The New York City subway’s system has been falling apart for years now, with regular evening commutes turning on a dime into hellish nightmares. So it’s no surprise New Yorkers are up in arms Tuesday, after the city unveiled a $1.7 billion tax break for Amazon to build its new headquarters in Queens. Part of that effort includes an offer to help build Amazon a helipad. Nice.
Read MoreJust in case you were wondering, it looks like the Navy will investigate you if you use their aircraft to draw colossal sky-penises. We know this because last month two Marine Corps pilots in a T-34C trainer aircraft drew a gigantic penis in the sky, and now they’re under investigation. It’s assumed that the investigation is because they’re in trouble as opposed to investigating how they managed to draw such a good penis with an airplane, but hopefully that will come up as well.
Read MoreA hairdresser’s car? A worthy alternative to the Porsche Boxster? The savior of BMW’s sports cars in a time when that market is declining? A Toyota Supra? The 2019 BMW Z4 M40i could be all of those—and maybe a bit more than people will give it credit for.
Read MoreIf you’re like most of us, every extra bit of space in your home or apartment is crammed with bags filled with dead fish. In case you’re not sure what to do with all those dead fish, here’s an idea: run a cruise ship on them! Yes, finally, cruise ships can harness the near limitless potential of fish corpses thanks to some R&D from a Norwegian cruise line.
Read MoreEver since September, Iran’s massive oil tankers have been blinking off tracking screens, and by October, all of Iran’s supertankers have gone dark, almost certainly the result of turning off their satellite transponders so they can attempt to continue selling oil clandestinely despite U.S. sanctions. This appears to be the first time every one of a nation’s tankers have gone dark, according to organizations that track this sort of thing.
Read MoreAs Jalopnik’s resident car buying expert and professional car shopper, I get emails. Lots of emails. I’ve decided to pick a few questions and try to help out. This week, we will discuss a potential fire sale on General Motors’ canceled cars, inspecting cars for friends, and buying out leases.
Read MoreKen from New England likes small, fun, and zippy cars. He keeps them a long time, but his current ride is getting towards the end of its life. Ken’s ready for a new ride but wants something that can last a while. What car should he buy?
Read MoreYesterday, General Motors shocked the business world with news that despite strong profits as of late, it will close several North American plants and lay off some 15,000 workers as part of a massive restructuring. There’s a theory that if GM just made better, segment-leading cars it wouldn’t have been put in this position—but the problem is that the product alone does not equal customers.
Read MoreThere are all kinds of restrictions, both direct and indirect, on car ownership across the world. The U.S. has the objectively dumb 25-year import rule that keeps us from our beloved JDM and European-spec cars for what feels like ages, and prices of average cars in Singapore are well into the six figures.
Read MoreAdam is a father of two and does medieval sword fighting. (Relatable!) But his Kia Soul has been an unreliable mess and, unfortunately, stranded his family when they were fleeing the California fires. He needs something durable and interesting—basically armor with four wheels. What car should he buy?
Read MoreWhen Vince Hansen got the call that his beloved Audi S4 had been in an accident while a shop tech took it on a test drive, he wasn’t mad. He was sure that the dealer would cover the damage. But that’s not how things have played out.
Read MoreAs Jalopnik’s resident car buying expert and professional car shopper, I get emails. Lots of emails. I’ve decided to pick a few questions and try to help out. This week we’re talking about salespeople who are bad at selling, why a nice car would not be certified, and test driving cars on Black Friday.
Read MoreIn case you forgot, Kia once made a luxury car called the K900. And then Kia stopped making it because it sold only 455 units in the last year of production. Now Kia is at it again with the K900, and it’s $10,000 more expensive. Brilliant!
Read MoreThe 2019 Ford Raptor takes a powerful truck that’s already excellent on dirt trails and adds adaptive dampers and off-road cruise control. They’re relatively minor changes, but the result is that the beast that is the second-gen Raptor now has an even bigger set of muscles.
Read More“A four cylinder?!” full-size truck customers will cry upon visiting their local Chevy truck dealer after this fall. In the half-ton pickup space, an engine with so few cylinders is unheard of. But after driving the 2019 Chevy Silverado 2.7 Turbo, I’m not sure it should be, even if I’m not entirely sold on this particular truck.
Read MoreThere are only a few hours left to place your bid for one of the weirdest designs every to come out of the faux-classics car builder Morgan. We’re talking about a 2005 Morgan Aero 8 for sale on eBay.
Read MoreHyundai’s cars are a long, long way from the punchline they used to be. Everyone knows that. But with Genesis, its new luxury nameplate, the company’s ambitions have never been higher. It’s a measure of how far the company has come that the G70, its challenger to the BMW 3 Series and the rest, is as good or better than anything produced by the Germans.
Read MoreAs Jalopnik’s resident car buying expert and professional car shopper, I get emails. Lots of emails. I’ve decided to pick a few and try to help answer your burning car-buying questions. This week we are talking about buying a service contract to get a loan on a used car, cosmetic damage on CPO vehicles and doing a private trade with an outstanding loan.
Read MoreStewart has twin boys who play music and love weird cars. He is looking for something affordable that will draw some attention but still be practical. He is a big fan of Japanese domestic market stuff but isn’t sure those selections would work. What car should he buy?
Read MoreWhen it comes to buying cars, you should always have your guard up when working with dealerships. But believe it or not, they aren’t all out to rip you off. And you can get a really good idea on the type of operation they run based on their ads.
Read MoreI have extolled the glories of the Honda Del Sol Trans Top before. I have praised its wonder, celebrated its roof-iness. Now there’s one for sale in the United States, in vaunted SiR trim, no less. And you need to buy it because I cannot. It would be bad for my life.
Read MoreBentley is known for its big grand tourers packed with massaging seats and ludicrous W12 power. Looks and features are cool and all in the abstract, but does this new 2019 Bentley Continental GT actually grant you a luxurious enough experience in the cockpit and good enough handling on a fun road to justify the price tag that matches a nice house?
Read MoreThat old Lexus wagon right there? That’s my car. It’s a 2002 Lexus IS300 Sportcross. When I bought it last year it had the all-clear from a Lexus dealership, and roughly 73,000 miles on it. I paid (not to brag) $10,250 for it, which was roughly market rate. A very similar car just sold in England for £500.
Read MoreThe 2019 Mazda Miata takes an already-great, sharply styled tiny convertible and adds even more power. It’s a great buy. But the 2018 Volkswagen Golf GTI sports an updated look, has even more power and is probably the best-driving hatchback on the road without even trying too hard—but it’s not a true sports car. So if you’re looking for something fun and new for around $26,000 bucks, which one should you get?
Read MoreI think it’s telling that all of us here at Jalopnik were going back-and-forth about whether or not to write up this story of a dealership speeding in a customer’s car, mostly because we’ve seen so many worse videos of dealership abuse. But that’s just us being jaded. Really, it’s worth calling out all these examples of dealers joyriding in customer’s cars, because maybe then they’ll stop. Maybe.
Read MoreThe year is winding down and the number of cars with free-breathing engines and six-speed manuals is dwindling depressingly. The 2018 Ford Mustang GT, however, remains one of the purist new sports cars that you can buy. It’s fantastic to drive, and the Performance Pack Level 2 accentuates its aggression.
Read MoreI’ve spent the last three months shuffling between doctor visits instead of writing for Jalopnik because I crashed a Maverick X3 at my wedding and pulverized my left hand. But that’s a story for another time. For now, how about you help me get back on the road?
