Clutches and manual transmissions have slipped away rapidly in recent years; surprising it was, then, that with the return of the Acura Integra to the U.S. for the first time since 2001, its buyers are offered a choice of a 6-speed manual tranny or CVT.

The 2023 Integra A-Spec w/Tech brought my way in late July is a replacement for the ILX in the Acura lineup. It is a sleek, four-door hatchback with coupe styling. Revival of the Acura Integra name comes after a 22-year absence; Integra was part of Acura from its introduction in 1986 through the 2001 model year.

A combination of a 200-horsepower, turbocharged 1.5-liter, 4-cylinder engine and the manual shifter adds quickness to the Integra, creating a fun drive with good-handling, particularly when dealing with road twists and turns. It has plenty of power to get up the hills of Colorado.

The sporty sedan also fares well in fuel-efficiency, with an EPA estimate of 26 miles per gallon in town, 36 on the highway for a combined 30. Premium fuel is recommended. My overall average was 31.8 mpg.

Pricing of the base model for the new Integra AWD is $31,895; the review model I drove had sticker price of $36,895, a relatively low price for a luxury entry-level.

Interior highlights are an easy-to-use 9-inch touchscreen infotainment center and a roomy 24.3 cubic-feet cargo area at the back.

Among driver-assistance safety features are adaptive cruise control, rearview camera, forward automatic emergency braking, lane-keep assist, blind-spot monitor, rear cross-traffic alert, head-up display.

The Integra is 3 or 4 inches longer in both wheelbase and overall length than the ILX, the model which it has replaced. The Integra rides on wheelbase of 107.7 inches, is 185.8 inches in overall length, 72 inches in width, 55.5 in height and its curb weight is 3,075 pounds.

The new Integra is built at Marysville, Ohio; also assembled there are Acura’s other models – the TLX sport sedan, the MDX and RDX sport-utility vehicles and the NSX Type S electric.

The fifth-generation Range Rover L460, a midyear redesign with an optional third row of seats for the first time in the big unit, carried Jan and me in late June west into Big Thompson Canyon, then northwest on the Devil’s Gulch Road to Glen Haven.

The Range Rover is 17 feet in overall length, with curb weight of 5,600 pounds and rides on 23-inch wheels, another first for the iconic 4X4 sport ute. The narrow, curve-dominated roadway to Glen Haven would be a good test for it.

We’ve driven to the little community at least once a summer for many years, stopping at the Glen Haven General Store for visiting with owner Steve Childs and partaking of the delicious cinnamon rolls baked daily by his wife, Becky.

Big news in town is the Childs’ sale, after 40 years of operating the store, to Tom and Amanda Hoskins, who with children Sarah and Callum and Amanda’s mother, Becky Sorensen, will not only run the store, but provide daily the homemade goodies for which it is widely known.

Glen Haven is a nice, brief stop enroute to Estes Park, 10 miles up the road.

The RRover has an impressively smooth ride, is very quiet, though its size leaves maneuvering marvels to lighter sport models.

When I recall the 2023 Nissan Z car I drove six weeks ago in Boulder, it would have zipped those twists and bends of the roadway near Glen Haven much more quickly than did the big Rover. All the while, though, downshifting the Range Rover with its paddleshifters was virtually seamless; the Z’s downshifts left a rougher edge into the driver’s hands.

I used the paddles more than half the time on the descending curves from Glen Haven to Drake, then on to the Dam Store and leaving the Big Thompson Canyon. Much of descent was in 3^rd gear at 2500 to 3000 revs.

Responsive performance was delivered by the Range Rover’s 395-horsepower, 3.0-liter turbocharged inline-6-cylinder with a mild-hybrid assist, 8-speed automatic transmission and four-wheel drive. Aiding the Range Rover’s four-wheel-drive prowess are active locking rear differential and terrain response with drive modes of Snow, Mud, Sand, Eco, Rock Crawl and Wade. An electrically operated rear axle turns independently of the front wheels at low speeds, shrinking the turning circle to 36 feet, from 40.5 feet in the previous model.

The inline-6-cylinder with turbo and the 48-volt assist averaged 21.8 miles per gallon on the drive to Glen Haven and 27.6 on the descending return.

