Buick Encore - Seeking Youthful Customers

The Buick Encore is something new for the brand -- a compact crossover, but it is not the first small Buick. Following in the footsteps (wheels?) of the Special from the 1960s, Apollo from the 1970s and Skyhawk from the 1980s, the new small car is a carefully devised strategy to bring down the average age of Buick shoppers from great grandparent levels.

The moniker Encore may be meaningful in that it is part of Buick's attempt at a compact comeback. The name, despite being shared with an ill-fated Renault-based American Motors product from the mid 1980s, also matches well with Enclave, the name of Buick's larger crossover SUV.

The new little Buick is just 168 inches nose to tail, and hits the scales at about 3,200 pounds. It looks stubby, spreading Buick design philosophy on a diminutive canvas. Based on a car made in Korea (from the Daewoo company that GM quietly acquired a number of years ago), it is nothing like any Buick you've seen recently. At least it doesn't resemble a Chevy or a Pontiac, which was a problem for the previous GM compacts that offered a model for each GM division. However, there is a Chevrolet version of this model for sale in Canada, called the Trax. With different styling and equipment, it is not part of the U.S. product portfolio.

The little car kind of grows on you. Powered by a 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine through a six-speed automatic, it exhibits surprising spunkiness on the road, accelerating uphill on freeways and dashing determinedly around crowded city streets. It's only 138 horsepower under the hood, with 148 lb.-ft. of torque, but with the right gearing, you can get off quickly in first and save gas while cruising with a tall sixth gear. All-wheel drive is available.

EPA fuel economy numbers are 25 City, 33 Highway and 28 Combined. I averaged 25.2 mpg. Green numbers are 6 for Smog and 7 for Greenhouse Gas, putting the Encore in the desirable SmartWay category.

The Encore's short length makes parking easier in town, and the high 65-inch stance makes you feel more in control when driving.That's one of the big draws of crossovers -- ride height. Four people will be comfortable in the car, although a center rider in back might not be happy for long.

The other crossover drawing card is carrying capacity, and the little Buick gives you 48 cubic feet of hauling room behind the front seats -- and room for six grocery bags (and my two amplifier bags) behind the second seats when they're up. The second-row rears fold down neatly after you pull up the bottom cushions to provide a nice carpeted load floor. Even the front passenger seat folds, so you can carry that surfboard or ladder. There's lots of storage for small items, too, including two gloveboxes, a small bin to the left of the steering wheel, a console bin, and places in each door.

The styling, inside and out, is definitely aimed at premium buyers, and the materials are actually rather nice. This is a modest vehicle, but the boldly stitched leather steering wheel, carefully fitted metallic accents, attractive yet not overdone gauges, and designer color combinations keep you from feeling like this is some fancied up econo carrier.

One way to make a car feel luxurious is to make it quiet, and Buick specializes in this. Although many Buick owners are likely suffering from natural hearing loss, the younger target market for this vehicle enjoys QuietTuning, which not only keeps noise out but counteracts it with Buick's first application of Bose noise cancelling technology. Microphones in the car detect the wavelength of noise and send the opposite waves to speakers. This is used in headphone techology as well, and seems to work well in the Encore.

Baby Buicks come in the plain but well equipped Encore model, ascending through Convenience, Leather and Premium. My top-level Premium tester, in a handsome Cocoa Silver Metallic, had a Saddle interior with Cocoa accents that mixed warm reds and browns on the seats and doors with matte black in the control areas in a way that seemed well suited to an upscale brand. The wide swaths of plastic artificial wood were easy on the eyes but would seem at home to anyone stepping out of a Buick LeSabre or Electra sedan from days of yore.

As the top-level model, my car had a premium Bose seven-speaker audio system, Rainsense automatic wipers, lane departure warning, and a Forward Collision Warning system. The latter sounded a repeated tone and flashed a message if I appeared to be closing in too fast on a car in front (even if I was driving attentively). One other little warning told me when I left my turn signal on too long; this is surely a Buick feature from the list designed for the elderly, although I did find it useful.

To compete with worthy small crossovers like the hip MINI Countryman, the Encore has lots of electronic goodies, accessible from dash buttons and a seven-inch color display. The home screen's five selections help you zero in on music now playing, navigation, phone, music tone, and other "quick info." It worked pretty well, but the Intellilink, which uses voice commands, didn't always understand me, and phone calls that came in got dropped sometimes.

Of course, there are lots of electronic safety features in this car of today. Blind spot warning is very handy, especially with the fat window pillars, and Stabilitrak keeps the four wheels going where you intend them.

