L.A. show, Chevy Colorado AEV Bison, Acura Integra, RDX | Autoblog Podcast #705

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Road Test Editor Zac Palmer. This week, they talk about driving the Chevy Colorado ZR2 AEV Bison, Audi A3 and S3, Toyota Corolla XSE hatchback and the new Acura RDX. As for news, they discuss the reveal of the new Acura Integra, and talk about what's new at the 2021 L.A. Auto Show. Finally, they help a listener pick a car from the list of their childhood favorites.

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. Joining me today is Road Test Editor Zac Palmer. What's up, man?

ZAC PALMER: Oh, just here in cold Michigan. I know that most of the news this week has been happening out in nice sunny Los Angeles. But hey, there ain't nothing wrong with Detroit either. How are you doing?

GREG MIGLIORE: I'm good. I'm good. It's a little cold, in the 40s. Just took the dog for a brisk walk, it's kind of windswept, but it still feels a little bit like fall. I like that. Sometimes you get into November and people just jump ahead to the holidays. All good, but you know, there's still some leaves out, sunny, it's cold, put on my puffer vest, and, you know, just walked the dog, and felt pretty good.

And it is a little bit warmer out in LA. We're going to talk about the LA show. James Wiswick and Joel Stocksdale were out there. Best bet is, obviously, to check out our full coverage on site. But we're going give you some of our opinions about what we saw out there. It was a pretty decent show overall.

But first, we're going to talk about what we've been driving and we've been driving some cool stuff. I just got out of a Chevy Colorado ZR2 AEV Bison. This is the one, of course, the AEV tunes. There's some really cool stuff on here. We'll get into it. You did the first drive of the Audi A3 and S3 in Colorado. I drove the Corolla XSE Hatchback-- pretty fun. I really enjoyed that.

And then you actually spent some time, I believe it was also out in California, driving the Acura RDX and you saw the reveal of the Integra. So we'll get into all of that. And we will spend your money. So busy show, should probably start knocking stuff out. Any guesses as to how much this Bison costs?

ZAC PALMER: Oh, man. I'm going to put my first guess right around $55,000 after AEB is done with it. Am I close?

GREG MIGLIORE: You are dead on, man.

ZAC PALMER: Wow.

GREG MIGLIORE: $54,940.

ZAC PALMER: I didn't even cheat either. And I probably have the Monroney.

GREG MIGLIORE: I was going to say, that's kind of shady. Did you pull this up on one of the fleet files or something? But no, you were dead on.

ZAC PALMER: Wow.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, what I would say is this-- super cool. It looks super cool. It drives cool. It has the 2.8-liter Duramax diesel. It sounds like a monster truck. My kid calls it a monster truck. I can see eye to eye with any other guy in a truck in a parking lot when I'm in this thing.

$55-- I don't know, you don't necessarily need that. But what you do get from AEV-- I will tell you right here, I have the Monroney-- the ZR2 Bison from AEV gives you, let's see, hot-stamped boron steel skid plates. So you're going to, like, go over some jagged stuff, you've got some reinforcement there.

17-inch dark graphite aluminum wheels. You can get cool wheels from Chevy on your truck. You don't need to spend the money for that. Front and rear bumpers, wheel flares, which are seriously like cartoonish-- they really stick out on this thing like a Transformer-- embroidered headrests, and of course, this one does have the diesel. And an exhaust brake too actually-- $75 exhaust brake.

So you know, if you want the look, you want to let American Expedition Vehicles do this stuff, you know, it's definitely a cool vehicle. The ZR2 is not cheap. So really all you're paying for from like AEV is just some of the looks, and things like that, and the offroad gear, which is only about a $5,700 add-on. You know, the rest of this is Chevy.

It's the AEV stuff and then the-- excuse me, the $3,700 diesel is what gets this to $55. Without it, you're looking more at, like, basically, like, a base in the mid-$40s range, if you will, like the base ZR2. Which to me, that's the sweet spot. That's how I would go.

