like it. The same feeling of “Oh damn, I gotta escape!” is not there during cop chases, the A.I. make the races extremely annoying, and the plot is more or less the equivalent of mixing 2 Fast 2 Furious and The Transporter. No, seriously, that’s actually what they were shooting for:

Undercover, according to Riccitiello, is instead taking cues from action films. “For those of you who ever saw movies like The Transporter – it’s sort of a cult classic among people with a B-movie mentality, which fits me perfectly,” he said.

My Final Verdict

Well, Mr. Riccitiello, The Transporter may be a B-Movie and fits you well, but Undercover is really a D-Game and doesn’t fit me at all. I was hoping so much for a newer, better Most Wanted, and this is the mess I get instead? Really?

For pretending to be Most Wanted, and of course, failing, I give Need For Speed: Undercover an Ignition Unlimited Media Rating of 3/10.

A week ago, I did an unboxing video for the extended battery I got for my Touch Pro. Well, now I’ve got some more new stuff for my phone, and another unboxing video. This time, however, I’ve been using the two items for a couple weeks, so I can also give a “long term test” result on each… after, of course, you watch the unboxing and see what items I’m talking about. The video is after the jump.

The Unboxing Video

A Review Of Each Device

I’ll start with the microSD card, because it’s easier to explain and will take less time: this thing is great. With 8GB of storage (rather than the 2 I had in my old SD Card), I can keep a large amount of music (currently 4.3GB or 575 songs) and still have too much space on there to know what to do with. Plus, because this is the fastest SanDisk card on the market (Class 6, capable of data transfer speeds of 6 MB/s), everything on the card loads instantly, from music to video to programs… and probably anything else you can think of. What makes this all even better, though, is I got this card through Amazon for about twenty bucks, and it came with a USB reader (albeit a tiny one that’s ridiculously difficult to get the microSD out of when you’re finished with it). There really isn’t much more to say about this device, so I’ll move onto the Voyager 855.

Until very recently, HTC was very stubborn about including any port but a proprietary mini-USB on their devices, including my Touch Pro. The phone did come with a ridiculously large adapter which plugs into that mini-USB port and includes two more mini-USB ports, a 2.5mm and a 3.5mm. It’s good to have, but it’s unwieldy as having another whole device in your pocket (not to mention the fact that it plugs into the bottom, making it yet more impractical). I needed a solution to the music issue because I love HTC’s TouchFlo 3D Audio Manager interface. When I remembered the fact that phones now have Bluetooth A2DP and AVRCP (that’s Advanced Audio Distribution Profile and Audio/Video Remote Control Profile), I started searching for a Bluetooth headset. However, most Bluetooth headsets are only one piece, giving one ear’s worth of music, but the stereo solutions were even worse: big, bulky, and expensive. Who knew I’d get the best of both worlds for less than I possibly imagined? The Plantronics Voyager 855 Bluetooth Stereo Headset can convert: you can use only the main Bluetooth earpiece, which has the controls on it, or you can plug in a stereo piece, which has a cable of good length that goes to an earbud for the other ear. The controlling of calls and music is flawless using the controls, and there’s nearly zero latency in pausing, stopping, and switching tracks. Not bad for something done over the air. If I have any criticism, it’s that the sound quality doesn’t really stand up to wired competitors, especially in terms of bass and treble, but it shouldn’t… it’s completely wireless! This thing is phenomenal.

Want These?

So you want one (or both) of these things now, but you’re worried about how much this sort of high-tech stuff costs? Well here’s some good news for you: the SanDisk is $22.56 and the Voyager 855 is $31.49. It’s insane… these two bits of tech can be bought, together, for just north of $50. It’s a steal.

Grand touring is great. I’m taking a short road trip to Lime Rock this weekend, and I promised I’d post some sort of updates regarding my travels and the race… and I’ve just found out how I’m going to do that. Twikini, by Trinket Software, is exactly how I’m going to do that. It’s got everything your normal Twitter client has, mobile or not, but this piece of Windows Mobile software goes many, many steps further. How does this so well integrate into a grand touring experience? Make the jump to find out!

I’ll cut right to the chase… no other Windows Mobile Twitter client, not even those with elaborate, sliding touch menus can stack up to Twikini. Why is that? The answer is in simplicity. Trinket Software designed it to do one thing: to be a Twitter client. Using that approach, they created a stable and reliable tool, and then carefully picked and chose features that would enhance the experience. This is where the grand touring bit of it comes into play: let’s say I find a gorgeous vista overlooking an epic driving road. I can whip out my Touch Pro, use Twikini to write a quick comment about it, attach a picture, and note its GPS location, all in one swift action. I can’t think of an easier way to document a road trip, so that’s what I’ll be doing, without a doubt.