Pricing begins at $24,950 for the Encore and runs up to $28,940 for the Premium. My tester, a front-wheel-drive Premium model with optional chromed 18-inch wheels and navigation system, came to $30,730.

I looked at pricing for the sibling Chevy Trax. If you lived in Canada, using the Canadian dollar (at a .98 exchange rate today), you could take home the Trax LS for $20,000. If you live below the border, though, sorry.

Buick is taking a chance, presenting such a small car to its customers, but the MINI and Fiat brands have pioneered the idea of a premium small hatchback in the U.S., so perhaps the timing is right. I was impressed by the overall comfort and drivability of the little car. Buick's biggest challenge is going to be marketing effectively to the right people to get them to step into a dealership in the first place.

Mazda CX-5 - Part Crossover, Part Sports Car

The CX-5 on a racetrack--nice.

Mazda may be best known for its now iconic Miata two-seater sports car. Fashioned like a highly efficient and reliable version of the British sports cars of the 1950s and 1960s, it has sold almost a  million units since its debut nearly 25 years ago.

What Mazda hasn't done effectively is sell lots of its other cars, despite a good showing from its compact Mazda3. The company now is planning to increase sales in the U.S. through a thorough upgrade of its model line, and the CX-5, along with the all-new midsize Mazda6 sedan, are showing the way.

Why not use the Miata/MX-5 as at least a style inspiration for all your cars? The CX-5, as a compact crossover (SUV), could have gone the way of vehicles such as the popular Ford Escape, Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4. All of these models are new in the last couple of years, as well, and boast up-to-the-minute looks with lots of curves and angles inside and out.

The CX-5, though, goes a more subtle way, using something called Kodo design. Mazda likes to create a theme and spread it over its cars,and Kodo, which is said to mean "Soul in Motion," uses gently rounded surfaces from which edges extend gradually. A sharp line on, say, the hood or the dashboard may resolve into a flat surface. This means that overall the shapes are relaxing and substantial, but have surface interest to keep them from being plain vanilla.

The CX-5 exists at all because Mazda is no longer part of Ford, for whom it contributed its Tribute small crossover, with a slight restyle, as Ford's Escape for years. The current Excape now is based on one of Ford of Europe's models, the Kuga, and is very different from the Mazda design. The CX-5 is, unlike many Japanese brand vehicles sold in the U.S., actually built in Japan.

In any case, this new CX-5 is a crossover with true sport and utility. Based on car, not a truck platform, it sits high, seats five, and will carry nearly 65 cubic feet of cargo with the second seat folded. It's long enough back there to fit an upright bass--without placing the long fingerboard between the front seats. The seats drop with the pull of a handy lever at the tailgate, so you don't have to go around to the side of the car when loading.

The sport part of the proposition is in how the car borrows Miata features such as the three-gauge instrument panel tucked behind the three-spoke steering wheel, the center stack and console, and the handsome, deeply bolstered seats.

You can order up two engines in the CX-5, depending on which level you order. The base car, called the Sport, has the 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine that the car debuted with for 2013. It puts out 155 horsepower and 150 lb-ft. of torque, which is OK but hardly exciting.

With the early 2014 models such as my tester, you can step up to Touring or Grand Touring level and get the 2.5-liter four that also lives under the hood of the brand new Mazda6 sedan. This new engine offers 184 horsepower and 185 lb.-ft. of torque--a big boost--and makes the car feel much more responsive on the road. EPA ratings are 25 City, 32 Highway, 27 Combined. I got 26.2 mpg. Amazingly, the smaller 2.0-liter engine's numbers are nearly identical. The EPA Green Vehicle numbers are 7 for Greenhouse Gas and a mid-range 5 for Smog.

You can't choose your transmission with the upper models--a six-speed automatic is it--but the Sport offers a manual as well, more in the spirit of the Miata/MX-5. You can add all-wheel drive to any CX-5.

I would welcome the chance to sample the Sport with the manual sometime, as it would most approximate the driving experience of the much smaller Miata, which has a slightly more powerful 2.0-liter four under its rakish hood.

My Soul Red Grand Touring tester had the full boat treatment, which included dramatic 19-inch wheels on the outside and perforated leather seats inside, along with a full complement of entertainment and performance features. The audio system had the first Pandora tab I've seen. If my iPhone was set up with it, I would be able to use it in the car.

