The Levante is not the first mass production SUV from a sports car brand. Maserati’s first SUV is full of promise. From a maker known for its GT style coupes and sports sedans, the Levante does have to satisfy the criterion in being a good handling road car, while also able to do some mild off-roading.

Amid the bright lights of the event area, the all-new 2017 Land Rover Discovery is launched. The historically important SUV is full-sized with three rows of seats, the new seven-seater promises unbeatable capacity and versatility.

Volkswagens large, very large compact SUV, the Tiguan, has to fulfil the uphill task of satisfying a market which has been leaning even more toward the “Crossover” buzzword. In-fact, just about any car which does not look like a sedan could almost qualify as a Crossover these days. Slap on some plastic bits, use keywords like “Cross” or just simply place an “X” somewhere, jack the car up and inch, and you would likely attract a healthy number of consumers to your brand. The Tiguan on the other hand had stuck to its traditional formula of making an SUV, and more importantly, it does look the part. 

And finally, after more than a decade of waiting, the Toyota Harrier is finally (officially) in Singapore. But what makes this Official Harrier even better? Really, at first glance, they are identical. But it is what is inside the car that really counts

What relevance does a Rolls-Royce have to the average Singaporean I asked myself... Perhaps none, perhaps a lot. As Singaporeans, we love our hawker food, always understated, but so full of flavour and character. Ever seen a queue outside a popular food stall, when someone walks off with a bowl of wholesome goodness, we turn to look, knowing that there is something good in there. How could something this understated and simple be this good?

Could you imagine a sports car, factory built, internally like a supercar (and looks the part), which functions like an every day driver. The McLaren 570S is their go faster model within the ‘Sports Series’ or entry level in common car talk. There is a milder 540C, a Spider and a GT model for added luggage room, and then there is the S model.

Mercedes-Benz has seriously raised the bar for what can be deemed a crossover. Have they nailed it? Or just added more confusion to their model line-up… The lesser 43 Series of AMG cars is Merc’s way of making more ‘attainable’ AMG vehicles. The GLC Coupe, surely is an oddball of just about every C Class Mercedes model, sans the Cabriolet, tossed into the product development pot, with a few good stirs added in for good measure.

The new Mini Cooper Countryman is MINI’s biggest one yet. Based on the same architecture as the BMW X1, the new Countryman has many expectations to meet, but can it?

Oh hello sunshine! Other than the Golf, the Beetle is instantly recognisable as a car built by the Volkswagen brand. Compact, cheeky and lots of fun, we simply wanted a go at it, and loved every moment…

We see the G30 5 Series as BMW’s most important car launched in a while, and we can’t get enough of it. Recently, we tested their 540i M Sport Sedan. A 6-cylindered 3.0 litre bruiser which could hit the 100Km/h mark in just 5.1 seconds. That’s sports car territory. And then on the flip side, BMW also offers a milder oil burner 2.0, the 520d, delivering a massive 400Nm of torque, while sipping on fuel to deliver a combined 20.8Km/l. 

I got Cat Pawed by this one, and quite liked it. The second generation Peugeot 3008 is a refreshing departure from the previous one. While the old car came across looking more like a raised MPV with the rear seats removed, this one looked the part of a proper SUV. 

How about that? The very popular Qashqai gets a new look! What Can We Expect? Nissan is not revealing everything, but what we know is that the new front treatment gets some nice re-styled ‘boomerang’ daytime running lights, a new set of fogs, nestled into the front bumper. And Nissan’s signature ‘V’-shaped grille gets bigger. Rear tail lights too get the same ‘boomerang’ treatment.

The 6 has been with us for a bit. But Mazda did a facelift to their flagship sedan, and it is a facelift worth writing about.

So I hopped into this angry-looking thing, and took an immediate liking to it. Infiniti, the makers of the so popular Q50 sedan, probably went, well why not lets do a coupe…. The resulting sweeping lines of the Q60 is by far not a straight-up copy of a Q50, that had been shortened, but a conscious effort to ensure that every swooping line made with the flick of the pen tucked the car in a way so pleasing to the eye.

