Auto News 5

With so much buzz about the Fiesta over the past year and a half, you'd almost forget that the car is actually a typical small hatchback. The engine isn't terribly powerful, although it has a 20-hp advantage over Mazda's mechanically similar Mazda 2. I'm looking forward to sampling the dual-clutch transmission on another Fiesta later this year, but I suspect that the manual transmission will still be the enthusiast's choice for the Fiesta.

If the Mercedes CLS invented the concept of a sedan leaping up one rung on the coolness chart to a "coupe," then it has a new competitor in town: the Audi A7 takes two leaps. Don't say the words out loud, but it's a hatchback station wagon. One that happens to call itself a coupe. That's two steps up the cool ladder from wagon, straight past sedan, and to coupe. Or so says Audi.

A few years ago, we were among the first to get a brand-new BMW 335i on the dynamometer. We don't often dyno cars, but we couldn't resist. Before the first 335i was delivered to a paying customer, the rumor mills were bubbling about the 335i's twin-turbo straight-six being underrated.

The 2010 Dodge Ram Power Wagon Crew Cab definitely performed admirably hauling some of my family of four's belongings from our temporary pad to our new home this weekend. The jacked-up suspension, however, results in an unwieldy load height, so entering the cabin without running boards was a challenge for everyone. I can't imagine owning this truck without adding at least a step bar.