This Windows Mobile app won’t break the bank, either: for less than a fiver, you can have the best WM Twitter client on the market. You can download a trial and buy the software, along with reading further information about it, at Trinket Software’s Twikini site. Enjoy! I know I do.

Here’s a supplementary PocketNow video review of Twikini if you’re still not sold on this phenomenal piece of software.

Well, since this new Ignition Unlimited is here, I thought I’d start off after this beginning-of-summer hiatus with a tech post. In April, I ditched my old Verizon XV6700 for a new Verizon HTC Touch Pro. I love this new phone, but when I got it, I had a few issues with it.

Firstly, Verizon had locked the GPS for use with only their stupid “VZNavigator” program, which is coded in such a way that it looks like it belongs on a “dumb phone” rather than a smartphone like the Touch Pro (which runs an HTC-modified version of Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional). Luckily, Verizon has since unlocked the GPS in a new official ROM update, which I will link to in the bottom of this post after the jump. Rest assured you’ll be seeing a lot more posts that somehow include what I’ve done with this GPS update… The second issue with the phone is that it has less RAM than the competitors. It’s slow sometimes, but I really can’t complain, and nothing can be done about that. Lastly, this phone, being packed to the brim with battery-drinking features, has pretty poor battery life. Luckily, I could do something about that: I bought the official Verizon Wireless extended battery for the Touch Pro. Details and an unboxing video, as well as how to order it are after the jump.

The Unboxing Video

Want One?

It’s not the easiest thing in the world to get ahold of. This is the process I went through: I first called VZW Sales, via the 800-256-4646 number, and they confirmed that the battery was indeed available in my area. I was told to call my local Verizon Wireless store, who told me I had to actually come into the store to order it. I was finally able to order the battery at the Customer Service desk in the store for $49.99. They did ship it via FedEx, though, so if you order one… MAKE SURE to be home when it arrives or else you may be driving 36 miles to pick it up at their depot like I did. Oh well, at least the road the depot was on has one of the single greatest hairpins on a public road in Massachusetts.

Was It Worth It?

Yes. Totally. Even though an increase from 1350 mAh to 1800 mAh doesn’t seem like that much, it is. Let me put it in perspective for you: before, I’d have made a few calls, written a few texts, had the phone check for emails on the hour, and browsed the web a little over the course of the day, and by the time I’d get the phone back to its mini-USB power adapter, it was down to 50%. Now, however, with this new battery, I can do all of that written above and listen to a couple hours of stereo Bluetooth music (how? Oh, you’ll see…) and still have around 60% left by the end of the day. It’s absolutely awesome.

So, in conclusion, if you’ve got a Verizon Wireless Touch Pro and want it to last longer, go for this battery. Seriously. It helps a lot.

Oh, and here’s the ROM update from VZW… this is free and a must-download by all means. Grab it here.

Ignition Unlimited is back in action! As you notice, things are different. A lot different. This post is to describe what I’ve done to the site, what my new direction for it will be, and other plans for the future of the site. I felt like going with a more luxurious feel this time around, to support my grand touring aspirations, so I went with chrome, leather and carbon fiber. Continue into the post for a further description of all my plans and everything else I have to say about this update.

I’ll write briefly about the new theme and layout before I start on the really important stuff. The layout is Jeremie Tisseau’s OneRoom, but heavily modified by me for a more ‘automotive’ feel. When you enlarge images and other stuff? That’s Shadowbox JS. And the header, rotating all those featured articles? That’s Featured Content Gallery. Enjoy those new features as part of the reading experience!

When posting comments (which I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to do… let me know how my posts are!), if you use an email account associated with the Gravatar service, then your avatar will appear instead of the default one. A configured Gravatar is a useful thing to have! I’ve also sorted out and improved all the categories that posts are organized into. All the posts from before this big update can be found under the Legacy category. You’ll also notice that everything related to cars in one way or another has its own category as well. Also, don’t mind any minor areas of the site that don’t appear 100% finished yet… I’m working on it!

But wait a second… isn’t everything on this site related to cars? Well yes, in a way, but not everything I post will be as related as it once was. For instance, I’m going to give more coverage to car-related TV and movies, and also even some technology and music that really doesn’t relate much at all. Why, you ask?

