Photo: Basem Wasef/Wired

Supercars should look like sex. This is what the voice inside my head has been insisting since I was 14 years old, when the very same (if slightly less mature) spirit guide led me to hang a Lamborghini Countach poster above my bed and doodle Ferrari Testarossas all over my Pee Chee folders.

But somehow, to my eye, the McLaren MP4-12C doesn’t quite strike a nerve the way old school überexotics once did. Eye-popping curves and salacious silhouettes are time-honored ingredients of the exotic car formula. Like Vegas strip clubs or the pool bar at the Delano in South Beach, the meek need not apply — and if they do, they better damn well have a good reason for loitering in that rarified company.

And so the McLaren MP4-12C, while comely and sleek, isn’t the most visually charismatic player in this pumped up, pornographically endowed slice of the automotive stratosphere. Waist-high and swoopy, the McLaren may not be a shrinking violet in the topiary of supercars, but neither is it as sensuously enticing as the Monica Belucci-in-a-negligee Ferrari 458 Italia, or as intimidating as the oh-shit-the-mothership-has-landed Lamborghini Aventador. Even its alphanumeric moniker has more in common with C-3PO than any vehicle ought to. Car geeks unite: Your steed is here, and only you will get the four-wheeled joke.

But the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Or the dihedral doors, which open up and out to allow easier entry into the cabin, one of countless McLaren details engineered with an uncanny instinct for design purity. Bisected by a narrow center partition, this cockpit exemplifies levels of functionality typically associated with military aircraft. The windshield is taller than it is wide, and the proportion is designed to help you spot apexes and place the front wheels — visually identifiable by the slight humps on the front end — exactly where they need to be. The multimedia screen is oriented vertically in order to help achieve the vehicle’s target dimensions, and the massive tachometer is the instrument equivalent of a Jumbotron. The center console dials, cryptically distinguished with single letter labels, click into place like the switchgear of an F22 Raptor — all the better to enhance your jet pilot fantasies while loping down your favorite boulevard.

Photo: Basem Wasef/Wired

And then there’s the techy viscera: the carbon fiber chassis, the extruded aluminum subframes, the hydraulic roll control that’s so effective at minimizing body movement, it does away with traditional stabilizer bars altogether. Despite its ground-up newness and its of-the-moment technological artistry, analysis of the 12C would be incomplete without a brief look back at history.

Take the legendary F1 for instance, the most recent road car since the 12C that’s a pure McLaren (and no, the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren doesn’t count.) With a screaming 6.1-liter V12 and a centrally positioned driver’s seat flanked by two co-thrones for your favorite grunties, the F1′s production run of roughly 100 cars made it one of the most deeply loved exotics of all time, reinforced by the fact that if and when they hit the market these days, they run well into the seven figures.

Can you feel us getting our geek on?

And I haven’t even touched on the fact that McLaren won one of every four Formula 1 races it’s entered since 1966; in contrast, during Toyota’s eight-season, multibillion-dollar F1 effort, the Japanese manufacturer couldn’t muster a single win. There’s verisimilitude in victory, friends.

But enough armchair quarterbacking. Let’s climb into the cockpit, flog this thing, and pass judgment based on seat-of-the-pants driving impressions, not theoretical musings.

Back in college, my friends and I used to frequent a pretty questionable bar. Despite the luxurious interior, drinks were half the cost of booze at the local dive, intimidating bouncers guarded the door but never checked ID, and dozens of not-so-hidden cameras were trained on usually empty tables.

Still, they made mean margaritas and served up some of the best Tex Mex I’ve had east of the Mississippi. Their half-price specials were cheaper than congealed heat-lamp pizza in the school cafeteria. To nobody’s surprise, with no explanation, the place closed up a few months after it opened. My friends and I all came up with our own theories about what purpose the tavern actually served. Those hypotheses varied only in which drugs were being dealt in which parts of the establishment.

With that amateur sleuthing under my belt, I now suggest the DEA get their dogs a-sniffing over at Nissan headquarters.

Why else would Nissan take a supercar, jack it up about six inches, give it the face of a birthing panda and price it under $20,000? There’s only one explanation: The Nissan Juke is a massive money-laundering scheme, meant to conceal losses from a cocaine shipment seized by federal authorities. I’ll attest to it, because after a week with the Juke, I can honestly say that I’ve never had more fun in a new car that cost so little. It’s got to be a scam.