A photo op of the new Range Rover with a 35-year-old Land Rover presented itself in Greeley. No sooner had I pulled into Autotailor in Greeley and parked out front than John Mitchell pulled up beside me in a 1987 Land Rover Defender 110, red, fully restored – what a grand sight, these two British motoring machines from Solihull, England, products of same assembly plant, though far-different eras. Mitchell, at his repair shop in Fort Collins, had done some work on the Defender and was test-driving it.

Base price on the three-row, seven-passenger Range Rover is $111,800. An all-electric Range Rover is expected in 2024.

Our destination was the little, historical town of Saguache, sitting between two mountain ranges in southern Colorado, as Jan and I, after stopping for daughter, Kim Parker, headed out in a 2022 Audi Q3 S line quattro on a long drive on a midsummer 2022 morning.

The great-handling Q3, the little brother to the popular Audi Q5, was equipped with active cruise assist and lane-guidance. It carried us in five hours through the twists and turns of U.S. 285 southwest of Denver, past Fairplay to Buena Vista, then some welcomed straightaway on the last leg to Saguache.

There, inside the front door of the clutter-filled Saguache Crescent, sat Dean Coombs, at the keyboard of a 100-year-old Linotype, creating metal slugs for the next week’s paper. The Crescent is the last newspaper in the country still using a Linotype to set those lines which will be transferred to the printed pages.

As I stood beside him and the machine (there was nowhere to sit), he continued to plink away with his index fingers. He knew I was coming, so I said, “I’m Bud.” He lifted his right hand toward me, with the left still on the keys, and as I shook it, he said, “Dean.”

This is what he does every day, except between 9 and 10:30 a.m., when he enjoys coffee time. It is the same daily grind established by his grandfather, then his father and mother before him; the family has owned the newspaper since 1917.

Saguache claims 550 residents; the Crescent’s circulation is 360 and Coombs prints an extra 40 copies each week. The current edition was four broadsheet pages. His press is an 1898 model which prints two pages at a time.

The newspaper is his life; he doesn’t hunt or fish or ski or travel. “I’ve not spent a night away from Saguache in the past 33 years,” he said. He is not married; has a girlfriend, though, he said.

Did he ever consider giving up the long-outdated “hot metal” style of newspapering and turning to offset printing, as has every other paper in Colorado. “No, this is what we’ve always done, and I’ll continue till I retire or expire and the paper will cease to exist.” He’s 70 years old.

Is the paper profitable? “Yes, it turns a profit every year, due to tax lists and legal notices required from the county, which bring in around $10,000.”

“No,” he said when I asked him if he was a car guy. What does he drive? “An ’89 Chevy Astrovan and the same year Toyota pickup.” During a bit more discussion, he offered this: “I actually have 10 other cars, all of them older and some don’t run.” They range from a ’45 Willys Jeep to a ’72 Saab. To own 12 cars, no matter of what era, I’d say makes him a “car guy.”

Then, before we left, I walked him out front of the old newspaper building in order to give a look at the modern world in the form of the 2022 Audi. The Germans build quality automobiles, I told him. “Yes, I know,” he said.

When we parked the Audi Q3 in our garage late that night, its trip odometer registered exactly 500.0 miles driven to Saguache and back. Not 499.9 or 500.1; 500.0 it was, and that is remarkable to me, somewhat of a numbers guy.

The Q3, a luxury compact SUV crossover, treated us well on the drive, with plenty of rear-seat legroom. For 2022, the Audi model gained several safety features, including blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert and front and rear parking sensors.

It provided good economy and produced excellent passing strength from its 228-horsepower, 2.0-liter turbocharged, 4-cylinder engine and 8-speed automatic transmission with quattro all-wheel drive. Torque rating is 258 lb.-ft. In 600 miles of driving, 500 of which were the Saguache run, the Q3 averaged 29.2 miles per gallon. Its EPA estimate is below that – 21/28.

The 3,900-pounder was very composed in cornering and the Bridgestone Potenza 255/40R20 summer performance tires offered good grip. The Audi cruise control system will set speeds at half-mile-per-hour (61.5 mph), as well as the normal full-mile (62 mph).

Though styled somewhat like the larger Audi Q models, the Q3 at 176.6 inches is 8 inches shorter in overall length than the Q5.

