Even with its oversized presence and accompanying parking concerns on occasion, I looked forward every morning for a week, walking out and climbing up into the high-riding 2019 Ford F-150 Raptor 4-by-4, and driving, and driving.

The Raptor was at its best whether the drives were short runs about town, or to the west into the beautiful Big Thompson Canyon, or, especially, during a bit of offroading.

The performance of Ford’s EcoBoost High Output V-6 engine is outstanding; there’s no longing from me for a V-8. Tied to a 10-speed automatic transmission with paddle shifters, the second-generation EcoBoost is of twin-turbocharging and reaches 450 horsepower and 510 lb.ft.of torque. It is strong and fairly effortless, with excellent sound from its dual exhaust.

The Supercrew’s big-tread tires, Goodyear All-Terrain LT315/70R17s, are for roughing it offroad, yet the Raptor lends a smooth ride in and out of the city. Oddly, though, there is no apparent fuel-mileage gain with the smaller V-6 block. I averaged 15.4 miles per gallon in overall driving.

The Raptor easily maneuvered the bends of the Big Thompson Canyon roadway, while providing good ride comfort, as well. Ford’s ’19 version met the challenge of the curves with new Fox Live Valve internal bypass shocks that electronically adjust damping, using sensors in the suspension and body to maximize comfort, handing and bottom-out resistance.

Three modes for the suspension are Normal, Off-Road and Sport, and the Raptor’s terrain modes include Normal, Sport, Weather, Mud/Sand, Baja and Rock Crawl, selected by pushing a button on the steering wheel.

Paddles on the steering wheel help control all the downshifting and upshifting, and a 1-through-10 ladder on the instrument panel tells at a glance where the gear is set.

The review model is finished in bright velocity blue color; the interior is highlighted by blue accent and Recaro seats.

Access is eased by 7-inch-wide running boards; adding pleasure once inside are a twin-panel moonroof, Bang & Olufsen sound, voice-activated navigation and heated seats front and rear.

Heading a long list of other safety and performance amenities are adaptive cruise, automated emergency braking, blind-spot with trailer-tow monitoring, trailer-sway control, inflatable rear safety belts, rearview camera, electronic 4-by-4 shift-on-the-fly, pro-trailer backup system and terrain management.

The high-pressure turbo and the many add-ons boosted sticker price for the new Raptor to $70,700 from a base of $57,335.

Parking concerns on occasion come from the extra-wide Raptor body. With both front doors fully open, the Raptor is 10 inches wider from door-tip to door-tip than my four-door 4-by-4 pickup when opened likewise.

Remote start is activated by pushing one of five buttons on the remote key fob. It and the button just beneath it are marked “2X,” indicating it must be pushed twice quickly for response. Push the wrong one and,instead of walking outdoors to a warming engine, the truck will be sitting there, cold as ever, with a dropped tailgate.

Impressive style is demonstrated by the 2019 Nissan Murano SL midsize SUV crossover, with its tapered front, raked windshield and floating-roof-look at the rear. It is one of the better-appearance entries in its class.

Like other Nissans, the Murano all-wheel-drive model is equipped with a continuously variable transmission to go with its 260-horsepower, 3.5-liter V-6 engine.

The Murano is a bit larger than the hot-selling Nissan Rogue, which I drove in December. The Murano is on a wheelbase of 111.2 inches, is 192.4 inches in overall length and its curb weight is 3,845 pounds. The Murano is 8 inches longer than the Rogue and is 350 pounds heavier.

Recently I’ve driven the new Murano, finished in an impressive sunset drift exterior, somewhat near copper or orange color.

On a drive from Greeley to Denver and back via U.S. 85 and E470, Jan and I were accompanied by Cathy Cash and son, Nic Sedam, who liked the roominess and comfort of the rear-seating area and the fact the seats were heated on a cold, windy afternoon.

Performance is fairly mild, with the CVT transmission. Riding on Bridgedstone 235/55R20 tires, the Murano averaged 24.2 miles per gallon in overall driving, which included lots of stop-and-go in-town maneuvers. Its EPA estimate is 21/28 mpg.

A Tech package of automatic emergency braking, lane-departure warning, rear automatic braking, panoramic moonroof and traffic-sign recognition, at a cost of $1,970, pushed sticker price for the Murano to $44,090.

Among standard items are 20-inch aluminum-alloy wheels, intelligent around-view monitor, motion-activated power liftgate, navigation, Bose premium audio and heated outside mirrors with reverse tilt-down.

The Murano was launched in the summer of 2002 as an ’03 model.

As for the Rogue, tested last month as a well-loaded SL trim level with all-wheel-drive, sticker price was $36,085.

It performs with a 170-horsepower, 2.5-liter, 4-cylinder engine and CVT transmission. It boasts a relatively high EPA rating, 25/32, and averaged 26.5 mpg in the week I drove it.