Read MoreWhen car shopping, you’re bombarded with choices. Like choosing between buying new or used. If buying used, how used? Is something that’s certified pre-owned worth looking into? This new report from iSeeCars might make the decision a little easier for you.
Read MoreObsessively detailed interiors. Shocking performance figures. Huge price tags with the weight to match. These are all things you quickly associate with Bentley. SUV? Not so much. But in 2016, Bentley tried to get in on the money-printing SUV game with the Bentayga, a leather-lined and champagne-filled W12 land missile.
Read MoreI need some advice. Recently my boss, who I love dearly, announced to the office that he is looking to buy a car. What kind of car? A 1980s executive sedan, black on black with a blood red interior? Should I be worried?
Read MoreIndependent used car dealers make most of their sales from cars around six years old, according to Automotive News, but due to the recession of 2008, they’re running out of them.
Read MoreAs Jalopnik’s resident car buying expert and professional car shopper, I get emails. Lots of emails. I’ve decided to pick a few questions and try to help out. This week we will discuss dealers not negotiating on used cars, paying for a private purchase from far away, and the disappearance of certified Audi A6 inventory.
Read MoreEvan is pushing 30, and his MazdaSpeed3 is just a little too loud and brash. He wants something fast with a bit of practicality, but it can’t scream “I have my traffic lawyer on speed dial.” At this stage of his life, he needs to look somewhat professional. What car should he buy?
Read MoreYou would think this whole “selling cars” thing would be easy for dealers, especially if an interested customer comes in with a serious intent to buy. But you would be surprised how uninterested some stores are in selling certain cars to certain buyers.
Read MoreIs there anything better than a really mysterious, baffling car? No, there isn’t. Every time you think there’s nothing left to learn about the rich tapestry of automobilia, something like this sleek lovely little whatever drives up, honks, and lets you know how wrong you are. So what is this thing? I’ll give you a clue: it’s Japanese.
Read MoreNot a cop here, but just checking up on that R34 Nissan Skyline GT-R that you totally have here in America legally. I know you’ve got it because every time there’s a car show, I see it without asking questions or whatever, and I just want to know how it’s doing. Because if it needs parts or something, you can now buy them from Nissan’s Nismo Heritage arm.
Read MoreIf Detroiters know anything, they know about cars, hockey and disappointment. Their experience in all three came in handy yesterday when a brand-new 2019 Chevrolet Silverado Trail Boss stalled on the ice at the Little Caesars Arena, the new home of the Detroit Red Wings.
Read MoreI’m not ashamed to admit that one of the key criteria that determines how excited I become about any particular car is the quality of strangeness. I can’t help it; there’s just something about that quality of otherness or whatever that just grabs me. The Tatra 603 is a car absolutely saturated in whatever that quality is, and, as a result, I love it.
Read MoreKlaus Fröhlich, BMW R&D head, has said some really bogus stuff in the recent past. He is tired of hearing our shit that the E46 M3 CSL was the last “real” BMW. He’s admitted that BMW is unlikely to build a supercar anytime soon. And he’s quashed rumors of a Z4 M happening, maybe ever. All of that sucks. But he recently told Road & Track that the next BMW M4 model will definitely have a manual transmission option, and that’s about as far from bogus as you can get!
Read MoreA new lawsuit filed in federal court alleges General Motors failed to address a rampant culture of racism at its Toledo transmission plant. There, black workers were subjected to “whites only” bathroom signs, routinely called racist slurs, and nooses were left hanging in plain sight on numerous occasions, the suit says.
Read MoreCatch the Q Train south from Manhattan and (depending on the state of the MTA that day) in not too long you’ll get off in a neighborhood of eccentric mansions, at least one tree-lined boulevard, and a bunch of strange and wonderful old cars still parked on the street.
Read MoreIf you heard the new Lamborghini Urus thundering down a nearby street, you might mistake it for, well, something other than an SUV. “What a lovely roar,” you’d think, even if you signed a pledge in the fifth grade to never like a luxury crossover or SUV because they’re smothering the car market like a needy dog whose owner’s been gone all day. Alas, you heard this SUV, and you liked it.
Read MoreThis’ll surely give anyone concerned about privacy the creeps. More than 200 manufacturers—including Volkswagen, Ford, General Motors, BMW, and Tesla—submit precise locations of vehicles to the Chinese government, according to an eye-popping story from the Associated Press.
Read MoreAs a kid, I thought putting up holiday lights was part of adulthood. As an adult, I’m going on my second year as a homeowner and my second year with a black hole of a house during the holidays, and I haven’t felt a bit of shame. But one Fernando Acosta of California is making me feel like a real failure right now.
Read MoreThe 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show is in full swing. Another Mercedes-Benz press conference has come and gone. We were presented with yet another special version of the Mercedes-AMG GT (the 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT R Pro) and heard some talk about an upcoming AMG GT Black Series. Know what we didn’t get? A new, proper Mercedes-AMG halo car. What gives, Mercedes?
Read MoreEarlier this month, Jalopnik received an anonymous tip with two photos of what looked to be the key of a future mid-engine sports car from General Motors, the only snag is the car is supposed to be a Corvette and the key had a Cadillac badge. Now another key has cropped up, which is virtually identical except for one thing: a Corvette badge.
Read MoreThe 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera S is all-new, and it’s bigger, faster and a little more awkward-looking. Here are the major differences between the new 992 generation and the outgoing 991.2.
Read MoreWhen Barbara Johnson, a 67-year-old Japanese-American Kansas resident, saw a license plate in her state with “JAP” on it, she told the Associated Press she still vividly recalls “being called ‘Jap’—and how it made [her] feel so small and hurt” as a child born about six years after World War II. There are more than 700 Kansas plates with that lettering, and, after about a year of complaints, the state is now recalling them.
Read MoreWhen Tesla’s Autopilot program launched in 2015, it seemed like a revolutionary bit of technology to be adding into our cars. With only the most minimal amount of driver engagement, our cars would basically be driving themselves from Point A to Point B. All we’d need to do as human beings is paying attention to make sure nothing terrible happens.
Read MoreCars these days are jam packed with technology—it almost kind of makes sense that we’re transitioning to the all-electric realm, given the fact that cars are mostly electric, anyway. Which brings up an interesting point about what’s going to happen to the actual electric cars.
Read MoreI only recognize one good-looking Ferrari one-off in recent memory and that’s the SP38. The rest of them mostly just look like they are wearing some new paint and have a few body modifications. The same goes for this new Ferrari SP3JC one-off.
Read MoreBecause there are so many cars all of the time, it’s fun to think about what car you’re going to get next. Your taste changes and maybe so do your priorities. Luckily, there’s usually a car suited to you. The trick is getting around to the owning.
Read MoreEver since the news broke yesterday that General Motors was slashing North American jobs to prepare for our possible electric/autonomous/horrible future, nearly everyone has wondered: What will President Trump, who campaigned on a platform of bringing back and keeping American auto jobs, have to say about this? Now we know. He’s hopping mad, and he’s threatening GM’s electric car subsidies... somehow.
Read MoreThe existential dread felt in the classic Waiting For Godot is similar to what many feel today, waiting for the benefits to roll in from their tax cuts. From 1981.
Read MoreBYD, the Chinese car startup backed by billionaire Warren Buffett, recently introduced a new all-electric model at the 2018 Guangzhou Auto Show dubbed the Tang EV 600, reports InsideEVs. It looks quite decent, it’ll reportedly have a 373 mile range on a single charge.