But this thing does look cool as hell, man. I know you've driven the ZR2. I think it's a great truck. I think you get a lot of bang for your buck in this segment. You know, honestly, for me, this reminded me just how much I actually really like the Colorado. It's a really strong player in the segment.

ZAC PALMER: Yeah, no, there is nothing wrong with just the base ZR2. That is one hell of a truck all on its own. You get a big lift, you get the awesome multimatic suspension, which really makes the truck. It both jumps, lands softly off-road, rides super smoothly off-road, and rides super smoothly on-road. It handles respectably well as well.

And all of those AEV things are really cool, but they're definitely for somebody who's an off-roading enthusiast that maybe you don't want to go to some parts bin and just buy a part here, buy part there, buy a part there. You can just get this package that lays out your super high clearance bumpers, and better skid plates, and it all is wrapped together very nicely and easily from the factory, which is certainly appealing, to me at least, especially on this truck.

Greg, you had mentioned there that I have driven this before. Yes, I have off-road. And I think that I've had more fun in this truck off-road than pretty much any other vehicle that I have driven off-road. The way that it handles different terrains is super, super impressive. It's almost like a sort of magic carpet ride over, like, a lot of huge bumps and bounces that the suspension is capable of handling.

You know, there's this. And in the mid-size truck segment, there really isn't anything else that has this kind of a high tech suspension on it. Obviously, you have stuff like the Tacoma TRD Pro, which is also fantastic off-road, and Nissan's Frontier Pro4X, which is also super respectable off-road. But for me, there is nothing better or as comparable as the ZR2 off-road in this segment. You'd have to step up to something like a Raptor to get a similar suspension technology and capability for sort of desert running off-road type stuff.

GREG MIGLIORE: The multimatic DSSV, and I'm going to use the abbreviation here, like, the suspension-- really cool. I mean, they're yellow on this thing. So, like, you know they're there. You see them.

I think we actually tested it for our tech of the year a few years ago, actually, on the Colorado. And that was just a cool thing to test, for one thing. But you get a lot of capability. And this is, I think, in some ways, the perfect truck for some people, you know, because it fits in a lot of small spaces. It handles well.

The multimatic, like, upgrades actually make it handle quite well on-road. It's a little bouncier and jouncier, but, you know, it's a little bit beefier than, say, like, the Ford FX4 suspension, I think. This is a little bit more capable depending on what you want to do. Like, this is really for serious off-roaders, whereas FX4, in my mind, is a little bit more like, hey, let's go to the campsite, that sort of thing.

You could do some work with the Chevy, with the ZR2. So yeah, one thing that I almost forgot, because this isn't this maybe widely talked about as it was a few years ago, the 2.80liter Duramax diesel, an inline 4. You're looking at 181 horsepower, 369 pound feet of torque. It's a really interesting engine.

You know, as we're looking at EVs and just all sorts of different types of displacements going down, some of them going up, a little bit of a-- I don't know, I enjoy driving it. I think it's something-- I drove-- Jesus, a few years back I drove a Canyon prototype with the Duramax diesel in it right when they were launching this. And it's just-- again, this is a very niche engine, if you will.

But I mean, I think one thing I'll say is it's rated at 18 city and 22 highway. You know, that seems low, I guess, if you will. But you know, if you want diesel, you get some grunt with this thing. So. It's still out there.

ZAC PALMER: Yeah. The diesel proposition is a cool one for off-road. And I really, really loved it in the Wrangler. And I love having that low-down grunt when you're off-roading, trying to rock climb and so on. So you know, them continuing to offer it in the Colorado is super cool.

I know the ZR2 that I drove was just the normal 3.6-liter gasoline V6. And that one was all fine and dandy too. But I think that you probably end up liking the diesel a little bit more if you're somebody who's into weird stuff like that. If you're buying a ZR2, you're probably a little bit into that weird off-roady stuff already.

So this is just a neat, weird proposition that still exists. And it's super cool that it does to me, even if it doesn't get the greatest fuel economy. It's still a neat offering.