We drove to 92nd and Wadsworth for a pre-Christmas dinner with Ted and Shirley King, Judy Garcia and Jodi Black. Jan worked with these friends at Cherry Creek Realty some years back when we resided in Denver.

A heavy push in acceleration brings a whine from the Rogue’s CVT transmission, especially after it is moved into Sport mode with intensified throttle performance.

Brown quilted leather seats are an interior highlight for the Rogue and padded portions of the dash are attractive, too.

Poorly positioned at the far lower left of the dashboard, even lower than knee level, are four buttons lined horizonally for heated steering wheel, all-wheel drive, Sport mode and the Eco mode of the transmission. Not only is it a far reach, it requires an occasional look to determine the driver is pushing the intended button.

The Murano is assembled in Canton, Miss., and the Rogue in Smyrna, Tenn.

The new 2019 Honda Passport was like a Pilot while driving in the snow and single-digit temperatures on icy roads to Greeley in the early evening Saturday, March 2, from a party in Longmont.

The Passport dropped into slow-down mode in passing one collision and two other cars resting in deep ditches after they slid off the road along the way north on U.S.287.

The Passport’s all-wheel drive performed very capably; it’s of front-wheel-drive configuration which places more power over the drive wheels, while the system divides torque as needed between the front and rear axles – like a Pilot.

Of course, it’s like a Pilot, for it is based on the Pilot’s unibody platform, and, in truth is a two-row version of the three-row Pilot SUV, with few other differences. The Passport is 6 inches shorter in overall length and is 100 pounds lighter.

The gathering at Longmont, in the Oak Room at the Oskar Blues Brewery, was a birthday party for Dale Wells; 100 attended.

The all-wheel-drive Passport is equipped with a 280-horsepower, 3.5-liter V-6 engine and 9-speed automatic transmission, somewhat slow on the downshift as it constantly seeks cruising pace for higher fuel mileage. Gears are selected through a push-button shifter; reverse is engaged through a pull, rather than push. We averaged 22.5 miles per gallon during the week; EPA estimate is 19/24.

The new Passport delivers an extremely smooth ride and precise handling. Its AWD isn’t so offroad capable as the Toyota 4Runner or Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Soft-touch surfaces highlight the roomy and quiet interior, with heated and ventilated front seats and heated rear seats (leather). A leather-wrapped steering wheel is also heated. The rear seats slide fore and aft, and the cargo space behind the seats is huge – 41.2 cubic feet, with an extra 2.5 feet of underfloor storage.

Honda Sensing, safety and driver-assistive technologies, include forward collision warning, automatic emergency braking, road-departure alert, lane-keep assist and adaptive cruise control.

The Passport, built in Lincoln, Ala., alongside the Pilot, carried a sticker price of $44,725, including paddle shifters on the steering wheel, voice-recognition navigation, premier audio system with Apple CarPlay/Android Auto integration and Bluetooth, power moonroof.

The fact Honda resurrected the Passport name for this new one was a surprise to me. When I think of Passport, I’m reminded of it as the twin to the old Isuzu Rodeo, when Isuzu  produced it for Honda from 1994 to 2002.

Sitting high in the 2019 Chevy Silverado Trail Boss, with driver’s-side window open, my “Merry Christmas” greeting goes out loud and heartfelt to all the readers.

The Trail Boss, a four-wheel-drive crew cab, is a new offroad trim level for the Chevrolet pickup. This one, finished in cajun red, is very visible, perfectly suited to the Christmas column. Color was an attraction a year ago, too, when the 2018 Subaru CrossTrek showed up for Christmas Eve in sunshine orange exterior finish.

The “Merry Christmas” shout is a highlight of the year for me. My first time as a Post car columnist was Christmas Eve 1977 from the seat of a ’78 Chrysler Cordoba.

The Silverado Trail Boss 1500 is a modified version of the Z71 LT 4X4 model and sports a 2-inch lift on the suspension and 4-inch-longer wheelbase.

Complementing a new, upright grille are red recovery hooks, boomerang-style headlamps and rounded fenders. A 6-foot box with easy-drop tailgate and convenient cornersteps in the rear bumper is highlighted by CHEVROLET, in capital letters, stamped across the back of the tailgate.

Strong performance comes from the 335-horsepower/385-torque, 5.3-liter V-8 engine tied to a smooth-shifting 8-speed automatic transmission. Four-wheel drive is engaged through push-buttons to the left of the driver. My driving time, split from highway to in-city to offroad, averaged 18.1 miles per gallon (EPA estimate 15/20).

Black alloy wheels are shod with Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac LT275/65R18 M&S tires; they’ll keep the Trail Boss moving over rocks and ridges in the hills and through mud and water down by the river, while out on the open highway they sing a slightly noisy tune.

