Nissan Altima 2015

2016 Mazda 6 2.5L Manual

Stick-shift bliss in Mazda's revised mid-size sedan. 

A 10Best Cars and comparison-test winner, the Mazda 6 is our pick of the current mid-size sedan litter. It’s a solidly built, well-executed, and fun-to-drive vehicle that delivers a level of satisfaction well beyond what’s expected in a family sedan. The car recently was refreshed for 2016, and while Mazda wisely kept the updates to a minimum, the 6 is nonetheless even more enjoyable. Plus, thankfully, Mazda didn’t axe the sweet six-speed manual transmission installed in our subject for this review.

Inner Peace

We previously evaluated the Mazda’s midcycle changes in a test of an automatic-only 2016 Grand Touring model. Although the various nips and tucks made to the shapely body are barely noticeable, the changes inside are significant. A resculpted dash with a slimmer center stack and console brings the 6’s cabin in line with other Mazdas, such as the compact Mazda 3 and the CX-5 crossover, as does the seven-inch, tabletlike color screen mounted high on the dash. The functions on the display can be operated both via touch and by using Mazda’s central control knob that sits neatly on the console next to the new electronic parking brake. 

The overall aesthetic is more contemporary and easier on the eyes than before, and it comes with the added benefit of improved usability. Even in the mid-grade Touring model—the toniest version offered with the stick shift—the 6 feels a cut above its competitors in terms of interior haptics and fit and finish. Although the GT exceeds 30 grand, the manual Sport version starts at $22,315 and the manual Touring at $24,765. (Mazda’s six-speed automatic costs an additional $1050 or $1500, depending on trim level.) The manual Touring version we drove for this review stickered at $25,265 with a few minor extras; standard equipment included 19-inch wheels with all-season rubber, proximity key, sport seats with leatherette upholstery, dual-zone automatic climate control, blind-spot and rear-cross-traffic alerts, and more.

A Willing Playmate

The highlight here, though, is the manual gearbox, which lends the 6 an extra sense of playfulness with its well-placed pedals and excellent shifter. Heel-and-toe downshifts are encouraged, and the 6 definitely emerged from the same gene pool as the MX-5 Miata. Regardless of transmission, all 6s pack the same Skyactiv 2.5-liter four-cylinder producing 184 horsepower and 185 lb-ft of torque, which is merely adequate in terms of output. At least it allows the manual 6 a respectable EPA city/highway rating of 25/37 mpg. 

We weren’t able to test this particular Touring model, but a handy set of scales revealed it to be 170 pounds lighter than the 2016 GT with the automatic and roughly 70 pounds heavier than the last manual car we evaluated, a 2014 Sport. That Mazda reached 60 mph in 7.9 seconds and covered the quarter-mile in 16.1 at 90 mph. It also could stop from 70 mph in 172 feet and stuck to the skidpad with a respectable 0.87 g of lateral grip. Expect those numbers to basically hold for this newer version.

While the stick offers the extra measure of driver involvement we cherish, even with the automatic, the 6 is still fun and has the same high-quality cabin. Mazda smartly programmed the six-speed automatic to be both efficient in casual driving and engaging on a back road with its Sport setting activated. There’s basically no way to go wrong with the 6, which is exactly why we keep giving it awards. 

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Miami Heat: 2015 Porsche 918 Spyder vs. 1989 Porsche 959 

Two generations of Porsche hypercars prove to be fine drugs of choice for this or any other era. 

When we arrived at the former den of debauchery, we found a young woman standing out front wearing only a bright-red, high-cut one-piece bathing suit out of which swelled a positively unnatural volume of cocoa-hued breast and butt flesh. She wasn’t there for the entertainment of a couple of stout, Northern white boys and a fast-talking Brit, all wilting from the heat and atmospheric moisture. In fact, as far as we could tell, the only reason she was at the Mutiny Hotel—once home to one of the Miami area’s most notorious members-only nightclubs, a hangout for drug lords and druggies and dancing queens of the late 1970s and early ’80s—was to pose in front of a small stand of tropical foliage near the hotel’s driveway. Judging by the hat and T-shirt of the man taking her picture, this was a shoot for Hooters, that famed purveyor of chicken wings and poor taste.

Otherwise, the outside of the once-infamous Mutiny, which served as the inspiration for the Babylon Club in the Brian De Palma version of Scarface, looked like any other boutique hotel, attended by one or two languid valets. The Mutiny’s logo, a stencil of a pirate’s head, is the only thing that remains the same from the roaring early ’80s. The hotel no longer has rooms with ornate themed décor (the Egyptian room!). There are no more in-room Jacuzzis. There are no more mirrors above the beds. There’s no club at all anymore, just a Thai restaurant in the lobby. The only flashy cars out front tonight will be the two supercars we’ve brought. 

Times have clearly changed since the freewheeling whiteout of Reagan-era Miami, and so have the playthings of the fabulously wealthy. In fact, though we’ve brought a supercar from the 1980s, a low-mileage silver 1987 Porsche 959, it would never have been the ride of a cocaine-dealing villain on Miami Vice. This car—nay, this Godhead of hypercars—was never officially sold in the United States. But it was a seismic event in the world of high-performance automobiles, certainly for a teenager in Detroit.

