2015 TOYOTA 4RUNNER TRD PRO REVIEW

Toyota's 4Runner TRD Pro is an unstoppable off-road limousine

Comfortable, cool, and effortlessly capable, Toyota’s 4Runner TRD Pro is one of very few SUVs you can drive off the lot and up a mountain the same afternoon

The Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro is a fresh-water fish within a salt-water sea of stilted crossovers. It was built for a specific purpose, and yet it looks so menacing and, bluntly, badass, that it is forced out of its element and onto suburban streets

Yes, the TRD Pro packaging is engineered to handle the roads less traveled, but buyers who scoff at lifted pickup trucks might find the angry-eyed glare and increased ride height of the 4Runner TRD Pro to be a perfect injection of “cool” for around-town errand-running

But that’s not the review you’re about to read. If you want to know how the Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro handles grocery runs and soccer practice commutes, a simple Google search will fulfill your quest. No, I took the Pro to its natural habitat and let it show me why it belongs in the company of some of the most capable from-the-factory rigs you can buy

More than a lift kit

The 2015 Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro packs an impressive list of upgrades for an SUV that is already hugely capable off-road. On board are 17-inch TRD alloy wheels coated in a black finish and wrapped in 31.5-inch Nitto Terra Grappler tires, red Eibach springs, TRD Bilstein shocks with a rear remote reservoir and an additional inch of suspension travel all around, and a TRD aluminum front skid plate. These features complement the 4Runner “Trail” grade’s locking rear differential, automatic traction control system with crawl-assist, multi-terrain selection controls, front and rear ventilated disc brakes, and front and rear stabilizer bars. As for the aesthetics, the 4Runner TRD Pro receives unique badging, black exterior accents, darkened LED taillights, a TRD shift knob and TRD Pro floor mats. For all the above, you’ll have to shell out $41,995, including destination, but as I would discover, the TRD Pro package delivers whatever you ask of it when the road gets rough

In summary, the 4Runner TRD Pro has the hardware to tackle most any terrain

Inside, you’re treated to SofTex heated leather-ish seats, a 6.1-inch (small these days) infotainment screen with Bluetooth calling and audio, two USB ports, an AUX inlet, navigation, a backup camera, and a suite of Toyota in-car apps. In terms of utility, the 4Runner has seating for five, fold-flat rear seats, and 89 cubic feet of available storage. That translates to plenty of room for four large gentlemen and a weekend’s worth of food and camping gear — I was happy to be the test subject for that experiment

Related: Toyota Land Cruiser gets more tech and an eight-speed auto for 2016

On the highway en route to Big Bear Mountain, the Toyota 4Runner TRD was wonderfully comfortable, with a touch of tire drift and hum as is common with oversized rubber. The brake pedal has a somewhat squishy feel, but foot-to-the-floor and the 4Runner TRD Pro comes promptly to a halt. The hydraulic power steering is quick (2.7 turns lock-to-lock) and accurate, with more than enough feedback for on and off-road purposes. No complaints about the seats either – they were supportive, cushioned for long or short hauls, and once the road became rough, they proved their quality

Styling is unquestionably polarizing. My “Super White” 4Runner TRD Pro sported the Storm Trooper look with a face that either haunts or excites. For my part, I felt cool just standing near the truck, and ten feet tall once nestled into the driver’s seat. After so much time spent in sedans, I forget how pleasant it is to look over other vehicles instead of through them, and off-road, you can spot tricky sections of terrain much earlier. Visibility is also excellent, both beyond and around the hood as you navigate rough roads, and over your shoulder as you change lanes on the highway

Has my “livability review” quota been fulfilled yet? Good. Now to the rough stuff

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2015 MINI COOPER S FOUR DOOR REVIEW

The Mini Cooper S is a toy for grownups, and that's a wonderful thing

The Mini Cooper S is a go-kart disguised as a daily driver, with all the fun and impractical implications that come with it

It’s hard to call the Mini Cooper S four-door a car. Sure it looks like a car, with wheels, an engine, and even four(!) seats. The Mini can even do all of the things you might expect a car to do, like transport humans and their various possessions from place to place but calling the Mini a car is missing the point, really. It’s a toy for grownups; and before I am deluged with angry comments, that’s not a bad thing

As with most cars not made by Honda or Toyota, the Mini is about much more than just practicality. The difference is that, where other cars make pretenses that they are practical or dignified, the Mini is all about fun, and remember: this car was made by Germans, so that is really saying something

It’s a me! Mini-Kart

The Mini Cooper S’s power and acceleration figures don’t jump off the page, but that hides some truly sublime qualities