Read MoreI love parties. You might not think this is true, but I do. I love everything about them: Choosing the space, deciding on the menu, selecting the alcohol, picking out the party favors, procuring the drugs. I’m throwing a new party to celebrate a new Bugatti champagne and you’re not invited. I would say sorry, but I’m just not.
Read MoreYou may be a fan of Mitsubishi’s great cars and trucks of the past, longing for the days of the Montero and Lancer wagons. But you may not realize that Mitsubishi still sells these cars, just not to Americans.
Read MoreObviously when you’ve rented a JDM hero car for a few days over the weekend, it’s tempting to spend the whole time driving a mountain road, or several. But there are plenty of other things you can do while you’ve got a car in Tokyo. If you want to check out the local car scene, having your own transportation helps, and having something awesome means you can contribute to the scenery too.
Read MoreLast week, we came across a few images of a slightly camouflaged 2020 Genesis G90 luxury sedan sporting what looked like new bodywork. Now, after an event in Seoul, South Korea, Genesis has released official images of its new flagship, and yeah, that grille still looks a bit odd.
Read MoreI’d like to live in a reality where all the insane Japanese car magazine rumors were actually true. In that universe, the NSX never ended production in the 2000s and today has a twin-turbo V10 engine, the Mazda RX-9 totally exists and is a certifiable 911 killer, and the new Nissan Z is a joint venture with Mercedes. It’s a nice world for sure. Also in it: Lexus makes a twin-turbo V8 SUV that can compete with the Lamborghini Urus. Okay, cool!
Read MoreWhen General Motors announced today that it planned to cut up to 14,000 jobs and might close five U.S. plants, the scope of the restructuring plan caught practically everyone by surprise. It also reopened a particularly sore wound in Detroit, which actually helped destroy parts of the city in the 1980s to make way for one of the factories GM now says faces possible closure.
Read MoreBy lunchtime today, General Motors had announced that it was closing down five of its North American assembly and propulsion plants next year, including the Oshawa Assembly in Ontario, Canada. Following the announcement, unionized workers at the Oshawa plant walked out in protest, and the union president claims GM’s decision goes against the union’s collective agreement.
Read MoreYou know that old nightmare that we all get once in a while where we find ourselves taking a test we haven’t studied for? I’m not saying this is exactly what’s been going on at Bentley, but a new emissions standard and unpreparedness on the automaker’s part resulted in a €137-million company loss for the first nine months of this year. Damn.
Read MoreEvery time I see a Cadillac CT6, I want it to be good. A high-tech superspeed sedan, with some wild engine under its sharp hood. Well, though production is ending in the United States next year, it won’t be without a CT6-V, 550 horsepower “Blackwing” V8 and all.
Read MoreIf you’re a hipster, college professor and/or member of the British aristocracy in the market for a six-figure luxury grand tourer, you’ll be thrilled to hear that the 2019 Bentley Continental GT will be available with your favorite material: Tweed.
Read MoreThe long-range 2019 Nissan Leaf has been delayed over the brewing accusations of financial misconduct of Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, with Nissan basically saying they’re waiting for the whole thing to blow over until there’s some room for its marketing machine to ramp up. The delay follows a bewildering sluggishness to get the car to market in the first place.
Read MoreIn addition to announcing what factories it will be closing, today GM announced that a whole bunch of its cars –even the big ones with big promotional pushes – are dead in the water. Included are many models the company claimed were ready to take on the best in the world, including the Cadillac CT6, the company’s flagship luxury sedan. UPDATE: Not in China, at least.
Read MoreThere are few things as freeing as going on a road trip. You load up your car with friends, family, food and luggage and just go. It’s the journey, not the destination and all that. Whether or not you’ve taken your dream road trip already, I want to hear about it.
Read MoreGeneral Motors confirmed news of a major restructuring underway Monday, announcing that five North American plants will be closed, while up to 15 percent of its salaried workforce will be slashed. It marks the end of the plant that makes the Chevrolet Cruze in Ohio, the death of the Chevrolet Volt hybrid and the closure of the iconic Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant.
Read MoreThe reported closure of General Motors’ plant in Oshawa, Canada and the apparent death of the Chevrolet Volt may only be the tip of the iceberg. Now local news reports claim that GM’s Lordstown plant in Warren, Ohio—home of the Chevrolet Cruze and only the Chevrolet Cruze—could be shut down as early as March. (Update: This has been confirmed by GM.)
Read MoreGM has been going through a tight restructuring lately, selling off brands, offering buyouts to workers, and shutting down plants. One of the next plants that could see a stop in vehicle production, Reuters reports, is Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, which builds the Chevrolet Volt—a plug-in hybrid that was once considered GM’s savior.
Read MoreThe fall of Ghosn continues today as the board of Mitsubishi Motors just gave the former Renault/Nissan boss the boot, as the New York Times reports. Ghosn had been the chairman of Mitsubishi since October of 2016.
Read MoreNobody knows where it originated, why people like it, or what the point of it is. It’s a strange symbol that you occasionally see and think to yourself “Oh yeah, I forgot those existed.” Everyone knows someone that likes them a little bit more than they probably should. I’m referring, of course, to The Cool S. Oh, you thought I meant that Suzuki Jimny? Well, I guess that too. Suzuki is basically The Cool S of cars.
Read MoreThe skate shoes are laced, I’ve dug out my Walkman and my copy of Sports on Chrysalis cassette, and the parking deck has been cleared, it’s almost time for the most totally ‘80s and ‘90s party of the year, Radwood LA.
Read MoreShe was born in frigid Juneau, Alaska in the midst of December, 1936. Sent off alone to rural Iowa before she reached her double digits, Mary McGee (neé Connor) learned what fear was. She and her brother were shuttled by train along with soldiers destined to be shipped off to World War II. But conquering fear? That came naturally to her.
Read MoreDivers in Lake Huron have recently discovered the wreckage of a ship named the Manasoo. While neat in an of itself, the wreckage revealed a perfectly preserved piece of history: a 1927 Chevrolet Coupe.
Read MoreThe racing season is pretty much over, folks. What hasn’t been wrapped up will be by the end of the weekend—which means it’s time to get nostalgic as we look back at things and reminisce. Or, y’know, wonder why the hell we even watch this sport in the first place. Today, though, we’re going to focus on the good things: liveries.
Read MoreRemember the Suzuki X90? It was a deeply strange idea for a car: take a funny, stunted two-door sedan and plop it onto a 4x4 chassis. The proportions were strange, the intended use was strange, the whole concept was strange, which may be why I liked them so much. Surely this was just another fever dream of ‘90s Japanese unhinged innovation, right?
Read MoreMany people’s automotive tastes are fluid, changing as we age or as as new design trends make our former-favorites look dated. So let’s have a look at the cars you used to drool over as a kid, and discuss whether they’re still cool.
Read MoreAs if anybody needed the reminder with the ring of Subaru-sabotaging bears in this country, bears can open unlocked car doors. These bears happened to find an unlocked car with dozens of chocolate bars inside, and went on a candy binge worse than any of us do after a stormy Halloween with no trick-or-treaters.
Read MoreThe latest wildfires in California have been some of the most devastating natural disasters this country has ever seen. Some 400 square miles have burned, 86 are dead as of this writing, hundreds more are missing and thousands have lost their homes. And firefighters from across the country have worked countless hours to try and shut it down. Now, thanks to our friends at Blipshift, you can help them out a bit.