To me, the 959 might as well have been reverse-engineered from spacecraft. It was the vehicular equivalent of the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane. Packed in its skin of aluminum and plastic reinforced with Kevlar (the stuff used in bulletproof vests!) was a sequentially turbocharged flat-six engine with liquid-cooled heads and air-cooled cylinders making a then-stunning 444 horsepower, more than double what a regular 911 of that era made. And unlike the Ferrari of the time, that bloodstained wedge called the F40, the Porsche carried four-wheel drive. Not just any old four-wheel drive, but programmable, adjustable four-wheel drive able to move power fore and aft. It was basically beyond comprehension that a driver could tell the car the atmospheric conditions in which he was driving and the car would then tailor the four-wheel-drive system to suit those conditions. This surely took more than a Commodore 64’s worth of computing power to accomplish. The 959 had adjustable ride height and three-way adjustable dampers, either of which could be selected by way of rotary switches on the center console. It had six forward gears. Porsche referred to the low first gear as “G” for Gelände, or terrain. Its magnesium wheel spokes were hollow, forming an air cavity with the tires, each carrying tire-pressure monitors that could tell if a tire had gone down or even if a wheel was cracked. And the car could run at a moderate speed on a flat thanks to the Denloc system, which kept the tire on the wheel even with minimal air pressure. The car could drive on a flat tire, people! 

That the 959 looked like a 911 caught midway through transmogrifying into a race car made it all the more appealing. This was better living through technology. The 959 promised that an almost-normal-looking car could be faster than a Lamborghini Countach. In all ways save for its styling, the car was prophetic. It was a blueprint not just for Porsche, which would soon use engines with two turbochargers, electronically controlled adaptive dampers, four-wheel drive, and hollow-spoke wheels on its less rarefied models in the coming decade, but also for the industry as a whole.

Like Miami, Porsche was flush with cash back then, with a pile of profits contributed to by many suddenly rich Miami-area residents. So the company was in the mood to spend lavishly. According to Karl Ludvigsen’s landmark book, Excellence was Expected, Porsche’s net profit for the 1983–84 financial year was $28.9 million. The next year, it was up to $51.8 million. In the end, according to Porsche advisory board member Ferdinand Piëch, each of the 337 959s, including prototypes and preproduction units, cost the company $720,000 to build. This for a car that, according to our 1987 road test, carried a $227,000 price tag (in West Germany). 

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Volvo V40 cross country

2015 Volkswagen Golf SportWagen 1.8T TSI Automatic

All we really want from any vehicle is for it to do its job well. It’s a deceptively simple criterion that guides our reviews of everything from burly off-roaders to thrifty subcompacts to ludicrously capable exotics. We’re hard-pressed to think of a vehicle that fulfills its mission better thanVW’s Golf SportWagen—maybe the lunar rover.

The VW is comfortable, looks good, hauls a ton of stuff, is reasonably priced, is one of the best highway cruisers available anywhere, and can more than hold its own if you decide to assault a local back road. On top of all that, it even gets decent fuel economy with the 1.8-liter TSI turbo four tested here. We got 26 mpg over 850 miles of mostly urban commuting, which is only 1 mpg over the EPA city rating—the car is rated at 35 mpg highway—but let’s just say that our driving style won’t win us any plaudits from the friends of John Muir. And if you want better mileage than the TSI engine can offer, VW sells a TDI diesel automatic wagon rated at 31/42 mpg; we managed 38 mpg in a manual-transmission one of those. 

No matter the engine, the Golf SportWagen handles and rides like a premium car, with well-damped suspension motions, tightly controlled body movement, and, with the larger wheel-and-tire package of our SE test model, crisp turn-in response to inputs from the pleasantly weighted steering. As we noted in our test of the regular Golf hatchback with this powertrain, the 1.8T is nicely mannered, with a pleasing sound and enough torque—199 lb-ft—to feel stronger off the line than its 7.8-second zero-to-60-mph time might suggest. The only powertrain demerit is a transmission that can feel out of step with what your right foot is requesting, sometimes struggling to decide on the right gear when pulling away from a stoplight or at lower speeds.

As in every other Golf we’ve tested, the interior quality and design of this wagon tops that of every other compact car save for the Mazda 3. The materials are a class above, the gaps are tight, the gauges highly legible, and the layout of the controls makes finding and operating them easy. The front seats are perfectly contoured for all-day driving, and the rear seat will hold a couple of adults with no complaints. The biggest flaw is a finicky, sometimes slow touch-screen infotainment system that’s frustrating on first use and rises only to tolerable with familiarity. Also, as of this model year, VW still forces buyers to purchase proprietary cables to have USB or iPhone dock or Lightning-cable connectivity. Thankfully, the 2016 model will bring actual USB ports, likely alongside VW’s new MIB II infotainment setup. (And then 2017 may bring support for gesture controls.)

The gas-powered Golf wagon starts at $22,215, but our test vehicle was the $27,815 SE. For the extra $5600, you get the six-speed automatic, 17-inch “Dijon” wheels (spicy!), a panoramic sunroof, rain-sensing wipers, heated washer-fluid nozzles, automatic headlamps, fog lamps, heated front seats with power recline, and proximity entry and start. There’s also a 5.8-inch touch screen for infotainment, a Fender-branded audio system, Bluetooth connectivity, and satellite radio. Our test example was further upgraded with the only two factory options available on the SE: the $995 Lighting package (interior LED ambient lighting, footwell lighting, swiveling bixenon headlamps) and the $695 Driver Assistance package (forward-collision warning and front and rear parking sensors). The total came to $29,505. 

There may be only one way to improve the SportWagen’s usefulness, that being an all-wheel-drive system for all-weather capability. That could yet be added to the regular wagon’s options list soon, but the SportWagen Alltrack—essentially a Subaru Outback–ish version of this vehicle—will pack VW’s 4MOTION all-wheel drive when it arrives next year as a 2017 model.

Thanks to most Americans’ disdain for station wagons—you’re clearly among the enlightened, if you’re reading this review—the population of Affordable Compact Wagonville is one. This car. And it does its job very, very well. 

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