The tester I drove ($23,980) was equipped in SV AWD trim, which means it came with a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and Nissan’s torque-vectoring all-wheel drive, which splits power evenly between not only the front and rear wheels, but also side-to-side across the rear axle. A slew of sensors monitor everything from wheel speed and g-force to yaw rate and your high school GPA to send the right amount of power to each wheel in order to reduce understeer.

Does it work? Incredibly well. No matter how much I tried — and believe me, I tried — I could not get the Juke to lose its composure. Sharp curves? Hit the gas! Wet roads covered in leaves? No problem! Shenanigans in an empty parking lot? Hang on tight! (Just kidding, Nissan.)

The true wonder is that the car handled really well even with the all-wheel drive switched off. Regardless of the drivetrain setup you choose, this thing clings to the road like a sloth clings to a kapok tree, if that sloth were also a cheetah.

I’ll go out on a limb and say that for the 99 percent, the Juke is actually a more desirable car than the famed GT-R, whose freakishly low sub-six-figure sticker price is also evidence of illicit activity. The GT-R is stupid fast, which means you have to be smart about driving it. Any time spent on public roads is an exercise in restraint, the likes of which I haven’t felt since I discovered a closet full of wrapped presents a month before my fifth birthday. (I got a remote-controlled Pontiac Fiero, in case you were wondering.) Move the GT-R’s throttle any more than a third of the way down to the floor and you’ll lose your license and watch your bargain supercar get towed to a police impound yard. Fun? Unbelievably so. But you better have a track to visit on the weekends or the workday slog will feel like some sort of medieval penance. The Juke, on the other hand, is easy to enjoy anywhere. Plus, it costs about a quarter as much as a GT-R, which leaves plenty of money for traffic school and increased insurance premiums.

The Porsche 911 is an odd duck. Here we have one of history’s great sports cars, a strong-selling, fast, good-looking machine that reeks of sex and history.

It is a marker of success: “Timmy bought a Porsche! He must have gotten that banking job.” High resale value makes it a good investment. It is also a technological triumph — despite their capability, Porsches are almost always reliable, long-lived things. And yet the model has always been something of an acquired taste.

There are a handful of reasons for this. At the moment, the 911 is the only mass-produced, rear-engined car sold in America. The subsequent rear weight bias has traditionally made the car difficult to drive at the limit and slightly unstable at high speed. Cane a 911 on the autobahn and you’ll notice the steering going light and the nose wandering — Dancing! Flitting about the highway! Manly stuff! — above 160 mph. Porsche people find this charming. Detractors think it’s obnoxious and anachronistic.

Porsche engineers being German, they simply saw this as a problem to be solved. The first 911 rolled off the line in the mid-1960s. Careful evolution has seen the car grow ever more docile and controllable, and yet faster. The Germans — again, being German — were apparently not satisfied, and so we now have the 2012 Porsche 911.

All that stuff we just mentioned? Let’s just call it fixed.

Hold on. Fixed isn’t the right word. More like blown to oblivion.

This is a landmark, and in more ways than one. The ‘12 911, known internally as the 991, is a ground-up revamp of the brand’s most hallowed product. It is also just the third such redo in the model’s history. From 1964 to 1998 (34 years!) the 911 used the same basic platform and an air-cooled, six-cylinder engine. From 1999 to 2011, it used a water-cooled six and a new platform, albeit one with a similar profile.

The new 911 shares basic proportions — but no significant parts — with its predecessor. It is longer, wider, faster, and more fuel-efficient than the car that came before it. The 911’s body is a combination of steel and aluminum — the doors, roof, and several other key panels (about 45 percent of the car’s mass) are made from the latter, cutting weight and lowering the car’s center of gravity. Wheelbase is up by 3.9 inches, and the engine is now slightly farther forward in the car relative to the driver and rear axle. Porsche claims this bumps up body rigidity by 20 to 25 percent.

Here’s the kicker: Amazingly, Stuttgart claims the new, larger car is lighter than the last 911. On top of that, the base 911’s engine shrinks, from 3.6 to 3.4 liters, yet gains 5 hp and puts out the same 288 pound-feet of torque. Fuel economy is said to rise a bit, though EPA numbers haven’t been released. All this without an efficiency-boosting turbocharger.