GREG MIGLIORE: You got to want the driving dynamic from this kind of a diesel. Because, again, the fuel economy-- usually, like, diesels in the city, whatever. But usually they're pretty good on the highway. And the Colorado is not a huge truck. So I guess I was expecting a little bit of a better figure than what I'm seeing here.

And that's fine. You know, you can buy engines just for how you want your vehicle to handle and drive. And I think that's what you do here. And it's only $3,700. So I'd probably go with the 36 because I think that's a great engine. GM's been using that in everything for forever. But, hey, it's a fun vehicle.

So that's the Bison. When we get some social assets over to you here in a little bit, you'll have to check it out. I've got a few. I was at Starbucks, but then there was just this construction site behind it. So I need to look at these pictures, because I've got the Bison with these, like, gravel piles and got a TikTok-- all that good stuff.

But let's shift gears over to the Audi A3 and S3. I drove one briefly, but you went to the first drive out in Colorado. Give me some initial impressions of this pretty critical sports sedan for them, for Audi.

ZAC PALMER: I did. Yeah, I drove it through some canyons in and around Denver and Boulder, Colorado. Quick note, man, those are some great roads. Video producer Chris McGraw was definitely having a great time out there. That was the first time that I'd really had a good chance to be out there. And the Audi A3 S3 were pretty fun up and down those canyon roads.

The S3 particularly fun, the A3 you can definitely tell is a sedan for somebody who wants something nicer than, say, like, a Civic. You want the luxury interior, want a luxury look, get nice, big Audi wheels, super great-looking LEDs. It's very sort of like a pug, like a dog rearing up at you.

The design is super neat in that way. But the driving experience, if you really, really want something that is a lot of fun to drive, I think you really got to go with the S3. Obviously, that comes with a big price increase. It's right around $8,000 to $10,000 more than an A3. But what you're ultimately getting with that S3 is an Audi-ized, sedan-ized version of the Volkswagen Golf R, which I drove earlier this year.

So that sort of spoiled the driving experience of the S3 already for me. But that car was brilliant to drive, and the S3 is also fairly brilliant to drive. The one disappointment that I had with the S3 out there, though, is that Audi doesn't give it the torque vectoring rear differential that the Golf R has, which is a big omission, honestly, because that torque vectoring rear diff was one of the things that made the new Golf R so much fun to drive.

And without it, it's a much more standard stroke all-wheel drive system. It doesn't actually yank you around corners or push you through and out like a real torque vectoring system would. That caveat aside, though, man, that 2-liter 4-cylinder engine is a serious firecracker, sounds the business.

And the DCT transmission that they pair with it too is lovely. I found myself just tapping up and down and up and down the gears as I went up and down the mountains out there. It's a serious enthusiast car. And there's the RS3 that's coming, and it's going to have that lovely 5-cylinder engine that I know I love, and I'm sure you probably love it too, Greg.

But if you don't have $50, $60,000, which is at least what that RS3 is going to be, this S3 is an absolutely fantastic car and a really neat alternative if you don't like the hatchback look of the Golf R or you don't like the complex interior tech that they throw in in the Golf R. The Audi is more luxurious, but also more back to basics in terms of its controls and user-friendliness.

So overall, I really, really liked both of them. I'm interested in what you had to say about the A3, Greg.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, I would say this-- it lived precisely up to my expectations, which is a good thing. I like the A3. The S3 I drove-- I drove them a few years back in Monaco on the Grand Prix circuit there. This was for the last generation of the car. And when you have an experience like that, it tends to resonate with you, right?

Like, you tend to really-- like, that's not just a work trip. You know, you really-- it sticks with you. And obviously, the car sticks with you. So I think the way they're positioning it then and now is that this is sort of like a somewhat affordable, thinking person's sports sedan.

I think they dialed in on the things that they've always done well, which is it handles well, the steering is good, it's a little understated. The S3 does punch things up a little bit, just styling and, obviously, mechanically. So yeah, I mean, like, I would say it was, like, dead on.

