Compact Cars

Honda Civic conversions happen more frequently than most people realize. Most of these conversions usually involve turning the front-wheel-drive compact car to either rear-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive, usually for reasons that involve one form of motorsport or another. These conversions aren’t difficult to do, and that probably explains why a lot of Civic conversions aren’t as well-thought-out as we’d expect them to be. They get the job done, sure, but the finished product still left a lot to be desired. Then there’s this Honda Civic conversion that comes to us by way of Jimmy Oakes of Oakes Garage. Not only was this build completely thought out, but the painstaking process and attention-to-detail is something to behold. To think this Civix started out as a beater and turned into a fully formed drift car is a testament to the work put in by Oakes and his peeps.

It’s been only four years since Maserati joined the SUV market with the Levante, and the Italian brand confirmed that it will introduce a second hauler in 2021. The midsize Levante will be joined by a smaller, compact-sized SUV that will share underpinnings with the Alfa Romeo Stelvio. It’s called the Grecale, it will arrive in the first half of 2021, and it will be offered with an all-electric drivetrain alongside the usual gasoline mills.

The Volkswagen ID.4, the company’s second dedicated electric vehicle, is set to debut on September 23, but the German carmaker has already unveiled the crossover’s interior. Not surprisingly, it looks a lot like the ID.3, the compact five-door hatchback that Volkswagen introduced in 2019.

Perhaps equally popular and recognizable as the Golf nameplate is the GTI badge. It has been honoring the Golf moniker since 1976 and during that time, it became synonymous with fun driving as well as daily driving suitability.

Along the years, Volkswagen refined the recipe and it’s safe to say that the 2020 Golf GTI is the most advanced of its kind. VW never went astray from the FWD setup in the Golf GTI, but it had to find ingenious solutions to keep it relevant and engaging.

If the latest report is to be believed, Mazda is cooking up a turbocharged version of the CX-30, which is expected to crank out 250 horsepower. The CX-30 is one of the most pleasing crossovers you can get as far as the driving experience is concerned, so the idea of extra grunt should, in theory, boost its desirability.

In a way, we can say that the memory of the Lancer Evo is still clean, because Mitsubishi didn’t use the name on a crossover…yet. But with the Eclipse Cross out and about, God knows what might be in store for the Lancer and the Evo nameplate.

Now, if we made you angry, we’re sorry. Here, there’s a 23-minute video of Doug DeMuro dissecting the Lance Evo. It should make you feel better.

The Honda Civic is one of the most iconic cars that’s ever been built. The Civic has been around since the early 70s and is going strong even today. There’s no denying that the car has a loyal fan base, especially amongst enthusiasts, and one of the main reasons for is its mod-friendly nature. You pick any generation of the Honda Civic and you’ll find plenty of examples with bespoke customizations. One such example is this 1984 model.

This third-gen Civic has gone through numerous mods, and the biggest of them includes a heart transplant. It is one of the rare examples that was converted to a mid-engined layout around three decades back and it is now on sale on Bring-a-Trailer.com.

Munich decided to offer a high-performance wagon based on the 3 Series and the BMW M division got involved immediately. After years of hopes, prayers, and fervent wishes, BMW is finally offering an M3 Touring (read: wagon). This is everything we know about it.

In the world of Japanese kei cars, the Daihatsu Copen often gets lost in the shuffle, overshadowed by models like the Honda Beat, Suzuki Cappuccino, and yes, even the Autozam AZ-1.

The adorable two-door convertible can hold its own in kei races, and, more importantly, its highly customizable nature allows owners to go stir crazy on custom projects. There are a myriad of ways that you can customize the Copen, including, in this case, turning to Japanese tuner extraordinaire Liberty Walk with a specific requirement: turn it into a Nissan R35 GT-R.

If the Subaru Levorg doesn’t trigger the neurotransmitters and tickle the temporal lobe in your brain, I’m honestly not too surprise. The Subaru Levorg is mainly a Japanese-only affair with Australia and a handful of European countries getting their hand’s on it only recently, after some 4-5 years on the market. As a wagon, it’s not surprising that Subaru hasn’t brought it to the U.S., but it’s still largely relevant here for one major reason – it has historically shared a lot of DNA with the Subaru WRX. The car that you see here is the second-gen, 2021 Subaru Levorg, which means that we’re getting our first real look at what the next-gen WRX and WRX STI are going to look like here in the United States. Pretty cool, right?

When Mugen revealed its parts list for the 2020 Honda Civic Type R, it brought tons of carbon fiber, Alcantara, and some extreme exterior elements. For the most part, the same can be said for the standard Civic hatchback, but nothing is near as extreme. That is, arguably, a good thing, though, so let me explain to you what you can get for the base Civic hatch.

