Auto News 5

This summer's auto sales continue at a pretty good clip, but that doesn't mean there's equanimity in the results of the various automakers. The industry's annualized sales rate in July again was over 14 million units. That's not bad, considering that 2011 ended with 12.8 million new vehicles sold. July's pace was also 9% ahead of last year's.

I probably should just come right out and admit that the E63 AMG wagon is my favorite car. So much for objectivity.

It's unusual for Automobile Magazine's New York contingent -- Jamie Kitman and me -- to get first crack at a long-term car, but that's exactly what happened with our new, Four Seasons 2013 Infiniti JX35. It paused in Ann Arbor just long enough for art director Matt Tierney to snap a few pictures before road test editor Chris Nelson hopped in to rendezvous with me, exchanging the JX for the Four Seasons Mazda CX-5. Most of the staff in Ann Arbor didn't even get a look at it before it left.

Almost every three-row SUV on the market has switched from old-fashioned, truck-style body-on-frame construction to more modern, car-like unibody design. The Nissan Pathfinder was one of the holdouts, but the new 2013 model finally switches to a unibody, front-wheel-drive platform. You may recall the Pathfinder launched as a body-on-frame SUV in 1985, became unibody from 1996-2004, and reverted to a body-on-frame vehicle from 2005-2012.