General Motors and the U.S. Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center are cooking up a small military truck concept based on the Chevy Colorado that uses hydrogen fuel cell and electric power to get around and serve as a mobile generator.
Read MoreThe upcoming USS Gerald Ford is a $12.9 billion masterclass in neat new tech with electromagnet catapults and super radar and lots of other cool and very necessary things. Who cares if some of these things maybe, uh, don’t work?
Read MoreIf you look up in Minnesota, you might soon realize police drones joining the birds in the sky above your head.
Read MoreLast week, the U.S. Air Force simultaneously launched three planes known as “strategic power projection bombers:” a B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit also known as the stealth bomber. The mighty jets are operating together for the first time in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region.
Read MoreThe U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center is using autonomous Cushman Shuttles—basically golf carts—to drive wounded soldiers to and from the hospital in an effort to get data on autonomobile technology, which the Army later intends to use on the battlefield, Automotive News reports.
Read MoreAfter multiple investigations, the Department of Justice found that a company that employed prisoners to build U.S. military helmets produced thousands of defective products, putting combat soldiers at risk.
Read MoreThursday morning a Douglas A-4K Skyhawk training jet operating out of Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas went down in the desert. That night an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter from the same station also crashed. All personnel involved escaped with minor injuries, and the incidents do not appear to be connected.
Read MoreThe point of having a fire department in every town is partly to decrease the amount of time the fire truck has to travel to put out the fire. And then you have this truck, which traveled 3,700 miles to another country to help it fight its fires.
Read MoreThe idea of all the security we put up with at airports—the lines, the scanners, the bullshit—is so that when there’s an attack, we’ll all be orderly protected. On Sunday night at JFK Airport, we found out how wrong that is. Cheering for Usain Bolt at the Olympics appears to have been mistaken for gunfire and complete chaos ensued.
Read MoreThe “B” variant of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet is supposed to be able to take off close to vertically and hover. Getting it to work has been problematic since the jet blast is hot enough to melt the concrete it’d be parked on, but it sure does show up spectacularly to this heavy-duty thermal imaging camera.
Read MoreThe VAQ-140 “Patriots” squadron has just returned from an eight-month deployment in the Mediterranean and the Arabian Gulf, where they flew some of the Navy’s newest aircraft built for “electronic attack” against ISIS/ISIL in Iraq and Syria. They came back with some breathtaking video footage, too.
Read MoreThe A-10 Warthog was built around the GAU-8: a 600 pound seven-barrel cannon barfing out 30mm tank-slaying rounds so fast that 1,000 of them make a single sound, which became the plane’s signature song. Not quite as vicious as a Nerf gun, but awesome in a different way.
Read MoreWhat’s the going rate for a human life? Depending on a hostage’s citizenship, their employer, and their personal wealth, the ransom asked for can climb into the millions. Half a million is good money in a country with a per capita annual income of $600. Piracy, so often relegated to history books or theme-park inspired movies, is a real phenomenon. It’s deadly, risky, ancient, and with the advent of completely crewless autonomous ships, might radically change in the future.
Read MoreThe Boeing 747-400 Global SuperTanker can put out fires just about anywhere, carrying 19,200 gallons of fire suppressant at close to 600 MPH. It’s a heroic beast to behold, and now you can climb all over the entire thing with this complete and controllable virtual walkthrough.
Read MoreThe F-35 fighter jet can be fitted with a variety of armaments, including this GAU-22 four-barrel gun pod capable of rattling off 50 25mm rounds per second. The destructive bore is impressive, the sound is downright terrifying.
Read MoreEx-Jeb Bush national security advisor and #NeverTrump representative John Noonan is a former Minuteman III nuclear launch officer in the U.S. Air Force. When he says what’s terrifying about Trump getting his hands on nuclear codes, he knows what he’s talking about.
Read MoreThe Drudge Report, Fox News, Donald Trump, and a host of other right-wing institutions are in a tizzy today over a report in the Wall Street Journal that the United States government sent a secret plane stuffed with $400 million in Swiss francs and euros directly to Tehran back in January, at precisely the same time Iran agreed to release four American detainees. “Obama Paid $400M ‘Ransom’ to Iran,” is how the New York Post is playing the story. Trump himself is calling it a “scandal.” What peop
Read MoreA Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area Transit Authority police officer was arrested and charged with “attempting to provide material support” to the Islamic State group, the AP reports. At no time was the D.C. Metro, the capital’s subway system, under threat, according to the FBI. The suspect did, however, buy ISIS a bunch of gift cards for ISIS.
Read MoreWhen he was stationed in Germany during his time in the U.S. Army, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll bought a rare BMW 507 roadster. After bringing the car to the states, it got lost in the shuffle and wasn’t rediscovered until 2006. Now, after decades of sun-fade and rust, the car has been restored back to its original luster, and it looks like an automotive angel.
Read MoreToday was a little different than most others because today I got to take a 1400-horsepower Cigarette race boat out on the Hudson River. It was not a bad day.
Read MoreNobody ever said “simplifying and adding lightness” was cheap. Besides, look how sexy that carbon fiber is. Here’s why I bring this up: the Lotus Evora 400, apparently a very good track car, can get even better for about 125 percent of its normal price.
Read MoreIf you’re slightly confused as to which McLaren model is which, I don’t blame you: the cars pretty much all look the same. They all look fast and aerodynamic and purpose-built, but they’re nearly identical for sure. So I will go ahead and make you this handy little post that you can reference at the next dinner party you throw so you’ll be extra cool.
Read MoreMcLaren is one of the most exclusive car companies in the world, building vehicles that are on the bleeding edge of technology. But only the truly extreme wonders get full commissions from McLaren Special Operations—McLaren’s own Skunkworks. This is the 678-horsepower MSO HS, and you’re not really supposed to know about it.
Read MoreThe Black Series line from Mercedes-AMG consists of cars for insane bastards. There was the CLK 63 AMG Black Series, which was fast enough to blast your retinas into the back of next Tuesday. And there was the SL65 AMG Black Series, which was so stiff your very existence turned to jelly. We always figured that it was always going to be racy coupes and monstrosities, but now it appears as if Mercedes is after our truest hearts. Because this beast looks like a Black Series wagon.
Read MoreMercedes just teased a new Maybach coupe and now everyone is freaking out about the possibility of the ridiculous Exelero making a comeback.
Read MoreThe Mercedes-AMG SL63 convertible is a good car. A very good car. That sounds a bit ridiculous as it costs an eye-watering $162,795, but a lot of cars that cost that much are actually bad. As in, not good. Before I write a full review, now’s your chance to pick my brain.
Read MoreIt’s hard to say something original about one of the best and most loved hot hatchbacks on the market, especially one that’s been on the market a few years now. Instead, I’ll just answer your questions about the 2016 Volkswagen GTI.
Read MoreThe biggest name in online retail is looking to get into the car business. When it comes to online shopping there is no greater juggernaut than Amazon.com. Wouldn’t it be great to buy car, just like you buy anything esle? That’s not likely to happen in the near future.
Read MoreAmazon made a new move today called Amazon Vehicles and they are just like barely right on the tippy edge of selling you an actual, whole car. But that would be too simple.
Read MoreWell, it happened. I received a car buying request so complicated, so odd in so many ways, that I was simply not able to help. I consider myself pretty good at this finding cars for people, but I’m accepting defeat on this one. So I’m turning the challenge over to you.
Read MoreIt took 485 horsepower and tires that were way too skinny to make me realize something profound: I’m a bit of an asshole.
Read MoreIn case you didn’t catch the mood from the headline, the news wasn’t good.
Read MoreThe Lancer Evo X Final Edition is old news down to everything, save for the silly badges that Mitsubishi used to try and differentiate it from a normal Evo X. Spoiler alert: it’s really not that different at all. As a hater of pointless badging, this really doesn’t help anyone’s case for me, but I can respect it enough to understand that this is the embodiment of an end to an era.
Read MoreIf you’re considering buying an electric car, but just aren’t sure if an electric car will be able to do what you need, you can stop wondering, because some researchers you’ve never met have already figured it out for you: it’ll work. Well, at least for nearly 90% of you.
Read MoreLast Week Tonight has a penchant for taking on scams and corrupt institutions, and John Oliver’s latest episode trashes the worst people in the world of cars: shady auto lenders who trap poor, desperate and often unwitting buyers in insane levels of debt.
Read MoreBy some odd circumstances, I wound up with a 2017 Hyundai Elantra for an evening over the week. If you’re looking to buy a new sedan for cheap, this one will likely be part of the search. Based on my short time with the car, it may steal the top spot on your list—and some of your money—pretty quickly.
Read MoreI make a living helping people with their car purchases. A lot of times, that means telling people to buy something other than the car they had in mind. Here are a few vehicles that I managed to talk people out of.
Read MoreBMW loaned us a 2016 BMW 7 Series for a few days. It did not last a few days. It did not even last us more than a few hours. I broke it. BMW loaned us another 2016 BMW 7 Series for a few days. I broke that one, too. This is that review.
Read More“Hey, there, it’s Travis again.” I was crouched on the side of the highway next to a Jaguar F-Type. “Remember how I just called and said that the car had egg all over it? Well now the bumper is kind of hanging off. I’m really sorry.”
Read MoreAs I’ve detailed before, the world of handing over “press cars” to journalists and important people has mores but not many rules. One of the most basic rules, unless specified otherwise, is that you review the car. In spite of this, many autojournalists have cars they’ve driven that didn’t get reviewed. I have a lot, so I’m fixing that so it’s not on my conscience when a next owner takes over the company.
Read MoreThere’s no five-star resort. There’s no gluten-free, farm-to-table luncheon. No thumping video presentation. At this press launch, there’s just a man, a creaky, folding metal chair, and a garage completely devoid of air conditioning on a day where the temperature threatened triple digits. Oh, and there’s also the best dual-purpose car I’ve ever driven.
Read MoreYou have to admire Mercedes-Benz sometimes. Back in 1991, it had customers begging the company to put its technologically groundbreaking, race-car-for-the-road, V12, gullwing supercar, the C112, into series production at whatever price it wanted. And Mercedes didn’t bother, mostly because it felt it had more important things to do.
Read MoreWhen I set out to buy my most recent car, I gave myself a budget of $5,000. I dutifully looked at two almost identical 1970s Volkswagen Beetles, one was a shabby, well-worn ‘74 for $2,500, and the other was an immaculate, restored ‘71 for $5,000. I think you know which one I bought.
Read MoreBefore we get started on this, I do want to point out that marketing cars to women buyers, when applied correctly, does have its merits. There is truth to the fact that women have only recently become the primary drivers of car-buying decisions, and that they tend to gravitate toward crossovers and SUVs. That much has been widely surveyed. Lamborghini wants in, which is great because this means more Lamborghinis. But some of the language and visuals it uses to justify this move are... questionab
Read MoreWhen you have a little kid, you end up reading a lot of kid’s books. Some of these kids’ books even include illustrations of cars, and identifying those cars is, of course, incredibly important. That’s why I’m so happy to report that, after 77 years, the ambulance in the children’s classic Madeline has been identified. Make, model, and even year. You’re welcome.
Read MoreFire up the synth music. Blow dry your hair and throw on a leather jacket. It’s time to take a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who does not exist, and then be... deeply disappointed.
Read MoreIf you haven’t seen, BMWs have had a tough weekend—at least, in the IMSA ranks. From roofs tearing off to wheels rolling away, it’s been ugly. Because of that, we present an intact, not-ugly BMW in a serene setting to put the world back in order.
Read MoreAmazon just launched its new car buying site, “Amazon Vehicles,” which includes customer reviews of over 5,000 cars. I decided to see which of those 5,000 cars got the rock-bottom, worst, most scathing reviews. Here are the ten worst cars according to Amazon.
Read MoreSometimes I am simply overcome with an inexplicable and inexorable automotive obsession. There’s nothing I can do about it. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself having spent the last hour doing nothing but watching videos of RB5s.
Read MoreThis year, Lowrider magazine – the journal of record for lowrider culture –ended its decades-long practice of featuring a scantily-clad woman on their covers. While this is for the best, it did get me wondering a bit about what would happen if other magazines picked up the practice, and switched to a 2015-and-earlier Lowrider style.
Read MoreI live in a bubble. It’s a wonderful oily bubble that’s noisy and smells like gasoline. It’s a bubble formed by my job and my interests, and it is overwhelmingly concerned with cars. It’s important to remember, though, that most of the world does not live in this bubble. Most people aren’t really all that focused on cars. But that doesn’t mean they don’t care at all. I maintain that everybody cares about cars to some degree, whether they admit it or not.
Read MoreBaby On Board signs are among the most obviously pointless things in the automotive world. Or, at least I thought they were until about a minute ago.
Read MoreWe’ve actually discussed this before, years ago, but a chance sighting of an eBay listing reminded me that or work is not done. Here’s what you need to know: for some reason, there are still people propping terrifying, faceless toddler dolls on their cars at car shows. This needs to stop. Now.
Read MoreYesterday, I asked you what you do with your extra car parts. Of course, the typical response was to hang onto them until they were needed again... however long that might take. Days. Weeks. Months. Decades. I was expecting some paperweights.
Read MoreThe Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance was a sight to behold with all manner of drop-dead gorgeous vintage machinery on display. Unfortunately, that’s also its problem. It’s no longer an event for cars. It’s a glorified museum on a golf course.
Read MoreThis amphibious 1994 Hobby Car is the pre-production prototype of only 52 actual Hobby Cars built. It was insanely overpriced in its day—about the cost of two contemporary BMWs or Jaguars—but then again, it’s an amphibious, mid-engined, roofless, doorless cab-over slab of crazy that you can drive right into the water. How do you put a price on that?
Read MoreToday’s carbon fiber twin charged hybrid electric supercars offer the highest top speeds and the quickest acceleration runs in the history of the commercial automobile. And yet they may be the slowest cars ever sold.
Read MoreThis past weekend, David discovered what a very bad and broken manual transmission looks like on the inside. He now has a bunch of useless gears he should recycle, but he’s probably just going to keep them in a box somewhere for a really long time. Does anybody else do this?
Read MoreI should probably clarify by saying that not all dreams are exciting ones, but that doesn’t make them dreams any less. This is Fiat’s 1968 City-Taxi prototype, and I’m not ashamed to say I adore it. I want to drive this rational, adorable little machine all the hell the over town, grinning like the sort of demented loon that would call a tiny taxi concept car a dream car.
Read MoreLeft, right; up, down—it doesn’t matter how you reverse as long as your manual wagon is brown. Unless you’re Teh Penguin of Doom, troll-post extraordinaire.
Read MoreIf there’s one feature I miss from old cars, it’s the hood ornament.
Read MoreAs a current New York City resident, I’m constantly barraged with warnings of “Don’t fly out of Newark, it sucks” only to hear a week later “Don’t fly out of JFK, it sucks” and then usually “Don’t fly out of Laguardia, it sucks.” All my options are bad. But there are those of us near little regional hubs that have it easy.
Read MoreSome of you jamokes just can’t resist the siren song of those screechy tires, huh? Haven’t you seen enough YouTubes to know you shouldn’t smash the gas and saw your steering wheel... especially when you’re leaving a car show!
Read MoreAs many drivers know, reverse is the car gear that lets you drive backwards. That’s a fact. But different manual transmissions have different locations for reverse! Which way is the right way?
Read MoreIs the Chevrolet Camaro’s problem that it looks too much like the old one?
Read MoreA guy with a Mazdaspeed3 was having issues with his air conditioner, so instead of sweating and swearing at it in the parking lot of his apartment, he took it to a dealer to get repaired. When he got it back, he found this on the dashcam. Should he be upset?
Read MoreAfter more delays than the Elio Three Wheeler and the mid-engine Corvette put together, singer and obsessive car nerd Frank Ocean is finally—finally!—back with some new music. Endless dropped Thursday night, and it’s a “visual album” released through Apple Music. Fine, whatever. But the first song I’ve heard is solid, and being that this is Frank Ocean, the cars are too.
Read MoreCar companies have to try just as hard to sell a Cavalier as a Porsche Carrera. Harder, probably. What’s the most over-the-top, blown out, high production, too-good-for-its-own-good ad for the most undeserving car?
Read MoreIt’s been a little while since the last Would You Rather, hasn’t it? You’ve missed this, haven’t you? Of course you have. Your brain needs this sort of hypothetical exercise, just like your car needs its pedals Armor-All’d into glossy, black slippery, grip-less slabs. So let’s get to it.
Read MoreIt’s fair to say that a very likely unhealthy portion of my life revolves around cars, and a truly alarming percentage of my thoughts are automotive-related. These are my jackstands to bear. That’s why I always love finding a whole new automotive concept I somehow have missed. This time it’s the excitingly dull phenomenon known as the Camry Dent.
Read MoreZoom! Whoosh! Yowza! We all like driving with vigor and intensity but now, man, I’m starting to think that there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. Speed, that is.
Read MoreIt’s easy to know what a beautiful car is—you see something like, say, a Lamborghini Miura, and you just feel that wonderful ache in your chest. Same goes for ugly cars– one glimpse of an Aztek and you can feel your gonads crying out in despair. But what about those cars that, somehow, manage to exist in both camps?
Read MoreToday’s probably been pretty rational and reasonable for many of you, full of competency. I can’t have that. So, to help restore balance to the world, please accept these free terrible ideas for cars.
Read MoreJust say no to CVTs and taupe, children.
Read MoreWe all love Jeremy Clarkson because he’s a real and bona fide car guy. He tells it like it is, dammit! And, surprise surprise, he’s also got fabulous taste in cars.
Read MoreSometimes you don’t have to have the bright-red sports car to get everyone’s attention—the calmer, more serene colors can be just as charming. The same goes for your wallpaper, if you’re into the free version of that feeling rather than the one you’d get with a $1 million car investment.