It was during the 80s that Renault brought the concept of a vehicle which could carry the extended family, and brought with it the spoils of armchair comfort (well almost), minivan practicality, car-like handling and targeted the middle-class family. The Espace, was an instant hit, and very soon, the Japanese and other manufacturers caught on to this new trend, and the rest was history.

The new Audi A5 Coupe is bigger and yet lighter than the car it replaces. 2017 sees a revamped Lexus RC Turbo, Infiniti’s Q60 and BMW laying its cards out about the 420i coupe. All 2-doored with a 2.0 turbocharged unit, but the similarities end there for the Audi. 

We recently tested the BMW 540i M Sport, and more recently had the opportunity to flick a few different ‘Fivers’ around on a secret airfield, 3-hours North-east of Bangkok, and spent some serious time with the ‘basic’ 520d, and soon learnt that there is nothing basic about this Executive-sized BMW. In Singapore, the 520d fills a very important gap, which its larger petrol-engined siblings have left off. 

What does the Bigfoot, a spider, a Jerry can, a seven-slot grille and an original Willy’s have in common? The new Jeep Renegade SUV successfully fills the compact car gap in their range, which has been left wide open for a while. Where the basic Old Wrangler left off, the new Renegade (which takes its name off the older Jeep CJ trim nameplate) presents a fresh new take to the Jeep brand. While based very heavily on the Fiat 500X, it is hard to see any resemblance to its Italian cousin. The Renegade draws plenty of visual inspiration from the original Willy’s model which was issued to troops during the Second World War.

Lexus first introduced the RC 350 Coupe a while ago, the large engine size somehow also meant a larger price tag. The more affordable RC Turbo brings the price down by about $80k, and makes the car more attainable. But what does the Turbocharged 2.0 coupe bring to the table? Or in this case leave behind? For one, the bulletproof and very smooth 3.5 litre V6, makes way for a smaller 4 cylinder turbocharged unit. Well, there is a V8 available, but that one fits into a totally different market segment, and at almost twice the price.

Among one of the first brands to introduce the Crossover, when there wasn’t even such a word in the market, for a more car-like SUV, Volvo made headway with its dressed up V70XC back in the late 90s. Together with Subaru’s range of Outback station wagons, and Audi’s Allroad, the Crossover SUV was born, though back then, it was questionable if there was a strong-enough market for them. Fast forward to 2017, Volvo has continued with their tradition of slapping on plastic fender bits, raising up the ride height on their station wagons or estates in Volvo talk, dropping in 4WD and marketing them as your go-anywhere companion.

We kept seeing it as such a common sight on our roads, but Singapore has not seen the Pulsar moniker for a number of years. Often adding to confusion of name plates, the Pulsar was even badged as a Sunny in some countries. This time round, the Pulsar is really a Pulsar (and a Tiida which is also a Latio in Nissan talk)… Enough of the confusion already! The Pulsar is a rather simple car for those who want a chic family hatch, with Japanese reliability built into its DNA.

Some of you will say, but it’s a Golf R under the hood. And you’re not too wrong. But the S3 is not all just wrapping an A3 body over the Golf, as Clifford Chow finds out. There must always be a hot small sedan/hatch/coupe offered by luxury car manufacturers these days, to satisfy a younger generation of drivers, who are hungry for something of a classy whip...  So Audi had heeded the call and not only built a Sportback, but also one with a boot. Making this one "coohwip" of a Q car... 

Hyundai builds a Prius… ok maybe not, but you could mistake the new IONIQ for one if it zipped past you. The aerodynamic body shell does carry some resemblance to its Japanese rival. But overall, the Korean car maker has delivered very well on exterior styling.

Audi says that their new Q2 is The #Untaggable car. Well, we’d like to think it not that true. Oneshift’s Clifford Chow takes Audi’s curious compact Crossover/SUV/Thing for a ride, and gives you and his 2 cents worth.