Driving Sports

Being an automotive journalist has to have some upside this year - amid all the news of declining subscription rates and advertising sales in free-fall, there's got to be a silver lining somewhere on this cloud!

The automotive journalism business has always had its ups and downs. On the downside, you'll never buy a villa in Tuscany and a big yacht on what you earn scribbling about cars. And in this economy, there are enough unemployed auto writers to cover each and every Cash for Clunkers transaction from coast to coast.

But the upsides include the chance to drive the best of each year's crop of new cars, and the chance to compare them side-by-side at organized press events like the Northwest Automotive Press Association's annual Run to the Sun.

This event brings together automotive journalists from Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia to experience 18 of the industry's best cars. It's a chance for automakers to put the best of their lineup in front of the media for two days of fun, sun, and relaxed driving.

The event starts in Portland, and we all take off early in the morning and get out of town as quickly as possible. When you're behind the wheel of a convertible Ford Mustang or a BMW Z4, you don't want to be waiting at a stoplight. After traversing about 30 miles, everyone stops and plays musical cars - out of this one and into the next. In this way, over the course of two days, each journalist gets a chance to drive every car, and chat with the automaker representative to learn more about the car than you could just by driving it.

The cars we all drove this year included the new Chevy Camaro, Dodge Challenger, and Ford Mustang – a full stable of pony cars showing the best of what the Big 3 have to offer. The Mustang is the grand old man of the bunch, have been redesigned with a retro look back in 2005. Dodge and Chevy followed suit, and the Pony Car wars are back on in Michigan! As a dedicated Portland green weenie, I felt a little guilty about how much I enjoyed the pure pleasure of power in these cars, but not so guilty that I could wipe the grin off my face. Everyone needs to be a little bad  sometimes.

A Run to the Sun without convertibles would be silly, and so we included the Audi TT, BMW Z4, MINI Cooper S Convertible, Jaguar XK, and the Lexus IS-C 250. These cars show that the old days of noisy, drafty, leaky convertibles are gone. Only a few of us who like to prove how tough we are will miss the experience of a drip onto our left knee in the Oregon rain. The BMW and Jag are powerhouses - mighty road machines with fast engines and long sleek hoods. The Audi, MINI and the Lexus are pure fun - big wide Grins distilled into steel and canvas.

We brought along a pair of grand touring cars, an advanced Crossover Utility Vehicle, and a funky flyer. The Volkswagen CC is the latest in high style from the venerable German automaker. Don't let the 2.0-liter engine size fool you, the turbocharged CC has plenty of power to get that long, sleek spacious car up and down the mountains.  Mercedes brought along the new E-class coupe, showing again how they stay ahead of the competition in style, luxury, and power. Volvo brought their new XC60 crossover, complete with lane departure, emergency self-stopping capability, AWD, and everything else you could want. Notably, the XC60 had no trouble keeping up with the sports cars on any windy mountain road. Nissan brought their new ultra-funky urban youth market Cube...and I can't define it. It's not a hatchback compact car, and it's not an SUV or even a crossover. It just is what it is - and we crammed 7 people into the Cube to hit the nightlife in Sisters, Oregon. (Please don't tell the OSP.)

Finally, there were the Sport Compact cars on the trip. With the Hyundai Genesis Coupe, Mazda3 sedan, Mitsubishi Ralliart Lancer, Nissan 370Z, and a customized Suzuki SX-4. What this group showed is the strength of the compact car market, even in the down economy. For a reasonable price, you can get the AWD of the Suzuki SX-4 and Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart, you can get the sports car power of the Hyundai Genesis and the Nissan 370Z, and you can get the sports car handling of the Mazda3 in a practical sedan body.

Of all the cars on the Run to the Sun, the Hyundai Genesis was the one that impressed me most. That's largely because it was the first time I drove the Genesis coupe, and I had no idea about its power and luxury - Hyundai is reinventing itself, and the Genesis is a bold assertion of that fact.

Over the next few months, I'll post detailed reviews of each of these cars, as I have a chance to spend a week with each one, getting to know it better. And I'll carry the memories of flying across the eastern Oregon countryside, top down and nowhere I had to be, as the best upside of my job.