The more I immerse myself in the passion of the automotive world, the more attached I feel myself becoming to one certain aspect of driving, and that is grand touring. I love the idea of using a car to travel long distances, to explore, to just drive for the sake of driving. This summer I plan to go on a few “road trips” of sorts, and I will undoubtedly document those journeys on here. Be ready: this site is taking a different turn. Welcome to the new and improved Ignition Unlimited.

Ah, The Fast And The Furious trilogy quadrilogy: the single biggest butt of jokes in the history of car movies. The first, The Fast And The Furious, was possibly the largest impetus to the rise of ricers; the second, 2 Fast 2 Furious, was a terrible, terrible movie with a dry, boring plot and horrifyingly gross cars; the third, The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift was an interesting spin on things and possibly the best of the bunch (although that’s not really saying much). When I heard there was a fourth one coming, and that it would restore the cast of the original movie, I was wondering if they were attempting to redeem the sorry series with a retry of the original. Despite this, I wasn’t expecting much, as it is still part of the F&F series. Well, this past weekend I went to see Fast And Furious, and it was not exactly what I expected…

My Thoughts

Alright, I’ll go right out with it: I was expecting bad, but this was absolutely horrible. I don’t even know where to start, but I guess I’ll begin with the plot. It seems as if they took the plot from the second movie, nearly exactly, and swapped out some characters, cars, and objectives. Yeah, that’s right, the second movie. The worst one. Needless to say, the acting is horrible, with stellar, over-the-top performances from Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. The minor characters were acted stereotypically and in a way so easy to guess, I had the movie figured out literally twenty minutes in.

The Fast And The Furious series is about street racing, right? Well there’s ONE main race, and it’s unrealistic and packed to the brim with CG and corny drifts. It also featured what would be the coolest navigation system ever – if it existed, and furthermore, didn’t look like something out of Star Wars.

And now, the cars. Oh, this is going to be fun. Well, it’s the second movie all over again: riced imports against old muscle that border on tasteless. I had an admittedly hard time keeping myself from cracking up at a scene I know should have been 100% serious: a certain funeral (I’m giving no spoilers) sees a group of ricers’ racers cars parked along a cemetary road, sporting their oversized wings and wheels. It was almost insulting.

Paul Walker is given the choice of any import on the city’s impound lot to use in his undercover mission, and after filtering through plenty of rice but also legitimately awesome cars such as the Honda S2000 and the new Nissan GT-R, he goes with a cool yet horrifyingly outdated (and overused in this series) Nissan Skyline GT-R R34, only to tune it exactly how he does in the second movie. Boring. Vin Diesel’s got yet more old-school muscle, both a Chevelle SS and the same Charger from the first movie. Boring again. Later in the movie, Diesel and Walker steal a riced 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX STI from the impound lot. That should really please the Subaru fans who saw this.

Ok, ok, there were some good cars as well, but let me make this point: they do NOT, in any way, redeem this movie, especially because most of them are only featured for a few seconds, tops. A black Buick Regal GNX plays a fairly integral part for the first five minutes, then disappears entirely for the rest of the movie. The best part of the movie only lasts for about five seconds, though: a white, rally-tuned Ford Escort Cosworth RS shows itself, light rack and all, at the beginning of some miscellaneous drag race. At the very end of the movie, the audience is slightly rewarded (like I said, nothing redeems the rest of the movie) with seeing Jordana Brewster driving a JDM-spec Honda NSX-R. Finally, there’s some Porsche Cayman which I guess could be considered cool. Overall though, in terms of cars, I was left far short of impressed.

Conclusion

I wanted to give Fast And Furious a chance. I really did. I heard it was the best of the series, and after Tokyo Drift, I was convinced that the people responsible for this movie had what it takes to make a good movie. Sadly, no. The fourth movie in this series is a tremendous failure, bringing back the same things that ruined the second movies. I’ll give this an Ignition Unlimited Media Rating of 3 out of 10. If you haven’t seen it yet, don’t. Wait until DVD to see it, if ever.

Alright, so I’ve looked at the SUVs shown at the 2009 New York International Auto Show, and now it’s time for… everything else. Represented here are examples of speed, sluggishness, beauty, and monstrosity. Lots on the menu here (almost too much?), so shall we begin?

So, What Do We Have Here?

