Blues Brothers. Panned by critics, loved by millions. So who is right? What makes the critics opinion more valid than the consumer? Veteran Canadian auto writer, new to auto blogging, Jil McIntosh warns consumers that it is good to be critical of the critics. In other words, trust your butt over theirs.

So what gives? Why is this warrior of the press fleets telling readers to take our writings with a grain of salt? Because unlike many of our counterparts in the industry, Jil is very accessible to the public and still remembers that consumers actually buy cars based on so called journalists recommendations. I’ll take this one step further and say that many of todays motoring writers are journalism school grads who have little or no expertise in the automotive world. In other words, they don’t have a clue in hell what they are talking about, nor do they have any business advising people on the 2nd most expensive item they will purchase in their lifetime. The problem is even worse in my domain, the online world, where anyone can claim to be an expert.

Fighting words those!
Continue reading →

I always get a kick out of reading other people’s reviews of a car that I’m about to test, so it was cool that Wes Siler from Jalopnik had a similar Taurus X last week. Fortunately, our tester had a more photogenic colour combo than the two tone deal that Wes had.

I suppose the first thing we should discuss is the branding issue. Ford has been trying hard to try to rectify some of the branding nightmares they’ve created recently by resurrecting the Taurus nameplate. The Freestyle moniker hadn’t struck a chord with consumers, so rather than let it continue they renamed it the Taurus X in deference to the available awd. Really, all it seems to have done is confused the brand recognition even more. Most people sort of scratch their heads & say…”so you’re driving a Ford 500 right?” Maybe they should have stuck with Freestyle.
Continue reading →