I would say it didn't exceed my expectations. You know, there was nothing in there that made me go, whoa, Audi is bringing something new to the fight. Or this is, wow, this takes a leap forward ahead of the rest of the field. So that's where I think, you know, when you launch a product like this, a new version of it, sometimes it's good to have that, like, aggressive thing that puts you ahead. This is just perfectly staying the course.

And that's fine. That's fine. That's probably what most things do in cars, in life, and whatever. But it didn't blow me away. It was exactly like every A3 or S3 I've ever driven. So I don't know. That's not faint praise. And I'm not even, you know, damning it with faint praise. It just it exactly hit what I thought it was. You know, there was nothing that blew me away.

ZAC PALMER: Yeah.

GREG MIGLIORE: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, where do you put it in the field?

ZAC PALMER: Man, in the field of the--

GREG MIGLIORE: Crowded.

ZAC PALMER: Yeah. There's plenty. I mean, you get the CLA, you got the two-series Gran Coupe-- that BMW is probably, unfortunately, last amongst those. But I think for me, I'm probably going to have this perhaps sitting second behind the CLA and the A-class-- I sort of group both the CLA and the A-class together because they're so similar. But right there, right behind the Mercedes, I think, and then the BMW probably a distant third behind it.

GREG MIGLIORE: Why do you put the BMW third, I'm just curious?

ZAC PALMER: I really dislike the way that that BMW looks. Like, really, really don't like it. And so I drove the M235i Gran Coupe last year. And it wasn't fun to drive. You know, it's this four-door sedan from BMW, super small, should be super fun to drive, but it just isn't. It's fairly lifeless.

It's some of the worst of the very lifeless steering that BMW has. You can tell that it's very much based on, like, the X1, X2. It sort of drives a lot like a mini Clubman more so than it does a BMW, which was just fairly disappointing. So maybe part of that is expectations are too high. But I think that my expectations should be fairly high if BMW is going to make something that is sort of an equivalent to, say, like, a hot hatch, like a BMW hot hatch.

And it just-- it didn't. I'd rather drive this S3 than I would that thing. I'd rather drive the Mercedes AMG CLA 35 than I would the BMW. So you know, I should also mention the Cadillac CT4, because that's also in and amongst this group. That thing's rear-wheel drive and has a lot of horsepower, especially if you get the V with its 2.7-liter 4-cylinder. Haven't driven that one yet, but I imagine that that would land very high amongst my rankings had I driven it.

GREG MIGLIORE: So I drove the CT5, and I drove it in blackwing trim. So obviously, you're, like, the biggest, most powerful engine. And it is a segment off, to be fair. But I really feel like I would put the CT4 at the top of this class based on what this class is. You know, because, to me-- and the class does different things. It used to be a little more like a traditional A3.

Like at one point, we even maybe paired off the three-series into there. Now the three-series is bigger. Like, this is not a true-- like, like the size has changed, let's put it that way. And this is definitely more of an entry level, almost like a hot hatch, like you said, segment, where Audi is almost competing with, like, Volkswagen, which is a sibling thing. That's kind of weird in some ways.

And then you drop the Cadillac in there, which, to me is, again, a very traditional offering. To me, it seems like that's also what BMW-- like, there's the signpost for what BMW needs to do in this segment. Because the Cadillac is what BMW used to be. Like, the one-series, the one-series M Coupe, that was a brilliant car in this segment.

The BMW two-series Gran Coupe I feel like is, just the name tells you all of the issues that I think you might have with it. Like, a car in this segment shouldn't be called a Gran Coupe. So in some ways, I would agree with you. Almost by default, I think the Audi does rise to the top. And again, I feel like I keep damning it with faint praise, but it's an interesting segment.

And I haven't driven either of the Mercedes recently. So again, that's an area where I'll admit I have a bit of a blind spot. I don't know. If I had to pick one, though, I'd probably go Cadillac just in this little group right here. Is the Cadillac bigger? Off the top of my head, I don't know. It feels like it's a bigger car, but maybe I'm wrong.

