Cars we're most looking forward to in 2017

This year has been a great one for new cars. Just consider the long list of vehicles we drove in 2016 with more than 500 horsepower, and the cars we drove that we liked best. Yes, there's some overlap there, too – more evidence of how great a year it was.

Thankfully, 2017 is shaping up to be pretty good, too, especially if you love 4x4s. There are a number of SUVs and pickups we're dying to drive, some old favorites that will return, and other new variations on excellent themes. That being said, cars won't be ignored. We're hoping to see some new generations of enthusiast favorites, as well as some green vehicles that will take the fight to the established players. Take a look through what we're looking forward to right now.

We’ve ridden in the Colorado ZR2, and that brief taste was enough to make us very excited about driving one ourselves. What’s not to love? A serious mid-size pickup with an available diesel engine, mud-ready off-road styling, and those trick spool-valve shocks. It’s the most exciting 4x4 since the first Ford Raptor came along.

The Honda Civic is suddenly interesting again – very interesting. The base car is the most competent Civic in years, and now there are two flavors of sporty front-drivers coming: the exciting Si and the superlative Type R. Both will be turbocharged, a departure from Honda’s naturally aspirated past. Expect something like 230 horsepower from the Si and around 340 hp for the Type R. Yep, we're interested.

The G-Wagen has been around for nearly 40 years, which is admirable for a brick-like vehicle originally designed for the military. It seems that it’ll again be updated soon, but thankfully what we’ve seen of the latest version sticks close to the original formula. If it improves on or even maintains some of its predecessor’s incredible off-road abilities, we’ll be very excited about it.