Mazda is proud if its SkyActiv technology. In brief, the name implies that the company took many steps to make its current engines, transmissions, bodies and chassis as efficient as possible while developing future technologies. This means everything from using more high-tensile steel in the body to a control module to make the automatic transmission more efficient. The CX-5 is the first Mazda to feature the full menu of SkyActive features. See mazdausa.com for more details.

You can add the Tech Package to your CX-5 and get "necessities" such as a navigation system, HID headlamps, and the Smart City Brake Support system, which can stop the car for you in a low-speed emergency faster than you can yourself.

The crossover segment is highly competitive, so Mazda offers the three levels and a range of prices. You can opt for the Sport with front-wheel drive and a manual transmission for $21,990. My Grand Touring tester, with two-wheel drive and the Tech package, came to $30,640. Both prices include shipping.

The compact crossover is today's station wagon for small families, and Mazda is doing its utmost to field a very attractive player. If you like the beauty and refinement of the Kodo design, it could be ideal--and fun.

Ford Escape - A New European Adventure

The Escape - In San Francisco!

The new Ford Escape is a great departure from the original model. There are very good reasons for this, and it's good news for American car buyers.

The original Escape was a junior version of Ford's Explorer, which was hugely popular at the time--and seemed to need a companion for folks who wanted a smaller SUV. The Escape, since it arrived, has competed with models such as Honda's CR-V and Toyota's RAV4.

The original car, though was based on a Mazda platform; Ford sold off its interests in the Japanese brand years ago, so the new Escape is based on the European Ford Kuga, a car that we never had in the U.S. before. Much like the Focus, Fiesta and Fusion, the Escape is now a world car, although the Escapes we get are assembled in Louisville, Kentucky.

The new model couldn't be more different. While the original Escape followed the "two-box" model, with an upright windshield, flat hood, blunt nose, and squared-off cargo hold in back, the new one is much more edgy. It's really the ultimate crossover, with the carlike feel that's popular with buyers today. That means a larger, longer windshield (the new Escape's is like a minivan's), and any hint of truck is banished. The "utility" part remains, with folding rear seats and a rear liftback.

The new Escape is touting its special foot-activated liftback. Although my Deep Impact Blue Metallic tester did not, for some reason, have this feature, it's great for those times when you arrive at your car with your arms full and just want to open the rear hatch.

The inside of the new crossover carries over the European design theme. No surface is plan or simple. The dash and doors are built of angles and interactions, so your eye doesn't settle anywhere easily. The look is interesting, and even exciting. Ford's interiors in recent memory were more likely to be plain and subtle.

As usual, there is a hierarchy of models, from S to SE to SEL to Titanium. The differences are too many to lay out here, but you can get a fairly straightforward family hauler or load it up as a Titanium with pretty much every option imaginable. Ford's website lets you configure the one you want and price it out before visiting a dealership.

My test car was an SE. That meant 17-inch alloy wheels outside, cloth seats inside, and the equipment most crossover buyers would want, including air conditioning with climate control, a sound system that includes satellite radio, remote keyless entry, and all the airbags you could imagine. A couple of modest packages added things like black roof rails with crossbars, and the MyFordTouch system.

MyFordTouch lets you configure what you're looking at on the dash and access your phone and car controls with voice commands. As computer and smart phone users, we expect to be able to customize these items, and you can. You can make hands-free phone calls, change audio programming and adjust the climate control with a flick of a switch on the steering wheel and some clearly enunciated words. With practice, I've gotten the system to work fairly well, but there is a learning curve.

Ford wants the new Escape to be fuel efficient, and offers three four-cylinder engines. The standard one is a carryover 2.5-liter unit that puts out 168 horsepower and 170 lb.-ft. of torque. But the excitement is  around the two EcoBoost powerplants, including a 1.6-liter and a 2.0-liter. The smaller of the two, despite its compactness, beats the 2.5-liter, with 178 horsepower and 184 lb.-ft. of torque. The 2.0-liter unit is the sporty one, with 240 horsepower and 270 lb.-ft. of torque.

My tester had the 1.6-liter under the hood, and it did a decent job or moving the 3,500-lb. car down the road. It was not a rocket going uphill, however. I'd like to see how the 2.0-liter unit would pull. In any case, I averaged 22 miles per gallon, which is not the 26 average that the sticker claims (23 City, 33 Highway). I may have skewed it with too much bumper-to-bumper commuting, but I'd like to do better with such a small engine. Both EcoBoost engines require premium fuel, which adds at least a dime to every gallon you buy.