ZAC PALMER: The CT4 really isn't much bigger than these cars. It might be like an inch or two longer than, like, the A3 and, like, a CLA, but they definitely compete head to head against each other, especially considering the price. They're, like, dead on price.

So yeah, man, I really wish that I could also say the CT4. I probably can just based on driving cars on that platform previously. But, man, I'm going to have to keep with that AMG. Because that, to me, has been, like, the most fun car that I've driven amongst here. And it's also the most hardcore of them easily-- the stiffest suspension, the loudest exhaust. It's just a very, very high strung and very much more like a sports car than a luxury sports sedan.

GREG MIGLIORE: Oh. All right. Well, let's shift things over. I spent some time in the Toyota Corolla XSE hatch. A lot of fun, man. This was about $25,000, $26,000. Beautiful car, actually. Really has the hatch look and appearance. It reminded me of some of the, like, early-2010s Mazdas, specifically the 3, probably. It even as a little bit of the silhouette of the Speed 3 from that generation, if you will.

This is the manual transmission, which I wasn't expecting. When I got in the car, I was like, oh hell yeah. This is great, you know? And so it's a lot of fun to drive. It's great value, like I said, for $25 grand, $26 grand. You know, good fuel economy. 4-cylinder is like 168, 151 pound feet of torque. So again, it's like small car, but you can kind of really push it and wring things out.

Read some of the specs here, you do get, like, LED fog lamps, the infotainment is fine. It's like a 7-inch thing. You know, they did some things like chrome colored, so faux chrome around the grille. That sort of thing. Like, it didn't feel like a penalty box at all, you know? And I think that was good. I threw my kid's car seat in there. He had a great time.

People thought it was cool, you know? So I mean, it's interesting, because this isn't really where the market is going. But for me, I guess what I really loved about it was the manual transmission. Really, you could wring things out with it. It actually took me back to my early days in the industry when I was sort of starting out and a lot of, like, the old guys would be driving the enormous Escalades and things at this time of the year, and the young guys get the hatchback the stick shift on, like, summer tires or something as it gets cold out.

And like, that's what-- it was first week in November here, I'm ringing around Michigan in this little Toyota Corolla Hatchback. And I'm like, OK, reminds me-- because we used to have a long-term Mazda Speed 3 at "Auto Week" and kind of takes me back to those days. And that car was way more powerful, way more raw.

I like the simplicity and the pure nature of this. So you know, there's not that many things out there like this. You know, the Mazda 3, which I know is in your life, if you will--

ZAC PALMER: Is, indeed.

GREG MIGLIORE: You know, Volkswagen, the GTI is-- like, I mean, that's the Golf if you want. You know, they don't offer any other Golfs-- the Golf R, I suppose. But that's a different thing. Good value.

ZAC PALMER: All those things-- you know, super great things about the Corolla Hatchback. They always turn my head whenever I see them go by. But the biggest problem with me for that car is just the fact that the Civic Hatchback exists. And the Civic hatchback is really, really, really good.

It's more powerful. It's more spacious. It has better tech for the most part. And it also offers a manual transmission, of course. And those are all really, really great things.

What the Toyota has going for it for me is style. I think that it's definitely a more attractive hatchback than the Civic is. But at the same time, that comes at the cost of utility. So you know, it's a tough ballgame between those two. Is it still awesome that Toyota is over here selling a Corolla Hatchback with a manual transmission and right around 170 horsepower? Yeah.

I mean, maybe that extra 20ish horsepower from the Civic doesn't really matter because it's so fun to wring out this sweet, naturally aspirated engine from Toyota. So it has some really cool things going for it that enthusiasts can like. Sounds like you liked it too.

GREG MIGLIORE: Indeed. Indeed. I'm glad there's cars like this out there, let me put it that way.

ZAC PALMER: Yeah.

GREG MIGLIORE: Not for everybody, but efficient, fun thing to drive, good value. Average new car price is, like, what $41 to $44, I've even heard-- $44,000. You could get a car like this for $26. Hey, you know, driving is fun. This was a fun car to drive. How was the Acura RDX on the other end of the spectrum?