Read MoreWhy did Jaguar Land Rover wait until yesterday, America’s Thanksgiving holiday, to drop the all-new 2020 Range Rover Evoque? I know JLR is a British company, but dumping news during or around any big holiday is usually reserved for stuff like Facebook’s “Sorry we secretly paid some guys to attack George Soros, our bad, again” admission—not for when you actually want attention. Anyway, the Evoque is back for 2020, it’s all-new, it only has five doors now and it adds some interesting tech to the m
Read MoreGerman lawmakers might raise fines to almost 2,000 euros (about $2,281) for drivers who fail to get the hell out of the way for emergency vehicles, reports The Guardian. The reason? A new study that found ambulances keep getting held up for an average of five minutes because inattentive drivers can’t stop themselves from filming crashes on their phone.
Read MoreA month ago my colleague Raphael Orlove and I set off on a drive from Seattle to New York in a 1970 BMW 2500. Since then my mind has been occupied by two questions: When do I get to do this again, and what do I drive next time?
Read MoreA few years ago I wrote about how YouTube opened up rallying to the world in a way that it never had before, taking the sport out of forests and onto screens everywhere. I didn’t expect the same of drones and drifting but here we are.
Read MoreA couple weeks back, news broke that Wells Fargo execs had been accused in a lawsuit of being well aware—since at least 2012—that the bank was improperly charging thousands of customers for auto insurance they didn’t need. We covered the story earlier this month, but after finally getting through the 111-page complaint unsealed by a federal judge, it’s worth peeling off some of the particularly glaring excerpts to underscore, if the claims are true, the bank’s scummy conduct here.
Read MoreThis tube-chassis Pontiac Firebird might be the coolest build of the year based on the headers alone.
Read MoreThere’s an old Mafia trope. Usually a mob boss looks all-powerful, like nothing can stop him and no one can stand up to him. Until he takes things a step too far, and The Commission, AKA the Board of Directors, the other families, whatever, they decide he’s done. And then he gets whacked. A new story from the Financial Times heavily implies that former Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance megaboss Carlos Ghosn took things a step too far, and then Nissan’s board decided Ghosn had to go.
Read MoreHenry Ford is practically revered as the patron saint of American cars, and the Model T is his holy text. But it wouldn’t have happened if not for the life, and possibly the death, of two of his biggest rivals: the Dodge brothers. And if it weren’t for a small complication, such as the most deadly pandemic in recorded history, our cars might look very different today.
Read MoreYes, even the beloved Jaguar F-Type replacement could go battery-driven and whisper-quiet when it comes out in a few years. But it would make a ton of sense if it did when you consider Jaguar’s new, all-EV plan to take over the world, so to speak.
Read MoreThe Italdesign Aztec was one of the more outlandish concept cars of the 1980s, a surprise to even see one made for the show circuit, totally mind-blowing when a Japanese industrialist commissioned a run of road-legal versions at half a million a pop.
Read MoreI’ve determined my stance on crossovers. It’s a kind of a tired resignation more than anything else. If they must exist in order to bolster the enthusiast offerings, then so be it. At least make them good and fun to drive. That being said, I have extremely high expectations for the 2019 Porsche Macan because it is a Porsche.
Read MoreOne of the biggest complaints about the Subaru Crosstrek and most of Subaru’s cars is how lacking in power they are when driving. You would think the 2019 Subaru Crosstrek Plug-In Hybrid would remedy this by combining gas and electric power, but no—somehow it has even less power than the standard Crosstrek.
Read MoreA California auto dealer abruptly closed most of its locations this past week without explanation, according to multiple reports, leaving employees unable to cash their paychecks amid rumors of a possible sale. But records filed in an ongoing fraud case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission offer some insight as to the possible root cause: the dealership’s owner has been struggling to grapple with an immense load of debt.
Read MoreI was always taught that there’s no shame in asking a question. Sometimes you should Google the answers to simple ones, but other times, it’s actually very helpful to have someone with knowledge walk you through a more complicated concept. It beats making up some crap and then being very, very wrong.
Read MoreWe Americans love how the inside of a new car smells. It’s scented like hot plastic and straight-from-the-factory glues. Mmmm. But consumers in China do not. And because our country is terrible now, and China is comparatively not, Ford is working on a way to eliminate the old standby of New Car Smell.
Read MoreIt’s been forty years since the Lamborghini Espada was on the market, and now a successor to the four-seater GT coupe has been teased by the brand’s CEO due for the middle of the next decade.
Read MoreEven in the current unpredictability of our news cycle, I don’t think anyone could’ve fathomed a reality where we’d wake up to headlines that Carlos Ghosn—the ruthless turnaround artist who saved Nissan from the brink nearly 20 years ago and united it with Renault and then Mitsubishi—would be arrested on charges of financial misconduct and soon to be ousted from his roles at the conglomerate. It is a shocking and ignominious end to one of the most powerful figures in the modern automotive indust
Read MoreMaserati has not been hot for awhile, despite a brief glimmer of hope when the Maserati Levante crossover was introduced a couple of years ago. It’s a problem FCA’s new CEO Mike Manley claims was caused by an identity crisis, and now he wants to give the brand the focus it deserves.
Read MoreNissan chairman Carlos Ghosn has been arrested and might face expulsion after Nissan says that he reportedly used company money for personal expenses and other “serious acts of misconduct.”
Read MoreThe scale of California’s fires are beyond anything of living memory, and new photos of The Snake, that infamously crash-prone section of the Mulholland Highway, look like they were taken on another planet.
Read MoreI remember when I drove a Toyota Corolla. I was supposed to judge it. The car judged me instead.
Read MoreWhen you’re born to a notable suffragette mother and an activist father, there’s a good chance you’re going to grow up with something of an independent streak, despite being an early twentieth century gal. When they tell you that learning to drive will be of a benefit to you, chances are, you’ll learn. Such was the case with the prodigious Margaret Allan.
Read MoreThere’s plenty to criticize about the British rule in India, but I think I’ve found its most redeemable factor. I’d like to introduce you to the 1910 Brooke Swan Car, designed by a very wealthy engineer named Robert Nicholl “Scotty” Matthewson. It is absurd. It is hilarious. It is the only thing I ever want to drive for the rest of my life.
Read MoreLet me set the scene for you: it’s the first snow of the year in a suburb outside of Philadelphia. Thick, wet flakes have been piling up all morning—and no one was ready for it. Schools closed, work ended early, and suddenly everyone was on the road trying to get home. Including me. A Texan freshly planted in the northeast.
Read MoreChange happens fast. You blink your eyes and the next thing you know, ten years have passed and you’ve swapped your sports car dreams for a daily driver that will most efficiently get you from home to work and back again.
Read MoreThe new Mercedes-Benz GLE can dance, probably better than you can. You, rather proud of your moves that only the walls of your home and A-pillars of your car ever witness, are probably huffing with annoyance and wondering why this matters in the first place, waiting for a chance to change the subject.
Read MoreWe’re well into the age of appreciating rad cars and the Jaguar XJ220 was one of the raddest ones ever built. Know what’s really, really unrad, though? Buying a set of new tires for the thing.
Read MoreWhat’s interesting about the road-legal Lamborghini SC18 is not just that it’s a new one-off from Lambo, it’s the first one-off road car from the company’s racing arm, Squadra Corse. That and, well, look at it.
Read MoreIrv Gordon, the man from Long Island who broke the Guinness World Record for highest vehicle mileage on a single vehicle when the Volvo P1800 he’s owned since new passed three million miles in 2013, has died at 77.
Read MoreFor as long as I can remember, the Toyota Avalon was the car equivalent of taking a nice nap on a Sunday afternoon. It was soft, cushy, boring and ideal for grandparents who loved their Buicks but got sick of the ’90s General Motors quality. It was one of those cars that, given its demographic, was likely to be the last car someone would ever own. But the world is a different place now and the sedan market is desperate to stay relevant, so here’s a damn Toyota Avalon TRD.
