10 Biggest News Stories of the Week: Chevy Corvette Z06 Breezes Past Lucid Air

The Los Angeles Auto Show returned from pandemic purgatory last month, and with it came Cars.com’s show-capping roundup of the exhibition’s winners and losers as chosen by our on-the-scene automotive experts. A standout among standouts in L.A. was the 2023 Chevrolet Corvette Z06. The late-coming, high-performance Vette variant follows the iconic sports car’s rebirth for the 2020 model year in mid-engine configuration. Among Cars.com editors who got up close to the Z06 at the L.A. auto show, it was a unanimous winner — and it’s no slouch among Cars.com readers, either, leading off our story in third place on our countdown of the most popular articles of the past week.

Related: 2021 Los Angeles Auto Show: Everything You Missed

Editors lauded the Z06’s “swoopy” exterior styling, “stunning” interior, “badass” overall attitude and fidelity to the joys of naturally aspirated engines. There was some disagreement over the abundance of carbon-fiber flourishes — but nothing that diminishes anyone’s eagerness to climb into the cockpit sometime after production launches next summer.

“They tell me its flat-plane crank engine makes amazing music,” Cars.com’s Aaron Bragman remarked, “and I can’t wait to dance to it sometime in 2022.”

Other unanimous winners from the L.A. show included the 2023 Fisker Ocean, a small, all-electric SUV; the 2023 Kia Sportage, a mass-market compact SUV; and the 2022 Land Rover Range Rover, a full-size luxury SUV. On the other hand, new models earning across-the-board L’s include the 2022 Lexus LX 600, another full-size luxury SUV; and the 2023 Subaru Solterra, an all-electric compact SUV. Earning mixed reviews were the 2022 Subaru WRX performance sedan, as well as the electric Toyota I’d-Like-to-Buy-a-Vowel — er, the Toyota bZ4X. (That’s an all-electric SUV, too.)

For judges’ full commentary on all the L.A. winners and losers, follow the link below to Cars.com’s No. 3 news story of the week.

Also showing well this week was Bragman’s quick spin in a 2022 Lucid Air, which he boldly endorses as “the next-generation electric car that the Tesla Model S should have become by now but hasn’t.” The Lucid Air in top form boasts specs like 1,111 horsepower, 1,025 pounds-feet of torque and around 500 miles of range. But beyond the EV accolades, Bragman noted its ultra-luxe interior appointments, abundant occupant and cargo space, refreshingly silent driving, warp-speed-worthy acceleration, light and agile steering, and natural-feeling brakes.

For Bragman’s full recounting of his Air time, follow the link below to the No. 5 article on this week’s countdown.

Beyond that, we have headlines on the Lexus LX, Land Rover Range Rover, Toyota Tundra, Mercedes-EQ EQS, GMC Hummer EV, Mazda MX-30 and more — so don’t stop reading till the digits double. Here are the top 10 news stories Cars.com readers couldn’t get enough of in the past week:

1. 2022 Lexus LX 600 Up Close: First-Class Perks for First and Second Rows; Third Row? Don’t Ask

2. Up Close With the 2022 Land Rover Range Rover: Quiet, Classy Interior

3. 2021 Los Angeles Auto Show: Winners and Losers

4. What’s the Best New-Car Deal for Black Friday 2021?

5. 2022 Lucid Air Quick Spin: Astonishingly Good

6. 2022 Toyota Tundra Pricing (Mostly) Revealed, Starts at $37,645

7. 2022 Mercedes-EQ EQS: 6 Things We Like and 4 We Don’t

8. GMC Hummer EV Pickup Hits the Streets With 329-Mile Range, 7,500-Pound Max Towing

9. 2022 Mazda MX-30: What We Think About Mazda’s First-Ever EV

10. Is the Redesigned 2022 Toyota Tundra a Good Truck? 6 Things We Like and 5 We Don’t

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