Read MoreIt’s Friday, all of my coworkers are gone now, and I’m phoning it in. Also it’s hot outside, and shit’s on fire, yo.
Read MoreA very nice 1995 Jeep Wrangler YJ was in my sights a few months ago. It was exactly what I wanted, and yet I let it slip away. Now I lose sleep thinking about it.
Read MoreThe Minnesota Department of Transportation, apparently having solved the problem of bridges that suddenly collapse and kill people, has now moved on to trying to get people to use the maddening “zipper merge” when a lane is closed. Good freakin’ luck.
Read MoreFor a little over a year now, I have done something most people consider impossible: I keep a car in New York City. While it is a place that indisputably hates cars, owning a car here is not actually impossible. Here are a few things to do to make it easier.
Read MoreWe all have a particular car that we like and enjoy! I, for instance, like the Maserati Khamsin. What about you?
Read MoreTraffic sucks, so why not start your morning off with some music? You provide the toast and we’ll provide the jams.
Read MoreThis week we’ve been talking a lot about high-tech motorcycle helmets–startups are rising and falling as they trying to cram gadgets into brain buckets. As cool as that stuff is, it kind of misses the most important point of how you actually pick a helmet– how it fits.
Read MoreThe much-anticipated BMW i8 is a technological quantum leap forward in terms of design, engineering, and performance. But above all, it’s a car to get people excited about cars again. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the new ambassador of car culture.
Read MoreThere are many different kinds of cars and many different kinds of driving. For each of these modes, there is a safe, obvious, reliable choice of vehicle. These are the Toyota Camrys (Camries?) of the car world, and I think I can pinpoint them all.
Read More“Well, I understand your occasional need to haul spare parts to the track, but really, the Miata’s trunk is surprisingly big, and you can always buy a trailer,” says the obnoxious, often leathery Miata owner, as a pre-cancerous mole ever-so-slowly engulfs a small chunk of his forearm.
Read MoreAPEX: The Story Of The Hypercar is a fascinating documentary that follows the ideology and innovation behind the world’s current crop of performance heavyweights from Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren, Koenigsegg and Pagani as it attempts to define them. But there’s one spoken line in the first two minutes of the film that perfectly defines the idea of the hypercar, which is that “something better is possible.”
Read MoreThe majority of readers of Electrek, a website for Tesla Stans, apparently do not like the Tesla Model X’s falcon doors. They are wrong and I am here to tell them why they are wrong.
Read MoreCars today: too big, too heavy. Ugh oof strain cramp ugh.
Read MoreCar exhausts. Some have one, others have two, more still have more than two. But what is the most optimum number of car exhausts for a car to have? The answer is simple: as many as possible.
Read MoreI came into this gig the old school journalism way, the newspaper route, the one that teaches you to believe in the myth of objectivity and not to desire any particular outcome with a story you write. But when a religious nutjob and accused con artist fleeces your fellow car enthusiasts out of thousands of dollars with a lie about perfect supercar replicas for Camry prices, well, you’d want to see them go down too.
Read MoreThink of their bounteous presence broadly and bigly traveling the roads: they are the large cars of beauty and grace. But where are they?
Read MoreThis particular Bugatti Type 41 Royale sold for over 20 million dollars at auction. Back in 1950, L’Ebe Bugatti, Ettore Bugatti’s daughter, let it go, along with another car, for a couple of refrigerators.
Read MoreLook, Porsche, I’m one of your biggest fans, and I hate to see you go down a path of self-destruction. I care. I really do! But you really need to get clean, stop doing hard drugs and back away from this plan to have a “coupe” crossover with four doors and a squashed butt.
Read MoreSure, having a McLaren on your desktop is great (though having a real one is, admittedly, better). It would be just flashy enough, get the attention of passerby and perhaps give you the motivation to speed through your workday. But having two McLarens on your desktop? That’s the way to do it.
Read MoreHot damn! It’s time to guess some car silhouettes! I know, right? This is what you’ve been waiting for – what makes all the bullshit worthwhile. It’s time, baby, it’s time, and I’m thrilled to be here, with you, at this magic moment.
Read MoreI have a deep-seated mistrust of valet services. I don’t trust strangers to take my car to a place where I can’t see them park it. I don’t trust strangers who don’t give a shit about my car. I don’t trust strangers in a hurry with my car. I don’t trust strangers in my car.
Read MoreEating and driving is almost never as clean or easy as you’d like; most of the common foods you’re likely to drive and eat are at best awkward and at worst a filthy disaster. So instead of beating ourselves up about it, why don’t we find a way to make it better? I gave it a shot, and now someone needs to make it happen.
Read MoreDo you love cars? Do you love putting stories on the internet that enthrall, excite and infuriate people? Have you been itching for a chance to try your hand at the great long con that is automotive journalism? Then if you think you’re up for it, I’m about to give you a shot at writing for Jalopnik.
Read MoreAnother list of the most stolen vehicles in America is out, and at the top of the list is the same goddamn car that’s always at the top of the most stolen lists: the 1990s Honda Accord. How are there any left to steal?
Read MoreOf the 7,000 people who applied to buy the new Ford GT, only 500 were selected. That’s roughly seven percent of everyone who filled out the application. Ford’s selections of the winners has rankled a lot of people, but from what I’ve seen so far, Ford hand-selected its customers pretty wisely. Also, no one is entitled to their dream car.
Read MoreLike many other Americans with functioning metabolisms and internet connections, I found myself completely sucked in by the ‘80s sci-fi throwback Netflix series Stranger Things, binge-viewing the whole damn thing while getting up only to void regular urine, fear-urine, and excitement-urine. Plus, my trained auto-journalist eye cunningly noticed something: there are many wonderful cars in the series, and most of them are wildly appropriate for the characters who drive them.
Read MoreThe new Suicide Squad movie is getting a ton of buzz, but what’s that crazy purple sports car the Joker drives in it? Turns out it’s something pretty unusual called a Vaydor: a custom made body mounted to the chassis of a ten-year-old Infiniti.
Read More“Are we in the tree of trust? The trust tree?” the text demanded to know. We were. A few weeks later I was driving a Merkur the color of cheap lipstick from Georgia to Virginia. The XR4Ti had gone from Tanner Foust to Rutledge Wood to Me and then to another kid named Matt. And now you can own it. Buy this car.
Read MoreYou literally couldn’t have it any worse.
Read MoreThe internet is abuzz with this video of a Toyota Camry drifting dangerously close to a BMW 4 Series. It all looks really pro, right up until the beigemobile drives straight into a closed garage door.
Read MoreIf you’ve ever driven down the highway through a mountainous region, you’ve likely seen the long gravel runway-looking ramps extending off of the side of the road. These are not just for the government’s cooperation with an imminent alien invasion, but also to help truckers stop when all else fails.
Read MoreThis horrific 10-car pileup in upstate New York last week included a tractor trailer with faulty brakes spearing through traffic, but no one was killed. One major reason for that was the crowd of bystanders who managed to pull a woman from the burning wreckage of her car.
Read MoreFive people were injured in San Gabriel, California after the driver of dump truck lost consciousness and crashed into eight different cars while being chased by terrified motorists.
Read MoreA woman was killed in her home by an explosion Monday morning involving a truckload of airbag detonation triggers which was on its way to a Takata automotive parts plant, according to multiple reports.
Read MoreDad is mad. He has a tractor. He’s hitting the car with the tractor. Wow, dad. Really?
Read MoreThis was down in Brazil, on a street that had gotten covered by a tree dropping jamelão fruit onto the roadway. A news team showed up to record all the cars crashing there because, man, like, every single car crashes.
Read MoreYou know how in movies like Fast and Furious, cars somehow manage to explode in unrealistic, over-the-top displays of cinematic excess? Sometimes it happens in real life. In Russia.
Read MoreWhen Ethan Castille watched a team of boaters rescue a woman and her dog from drowning in Louisiana floodwaters in a now-famous viral video, he knew the red Mazda Miata would be toast. He also knew he could help.
Read MoreA teenage boy and a 37-year-old man crashed in a Ferrari F50 last night on a quiet village road in England, which resulted in the boy’s death, according to news reports.
Read MoreA woman test driving a brand-new Mercedes GLE in Arlington, Virginia got a great evaluation of the safety features after crashing the SUV into four other cars and rolling over directly in front of the dealership.
Read MoreThis Porsche Cayenne’s putting on a clinic about how not to drive on a two-lane road; passing cars so aggressively it barely manages to squeeze between one and an oncoming station wagon without splattering itself in a head-on collision.
Read MoreMost drivers have seen the dangerous stuff that falls off of another vehicle and into a lane of traffic. Unfortunately, that amount of crap is growing and it’s killing drivers. In fact, crashes caused by road debris went up 40 percent in the past 15 years.
Read MoreA Redditor named 3dkSdkvDskReddit posted a photo early this morning showing a Tesla Model S engulfed in an enormous fireball in southwestern France.
Read MoreWatch as this squad car chases after a red light runner and ends up crashed and flipped onto its roof before even crossing the intersection. Thankfully everyone made it out of this wreck with minor injuries but, just, wow.
Read MoreFollowing a collision with another car at a Chicago intersection, a Lamborghini Huracan reportedly slid into a pole and split in half. Videos from the aftermath of the crash show not only the car strewn across the street, but also bystanders extracting a person from inside right before it caught fire.
Read MoreLast week we covered a Tesla Model S crash in China, where yet again the owner blamed Tesla’s Autopilot for the incident. He also apparently didn’t bother to have his hands on the wheel of the car when the fender bender occurred, and somehow still thinks he isn’t at fault.
Read MoreIf you’re having a great day today, just take your cursor and click the “X” at the top of the screen, otherwise you’ll lose faith in humanity watching a bunch of yahoos yell at each other in a Texas parking lot after a woman apparently smashed her Mustang into a gas station.
Read MoreA Tesla Model S was involved in a crash in Beijing earlier this week, with yet another driver blaming Autopilot. This is the first alleged Autopilot crash in China, but when you watch the video, it’s amazing it happened at all.
Read MoreThe lead singer of Modest Mouse, a band you remember listening to about a decade ago, decided to go for a drive in Portland, Oregon, a few days ago. He reportedly says he fell asleep, at which point every single Subaru in the world was destroyed.
Read MoreIn an update to the tragic death of 27 year-old Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin after his 2015 Grand Cherokee rolled into him in his driveway on June 19th, The Associated Press reports that his parents are planning to file a wrongful death lawsuit against Fiat Chrysler.
Read MoreIn Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan—just outside of Detroit—a man in his 60s drove his Cadillac ATS into Lake Saint Clair, the Detroit Free Press reports. Watch as policemen and good samaritans rush to extract him before the car goes down for good.
Read MoreThis past weekend in DeLand, Florida, a man had to be transported to the hospital by helicopter after flipping his car in one of the most “Holy shit!”-inducing accidents I’ve ever seen.
Read MoreI am all for taking your car out for a joyride, especially if it’s a fun car that is meant to be enjoyed. Keeping a perfectly good and working supercar in the garage is a crime. I just ask that you try not to, um, flip it—especially when your kids are inside.
Read MoreOne of the best ways to watch Top Gear before it officially aired in the United States with much crappier music was on the BBC’s iPlayer website. It was only supposed to work if you were in the United Kingdom, but it was ridiculously easy to get around, WHICH WE WOULD KNOW NOTHING ABOUT. Now the BBC wants to tighten that up.
Read MoreFollowing their dramatic exit from Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May aren’t clear of the drama just yet. Their new show, The Grand Tour, has to avoid anything that might be considered similar to Top Gear for fear of being sued by the BBC.
Read MoreJeremy Clarkson’s list of 10 “Star Cars” was full of winners. But now the Amazon presenter’s latest Sunday Times column reveals “The Terrible Ten,” a list of “stinkers” described with hyperbole that only Clarkson could imagine. Some of the cars on the list will surprise you.
Read MoreIf you ever wanted your two favorite worlds—the former Top Gear guys and Game of Thrones—to collide, it’s about to happen on The Grand Tour.
Read MoreSome vindication is coming Jeremy Clarkson’s way—besides his hotly anticipated £160 million Amazon show, of course. More than a year after Clarkson was fired from the BBC for punching a Top Gear producer, the network’s former boss concedes that the host was a talent they couldn’t really afford to lose.
Read MoreThe 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio is kind of pivotal to the manufacturer’s lineup, and Top Gear presenter and Jalopnik alumnus Chris Harris took it out for a spin recently. He loved the car overall, but get this—he dislikes the shifting so much, it “doesn’t worry [him] at all” that his home country won’t get a manual.
Read MoreWatch as James May, the only man on earth who can make a video about assembling a lawnmower entertaining, joins his cohorts Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond to tell a short story about one of his most bone-headed moments.
Read MoreTop Gear’s Chris Harris finally introduced himself to the Dodge Viper ACR in his latest film on TopGear.com, and found it to be just as American as Donald Trump naked in a Corvette—but obviously far more appealing.
Read MoreSince Chris Evans was exited from the post-Clarkson re-launch of British Top Gear there have been stirrings that the cast would be re-organized. Now it sounds like the BBC wants to promote Matt LeBlanc to “the face” of the show, with a solid salary bump to entice his return.
Read MoreEnrico Galliera, Ferrari’s man in charge of the wild track-only XX model series, recently sat down with TopGear.com to chat about the 599XX and FXX K, as well as its competition. And he reminded us all that Ferrari still doesn’t give a FXXK about anybody’s Nürburgring times.
Read MoreWhy does this work so damn well? Who realized this first, and actually took the time to try it? Why is it so deeply wrong that Clarkson is Millhouse and James May is Nelson? Martin as Hammond, I’m sort of okay with.
Read MoreThe Super Duty Ford F-250, F-350 and F-450 pickups are for pulling big boats, horses and construction equipment. Heavy work. A large diesel engine makes that possible, and now a gleaming array of driver-assistance technology makes it easy. Heck, it’s even fun.
Read MoreI don’t like “crash porn” as a rule because it tends to cram motorcycling into a bad cliché. But the Romaniacs enduro race is so extreme, the obstacles so outlandish, that it really is best appreciated with this ridiculous highlight reel of carnage.
Read MoreFive years after Kawasaki retired the “Final Edition” of its SX-R Jet Ski, guess what. It’s back. So now it looks like that whole “stand-up Jet Ski” fad isn’t over after all!
Read MoreThe bill authorizing the California Highway Patrol to set guidelines for “lanesplitting” has been signed into law. Now it’s up to the cops to decide when and how riders can lanesplit. Kind of funny, since preventing officer discretion from happening is pretty much why the bill was introduced in the first place.
Read MoreThe EPA says Harley-Davidson’s been selling upgrade parts at dealerships that push the motorcycles’ emissions over the legal limit. H-D maintains the mods were designed for “competition use only,” but has decided to settle with a $12 million fine and a $3 million forced investment in “pollution mitigation” rather than fight regulators.
Read MoreHow the hell does one motorcyclist directly rear-end another motorcyclist at high speed in this situation? What is even happening?
Read MoreMost off-road motorcycle fans are familiar with the Honda CRF450 dirt bikes. The R and X variants have been very successful in motocross and endurance racing respectively. For 2017, they’re getting majorly revised for the first time in ages. And getting a brand-new sibling as well.
Read More“This bike has no front brake,” the announcer exclaims, as champion racer and motorcycle designer Roland Sands rides a brand-new Indian “Hooligan” flat-track bike up on stage for a crowd of fans at Sturgis. Then he goes right off the edge.
Read MoreOur good friend Jeannette Klein, who you will recognize from Jalopnik’s What Car Should You Buy series and from the Classic Car Club Manhattan, had her custom Honda CB125 stolen. Maybe you can help find it.
Read MoreA heads-up display in a motorcycle helmet is a cool concept that has yet to make it to mass-market, mostly because of its tremendous complexity and cost. (One high-profile company’s alleged spending practices didn’t help either.) But that hasn’t stopped inventor Andrew Artishchev from dedicating himself to the idea, which he hopes will yield an HUD-equipped bike helmet you can buy in about a year.
Read MoreAbout a year ago, Norton Motorcycles got a cash injection of over $5 million from the British government in an initiative to stimulate the country’s domestic engineering. Now it looks like that, along with the company’s own R&D investment, is going to crank out one hell of a sport bike.
Read MoreIn 2014, San Francisco tech startup Skully raised hype and money to build a Tony Stark-style digitally augmented motorcycle helmet. Almost $2.5 million later, the company’s shutting down. Now a lawsuit from within the company gives us some hints as to why: founders allegedly blew the R&D money on lap dances and fast cars.
Read MoreRiding a motorcycle can be dangerous since you are inherently more exposed than the occupants in the giant metal cars on the road around you. That’s why whenever anyone on a motorcycle gets involved in a road-raging feud with a car, it never, ever ends well for them.
Read MoreA bill authorizing the California Highway Patrol to set hard guidelines for “lane splitting,” motorcycles making way between lanes of traffic, passed through the state assembly with a 69-0 vote. Once Governor Jerry Brown signs it, which is expected, CA will be the first state with formally legal lane splitting.
Read MoreJust judging from the parking lot setting, the younger age of everyone involved and the fact that there’s a man riding what looks to be $20 motorcycle with no safety gear makes me think this is one of those cringe-inducing videos.
Read MoreI told myself I’d never love again. This video of a LEGO Fiat 500 idea project set to Italian opera told me it’s okay to love again.
Read MoreGetting you the latest news about Droids That Don’t Actually Exist In Reality is an important job, and I have a very important update: another droid from Rogue One has been revealed, and this one is an astromech! The droid is named C2-B5, and I’m excited to speculate all about it for you. Right now.