Read MoreOne of the fun things about working on cars is you get to assemble a tool kit. You never knew you needed a circuit tester, but once you realize it can let you do static timing off the coil, it’s a fun thing to have around. One tool it took me a while to realize I needed was a bit less obvious.
Read MoreTuro is, in theory, brilliant. If you’re not using your car, you can rent it out to other people. Make some money on the side. If you own two cars, that’s even better. You can make twice the money, in theory. But a lot of people in Chicago are mad at one man, who rented an astounding 38 cars on Turo, and parked a whole bunch of them on one block.
Read MoreThe future of the Audi R8 is a hot mess of rumors right now, but Audi has tried to gain back a little bit of control to tell the world the R8 as we know it will only available with a V10. There will be no V6 nonsense.
Read MoreWith more than a million vehicles crossing per year, the George Washington Bridge linking Manhattan with New Jersey is supposedly the busiest motor vehicle bridge in the world. Which is why it’s interesting that as a light snow falls here in New York, it has been almost instantly rendered a “clusterfuck,” as one driver explained shooting a tractor trailer crash mid-span.
Read MoreIn theory, plug-in hybrid cars are the perfect stepping stone to shifting from internal combustion engines to fully electric cars, getting us all used to the idea of plugging in our rides instead of filling them up. But a recent report from the BBC suggests that a lot of hybrid sales in the UK came from large tax incentives, and then people just never bothered charging them.
Read MoreThe original Audi TT was one of the most un-altered, un-compromised designs to reach showrooms in the modern era. Then it killed five people.
Read MoreAfter just a few years on the market, the China-built Cadillac CT6 Plug-In Hybrid will be no more. Likely killed by new trade tariffs between the U.S. and China and probably lackluster sales, I’m not sure it will really be missed.
Read MoreFor years I have dreamed of getting a Toyota Cressida, a rear-drive four-door sedan that shared its heart with the Supra of its day. Now with the Supra coming back, done in partnership with BMW, I have to wonder: The new four-door Toyota Supra is the BMW M340i, right?
Read More“She’s not much to look at,” I would often remark about the 1970 BMW 2500 that Raphael Orlove and I just drove from one coast to another, “but she’s tough as nails.” If you ask me, the best old cars aren’t the perfect garage queens. They’re the ones that can get the job of driving done and are fun to boot.
Read MoreSpa-Francorchamps has many well-known corners. Eau Rouge you likely know. But the one that prompts a reflexive wriggle against the harness straps on approach is Pouhon, a downhill, fourth-gear left-hander round the back of the circuit. It’s probably just a lift but I’ll confess to a confidence dab before committing. Both actions have the same, butt-clenching effect of making the back end go light at around 90 mph, just as the full corner reveals itself.
Read MoreThe $70,000 electric Jaguar I-Pace crossover made up nearly 10 percent of Jaguar’s total sales in October, according to reports. That’s a pretty huge piece of the pie chart for a new, expensive, all-electric luxury vehicle, in a world where a lot of people want more efficient cars but a small fraction are currently buying them.
Read MoreThe first official photos of the Aston Martin DBX are out, confirming the upcoming sports crossover’s name and hinting at a funky, hunky and definitely polarizing look that will probably rake in tons of cash.
Read MoreOnce you start really thinking about it, the Star Wars universe is a pretty grim place. Not only is the entire galaxy always seemingly mired in a destructive, pervasive war, but there’s dramatic levels of income inequality, extreme poverty, and, perhaps worst of all, widespread slavery of sentient beings. Even with this rich background of suffering and general shittiness, there’s one fact about the universe that is uniquely and disturbingly cruel. This quality is probably best demonstrated in a
Read MoreHyundai has officially announced that the new N performance brand has whipped the current Veloster into sporting shape, and it’s ready to go toe-to-toe in a title fight with Volkswagen’s 7th generation GTI. While the 2019 Hyundai Veloster N starts about $500 higher than the VW, at $26,900, the N offers an extra 30 horses—at 250 versus the GTI’s 220—in the stable.
Read MoreAs fun as it is doing these driving road adventures in Japan in fancy sports cars, I realize not everyone who’ll be visiting Japan will be able to drive an Aston Martin or a McLaren on the best roads this country has to offer. In fact, most of the roads I’ve been on don’t need a million horsepower or doors that go up to enjoy them.
Read MoreI spent Monday evening immersed in what’s probably now my fifth run through the entire series of The Office (U.S.), and like most superb shows or movies watched countless times, each go-around, I notice something new. Last night, my girlfriend picked up on a bit that she, nor I, ever saw before: Creed, the eccentric weirdo of the group, blogs—like me!—about cars.
Read MoreCars are complex and fascinating machines, especially now that they’re getting more and more advanced. With that in mind, you can know a lot about one aspect about a car but remain completely clueless about others. Now’s the time to ask.
Read MoreDeep breath, America. We’ve done it. We’ve survived another election cycle, and I bet everyone is pretty stoked that we aren’t going to be bombarded with political ads and commentary everywhere we look for a little while and take a breather. Right? Well—maybe not.
Read MoreThe electric scooter fiasco has been, uh, quite the entertaining one to watch. Whether it be Lime, Bird, or any of the other e-scooter situations that have resulted in mass annoyance, banning, and destruction, there have been plenty of storylines to follow. Now, there’s a new one. Namely, Lime scooters might be falling apart under their users.
Read MoreThere’s a new Regular Car Reviews video up today, which features a 1997 Volvo 850. And I am beside myself with joy. Never before has RCR hit so close to home. This is even better than the Dodge Viper review.
Read MoreAt least 31 people have died in the fires engulfing California over the past few days. Driving through it looks like trying to make an escape through hell, but it could be easy to dismiss that as some country road. But Malibu is right in Los Angeles County, and now one of those fires is running straight up to the highways.
Read MoreQuebec-based company Campagna has sold the three-wheeled Campagna T-Rex for over two decades now, but recent information from consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that the brainchild of F1 mechanic Daniel Campagna and car designer Paul Deutschman has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Read MoreCrossovers and SUVs dominate the car world now, bloating lineups like the first meal on a long-awaited vacation. But one of the few places it’s still acceptable to say a company lacks in big, bulky vehicles is with Hyundai and the eight-passenger SUV—a problem that’ll be solved with the 2020 Hyundai Palisade.
Read MoreHello, Jalopnik pals. It’s been a while. Some may have wondered what I’ve been up to since my summer internship at this glorious website ended, so I’m writing to let you know just what I’ve been doing: Being a massive, unmitigated disaster of a person. To prove it (as if you needed proof) I got a very nice, innocent press car towed last week.
Read MoreI was always skeptical of car clubs, but I wound up loving the one I found at my university. It was filled with enthusiasts and people were real nice to each other, even though the first few meet-ups were so filled with BMWs and Mitsubishi Evos that we nicknamed ourselves BMWs, Evos and Friends.
Read MoreThis is a 2.0-liter Jaguar F-Type that’s been caged and rally prepped from the factory. Jaguar claims it’s just a tribute. Seems like a waste not to compete with it, or?
Read MoreOver the past few months, many have been operating under the assumption that the upcoming pickup version of the Jeep Wrangler would be called the Scrambler. But now a “long-time trusted source” of the forums claims to have spotted a screenshot of the company’s website listing the highly anticipated pickup as the 2020 Jeep Gladiator.