This is what makes Porsche special, and why its engineers are widely viewed as the best in the world — they specialize in surprises. Cars aren’t supposed to get lighter when they grow. Engines aren’t supposed to shrink and become more powerful. Heck, if you really get down to it, from a laws-of-physics standpoint, rear-engined cars aren’t supposed to be a good idea, period.

Forget the Corvette. Ignore the F-150. The Honda Civic Hybrid may be the most quintessentially American car on the road.

I say this after a weekend spent in Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Like Cambridge, San Francisco or Seattle, the city may have a latté dispensary on every corner and no fewer than five restaurants serving farm-to-table organic charcuterie. But unlike similar cities stateside, there’s nary a hybrid to be found amidst the miniature Mazdas, Pontiac hatchbacks and diesel Vee-Dubs crowding the Queensway at rush hour. As a Bostonian, it was utterly disconcerting for me to hear cars idling at stoplights.

I’m no sociologist, but it’s easy to understand one reason why hybrids haven’t caught on in the Great White North. The average Canadian drives 8.8 miles to get to and from work, usually commuting from dense suburbs close to city centers — er, centres. The average American travels almost three times that distance. Even with the Dominion’s higher gas taxes, Canadians could all drive ‘59 Fleetwoods to work and still come out ahead.

In the U.S., we don’t like densely populated towns. In the postwar housing boom, we clamored for land, lots of land, only to get fenced in by rings of densely populated highways. We also dislike taking public transportation, funding public transportation, paying for gas, driving small cars, looking like we’re wasting gas when we’re wasting gas, finding a place that sells diesel or making any sort of compromise whatsoever.

Enter the 2012 Honda Civic Hybrid. Redesigned for 2012 with a new lithium-ion battery pack, it’s a uniquely American car, created for those who want to have their half-baked cake and eat it, too. It’s a pleasure to drive among hybrids, but anodyne compared to a TDI. It’s not expensive, but it’s not as cheap as a car without batteries. It’s a fuel-sipper, but a Prius uses less gas. By default, it’s the least-worst choice.

The 2012 Civic’s exterior update has had a lukewarm reception at best. The prior generation was as stylish as it was ubiquitous, but the new car only excels at communicating just how much money Honda saved through the redesign.

Inside, multiple LCD screens are canted towards the driver, like some sort of automotive Bloomberg terminal. On the tester I drove with leather and navigation ($26,750), those displays worked together about as closely as the 2011 Red Sox. For instance, the same glowing rectangle was responsible for displaying the radio tuner and navigation, but song titles were buried in a menu on another screen entirely. Replacing a tuning knob with a mini joystick makes scrolling through satellite radio channels a laborious task. And I’ll never understand why Honda wastes prime dashboard real estate by putting a tachometer right behind the steering wheel on a hybrid with a CVT.

Honda’s already got so much flak over the Civic’s interior that they’re in the process of drawing up a redesign. If their engineers want an example of how to better display relevant information, check out Lexus’ CT 200h, which offers such gems as an unobtrusive gauge that combines a tachometer and a fuel economy display.

Aside from all the screens, the car has a surprisingly low-tech vibe. The nav system’s display has a font cribbed from a serial killer’s ransom note, the seat heater switches are pure Heathkit and the shifter is straight out of a mid-’90s Accord. Prius aficionados will immediately note the absence of keyless ignition.

On the road, the car shines. The car relies on Honda’s Integrated Motor Assist, which adds electric power on acceleration and recaptures energy through regenerative braking. Since it augments a smaller, lighter engine, the Civic Hybrid gets the same mileage on the highway as around the city.

Despite my averaging 41.4 mpg, there was little feedback to indicate the Civic Hybrid’s duality of propulsion. Acceleration felt more brisk than a Prius, braking felt less grabby than most hybrids, and the car handled as competently as a regular Civic. My only complaint is how digital and detached the electric steering felt, as if the wheels must only turn at even-numbered angles.

It’s a good car overall, but the balance of battery-electric power has changed. Where the old Civic Hybrid just had to be better than the Toyota Prius, the new car is competing against offerings from Ford, Hyundai and Kia, plus a spate of VW diesels and low-emissions compacts. Price and performance-wise, the new Honda straddles an awkward middle-ground between Priuses that lease for $200 a month and loaded Ford Fusion Hybrids that sell for remarkably close to the upper limit of the Civic’s asking price. By comparison, the Civic Hybrid is a compromise, a kludge, a slice of Americana.