Tesla cars have been eviscerating legendary supercars for quite some time now. Thanks to constant updates from the company, the performance levels of many models are getting better and better. Recently, a skimmed Tesla Model X broke the 11-second barrier in a quarter-mile run.

This time, it’s the Tesla Model 3 and it has taken down the yesteryear McLaren F1. Although the F1 is a hypercar from the 1990s, it is still regarded as one of the best performance cars out there. The Model 3 has beaten McLaren F1’s time around the Tsukuba Circuit in Japan, but there’s a catch. The Model 3 that did the run was not stock. Does it matter?

Hyundai has been pushing pretty Elantra numbers over the past three years, with sales comprising between 175,000 and 200,000 units sold yearly. It’s no surprise then that the South Koreans gave the greenlight to a more attractive, N-badged iteration of the Elantra sedan, albeit not in the same verve as a fully-fledged N car, but dressed in what Hyundai calls the N Line treatment.

On the onset, the new 2021 Ford Bronco and Bronco Sport appear to be a big hit for the blue oval. In the first three weeks after its reveal, North American consumers have made more than 165,000 reservations – something that appears to be a first for Ford. Of course, those reservations only required a refundable, $100 deposit, but for now, things are looking great the new Bronco. But it’s not all peaches and cream and, as it turns out, the Bronco and Bronco Sport are going to be absent from a major market. The worst part is that you can blame the government and you’d likely be right for once.

Created to do battle against the likes of BMW M135i, Mercedes-AMG A45, and to some extent, the VW Golf R, Audi’s squeaky-new S3 Sportback (and Sedan) debuts two decades after the original S3 hit the shelves. And we like what we’re seeing.

Nissan Leaf has been on the block for a decade now. It was one of the earliest entrants in the market and continues to live on. While it can be considered as the veteran in this segment if you go by its age, the Leaf didn’t make a mark like, say, any of the Tesla models did in their respective segment.

The electric hatch comes with acceptable aesthetics and decent tech features, but not the best powertrain or battery specs. But, there’s certainly more to this than meets the eye, and we’re here to uncover it. The Nissan Leaf arrived at TopSpeed’s headquarters recently, and here are our impressions about this urban electric commuter.

The Model 3 Performance has proven its worth time and again on drag strips and in straight-line races. It has put some big names to shame courtesy of its fantastic instant torque deliver and speed-raking skills. But, how does it perform on the ‘Lord of the Rings’ called the Nurburgring? Racetrack-expert, Misha Charoudin, took it to the iconic track, and it left him impressed, but he had a few pointers for Tesla as well.

The Fiat 500X is somewhat of a quirky vehicle. For starters, Fiat isn’t exactly the most popular brand here in the United States, and when you pair that with the fact that it’s really more of a jacked-up hatchback than a true crossover. As you’ll read a little later on in this in-depth review, the 500X, outside of its standard all-wheel-drive actually fails when it comes to doing a lot of usual crossover things – like carrying lots of cargo. But we’ll discuss that a little further down the page. For now, I want to want to talk to you about what it’s like to drive the 500X and a little more of that quirkiness that, honestly, intrigues me so much.

The Mini was conceived by Alec Issigonis to be the ultimate city car, small in proportions but featuring a groundbreaking platform that made it surprisingly spacious on the inside. It sold in over five million copies and is considered one of the most influential designs ever. So good was BMC’s biggest hit that it even made waves in the racing world, both on the rally stages and on the circuits of the world. It is, then, not that surprising that a latter-day Mini with enough mods is capable of putting 500 horsepower to the ground.

The Hyundai Elantra GT and GT N-Line, especially in regard to the most recent generation, had all the makings of a true hot hatch that could have competed with the likes of the Ford Focus ST, Honda Civic Type R, and even the Volkswagen Gold R. It has the looks, but Hyundai forgot one major ingredient – performance. Now, with a new Elantra GT N Line sedan on the horizon and the introduction of the Hyundai Venue, the Elantra GT hatchback is going to be killed off for the for the 2021 model year – at least in the United States, anyway.

Jeep recently unveiled its first hybrid vehicles based on the Compass and Renegade SUVs, but the FCA-owned brand is also working on an all-electric hauler. Recent intel claims that the upcoming crossover will be even smaller than the Renegade and that it will benefit from technology by PSA, following the recently announced merger between FCA and the French group that owns Peugeot, Citroen, and Opel.

Hyundai introduced the Venue subcompact crossover for the 2020 model year as an all-new model that’s based on the same platform as the Ascent compact sedan. As a subcompact, you can get a well-equipped model for less than $20,000, but that affordability doesn’t come without its tradeoffs. Being an all-new model, we’ve been itching to see how Hyundai’s latest entry to the U.S. market holds up, especially against long-running nameplates like the Ford EcoSport and Nissan Kicks. We finally got our chance with the mid-level SEL trim, and this is what you can expect from it.