The mountain drive, even with its highway irregularities and slowdowns, was a good one. Saguache is home to some of the largest and most beautiful hollyhock plants and flowers in Colorado and celebrated its annual Hollyhock Festival in late July. In our return, we stopped at the busy downtown Buena Vista and had difficulty finding an eating establishment due to a number of closures for lack of workers.

The Audi Q3 models seem fairly moderately priced for entry-level luxury compacts with quattro drive. The base Q3 trim is the Premium, starting at $37,600.

The review model, the Q3 S line Premium, carried base price of $38,700, which reached $48,740 with the addition of top-view camera system, auto-dimming interior and power-folding exterior mirrors, Audi MMI touchscreen and navigation and traffic-sign recognition, sport front seats with S embossing and contrast stitching.

The Q3, assembled in an Audi factory in Gyor, Hungary, competes with the Mercedes-Benz GLA, BMW X1 and X2, Volvo XC40, Cadillac XT4, Lexus UX, Jaguar E-Pace and others.

The rumble on startup from the Dodge Challenger Hemi 6.4 is a wonderful sound, one which just might soothe the unrest in a car guy’s mind these summer days.

I enjoyed the resonance of the pipes over and over again while driving the 2022 Challenger R/T Scat Pack Widebody Hemi 392 V-8 with orange stripe.

The Hemi delivers an excess of performance – 485 horsepower/475 lb.-ft. of torque – while mated to an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission, rear-wheel drive, 20-inch-by-11-inch wheels with Pirelli 305/35ZR20 P Zero tires, Brembo performance brakes with orange calipers.

Instant high-rev paddle-shifts in sport mode and a standard launch control are added drive highlights.

The unrest factor, generally speaking, is the current rush toward electric automobiles, and, specifically, to the realization that the famed Hemi engine will make its final run in 2023.

Stellantis officials, including Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis, have indicated that by 2024 the company’s only combustion engine, transitional into the electric era, will be a turbocharged 3.0-liter, inline-6-cylinder with possibility of 400 to 500 horsepower.

Discontinuance of the Hemi V-8 will allow a rise in the Stellantis’ fleet fuel economy, which presently is lowest among U.S. automakers.

The Dodge Challenger Scat Pack Hemi 392 EPA estimate is 15 city, 24 highway, 18 combined mpg; my overall average was 19.6.

The Challenger, with wheelbase of 116.2 inches and overall length of 197.9 inches, shares the same platform as Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300, and scales in at curb weight of 4,275 pounds. That is around 500 pounds heavier than Mustang and Camaro, which leaves the Ford and Chevy more nimble in handling.

A sales edge for the Challenger, though, is the fact it offers a V-6-powered model with all-wheel drive, a popular option in areas of severe winters, such as Colorado. Neither the Mustang or Camaro offer AWD. The Challenger outsold both Mustang and Camaro in 2021.

Very comfortable, bolstered front bucket seats lend the Challenger a decent ride; legroom is tight in the rear seat, though the trunk is a spacious 16 cubic feet.

The Challenger, built at Brampton, Ontario, Canada, carried a sticker price of $63,500. The R/T Scat Pack Widebody enhancements added $5,995 to the base price of $44,155. The automatic transmission cost another $1,595 and Uconnect navigation and Harman Kardon surround tacked on $2,790. Fender flares, adaptive damping and competition suspension are part of the Widebody package.

The Chrysler Corp.’s initial Hemi engine was a 331-cubic-inch Chrysler Firepower V-8 in 1951, and the Hemi was a feature for the launch of the Chrysler 300 in 1955. Race driver Richard Petty in 1964 won his first Daytona 500 in Hemi-powered Plymouth and later earned his first grand national championship.

An all-new hybrid model, the 2023 Kia Sportage, was provided for our drive to North Platte, Neb., and back.

Wheelbase and overall length have been stretched in the Sportage for ’23; noticeable improvements are the vast amount of legroom in the rear-seating area and the ample cargo space, which has increased from 30 cubic feet to almost 40.

Though the Sportage has been around since 1995, the ’23 Kia Sportage Hybrid EX All-Wheel Drive is its first gas/electric offering.

