These Are The Best Cars Jalopnik Drove In 2023

When a friend asks if you want to drive an original Meyers Manx dune buggy to Malibu in a convoy with Bruce Meyers in a vintage 911 and multiple other Manxes, including the Corvair-engined one from The Thomas Crown Affair, you say yes. I can’t decide which was more terrifying and thrilling: chasing another Manx through the canyons, or trying to survive stop-and-go traffic on PCH. The best way I can describe the Manx is that it’s like a Miata on mushrooms, or a Kettcar on HGH. It’s some of the most fun you can have on four wheels.

The Rivian R1S is one of the most comprehensively well-designed and engineered cars I’ve ever driven, especially exemplified by a jaunt up to Big Bear in the snow. In addition to one of the best exterior designs of any SUV, the R1S has a high-end interior with a ton of space and functionality — even with six guys in the car who each brought luggage for a long weekend, everything fit without going above the window line. Not to mention the R1S is incredible to drive both on-road and off, especially when conditions are gross. Rivian’s electric SUV is one of the greatest first-effort vehicles of all time.

Okay, this is a somewhat cheeky answer, but I had to include it. A few months ago I got to drive a Mercedes-Benz EQS equipped with Drive Pilot, the first Level 3 driver-assist system that is offered for sale in the United States. This system allows drivers to take their hands off the wheel and eyes off the road in traffic jam situations, so you can play games or watch a movie on the center screen, read a book or more easily converse with other passengers. While a bit unsettling at first, I found Drive Pilot to be absolutely wonderful, a total game-changer for LA traffic.

As a longtime muscle car fanatic, I was incredibly grateful to have a week with one of the Last Call models that Dodge designed as a send-off for the Charger and Challenger. The Challenger Shakedown called back to a 2016 SEMA build, and it was a whole lot of dumb fun thanks to its dumb powerful engine and dumb cool looks. It might not be the epitome of automotive technology, but it sure as hell shows just how fun cars can be.

Hearing the crunch of a massive rock colliding with your truck’s undercarriage might be one of the foulest sounds in the world – but in the 2024 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison, that sound is welcome. The ultra-off-road mid-size truck built in partnership with American Expedition Vehicles is designed to take on the harshest of rock-crawling obstacles. Even better, it’s one of the few off-roaders that actually feels like it fits my short frame.

The best car I drove this year [possibly ever?] is the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray hybrid. What a machine. I think this might be the best bang-for-your-buck car on the market today, delivering hypercar speed with Corvette drivability. There’s enough power and capability here to make it a track weapon, but it’s best served as a twisty road cruiser and long-distance grand tourer. I think Chevrolet has finally nailed down Corvette quality, and while the C8 interior isn’t a spectacle, it works well enough. Good car, would buy.

Like I said in my review of the NSX Type S, Acura got it right at the last minute. This NSX is a supercar for the 21st century, and it feels different than its Italian competitors. Sure, it’s heavy and complex, but that’s what makes it great, especially in Type S form. Where else are you going to find a supercar with a 600-horsepower twin-turbo V6 engine that you can live with on a daily basis and get over 20 mpg doing it, thanks to its hybrid setup? We might not ever see anything like it again, at least not from Acura.

The Hyundai Elantra N should be a poster child for the brand’s success. Here’s a car that performs nearly as well as competitors like the Honda Civic Type R and VW Golf R for thousands less. It has chassis tuning by a crack team of engineers led by theformer boss of BMW M, one of the best sounding stock exhausts on the market, and a huge array of vehicle customization modes that’ll make any gamer feel right at home. And all for the low, low price of just over $35,000. I honestly believe the Hyundai Elantra N is one of the best bang-for-your-buck performance cars on the market today.

The Dodge Challenger Swinger is truly the end of an era. Not only is it the end of the iconic Challenger, it’s the end of the classic muscle car genre as a whole. Eventually, the Challenger’s two-door Charger successor will appear, but it isn’t going to have a V8, and even if it somehow does, it won’t be this shining beacon on a hill of a motor. With 6.4-liters of American V8 fury making 485 rumbling horsepower under the hood, all controlled with your right foot and a beefy six-speed manual transition, the Challenger Swinger gave me an endless amount of enjoyment.

That much power in a bright green land yacht like this isn’t something that comes around every day, and I miss it all the time. It’s one of the few cars I’ve driven where I’ve tried to figure out if I can actually afford to own it. (I cannot.) I don’t care if it is endlessly inefficient, poorly put together or running on nearly 30-year-old architecture, the Challenger Swinger is incredibly charming, and that’s all you should really ask for in a car.

Good God, the Acura Integra Type S is a good car. Forget the idea that it’s one of the best-handling front-wheel-drive cars on the market, it’s one of the best-handling cars in general. I put over 600 miles on this thing in just a few days because I could not stop driving it. Every single thing about this car is perfect. But, the most perfect thing of all is its amazing six-speed manual transmission — I found myself shifting just for the hell of it because of how fun it was.

However, while it may be a wild child in the right drive modes, the Integra calms right down and becomes a comfortable and practical car – thanks to its Civic roots. Much like the Challenger, this was another car I was trying to figure out if I could afford. Unfortunately, I still cannot. Maybe one day...

The Volvo EX30 is perhaps our first glance at what an actually affordable electric car can be, with a cute design and well thought-out interior. I still don’t know if I trust the whole no dash/center console layout, and it certainly isn’t a perfect car by any stretch, but the EX30 is an attractive attempt at an EV for (almost) everybody.

I’ve never been a cruiser girlie, but the Royal Enfield Super Meteor really did its best to win me over. It was nimble, comfortable (for the first few hours, anyway), and — most importantly of all — approachable. It really feels like the kind of bike that gets more people into motorcycling, and that’s just about the best kind of bike there is.

Oh, hell yes. Electric torque is fantastic in cars, but it’s even better on two wheels. The power-to-weight ratio makes that low-end instantaneousness just so visceral. I am an electric bike proponent now. We should all be riding these as our usual commuters. They just need to cost a little less.

My award for the best vehicle I drove this year goes to my recently acquired RadRover 6 Plus electric bike. It won’t beat a Cybertruck in a drag race, and it doesn’t have anywhere near the same range, but I’m still more than happy with it. After all, once I placed my order delivery only took about a week, and it was way, way less expensive than a Cybertruck. So far, it’s handled the trail I ride it on without an issue, and it’s pretty much all I need to get around daily. Most importantly, though, it’s just downright fun.