Driving the BMW M3 CS and Alfa Romeo Stelvio, and Toyota reveals a new Camry | Autoblog Podcast #807

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Road Test Editor Zac Palmer. They kick the discussion off by talking about what they've been driving as of late, including a track test of the 2024 BMW M3 CS and then road drives of the Mazda CX-90, Alfa Romeo Stelvio Veloce and BMW 750e xDrive. After wrapping up the drive section, the pair move on to some early reveals that happened at the L.A. Auto Show. The new Toyota Camry, Toyota Crown Signia, Hyundai Santa Fe XRT and Hyundai Ioniq 5 N are all discussed.

Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com.

Video Transcript

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GREG MIGLIORE: Welcome back to the Autoblog Podcast. I'm Greg Migliore. We have an awesome show for you this week. We're going to talk about time on track with the BMW M3 CS, a little bit of time on the road as well, the Mazda CX-90, that's a very nice three row crossover, with a straight 6, gives a different vibe. The Alfa Romeo Stelvio, and the 7 Series plug-in hybrid, we'll fly over some news in LA, that's the new Camry, the Crown Signia, and some stuff out of Hyundai.

That's a big show for us this week. It is the week of the LA Auto Show. So some of these things we're going to touch on, we'll come back next week and hit on those, maybe a little bit of a deeper dive and some of the other things that have shaken out. Please send us your Spend My Moneys that's podcast@autoblog.com. With that, let's bring in road test editor Zac Palmer. How are you?

ZAC PALMER: I am doing swell. I'm pretty pumped to talk about some of these BMWs here. How are you doing?

GREG MIGLIORE: I'm doing good. It is super sunny all of a sudden. We're like a week out from Thanksgiving. It's that time of year, if you will.

ZAC PALMER: It is. I think-- well, most of my leaves have fallen at this point. The yard is looking pretty messed up. So that is classic Michigan fall right there.

GREG MIGLIORE: My leaves have fallen. But they have not been raked up. Some of them have-- but I try to do it in sort of two different batches, one kind of early to mid fall. And then that kind of right around Thanksgiving, you got to do it, because it's getting embarrassing, rake those leaves. And we've reached that point. So maybe even today. It's just the days are so short now that it's tough. You're done with work, and then it's dark out.

ZAC PALMER: Very true. It's the classic Michigan Midwest winter already, it feels like.

GREG MIGLIORE: It's cold.

ZAC PALMER: We're edging in on it.

GREG MIGLIORE: It's cold. All right, so let's talk about the M3 CS. This is the competition sport. We both drove it here in Michigan. But you got to drive it on the track, at BMW Test Fest. So I'm very curious what you think. What was it like on the track?

ZAC PALMER: Yeah, man, this-- this was honestly a bit of a dream to drive on track. I drove it on road, just like you did a few weeks to about a month ago. So I was already expecting it to be extremely, extremely good on the track. You could very much tell from driving it on the road that this is a vehicle that you need to have on track to really fully understand the full capabilities of it.

So one of the things that makes it so great and special on track is the fact that the CS is all wheel drive, unlike the M4 CSL. I know that a lot of people will probably be making comparisons between that CSL and the CS. BMW all wheel drive systems in their M3 and M4 are fantastic.

They're very performance driven. They are very heavily rear biased. But they do a spectacular job on track of, A, making your life easier by not having 540 horsepower directly to the rear wheels, and B, just flat out making you faster around the track.

The track that we were on was the BMW Performance Center down in Spartanburg, South Carolina. So it was pretty much a tailor-made track for BMWs. BMW actually uses that track to teach people at the Performance Center and whatnot. Various number of turns. It's sort of like a training track. So you got wide sweepers, really, really tight hairpins, any corner that you could imagine, and a bunch of elevation change too.

It's somewhat of a challenging track, technically. But this M3 CS, honestly, made it look a bit like child's play. To say that I was having fun would be a bit of an understatement. The amount of power I mean, obviously, BMW rates this thing around like 540 horsepower. It feels like more than that.

I mean, it also has the eight speed automatic. When you're full throttle on the straight, maybe with any amount of like small steering lock as you're going around a bend and it slams third to fourth gear, the amount of torque that this have, that this thing has, will literally light the rear tires up and cause you to skip sideways. It's a seriously, seriously powerful machine. And the way that it just keeps grabbing gear after gear, super, super fast gear changes. You better know that you're getting into something very fast.

And then the grip levels too, so this thing has the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup two R's on it. So that's even more extreme than just the regular Cup 2's. The R's are basically almost an R compound, track ready tire. Not great for the road. You don't want to be driving this thing around in too much water or anything like that, especially not cold weather.

