Sometimes I go out and test drive stuff for fun, sometimes something interesting will follow me home 
Some of my recent test drives and my thoughts below:
AMG A45: Pretty quick! Kinda fun, but it felt... numb and harsh at the same time? When I went from an Abarth to a FiST I was frustrated by the loss of "character", and that only increased with the A45. All the ingredients are there but I feel like it wasn't cooked the way I like. Sounded really good! Transmission was great. I have an aversion to MBZ and BMW vehicles due to the absurd long term running costs - this was not fun enough to make me forget about those reservations. Definitely a midlife crisis car.
Kia Stinger GT: It's Big. Like a dodge charger. Power everywhere, but just not quite "fun". Would be great for roadtripping! If you put it up against a Dodge Charger it's (the stinger) easily the better car. It's like a soccer hooligan in a business suit! It actually kinda reminds me of my old Buick GN, where it looks the business but shenanigans are just around the corner. BIG. Uninteresting sound, which really bothered me more than I'd like to admit. Good sounding V6's are a thing, Kia should do what VW did with the R32 and hire musicians to make the exhaust sing. It was surprisingly easy to get a test drive in a GT.
Kia Stinger 2.0: Mostly same as above. Less power. After driving both, in terms of being "enjoyable", I don't think the GT really was worth the price difference from the 2.0. Neither is the sort of car to make me giggle driving to work, so I'm clearly not the target demographic. If I had to take long freeway trips, I would probably still go with the GT, but the 2.0 would make me 90% as happy. It's not really quick, but it's not slow. They could not believe I wanted to drive a 2.0 after driving the GT.
Hyundai Veloster N Sport: It's fun, I'm not gonna lie - when it comes out with a DCT I might have to switch it up and sell the FiST to grab one. I have mobility issues and my days of driving a stick are coming to a close despite my wishes. It sounds neat, there are plenty of tech toys, and it looks... like a car I drew as a kid. It's not pretty, but at least it's interesting. Would rather we had the i30N here, but what can you do. The switchable exhaust is pretty awesome It felt kinda claustrophobic to me, like the FoST. The GTI is roughly the same size and feels huge inside, how do Ford and Hyundai make the dimensions feel so small? Some might find it cockpit-like and consider it a positive. The deals you can get on these are absurd, I really don't know why I don't see more of them on the road. Hyundai dealers (personal experience only) are a pain in the ass to shop at. They absolutely profiled me based on showing up in a Fiesta and treated me like I just wanted a joyride in something I couldn't afford lol. In terms of driving experience, it's closer to my Abarth than my FiST, in that it has buckets of character, but it it immediately felt better built than the Fiat. 100k mile warranty? I don't doubt the powertrain will last. Not at all, it felt really well made for it's price point.
Genesis G70 TT: It's a stinger GT with more polish. It's a fine car, but not for me. Too big, too comfortable. Like the Stinger, if I did lots of freeway tripping cross country this would be a great car. Since I like small cars (the ability to move around in your lane in the twistys is something you only appreciate going from big to small cars!) this really wasn't something on my radar. This might be a future wife-car. Infotainment system was awkwardly laggy.
Honda Civic SI: It's a fine car. There is nothing notable about it, it's smooth, reasonably powerful, and unfortunately quite forgettable. I suppose I see the appeal, an SI will probably work great when new, at 100k miles, and at 200k miles. Perfectly fine and drama free. Not interesting enough for me. Test drove it because it was there, and they offered.
Honda Civic Type R: This was the most ridiculous test drive I have been on. "don't boost too much" "keep the speed down" - how are you supposed to decide if you like a car if you can't really "drive" it? It was plenty powerful and I could see if I were a track day guy it would be great, but as a daily, it's qualities were wasted on me. The best part about driving it was that from the inside you can't see what it looks like. The aesthetic was not for me. Only car where the dealership made me do a credit check to test drive.
Subaru BRZ (again, like 10th test drive): I still like everything about it but the power. If they'd just given it either a turbo or the flat 6 from the rest of their product line, it would be a divine experience. Spending so much time sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic as I do, the lack of torque is aggravating. Subaru dealers do not like letting you do test drives. The lack of torque makes the automatic vs manual trans debate a much tougher decision. Rowing your own gears is fun, but with the lack of torque you have to do it so often that the paddle shifters are kinda nice to have.
Subaru WRX (again, billionth test drive): I can't shake the feeling that Subaru keeps getting further and further away from what made the WRX great. A 2003 WRX was an *experience*. It had turbo lag, you had to exercise skill to keep the turbo spooled, it felt like, it felt direct... the newer WRX feels heavy, the clutch is like trying to stomp a rock into the ground, and it just feels.... fat. If I lived somewhere with weather my thoughts might change, but living in SoCal, the appeal of AWD just isn't really there. That being said, some day I might just pick up a 2003ish WRX and a trailer of spare transmissions and live out my rally fantasy from my childhood playing Colin McRae Rally.
Ford F150 3.5 ecoboost: I don't really need a truck, but it was there, and because I owned an F150 lightning at one point I was curious. It is faster than a truck this size should be, and I can only imagine what it's like after tuning. That being said, it felt kinda wrong being in an F150 without the sound of a V8 under my toes. While all the tech toys and stuff were neat I still prefer when trucks were trucks, without all the gadgetry and expensive to fix nerd toys. This truck is not something someone is going to bother restoring when it's 50 years old. Nothing new is, and that's kinda sad.
