MotorMouths

The 2012 Mini John Cooper Works Coupe simply comes up short on value. As much as we grinned behind the wheel when the planets aligned for us on a perfect road, we just can’t find the justification for a Mini made this way.

The 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 deserves consideration if a super ute is what you craven. At times we wish it were as ridiculously quick as those other super utes, but something has to give with such a low base price, and anyway, where would you use the extra horsepower?

The Soul is a fun and affordable five-door hatchback that feels anything but base. Kia has correctly targeted for improvement the precise areas of the Soul that were our primary causes for complaint, and in doing so, it may have turned one of its hot sellers into its new best seller.

If you’re willing to pay more to drive a Lincoln rather than a blue-collar Ford Edge, the MKX is a great choice. With this 2011 refresh, particularly the addition of MyLincoln Touch, takes the MKX from the bottom rung to right near the top of the luxury CUV segment.

If you require three rows of seating and like the finer things in life, there aren’t many better handling large luxury crossovers available than the Lincoln MKT, short of a much more expensive and narrowly focused BMW X5 M.

The HS 250h is for the loyal Lexus buyer who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Toyota but still wants that oh-so-fresh feeling of driving a hybrid, regardless of how well it actually performs in that regard.

Some 20 years after America met the first Explorer, size is the main thing that’s holding this latest model back from ever achieving the big box office numbers of its predecessors. That kind of money is reserved for much smaller vehicles these days.