But it was a nice balmy 80 degrees out there. And yeah, the amount of grip that this thing has around corners. We had several other cars out there on track too, the M2 and the I5 M60. And the way that the M3 CS would be able to go through corners versus those other cars was almost otherworldly. In that you just felt like you had an unlimited amount of grip.

And that just is sort of compounded by the fact that you have the all wheel drive system that will yank you out of the corner as soon as you're there. And the rear biasness, you can throw it into that MDM mode, which sort of relaxes stability and traction control. Get a nice flip of the rear on every tight corner exit, helping you go just steer with the throttle.

I was honestly just laughing to myself after like a lap or two at how fun and just how super capable it was around the track. I know that I mentioned to you earlier in the week that there's only like one car that I've had more fun on track in my career doing this. And we all drive a lot of cars on track. And that was the NSX Type S. But this M3 CS, if I was looking for like a car, I owned a garage or something at some fancy track, something Thermal Club or M1 here in Michigan, I would highly consider putting this thing into my garage. It is that fun and that good around the track. And that's really where this thing belongs. So yeah, top marks.

GREG MIGLIORE: It's interesting, driving it around just the suburbs here, I thought it was a reasonable daily driver. But I just kept thinking you have so many tools at your disposal like the M Sport diff. Even the Alcantara grip steering wheel, the huge Brembo brakes, which are bronze, I believe, they're all really where to take this car to its natural habitat, which is the track.

Can you have a hell of a lot of fun driving around the suburbs? Sure you can. But to really make the most out of this car, and if you're going to spend $132,600 and some change, you want to have access to a track. You want to be like a thermal, or M1, or Monticello member.

You want to you have that type of access to really enjoy a car like this. Because it's pretty righteous just rolling around town with that-- the inline 6 with the BMW twinpower, it's awesome. But just the experience you had really sounds like you were able to get the most out of it.

ZAC PALMER: You can. And but to your point on the street, it's actually kind of a sweetheart to drive around on the street too. It wasn't you know like it's going to bite your head off or anything like that. The CSL is definitely more extreme, stiffer, the transmission shifts a little, just harsher. And it's a lot noisier on the inside because they take even more sound deadening out. There's no rear seats in that car.

The CS, though, you can drive it hundreds of miles to whatever track you want to. The suspension is soft enough that you're not going to hate yourself by the time you get there. You can bring a buddy in the back seat. I mean, and it's all wheel drive, so if you really wanted to, you could drive it through winter and throw some winter tires on it. it is--

GREG MIGLIORE: It's a little low to the ground. But you know--

ZAC PALMER: Maybe a little low to the ground. Maybe light winter. If there's more than 4 inches on the ground, maybe maybe. Leave it at home. But yeah, it's really a fantastic do it all sports car and track car, honestly, too because this thing was very clearly dialed in on the racetrack.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, no, I mean, like you said, I took it to a doctor or dentist appointment. I took it golfing. You can live with it and have a lot of fun. So it can be sort of, in some ways, the best of both worlds. By the time this drops, I have a five thoughts on the M3 CS coming up with some pictures from you. By the way, kudos to that, those pictures look great of the car we had here in Michigan.

And then we'll have a track test from you, Zac, listeners, coming later probably in the month or in early December or something. So you kind of get to see it on road and track from both of our vantage points. I actually-- it's not often that this kind of lines up this way. I guess it was a bit serendipitous.

We also had the MC20, the Maserati supercar the same week. And I drove them back to back. And there were multiple ways, including, I'd like to hear what you think, the engine. Where I actually thought the BMW was slightly ahead. Both were great cars. And of course, the Maserati was more powerful. And it's-- the engine is literally mounted behind your ears in the Maserati.

But I don't know. I found the BMW 6 to be a little more characterful to just-- I thought it sounded a little better. And I don't know-- in some ways, it felt like-- and this is-- we talked about this last week. I loved the Maserati MC20. I thought it was awesome.

But there were just some elements about the M3 that I thought it was a better version of itself in fulfilling its mission than the MC20. It just-- it was kind of an interesting scenario for me to drive them back to back. I literally dropped the Maserati off for you and Amer, our video producer, at a park and then drove the M3 home. So I guess the point I'm trying to make is especially if you're looking for like a track sort of weapon, you don't have to spend 200 or 300. You can spend 132, which I also kind of wrote this, it's the cost of entry.

If you want something that's going to have this much stuff on it, you kind of got to pay for it outside of a few very notable bargains, like the Corvette Stingray comes to mind. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you drove them back to back too. How would you frame that up? That was a pretty good week in the Autoblog fleet?

ZAC PALMER: It wasn't bad, no.

GREG MIGLIORE: It wasn't terrible. Didn't suck, right? It was OK.