Performance comes from a 227-horsepower, turbocharged 1.6-liter, 4-cylinder engine, an electric motor and 6-speed automatic transmission. Drive modes of Eco (Normal), Sport, Smart and Snow are provided. Off-the-line acceleration is about average and passing power is enough for comfortable highway travel.

A son, Brent Wells and wife Tina, of Windsor, joined Jan and me for the drive to North Platte for Larry P. Smith funeral services on Wednesday, June 29, at First United Methodist Church. For 36 years Smith taught math and physics at Mid Plains Community College in North Platte. The eulogy was delivered by another son, Kurt Wells, who is married to Smith’s daughter, Tammy. Patsy, Smith’s wife of 66 years, survives, along with son Steve and his wife, Lori, and Tammy and Kurt. At Grand Island, Neb., High School in 1953, Smith played on an undefeated state championship football team, which several years ago was inducted into the Nebraska Sports Hall of Fame.

The Kia’s expanded cargo space very capably handled all our luggage and other traveling items. A compact SUV, the Sportage’s overall length is 183.5 inches, an increase of 7 inches. Wheelbase is up to 108.5 inches from 105.1.

In 555 miles of travel to North Platte and back, the Sportage Hybrid averaged 29.4 miles per gallon, somewhat below the EPA estimate of 38 in town and 38 on the highway. Affecting the mpg was the fact much of the trip was on Interstate highways, with average speed of 75 to 80 miles per hour, and windy conditions were encountered off and on. Following the return from Nebraska, about 60 miles of in-town drives averaged 36 mpg.

Base price for the sporty-looking Sportage Hybrid EX is just over $32,000, including synthetic leather upholstery, heated front seats and steering wheel, a 12.3-inch touchscreen for navigation, remote start, lane-keeping assist, forward-collision-avoidance assist, blind-spot collision-avoidance assist. A $1,500 optional package of panoramic sunroof, hands-free liftgate and LED interior lighting raised sticker price to $33,860.

A cheaper trim level is the Sportage Hybrid LX, more expensive is the SX Prestige. The Sportage Hybrid is built in Gwangju, Korea. Some competitive models of the Kia are hybrid versions of Hyundai Tucson, Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4. Legroom in the rear-seating area and the large cargo space with a low liftover height for ease of loading and unloading.

The third all-electric vehicle in six weeks came my way in April in the form of the BMW i4 M50 all-wheel drive, a coupe-styled four-door hatchback. It is the first electric car developed by BMW’s M performance division.

The i4 M50 is a synchronous dual-motor “gran coupe,” with a motor at each axle with combined 536 horsepower and 586 lb.-ft. of torque. A liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack of 81.5 kWh provides a projected driving range of 200 to 225 miles. Transmission is single-speed, direct-drive.

Two other recent electric tests were with the Ford Mustang Mach-e GT and the Mercedes-Benz EQS450.

On a Sunday, after church, Jan and I drove the BMW west into the mountains and enjoyed four hours of highway straightaways, narrow rural roadways, hill climbs and descents, short sprints, corners and bumper-to-bumper slowdowns at Estes Park.

Center of gravity for the low-slung, relatively heavy i4 is 1.3 inches lower than for the 3 series sedan. It’s a road-hugger with agility. Handling has been the long-term forte for the Bimmers, dating back to the “oh two” models of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

And the power, oh, my gosh, off the line is near the quickest and twisting those uphill switchbacks is done in full-bore low, and beautifully loud, yes, characteristic engine roar in sport mode has been added with guidance of German film score composer/Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer (hired by BMW in 1919 to create sounds for electric concepts). Those 16-inch brake discs inside the 20-inch wheels lend some feeling of security.

Predicted range in the BMW’s battery had topped out at 202 miles as we began our Sunday drive. On return to our garage at home, we’d driven 100 miles and the battery pack had 50 percent of its energy remaining, a favorable performance for the i4. Though it used excess in the climb-dominated first couple of hours of the trip, the return was filled with descent which moved energy use into the frugal column. Most of drive was split between comfort and sport plus use, though on return I occasionally enabled Eco Pro for more regeneration of energy and controlled speed.

The i4’s handles are flush with the door sheet metal and easily slip off fingertips as they’re lifted upward for opening. Legroom in the four-door hatchback is tight in the rear-seating area. An audio upgrade for the BMW electric is the 16-speaker Harman Kardon surround sound system.