For starters, there is the 2.0-liter turbocharged firecracker under the bonnet. The little four cylinder may push out only a 189 horsepower, but the 207 pound feet of torque in the small Mini feel like they came out of a Dodge Hellcat. Mated to a six-speed automatic, this package will push the Mini Cooper S to sixty in 6.2 seconds

Still, probably the best thing in the Mini’s performance arsenal is the steering. For starters, it is racecar quick, with a mere 2.5 turns to lock. It also has some of the best feedback and loading of any electric power steering systems I have used. The result is that, despite being only marginally smaller than a Golf GTI, the Mini Cooper S feels like a racing go-kart half the VW ‘s size

On back-roads, this makes the Mini more fun than 3.2 barrels of monkeys. The problem is that the Mini just can’t give up on the go-kart impression even on the daily commute. The incredibly stiff suspension and chassis that make the Cooper S take corners flat and level create a bone jarring ride on uneven urban pavement, and the fast steering creates jittery movements and transient responses. In a less-than-practical sports car like the Alfa Romeo 4C, these sorts of flaws would just be a cost of doing business, but in a fashionable city runabout, the sporting character seems frankly a bit extreme

All about that Bass

The interior and styling of the Mini Cooper are as extreme as its driving characteristics. Short of cars made by insane companies like Pagani, the Mini Cooper has just about the most styled interior you can find. There is the standard collection of retro touches, including round gauges and the massive round infotainment cluster, and more toggle switches than you can shake a vintage stick at

There is more than just kitsch to the interior. The designers, seem to have a 1958-inspired mentality when it comes ot the interior LED lighting. Everything in the inside has lights on it – the door sills, the infotainment screen bezel, the footwell – everything. In fact, the interior of the cabin is so bright as to be a hassle during night driving. I found my night vision was instantly cooked if I looked away from the windshield

Still, I can’t say that I dislike the interior. Its aggressive styling may be a turnoff for some, but for a car that is made or broken on how it looks and feels, the cabin had to be extreme. Fortunately, unlike some other extreme vehicles the Mini Cooper’s interior is at least made of quality materials and very well put together

A fact that is highlighted by the earth trembling, bone pulverizing, car alarm activating stereo. The epic Meridian-sourced stereo may be capable of setting off more seismographs than a stadium full of drunk Seahawks fans, but the interior holds up without so much as a rattle or squeak

Don’t think that this means that you will be able to share your massive speakers with more than one of your friends, because any adult with a complete set of limbs will never manage to squeeze in the back seat

No Comparison

Those crowded back seats bring me back to my original point, namely that the Mini Cooper, even in its four door guise isn’t really a car. After all, it is tempting to compare the Mini to something like a Golf GTI and wonder why you are getting less car for significantly more money

This kind of comparison isn’t fair, because the Golf GTI wants to be a car, and the Mini wants to be a fashion item. After all, a reusable grocery bag is larger and more durable than Coach handbag, but we all understand why the handbag costs more.
Like that handbag, the Mini nominally has a practical purpose, but really the reason to buy it is that almost entirely divorced from it. This might limit the people who would consider buying a Mini, but the people who will are going to appreciate every last LED light and vintage line. Looking at it that way, it’s almost a good deal

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2015 RANGE ROVER SPORT SUPERCHARGED REVIEW

Range Rover's voracious Supercharged Sport is like a towering, 7-seat supercar

The supercharged Range Rover Sport is one of the top dogs in the fight for sport SUV superiority, with stunning sports-car handling and staggering off-road capabilities

“Well, now we’re in trouble,” I thought as the Range Rover Sport slid backwards down a sand dune, inconveniently littered with pine trees. It looked like the kind folks at Land Rover had made a terrible mistake sending me out to the dunes of Sand Lake, Oregon

Even their thoughtful inclusion of a hardened, off-road driving instructor was not enough to get us out of the predicament — this expert’s best efforts to un-beach the car from where I had gotten it stuck were of no avail. We stepped out of the vehicle to find the Sport buried to its skid plates in sand, perilously close to sliding its flawless paint into a tree. I thought that I had finally found something this heretofore impeccable vehicle couldn’t do

I won’t leave you in suspense: We didn’t die of starvation in the sand, and we weren’t eaten by marauding ATV riders (in fact some stopped to help). That is because, despite the grim situation, I was very wrong about the Range Rover Sport — it can do anything

Does it all

It took some digging and airing down of the conspicuously out of place street performance tires, but in a surprisingly short amount of time, the Sport and its insane 510-horsepower powerplant were soon howling up the 30-degree slope with a vengeance. This experience was simply a repeat of my entire week with the Range Rover Sport: Every time I thought I had finally showed it up, it struck back