Read MoreMuch of the attention around the Tesla Model X has focused on its unique vertically-opening Falcon doors. They are dramatic and exciting, but they’re also a pain to build. Now, in an attempt to make the doors work better, it appears Tesla may have quietly made them less safe. (Update: Tesla’s response below.)
Read MoreYou’d think that something as important as shutting a car door after you get out of it would be instinctual by this point—fancy butterfly doors or not. Even if you’re not in the driver’s seat.
Read MoreWho has $2.65 million to blow on a silly Bugatti Chiron? Now, if you were to offer me a 1:8 scale model of the Chiron and charge $10,160 for it—well, hm, I’d have to think for a second.
Read MoreI can’t believe there are only 10 short years between the Porsche Carrera GT and the Porsche 918 Spyder. The two cars really couldn’t be any more different. They were launched at the peak of their respective super- and hypercar eras, and everything about them reflects that.
Read MoreMultiple warnings about the dangers of the ammonium nitrate used in Takata airbags went ignored to save just a few dollars per airbag, according to a report by The New York Times. To date, faulty Takata airbags have killed at least 14 people and injured over 100 more, prompting the largest automotive safety recall in history.
Read MoreAh, Road Atlanta. One of America’s most famous racetracks, and the home of Petit Le Mans. It always helps to lay a little rubber down on the pavement, right? Let these drifters take care of that with some of the craziest high-speed sideways action I’ve ever seen.
Read MoreA Ferrari 456 GT. A Ferrari F40. A Dodge Viper. A RUF CTR. A 930 Porsche Turbo. A Veilside Supra. Another Supra. And a Honda NSX Type R. Sugar, spice and everything nice.
Read MoreYou may recall that Mahindra, my favorite maker of tiny, rugged, non-Kei diesel vans, bought storied Italian design house Pininfarina late last year. The goal was to turn Pininfarina from a coachbuilder into a builder of complete cars. It looks like that first step has been taken, as Pinifarina just announced their first limited production Mahindra-era car, the H2 Speed.
Read MoreI, once upon a time, got stuck watching a SEAT chase down an Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio mule on the Nürburgring for three and half days. I only snapped out of it when my roommate invited me to Taco Bell. Now there’s video of a McLaren 675LT chasing down a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, so I guess I’ll be busy.
Read MoreThe National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s information request to Tesla following the death of Joshua Brown in a Tesla Model S with Autopilot activated has been set back a week after Tesla missed the August 26th deadline.
Read MoreIf, for some unholy reason, you weren’t too flummoxed by the amazing Aston Martin and Red Bull Formula One-inspired hypercar project with a one-to-one power-to-weight ratio, Mercedes-AMG is developing a F1-inspired hypercar project with a one-to-one power-to-weight ratio, too.
Read MoreThe joy of the automobile is in the harmony of form and function—or, in the case of our old pal the Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am, to just stick a bunch of fake vents and other junk on a Tesla and call it a day.
Read MoreLast week, we saw the striking Cadillac Escala concept unveiled at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. It wasn’t as zany as some Cadillac concepts have been, and we suspected the reason for that was because Cadillac might actually push this thing into production with a rumored twin-turbo V8 as a heart. And following these incredible spoilers from Cadillac boss Johan de Nysschen’s keyboard, it really could happen.
Read MoreComing In Hot, a massive powerboat worth at least $100,000, lived up to its namesake at about 2:00 a.m. Sunday on the Lake Of The Ozarks when it caught air and crashed onto a lakefront lawn. The driver was allegedly intoxicated and amazingly, uninjured.
Read MoreDid you attend your college’s first car meet of the school year this weekend, like I did? Did you do something else, like take your new Viper to Cars & Coffee or stay up all night scraping your knuckles? If you’ve got pictures, or stories, or both, we want to know.
Read MoreA few weeks ago, I wrote a story about two men who had been caught hacking into and stealing Jeeps and Rams. Now Fiat Chrysler has updated its terms of use on DealerCONNECT and told the Houston Chronicle exactly how the thieves used the dealer software to steal cars.
Read MoreOver the weekend, Instagram user Richard Hennessy posted a picture of someone driving a Tesla Model 3 prototype. Now that Instagram post is gone, but thanks to the delightfully cruel nature of the internet, it’s not really gone. So, what exactly are we looking at here?
Read MoreLet me tell you what the absolute worst thing in the entire world is: sitting the backseat of your Bentley Mulsanne or Flying Spur and not having any booze. I’m happy to report that Bentley has astutely spotted the problem and solved it with three new booze cooler options.
Read MoreHere’s the cold, alarming truth: neither of the two big-party candidates running for president cares about your car. Not the one with the emails or the anthropomorphic cheese log with a crush on Vladimir Putin. Neither has mentioned anything about the things gearheads care about, like import car laws or repealing the Chicken Tax. That’s why I have a plan. We need a Gearhead Party.
Read MoreWhen Tesla first hit the market, everyone sort of laughed that they were building an electric car off of a bunch of laptop batteries. Wasn’t there something better for them to use? As it turns out, not really. And there are a few reasons why we’re still stuck in that lithium-ion technology.
Read MoreUsually firefighters are sent to rescue things from tall heights, not put them there themselves. Behold! One flying Trabant.
Read MoreIf you thought Burning Man was just a steampunk renaissance fair for filthy hippies, like I did, you too may be surprised to learn that this $10 million helicopter is doing taxi service for (rich) people who want to go to the party.
Read MoreAt this point I think General Motors has to be trying to just overload us with recall news so we stop caring.
Read MoreFew things in this life are as graceful as this noble beater Nissan Maxima making a gentle leap through the air on its soft, well-loved suspension. Enjoy the Maxima while you can in this video, though, because the this crew is going to do everything within their power to kill it with hoonage.
Read MoreQuite possibly the most dedicated cat lady ever ran into the middle of Houston’s Sam Houston Tollway to rescue a stray cat. How dedicated was she? Video released by the Harris County Toll Road Association shows her running across multiple lanes of traffic after the cat with what appears to be a pillowcase or a small towel.
Read MoreRumors of the BMW 8 Series’ Big Comeback ebb and flow, and here’s another one: a two-door version of the big, executive 7-Series could be on the way.
Read MoreAccording to German publication BimmerToday, BMW waited in the shadows until the last Valencia Orange Z4 Roadster rolled off the line before quietly ending production of the E89 forever last week.
Read MoreFord issued a recall of more than 88,000 vehicles on Wednesday due to their potential to stall without warning while driving—and be unable to restart—or fail to start at all. The recall includes all Ford Police Interceptor sedans built in Ford’s Chicago plant from 2011 to 2015, and it wasn’t the only one they made.
Read MoreWhen traveling tens of thousands of feet above ground and in a small, cramped cabin, airplane scares are the last thing a person wants. But that’s what the passengers of a Southwest Airlines flight got on Saturday, when the view out of the window showed an obvious malfunction to one of the plane’s engines.
Read MoreThis 1963 S3 Continental was the last coach-built car from Bentley, giving it a quality and grace that isn’t anything like a modern car. Charles Morgan wonders if the car even has a place in the real world anymore.
Read MoreRecently, footage of a woman melting down on a New York City subway while trying to sell bugs went viral. There wasn’t much context until Friday, when the woman behind the stunt—who, not according to plan, peed during it—admitted it was a prank intended to bring awareness to homelessness and mental health.
Read MoreJust don’t send me the bill, because I’m a big fan of getting the last laugh.
Read MoreThis is quite possibly the greatest piece of local news entertainment in the “automotive comedy” category in years.
Read MoreThe U.S. Department Of Transportation submitted a proposal last week that would require heavy duty vehicles to be outfitted with electronic governors limiting their top speeds in an effort to improve fuel economy and safety, The Verge reports.
Read MoreWhile we laud ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft for making it easier to get home from the pub, we sometimes forget about the drivers. With drivers of varying levels of experience often trying to use apps for multiple services in the car, New York City crashes have increased with the rise of the apps.
Read MoreDriving slowly in the left lane is dangerous and bad! That is what is cheerfully noted in a new video from Vox, the website that seeks to “explain” the news to you, as if you were a child. Who knew?
Read MoreDriverless bus prototypes and experiments are already popping up in various urban areas, and it seems like Russia (and their equivalent of Google) is next.
Read MoreNothing says father-son bonding like some time in the garage. And burnouts. Never forget the burnouts. Also, don’t forget the steering wheel.
Read MoreSo, a bit of backstory as to why nobody ever got this thing.
Read MoreThe fundamental idea of Lotus cars is to be made as cheaply as possible. No wait, that’s not it. To have as old an engine as possible. No, wrong. Oh right, it’s to be as light as possible. And a new limited-edition Elise does that perfectly, weighing in at 1,982 pounds.
Read MoreThere’s nothing quite like Death Valley to shake down a car. Not only is it the hottest place in the United States, but the twisty park roads and scenery are quite lovely—so long as your car works. So, naturally, we saw quite a few automotive testers when the LeMons Rally took us straight to Car Hell.
Read MoreOver two dozen big yellow school buses caught fire in a storage and maintenance facility in Puyallup, Washington, leaving many of the kid-haulers looking like nothing more than thin, hollowed-out metal cages.
Read MoreWe’ve talked about Clarion’s 230,000 mile Acura NSX multiple times, but this new video by Andrew T. Maness and shot by Rick Starick is like that Ryan Gosling movie Drive, but without all of the whiny characters and melodrama—and with a much, much better car.
Read MoreOver $200,000 worth of wheels and tires went missing overnight from 48 cars at Peltier Chevrolet in Tyler, Texas, reports Automotive News. That’s a lot of wheels! Tyler Police Department Public Information Officer Don Martin told Automotive News that they believe the heist only took around four hours.
Read MoreGeneral Motors has won its third of six “bellwether” cases, with a Texas jury finding that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove a recalled faulty ignition switch caused the death of a driver involved in a crash with a Saturn Sky in 2011.
Read MoreTesla’s Model X crossover-egg has had a rough history with automatic doors—namely those fancy-but-flawed Falcon Wing doors for passengers. But the front doors also have an automatic opening feature, too, and they’re a bit bullish in the parking lot.
Read MoreICON is used to customizing more classic fare, but if you just want to go fast and not be noticed, nothing beats a big old ex-cop car. ICON’s Jonathan Ward told Road & Track the insane story of how one ICON client decided to pump serious cash into an old Caprice, of all things.
Read MoreA crazed woman trying to sell bugs on the D train last night got heckled, freaked out, and then threw bugs on everyone, as the New York Post reports. If you’re wondering what it’s like to live and commute in the New York City subway system, here you go.
Read MoreOn June 9th, 1910, the CPR 694 freight train derailed after hitting a boulder on the track near Mink Harbor, Canada. It fell into Lake Superior and wasn’t seen again. Until now.
Read MoreAfter the Dieselgate emissions scandal came to light, Volkswagen dealers got stuck with a toxic brand and a bunch of cars they couldn’t sell. Now the real heroes in all of this—650 hardworking Beetle-pushers across America—have reached a deal to be compensated a reported $1.2 billion by Volkswagen for their losses.
Read MoreAs a Northern Californian I am obliged to hate on Los Angeles, a squid-armed traffic garbage pile, but I can’t deny that in its sprawling spaghetti of jammed highways, there are all sorts of car cultures. Aussie F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo got to do them all in one day. At least, he tried.
Read MoreTwo words: autocross everything.
Read MoreSlow motion explosions are cool. I guess that’s why Autoblog has started a new YouTube series that is literally just slow motion video of cars exploding. I’m not complaining.
Read MoreA prototype of a new rotary-powered Mazda ‘RX-9' has been approved by the company’s board of directors to hit dealerships in 2020, according to a report by Motoring. That’d be an awesome way for Mazda to celebrate 100 years of Zoom-Zoom, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Read MoreYou probably always feel like “it’s total bullcrap” any time your car gets towed, but on this one particular Philadelphia street auto-impounding might actually be a scam.
Read MoreI know Charles Darwin is the Darwin that gets most of the press (well, except maybe for that dolphin that was in that underwater Star Trek show), but I think we need to take a moment to appreciate his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin: poet, physician, inventor, and, yes, possibly one of the world’s first gearheads. The man designed a car in 1764, and we have the drawings to prove it.
Read MoreSunshine! Wind! People who hate those things may say they are problems in the Fiat 124 Spider, lovingly known as the Fiata. But no more, because a coupe might be on the way!
Read MoreWhen Tesla announced the Tesla Model S P100D yesterday, the big headline was that it’s the “quickest production car ever” with a claimed zero to 60 mph time of 2.5 seconds. But is it actually the quickest production car ever? As always, that depends on what you mean by “production.”
Read MoreYesterday, Tesla announced the absolutely berserk Model S P100D. Officially, it has a 0-60 mile an hour time of 2.5 (!) seconds, thus putting almost anything that isn’t a LaFerrari, a Porsche 918 or a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport to shame. And while we were all oohing and aahing over that, Tesla went and quietly raised the price for the Autopilot features without much notice.
Read MoreOnly one week has past since its inaugural launch, and the world’s largest aircraft, Airlander 10, has crashed. The massive airship, known majestically as the “Flying Bum” thanks to its uncanny resemblance to a colossal, floating human ass, crashed slowly and calmly during its second test flight.
Read MoreThe Ferrari Enzo is only a couple of years over a decade old, but hypercars have come a long way since then. Now they’re just hybrids literally called “The Ferrari,” even though the company has five models. But what if the designer of the Enzo put his pen to another attempt at a red Italian hypercar?
Read MoreAccording to a Chevrolet dealer in Southern California, the all-new, all-electric Chevy Bolt will not be available for pre-order until November of this year—three months later than the original August date announced at the vehicle’s launch, according to a report by CleanTechnica.
Read MoreTo anyone who was worried: the American airline industry isn’t in as bad a shape as Donald Trump is making it out to be, who says that if he isn’t elected to be President, Boeing’s jobs are moving to China.
Read MoreThe new Tesla P100D can zipwhooshkapow to 60 miles an hour in just 2.5 seconds. That’s a staggering 0.5 seconds faster than the pitiful old P90D, which is reason enough to buy the new car. But is there another reason? Could the P100D be saving you money?
Read MoreThe Tesla Model S P90D set the standard for mass production cars with an official 0-60 mile an hour time of 2.7 seconds. Now Tesla’s keeping it 100, with the Tesla Model S P100D. It’ll do 0-60 in 2.5 seconds with a heavy foot, and with a light one it’ll do over 300 miles on a charge.
Read MoreIf you know anything about cars, you probably salivate a little bit when you hear that something is made out of carbon fiber. It’s highly valued in aviation and automotive use for its lightness and strength. But, unlike aluminum, plastics and steel, it’s also very difficult to recycle. Until now!
Read MoreJohn Krenik lives in St. Paul, Minn. and owns two collector cars that he keeps in his driveway. I’d like to tell you more about the cars, but I can’t because they’re both under tarps. Tarps that were used to “screen” the cars, per Minnesota law. Incredibly, this isn’t enough for Krenik’s neighbors or the state of Minnesota, which has declared these cars a public health hazard. Get ready to get so frustrated you punch your screen.
Read MoreFaraday Future, the Chinese-backed next-big-thing-we-swear! car company, massively blew its first chance to prove its credibility when it presented a weirdo concept as its first car. All we wanted to see was a real vehicle, but Faraday kept their production car hidden. And now it appears we have our first glimpse.
Read MoreWe all know Donald Trump’s trademark staccato, combative tweet-style now, and there’s a certain odd, lean poetic quality about them- like a Haiku spit out by a very irritated mule scrotum. If, hypothetically, Trump was really into cars, I think we might see tweets like these.
Read MoreThe Olympics are over, and if you’ve ever wondered what the games would be like if each country was represented by the cars it manufactures, then here you go. Just don’t count on America’s cars taking home as many medals as the real American Olympians.
Read MoreIf you’re wondering why the tracking number on your mail takes you to a landfill, a restaurant surveillance camera caught a U.S. Postal Service worker throwing hundreds of mail items in the dumpster behind the store, including personal letters, post cards and hundreds of business flyers.
Read MoreIn 2011, Zachary Stevens crashed his 2007 Saturn Sky into another car, killing its driver. Now Stevens is suing GM, but the automaker says the key he claims to have been using didn’t even belong to the car, so they want the judge to toss out the case, Automotive News reports.
Read MoreEarlier today, we did a story on the most expensive cars sold at the Pebble Beach Auctions. That was a fun story to write, because we can all relate to not being able to afford even a single tire on one of those cars.
Read MoreThe Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance concept lawn is a chance to see a multitude of one-of-a-kind vehicles in the flesh, but what you don’t see is how these vehicles actually get on and off the lawn. As I left the Concours I caught the Bugatti Vision GranTurismo Concept—the only one in existence!—doing just that. It was one of the most nerve-wracking and suspenseful things I’ve ever seen in my life.
Read MoreThis past weekend saw the 2016 Pebble Beach Auctions, where fortunes were swapped and keys to opulent collector cars changed well-moisturized hands. In sales last week, the California auctions pulled in $345 million, although that was well below Hagerty’s count of $396 million from the 2015 auctions.
Read MoreOn a certain level, I realized that death was a very real possibility.
Read MoreAirbus’ new driverless airborne taxi/gigantic drone concept looks great! It’s so cool to see a major air company work on what’s basically a flying car. Oh, wait, does this thing pass the two year test?
Read MoreThis year’s Woodward Dream Cruise, while dampened a bit by rain, still brought out some exceptionally quirky cars, along with some fantastically compelling ones. Here’s what I saw on Michigan’s M-1.
