MotorMouths

With the Turbo, Hyundai recognizes and celebrates the Veloster as a sporty car, not a sports car. If that sounds like damnation with faint praise, it’s not.

The new Infiniti M addresses many of the complaints with the old one. In a segment owned by the Mercedes-Benz E-class, however, Infiniti still has its work cut out to gain ground. The new model is an excellent start.

We’ve buckled into versions of the M without the Technology package and found everything to be far more natural. In fact, unless your station in society requires that you be ferried around by a 420-hp V-8, the 330-horse M37 shines as a better value.

The M35h’s operation is fairly seamless, which is surprising, considering how thoroughly electrified the car is. And it looks identical to the M37, except for its rump badge. But let’s face it: At its price, the M35h isn’t going to sell like hotcakes.

The new 2011 XJ flagship has the flamboyant lines of an Italian torpedo, the driving manners of a German autobahn cruiser, and is tuned for Buckingham Palace fleet duty.

Besides having an interior that utterly embarrasses past Chrysler products, the ’11 Jeep Grand Cherokee shares a very carlike platform with the new Mercedes-Benz ML, due this fall.

The Aventador is pretty much what the Murciélago was: enormous, loud, stupidly impractical, and obscenely flamboyant. It’s also ­better at being so.

he Aventador is pretty much what the old car was: enormous, loud, stupidly impractical, and obscenely flamboyant. It’s also ­better at being so, but we’re not here to ­persuade you. Those of  you who want it and can afford it already know  who you are.

Price may be Lexus’s main hook. The IS250C starts at about $6K less than the basic BMW 328i convertible and about $5K less than the Infiniti G37 convertible.

The 2011 Maserati GranTurismo convertible is both alluring and idiosyncratically flawed, a combination as old as Italy itself.

The G63 takes off with a bullish snort from the side pipes. It’ll run with a Mustang GT—and possibly just run it over. It is big and gaudy and absurdly overbuilt for the majority of its owners, which is exactly why they want it.

When it’s not being tossed around, the Mercedes-Benz SLS impersonates a luxury liner, with decent visibility, an imperturbable desire to track straight, and an ardent fuel appetite.