Read MoreChances are, you’re not the same person you were in high school. Life comes at you fast, and suddenly you don’t even recognize that kid from all those years ago. Which inevitably means our taste in cars will change right along with us.
Read MoreHeartbreaking forest fires have been sweeping through both Northern and Southern California in what has become the most destructive fires in the state’s history. The news emerging from this disaster has been horrifying—hundreds of thousands have been evacuating the state as the fires spread, many of whom were trapped in their cars. Zoos are in danger. Mansions have been burning to the ground.
Read MoreThe Dubai police force isn’t known for holding back when it comes to transportation. Last year, they announced that they were looking at adopting functional hoverbikes as a way to cruise over tight traffic. Now, they’re already starting to train their cops with the hope that they’ll be able to fully introduce these bad boys in 2020.
Read MoreGrowing up in La Sarthe as the granddaughter of one of the founders of Le Mans, racing might seem like a predestined future. For Anny-Charlotte Verney, with an unrivalled ten straight years of competing in the 24 hour race, that certainly proved to be true—even with no immediately family competing in racing.
Read MoreHey, we haven’t done one of these since summer. Let’s fix that right now. It’s a slow Friday in November, everyone’s bracing for a cold weekend, so pull up a chair next to the campfire and we’ll talk about the cars.
Read MoreA 2017 Ford GT supercar popped up on Mecum Auctions’ website in May, but it wasn’t just its 647 horsepower or potential to sell for triple MSRP that garnered attention: It was also whether Ford would sue Mecum for selling it at all. Ford did, the day the car sold, and the lawsuit ended in a settlement this week.
Read MoreYesterday evening, I was where I usually wind up after hours: On my couch, watching movie that I’ve already seen before. The film of choice was Bruce Almighty. It’s fine, has a few funny points, but importantly, doesn’t demand your full attention. I did, however, notice whoever decided the main character’s “crappy” car should be a 1976 Datsun 280Z sure screwed up royally.
Read MoreI have to admit that while I liked it a lot when it debuted at the 2014 Paris Motor Show, I haven’t given the Audi TT Sportback Concept much thought since then. I have moved on with my life, and I assume Audi has as well—to a market that’s extremely dominated by SUVs and crossovers, specifically. But now, in order to save the TT from extinction, it may need to transform into that larger and more practical car, according to a new report.
Read MoreThe development of a new car is an extensive, years-long process that involves scores of mules, prototypes, crash test cars and more. And the three-seat, 1,035-horsepower McLaren Speedtail is a hell of a lot more complex than most cars. That’s why it’s on Albert here to make sure the Speedtail will be up to snuff in real-world conditions.
Read MoreIt should come as no surprise to you that BMW is cooking up an M8 to accompany the newly returned 8 Series. After all, ///M now colloquially stands for Money, so that’s why we need to ///M all of the things. Here are some preliminary details about it.
Read MoreIf there’s one thing that General Motors seems to love more than anything, it’s car brands. Even more than cars themselves, GM has always held a special delight for the individual marques. Remember, this is the company that somehow found shades of marketing difference between Buick and Oldsmobile for decades, the brand that came up with Saturn and Geo and Asuna all in the same few years just for the love of it all. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that there’s a GM brand I’d never heard of, b
Read MoreFaraday Future was apparently on the verge of achieving series production of its FF 91 electric crossover, but it burned through its initial investment and its main investor refused to keep paying. The company has since been forced to furlough employees as it seeks new funding, and some of those out of work are now attempting to crowdfund money to support their families as Faraday sorts its stuff out.
Read MoreSome of Volkswagen’s new electric cars will be priced at less than 20,000 euros (around $22,800), according to Reuters. That amount is somewhat less than what we heard it might be last month, when VW said they would be priced similarly to their diesel models.
Read MoreFloor mats trapping car pedals are like that nightmare you’ve had every so often since age 3, or whenever you actually began to form real memories (personally, I can’t recall big life events before sixth grade). Anyway, it’s back: Fiat Chrysler is recalling certain 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokees for the ol’ sticky accelerator.
Read MoreEvery time we write about the mid-engine 2020 Corvette—and it’s been a lot lately—its price tag inevitably comes up. We at Jalopnik, like others, have speculated that this powerful and advanced sports car will carry a much heftier price tag than the current front-engine Corvette, which starts around $55,000 and goes all the way up to the $130,000-ish ZR1. Then come the emails.
Read MoreMazda just confirmed that the new Mazda 3, with its fancy Spark Controlled Compression Ignition Engine called Skyactiv-X, will debut at the LA Auto Show in about three weeks. And it will be a mild hybrid, according to Automotive News Europe.
Read MoreRecently, I was down in Puebla, Mexico for the Final Edition of the Volkswagen Beetle, even though I don’t really believe it’s final at all. Puebla is significant to Beetle-fetishists because the Puebla plant built Beetles (or, as they’re called in Mexico, Vochos) from 1967 until the (real, air-cooled) Beetle’s end in 2004. This makes Puebla like the Wolfsburg of the Americas, and, even though they haven’t been built or sold for almost 15 years, there’s still plenty of old Vochos buzzing around
Read MoreI was walking to work the other day, as the cold sunshine cast shadows from the scaffolding above 16th street. Wait, I realized. What is going to happen first: The base VW Golf will only be available as an electric car, or the base GTI will have 300 horsepower?
Read MoreThe new BMW M8 is coming soon, so you just have to drive it around the Nürburgring a bunch to make sure it’s as good as anyone who’s been dreaming of an M8 since 1990 expects it to be. Sometimes you may have to push Lamoborghinis out of the way.
Read MoreI guess you could sort of think of Autobianchi as Fiat’s cooler sibling who went to art school and always dressed way, way better than you. Autobianchi never really built all that many cars, either models or sheer volume, but what they did make was almost always striking, like this short-lived little charmer, the Stellina. Which seems to have an engine in a box, in the trunk.
Read MoreIf there’s one thing I hope you learn from reading A Car Nerd’s Guide to Japan, it’s that there’s never a shortage of car-related events in this country. The regular meets and events make it the ideal melting pot for this unique car scene to grow and evolve. It’s almost hard to keep up with everything going on here and makes it harder to figure out which events to attend. But when I heard Speeedhunters was throwing a show at at Fuji Speedway, I didn’t hesitate putting it on the calendar for Octo
Read MoreFor years, House McLaren has been desolate, empty and barren of anything closely resembling couture. It is uncouth and tacky to turn up at your niece’s clarinet recital wearing a McLaren-branded racing polo. Thankfully, that’s about to change.
Read MoreThe world was a very different place back during the height of the Cold War. America had a very clear, uncomplicated rival in the Soviet Union, but our relationship with the USSR wasn’t one that always demanded seriousness and fear. Sometimes, goofy versions of our sworn enemies could be trotted out to help sell cars. Which seems to be what’s happening here, with this strange little film from Lincoln.
Read MoreThere are always some growing pains in the first year of a new model and the new 2019 Ram 1500 pickup is no exception. It turns out that Fiat Chrysler accidentally gave some of the trucks what appears to be a backseat tribal tattoo. While this may be a hit with a certain portion of their buyers, it appears that it is a mistake due to mismatched materials.
Read MoreWe are spoiled by today’s Alfa Romeo. We enjoy the messy but incredible Quadrifoglio, and people seem to even like that crossover thing called the Stelvio it’s selling, too. And while the 4C officially brought the beautiful brand back to the U.S. in 2013, it was the gorgeous 8C Competizione back in 2007 that really launched the modern Alfa Romeo renaissance.
