Once you’ve driven on winterlanding tires, you won’t feel the need to stayclose to home and you won’t go back to an all-season tire in the winter ever again. Tire Rack calls it the “Ah-Ha Moment.” It’s feeling the traction and control, the confidence. The difference.

We’ll let Tire Rack and these pucks tell the story.

Known for revolutionizing tire buying since 1979, their Tire Decision Guide first takes Tire Rack’s decades of tire experience, first-hand testing of hundreds of tires in all weather conditions, and a deep understanding of what makes winter tires do what they do. Then combines it all with “big data” — feedback they’ve collected based on billions of user-driven miles — and drills down to one top tire recommendation personalized just for you with up to two additional options for consideration.

Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of programming and algorithms to drive the results, but up front it’s a few questions you’ll answer about your vehicle and how/where you drive it. Easy. Exact. Done.

Additionally, you can browse through Tire Rack’s consumer reviews to see what drivers just like you have to say about their tires. These unbiased reviews help to further validate your Decision Guide results.

About now you’re thinking what these dedicated winter tires will cost you. Consider this. Over the course of six years of vehicle ownership, you’ll likely need to replace your tires after year three. That’s two sets of tires in six years. Tire Rack recommends that drivers who will need the added traction from winter tires for some of the year purchase them the first year. Your three-season tires are in storage while your winter tires are on the road. The expense is the same. And you’re driving on tires optimized for the season you’re in. Here’s how this plays out:

Think about a Winter Tire & Wheel Package to make the install/un-install every winter/spring easier. Your winter tires are mounted on their own set of wheels that you can bolt on yourself. They’re ready when you are and you’re not waiting in line with everyone else the day before Thanksgiving to get your winter tires installed.

Drivers who want to know more can watch Tire Rack’s test results videos and read the full test reports. In this report, for example, the Tire Rack test team hit the local hockey rink once again to experience the glare ice traction of Studless Ice & Snow tires for winter and to learn which tire is best when winter weather is at its worst.

Mercedes-Benz Vans boss Volker Mornhinweg said pickups are moving upmarket, just like SUVs have done. «SUVs are elegant lifestyle products with a high-quality finish to them. Not every customer takes them into the wilderness anymore. We believe pickups could go in a similar direction,» he told Automotive News Europe.

Until now, Daimler’s vans division has been overwhelmingly dependent on Europe, with 70 percent of its 360,000-unit volume coming from the region last year. With the X class, Daimler is targeting a diverse customer group from farmers in South America, building contractors in Australia, families in Brazil, and trend-conscious individuals in Europe and South Africa.

The pickup aims to tap into surging demand for vehicles capable of transporting one-ton payloads and towing an additional 3.5 tons. Mercedes forecasts volumes for this type of truck will grow by nearly half to 3 million vehicles worldwide in the next 10 years.

The X class will go on sale in Europe in November, in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand early next year and in Argentina and Brazil in 2019. For now, Mercedes says it has no plans to sell the X class in the U.S. where demand is mainly for full-size pickups.

French market researchers Inovev forecast annual X class sales to be 50,000 a year with 20,000 sold in Europe, 20,000 in South America and 10,000 in South Africa.

‘Several challenges’

In a research note, JATO Dynamics said the X class is the first attempt to prove that the premium touch can work in a pickup. It said the model will face «several challenges» in Europe where customers consider pickups to be work vehicles and prefer smaller cars.

As part of Daimler’s industrial cooperation with Renault-Nissan, the X class uses the same platform as the Nissan Navara and Renault Alaskan with a conventional ladder-type frame. This reinforces the long steel support on each side to give the truck its robust construction over the unibody format used by most automobiles.

To better offset lower levels of comfort and handling in these kind of trucks, Mercedes introduced more complex and expensive features typically found in passenger cars such as a double-wishbone suspension for the front wheels. Instead of the usual leaf springs and drum brakes on the load-bearing rear axle, the X class was given coil springs and brake discs to give the vehicle a better ride performance and shorter braking distances on paved surfaces.

Fast facts

Engines: Two Nissan four-cylinder, 2.3-liter diesels with 163 hp or 190 hp. A high-torque Mercedes 255-hp 3.0-liter V-6 diesel will be released mid-2018.

Safety equipment: Active brake and lane keeping assistance systems, along with cruise control and trailer stability assistance.

Personalization: Customers who don’t like an open flatbed can order an aluminum roll cover or stainless steel Style Bars, or a removable hardtop canopy that gives the pickup a more SUV-like silhouette.

Base price: 37,294 euros (Germany)

Where built: Barcelona, Spain (for Europe); Cordoba, Argentina (for South America)

Main rivals: VW Amarok, Ford Ranger, Toyota Hilux, Nissan Navara

Tesla has begin mass diliveries the Model 3 for global markets with. It should land here at around $50,000.

So, what’s it like to drive? We’ll get to that in a minute, but, first, let’s look at some of the innovations packed in here.

Releasing just another car would be a bit of a cop out, so it’s worth pointing out some of the interesting features that will make the Model 3 unique.