The Civic Hybrid’s toughest competition, however, is in the same showroom.

First, a little lesson in marketing: Toyota’s Prius became the hybrid poster child because the automaker added utility to the Prius that none of their other vehicles have. If they’d just stuck batteries in a Corolla, the customer could immediately see how little value a hybrid would add. But the Prius has a funky dashboard, a huge hatch and a lot of personality for an A-to-B appliance. You might love it, you might hate it — but you probably won’t find yourself sweating bullets in a Toyota dealership, dithering over its financial merits versus a Matrix. Similarly, Ford started the Lincoln MKZ and MKZ Hybrid at the same base price to avoid that conversation.

Aside from a hybrid drivetrain and standard Bluetooth, the base Civic HF is almost identical to the base Civic Hybrid. Sure it has an EPA rating of 29 city/41 highway, but it also sells for almost $4,600 less. I’ll do the well-worn hybrid premium math: Assuming that gas is $3.50 a gallon and that you’re driving 12,000 miles a year with a lead foot in city traffic, it’ll take nearly nine years to make up the difference between a Civic Hybrid and Civic HF in fuel costs alone. About the only rational rationale for buying the Hybrid over the HF is the two fewer tons of carbon dioxide the battery-boosted car emits over its ICE-only stablemate. Coincidentally, that’s the same amount of carbon dioxide a human emits each year just from digesting food. Go on a juice diet, and there’s no reason to get the Hybrid.

Or, you could just move closer to work and potentially halve your carbon footprint, but that would be downright un-American.

WIRED 44 mpg highway, 44 mpg city. Improved lithium-ion battery pack. Nimble on the open road. So! Many! Screens!

TIRED Interior could use an update. Less value than other hybrids. Steering is too robotic.

Photos courtesy of American Honda Motor Co., Inc.

So you’ve noticed an elderly relative isn’t driving as well as he used to. There are scrapes on the car, he’s hugging the road’s shoulder driving far below the speed limit. A short trip to the grocery store involves blaring horns from the multiple drivers he unknowingly cut off.

You’re worried about him, but how can you know for sure that he’s a danger to himself and others? Even worse, how do you convince Pep Pep to hand over the keys before he mistakes the gas pedal for the brake and ends up driving his Avalon through the candy aisle at Walgreens?

Objectively, of course — with cold, hard data.

A few years ago, a number of devices hit the market promising to tell parents what misdeeds their teen drivers were committing while behind the wheel. From speed limiters to GPS trackers, these electronic nannies promised to put the brakes on Junior’s hot rodding. It was only a matter of time before savvy marketers figured out that those in the “sandwich” generation are just as worried about their parents as their kids.

CarCheckup is one such device. A nondescript gray box, it plugs into a vehicle’s On-Board Diagnostic II (OBD II) port and records miles traveled, panic braking, heavy acceleration and a myriad of other statistics ranging from RPM to fuel flow.

The company has turned its attention to older drivers, and will soon be redesigning its website to appeal to caregivers of the elderly. It’s a smart move as teen vehicle use falls due to high unemployment for highschoolers, and America’s average age gets further over the hill with each passing second.

With some help from a member of the target demographic (this writer’s father, who just turned 76), we checked out CarCheckup.

Using a Chevy Cruze that neither of us had driven before, and not telling Dad what the purpose of the experiment was (he thought he was test driving the car), we each took the car for half a day and ran identical errands. We each took routes with which we felt comfortable, with a mix of back roads and highways.

When I got back to my computer, I plugged CarCheckup into the USB port and uploaded data to the device’s dedicated website — which only works with Windows and Internet Explorer. After a quick chat with a helpful customer service agent who helped me undo a mistake I’d made entering vehicle information, a series of charts and graphs appeared onscreen.

With Dad behind the wheel, top speed was 66 mph over a 33.8 mile route. He spent most time between 1 and 39 mph, with only one instance each of extreme braking and extreme acceleration — most likely merging on and off the highway. He hit the brakes hard twice.

I fared a little worse. With a top speed of 79 mph, I hit the brakes hard three times, while accelerating and braking in an “extreme” manner once each. It took Dad ten more minutes to get to his destination, but he covered fewer miles and did so without driving aggressively.

The verdict is in: Dad gets to keep his keys, and I should turn on some Enya while I’m driving. Had the car had any problems during the trip that caused the “check engine” light to glow, CarCheckup would’ve diagnosed them, too.