Like its most-serious competitors, the Ford F150 and Ram 1500, Chevy has added noticeable roominess to its rear-seating area, and a handy stow box has been carved out beneath the bench seat.

Nine thousand bucks worth of options, including Bose sound, leather, lane-change alert, bedliner and advanced trailering package, raised sticker price to $57,285; there is no navigation.

Team a turbocharged 4-cylinder engine with an 8-speed automatic transmission, boost the pair with an electric assist off-idle and the creation appears to be a winner for the redesigned 2018 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Sahara 4X4.

Piloting the new one on a very busy weekend, it seemed to me it will run away from the Jeep’s traditional Pentastar V-6 in straightaway, lower-end acceleration, and out on the highway the new retuned suspension is noticeably smoother and more comfortable than before.

The 2.0-liter turbo eTorque earns a 22 in-city and 24 on-highway fuel-mileage estimate from its 268 horsepower and 295 lb.-ft. of torque, compared with 18/23 mpg for the 3.6-liter V-6’s engine rating of 285 horsepower and 260 torque.

Yeh, but how about offroad? I tried that, too, and could detect no softening of Jeep’s tough-guy image. The Sahara’s SelecTrac four-wheel-drive capabilities are intact, with 10-inch ground clearance, Dana heavy-duty rear axle, anti-spin differential and hill-descent control. The Unlimited four-door is on a wheelbase of 118.4 inches, 188.4 inches in overall length and 4,380 pounds in curb weight. Cargo space behind the second-row seats is 31.7 cubic feet.

The Sahara is equipped with a Sunrider soft top, which can be manually removed for open-air driving. As it slid back in its tracks, it brought back memories of some uneasy moments several years ago with a Jeep Liberty Sky Slider roof (let’s forget about that). The Sunrider appears to be well-designed and structurally sound.

The Jeep was in my possession from Friday noon to Monday noon, and we made the most of the shorter-than-normal review time.

After a relatively short drive Friday evening to the Eaton Country Club for dinner with Bud Hargis and Ila Dubois, on Saturday we drove the Wrangler in to Bruz Beers in north Denver for a birthday celebration for Jackie Chmelka. During the party, planned by Jackie’s  sister Laura Jordan Grush, I enjoyed a visit with Roger Jordan, Jackie’s father, regarding a special car he owned years back, the stainless steel DeLorean sports car with gullwing doors. Entertaining the partygoers was Kurt Wells with his voice and guitar.

The best test for the big four-door Wrangler came Sunday morning, when Jan and I headed to Carr up north in Weld County a short distance from the Wyoming line; the town is on narrow paved Road 126 halfway between U.S. 85 and I-25, and lends itself to offroad opportunities.

Carr often is referred to as a “ghost town,” though on Sunday morning we found it somewhat typical of other small settlements. After visiting with Bruce Ransier and Christine Schneider, who have lived in Carr for 12 years, we drove the Jeep past the Carr Community Church; 16 cars were parked around the building, and inside, pastor Philip Lukens was delivering a weekly sermon.

As we headed the Jeep out of Carr, back toward U.S. 85, we passed the U.S. post office. This is no ghost town.

I’d not driven a $50-grand Wrangler until this one, which peaks out at $50,050. A Wrangler four-door Rubicon a year-and-a-half ago came close at $48,750.

From its base of $38,295, the 2018 Unlimited Sahara reached $50k with the addition of the turbo engine for an extra $1,000, the 8-speed transmission for $2,000, plus leather seats, navigation, Alpine premium audio, the SelecTrac  four-wheel-drive system, the soft top and LED reflector headlamps. The new Jeep is the JL series, succeeding the Unlimited JK, which began production in 2006.

What better time in the driver’s seat of the 2019 Chevy Traverse than November 2018 while receiving the announcement that General Motors plans to close up to five assembly plants in North America and end production of three Chevrolet car models – the Impala, Cruze and Volt plug-in hybrid.

The popular midsize Traverse SUV is a major strength of Chevrolet today, in combination with other SUVs Tahoe and Equinox and pickups Silverado and Colorado.

As more and more consumers turn toward the truck side of the market, most all midsize and compact sedans this year have suffered double-digit declines in U.S. sales.

GM, in shutting down factories for the three Chevy models, along with the Buick LaCrosse and Cadillac CT6 and XTS, is following the lead two years ago of Chrysler, which killed the 200 and Dodge Dart, and Ford earlier this year planning to do away with all its sedans, except the Mustang, by the end of 2019.

On a wheelbase of almost 121 inches, the Traverse is considered by some to be a full-size SUV, rather than midsize. It performs with a 310-horsepower, 3.6-liter V-6 engine and smooth 9-speed automatic transmission, with all-wheel drive. Performance is strong, other than, when in manual mode, shifts are attained by pushing a button atop the shifter knob, awkwardly placed. The twist of a dial on the center console moves it into all-wheel drive from two-wheel. The engine turns somewhat noisy under acceleration demand.