I’m going straight into it with the little footnotes about each… there are quite a few as you will see…

	Hyundai Equus I don’t think there’s anything I’d like to see more than Hyundai unseating Lexus at the head of the flagship sedan table. The Equus is truly a fine piece of work. I hope it comes Stateside!
Bentley Continental Supersports You can run the Bentley W12 off of E85 Ethanol (read: corn) and hit 204 miles per hour? No more rear seating and more carbon fiber instead in the name of saving weight? Yes please.
	Porsche 911 GT3 Doesn’t look to interesting. Looks just like the old one to me. Good thing they bumped up the horses to 435 and the top speed to 194, then. It’s a real sleeper, this one.
Merecedes-Benz E63 AMG A new face, new horsepower figures, and a new top speed of 186 seem to be telling RS6 and M5 drivers to look cautiously into their rear-view mirrors… but by the time they do, this will already be ahead. Nice work, Mercedes.
	Nissan NISMO 370Z I love the 370Z’s design for being closer to the old 280Z than any other more modern Z yet, and this NISMO version keeps that beauty while adding necessary aerodynamic upgrades. Indeed one of my favorites at NYAIS.
Nissan 370Z Roadster Let’s just say I was liking the pictures of the NISMO far, far, far more. The convertible conversion destroys the 370’s beautiful curves and adds weight. Oh, and that color. Bleh.
	Volkswagen Golf GTI Mk VI While it should be called the Mk V.5 because it rides the same chassis and utilizes many of the same underpinnings as the previous GTI, the redesigned interior is cool and I’m curious to see whatever R-Line variant they’re cooking up.
Subaru Legacy One of the world’s most underrated sleepers gets slightly more aggressive. Still keeping with the Subaru tradition of AWD and the famous Boxer-4, this is sure to be a winner.
	Subaru Outback Well, at least we know the Subaru designers were working double-time on the new Legacy.
Mazdaspeed3 I’m beating a dead horse, but it’s still too happy, and the American version seems to get braces of some sort in that big ol’ mouth.
	Scion iQ As usual, Scion takes something (usually neutral or poor in my tastes because it comes from Toyota), and makes it astronomically worse. The paint color is named “radioactive,” which is funny, because when I saw this I realized I’d rather absorb a large quantity of radiation than be caught in the driver’s seat.
Kia Forte Koup Eh, a Kia, it’s going to be bor- wait… what’s this? An attractive design paired with a fun powertrain and a bang-to-buck ratio that outdoes its competition? Wow. Never saw that one coming. Very cool.

And there it is. As usual, some good, some bad, some… interesting.

Let me start off by saying what this is: every Sunday, some car is going to get a bashing. Every car enthusiast has cars they really, really dislike, and this is how I’m going to go about explaining mine: in these weekly posts. So, to start things off, we have the Lexus IS-F.

The high-end compact sport sedan class is highly contested: we’ve got the refined Audi RS4, the crazy Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG, and the take-no-prisoners BMW M3 Sedan. Now there’s a new guy, and not from Germany: this Lexus IS-F. Yeah, it’s fast, but I’d rather drive the lowest base version of any of the competitors before I’d be caught driving the IS-F (think C300 or A4 1.8T). Why? Read on.

F is for FAKE and FAILURE

Why Lexus chose “F” to be the letter denotation for their performance division beats me (yes, I know it’s for the Fuji Speedway or ‘flagship’), and I further lack understanding as to why the literal badge on the car is so huge. It immediately reminds me of scenes from shows or movies in which a student gets back a terrible piece of work from the teacher and it’s marked with a big, glaring “F.” Fitting. Very fitting.

So why does it fail? Well to start, you can’t pass if you cheat, which is what Lexus did with those “quad exhausts.” Fake. They’re not even connected to the actual pipes. While the Mercedes, the Audi, and the BMW have tasteful, refined overall styling, the Lexus is just trying way too hard. It’s like the board responsible for its styling sat down and said, “alright, let’s write down all the words we can think of that relate to performance!”… and the list they came up with consisted of “low. big wheels. widebody. quad exhaust.” …And then they had a child sketch it, and it was built… I wouldn’t be surprised.

And for now the power and drive train. I’ve never driven the thing, but all reviews seem to be unanimous: numb power steering, an over-complicated 8-speed gear box (if someone had said, “hey, why didn’t you put 9 gears in there?”, Lexus may actually have done it), and a big V8, all of which are so poorly sorted together that the car has certain “quirks,” such as breaking traction under hard acceleration in 3rd gear. Guys, it isn’t a Viper… it’s a small sedan. Handling is apparently decent but doesn’t really eclipse any of the competition.

