While our hearts rev beyond 9000 rpm and we bleed VTEC, we're not blind to the competition, so when the opportunity arises to attend a media event where the keys to over 40 different 2007 vehicles are dangled in front of us, you can bet we're going to jump at the chance. This opportunity comes around once a year when the regional automotive media organization of which I am a member holds their annual Holiday Ride & Drive event. Generally, there is pretty good representation from automakers across the board, but this year Acura, BMW, Honda, Toyota, and Lexus were notably unrepresented. That's too bad, but with no Hondas or Acuras for me to drive, it gave me more seat time in other makes including Audi (Q7, S4 Cabriolet), Cadillac (Escalade), Infiniti (M35), Mazda (CX-7), Saturn (Sky Redline), Subaru (Legacy GT), Suzuki (XL-7), and Volkswagen (Eos, GTI). Ford brought a Shelby GT500 convertible that was begging me to drive it but every time I went to reach for the keys they were gone.

Instead of going into details about each test drive here, I will be posting them in a series of mini-articles in the Exhaust Notes section. As they are completed, I will add links to them here. And for a quick disclaimer - for the majority of these vehicles I was only able to spend around 30-40 minutes driving each, and some of them much less, so these are truly first impressions. I was hoping to get a few of these mini-reviews finished today but my first mini-review took a lot longer than I had originally anticipated, so for now all you have to look at is our look at the Mazda CX-7. Hopefully I'll find time to crank another one out today. Oh, and to our US readers, we hope you are enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday.

The List of Mini-Reviews
Mazda CX-7 Mini-Test