On the sand, that meant I found myself doing massive powerslides in a $90,000 luxury SUV that most customers will use to get from the local Whole Foods to soccer practice. The sensation of looking back and seeing a massive, 50-foot long rooster tail of sand — and an army of stunned onlookers — was enough to leave me giddy. And that was before I even mention the noise

The 5.0-liter supercharged V8 lurking beneath the Range Rover’s hood howls like a T.rex on meth. Slapping down the throttle out on the sand creates a choking torrent of noise so loud that the world seems to be coming to an end

It isn’t all powerslides and high-speed shenanigans, either. Despite the eventual mess I would get the car in, the Sport has the ability to master just about any terrain. The driver interacts with the off-roading tech through the Terrain Response system, a knob that rises out of the center console. This can be set to specific types of terrain such as mud, snow, or sand, each depicted with its own inscrutable pictogram. The lazy and incompetent (such as yours truly) can always leave the system in auto, allowing the onboard systems to dictate settings for the diff, traction control, and suspension

The result of this system is that there are very few circumstances in which the Range Rover Sport can’t move its wheels. The limiting factors are tires and skill. My press demonstrator was fitted with Continentals that were excellent for the on-road performance, but struggled in sand. I found this out when I ground to a halt and then began back sliding on a steep dune. I got the Rover Sport stopped and switched places with the Land Rover instructor, only to find that we couldn’t move forward — and backwards was going to be dicey. In the end, we found ourselves buried to the axles in sand, with the tail end of the rig perilously close to a drop off and a very hard looking tree

I was convinced we were in for it then, and in most vehicles we would have been. But in fact, once we dug away some sand with the help of a few friendly ATV riders and aired the tires down to the point they were resting on their sidewalls, the mighty Range Rover roared away up the slope

This was an impressive feat, but where the mighty Sport truly surprises is on the road

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2015 MCLAREN 650S SPIDER REVIE

The McLaren 650S Spider does absolutely everything well. This technological masterpiece will go from 0-62 MPH in 3 seconds flat, and a top speed of 204 MPH will have anyone in the passenger seat shrieking in delight (or maybe panic). On the road, the 650S turns and stops better than just about anything else, and no matter where you park it you’ll draw a crowd of earnest admirers

You want this car. Obviously. The only question is, do you want it bad enough to lay down one-third-of-a-million bucks for it, compared to everything else on the market

Power and performance

The 650S is the latest supercar from McLaren Automotive. The 650 stands for the car’s Pferdestärke rating (roughly equivalent to horsepower), the S is for Sport, and the McLaren means Magnificent. Like past offerings from the exotic car company, the 650S is a pure supercar where price is no object and performance is paramount

Digging right in where it counts, the 650S is powered by McLaren’s own 3.8-liter twin-turbo V8 engine, designated the M838T. The engine weighs just 438 pounds owing to its all-aluminum construction, and features a dry sump oiling system commonly found on racing cars. The engine also gets the usual array of nifty features including new development work on the heads, pistons, valve timing, and so on

Most of the engine work, but not all of it, is designed to bring more power to the car throughout the engine’s power band — which stretches all the way up to a shrieking 8,500 RPM. You get four engine/transmission modes: Normal for around-town driving, Winter for driving in poor conditions, Sport for enthusiastic driving, and Track for obvious purposes. Most of the difference in these modes comes in the transmission, which will change its shift points and behavior to match the mode 

you’ve selected

Sport mode contains a gimmicky feature that’s pure entertainment: In this mode, the engine will cut spark for a moment on full throttle upshifts. This produces a bolus of unburned fuel in the exhaust stream. That fuel is ignited when the spark comes back, creating a burst of flame out the back and a delightful pop. Sure, it’s a trick, but it’ll put a grin on your face every time

The transmission is McLaren’s own 7-speed twin-clutch Seamless Shift Gearbox (SSG). Development on this unit has made upshifts lightning fast. McLaren isn’t lying about seamless, either. Upshifts are so smooth you have to listen for them, because at anything less than wide-open throttle, you won’t really feel them

Downshifts give you a satisfying sense that someone (not you) is actually rowing down through the gears with a tight clutch. McLaren gives you a set of paddles to select your own gears, but don’t kid yourself; with the exception of knowing in advance that you want to take off like a bullet, the car shifts itself far more expertly than you can ever hope to achieve

Oh, you get launch control, too. Don’t use it at Cars & Coffee

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