Read MoreWhile the 1936 Lancia Astura Pinin Farina Cabriolet may have won the “official” title of Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance best in show, whatever that really means, it did not win our hearts. The one true winner should have been this, a 1931 Cadillac 452A Fleetwood Imperial Limousine. Or, as we knew it, the V16 with the fuzzy foot warmers.
Read MoreUber announced last week that it will bring a fleet of self-driving Volvo XC90 SUVs to Pittsburgh starting at the end of this month. This is part of a $300 million partnership, with the end goal being a replacement of Uber’s one million human drivers with robot ones. While the fleet is being lauded as “self-driving,” the cars aren’t fully there yet.
Read MoreThis year’s big winner at Pebble Beach was a 1936 Lancia Astura Pinin Farina Cabriolet. And while it’s certainly a pretty car, I didn’t get what made that car so much better than all the rest. I mean, just to get into Pebble it needs to be a great car, right? So what’s so great about this one? I decided to ask a real Pebble judge to find out.
Read MoreWith its alloy wheels and the fact that it still even exists, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Malibu isn’t exactly what you could call a sleeper. Let’s see if the price on this SBC-powered wagon is worth losing any sleep over.
Read MoreThere’s nothing like staring into the deep finish of fresh carbon fiber and watching the gentle waves dance in the sunlight. The only thing that tops it is, well, more carbon fiber—in color!
Read MoreOn Aug. 13, in the Eifel Mountains of Germany, while rounding the Südkehre at the Nürburgring Nordschleife with seven giddy Europeans riding along, Lucille found herself a long way from home.
Read More(We’re the jerks with the bi-turbo V12.)
Read MoreA group of thieves carried out what seemed to be a meticulously planned heist of an Australian Ford dealership early Saturday morning, including top-of-the-line Falcons and a Mustang. One of the stolen vehicles wound up wrecking into a cop car later, and it’s just the one you’re thinking about—the Mustang.
Read MoreThe Monterey Car Week auctions are where the beautiful members of the landed gentry go to blow obscene amounts of money on cars, and at yesterday’s RM Sotheby’s auction, one of them took Cobramania to new heights. This 1962 Shelby 260 Cobra known as the CSX 2000 just commanded $13.75 million at auction. Here’s why.
Read MoreIf you’ve got an extra $400,000 to spend and missed the application deadline for the new Ford GT—or got rejected by virtue of a deeply saddening letter—chin up, kid! Ford announced that it will make additional cars to satisfy demand, and it looks like they may double the original count.
Read MoreThis week, California will host some of the most incredible cars you can think of—or, not think of, if you lose your mind while there. We’ve heard it’s a thing. There are plenty of events to come, but one of the most extravagant already went down. If you couldn’t lose your mind in person, these photos can help.
Read MoreThe 1,073-horsepower Rimac Concept One can smoke a LaFerrari in a drag race. Thanks to its lifting suspension, it can also climb a steep hill and throw wood chips all over the place.
Read MoreThe reason why there’s an “almost” in the headline is because there may be a smattering of you out there that have been to the Quail, the greatest car show in the world. But the next best thing is the parking lot to the Quail. Porsche 918s, Ferraris, even a vintage Lancia. Come check it out with us.
Read MoreLeaving a living child or animal in a hot car is an easy way to get your window smashed, but leaving a fake baby may have the same result. That happened in New Hampshire recently, and reports say an officer “noticed something was off” when he began CPR on an infant he rescued. That’s because it was a doll.
Read MoreCadillac used the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance as a chance to get some attention for their latest concept car, in much the same way I used fake choking at friends’ Bar Mitzvah’s to get attention for myself. Unlike a faked choking, the Cadillac Escala is actually quite lovely, and represents Caddy’s new design direction. Let’s look at it in detail.
Read MoreWhat’s the best car for running all of your errands, which may just happen to include running to the shops at five and then lapping the Nürburgring at six? Is it the McLaren P1?
Read MoreOpel, sold as Vauxhall in Britain, is slashing production at two of its plants in Germany because nobody in the UK—its biggest market—has any money after that damn Brexit vote, The Financial Times reports.
Read MoreFinally, yesterday evening, Cadillac revealed a fresh new look at what a potential V8-powered flagship sedan could look like. Is Cadillac finally back?
Read MoreYou don’t mix cars and bicycles. If you break this rule, bad shit will happen. Word on the street is Karl Benz only started working on the automobile in 1886 after he saw someone ride by on a bicycle and decided he needed to invent something to run it over with. There is, however, one place where bikes and cars co-exist peacefully-ish: the professional cycling peloton, just like you saw at the Olympics this year.
Read MoreLike a surprising number of gearheads, one of the key elements in my childhood car-loving development was watching the original Herbie movies. My friend Tory Alonzo takes being a Herbophile to another level: he actually owns the oldest surviving original movie Herbie. But when he finally decided to sell it, he found that there’s lots of people out there who don’t get it. And they need to tell everyone.
Read MorePolice in Danville, Illinois are reporting minor injuries after a “scary train of events” that led to this Mustang being lodged under the trailer of a big rig on Highway 36. They’re still trying to figure out what exactly happened.
Read More“El Gallo Grande” is an eye-searingly yellow 1973 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight sedan with the half-crowing head of an enormous rooster sticking out of the roof, a beautiful sweeping rooster tail from the trunk, and a horn that plays chicken sounds to the bemusement of Los Angeles motorists. It is part art car, part advertising platform for various chicken establishments, part potential Lemons car. It is NASCAR’s true Car of Tomorrow. And it is the love of racer Tommy Kendall’s life.
Read MoreThe inside of the Porsche 911 factory looks exactly the way I thought it would: surgically clean and meticulously orderly.
Read MoreLast month, we ran a photo of a GT2 RS mule testing at the Nürburgring. Fat tires, yellow brakes, vast wing—it couldn’t have been anything else. We wondered whether or not it would have a manual gearbox to boot.
Read MoreI had a 2015 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X Final Edition last weekend. It was pretty fucking rad. Jalopnik is now one new Evo review richer, even if it’s probably our last. And here are the rest of the photos that I took from that weekend.
Read MoreThis is a mystery that has puzzled the greatest motoring minds of our generation.
Read MoreThe Chinese demand for travel has skyrocketed in recent years, which has in turn increased the need for experienced pilots to fly the tourists to their destinations. Some airlines want more pilots badly enough that they are offering salaries of $300,000 and above to foreigners. That’s a lot better than you can do elsewhere.
Read MoreDo you like the Audi A7? Do you like Cadillac’s current design language? If you answered ‘yes’ to both, or maybe even just one, you’re probably going to love the Cadillac Escala concept.
Read MoreIf you had to think of two ends of a spectrum of classiness in the automotive world, with one end being as class-free as a drunken hammer fight in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and the other end as classy as a princess on a gilded horse, what would be at each end? Maybe a novelty car horn that honked out tunes on the classless end, and a Maserati Mistral on the classy side? What if I told you one company made both things?
Read MoreBMW’s eighth homage concept car was the “2002 Hommage,” which we almost forgot about when it debuted in May. It looks like a modern BMW 2002, which would be great, but clad in disjointed body armor, which isn’t so great. Now it’s back, it’s orange, and it’s called the ‘Turbomeister.’
Read MoreYou can do all kinds of stuff with your Amazon Echo, like order a pizza, listen to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, buy a crossbow, a paleo diet cookbook, or that trusty Amazon stalwart, the 55-gallon drum of Passion Natural Water-Based Lubricant. You can even call an Uber driver. But you won’t need to do that as much—not if you drive a Hyundai Genesis G90.
Read MoreThis here must be one of them 2.4 liter naturally aspirated V8 faucets, because it sure as hell sounds better than those modern whiny turbo V6 Formula 1 cars.
Read MoreMontreal-based Scaldarsi Motors took a Mercedes Maybach S600 and gaudified the crap out of it with gold, wood, leather, and other bits of supreme ostentatiousness. Hide your children, because this thing looks frightening.
Read MoreThese days, your average Le Mans prototype race car doesn’t so much resemble a car you can buy as it does a 90-million-Euro single-seater multirole fighter jet with twin turbofan engines, capable of 20,000 afterburner-propelled pounds of thrust, a 65,000-ft service ceiling, and 9 g turns, carrying eight tons of bristling weaponry, including HARM, Brimstone, and Storm Shadow air-to-surface missiles, and all the buttons, gizmos, geegaws, screens, and fail-safe computer redundancies that would give
Read MorePebble Beach is Mecca for people who love cars. It’s not just for the rich and the richer. It really is for everyone who loves beautiful, fast, and wildly incredible machines. We’re going to be there, and you should come hang out.
Read MoreLook, we all know vans are sexy as hell, but that doesn’t mean you can’t comport yourself with some dignity, right? Someone should maybe remind this suspect from Dayton, Ohio that you can’t just bone every hot van you see, even if they are all painted red and seem like they’d be totally down for it.
Read MoreEver since we heard whispers about the Koenigsegg Regera about a year ago, we knew it was going to be something special. Since then, those whispers have become shouts—bellows of a 1,000-plus-HP hypercar with no gearbox.
Read MoreOn the eve of the Woodward Dream Cruise, I have been given the keys to a 485 horsepower monster, which I’ve used to transport car parts, rip burnouts, and cruise Woodward like God intended. Now ask me questions about this thing!
Read MoreThanks to the excellence of the nostalgic Instagram account 70sStreetMachines, I can point out one of the greatest trends in car culture: back in the ‘70s, just about every custom car got its own lettered name.
Read MoreMatt Farah of The Smoking Tire and The Drive took a Tesla Model S P90D with Ludicrous Mode canyon carving in his latest One Shot review, and then he decided to let the car’s Autopilot driver assistance software give it a go. So how did it manage?
Read MorePoor old Doug DeMuro had to drive seven hours in his Aston Martin Vantage to test drive the 2006 Ford GT. Now he’s trying to convince us this example of American automotive perfection actually has downsides. What nerve!
Read MoreAutoblog captured some spy photos of a Corvette prototype (that may be the Corvette ZR1, the blog points out) tugging along a laughable massive wing on the trunk. This is basically what it looks like.
Read MoreIn Germany, a boneheaded bus driver somehow started a scheduled eight hour trip to Berlin with the wrong bus. Halfway through the trip, he realized his error and turned back. He did not, however, let his passengers off the bus, forcing them into a six hour delay. They were, unsurprisingly, pissed.
Read MoreAs incredible as it sounds, Finnish law doesn’t require the vehicles on its roads to have drivers. That makes it the perfect place to test autonomous tech, which is exactly what’s now happening.
Read MoreA few days ago in 1956, construction began on what became the starting point of modern America: the Interstate Highway System.
Read MoreThe first ever Chevrolet Camaro prototype, VIN # 100001, has returned to its spiritual home of Detroit, and will be sitting on the side of Woodward Avenue for the next few days. Here’s the car’s incredible story.
Read MoreThat rear window hatch on the McLaren 570GT is a pretty cool feature for anyone who’s ever complained about the practicality of a supercar. I mean, it definitely increases the car’s storage capacity by about 49 percent, for sure. And now you can tint that rear window however you want. Can you say fancy?
Read MoreThe lily white (yet absurdly tan) communities of the Monterey peninsula open their doors to automotive enthusiasts this week, but most of them are keeping the gates manned by guards. Here’s how to buy, cheat, lie, and connive your way into all the events you want to go.
Read MoreWell, this looks certifiably bonkers. Meet Mercedes’ big insane new concept car for Pebble Beach, the Mercedes-Maybach 6. It has gullwing doors!
Read MoreThis is an unrestored, 46-year-old Mercedes 350 SL. I would say that it looks as good as a brand new car today, but that’s not quite right. This car looks better.
Read MoreI’ve never thrown a discus before, nor have I attended a discus throw, but I would imagine there is a lot of retrieving the said discus. Luckily, the Rio Olympics have these cute little remote controlled trucks to speed up the task.
Read MoreThis little girl’s parents didn’t tell their daughter they’d bought a DeLorean, or maybe even what a DeLorean was, but she’s pretty stoked to see one for the first time. And when she finds out her family’s adopted it, oh man– the joy is real.
Read MoreOh man, we’ve all been here, right? You break into a car, just about certain that the chemical-labeled boxes inside will contain the ingredients to sweet, sweet meth, but instead you find you’ve just stolen a ton of foul-smelling stoat anal gland secretions? Oh, it’s a story as old as time itself, and it’s happened again, in Wellington, New Zealand.
Read MoreWe first saw glimpses of the secret McLaren MSO HS this morning, along with a few fuzzy pictures stolen from the factory. But thanks to some digging and some help from a source, we now have it all in its Earthly glory. This is the McLaren MSO HS, the ultimate car in McLaren’s Super Series, and one of the fastest things a street has ever seen.
Read MoreToday on Woodward Avenue near Detroit, Dodge showed us some new-for-2017 Challenger and Charger trim levels that crank the flamboyance up to a level only Dodge—or possibly Mansory—would even attempt. The good news is there are a couple performance bits to go along with all the flash.
Read MoreI know I’m a few days late for a real obit, but as the self-appointed Lead Droid Researcher here at Jalopnik, I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the man inside the machine, Kenny Baker, who died this past week.
Read MoreThis particular bit of news is very local, but the issue it addresses is universal, and perhaps especially relevant to those of us with lives that may involve the ownership of cars and related machines. It’s about a guy in Schaumburg, Illinois, and his 25-foot trailer. Also, how much his neighbors hate his trailer.
Read MoreYou’ll remember Rimac as the Croatian startup that built the mad and all-electric supercar, the Concept One. Remember that it has four motors and four gearboxes at each corner and makes 1073 horsepower and 1180 lb-ft of torque. So, clearly, the next logical thing to do is to pit it against two of the fastest cars on the market today.
Read MoreWhat people forget about the insane 707 horsepower Dodge Hellcat engine is that it was expected to have way less power than that. Now the Detroit Free Press has unearthed the story of the legendary engine’s development, and it turns out, the thing actually was originally supposed to make “only” 600 ponies. Here’s how that number became 707.
Read MoreRemember that scene from the Italian Job remake where the Napster (Seth Green) hacks into LA’s traffic control center and changes all the traffic lights to suit their getaway plan? Turns out that it’s not too difficult to pull that off.
Read MoreWhat happens when you have to drive your electric-only Volkswagen e-Golf out of Hollywood to some inland dustbowl with no charger? You get creative. And you end up burning hydrocarbons anyway.
Read MoreJalopnik prides itself as being about more than just the silly supercars of the day—our elevator speech reads: “From vintage supercars to modern jet fighters, Jalopnik is obsessed with the cult of cars and everything that moves you – tanks, bikes, and planes.” That’s basically Battlefield 1, if the new gameplay trailer is anything to go by.
Read MoreBack in June, AutoGuide got a spy shot of what it believes is a development mule for an even-hotter Focus hatchback to slot above the Focus RS. Now Autocar’s sources hint that the so-called ‘RS500' is edging closer to getting the greenlight, but it may *only* have 400 horsepower. Which is a lot, but makes the name confusing.
Read MoreOh, you thought Volkswagen was out of the woods now after its $14.7 billion settlement with the feds? Not yet. The troubled automaker still has an ongoing criminal investigation to deal with, and today it came out that settling that case could cost VW billions of dollars.
Read MoreI tested a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X Final Edition this weekend. It was white. It ruled really hard. What do you want to know about it?
Read MoreCadillac is also bringing some real fancy stuff to Pebble Beach this year, but all they’ve thrown us in the meantime is a short preview of a high-tech interior and a promise that it will see duty on future cars. What are they up to?
Read MoreToday we saw the first trailer for Hidden Figures, the film about the black women who were so instrumental in America’s space program, and you should read more about these unbelievably righteous women and the “human computer” project that started it all.
Read MoreLast week, we covered the reborn Fisker Karma (now the Karma Revero) re-introduction, and there was one detail in that reveal I don’t think I paid enough attention to: the solar roof. Karma says it will “create enough energy to power the car.” That’s bullshit, but many sites are reporting it not just as true but revolutionary. Yes, that was the BBC calling it “A Car Powered by its Roof.” Let’s go into why this is incorrect.
Read MoreAt no point does OCD car redesigner Jonathan Ward of ICON ever explicitly say how much it cost to turn a clapped out (first) Clinton-era Miami Dade PD Chevy Caprice into what you see above. It’s almost certainly six figures and most definitely worth it. Is it ICON’s best car? Yes, yes it is.
Read MoreA gasoline piston engine that can dynamically change its compression ratio —that is, the amount by which the piston squeezes the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder—has long been a holy grail of engine design. It looks like Nissan is the Indiana Jones of engine design, then, because its luxury division Infiniti will introduce the first production variable compression ratio engine in the 2018 Infiniti QX50. Could this be the death knell for diesel?
Read MoreSo, it’s 1994. Bill Clinton is head honcho. O.J. Simpson makes the news for a casual highway jaunt. And you have the option of going home in either a Nissan 300ZX Z32 or a C4 Chevrolet Corvette.
Read MoreEarlier this month, we learned of a Tesla Model S crash in Beijing where the car was indeed in Autopilot mode and the driver didn’t have his hands on the wheel (which is illegal in China). He was using his phone instead. Yet he complained that Tesla’s “Autopilot” phrasing is a poor and inaccurate marketing tactic. Now Tesla has removed the phrase from its Chinese website. Coincidence?
Read MoreThe Mazda3 should be a little worried. That’s because the new Honda Civic happens to finally be good again, and this morning Honda unveiled what is undoubtedly the best version of it yet: the 2017 Civic Hatchback. It can be had with a turbo. And a manual!
Read MoreIf you’ve ever thought complaints to a major authority wouldn’t be heard, you may just be wrong. But in this case, that isn’t a good thing—a viewer who reportedly wasn’t fond of an Audi R8 ad “promoting irresponsible driving” got it banned from the internet, and the ad shows barely any driving at all.