Read MoreSoon Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi, and Fiat Chrysler will be putting a new crossover on sale. What’s weird is that they’re all the same exact car. And none of them designed it. But where they will be selling it gives a bit of a clue why all this is happening.
Read MoreCar clubs, especially in a high school or college setting, can be a godsend. Generally, they give us car people a place to hang out with other car people without boring all the normal people stupid with all our car talk. Tell me about your club.
Read MoreThere’s no way for me to be cynical about this: The new 2019 Lincoln Aviator will not just be a rather handsome iteration of the innumerable crossovers on today’s market, but it will also be debuting a plainly wonderful little gimmick when it debuts at the LA Auto Show. Various chimes for the car will be from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
Read MoreAdmit it: I, a Chevrolet Malibu, am not a car that you ever found yourself thinking terribly much about. In your mind, I exist as a four-door appliance—a car that is so, well, car that nothing about me ever catches your attention. This is where you are sadly wrong. Others, who are not so immune to greatness, have taken notice. It’s time you did, too.
Read MoreStunt double for Lynda Carter on Wonder Woman. Holder of speed records galore. Trained musician. Olympic potential. These are just a few ways you could describe Kitty O’Neil, one of the most daring women in history, who died over the weekend in Eureka, South Dakota.
Read MoreYou know boutique and high-end supercar maker Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus as the guys who make the batshit-looking stuff like the SGC 003S and 004S. And the team is looking to expand production. Today, the company revealed that it’s very close to purchasing a new factory space in Danbury, Connecticut.
Read MoreThis past weekend was the Hachimaru (eight-zero) Meeting at Fuji Speedway, for 1980s cars and anything else Radwood-era. I poked around on a few tags on Instagram when I found the image above, and my mind has been blown since.
Read MoreSPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA—Textiles used to dominate this part of South Carolina, which locals call the Upstate. But after the textile industry went overseas, BMW came in and built its biggest car factory in the world, bringing back prosperity in the process. But for more than a few voters and public officials in the area, many of whom could have their livelihood threatened by a trade war BMW has warned about, President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs aren’t much of a concern—for now.
Read MoreToday Audi announced that it is putting “partial matting into volume production,” with an option to get small patch of the Q2 crossover in a matte paint. I was going to make fun of it for being like, 10 years too late to matte paint being daring, but I am over the moon with how much Audi loves this stuff.
Read MoreThe next-generation 992 Porsche 911 is coming, and to keep people excited, Porsche is showing off pictures of some of the torture testing now underway before the car’s European launch early next year. Here’s a look at what Germany’s most legendary sports car has to go through before hitting dealerships.
Read MoreEveryone has one of these, a person in their lives who they are absolutely terrified to drive with. This person could be a friend, a family member, a coworker. Or maybe it’s you!
Read MoreWe know Cadillac is going through a bit of a reorganization at the moment, as it tries to walk back all the #brand stuff former CEO Johan de Nysschen has done over the last few years to focus on SUVs and crossovers. But this image sent to us of an alleged Cadillac key fob is absolutely bewildering as to what kind of car they could be planning.
Read MoreThat is, oddly enough, not an awesome-look mashup of a bus and a TIE fighter pilot from Star Wars. It’s the Nikola Tre, and it’s a hydrogen-powered semi with up to 1,000 horsepower, up to 2,000 pound-feet of torque, and a range of over 700 miles, meant to take on the Tesla Semi and every other truck.
Read MoreCount me among those disappointed that the all-new 2019 BMW 3 Series won’t have a manual gearbox option except on the garbage-spec European editions. Yes, I know the business case was nearly impossible to make, and that the ZF eight-speed automatic in it is hard to argue with. But dammit, won’t somebody think of the used market? My depreciation dreams matter too, BMW!
Read MoreGM has seen the writing on the wall. They’re acutely aware that cars are not, and likely cannot be, the future of mobility. Cities are getting more crowded by the day, wages are stagnant, we’ve heard it all before. For people in those large cities, perhaps a small foldable electric bike is the lower-cost future, and GM wants to be there if and when it happens.
Read MoreSometimes a lifelong car collecting hobby begins with the innocuous purchase of a 1:64th scale Hot Wheels die cast at the grocery store. I remember my first Hot Wheels, and I’ve owned literally thousands of the little things in my lifetime. Now, if you have Forza Motorsport 7 or Forza Horizon 4, you can collect them in the virtual world as well with the Hot Wheels expansion pack.
Read MoreIt might be a bit controversial to say this, but SEMA is actually good. Yes, there are plenty of bad things about SEMA, like the hundreds of truck-nut bro-dozer trucks too tall to get into without a ladder. It’s overcrowded, it’s way too big, and it’s in Las Vegas, which should automatically disqualify it from being good. And yet, somehow I walked away from the trade show this year feeling sort of good about it.
Read MoreUpon learning of the McLaren Speedtail’s flexible carbon fiber rear ailerons, I shot off a couple of emails to McLaren to learn more about how and why its engineers pulled this off. Here’s what I learned.
Read MoreLike many, I’m a fan of David Lynch and his strange, often disturbing movies that manage to turn mundane experiences terrifying, and make terrifying experiences unsettling and baffling. You’d think Lynch, talented as he is, would be a strange choice for a car commercial, but once-bold Nissan was willing to give it a shot.
Read MoreIt’s 1971, and America looks like it’s getting, well, boring. Yeah, yeah, we were in the thick of anti-Vietnam protesting, Black Power movements, feminist resistance, and the drug craze. The music was great and the cars looked incredible. But for automotive enthusiasts, things weren’t quite so great. Ralph Nader was calling for safety behind the wheel, and it looked like the Jack Kerouac road trip adventure dream was about to be a thing of the past. Enter: the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shinin
Read MoreIndyCar fans know the name. Former racer turned race analyst Paul Tracy is potentially seeing the consequences of some very ugly, loose-lipped social media posts. After a particularly threatening Facebook comment, Tracy is now under investigation by NBC.
Read MoreShe was raised on the scent of racing. Daughter of an automotive engineer and the youngest of five very competitive children, Maria Teresa de Filippis didn’t set out to change the face of racing—but change it she did.
Read MoreI know that Halloween is over, but I came across this press release from Porsche during a hunt for news this afternoon and I just needed to share because it is simply too over-the-top for me not to. In short, Porsche took a travel blogger vampire hunting.
Read MoreIt’s been almost seven years since Saab fizzled out of existence, bouncing around between GM, Spyker, and bankruptcy filings. Most of us already view the company as some sort of nostalgic icon of quirky style, despite most of its final cars being low-effort, badge-engineered blobs thanks to General Motors. But it’s worth it to revisit the last Saab 9-5 and see if there was really anything there to miss.
Read MorePanoz, the small Georgia manufacturer of low-volume sports cars but maybe better known for its racing legacy, has laid off some of its engineering and maintenance staff as part of what it’s calling “restructuring efforts.”
Read MoreIf you study the sleek, shark-looking supercar above, you’d think that it’d have absolutely nothing in common with an early 2000s Mercedes-Benz sedan like I’ve got, save for maybe the three-pointed star they both wear. But, as it turns out, the Mercedes SLR McLaren shares an extremely vital part of its makeup with my humble daily, which basically means I’m God now.
Read MoreA while back, I met the Jalopnik crew out for drinks. I approached Justin Westbrook—president of the Jalopnik Movie Club—and asked him why he hadn’t written about what I called (and what the world should know as) “the greatest car movie of all time.” He asked me what movie I was referring to. “Duel, of course,” I answered.