Final Thoughts

Everything else wrong with the IS-F aside, I dislike it for one other major reason. This car wasn’t created with the legacy or passion of the M, RS, or AMG names: it was created to fill a market segment that previously Toyota had no stake in. The easy solution to that for Toyota Lexus was to shove a V8 into the IS, stick some huge badges on it, and say that they’d made a leading performance saloon. Hah, no. Absolutely not. Can it run with the German competition? Yes. Is it as uninspired and cold as a Camry? Pretty damn close. The only difference is horsepower.

Who would do such a thing? This is the horrifying work of A Bathing Ape (BAPE) founder Nigo, who has also destroyed created a pink Bugatti Veyron and a camouflage Rolls Royce Phantom. This time, though, he’s just taken it too far. Way too far. It’s one thing to make a mess out of a modern production car, but to destroy a rare and beautiful creation such as the Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing? Simply sickening. I mean, look at that thing… a car I would die to own, ruined by the crazy tastes of some insane clothing designer. Poor SL.

Yes, I know it’s been modernized by AMG, and I think that’s pretty cool, but they were not responsible for the horrifying exterior styling. It just looks so… degraded in that cheap camouflage scheme. More pictures in the full post.

With the American car industry up in flames (well, save Ford), the New York Auto Show has been really interesting this year. Foreign competitors are showing off some serious new concept and production cars, while the domestic manufacturers are putting in a last ditch effort to defend the homeland. Geneva had some weird stuff, but New York is all business. Make the jump to see what I mean.

Heavy Artillery

You’d think with the current economic situation, SUVs would be in the process of downfall, right? Nope. Day one of the New York Auto Show saw the debut of a bunch of new and interesting sport-utility vehicles from all around the globe. Let’s start with good old America.

Jeep. They’re really common around here, and they don’t stick out at all. Boring. But now, Jeep has done a much-needed full exterior and interior redesign on the Grand Cherokee. This version, due out for the 2011 model year, is built on the same chassis as the Mercedes-Benz ML SUV and features the “Quadra Lift” air suspension system which allows the vehicle to vary height from around 4 inches while parked to over 11 for off-roading fun. Another system, “Selec-Terrain” lets the driver choose traction settings based on the driving surface from five settings. Engine choices are a 3.6L V6 with 280HP or the 5.7L HEMI V8 with 360HP.

What about the styling? Wow. A more sporty profile with great edges and a mean front fascia are an epic improvement over the previous generations. And then there’s the interior. That’s a JEEP? I was skeptical of this thing from looking at those releases they made to the government during stimulus talks, but now I’m convinced that this thing has the potential for great success. It’s clearly the best thing Chrysler’s come up with since… I don’t know… the 300C? Regardless, this is cool, and I hope it isn’t too late.

However, the Europeans are here as well, and they’re well-armed. Here’s what I mean:

	BMW X6 M-Sport I’ve always been an admirer of the X6, and now it’s got the power to match. 555 HP is no joke, and nor is a sub-five second zero-to-sixty in this 5,300-pound “Sports Activity Vehicle.”
Mercedes-Benz ML450 Hybrid Retaining the horsepower of a V8 while upping fuel economy considerably is no easy task, but Mercedes has managed. A combined output of 335 horsepower paired with 24 mpg isn’t too shabby, though I’d still never buy this. Ever.
	Range Rover Sport The X6 M isn’t the only hotshot, insane SUV on the show floor. The new Range Rover Sport is packing 510 horses in the supercharged variant of the V8, and it doesn’t hurt that the thing’s a looker as well.

Close Enough

Acura. They’ve done some really great things with powertrains for this model year, and some even iffier things with styling. I know this post is supposed to be about SUVs, but I really can’t place this new concept by Acura… It seems to be a competitor for the X6, though. Crossover? I guess so. This new car, called the ZDX, is powered by a V6 (the specifications of which are currently unknown) and an apparently all-new six-speed automatic (likewise on the specs). It uses the same SH-AWD system that the new TL does, which is good news, and I’ll be excited to see how they adapt it to the weight of a heavier vehicle. In terms of styling, it’s pretty cool, but I want to see the final production version to make a real judgement.

These are the SUVs that have debuted thus far in New York, and expect a lot more to come relating to the NYIAS in the next few days.