Read MoreIn a video-taped incident reportedly occurring during Louisiana floods that killed at least three people by Saturday night, yells of “I’m drowning!” came from a nearly submerged Mazda Miata. Upon finding the car, a boater carried out an intense save of its driver—and her dog—once it sank.
Read MoreHard to help falling in love with the Eagle Speedster. Look at those lines. The details. The bulge! And with the incorrigibly English Charles Morgan at the wheel, forget it. I’m dead. Take me away. Just please, oh please let me ride an Eagle in heaven.
Read MoreJalopnik has been a little light of GIFs lately, and that makes me sad. Let’s have a spontaneous weekend GIF party because it’s Senior Week, dammit, and the editors are hungover and asleep.
Read MoreUntuck that polo shirt, pops. It’s the weekend! And in case your trip to Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond isn’t exciting enough check this out– the next-gen Acura TLX prototype was just spotted with the company’s sweet new pentagonal grille. Oh yeah, I reckon Acura sedans are about to get sexy again.
Read MoreIn case you’re not aware, I take my beat as Jalopnik’s Fictitious Robot Chief Reporter very seriously, which is why I’ve been scrutinizing the recent Rogue One trailers so much. First, we’ve identified one known astromech droid, and now we’re introduced to a whole new class of droid. So let’s see what we can figure out about it.
Read MoreWhen I was writing up my review for the 2016 Beetle Dune Convertible, I was considering cramming it full of painfully geeky Dune references, but I talked myself out of it. But I still sort of want to, so let me just get it out of my system real quick right now, in a few paragraphs. So, you know, brace yourself.
Read MoreVolkswagen has informed around 70,000 of its employees that they are amplifying the risk of corporate espionage by playing their silly little augmented reality Pokémon games.
Read MoreWell, here’s a fun rumor: BMW is apparently bringing out the big guns for electric vehicles. In addition to updating the i3 and working on a new project called the iNext, BMW might also make the i8 fully electric and very fast. Maybe.
Read MoreIn hindsight, I realize this was a terrible idea. I guess I was just excited to be going racing, and I suppose my giddiness turned into an unreasonable optimism. Deep down, I knew we weren’t likely to beat Road & Track’s team at American Endurance Racing. But that didn’t stop me from betting R&T web editor and former Jalopnik editor Travis Okulski that, if we lost, I’d chug a bottle of windshield washer fluid. We lost.
Read MoreWe’ve been talking about the three-wheeled Elio for quite some time now, from the bad, to the questionable to the good. Well, we don’t really have much in the ‘good’ category, but let’s just say I really like the idea of a cheap-three-wheeled car. One thing that’s been consistent has been the planned price: $6800. Now there’s an official price that’s a bit more, but it comes with a huge catch.
Read MoreWhen former Jalopnik boss Travis Okulski asked me to take over the site’s vaunted Answer’s of the Day feature, I was honored, and frankly, a bit shocked. These daily top 10 lists were, for a while, one of the top traffic drivers to the site. Knowing how important they were, I was surprised that the low man on the totem pole (me) would be trusted with their production.
Read MoreWhen selecting who would be the 500 lucky people to potentially own a Ford GT, Ford took into consideration their previous Ford GT ownership and how much value they would have as a Ford ambassador. It was a mathematical certainty that certain people wouldn’t be picked. Here’s how Ford broke it down.
Read MoreYeah, I met this gangly YouTuber once. Kept telling me he “owned a Ferrari” and made me follow him on Twitter before he’d let go of my hand. Makes sense that he’d spend his whole drive in a Ferrari race car complaining about the air conditioning.
Read MoreAccording to the latest Autocar Confidential, the team who developed the new NSX over at Acura purchased a Ferrari 458 for comparison tests—and then completely destroyed the car to see how it was built when they were done.
Read MoreThe State of Michigan now holds $72 million of Tesla stock for state retirement funds. That would be the same State of Michigan that still bans Tesla from selling vehicles using a direct sales model without dealerships.
Read More“Let me just send this text while I steer my car through traffic with my feet, it should be okay,” this woman must be thinking as she texts while steering her car through traffic with her feet.
Read MoreEven more bad news for Volkswagen: security researchers have discovered a huge security hole that affects potentially up to 100 million cars. It’s possible, using hardware as cheap as a $40 setup with an Arduino and an add-on radio transceiver board, to intercept signals from a Volkswagen Group key fob, and then by combining it with a small number of cryptographic keys shared by every VW car, one could essentially clone the car’s key fob.
Read MoreIn June, we speculated about how Mercedes-Benz could potentially launch an electric-only brand. We didn’t have a name for the brand. Now we do. And it’s really very silly.
Read MoreTraffic congestion is caused by more than just construction, cops, bad drivers and lane-drops. Ever notice traffic jams can happen for no reason? You’re not imagining things, and this video explains why.
Read MoreThere are a lot of reasons why it had do go down like this. One of them is that I started our journey without ever believing our old Lada could make it more than 3,500 miles on a brutal drive from Budapest to the Armenian capital of Yerevan. I couldn’t have been more wrong—but it still never got to go home.
Read MoreI’ve had two S63 AMG press cars while employed for Jalopnik. I never took photos of the second one, but I did the first—and never shared them. Here they are!
Read MoreGenerally, cars don’t come with instructions. Sure, they have an owner’s manual, but most of the how-do-I-work-this-thing stuff is expected to have been already figured out when you get one. That’s partially why this little shifter hang tag, seen on a 2016 Ford Fiesta, is so puzzling. I’ve never heard of a carmaker doing anything like this before.
Read MoreYou can’t catch ‘em all if you’re too busy getting caught.
Read MoreI like the new Honda Civic. It feels big enough that it could almost be an Accord, but its combination of value and fun make it a real return to form for Honda. Only one problem—the sedan and coupe look like hatchbacks, but they are not. Until now! From our friends at the CivicX forums, here is your new Civic hatch.
Read MoreThere has been a great deal of controversy this year about cyclists using illegal, hidden electric motors in their bicycles, a practice goofily known as “moto-doping.” Currently, any cyclist found to be doing this is considered cheating, because moto-doping is very much against the rules of Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), where they call it “technological fraud.” That’s bullshit. It’s time for cycling to embrace moto-doping.
Read MoreGet to the airport. If you’re smart, you’d have printed your boarding passes at home. If you’re me, you queue up at the desk to check in, aware of the long lines and the long faces of the travelers around you. Get your bag on the belt, shuffle off to get through security. Remove your shoes and your dignity. X-ray. Put them back on and go! off to the gate for some more waiting.
Read MoreTesla’s Elon Musk has now promised to get his business in on hot market of integrated roof-mounted solar panels. Damn. Tesla is getting un-sexier by the minute.
Read MoreOne of our loyal, sexy readers was heading into work this morning, listening (probably) to the audiobook of the Chilton’s AMC Hornet/Pacer/Gremlin repair manual, when they saw this, um, minivan. With a small addition. Now I just want to know WTF is going on with this.
Read MoreBMW has launched a new ad campaign for its 3-Series plug-in hybrid, the 330e, and it’s directly targeting buyers who have either already ordered a Tesla Model 3, or may be interested. The problem is that the campaign is laughably ironic.
Read MoreAmong New York City’s many famous landmarks, the Brooklyn Bridge remains a tourist favorite for its beauty and walkability. Also it’s super dangerous because you could get nailed by a speeding bicyclist at any given moment. Fun!
Read MoreYou’ve probably seen the driverless race car that’s set to compete in a new series called “Roborace.” Come later this year, teams will do battle on city streets and purpose-built racetracks in what is being dubbed the “battle of algorithms.” The consensus among race fans remains that this is an awful idea. But I’m not buying that. In fact, I think it’s awesome, and it could, ultimately, be the answer to motorsport’s biggest problem: Innovation.
Read MoreThe Porsche Cayman is a small mid-engine sports car on sale today. Or is it?
Read MoreThis is complete madness, but the guy as one good reason for doing it. Well, he has one good reason and a generous background of general lunacy.
Read MoreReincarnated Karma Automotive, from the fiery ashes of Fisker Automotive, knows that if Plan A doesn’t work, you resort to Plan B. Which is why this time around, instead of just selling its cars through franchised dealers like it has done previously, it will also introduce a direct sales model like Tesla has done. Can they make it work?
Read MoreI’m afforded an astounding amount of creative freedom here at Jalopnik. Compared to pretty much everywhere else I’ve ever worked, it’s an absurd amount, and I absolutely adore it. I’m completely spoiled. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t limits, and I found them. With four different editors.
Read MoreIt’s not everyday you get embarrassed at the drag strip by a tuned 600 horsepower Volkswagen Golf Mk. II VR6 Turbo, but I can guarantee that when it does happen, it’ll ruin your mood.
Read MoreGeneral Motors was really excited about introducing the all-electric Chevy Bolt earlier this year, being the only major automaker to bring a practical 200 mile range EV rival to Tesla’s Model 3 to market an entire year sooner. The problem with the Bolt is that it won’t be exciting to American buyers.
Read MoreOn August 8, 1963, a group of 15 thieves made off in two Land Rovers with today’s equivalent of $7 million in cash after robbing a train in England. The heist, known as the Great Train Robbery, became one of the most notorious cases in British history.
Read MoreSome genius Canadian tuners wired up two Chevy Volt battery packs to a Tesla’s powertrain, and shoved it all into a lightweight a kit car. The result: a car severely in need of some stickier rear tires.
Read MoreThe havers of profoundly bad taste at Singer Vehicle Design create cars that others would consider “museum-worthy art,” but come on. Bespoke coachbuilders are so Jazz Age.
Read MoreHey vehicle enthusiasts, exciting news. Next week our parent company Gawker Media will be sold to a new owner, so this week we’re saluting 14 years of quality independent journalism with a little thing we’ve taken to calling “Senior Week.”
Read MoreOn Saturday, Sheriff’s Deputies in Osceola County, Florida (of course) saw a helicopter buzz over route U.S. 192 low enough to nearly hit some street lamps. The cops didn’t take kindly to this, figured out where the helicopter was registered, went there and waited for it to land.
Read MoreLast week, the internet went all giggly over the first prototype of a revolutionary traffic-straddling bus from China. There’s some distressing news coming out now about both the shoddy build quality of the test unit, and the possibility that the whole enterprise may just be a big scam. What’s going on?
Read MoreChevrolet just spilled the beans on acceleration times and pricing for the I Need To Write Up My Will Before Driving This Thing 650 horsepower 2017 Camaro ZL1, and they look extremely compelling.
Read MoreAfter some high-profile crashes, Tesla’s Autopilot feature is under more scrutiny than ever. But what if it could save its owner’s life? One Model X owner claims Autopilot got him to the hospital during a medical emergency. It’s the kind of autonomous car story we all want to hear.
Read MoreAn Indian national who lives in the U.S. is suing a New Jersey Mercedes-Benz dealership for $1.26 million after the dealer refused to sell him a brand new car on grounds that “they were afraid he would sell it to the Taliban,” according to news reports.
Read MoreI feel like, at some point in everyone’s life, we’ve known people like this. People who seem to find truth and lies exist indistinguishable spectrum of ideas. People for whom lying isn’t just easy but simply part of the process of speaking. People like this proud man, owner of a 610 horsepower Challenger with some parts made of pure magic. Or bullshit. Maybe both.
Read MoreToday is going to be a bad day to fly. Following a power outage at its Atlanta headquarters early this morning, Delta Airlines has been in the grips of a massive computer system failure worldwide, leading the company to ground all departing flights.
Read MoreThe Bugatti 100P was an airplane unique in its use and its existence—it was a one-off project by company founder Ettore Bugatti around the start of World War II, and it never got to fly as meant to. A replica of the plane reportedly crashed nose first in a test flight on Saturday, killing its builder.
Read MoreIt’s the weekend! It’s summer! You’re probably out enjoying yourself, possibly attending a Cars & Coffee where a Ferrari got mutilated by a Mercedes, or some other car events. Show us what you did this weekend!
Read MoreCustom car shop Vitesse AuDessus and an outfit called Bengala Automotive are now making carbon fiber body kits for the current Rolls-Royce lineup. Every bolt-on body part is remade from a “compressed carbon matrix,” anything else gets a stick-on. The company is also claiming the first “forged carbon fiber wheels.”
Read MorePerhaps in an attempt to make the time Tesla owners spend publicly charging their cars more worthwhile, reports are that the company could add a car-wash system to its Supercharger stations. But, if the reports are accurate, it would cost owners about $40 for each wash. What a bargain!
Read MoreA beautiful, special Ferrari 458 Speciale minding its own business was horrifyingly mutilated at Katie’s Cars & Coffee in Great Falls, Virginia this morning when a Mercedes 380 SL parallel parked on the face of the $300,000 supercar. Children were watching!
Read MoreAs we all wait for season two of Netflix’s fantastic ‘80s-era sci-fi drama, Stranger Things, we can kill the time by speculating on the mysteries presented in the show. What, exactly, is the Upside Down? What’s the deal with that faceless monster—how does it see? What happened to Eleven? I’m happy to say that I think I’ve found a solution to the absolutely least important question: why are the kids’ bike headlights orange?
Read MoreIn Leicester, England, a very angry man hopped onto the hood of a Mercedes and started head-butting and generally beating the crap out of the windshield, The Telegraph reports. Naturally, onlookers got video of the man letting out all of his anger on the big slab of laminated safety glass.
Read MoreMercedes is reportedly planning to spin-off a new, all-electric sub-brand for its electric vehicle efforts, similar to BMW’s i-brand. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Mercedes is an automaker with a history full of great names, which is exactly why they shouldn’t try anything new.
Read MoreOnline mega-retailer Amazon.com is launching a fleet of 40 full-sized cargo jets to ship the immense quantity of crap we’re all buying on the site. The “Prime Air” flagship, a Boeing 767-300 christened Amazon One, makes its debut in Seattle today.
Read MoreGetting pulled over by police is nerve-wracking. Now just imagine trying to pull a cop over—I’d drop 10 pounds in terror-sweat instantly. But not Phillip Turner, who just pulled over a speeding Texas state trooper and didn’t show an ounce of fear.
Read MoreBuying cars is for chumps. Real gearheads buy entire car companies. And now it looks like you can, courtesy of China’s massive bulk-buying e-commerce site Alibaba.
Read MoreA fire at a music festival in Portugal this week spread across a parking lot and burnt up a staggering 422 cars. Amazingly, no one was injured.
Read MoreThe 2016 Cadillac CT6 is the big, rear-wheel drive Cadillac that Cadillac has been promising to make ever since it made the original CTS in 2002. And right now, I’m sitting in one.
Read MoreSkrillex is a bad DJ. Suicide Squad is a horrendously bad movie. Rick Ross is a bad rapper and also kind of a fraud. Lamborghinis are good cars. The music video for Rick Ross and Skrillex’s “Purple Lamborghini” has all of those things, except the Lamborghini which the same is named after.
Read MoreFor some reason I bumped into this old folder on an old hard drive — pictures of streetparked cars in my hometown shot eight years ago.
Read MoreThe Aston Martin DB11 follows the increasingly worrying trend in expensive cars that they are loud loud grr ahem loud, especially when you start them up. The new DB11, however, also offers a hush soft whisper whisper quiet mode.
Read MoreThe Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance is the premier old-cars-on-a-golf-course event in the Western Hemisphere. It’s also a place where they sell a bunch of them, to the point where Hagerty is estimating $370 million worth will be sold. Also, a REMINDER: old people get old, and then die.
Read MoreAston Martin boss Andy Palmer, notoriously cool dude and runner by necessity, has promised seven new Aston Martin models to grace the lineup in the next seven years. Get excited.
Read MoreEarly this morning an ASL Airlines Boeing 737-400 cargo plane skidded off a runway while landing at the Orio al Serio airport in Bergamo, Italy. The crew, composed of the captain and first officer, were not hurt. This could have ended a lot worse than it did.
Read MoreMichael “Smitty” Smith is credited with more than 42 years of service with the Houston, Texas fire department, and started a well-deserved retirement in June. But when he saw his old crew battling a three-alarm blaze on TV news, he suited up one last time and stepped in to help.
Read MoreTesla should be used to getting called out by other automakers by now—not that it doesn’t dish out its fair share of industry trash talk from time to time. Now it’s Diarmuid O’Connell, a business development executive, who basically called out the entire field of electric vehicle competition for being boring, claiming automakers are “probably really not even trying.”
Read MoreIn Basel, Switzerland, three people dressed in Pikachu costumes traveled around the city throwing enormous Poké Balls at pedestrians. It’s all part of an ad campaign to promote tourism to the city, and with a hilarious video like this one, something tells me it’s working.
Read MoreI’ve never met Tetsuya Tada, but I can tell you he’s not an idiot. He’s Toyota’s global chief engineer these days, but he was also the man behind the Toyota 86, a wonderful and excellent sports car. Another sign he’s not an idiot: he’s fighting for the Toyota-BMW sports car to be called the Supra.
Read MoreI don’t know how any of your lives are going at the moment, but I’m pretty confident in saying that, whatever’s happening, you’re doing better than this poor pathetic Dutch guy, 41-year-old Alexander Cirk, who almost died while waiting ten days in a Chinese airport to meet a girl he’d been talking to online. Alex, buddy, you really need to rethink some things, pal.
Read MoreIn honor of the BMW M3's 30th anniversary, the Bavarians will build 500 “30 Jahre M3” (which is German for “30 Years M3”) special edition sedans at over $83,000 a piece. The cars get a bump to 444 horsepower, decorative bits, some pseudo-retro wheels and the resurrection of “Macao Blue,” possibly the greatest BMW paint option of all time.