All Escapes use a six-speed automatic transmission, and all-wheel drive is available. In this application, four-wheel traction is intented as a safety feature and is not really intended for any serious off-roading. Ford makes other vehicles to help you with that.

Like other new Fords, this car drives well, with taut handling, a firm suspension, comfortable, supportive seats, and some feedback to your hands through the wheel of what's going on below. This really is the family wagon of the 21st century, and Ford is surely hoping that this radically different Escape will continue to be a bestseller.

Prices start at $23,295 for an S and move up to $31,195 for the Titanium. My SE, with options and delivery, came to $28,335. All prices include shipping.

Ford, the company that made a fortune on SUVs in the 1990s and early 2000s, has been adapting to a changing marketplace. Expect to see more crossover vehicles like this new Escape and the hybrid C-Max in showrooms and on the road. The EcoBoost engines, which deliver "next-size-up" power with more efficiency, will proliferate. And sharing a platform worldwide will keep costs down. And Fords will not be boring, you can count on that.

Nissan JUKE is Designed for Play

Have you seen a Nissan JUKE in traffic? It's the one with the lights along the tops of the bulging front fenders, tapered tail with lights that look like they came from a late model Volvo station wagon, and in all likelihood a young, smiling driver behind the wheel. The JUKE is designed for fun--and targeted to a generation that doesn't crave muscle car power or the wind in their face like the drivers of those old British sports cars savored.

No, today's youth likes some power and speediness, good handling and, above all, to make some kind of statement. The Juke has that effect on drivers, and I'd like to think, on anyone who sees it next to other cars.

Luckily, the driving experience is not a let down. The little 1.6-liter engine delivers a surprisingly robust surge of energy from its 188 horsepower and 177 lb.-ft. of torque. You can thank the inclusion of direct injection and turbocharging. The power gets to the ground through a manual transmission (if you're lucky) and an advanced torque vectoring all-wheel-drive system. You normally have to spend a small fortune to get this technology.

Now in its third year of production, the JUKE remains much the same as before, but there's a new accessory package called the Midnight Edition. It's available on all 2013 JUKE S, SV and SL models, and features unique 17-inch Black Wheels, a Sapphire Black rear roof spoiler, and Sapphire Black mirror caps.

Not much else new except for three new colors: Atomic Gold, Brilliant Silver and Pearl White.

But what needs to be new? The car already stands out, and not being a high volume vehicle, selling hundreds of thousands a year, it can be given a long lifespan.

Knowing that whatever impression you make with your car purchase, you'll spend most of your time with the car inside it, Nissan's designers have had big fun putting the inside of the Juke together. The console has a motorcycle tank feel to it, with metallic paint, and an instrument panel that resembles a motorcycle's as well. The dash and doors have an organic, convex, puffed up feeling. Surfaces are nicely rendered but not swanky luxurious. That would be the wrong way to go here.

The taut handling, good visability and amusing cockpit made time in the JUKE fun. I especially liked driving my Graphite Blue tester at night, because you can see the glowing lights atop the front corners from behind the wheel. 

The JUKE already gets my vote just by offering a six-speed manual transmission--although, oddly, not on the base S model, which comes with the CVT automatic only. I enjoyed changing gears in my tester, a top-level SL front-wheel-drive model. You can also order up all-wheel drive with it if you feel any urge to take your purchase off road.

The Integrated Control (I-CON) system drive mode selector give you three driving styles. Choose Normal for your regular route, Sport for when you're  feeling frisky and want a more intense feel, and Eco for maximum economy. The system adjusts the throttle, transmission and steering for each driving flavor.

The 3,900-lb JUKE is in that middle to upper middle of the mileage range, with 27 miles per gallon combined per the EPA. The 25 City and 31 Highway could actually be accurate. During my testing I averaged an honest 27.2 mpg. JUKE also carries the PUREDRIVE™ designation. PUREDRIVE is used on models utilizing Nissan's most advanced technologies to promote eco-friendly driving and lower CO2 emissions.

Pricing is reasonable. The base S model starts at just $20,770, including destination charges. The SL with CVT and all-wheel drive sits at the top, at $27,430. My test car hit $26,555, thanks to adding in floormats, a center armrest ($245 seems pricey) and the Sport Package. It adds a roof spoiler and the upgrade to the 17-inch gunmetal gray alloy wheels and a stainless steel exhaust tip.

Is driving supposed to be fun? In the era of the "sporty" SUV, the JUKE offers a great way to stand out (a little) from the herd but still get all the advantages.