It’s certainly not a perfect system. The website wouldn’t let me remove erroneous data I’d accidentally added, but customer service was extremely helpful in resolving it. Adding a second car costs $25, and lack of compatibility with Macs, more desirable browsers or hybrid cars is a pain.

Also, there’s no official definition on the company website for “extreme” braking or acceleration, though top speed contains an RPM readout. The device itself, though plain looking, is large enough to make more paranoid oldsters fear they’re being tracked by the government — not just their kids.

It’s important to remember that CarCheckup doesn’t track near-misses, ignored stop signs or omnipresent left turn signals. For that, you’ll have to brave the passenger seat.

Still, if you’re worried about Nana or Gramps and fear that it might be difficult to start a productive conversation about restricting an elderly relative’s autonomy, CarCheckup might be a worthy investment. Or, you might be pleasantly surprised to find out your father is a safer driver than you are.

WIRED Confront elderly relatives with definitive proof of their bad driving. Track vehicle speed, acceleration and braking data without oldsters catching on. Boring design helps it blend in.

TIRED Must be used with Internet Explorer and a PC running Windows. Useless if Gramps drives a hybrid or a car made before 1995.

Photos by Keith Barry/Wired

You ever see a live Smooth Jazz concert?

Unless your idea of fun is hanging around third-tier California wineries with your fourth wife, chances are you haven’t. I’m not talking about Sonny Rollins here — this is that highly produced, studio-rehearsed instrumental pop that echoes off the tile floors of Marriott hotel restaurants.

But live, it’s a different story. Performers can’t hide behind slick production, and they’re not constrained by their record labels, so they let loose like the talented musicians most of them are. For an example, just search YouTube for “Kenny G,” “Sade” and “live.” It’s not the Sun Ra Arkestra, for sure, but you’ll get to hear (and I can’t believe I’m typing this) Kenny G unleash some serious funk.

It’s the same principle with car designers. That boring, melted-soap sedan your aunt is driving probably started life as a daring drawing of a concept with slats for windows and suicide doors.

With all concepts, though, the pressures of the real world intervene. Drivers have to see out of those slatted windows and open those massive doors. Safety rules, gas mileage requirements and focus groups all take their toll, and the whole thing has to be built at the lowest possible cost.

That’s why the Lincoln MKT is refreshing: It may very well be the first example of a car where designers were freed by new technology to pen a car that could not have otherwise existed. From a design standpoint, it’s Kenny G, live in concert.

First, some background: The six- or seven-passenger MKT debuted as a 2010 model and is currently the Stephanie Tanner of the Lincoln lineup. Its voluminous interior coddles occupants with separate climate-control zones for front and rear, an auto-folding third row, THX audio, Microsoft Sync and a twin-panel moon roof.

Our tester had optional twin captain’s chairs in the second row, with a fridge in the rear center console. That gave it ample room for four adults and two children, because the rearmost seats were unsuitable for anyone past a growth spurt.

Faced with competition from Lincoln’s own five-seater MKZ and outclassed by the Acura MDX, Audi Q7 and BMW X5, the MKT’s sales are currently on par with tickets for Gilbert Gottfried’s upcoming Japanese tour. That might not be for long, though. After production stops on the beloved, yet geriatric, Town Car later this year, the MKT will enter fleets as Ford’s luxury livery vehicle.

It’s the styling, however, that sets the MKT apart. I have to say I’m a big fan of the slab-sided exterior, whose bustle is reminiscent of the Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud (and, unfortunately, the early-1980s Cadillac Seville). That Kardashian keister, however, is possible thanks to the use of lightweight magnesium and aluminum — a first in an American car — at a weight savings of 40 percent over the same design in steel.

Moving up the rear of the car, we find pillars thicker than the Parthenon’s that — from the driver’s point of view — completely obscure the already miniscule third-row windows. A sloped greenhouse makes for an attractive exterior, but from behind the wheel it’s like driving a U-Haul without towing mirrors.

That’s why the Blind Spot Information System (BLIS), a technology inherited through Ford’s corporate parentage of Volvo, is essential. A small, orange circle appears in the side view mirror when there’s a vehicle hovering near the rear fender. It can be turned off, but I didn’t dare. Amazingly, BLIS is only available as part of a $4,000 “Elite Package.”

