John Matras is a seasoned (chili powder) automotive writer with almost a quarter century experience. Falling into despair after discovering that the sole manuscript of his magnum opus, A History of the Cotter Key, had mistakenly been donated to a Boy Scout troop’s paper drive, Matras was signed to a multi-year contract to Carbuzzard.com. Before his current employment, Matras was a full-time automotive freelancer and had contributed to hundreds of publications including the major American automotive magazines Car and Driver, Motor Trend, Road & Track, Automobile and Automobile Quarterly, as well as the New York Times, Men’s Health and others. His Escape Road columns, anecdotal reviews of classic and special interest automobiles, have been read and enjoyed by automotive enthusiasts for more than twenty years.
What I'm Reading
CarBuzzard Reviews of Course!
An Interesting Fact
John Matras has authored four books, including the widely acclaimed Mazda RX-7 published by Motorbooks International. Matras is an active member of the International Motor Press Association, and is the 1995 recipient of that organization's prestigious Ken W. Purdy Award for Excellence in Automotive Journalism as well as the Washington Automotive Press Association’s Golden Quill Award.
We go back a long way with the Mazda Miata. We first drove the Miata in 1989, when there were just two of Mazda’s roadsters on the east coast. Later we earned our Sports Car Club of America competition license in a Showroom Stock C Mazda, and had our first ever win in our first ever race. And although we have never owned a Miata—having been in the minivan stage of life—every time we’ve driven a Mazda Miata has been yet another homecoming.
So it was with great anticipation that we scheduled... Read Full Story
We have seen the future and it is…a Cube? It is for Nissan, anyway, beginning in the spring of 2009. Sold in the Japanese market since 2002, the Cube is aptly named because, well, it’s a cube.
Technically it’s a parallelepiped, defined as “a solid with six faces, each a parallelogram and each being parallel to the opposite face,” or more colloquially, a rectangular solid. Or more simply, a box. Who says you don’t learn anything here?
We have more to say about this parallelepiped on wheels, of... Read Full Story
My doctor hasn’t prescribed bloodletting as a cure for a long time. I don’t see why the corporate version that armchair executives trot out ever so often is any better.
The “bloodletting” I’m referring to in the first sentence, of course, is the recurring cry of automotive pundits that this or that (almost always) American manufacturer should eliminate this or that division or nameplate. The argument is not whether it should be done but whether which should be eliminated. At GM, they say... Read Full Story
Acura touts the all-new 2009 Acura TSX as a player in the “premium sports sedan segment.” We think they’re missing the boat. Or at least the boat should be named Mr.Smoothie. Or somesuch.
The boat we’re talking about is that the “premium sports sedan” description somehow misses the fact that the 2009 Acura TSX is smooth. Smooth as velour pavement. Smooth as cream on strawberries. Smooth as that guy your daughter brought home from college. Though with the TSX you do not have to spend the... Read Full Story
The Chevrolet Corvette is such a fixture in the American landscape, if Grant Wood were still alive he’d paint that dour-faced pitch-fork holding farm couple in a Corvette, the farmer with his hand on the shifter and grins on both their faces. And no doubt he’d update the duds as well.
As such, it doesn’t seem like there’d be much to talk about with the 2008 Corvette: front engine, big horsepower, plastic body and, especially in recent years, a tenacious grip on the road. What more needs be... Read Full Story
So gasoline has hit $4.00 per gallon and seems poised to go even higher. Well, la-de-da.
And why do we say that? The law of supply and demand says the current price bump is from the well-known effect of supply and demand. Pardon the tautology for a moment because in this case, much of the demand comes from future-trading speculators who are pushing the price up in hopes that the price will keep going up, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Futures trading is like signing on for home heating fuel at a... Read Full Story
Twenty miles per gallon. Chevrolet Tahoe. They’re not in the same sentence, but they could be. Twenty miles per gallon is the EPA mileage rating for this 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid with four wheel drive: That’s twenty miles per gallon city and twenty miles per gallon highway. What’s more, that’s just about what we achieved. Our overall mileage for a week of driving came to nineteen miles per gallon, and that’s without taking any special measures to stretch how far we could go on a gallon of... Read Full Story
You may never speak Lithuanian. In fact, we’re pretty sure you won’t. But you’ll get a handle on lingua lithua than you will be able to appreciate one Lithuanian’s interpretation of a luxury sport coupe. Or perhaps the worst thing that’s ever happened to a Mercedes-Benz CL-Class. Tons of work went into adapting an outlandish grille and gansta rims into a BMW/Bangle “flame” styling treatment turned up to bonfire.
We’ve been asked by owners to comment on custom cars that we, well, find less... Read Full Story
It’s a good thing our 2008 Saturn Vue Green Line Hybrid is painted a pleasant pastel Sea Mist Green because it’s a very, oh, mild color. Which fits in nicely with saying the Saturn Vue Green Line Hybrid is what’s known as a “mild hybrid.”
In today’s hybrid world there are several types of hybrids. There’s the “full hybrid” of the Toyota school—also used by Ford—that can run under electric power, gasoline engine power or a combination of both.XXXAnd then there’s the “mild hybrid,” pioneered by... Read Full Story
One needn’t look very closely to see that it’s a sibling to the Chevrolet Equinox and Pontiac Torrent. The Suzuki XL7 is based on a small (by American standards) SUV developed by GM’s European subsidiary, Opel. This side of the Atlantic it’s built as a joint venture between Suzuki and General Motors with final assembly at Suzuki’s Ingersol, Ontario, factory. The engine was designed by GM’s Australian subsidiary Holden and built in Japan, the transmissions coming from Japan. Within that... Read Full Story