Read MoreLast year in a Wired report, a duo of computer geeks showed the world they could hack into and immobilize a Jeep Cherokee with nothing more than a laptop, prompting Chrysler to later recall 1.4 million vehicles. Clearly these cars have some cybersecurity issues, because police say two intrepid hackers in Houston used a laptop and pirated software to steal more than 30 Jeeps and Dodges, according to local news reports.
Read MoreDr. Kwadwo Safo is, according to his own legend, many things. He is a Pentecostal pastor. He is an inventor. Now he claims to be Ghana’s first carmaker as well. Over the past year, his Kantanka Automobile Company has made international news with its vehicles, mature industrial products emerging fully realized from a not-particularly industrial nation. As recently as last week, CNN was telling the story of its “‘made in Ghana’ cars... modeled for tough local conditions.”
Read MoreCraig Robinson, host of the new show Caraoke Showdown in which people sing in cars for your amusement has addressed claims that it’s a ripoff of Carpool Karaoke, in which people sing in cars for your amusement. Totally different! Well, er.
Read MoreI try not to valet park my car. I don’t see the point of paying for something that I could easily do myself and then walk a little extra. I especially don’t see the point when it involves someone else driving and parking my car away from my beady-eyed glare. The risk of scuffs and dings is just too great. Also, I don’t want anybody running away with my car.
Read MoreChemtrails are real. They are here. They are combating Zika. Chemtrails real. Real chemtrails. Chemicals. From planes. Plane chemicals. In the air. Over your head. Chemtrails. Chme. Trails. C. he. m. Tral. is.
Read MoreA few months ago, Akira Nakai-san was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania building the latest Rauh-Welt Begriff Porsche for Porsche enthusiast, Ben Harmony. The newest addition to the fleet, known as “Prince”, took a surprising two days to finish (he typically completes builds in three) and was the first Porsche to receive the RWB widebody treatment right under where the owner sleeps.
Read MoreA few years ago, a Florida man listed his own private island in Florida on Craigslist, hoping to trade the undeveloped land for a Ferrari Enzo. That didn’t happen, but now the same Florida man is back again to offer a trade for his $1,000,000 island for a Porsche 918.
Read MoreWhat on earth is a Ferrari F142M M3? F142 is the internal code for the Ferrari 488, according to YouTube supercar superfan Marchettino. So, what kind of franken-test-car did Marchettino find hiding under a bunch of trashed 458 body panels and enough duct tape to put my ChumpCar to shame?
Read MoreRecall the radically rocket-shaped DeltaWing race car that resulted in a long and complicated legal dispute between Nissan and Panoz over the design and who owns it. Nissan’s BladeGlider concept and now prototype is just that, sorta, but for the road. And it’s the most interesting Nissan in a long time.
Read MoreMan, I am just so tired of my furniture resting on something as predictable as the floor. Sick of conventional couches and daybeds on which to have boring naps. Good thing these mini robots weavers that can build gravity-defying structures exist.
Read MoreRemember those V8 vegetable juice commercials where people would physically assault someone’s forehead for not getting the vital nutrients they need? Here’s a reference. Well on the opposite end of that, this C7 Corvette Z06 driver totaled his car by actually having a V8.
Read MoreElon Musk backed up his new Tesla ‘Master Plan’ today by confirming that both the upcoming Tesla Minibus, referred to as the ‘Spacebus’ by the CEO, and an electric semi truck will be revealed in the next “six to nine months.”
Read MoreOne of the main questions surrounding Tesla is its ability to ramp up production to satisfy the almost 400,000 existing Model 3 orders, and the hundreds of thousands of orders that are supposed to follow. Past isn’t necessarily indicative of the future, but on Tesla’s earnings call just now things didn’t sound all roses.
Read MoreThe Audi R8 is good and nice, but it is a supercar. And sometimes supercars attract people who don’t know how to drive supercars (or really at all), and sometimes they cause accidents and flee the scene. Sometimes they’re such an idiot jamoke, they get caught on a dashcam driving like an idiot jamoke.
Read MoreBlimps with dot-matrix signs are possibly my favorite medium for the written word. But that doesn’t mean they’re universally the right medium. With that in mind, please enrich yourselves with this list of the worst things to say via blimp.
Read MoreA Boeing 777 crash landed earlier today at the Dubai International Airport, claiming the life of a fireman. The approximately 300 passengers, however, managed to escape without life-threatening injuries—and many grabbed their bags despite being screamed at by the crew to drop them and run.
Read MoreIt’s not that often that one of those crazy-looking transportation concepts you see on the cover of an old 1950s Popular Mechanics comes true, but I’m delighted to say that’s happened. In China, a traffic-straddling bus now actually exists, and it’s bonkers and glorious. Here’s everything about it you need to know.
Read MoreUK police have reportedly called a £365 fine and a 56-day driving ban for a young driver caught doing 154 mph on a major highway “disappointing.”
Read MoreEmirates Flight EK521, a Boeing 777 making an emergency landing at Dubai International Airport, burst into flames upon touching down earlier today. It’s not clear exactly what caused the incident, but none of the approximately 300 people on board were reportedly killed.
Read MoreAfter the 2016 model year, Hyundai is killing off its only rear-drive sports coupe. Sad!
Read More“And whatever you do, it’s going on Facebook,” the drunk passenger shouted. He is absolutely right about that.
Read MoreAn Ohio dealership discovered the dead body of a man underneath a GMC Yukon, who evidently didn’t take the necessary safety precautions while he attempted to steal the wheels off of the SUV.
Read MoreAt launch, Infiniti promised that the new 2017 QX30 crossover would start at less than $30,000 when it went on sale in September, undercutting the Mercedes GLA it is based on, as well a lot of its competition. Starting at $29,950, it’s now the perfect budget introduction to both Infiniti and the luxury market, if that’s your thing.
Read MoreHow does the old BMW 1M coupe and the current M4 stack up against the shiny blue new BMW M2?
Read MoreAfter smogging up the world with its cheating diesels, Volkswagen said—in the most obvious statement ever—that it’d cut back on oil-burners in the U.S., leaving a void in the market. Now Chevrolet tells Automotive News the car company will jump in with its Cruze diesel, non-cheatingly (presumably, anyway) stomping on a severely wounded VW and stealing its sweet, sweet diesel sales.
Read MoreAfter Ford reported a 9 percent drop in second quarter profits last week, industry analysts were scared that car sales might slow down after years of prosperity. Now we have official U.S. sales numbers from July, and they seem to show that the industry has indeed reached a plateau.
Read MoreFirst, I want to make it clear that the type of hack that the car-hacking superfriends Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek did this time is not remote. They had a laptop physically connected to the car via the OBD port. Let that temper your alarm as I tell you that they were able to get control of steering and braking, even once managing to crash their test Jeep.
Read MoreAs you may have heard, the Ford GT acceptance letters are out.
Read MoreThere are many, many, many wonderful things about visiting an actual car dealership: the aesthetics, the smell, the couches, the people, the cars. What if you could experience those without ever having to leave your house, like the agoraphobic recluse that you are deep down? Enter the virtual reality showroom.
Read MoreThe time has come: today is my final day as a regular contributor to Jalopnik. From this moment on, you’ll be able to find all my writing at the new automotive enthusiast-focused page Autotrader.com/Oversteer, where I’ve been hired as editor. But as much as I’m excited for my new gig, leaving behind Jalopnik after three years isn’t an easy decision.
Read MoreEveryone is still pretty mesmerized by Pokémon Go, the mobile game that leverages the world’s love for imaginary beast enslavement. One alleged enterprising hacker seems to have gotten the game to play on the massive touchscreen of his Tesla Model S. I’m inclined to call bullshit on this one. Update: And I was right.
Read MoreThe German state of Bavaria said today that it will sue Volkswagen for state pension fund damages caused by the diesel emissions scandal that came to light last September, making it the first regional government in Germany to try and bring the automaker to court.
Read MoreThis past weekend at the St. John’s Golf Course in Plymouth, I bore witness to the 38th annual Concours d’Elegance of America, and even after a few days of recovery, I’m only now regaining my ability to even. Have a look at the cars in these photos and you’ll understand.
Read MoreCan you tell what this melted blob of steel and despair used to be? There’s a hint in the title. And maybe you can guess from the wheels.
Read MoreThe Dark Knight of Seattle has been arrested after attempting to allegedly stab a bouncer with a blade attached to a homemade spear and reportedly throwing an actual bat-shaped blade at police officers.
Read MoreThe BMW 507 roadster owned by Elvis Presley while he was stationed in Germany has undergone heavy restoration just in time to make an appearance at this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, and boy is it elegant.
Read MoreA Mustang GT350 had a major engine failure at Roebling Road Raceway in Georgia, sending a bunch of oil out of its oil filter adapter housing—oil that eventually touched something hot, and turned into a massive fireball. Here are some photos of the blaze and the aftermath, which can best be described thusly: holy shit.
Read MoreImagine if you took the engine from a Jet Ski, strapped it to a wakeboard and pointed it “down.” That’s essentially the concept of the flyboard which, turns out, also makes a decent firefighting apparatus.
Read MoreThere is no true defining characteristic of the 2003 Kia Spectra, especially in beige. It blends into the background so much that people often just run into it. It’s the official car of “I’ve made some bad choices in life.” If there’s anyone who can break down this exceedingly normcore car, it’s Mr. Regular himself.
Read MoreHave you ever called a pigeon a “dickhead” and really meant it? If you haven’t it’s a remarkable thing to see happen. Somewhere in the UK, there was a pigeon who’d rather walk, and decided to take up the whole goddamn road. That pigeon really is a dickhead.
Read MoreAmazingly, Elon Musk confirmed my wild guesses about their new Volkswagen Microbus-inspired Tesla minibus. And perhaps even more amazingly, he seems to have taken a suggestion from another Twitterist about what to call such a vehicle: Spacebus. Yep. Spacebus.
Read MoreAudi CEO Rupert Stadler and about 30 other Audi managers decided to get lit on the company’s dime. Except when the Dieselgate-hobbled Volkswagen Group caught wind of the outrageous bill, they told Stadler and other organizers to pony up, Germany’s Bild Am Sonntag reports.
Read MoreFirst, of course this was shot in Russia, the world’s leading exporter of Shit Like This. The car is an Ultima GTR, an absurdly fast low-volume British supercar that may be the quickest supercar in the world. It’s also a pretty effective magnifier of idiocy, as you can see here. This really didn’t have to happen.
Read MoreSolarCity, the solar-energy company that sounds like an exhibit at a kids’ science museum, has Elon Musk as its chairman and largest stockholder. Tesla, the electric car company that sounds like a metal band, also has Musk as its largest shareholder. In a staggering coincidence, Tesla just officially bought SolarCity for $2.6 billion, the AP reports.
Read MoreWinter is coming and should you be desirous of a mountain retreat for ski trips you could do far worse than today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Westy Syncro, as it could let you set up house pretty much anywhere. That is, if its price doesn’t set you up for the Poorhouse.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Mercedes V12 has a fairly rare four-seat option, giving up the middle position for a console and some added extravagance. Let’s see if the price on this executive sedan makes it worth giving up some hard-earned cash too.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Lincoln could let you pretend to be a crime fighter like the Green Hornet only just a little farther down the visible spectrum. Let’s see if this wild custom’s price tag could be construed as a crime worth fighting.
Read MoreIf you’ve ever pondered what might be the coolest modern mini-minivan ever sold in the U.S. then have a look at today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Colt Vista. It was so cool they sold it under multiple brands. Let’s see if this one’s price keeps up the mini tradition.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Corvette proves that silver was once an interior color option. Let’s see if this unique drop top is priced to take the gold.
Read MoreCSI isn’t just the name of a glitzy but ultimately insipid police procedural, it’s also that of today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe BMW. Let’s see if this 635’s price means it can’t get even arrested in this town.
Read MoreDid you know that Lancia only ever released but 7,798 Montecarlos into the wild? Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Scorpion (the U.S. Montecarlo) is one of that number, and we’re about to find out if you’re wild about its price.
Read MoreThere is probably no more flamboyant a sports figure than retired NBA player Dennis Rodman, and an object lesson in his extroverted lifestyle can be found in today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Hummer. Let’s find out if this custom H1's price might also be something to get pumped up about.
Read MoreHave you ever contemplated the eventual mechanism of your own demise? It could very well look like today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe VW Thing. Look alive and let’s see if this rotary rocker is worth living it up.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Lancer has what is quite possibly one of the most epic—and perhaps least car-appropriate—ad photos ever put on Craigslist. Let’s see if this rare wagon’s price supports the legend.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe M3 has a lot of miles under it’s belt. We’ll have to see if that means that its price puts it under water.
Read MoreThe Thunderbird may be a mythical beast, but a Cobra is one that is very real and potentially deadly. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe T-bird comes with a Cobra-badged V8 and a T5 stick, but will that enticement make its price seem like the real deal?
Read MoreJim works at a car dealership. Jim has a collection of cars he is selling off before he retires. One of those is today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Jeep wagon. Let’s see if Jim’s Jeep is worth what Jim is asking for it.
Read MoreLike Kim Kardashian, what really makes today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Volvo 1800es is what’s out back. In this case that’s the cool all-glass hatch capping the shapely shooting brake rearend. Let’s find out of the price on this Canadian coupe is shooting for the moon.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe BMW E28 M5 represents one of the rarest of the series’ models with only about 2,200 ever built. This one looks almost factory fresh, but will its rarity and condition prove it’s worth its asking?
Read MoreYou don’t have to be a crazy cat person to appreciate today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Jag XJS, but being a bowtie bro might just help. That’s because this stately coupe gets its motivation from a Corvette driveline. Let’s see if that and its price makes this Jag a purrrrr-fect deal.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe S70 has been lovingly updated with a multitude of minor parts from other Volvos, while still maintaining all its original awesomeness. Let’s see if its price makes it more than just the sum of those parts.
Read MoreThe Mercedes SL has always been a car for people with aspirations. Our Nice Price or Crack Pipe SL500 will give you the sun and the moon and the stars, owing to its rare panoramic glass roof. Will that make its price something you could see paying?
Read MoreAin’t life grand? Well, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Jeep certainly is, as in Grand Wagoneer. Let’s find out if this plain jane Jeep is priced so as to also make it a grand bargain.
Read MoreI could easily have titled this Nice Price or Crack Pipe “Florida Man Sells Car” since this wildly modded Olds is both Orlando-located and about as Florida as you can get. Let’s see if its price has you saying South America, take it away!!!
Read MoreIn traditional Chinese culture the number Seven connotes harmony. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Triumph is an amalgamation of sevens—TR7 and, likely, RX7. Let’s find out if that mix makes its price harmonious as well.
Read MoreRejoining race traffic after a spin or an off is one of the hairiest situations on track, and here’s a good example why. Trans-Am racer Paul Fix picked just the wrong time to nudge back onto the track at Mid-Ohio.
Read MoreNASCAR’s fastest sentient marshmallow Tony Stewart got into it with Twitter users yesterday night when he posted the hottest of takes on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand for the National Anthem. Stop the presses and back off, folks: Tony had a black roommate.
Read MoreNASCAR was about at its peak in 2008. It had some of the highest television ratings it had ever received and track attendance was skyrocketing. Behind the scenes, the series’ public relations team was preoccupied with jingoistic complaints from its most vocal shitheads about national anthems, Confederate flags, Toyotas, and the Spanish language.
Read MoreToday, in “is someone cutting onions nearby?” news, Kyle Larson opted to dedicate his first NASCAR Sprint Cup win to his the family of racer and friend Bryan Clauson. Clauson passed away earlier this month from injuries sustained in a dirt track crash.
Read MoreThe ending of Sunday’s WeatherTech Sports Car Championship race at Virginia International Raceway took a page from IMSA’s kissing cousins over at NASCAR. Contact during the race led to a post-race spat, with one angry driver seeking revenge on the cool-down lap.
Read MoreBoth Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso showed why they’re past Formula One world champions today. Hamilton charged forward to a podium third-place finish and Alonso hauled his McLaren up to seventh place—after starting on the back row in 21st and 22nd, respectively.
Read MoreRenault Formula One drver Kevin Magnussen lost the back end of his car at the top of the Raidillon hill at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, spinning at high speed into the wall at Turn 4. Magnussen’s left ankle was cut on impact, and he has been sent to a local hospital for further evaluation. [UPDATED]
Read More0.008 seconds was all that separated IndyCar race winner Graham Rahal from James Hinchcliffe—the man who had led most of the restarted race at Texas Motor Speedway but got passed by Rahal on the very last lap. The race was full of close dicing back and forth, but it set a record for TMS’ closest finish ever.
Read MoreAfter the rear of Ed Carpenter’s car touched the front corner of Scott Dixon’s IndyCar at Texas Motor Speedway, Dixon spun out of control and into the wall. Dixon, of course, let Carpenter know he was just fine (but mad) in everyone’s favorite way: with two middle fingers up.
Read MoreBreak out the ark. Conditions at today’s Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race at Virginia International Raceway went from “awesome, rain!” to Old Testament-grade punishment in a matter of minutes. Normally we wouldn’t think twice about a wet race, but this one almost completely hid the cars.
Read MoreIn case you got sick of the boringly dominant Mercedes AMG Formula One team and stopped watching F1, oh, a few years ago maybe, good news—Mercedes driver and defending champion Lewis Hamilton will start at the back in the Belgian Grand Prix, adhering to a 55-place grid penalty in a 22-car field.
Read MoreIf you tune into the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship race this weekend, you’ll notice only one Porsche 911 GT3 R in the GT Daytona class instead of the expected three. The Porsche GTD teams are fuming mad, including one owned by the founder of the series’ biggest sponsor.