On the Volvo S80, BLIS is a safety-minded failsafe. On the MKT, even with properly adjusted mirrors, it’s a virtual second glance over the shoulder. The backup camera is also a requirement for driving this car, as the rear window Is placed so high up that it totally blocks any view of what you’re about to hit. On the plus side, you’ll never know if anyone’s tailgating you.

All that technology wasn’t just to help the MKT keep its figure. In more than 600 miles of driving, I managed 21.2 mpg thanks to a particularly parsimonious twin-turbo V-6 that Ford has christened with its EcoBoost label. Mileage in the low 20s is nothing to brag about to the Sierra Club, but it is a far cry from the mid-teens that most Navigator owners manage.

Unlike the roar of the Navigator’s V-8, the MKT’s V6 has a breathy snarl that still provides 355 horsepower on demand. Nobody’s expecting a lumbering luxo-barge to ride like a Lotus, but the MKT gets out of its own way with power and poise.

When weight-saving metals and electronic nannies like BLIS and turbocharged V-6s came into fashion a few years back, some car enthusiasts feared they would lead to a lineup of underpowered, lightweight safetymobiles — an automotive Kenny G studio album, with reverb, a drum machine and droning synth violins.

The MKT might not be as unnecessarily rugged as the Navigator, and it’s certainly not a sports car, but it’s a risky design that’s possible and practical, thanks to some creative engineering and compensatory technology. It’s not bebop or acid jazz, and it’s not supposed to be. It’s Smooth Jazz, unplugged. I’m just wondering who is listening.

WIRED Classy styling befits the vehicle destined to become the next Town Car. Seats six or seven passengers. Better-than-modest power will satisfy fans of other crossovers. BLIS technology that keeps you from running over the neighbor’s kids. Decent fuel economy from a hulking luxo-yacht.

TIRED Third row seats fine for kids, but adults will get smooshed. Limited rear visibility, and BLIS isn’t standard — it’s a $4K upgrade.

Photo courtesy Ford

Chevrolet has positioned the Cruze as a small car you’ll want to drive because it’s a good car, not because it’s the only one you can afford. That same philosophy is true for the Eco, the Cruze’s more fuel-efficient sibling, and it makes for a stylish, engaging car that just happens to be quite good on gas.

For the Cruze Eco, Chevy cooked up a batch of aerodynamic trickery and weight reduction from recipes based on the Volt. If designing the Volt was putting a man on the moon, the Cruze Eco is Tang and a pen that writes upside-down.

For example, GM engineers designed a shutter that reduces drag by closing off the lower grille at high speeds. Together with panels on the underbody, some closed-off vents at the top of the grille, a spoiler and a ride-lowering sport suspension, the changes reduce drag ten percent and improve looks immeasurably over the base Cruze.

With a stick shift, it weighs in at 3,009 pounds, a savings of 214 pounds over a standard Cruze without the Eco package. Sheet metal was reduced 1 mm in thickness in parts, while weld flanges were reduced between 1 and 2 mm in length. The wheel and tire choices saved an additional 21.2 pounds. Sure, we’ll take lightweight 17-inch alloys — for the environment, of course.

Having suffered through every Chevy compact from the miserable Monza to the comatose Cobalt, I was less than optimistic while picking up the keys, especially since “weight savings” sounded suspiciously like “cost cutting.” However, after a very pleasant week in a 2011 Chevy Cruze Eco, I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The automatic Cruze Eco arrived for testing just as gas inched above $3.50 a gallon. Even with a heavier foot than most, I managed 32.6 mpg over 500 miles in a mix of stop-and-go, suburban and highway traffic — close to the EPA estimate of 26 city and 37 highway. You can expect even better mileage from the manual, which is rated at 28 city and 42 highway.

It wasn’t just the fuel economy that impressed me, however.

On the road, despite the weight savings, the Cruze feels like it’s held together by electromagnetic force. Handling is firm and steering is precise, if a bit numb for spirited driving. On paper, 138 horses might sound tame, but the Cruze doles them out with gusto in a way that no hybrid I’ve driven can match.

In curves, there’s little lean or body roll, and the Cruze makes quick and entertaining work of onramps and highway sweepers alike. On straightaways, the Cruze effortlessly motors along at 80, even in strong crosswinds. Everything about this car inspires confidence, and nothing about it feels like a soulless appliance.