The Traverse was introduced in the fall of 2008 as an ’09 model. I was driving one in early December ’08, heading north out of Denver following a Denver Nuggets’ win at the Pepsi Center, when I stopped for a red light and the Traverse got popped hard from the rear by a kid heading home from work in a Pontiac. I got out, made sure he was okay, then asked, “Didn’t you see the red light?” “I did,” he said, “but I didn’t think you would stop for it.” While the front end and engine block of his older Grand Am were pushed back toward the firewall, the Traverse showed only slight damage to its rear exterior and had some minor suspension issues.

The Traverse’s size in 2019 has been expanded a couple inches from the original to 204 inches in overall length. It competes with the Ford Flex, Subaru Ascent, Dodge Durango and other models.

Standard this year for the Traverse interior is MyLink infotainment with 7-inch touchscreen, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, Bluetooth, six USB ports, Bose premium audio and navigation. The three-row SUV has cargo space aplenty; 23 cubic feet behind the third row and with that folded expands to 57.8 feet.

The big Traverse carried us to an early Thanksgiving breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Loveland with Dale and Sandy Wells, Tyler Wells and Seth Blanke. Returning late on Thanksgiving afternoon from Brent and Tina Wells’ home in Windsor, I pulled into the garage, shut the Traverse off and chimes sounded and warning in display message center read, “Rear Seat Reminder: Look in Back Seat.” Sure enough, there rested the leftover pumpkin pie for dessert at another meal.

The Traverse rides smoothly and comfortably on Continental 255/55R20 tires, with front struts and rear multilink suspension and coils all around. Overall  fuel mileage was 21.8; its EPA estimate is 17/25.

The AWD Traverse with 3LT Leather trim level carries a sticker price of $45,090, with surround vision camera, lane-change alert, rear park assist, power rear liftgate, remote vehicle start, leather seats and leather-wrapped steering wheel, and tri-zone climate control.

Regarding its announcement and responding to concerns for expected layoffs of thousands of factory workers, GM officials issued this statement:

“Many of the U.S. workers impacted by these actions will have the opportunity to shift to other GM plants where we will need more employes to support growth in trucks, crossovers and SUVs. GM’s transformation also includes adding technical and engineering jobs to support the future of mobility, such as new jobs in electrification and autonomous vehicles.”

Here, on the first day of September 2018, is my last mention of the dog days of August.

In connection with my recent test drive of a 2018 Land Rover Discovery, a public relations firm for the British SUV builders sent me a note promoting dog-carrying items that can be purchased and placed in the cargo areas of new Land Rovers and Range Rovers. Last Sunday, you know, was International Dog Day.

After including the accompanying Beagle photo with my Land Rover column today, like an eager pup I sent a note back to the PR firm, suggesting that Land Rover give away a Beagle in a carrier in the back of a new Land Rover or Range Rover for a sales boost. The company already is enjoying increased sales, my plan would be added gravy.

Well, I’ve not heard a word back; perhaps my contact is on vacation.

 Built in Solihull, England, the Discovery is a solid entry into the lineup of Land Rover and Range Rover sport utility vehicles.

Its electronic air suspension, with push of a button on the center console, will lift the Discovery from its normal 9.9 inches of ground clearance to 11 inches. With wading depth of 33.5 inches, it could be driven down the middle of the South Platte River from Denver to Julesburg.

Turbodiesels, falling out of favor with some manufacturers, remain a solid attraction for Land Rover. A 3.0-liter, turbocharged 6-cylinder engine of 254 horsepower and 443 lb.-ft. of torque deliver excellent acceleration and power to the Discovery. It averaged 23.1 miles per gallon overall. 

This is the same diesel used in the Range Rover Sport; lines are also blurred between the two when it comes to size, as they share wheelbase length and 66.5-inch track, the Discovery is 3 inches longer and the Range Rover Sport is heavier by 50 pounds or so. Pricewise, the Discovery’s sticker is $81,395; the last RR Sport I drove was $84,260.

Roomy and comfortable inside, the Discovery is dressed up with nice, butterscotch-colored Windsor leather on the face of the dash, the seats and windowsills. A Meridian sound system is pleasant. Front seats are heated and ventilated with powered headrest height control, second-row seats are also heated and cooled and third row, which can be power-folded flat, is heated.

Boosting price from $67k to $84k were massaging front seats, four-wheel-drive terrain response, adaptive cruise and lane-keep assist, auto high-beam assist, head-up display. The big Discovery rides on Goodyear Eagle 275/45R21 tires. Gasoline engine available is a supercharged, 3.0-liter V-6 of 340 horsepower and 332 torque.