ZAC PALMER: Oh man, no, that's-- it's a really interesting question because I mean, obviously, driving the back to back, I was thinking in the same way. I think that I definitely like the sound of the MC20'S better. However, at times, it really almost felt like the BMW engine was a little stronger throughout the rev range.

Maserati feels really good with that low hit of torque down low. And then it really keeps going to 8,000. But BMW, I mean, at this point, I'm fairly certain even BMW folks have alluded to the fact that their engines are severely underrated from power. So while they say it makes 543 horsepower--

GREG MIGLIORE: I don't know about that.

ZAC PALMER: It feels like there's a good amount more horsepower than what that is. And that just made the M3 CS feel so stinking fast. But I mean, man, on a track, it would really be interesting because the CS is very single minded being good on a track, whereas, MC20 is sort of your everyday supercar.

I mean, it can go on the track. But it's not like McLaren LT, or Ferrari Pista, or something along those lines. If you're more of a hardcore track rat, I honestly might go M3 CS over the MC20 if you're just looking for a track car. I don't know if that's a hot take or not. But man, I really, really love that M3.

GREG MIGLIORE: I don't think it's a hot take because we're not-- however this sounds, we're not dissing the MC20. The MC20 was awesome. It's sort of like the same way. I would-- I would definitely take the M3 CS over the Acura NSX. I didn't drive the Type S on a track. I only drove the regular NSX is what I'm trying to say, too.

There's that. But I mean, to me, there are certain super sharpest tip of the sword sedans or coupes that I think are even a little bit better because of the way they are so equipped than some supercars. I don't know-- I would take this over some McLarens, I would say, too, actually. But I also would take the Maserati over some McLarens too. I also really liked what it did.

ZAC PALMER: Same. I think that-- I mean just within the M3, M4 realm too, I think that this M3 CS is my new favorite variant of them all. Expensive, but extremely good.

GREG MIGLIORE: All right, well, let's move on. We have-- let's see-- we have the-- I don't know how we fade to this, the Mazda CX-90. We got a lot of different cars. So we're just going to kind of bounce around here, I guess.

ZAC PALMER: CX-90 is still fun to drive, I mean, amongst three row SUVs, at least I hope so. I'm excited to hear about it.

GREG MIGLIORE: So I was surprised by two things. Well, one thing surprised me. And it was one of two things that really stood out. One, it's the steering. I wouldn't say it's a cliche to say that, oh, it's like the Mazda DNA is injected into the CX-90. But it really drove and felt like it was heavy. It was real like Mazda steering.

And then the question I asked myself was do I really like this? Because when I drive a three row crossover, I don't want it to be a lot of work beyond the fact that you're driving something the size of the Queen Mary. It's not supposed to be that engaging. And it was even fairly well, kind of tightly sprung. You could feel that in the suspension, if you will.

The chassis was very dialed in. I liked it, inevitably. I did. I put about, jeez, how many miles? I put about 100 miles on it. It's up for crossover utility of the year. So there's that. And that's why it was in my driveway, which is great. I took it out to Ann Arbor from the northern suburbs all the way out to Ann Arbor, went skating, I think we talked about this earlier, on campus at the University of Michigan. So it was kind of a fun day.

Very family, three row crossover type of thing, we had to put the ice skates in the back. So it was functional and all that. But it did kind of have me thinking, like as I was on-- let's see, I think I was on M-14, I got-- this isn't like necessarily a one-hander, drink your coffee. It's like you want to be a little dialed in, relatively speaking.

It's still-- to act like this is a Miata, a Jeep Wrangler, an MC20, it was a challenging thing to drive is not what I'm saying here. But relatively speaking to say like a Chevy Traverse, a GMC Acadia, a Honda Pilot, the list goes on, there's a little bit more going on there, a Subaru Ascent, et cetera. And obviously, that's what they're going for.

The second element I thought that really stood out is the design. I thought it was one of the better looking vehicles in the segment. I think it's kind of cool that they have on the front quarter panel, they have a badge that says, I think it says inline 6, which is cool. You don't get that too much, frankly, in any car, let alone a badge that signifies that.

I really liked the straight 6 as well. It's a really solid power plant. I'd like to see Mazda do it-- use it in more vehicles. It's ironic as we're seeing know maybe that's starting to the tail end of ICE, you internal combustion engines, Mazda's got a really good one. I would like to see this one used, even more widely. So there's that.

Thought it had a lot of good-- it's 3.3 liters. It's a turbo. It's 280 horsepower and 332 pounds feet of torque. Hooked up to an 8 speed automatic, so those are the basics. And I feel like it really had a nice sort of sweet spot. As low as like 2,500 in the band, right through 6,000. So a lot to like about that motor.