The interior surfaces are pleasant to the eyes and fingertips. A padded, two-tone dash ensconces rows of well-placed controls and a leather-wrapped steering wheel with buttons for cruise control, stereo and phone. All buttons and switches move with a satisfying amount of feedback that belie the car’s cost, and even the cloth seats were comfortable after hours of driving. Trunk space is class-leading and the rear seats fold down.

Most of the cutting-edge technology is on the exterior of the car, though our tester featured OnStar, Bluetooth and XM, plus USB and aux-in jacks. It was also equipped with Audio Facebook, which uses OnStar to read and post status updates with a minimum of distraction. I’d see a little more utility in a service that lets you access Twitter, e-mail or texts — or one that converts speech-to-text for status updates — but it’s a good start.

What’s not to like? Well, the test car took a while to shift out of first gear, and the 1.4-liter turbo displayed a tiny bit of lag when hard-pressed during highway passing maneuvers.

It would be nice to have a cover for the center console cup holders, which accumulated loose change instead of lattes. The storage area on top of the dash can’t hold anything that could be damaged by heat from the sun, and the rear seats would be tight for anyone taller than 5′11″.

The Volt can be forgiven for hogging the spotlight in the Chevrolet lineup. After all, it’s a technological tour de force that redefined the automobile in less than five years of development. However, it’s not going to be a volume seller.

That mantle, hopefully, will belong to the Cruze — a spirited, solid car that’s as fun to drive as it is painless to fill up.

WIRED Lessons learned on the Volt trickled down to the Cruze. Chevy proves that high-tech and high-mileage don’t mean hybrid. You can get a manual with a turbo.

TIRED Other cars in the same class sell for a slightly lower MSRP. Turbo lag. “Eco” trim level sounds cheap, but it’s both better-looking and better-equipped than the base model.

Photos courtesy of Chevrolet

Think Volvo and you think utilitarian automobiles that shuttle you from point A to point B safely, reliably and indefinitely.

For all their virtues — pathological obsession with safety comes to mind, as does anvil-like durability – Volvos aren’t exciting. They’re cars only soccer moms, Vermonters and tweed-jacketed professors can love.

It’s a stereotype, of course. One that overlooks the company’s hot rod “R” models, among other things. But it is sufficiently pervasive that the Swedes have had enough. They’re billing the all-new S60 as “the naughty Volvo,” a technological marvel equally adept at hauling kids and hauling ass.

And Volvo certainly isn’t just blowing hot air. The S60 T6 we drove has the most powerful engine Volvo’s ever produced, a 300-horsepower 3.0-liter turbocharged six with a boatload of torque. Stomp it and you’ll hit 60 mph in 5.8 seconds. Triple digits follow quickly. The engine is a joy; it revs smoothly, accelerates briskly and sounds sporty.

The six-speed slushbox is equally nice. You can’t get a proper manual, dammit, but running through the gears in “sport” mode is a close approximation. Power hits the ground through all four wheels; torque vectoring and a traction control system with body-lean-angle sensors help keep all but the most inept drivers out of trouble.

The standard “dynamic” suspension is taut enough to make a winding road entertaining but supple enough for commuting hell. You don’t forget that this is a 3,900 pound car when you’re pushing it hard, but the S60 is remarkably agile. There’s a softer “touring” setup if you don’t know a chicane from a Chiclet, and $750 buys the “FOUR-C” adjustable suspension. Steering response is adjustable — light, normal and heavy — but superfluous. “Normal” is ideal.

In keeping with the car’s sportiness, the S60’s styling is muscular, with a coupe-like silhouette. It’s a bit bigger in every dimension than its predecessor, but the short overhangs, 18-inch wheels and taut lines hide the added length and girth. This is a Volvo, so of course it’s packed with enough safety features to make even Ralph Nader smile — provided you spring for the $2,100 “technology package.” Most notable is the world’s first application of what Volvo calls “pedestrian detection with full auto brake.” Cameras and radar at both ends tell you when you’re about to run someone down. Ignore the warning and the car stops itself. Volvo says it will avoid collisions at up to 22 mph, but we couldn’t find anyone willing to help us prove that.

Other electronic nannies tell you when some jerk is riding your bumper — or when you’re the jerk riding someone’s bumper. The S60 also tells you when you’ve wandered out of your lane, and when someone’s wandered into your blind spot. But our favorite feature was “adaptive cruise control with queue assist.” Beyond adjusting your speed to account for changing traffic conditions — a common feature — Volvo’s system essentially drives the car for you in stop-and-go traffic. The car creeps forward when the guy ahead of you does, then stops. It’s brilliant.