The BMW i4 electric competes against Tesla Model 3, Ford Mustang Mach-e GT and other midsizer EVs. While the Tesla is slightly longer in wheelbase, 113.2 inches to 112.4, the BMW is almost 4 inches longer in overall length, 188.5 to 184.8.

Price of the BMW i4 M50 climbed from a base of $65,900 to $77,070 sticker with the following options:

High-performance M tech $2,500, driver assistance $1,700, HUD curved display $1,000, adaptive LED with laserlight $1,000, heated seats/steering wheel/lumbar support $950, parking assistant and active park-distance control $700, mineral white metallic paint $550.

BMW also offers a single-motor i4 eDrive40 of lesser power and more range.

Nissan communications executive Steve Parrett handed me the keys to “the new Z” only a few minutes after I had seated myself very comfortably inside the old Boulderado Hotel one morning in May.

A quick exit got me into the driver’s seat of the beautiful passion red 2023 Nissan Z Performance sport coupe, where the comfort level also was pleasurable, though one look at the instrumentation, shifter and pedals and, considering its rear-wheel-drive configuration, promised some side antics.

The 400-horsepower, twin-turbo 3.0-liter V-6 engine and 9-speed automatic transmission got me very quickly out of Boulder for photo op, then back into town and over to Canyon Boulevard and some miles up and back in Boulder Canyon. The canyon drive from Boulder to Nederland is 17 miles of twists and turns and downshift-inducing rises in the narrow roadway.

The Z was smooth and powerful and quick-shifting, though a bit rough on downshifts in manual mode.

Accompanying me on the test-drives about the Boulder area was Paul Shippey, owner and president of Automotive Media Solutions (AMS). Under direction of Shippey and his general manager, David Polley, AMS distributes new models to journalists such as me from 22 manufacturers, everything from an A-Class Mercedes to the Z car from Nissan.

You can’t yet buy a new Z; its release date has been delayed to sometime this summer. When you can make the purchase, here is what you’ll pay:

$41,015 is base price for the cheaper Nissan Z Coupe Sport; $51,015 is beginning price for the Z Coupe Performance model, the one I drove, and $54,015 for a special Z Coupe Proto Spec edition. All three trim levels are available with 6-speed manual or 9-speed automatic transmission to go with the twin-turbo V-6.

Adding illuminated kick plates, two-tone paint and floor mats to the Z that I drove raised its sticker price to $53,610. Included among its standard items are 9-inch touchscreen with navigation and voice recognition, Bose audio, SiriusXM satellite radio, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.

I remember those “kind of loose, spindly shifters” in the early 240Zs from the ‘70s. Nissan (known as Datsun at the start) continued use of alphanumeric names through the 370Z until its end in 2020. The new one will be simply called “Z.” Its 9-speed automatic replaces a 7-speed of the 370Z.

The 370Z competed against the Mazda Miata and Toyota 86; the new Z will challenge the Toyota Supra head-on. The Supra uses a BMW-built, inline-6-cylinder of 382 horsepower with an 8-speed automatic.

At 172.4 inches, the Z is 5 inches longer than its predecessor, though its wheelbase remains the same at 100.4 inches. Trunk volume is only 7 cubic feet. Curb weight is 3,550 pounds.

This country’s expected eventual move away from the internal-combustion engine got a truckload of attention with production of the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning all-electric pickup.

Most of us aren’t yet ready to turn to fully electric for our transportation needs.

Some, though, are transitioning partway with purchase of gas/electric hybrid vehicles.

The most economically successful hybrid of the past 20 years is the Toyota Prius, which has depended upon extremely high fuel mileage to override a perceived lack in level of comfort and conventional exterior style.

By slipping a Prius power package into the third-best-selling-sedan in the country, Toyota came up with what perhaps is a far-more-appealing hybrid in the 2022 Corolla. It is available only in the LE, a lower trim level. The setup is a 121-horsepower Atkinson cycle 1.8-liter 4-cylinder gas engine, two dual permanent magnet synchronous electric motors, an electronic continuously variable transmission and, beneath the rear seat, a lithium ion battery, positioned to aid weight distribution.