Read MoreMcLaren fitted an updated Honda power unit to both of their Formula One cars for the Belgian Grand Prix in hopes of catching up to the rest of the field. However, a water leak in first practice forced them to swap units again in Fernando Alonso’s car. Today, that new power unit only made it about 500 meters in qualifying. Total.
Read MoreWelcome to the Jalopnik Weekend Motorsports Roundup, where we let you know what’s going on in the world of racing, where you can see it, and where you can talk about it all in one convenient place. Where else would you want to spend your weekend?
Read MoreOne of the best things a manufacturer can do to prove a car’s worth is to race it. Keep it mostly stock to demonstrate its capabilities. Unfortunately, Toyota discovered something they shouldn’t have kept close to stock on their rally-prepped 2016 Toyota RAV4 at the Gorman Ridge Rally: the car alarm.
Read MoreAnd lo, I wept as I beheld the PUPPYKNUCKLES photos from the Monterey Historics Reunion, the only event at Pebble Beach worth attending. A sinner such as myself is not worthy of their beauty.
Read MoreThe speed of a current World Rally Championship car on a real, paved road (as we saw at this weekend’s Rally Germany) is staggering. Humbling, maybe, is a better word.
Read MoreLest we mistake them for vaporware, autonomous racing series Roborace has a “DevBot” that looks suspiciously like a real car. It has a standardized safety cell for a driver and all. Only that cell isn’t there for what is likely that most terrifying joyride on the planet—it’s for testing and development.
Read MoreWelcome to the Jalopnik Weekend Motorsports Roundup, where we let you know what’s going on in the world of racing, where you can see it, and where you can talk about it all in one convenient place. Where else would you want to spend your weekend?
Read MoreFor the past two years, the famed Bonneville Salt Flats have been without the roar of triple-digit engine noise. This week, thousands of drivers from around the world are back to break records and just go really, really fast.
Read MoreOuninpohja, Finland is a quiet wood with a lazy dirt road winding through it which turns into a racetrack when the World Rally Championship comes to town. Red Bull’s Volkswagen Polo R has won the race here three times. Today, it has some traffic on its tail.
Read MoreWhat’s the difference between a professional drift Scion FR-S and a professional rally Subaru BRZ? It’s simple: one does jumps!
Read More“The King Of The Hammers” has evolved from a few rednecks bumping heads in the desert to one of the most technically diverse spectacles in motorsport. Now it’s a week-long racing event, and if you can’t soak it up in person you’ll finally be able to see it on television.
Read MoreOn Sunday, we explained why you might have seen a Dodge Challenger in Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race since Dodge, you know, left the sport years ago. The post had a screenshot of 2014 manufacturer standings that didn’t even give poor Ram trucks its own logo, which NASCAR has since changed.
Read MoreIn racing, the checkered flag is the ultimate goal—making it there, and making it there before everyone else. Passing under that flag first is synonymous with sweet, sweet victory, but it wasn’t always that way. At one time, it might have just meant ‘stop racing and come eat dinner.’
Read MoreAt the end of its championship-winning 2012 season with Penske Racing in NASCAR’s top division, Dodge pulled out of the series when its flagship team moved to Ford power for the next season. But a lone Dodge—or, so it seemed—showed up at Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race. It’s a ghost of what once was in the series, and what could’ve been with the Dodge program.
Read MoreWelcome to the Jalopnik Weekend Motorsports Roundup, where we let you know what’s going on in the world of racing, where you can see it, and where you can talk about it all in one convenient place. Where else would you want to spend your weekend?
Read MoreMost of the writers here got their start in more humble ways like “applying” or “writing a lot on OppositeLock.” I did a lot of that last one, too. But before that, I also owned Jalopnik’s then-editor-in-chief Matt Hardigree in the ultimate regular-car track battle first—and I’ve waited nearly four years to gloat.
Read MoreIn the good old days, men were “men,” America was apparently “great,” and the only helmet anybody needed was a dashing cow-skin hat with cute little ear flaps. Then a lot of people died, and over a century later, heads go racing with the comfort of padding, radios and water straws.
Read MoreBrazil may be hosting the Olympics this year, but one of their greatest sporting triumphs is in a discipline not eligible for the Olympics at all: Formula One. That doesn’t mean that Brazilians won’t use Senna’s retelling of his incredible drive from the 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix as motivation to win, though.
Read MoreWhile neither side will comment directly on the end of the messy Nissan DeltaWing lawsuit directly, DeltaWing Technology Group chairman Don Panoz had a few interesting words to say on Nissan’s very DeltaWing-like BladeGlider concept today.
Read MoreRio Haryanto, the now-ex Formula 1 driver backed by a state-owned Indonesian oil company, is out of the backmarker Manor F1 team, per Racer. What happened to all that sweet, sweet oil money, Rio?
Read MoreHonda in the early ‘90s was so successful building engines for Formula One, it encouraged its engineers to construct an entire F1 car in their spare time. They never even intended to race it. They were just like ‘hey why don’t we build an F1 car for shits and giggles.’ And they did.
Read MoreNorthern Irish Citroën Racing World Rally Championship driver Kris Meeke just crushed Rally Finland with the fastest ever win there. So, imagine his annoyance when Volkswagen team principal/whiner-in-chief Jost Capito says that Meeke can’t be happy with that win. Dude, what?
Read MoreManor, you chose poorly. After Rio Haryanto’s funding started to run out—the same funding that landed him a Manor Formula One drive instead of current Manor reserve driver Alexander Rossi—and Rossi won the Indianapolis 500, Manor offered Rossi the seat, reports Autosport, but Rossi turned it down.
Read MoreLast Monday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway was full of surprises, both from Mother Nature’s disagreeable weather and in Victory Lane. We spoke with rookie Chris Buescher to how one lucky strategy call gave him the surprise win of the season at Pocono.
Read MoreBryan Clauson, winning dirt-track driver who died just last night, planned to run 200 races this year. Two hundred. When I first heard that number I didn’t wonder why he wanted to, I wondered, how could he? Almost three months ago to the day, I watched Bryan win a 410 wingless sprint race at Eldora Speedway while my camera was rolling, and found the answer.
Read MoreI’ll never forget watching Bryan Clauson walk from victory lane directly into another car to belt up for a second race.
Read MoreEveryone’s favorite ‘Strayan F1-driving honey badger Daniel Ricciardo offered a surprise explanation for how Australians can stomach beer-funk as a condiment: he drank out of his friggin’ shoe on the podium. I mean, at least vegemite isn’t foot-funk. Ricciardo claims the foot-funk tastes “good.” Right.
Read MoreBryan Clauson has passed away from injuries sustained in a crash during the Belleville Midget Nationals. Clauson had three Indianapolis 500 starts and was widely regarded as one of the top dirt track racers in the nation.
Read MoreIf you saw the random explosion under the hood of a race car during Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race and guessed tire failure was the culprit, congratulate yourself. There was immense confusion about the cause of the incident, and for good reason—it was no ordinary tire failure.
Read MoreApart from its delicious brats, curds and eggers and its tranquil park-like setting, Road America is really here to ruin your day. A small bump ended in a huge flip for two cars during yesterday’s Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race. Road America does not care. Road America has no mercy.
Read MoreRacing driver and dirt-track specialist Bryan Clauson was airlifted out of the Belleville Midget Nationals race tonight after his car hit the guard rail, flipped and was t-boned by another competitor, per Racer. Belleville’s feature race was red flagged as a result.
Read MoreAfter a random NASCAR explosion that looked like something you’d see during an NHRA drag race, the driver himself said he’d “never experienced anything like that” in 35 years of racing. It seems as if the sanctioning body itself doesn’t know what happened, either.
Read MoreWelcome to the Jalopnik Weekend Motorsports Roundup, where we let you know what’s going on in the world of racing, where you can see it, and where you can talk about it all in one convenient place. Where else would you want to spend your weekend?
Read MoreThe pro-am Prototype Challenge class will spin off track for good in 2018, per IMSA. A series of changes announced today will leave the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship with only three classes and IMSA with only one open-cockpit car still racing in all seven of their series.
Read MoreSome things may have changed since Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby was released a decade ago, but it still has one of the most dead-on mockeries of the popular perception of motorsports in America. NASCAR—for better or for worse—has a sometimes-uncomfortable association with the Southern bro.
Read MoreToday, Nissan unveiled a new prototype of its oddly DeltaWing-like road car, the BladeGlider—immediately raising the eyebrows of anyone who remembers DeltaWing’s long, David vs. Goliath intellectual property battle with Nissan. Very quietly, those court cases came to an end earlier this year.
Read MoreRoborace, the new autonomous racing series set to run alongside Formula E, has just released the final design for its unbelievably cool race car designed by the guy who created the Tron: Legacy Light Cycle, and it’s both a beautiful design achievement and an engineering breakthrough.
Read MoreDoctors narrowed down the likely cause of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s concussion to a crash on June 12 during the Sprint Cup race at Michigan. Today, his Hendrick Motorsports team announced that Jeff Gordon will continue to fill in for the next two races to allow Earnhardt to continue recovering.
Read MoreIf you’re a newbie who’s desperate to drive on track for the first time, attending a race school is one of the best ways to go about it. But since absolutely none of them are cheap, it’d help to know know exactly what you’re in for before melting your credit card. I attended the Lucas Oil School of Racing’s two-day program and documented every step of it so now, you’ll know exactly what $2,000 buys you.
Read MoreDrop everything. Do nothing else this afternoon. Let’s watch rally cars launch into space. If watching rally cars skip and dance at insane speeds down dirt roads doesn’t make you want to fly in the air or book a trip straight to the magical land of Kimi and Santa Claus, I’m not sure we can be friends anymore.
Read MoreNormally the headline would be “Florida Man Files Hilarious Lawsuit Against Ferrari.” But this isn’t just any Florida Man. This is Preston Henn, the Sultan of Swap, flea market baron, champion race car driver and famed car collector. And he’s so pissed that Ferrari denied him the opportunity to buy the LaFerrari Spider, he demands a trial by jury.
Read MoreAfter landing a test in a Maserati 250F at the young age of 17, driver Chris Amon went to the highest levels of open-wheel and sports car racing. And together with fellow New Zealander Bruce McLaren, he drove the Ford GT40 to its first 24 Hours of Le Mans win in 1966. He died today at age 73.
Read MoreJeff Gordon had a bit of a moment at Pocono with the seat belts in the No. 88 car, which must not have been locked in all the way. Either that or the car has become sentient and realizes that Dale Earnhardt Jr.—its regular driver—was not in that seat. One of those!
Read MoreBernie Ecclestone’s mother-in-law Aparecida Schunck was rescued Sunday after being reportedly abducted at knife-point in Brazil for a ransom of $37.5 million. Police have arrested two of the kidnappers and have now reportedly detained a helicopter pilot close to Ecclestone.
Read MoreFormer Formula One driver Niki Lauda is still a fixture at races, chiming in on every controversial move of the front-runners as the non-executive chairman of the Mercedes F1 team. He’s lucky to be here at all. Forty years ago today, a horrifying crash at the Nürburgring nearly took his life.
Read MoreThe best things from the German Grand Prix were the oldest.
Read MoreThe bizarre and terrifying saga of the kidnapping of Aparecida Schunck, the mother-in-law of Formula One impresario Bernie Ecclestone, apparently came to an end on Sunday thanks to a daring police operation in Sao Paulo. Schunck was rescued by officers without the massive $37 million ransom being paid, according to news reports.
Read MoreIt’s one of those numbers that I’ve got in the back of my head for no reason: 2.75 seconds. That’s how long it takes a car dropped out of a plane to accelerate to 60 miles per hour. When I saw the hilarious new Tesla Model S P100D did 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds it was a reminder that Elon’s electric sedan was now faster than gravity.
Read MoreThe new Praga R1R is the road-legal LMP-style supercar you thought could never happen. EVO recently tested one, and the R1R is so much like an actual race car it may be a victim of its own design.
Read MoreWhat do you do when you have a Koenigsegg Agera RS, with its 1,160 horsepower, active aerodynamics, and airbags, but want a little more exclusivity? Easy. You give it a new, made-up name. This is the fully road-legal-in-the-United-States Koenigsegg Agera XS.
Read MoreThe Chinese company that bought bankrupt Fisker, Wanxiang, made a crucial decision when it came to resurrecting the Karma: the basic exterior design would be left pretty much the same. I think this was a pretty smart idea, since the look of the car was never the problem: the crappy build quality, the cramped interior, and the willingness to catch fire were far more pressing issues. Now they’ve revealed the car, and, yes, it looks mostly the same.
Read MoreRecently, the scientific community was all excited because a new exoplanet was discovered, and this one is in the coveted “habitable zone” that makes real estate so valuable, and it’s even pretty close by! It’s called Proxima Centauri b, and I want to know how well my car is going to drive when I get it there. Sadly, we just can’t say yet.
Read MoreThe idea of re-purposing an (ideally) empty rocket fuel tank and turning it into a space habitat has been around for a long time, because it’s a really appealing idea. America’s first space station, Skylab, was designed from a Saturn V rocket’s upper-stage fuel tank, albeit one that was never filled with fuel. Now NASA has selected a company to develop habitats made from used rocket fuel tanks.
Read MoreI hope you were lucky enough to catch the Perseid Meteor Shower last week. If you were watching it from the Spanish island of La Palma, a few of those streaks might have actually been these maniacs in wing suits.
Read MoreOn the highways or in the cities, sometimes traffic jams extend as far as the eye can see. You snail along at a glacial pace until all of a sudden traffic just clears up for no reason. Self-driving cars aim to fix that.
Read MoreLast month, Jaguar Land Rover said that it will put a fleet of more than 100 autonomous and semi-autonomous cars on UK roads by 2020. It’s quite an ambitious plan, and it looks like now its parent company, Tata Motors, is looking for some Ivy League help.
Read MoreHaving a semi-autonomous car is, for the moment, a bit like having a small child. Every day you’re amazed by what it can do, but for the love of all that is holy do not let it do whatever it wants without supervision. Like park. [UPDATE!]
Read MoreCars, of all kinds, can be dangerous. Gasoline cars are filled with highly flammable liquids and hot bits that move really fast. Electric cars are full of unholy trapped lightning. But where does rational caution stop and fear mongering begin? Let’s see if we can figure this out.
Read MoreYou’d expect carbon fiber—the ultra light, hard-as-steel composite—to shatter or something when you crush it with a hydraulic press. Not. At. All.
Read MoreDual-clutch transmissions, like the one shown above, are fairly prominent in the industry now, offering faster shift times than a conventional automatic and fewer parasitic losses. Now Honda just patented a triple-clutch, 11 speed transmission that promises even better performance. Can you even handle all those clutches and gears?
Read MoreA Tesla Model X owner just tore into his car, finding what appears to be a provision for a new triple front-facing camera. Here’s video of that tear-down, showing the vacant coax port that Electrek thinks might enable some current Teslas to be retrofit for fully-autonomous Autopilot 2.0.
Read MoreAutonomous cars are coming, and while it may sometimes feel like they’re already here, they’re really not. It can still be confusing, since every manufacturer with anything remotely like an autonomous vehicle seems to overstate what the cars can do. Luckily, levels of autonomy have been decided, and knowing them can help. That’s why we made some charts.
Read MoreSelf-driving cars are still outside the reach of ordinary people, but self-driving buses are out prowling the streets of some of the world’s major cities, such as, uh, Helsinki. But holy ghost of Henry Ford are these things slow.
Read MoreExecutives at ride-hailing app companies like Lyft and Uber have long dreamed of having fleets of vehicles that can shuttle humans around cities without the hassle of actually having to pay human drivers. Starting at the end of this month in Pittsburgh, Uber will come closer to that goal than anyone has before with a fleet of autonomous Volvo XC90 SUVs, all summoned by phone to take passengers where they want to go.
Read MoreChristian Roy of Quebec City has been using his Tesla Model S as a taxi for over two-and-a-half years, accumulating over 100,000 treacherous taxi miles. How did this high-tech electric car stand up to that much cab abuse?
Read More“That’s right!” said Ford CEO Mark Fields, almost to himself. He’d just announced that Ford would offer a fully-autonomous car by 2021. The crowd seemed less than enthused. “Woo,” Fields added.
Read MoreTechnically, Ford has been selling driver-less cars since always, because it is illegal to sell people with cars. But this time the automaker will sell a car that cannot be driven: a fully autonomous car, with no human driver controls, much like Google’s autonomous car. The planned target markets are commercial applications and ride-sharing services.
Read MoreIn what’s being called an industry first, Audi has launched a feature that will allow its cars to communicate with traffic signals, notifying drivers when lights are about to change. In addition to maybe being useful for dusting AMGs at stoplights, it’s an important advancement in connected cars.
Read MoreTesla’s Autopilot semi-autonomous system is partially known for its ability to improve itself with over-the-air software improvements. But if Tesla wants to update the actual hardware, that’s a different story. To fix that, Tesla’s reportedly planning major camera and sensor upgrades for Autopilot 2.0—and possibly full autonomy.
Read MoreWhen you hit a bump, your shock absorbers damp the wheel’s motion by converting its kinetic energy into heat via the shearing of fluid in the shocks. That heat gets expelled into the air and is never seen again. But Audi is tired of wasting energy, so the automaker plans to harness it from the suspension motion and convert it into electricity.
Read MoreWe’re now several years past the unintended acceleration scandal that cost Toyota billions of dollars over what we now know for sure was almost entirely human error. But today, our cars are starting to drive themselves. If you don’t see the problem with this, you should.
Read MoreAfter nearly a decade with the company, the chief technical officer of Google’s self-driving car project left the company—along with two other veterans of the car division. The decisions to leave come under a new leader on the project, who reportedly didn’t mesh well with some longtime employees.