There’s still more tech inside. The $2,700 multimedia package includes navi with real-time traffic info, a rear-view camera and a 650-watt surround sound audio that isn’t as loud as you’d expect. Spend another $1,600 and the kids can watch DVDs (or just buy them iPads for far less). The interior is tastefully and comfortably appointed with an upscale look and feel.

All in all, the S60 offers the solid engineering, sturdy construction and leading-edge safety synonymous with Volvo and a healthy dose of sportiness in a car as naughty as it is nice.

WIRED Reasonably swift and relatively sporty performance in a car that’s safer than putting your money in T-bills.

TIRED Somewhat sedate styling. Some of the tech — adjustable suspension, adjustable steering response – seems superfluous. Soft plastic dashboard is out of place in an otherwise upscale interior. World’s slowest rear defroster.

Top photo: Jim Merithew/Wired. Other photos courtesy Volvo.

To know the Fiat 500 is to know its numbers.

Fifty-four years ago, Italy’s Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino produced a car the size of a large coffee table. It was three meters long, powered by a 479-cc engine and about as quick off the line as a riding lawnmower. It produced 13 horsepower, or roughly as much as a modern portable electric generator. America laughed — you could cram a 500 into the trunk of a ‘57 Cadillac, and crashing one was certain death — but the rest of the world just went ahead and bought the silly thing. Three-and-a-half million times.

Thirty-six years ago, that car was discontinued. Almost three decades ago, Fiat left America because it couldn’t suss what Americans wanted in a car. Six years ago, the firm revived the 500’s name and profile for a new model, a 3.5-meter-long subcompact. And four months ago, Fiat unveiled the U.S. version of that car, the first Fiat to be sold in America in 28 years.

There has since been a lot of pushback. Small cars don’t work in America, people say, but Fiat reps point to the Mini Cooper, an example of which lives on every street from Pasadena to Pittsburgh. Fiat stands for Fix It Again Tony, pundits cackle, but Fiat employees roll their eyes and wearily point to the fact that their current lineup doesn’t fall apart or regularly catch fire. (Buy a ’70s Spider, though, and even devotees will admit all bets are off.) The paranoids scream about small cars being unsafe, which prompts Fiat to trumpet the 500’s five-star European NCAP safety rating.

In short, America isn’t the place it once was, and Fiat isn’t the company it once was.

Similarly, the 500 isn’t the car it once was. When the 2400-pound hatchback arrives at the dealers’ next month, it will come in three forms: Pop ($16,000), Sport ($18,000) and Lounge ($20,000). Each gets a 101-hp version of Fiat’s 1.4-liter four-cylinder (30/38 mpg city/highway) and a standard five-speed manual transmission. The three levels are separated by small differences like bumper trim, wheel size and suspension tuning, but they’re essentially the same car. Creature comforts like air conditioning and cruise control are standard, and a six-speed Aisin automatic is available across the line.

Looks aside, our 500 isn’t Europe’s 500. Everything from interior layout to crash structure has been tweaked in the interest of appealing to stateside needs. Because we’re a nation of fatties, the front seats have been widened, the center console narrowed. The back of the rear seat is now carpeted, not painted metal, because we supposedly like that sort of thing. Steering and suspension tuning have been modified. And there’s a glove box and driver’s armrest where Europe had none, because Europeans apparently don’t wear gloves, or perhaps have no arms at all. (The mind boggles. Maybe it’s a trend.)

The biggest change, however, is the engine. The 1.4-liter, 98 lb-ft four that lives under the 500’s hood is not offered in Europe, where the car makes do with a variety of smaller, hamster-on-a-wheel mills. This engine is a technological marvel; it’s tiny (note the iPhone placed on the intake manifold for scale), efficient and boasts Fiat’s MultiAir variable valve-timing technology, which does away with an intake camshaft and uses oil pressure to vary valve lift and timing. The MultiAir name comes from the system’s clever ability to open the valves multiple times in one intake stroke, promoting charge turbulence and aiding combustion.

The end result is a car that feels almost, but not completely, European. Like Europe’s 500, ours is impossibly nimble and slow as molasses: 60 mph arrives in an estimated 9.5 seconds.