The one I drove for a week was priced at a relatively low $27,191 with synthetic leather seats, cruise control, satellite radio, lane correction and automatic emergency braking.

The Corolla hybrid’s fuel usage is EPA-estimated at 53 city/52 highway miles per gallon.

It was my main source of travel last week for 350 miles, including 110 miles from Greeley to Denver and back, several other highway drives and lots of in-town stop-and-go maneuvering. The transition from gas to electric power is very smooth.

The front-wheel-drive Corolla is a fairly slow, mild performer in its default driving mode, Eco; I used its Power mode at least half of those 350 miles for increased throttle response and steering pressure.

That didn’t seem to affect its high fuel mileage, which ranged from around 56.6 mpg to 58 on the readout in the driver-information screen; I couldn’t imagine it achieving that level of mpg through all the varied drives I made, so after 322 miles, I pulled into a service station gas pump, filled the Corolla’s tank – it took 5.6 gallons for 322 miles, averaging 57.5 mpg. That is excellent.

An upgraded interior, besides the synthetic leather, includes heated front seats, power driver seat with lumbar support, leather-trimmed steering wheel, 8-inch touchscreen. Tightly positioned tiny buttons for cruise control on the steering wheel lend themselves to occasionally canceling the set speed when the intention is to increase or resume the pace.

The Corolla’s curb weight is 2,850 pounds on wheelbase of 106.3 inches and overall length of 182.3. Wheels are 15-inch, with front struts and multilink rear suspension. Trunk space is only 13 cubic feet.

The Corolla Hybrid is assembled at a Toyota plant in Aichi, Japan. The Corolla was introduced into the U.S. was back in 1968.

A fairly sparkling performer, the new Kia EV6 is the sixth all-electric vehicle I’ve driven in first five months of 2022. From a nicely styled front end, the design goes somewhat wild at the rear with an overhead spoiler and bright taillights protruding along the middle of the liftgate.

The Kia EV6, like the Hyundai Ioniq5, is based on the Hyundai Motor Group’s E-GMP (electric global modular platform). The two electrics differ, though, in appearance and performance. The Kia EV6 is a standout in handling, while the Hyundai Ioniq5 makes use of softer suspension for a more-quality ride.

For instance, the Kia offers four driving modes – Eco, Normal, Sport and Snow. The power-output gap between the Eco and Sport is the most extreme, I believe, of the all-electric products I’ve driven, at least in its class. Eco, using only the rear-drive motor when called upon, is of very-limited power; Sport is highly spirited and produces full-blast handling maneuvers in fulltime use of both motors for all-wheel drive. Normal is a delightful tradeoff.

Kia offers the EV6 in three trim levels of Light, Wind and GT-Line. The model brought to me is the EV6 Wind, with all-wheel drive and 77.4 kWh battery-pack energy, dual AC synchronous permanent electric motors for combined 320 horsepower. The weight of the lithium ion polymer battery pack, stored beneath the auto’s floor, is 1,052 pounds.

The EV6 Wind AWD delivers a range of 274 miles (310 for the rear-drive version). In my fourth day with the Kia, its remaining range was at 117 miles when I stopped at Greeley Nissan for a quick recharge. Thirty minutes of charge raised the range to 224 miles. For the week, the EV6 delivered its promised range and then a few more miles. Regenerative braking accounts for some of the recovered miles to the battery; a Mobis iEB is the regen brake of the EV6.

Featured up front inside the Kia are vegan-leather heated and ventilated seats, dual 12.3-inch displays with navigation, Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, Meridian premium audio. Headroom and legroom are sufficient in the rear row, and the seats are heated. Cargo space behind the seating is 24.4 cubic feet; the seatbacks can be folded down to double that amount of room. The EV6 rides on Kumho 235/55R19 tires.

Flush door handles which pop out awkwardly when pushed are among features which drew interest in the parking lot Sunday morning as Jan and I left services at First United Methodist Church in Greeley. With the upper-end GT-Line trim, the key pod will automatically pop out the handles for use.

For the EV6 Wind, though, sticker price reached $54,110 with addition of surround-view monitor, remote smart parking assist and blind-spot view monitor. By using the key fob, the driver can step out and remotely guide the EV6 into or out from a parking spot. The EV6 is built in Hwasung, Korea.