Read MoreI got to zoom around on the Hudson River in a greased-lightning-fast 1400-horsepower Cigarette boat earlier this week. It wasn’t a bad day at the office. Eager to learn more, I reached out to the Mercury engineers to learn a little more about what drives this awesome thing.
Read MoreAutonomous driving cars have many components that are analogous to our own moist, biological sensory organs. A Tesla’s radar emitter and camera, for example, serve a similar purpose in driving as your big, beautiful eyes. You know how if you cover your eyes, you can’t drive very well? That’s essentially what researchers proved on a Tesla.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreGood morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Aero Cabin is one of 500 Soarer faux-vertibles Toyota built for home market folks who wanted to soar a little more. Let’s see if this intrepid import’s price should let a new owner see the Aero of their ways.
Read MoreA Cummins-diesel powered Jeep Wrangler is pretty cool. But a diesel Jeep that also works as a submarine? It’s a redneck James Bond dream come true!
Read MoreThe Nikola Motor Company materialized a few months ago with sleek concept photos and incredible stats on an electric semi truck apparently coming soon. Twelve hundred miles of range! Zero emissions! Cheaper than diesel! And today, even more. Now the company says it will put 50 hydrogen stations in North America by 2020. Oh yeah, the truck is powered by hydrogen now.
Read MoreThere are few cars that are truly offensive anymore. Lamborghinis are screaming jumbles of polygons for people who live in Dubai. Paganis are obscenely fast chrome-and-carbon art pieces, but they’re hardly repugnant. Want to actually insult people? Get the biturbo V12 Mercedes-AMG G65. It’s great.
Read MoreFrom afar, wind turbines look like such majestic things, turning lazily in the breeze and creating energy. Located on tops of mountains or in open fields, some people complain that they ruin the scenery, but I like them. And I’ve always wondered how something so big can get up to the top of a mountain. As it turns out, trucks. Trucks are how it happens.
Read MoreGeneral Motors is giving the Chevrolet Colorado an entirely new V6 gasoline engine with cylinder deactivation and an eight-speed transmission for 2017. Apparently the idea is to give the truck better performance and economy, which sounds great. But GM’s estimated new 0-60 mph and MPG figures? “Essentially [a] carryover” from the old truck. Boo!
Read MoreA highly scientific—wait, no—a Twitter poll carried out by the United Kingdom’s Freight Transport Association asked ladies if they would drive a 44-metric ton truck, and over 79% at the time of their press release responded yes. Trucks! Trucks! Trucks! Trucks!!!
Read MoreAs a chronic Craigslister, I often come across the huge, six ton military truck in the picture above called the M35A2—aka the “Deuce and a half.” The crazy thing is, the huge behemoth routinely sells for under $2,000, which makes it a total bargain in terms of weight-to-dollar ratio. What other ridiculously huge cars can you get for dirt cheap?
Read MoreHardcore truck people probably don’t think of the 2017 Honda Ridgeline as a “real truck,” but I just towed a classic Ford Mustang over the Appalachians with one. So why aren’t there more trucks in the U.S. built on a unibody platform like the Ridgeline? I talked to engineers at Honda and Toyota to find out, and now I’m wondering why every automaker—including Nissan, Toyota, and GM—isn’t doing it this way.
Read MoreI’m not sure I’ve had a car to review that I’ve liked less than the 2016 Lexus LX 570. It’s not that it’s a technically bad vehicle, because it’s not: mechanically, it’s a body-on-frame Land Cruiser, and it’s plenty reliable and capable. It’s also incredibly frustrating, overcomplicated, unpleasant to drive, and ugly as a baboon’s perineum. Oh, and it costs about $100,000.
Read More“It’s a tool, just like a 9/16th wrench or a wheel hammer,” Joshua Shaw, vintage IndyCar racer and restorer says of his 300,000-mile Chevy Suburban, an integral, reliable part of his work and life. A long-lasting ‘Burban is a piece of America, and it deserves a little praise.
Read MoreMost military vehicles—tanks, HUMVEEs, duck tours boats—are resoundingly horrible to drive and virtually impossible to use as a normal vehicle. Not so with the 1970s Volvo C303, which is built to defeat the Soviet Union but can happily drive around town.
Read MoreI don’t like to throw the word “hero” around like Sriracha on salad, but anybody who turns a Corvette into a dune buggy is a hero.
Read MoreIf you made a napkin doodle of what your beater truck would look like as a dune-jumping hero, and then actually built said truck, you might be a redneck. I mean, an industrious and experimental engineer! Check this hilarious heap out and then we can discuss its actual merits.
Read MoreIt’s hot outside. How do you feel better about it? You buy yourself an ice cream from the ice cream truck! Or—even better—have someone else buy you an ice cream. Under no circumstance should you ever rob an ice cream truck, because that’s pretty much on a par with punching a puppy in the face.
Read MoreIn the 1940s and ‘50s, wood-adorned Fords, Chryslers, Packards and even Nashes were all the rage. But perhaps the most iconic and recognizable woodie is the Jeep Grand Wagoneer, which had wood on its sides until 1991. I recently heard a story from a Jeep engineer that the Grand Wagoneer’s wood may have been hiding something.
Read MoreThe Can-Am Maverick X3 looks like it could be dropped on the surface of Mars and start racing without skipping a beat. It’s somehow simultaneously sleek and rugged, it’s headed for mass production, and I’m ready for communion at the church of UTVs.
Read MoreThe U.S. Geological Survey has incredibly detailed topographical maps of the entire country and now National Geographic is trying to put all of them online for free downloading. Use them to plot your next off-road adventure, make art or just ponder the majesty of our nation with.
Read MoreIn the effort to continue battling climate change, the White House has mandated new emissions standards for large trucks and buses. Officials say that this will decrease our carbon pollution by 1.1 billion metric tons and decrease our oil consumption by up to 84 billion gallons by 2027.
Read MoreBored of scrolling past updates about your old roommate’s cousin’s new baby or weird tirades from your crazy uncle? Delete your Facebook and check out Defender Journeys, a site Land Rover set up for owners to share off-road adventure stories.
Read MoreThe freshly redesigned 2017 Nissan Titan and its heavier-duty sister the Titan XD are supposed to revive the automaker’s relevance in the truck market. Now we know where these trucks will be positioned, and contrary to some speculation, it’s not the “absolutely cheapest” slot.
Read MoreThe Nissan Titan and Armada are not off-road vehicles. Not really. The Titan’s too damn big, and the Armada has 20-inch wheels and a freaking chrome vent on its front fender—clearly designed for stuntin’, as today’s teens say. But if you’re curious what the two can actually do off-road, check out these videos.
Read MoreEver since Elon Musk mentioned making “a new kind of pickup truck” in Tesla’s revised master plan the internet has been alight with speculation on the design. Step back, I’ve got this figured out.
Read MoreWant to attempt the world’s longest off-road truck jump? Turns out all you need is to convert your crappy old carbureted engine to fuel injection, put a little more rebound in the shocks and pump up the tires. You will need to start with a scratch-built racing rig though.
Read MoreThe 2017 Honda Ridgeline is very different from your typical mid-size pickup, making many wonder if the Pilot With A Truck Bed is “a real truck.” Well, I just loaded the Honda to near its max trailer rating and drove over the Appalachians with a classic Ford Mustang in tow. The Ridgeline kicked ass. That “real truck” enough for everyone?
Read MoreAround mile five of our 600 or so mile drive to Eldora Speedway is when I noticed the RV I was driving, a Winnebago Vista LX, had a problem. No rear window and a bad backup camera meant I couldn’t see the trailer behind me which would’ve been fine, if it were full of cargo, or a Chevy Trax. But it wasn’t. I was towing a $6,000 U-Haul trailer with a $239,770 McLaren 570S on top of it, and couldn’t see it.
Read MoreA tow truck is never a good sign. It tends to be a harbinger of great and terrible darkness, in fact. Either a car has crashed, or a car broke down, or it’s coming to take your precious baby away from a TOTALLY LEGIT parking spot. But occasionally they do the Lord’s work, and in a beautiful way to boot.
Read MoreI know I’ve had my share of questionable truck ideas. With therapy, I’ve been able to accept that. But I think this truck idea is different. It’s different because, for the first time in my truck ideas, I think this one could fill an actual need or at least a want of many truck owners. I know this because they’re trying it already, and that “it” is in-truck bed pools.
Read MoreThe Ford Raptor is one of few vehicles with legitimate recreational off-road viability from the factory. The second generation, based on the new aluminum F-150, is coming out for 2017 with a set of shocks that should help it crush dunes even harder. Here’s what we know.
Read MoreIf there’s a modern-day descendant of the sleeper-iffic turbocharged Dodge Caravan, perhaps it is the new 2016 Mazda CX-9. There’s three rows for people, all of whom you can terrify with the fun pedal. Maybe it, too, will someday be tuned into lunacy. Only you may want to live in Siberia if you get one.
Read MoreEarly last month, two Jeeps fell down a 130 foot cliff and into the Crystal River near Aspen, Colorado, local news site Aspen Times reports. The Jeeps—now mangled wrecks—sat abandoned in the water for nearly a month, and are only now being extracted.
Read MoreIt appears that Tesla’s own operation in China cannot satisfy demand, creating a market for overpriced and under equipped American-spec cars to be imported by grey market privateers and sold for a fat markup.
Read MoreIn Yellowstone National Park’s earlier days, there was a battle between outfits vying to be the official transportation provider throughout the park’s massive acreage. Apparently the Yellowstone Park and Transportation Company was the most successful, thanks in part to this White Model 706 bus-SUV hybrid thing.
Read MoreToyota has confirmed a $40,760 MSRP for the manual transmission 4x4 four-door 2017 Tacoma TRD Pro; the hardcore off-road variant of its popular pickup. That’s about $7,000 more than the next trim down and some $10,000 shy of what we think the next four-door Ford Raptor will cost.
Read MoreAnd that’s even though Nissan totally wimped out on the truck’s specifications.
Read MoreThis year Ford is launching the first major revamp of its Super Duty pickup line since 1999. The company is very proud of the trucks’ massive cargo capacity, and an objectively cool new cupholder design it’s patenting. It’s a shame Ford will never share data that’s more relevant to customers, like fuel economy figures. They don’t release those figures and neither do any competing automakers—and that’s because the government doesn’t make them.
Read MoreThe Nikola Motor Company came out of nowhere a few months ago with some sleek big rig renders and outrageous performance claims: 80,000 pounds of hauling for more than 1,000 miles on electric power, charged by a natural-gas turbine. Now they say they’ve figured out how to eliminate emissions completely.
Read MoreThe 2017 Ford Super Duty shares an aluminum cab with the F-150, with one key difference: the shifter on the column instead of the center console. That made room for the most impressive advancement in cupholder technology America has ever seen.
Read MoreThe 2016 Volkswagen Beetle Dune convertible deceptively named for two reasons: first, while “Dune” in the context of a Beetle is an obvious reference to dune buggies, this modern Beetle really isn’t any more off-road capable than a normal one. Second, it seems to have almost nothing to do with Frank Herbert’s iconic science fiction novel, Dune, except for a few lumps of what I’m pretty sure was the spice Melange I found under the floormat. Even so, it’s a fun car.
Read MoreThanks to this website designed to bankrupt those of us who love cars, I found out that there’s an absurdly rare Volkswagen-derived car for sale on eBay: a Porsche Type 823, which is just the pedant’s name for a wartime VW wearing a tank costume.
Read MoreFor those who haven’t yet had the pleasure, moving day is a life milestone that tests your patience, your wallet and your sanity. Chucking all of your stuff in a truck and transporting it across town is hard enough, but when you don’t have a truck and are staring down the barrel of a 1,000 mile journey, your only choice is to get creative.
Read MoreIt’s one thing to read about how to fix your car on a forum or in a Bentley manual. It’s another thing entirely to watch someone else do it correctly on video. Thankfully, the miracle of the internet makes learning to fix your car easier than ever.
Read MoreOh, damn, you think to yourself as you check your calendar, tea in hand, the Concours is coming up, and I don’t know how to detail my Countach.
Read MoreRose is a thirtysomething from Brooklyn who is the Director of Strategy and Marketing for Atlas Obscura, a site dedicated to getting people to go out and explore the world and report back on what they find. In order to live her company’s mission, she wants an affordable and reasonably reliable car or truck to get her out of the city. What should Rose buy?
Read MoreLast weekend, we all got very interested in a fishy sale that cropped up on Bring A Trailer—a 2007 BMW 116i hatchback from Scotland that couldn’t exactly prove it got to the U.S. legally. Thanks to some detective work from the community, the listing has now been withdrawn.
Read MoreYou know that shocks are what control how your car rides, but what’s actually going on inside the tube of a high-performance off-road shock? I took some apart and put them back together (with some engineers who know what they’re doing) to find out.
Read MoreYesterday, I found out what happens when water gets into the oil of a manual transmission. It’s bad. Very bad.
Read MoreThe BMW 1 Series hatchback is near the top of my “forbidden foreign fruit” car list. For two generations now, it’s offered hatch practicality with manual gearboxes, potent four- and six-cylinder generations and glorious rear-wheel drive. What’s not to love? Problem is, it was never sold in America—but this one on Bring A Trailer is, even if you’re rolling the dice if you buy it.
Read MoreThe E36 BMW M3 is a fantastic and attainable enthusiast’s car. Good performance, looks, and according to this owner a factory-claimed official top speed of 155.3 mph. How close do you think it can get to that after 20 years and 130,000 miles?
Read MoreThere’s a certain amount of cringe factor when it comes to expensive things meeting their end in an undignified way. It’s the train wreck that you would never wish on your worst enemy, but for some reason, can never look away from. Case in point: this Aston Martin V12 that met its untimely end with its internal engine components shitting the bed, carnage aplenty. You have been warned.
Read MoreThe 1970's were a simpler time, friends. And cars just didn’t get put together to the exacting standards we (for the most part) see today. Check out what’s really under the skin of this “rust-free” barn find classic.
Read MoreWe just saw video of a car hurled off a cliff with a roll cage held together by duct tape. The results weren’t pretty. Then you see the same stunt again, using a cage made with a multipurpose repair material called “FiberFix” which the video’s advertising. It survives the fall! So is it real or what? The project’s technical engineer takes us through it.
Read More“Plasti Dip” and its other-brand equivalents are sprayable removable rubberizing coatings that have become a popular way to customize cars. It sort of holds like a vinyl wrap paint, but mixes a little like paint. This gives you a lot of room for experimentation, which worked out pretty well here.
Read MoreMy racecar was built with burritos. Hot, gooey, spicy, finger-lickin’-good burritos. It’s easy to eat with your hands when you’re busy, and easier yet when the closest fast-ish food to your project car is a Freebirds. How can something so wholesome, cheesy and good be the likely end of me?
Read MoreIt had somehow narrowed down to hours, how I was measuring time. It wasn’t a question of days or weeks anymore. I was doing hour and mile calculations to see if I’d make it back in New York by the time I needed to be back for work. And stuck on the side of the road again, New Mexico heat all around, it felt like I’d let my chances of making it slip away.
Read MoreHere’s an interesting breakdown of how bad habits can break your car, and how they change depending on whether you’re driving with a manual, automatic, CVT or dual-clutch transmission.
Read MoreI actually have no clue what the going rate is for human organs these days, nor do I know if you’d have enough organs left over to actually enjoy this thing if you pulled it off. But if you want a Ferrari 288 GTO, like this gorgeous one going on the block at Mecum’s Monterey auction next week, it’s a start.
Read MoreIf I asked a random sampling of my audience to recollect one of their most memorable dreams, I’d likely hear something extremely outlandish, proving that only something truly shocking will make it into your memory banks. Having said that, this crazy cheap Maserati proves that the same concept applies to cars, as it could be the craziest damn experience you can get for the money.
Read MoreLike everyone, I started surfing Craigslist because I wanted to snag sweet deals. Though I was initially a bit worried about meeting randos from the internet, after seven years of hard-core Craigslisting, I can honestly say, the site has changed my life. Here are some of my best stories of buying stuff from everyone’s favorite car-buying site.
Read MoreOne of the best traits a person can have is their ability to adapt to a particular situation. It means using every resource available to you, no matter how seemingly impractical or unorthodox, to get a job done. In that respect, perhaps no one is more qualified than a mechanic in Australia’s outback—one of the most unforgiving environments on the planet.
Read MoreJosh Clymer has been driving his 2005 Acura TSX a lot. In fact, he says he’s up to 505,248 miles now on the original drivetrain. To celebrate a half-million, he took the car to get compression and dyno tested. That gives us a good idea of how healthy the engine really is.
Read MoreI want to die. I want to waste away. A Maserati Khamsin is for sale not far from me at a shockingly reasonable price and I can’t have it and I would rather let nature’s healing decomposition clear my mind forever of thought of not owning this car.
Read MoreRight now, thousands of Americans can’t wrench on their cars because landlords think disabled vehicles are “eyesores.” But that’s a steaming mound of bullshit, and it’s an idea that needs to change.
Read MoreVery few things in life give me the same tactile pleasure of running a microfiber towel over a freshly waxed car, especially in the summer. I try to really detail my car twice a year, once in the late fall or early winter before the first snowfall and road-salting happens, and another time in the summer. Here’s the right way to get it done.
Read MoreFew marques command as much respect from people who crave performance as BMW, and the M line of cars in particular are some of the most desirable and most powerful vehicles around. However, there’s a closely guarded secret that no respected publication would ever broach, and it’s that all BMW engines are monumental piles of unreliable garbage.
Read More“I hate cars.” I never thought I’d understand why someone would string those three words together. Now, after trying to comfort a frustrated friend who got slammed with a huge repair bill, I totally get it. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
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