And again, it's unexpected. How many large three row crossovers are just making do with an inline 4, or a turbo 4, or something, or just off-the-shelf V6, nothing wrong with that. But this had a lot of character to it from the design to the engine to the chassis. Inside was pretty nice. It had kind of like a light, that-- I don't know-- IKEA kind of vibe, with the light wood, I would assume it's fake wood, trim, that sort of thing, very comfortable. Good seats.

But overall, I liked it a lot. I really did. I think it's a different take. I think Mazda is being true to itself. They're not just trying to make another three row crossover. They're trying to make like Mazda's three row crossover. And to kind of put a fine point on this, that's not going to be for everybody, though.

Some people are going to say, give me the Honda. That's more what I'm used to, more comfortable. I don't want to have to think this much while I'm driving, that type of thing. Or they might-- I like the styling, not everybody will. So I'll be interested when you get behind the wheel, to hear your take on this thing.

ZAC PALMER: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like, I don't know, a next generation CX-90 done a lot better. Just having a rear biased all wheel drive system, the inline 6, a lot of times with these three row crossovers, I mean, everything is about how big is it, what's the trunk space? What's the rear seat space?

And Mazda is like, well, we actually really care what the engine sounds like, and what the steering feel is when you're going fast through a corner, which is all the beautiful stuff that we love. But also to your point, how many buyers actually really do care about that? I mean, if you like cars and you need a three row SUV, it sounds like the Mazda is still hands down the way to go.

GREG MIGLIORE: This one, I thought was a decent value too. Mine came in at just under $55,000. And this is with the turbo premium plus trim. Artisan red premium was the color, which looked great. And white Nappa leather inside.

ZAC PALMER: Classy

GREG MIGLIORE: Very classy, worth every penny, I think. So yeah, so let's move on over to the 7 Series plug-in. We'll throw that in here. And you spent some time on that. Did you drive this on the track? I assume this was at Test Fest.

ZAC PALMER: Oh man, I did drive it, but not on the track. No BMW didn't have any 7 series out on the track this go around. But no, this was first try in the 7 Series plug-in hybrid. Prior to this, I'd driven the fully electric I7. So I had high expectations because I loved that car.

And my high expectations were met, honestly. So I think that this new 7 Series plug-in hybrid has a really, really valid proposition for a lot of people just being a giant luxury sedan. One thing that a lot of people like to do with these cars is drive them long distances. So the fact that in addition to an electric motor, a big battery that gets you about 34 miles of all electric range, you also have an inline 6 engine, not only an inline 6, but a BMW inline 6. We all know how much we love those engines.

So even when you are out of electric range, you have this beautiful, nice silky sounding very powerful inline 6 engine to motor you along. BMW says 0 to 60 in 4.6 seconds. Very much feels that way. this thing is quick, just about as quick as the I7, honestly, which makes it both fun to drive. And when you're driving it in all electric mode, the electric motor has enough power to actually get you up to speed quickly.

The only small little bone to pick that I have with driving it in electric mode is that the electric motor is integrated with the transmission. So you do feel the shifts. Now, do you feel the shifts less than maybe you feel like when we had our long-term 330E? Yes, it's certainly a lot more imperceptible now. It's a lot smoother, which is to be expected with a 7 Series. But it is not that smooth, uninterrupted flow of power that you get with the electric I7.

Everything else about this thing is basically practically exactly the same as a normal 7 Series or the I7. You can get the theater screen. You can get sweet, sweet interiors. The one that I had was this sort of maroon, and cream, and black combo on the inside, which was just flat out beautiful. That combined with a matte gray exterior finish was, man, BMW can make the 7 Series really stand out and look pretty when they want to.

But no, I think that this one really makes a solid argument for being the 7 Series to buy if you know you're going to be doing a lot of long distance trips and maybe your commute is only-- well, I guess under 30 miles, you can get a lot of fully electric driving out of this. And then go and take your big trip from say Michigan to Boston or New York City all the way up to Maine or something like that.

And the trunk isn't that compromised either. BMW did a pretty good job of integrating that battery back there such that it's not-- I mean, you still have all the luggage space in the world. One thing we're getting with a lot of newer generation plug-in hybrids is just better platform management. And that's the case here.

And I guess I should also mention, man, this thing handles well, just like every 7 Series seems to. I had it on the same road as the new five series, even an M4. This thing holds its own. It is fun to drive. It's more fun to drive than an S-class, more fun to drive than a Genesis G90. BMW makes their giant sedans fun. And the plug-in hybrid is no exception. So yeah, love this thing.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, I would agree with your statement about how they make their larger sedans a lot of fun to drive. I've had a great time in the 5 Series over multiple generations. The 7 Series, I did the launch of the last generation at Monticello in New York. And it was really good on the track. I mean, was it some of the other track demons we've discussed? Of course not.