Some of my recent test drives and my thoughts below:
AMG A45: Pretty quick! Kinda fun, but it felt... numb and harsh at the same time? When I went from an Abarth to a FiST I was frustrated by the loss of "character", and that only increased with the A45. All the ingredients are there but I feel like it wasn't cooked the way I like. Sounded really good! Transmission was great. I have an aversion to MBZ and BMW vehicles due to the absurd long term running costs - this was not fun enough to make me forget about those reservations. Definitely a midlife crisis car.
Kia Stinger GT: It's Big. Like a dodge charger. Power everywhere, but just not quite "fun". Would be great for roadtripping! If you put it up against a Dodge Charger it's (the stinger) easily the better car. It's like a soccer hooligan in a business suit! It actually kinda reminds me of my old Buick GN, where it looks the business but shenanigans are just around the corner. BIG. Uninteresting sound, which really bothered me more than I'd like to admit. Good sounding V6's are a thing, Kia should do what VW did with the R32 and hire musicians to make the exhaust sing. It was surprisingly easy to get a test drive in a GT.
Kia Stinger 2.0: Mostly same as above. Less power. After driving both, in terms of being "enjoyable", I don't think the GT really was worth the price difference from the 2.0. Neither is the sort of car to make me giggle driving to work, so I'm clearly not the target demographic. If I had to take long freeway trips, I would probably still go with the GT, but the 2.0 would make me 90% as happy. It's not really quick, but it's not slow. They could not believe I wanted to drive a 2.0 after driving the GT.
Hyundai Veloster N Sport: It's fun, I'm not gonna lie - when it comes out with a DCT I might have to switch it up and sell the FiST to grab one. I have mobility issues and my days of driving a stick are coming to a close despite my wishes. It sounds neat, there are plenty of tech toys, and it looks... like a car I drew as a kid. It's not pretty, but at least it's interesting. Would rather we had the i30N here, but what can you do. The switchable exhaust is pretty awesome
It felt kinda claustrophobic to me, like the FoST. The GTI is roughly the same size and feels huge inside, how do Ford and Hyundai make the dimensions feel so small? Some might find it cockpit-like and consider it a positive. The deals you can get on these are absurd, I really don't know why I don't see more of them on the road. Hyundai dealers (personal experience only) are a pain in the ass to shop at. They absolutely profiled me based on showing up in a Fiesta and treated me like I just wanted a joyride in something I couldn't afford lol. In terms of driving experience, it's closer to my Abarth than my FiST, in that it has buckets of character, but it it immediately felt better built than the Fiat. 100k mile warranty? I don't doubt the powertrain will last. Not at all, it felt really well made for it's price point.Genesis G70 TT: It's a stinger GT with more polish. It's a fine car, but not for me. Too big, too comfortable. Like the Stinger, if I did lots of freeway tripping cross country this would be a great car. Since I like small cars (the ability to move around in your lane in the twistys is something you only appreciate going from big to small cars!) this really wasn't something on my radar. This might be a future wife-car. Infotainment system was awkwardly laggy.
Honda Civic SI: It's a fine car. There is nothing notable about it, it's smooth, reasonably powerful, and unfortunately quite forgettable. I suppose I see the appeal, an SI will probably work great when new, at 100k miles, and at 200k miles. Perfectly fine and drama free. Not interesting enough for me. Test drove it because it was there, and they offered.
Honda Civic Type R: This was the most ridiculous test drive I have been on. "don't boost too much" "keep the speed down" - how are you supposed to decide if you like a car if you can't really "drive" it? It was plenty powerful and I could see if I were a track day guy it would be great, but as a daily, it's qualities were wasted on me. The best part about driving it was that from the inside you can't see what it looks like. The aesthetic was not for me. Only car where the dealership made me do a credit check to test drive.
Subaru BRZ (again, like 10th test drive): I still like everything about it but the power. If they'd just given it either a turbo or the flat 6 from the rest of their product line, it would be a divine experience. Spending so much time sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic as I do, the lack of torque is aggravating. Subaru dealers do not like letting you do test drives. The lack of torque makes the automatic vs manual trans debate a much tougher decision. Rowing your own gears is fun, but with the lack of torque you have to do it so often that the paddle shifters are kinda nice to have.
Subaru WRX (again, billionth test drive): I can't shake the feeling that Subaru keeps getting further and further away from what made the WRX great. A 2003 WRX was an *experience*. It had turbo lag, you had to exercise skill to keep the turbo spooled, it felt like, it felt direct... the newer WRX feels heavy, the clutch is like trying to stomp a rock into the ground, and it just feels.... fat. If I lived somewhere with weather my thoughts might change, but living in SoCal, the appeal of AWD just isn't really there. That being said, some day I might just pick up a 2003ish WRX and a trailer of spare transmissions and live out my rally fantasy from my childhood playing Colin McRae Rally.
Ford F150 3.5 ecoboost: I don't really need a truck, but it was there, and because I owned an F150 lightning at one point I was curious. It is faster than a truck this size should be, and I can only imagine what it's like after tuning. That being said, it felt kinda wrong being in an F150 without the sound of a V8 under my toes. While all the tech toys and stuff were neat I still prefer when trucks were trucks, without all the gadgetry and expensive to fix nerd toys. This truck is not something someone is going to bother restoring when it's 50 years old. Nothing new is, and that's kinda sad.
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