Getting in and out of the car will no longer happen with a key, or even a regular ‘fob’. The driver can open the door using their phone (over Bluetooth or GSM) and if they don’t have their phone handy, or if the battery is flat, they open it using an RFID card.

Adjusting the mirrors or steering wheel happens electronically, as you’d expect. To save space on the doors and steering column, two joysticks on the steering wheel serve as multipurpose controllers and are activated using the central 15-inch colour touchscreen.

When activating the steering controls, for example, the left-hand joystick controls telescopic adjustments, while the right joystick controls tilt adjustments. Likewise, the window mirrors are adjusted using the left joystick for a left mirror and right joystick for the right mirror.

Unlike the Model S and X, the doors are opened using a lever that’s pushed at one end and pops out at the other end — much like the Aston Martin V8 Vantage.

Interior

Inside the cabin, Tesla has used coarse-grain wood along the top of the dashboard and integrated air vents between the wood panelling and dashboard. The rest of the storage space has been cleverly hidden, with a larger area at the front with two USB outlets, a central storage cubby and a glove box.

Climate controls are adjusted via the central screen, but also in a first, direction and air blower location are adjusted using the touchscreen as opposed to manual adjustment.

Rear seat passengers get their own air vents, plus two USB charging points. Rear leg room is good, but a little cramped. Thankfully with the Model 3, consideration has been put into toe room, with ample room to slide feet under the seat.

The rear seats fold flat in a 60/40 split folding fashion with a centre armrest. And, they include two child seat anchor points. Both front and rear doors are released using a button on the door, as opposed to a conventional handle.

New Performance Pack option for VW’s hot hatch gets big brakes and more speed. For the sum of £2,300 (on top of the ‘base’ hatch’s £32,710), you can amp up your Volkswagen Golf R to 166mph.

Yes folks, it’s time for the Performance Pack option for Volkswagen’s venerable Golf R hot hatch. For that £2,300 outlay, not only does VW remove the 155mph top speed limiter to allow that 166mph top speed (168mph if you buy the more expensive estate), you also get better brakes and bigger wheels.

Those brakes are dubbed ‘R-Performance’, and shave 2kg from the braking system’s overall weight. We’re told these ‘built pin discs’ with their aluminium brake pots and cast steel friction ring means that under ‘stress’, the Golf R’s braking is more durable. Perfect, VW claims, for when you hit the track.

Elsewhere, the 18in standard-fit ‘Cadiz’ alloys are shelved in favour of 19in ‘Spielberg’ alloys. If you buy the hatch, you even get an extra rear spoiler that adds a not-insignificant 20kg of downforce.

So, harder, more durable brakes, new wheels, more speed. All nice and lovely.

If you want more schportiness, there is something else you can option on your hatch (not for the wagon, sadly) R: a titanium sports exhaust system. This is 7kg less than a regular R’s exhaust, arriving via the medium of exhaust specialist Akrapovic, and features round rear pipes and valve tech for “an incomparable exhaust sound”. Yours for £2,975.

You’ll note there is no power increase, but as standard the Golf R hatch (equipped with a DSG ‘box) produces 306bhp from a 2.0-litre turbo petrol, and will go from 0-62mph in 4.6s. Probably more, as VW can be quite conservative on those figures…

Welcome then, to the embiggened Brabus 900; a 2.8-tonne monster able to breach 217mph. Exclusive, yes, but also monumentally fast.

Supremely fast and opulent Mercedes made even faster and more opulent

We start with Brabus’s “tried and proven principle” of increasing the engine’s size. So the ‘standard’ Maybach’s 6.0-litre V12 gets bored out to 6.3-litres. To this, the tuner adds a custom billet crankshaft, forged pistons and balanced connecting rods.

Then come turbos. Big ones. Ones with large compressors and turbines, that feed in more air and ally with special exhaust manifolds, and a stainless steel high performance Brabus exhaust.

More air arrives courtesy of the special intake, and the resulting combustion process delivers that haymaker power figure of 888bhp, and 1,106lb ft of torque. Consequently, the 0-62mph time – and please do bear in mind this is a near three-tonne automobile – is just 3.7s.

Brabus has teamed the engine upgrades with carbon fibre aero changes outside: a new front spoiler and bumper with larger intakes, as well as a new rear bumper and diffuser. Pictured here is the 900 sitting on 21in and 22in forged alloys. You can opt for smaller wheels, but that’s not a question you need to ask yourself if you’re already this far in.

It sits 15mm lower thanks to the ‘lowering module’, and the inside is basically whatever your little heart desires. This one pictured is an example of what you can achieve: seat perforations machined for optimum ventilation (handy with 888bhp on tap), the optical fibre headlining, tables, Micrcosoft Surface 4 Pro tablets, a 3.5in screen integrated into the armrest between the rear seats…

It’ll be expensive, no doubt. Just how expensive we don’t know, but you can order one as a complete car, or indeed send off your Maybach S650 to the workshop and have it upgraded.

Would you?