Read MoreWe saw the leaked press photos on Wednesday, but here it is: The 2019 BMW 8 Series convertible. Same pretty face as the hardtop, same pretty lines, just no roof. I’m not usually one for convertibles, but this one is quite, quite nice.
Read More“Whoosh” I hear as a car drives past. I glance over, and see the tail end of a handsome orphan SUV: a Pontiac Torrent. I give it a slight head nod out of respect. It applies its brake lights in return. The Torrent is a boring car in some ways, but it and I have an understanding.
Read MoreToday we welcome the new special edition Aston Martin DBS 59. With production limited of 24 examples, the car comes with classic forest green paint, gold badging and... wait, where have I seen this before? Oh right, my friend’s dad’s mid-’90s Infiniti i30 with a bike rack on the back.
Read MoreI was today years old when I found out that there’s a new Will Smith animated film called Spies in Disguise coming out next year. The trailer is iffy, but at least there’s an awesome Audi supercar in it to gawk at.
Read MoreGas prices hit a record high in 2004 of all of $1.738 a gallon. It is no surprise, then, that Suzuki did not choose to federalize the Suzuki Swift for sale here in America. No surprise, sure, but still an open gash in my heart, a wound that has not healed.
Read MoreThe glory days of hipster Williamsburg are long gone, the Manhattan money having moved in years ago. But the old cars are still hanging around the Brooklyn neighborhood, and they’re surprisingly cool.
Read MoreLook at the picture above. That’s the dream. Your beautiful old car, out in some picturesque corner of the world, far from the rest of everything, idling perfectly, running great. I’m here to tell you that you don’t get that photo unless your car is dinged, scratched, and torn.
Read MoreTeens! They’re fascinating to study and often terrifying behind the wheel of a car. But learning to drive is a rite of passage, so many parents want to get the safest cars possible for their new drivers. It could be a daunting task, but don’t worry, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has it covered. And—shocker—they do not recommend teens get cars with a lot of power.
Read MoreI think what contributes most to contemporary supercars’ presence today is their sheer size. They’re not especially tall, but, man, are they long and freaking wide. You can especially see how they’ve grown when you see a ‘90s supercar like the Bugatti EB110 next to a regular car like the Audi A4.
Read MoreNo, it was never a thought in my mind that the 2019 McLaren Speedtail could be vaporware, but it is nice to see it out of a photo studio and not as a glossy press picture. Here it is, driving under its own power, out of McLaren’s headquarters in Woking.
Read MoreThis past Sunday, a group of Jeep enthusiasts came to the aid of Panama City, Florida couple Dereck and Andrea Clifton, whose prized possessions were left scattered inside their upside down house. The Cilftons home had been knocked onto its roof three weeks ago by Hurricane Michael’s brutal 150 mph winds. The Jeep club’s members hooked their winches to the Cliftons’ house, and pulled. And pulled. And pulled. The resulting video is remarkable.
Read MorePerhaps it is that Audi wept, for there was no more front end to grille. Maybe it finally saw sense after the Camaro and Avalon came out with all-grille faces. Either way, it looks like the age of the expanding Audi grille has come to an end.
Read MoreThere’s a new Kia Soul coming, and even if the front end has a face with an expression that looks like it’s imitating that Fry meme, it’s still quite striking-looking and refreshingly not like everything else rolling around on the road today. Even better, Kia announced an EV version that should potentially have an impressive range of around 240 miles! Unfortunately, Kia currently only sells their electric cars in a very limited selection of states. This is crazy. Kia could eat the Nissan Leaf’s
Read MoreRimac wiped the slate clean when it approached the engineering of its second-generation electric supercar, the Rimac C Two, focusing on efficiency and aerodynamics to achieve its incredible claimed zero to 60 mph time of just 1.85 seconds and top speed of 258 mph.
Read MoreYears from now, whether that be five or 500, when this formerly green Earth is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, in a perpetual state of nuclear winter to remind us all of where we went wrong as a human population, us commoners will be huddled around fires, reminiscing of the old days. And the rich, well, they’ll be driving these.
Read MoreI’ve offered some very correct opinions in the past about the best ways to listen to music while behind the wheel, and while I won’t tell you that record players were a smart addition to vehicles, I wish I could experience it at least once.
Read MoreFloormats are stupid. They’re stupid because they have repeatedly caused life-threatening situations that force carmakers to do recalls for a component that’s as complex as a carpet sample, and because the very existence of floormats is a tacit admission that the materials used in car interiors are all wrong. Floormats only exist because car flooring materials are broken. It’s time we all admitted this.
Read MoreLast week, I tracked down an explanation for why the glass roof on the Tesla Model 3 looks vibrantly orange under certain conditions, and one of our readers brought up something else that was interesting. Evidently the Subaru SVX had different colored window tint depending on the car’s interior, so I decided to track that down, too.
Read MoreAs the economy picked back up after World War II, so did imagination. Everywhere you looked, auto manufacturers and just your Regular Joes were designing some pretty outrageous machines that seem wild to us even today. One of those incredible futuristic-yet-somehow-retro-classic cars was the 1948 Tasco Prototype.
Read MoreEver since it’s been building cars, Suzuki has dominated the perfect little all-wheel drive vehicle market. There’s the Sidekick, the Samurai, the forbidden Jimny and more recently the Xbee. Small cars were (are) Suzuki’s thing—but they turned out to not be most American consumers’ thing. But the 1987 Suzuki RT-1 concept is so perfectly batshit crazy, I feel like it could have been.
Read MoreThere’s something bittersweet about looking at the last car an automotive manufacturer put together. Behind all those metal curves and hopefully-this-sticks innovations, you can almost see the vain hope that this will rejuvenate the company, that this will be the thing that manages to bring them back from the brink of destruction. It’s something you can definitely see lingering in the bodywork of the 1958 Spohn DV-13 convertible.
Read MoreThere’s one particular bridge in Durham, North Carolina that’s something of a celebrity around these parts. Despite the best intentions of local officials to warn drivers about it, people keep slamming into this 11-foot 8-inch high railroad truss, affectionately known as the Can Opener Bridge. The bridge claimed its latest victim earlier this month, as we can see on to 11foot8.com.
Read MoreOpen wheel racing can be a terrifying sport full of near-misses, but there’s a good chance that Indy 500 champion and former Formula One driver Alexander Rossi has never experienced anything quite as terrifying as a potentially terrible crash within the first fifty miles of the Baja 1000.
Read MoreEverybody, everybody, look at your calendar! See what day it is? It’s the 8nd of November! Sorry, the 8st of November! That’s 11/8. You know what else is eleven-eight? The infamous 11 foot, 8 inch bridge in Durham, NC, and it’s recently claimed another victim: this big camping trailer’s rooftop A/C unit, and this time there’s some good screaming involved.
Read MoreIf you’ve ever been pulled over for speeding on a good road, in good weather, with good driving conditions and wondered if it was really worth it for the cop to pull you over, then you should watch this video, which very dramatically shows a situation where pulling over a speeder was decidedly not worth it. At all. In fact, it cost this cop his car, and, probably, some of his dignity.
Read MoreLuxury lifestyle outlet Robb Report took to Napa Valley this weekend for its 2018 Car of the Year testing, but according to news reports and social media accounts, it ended badly for all involved. Five people were injured in one crash, and another apparent wreck trashed a Ferrari 812 Superfast. Update: The Ford apparently wasn’t part of the testing.
Read MoreThere’s nothing more frustrating—and terrifying—than following all the rules of the road, only to get slammed by someone who has conveniently forgotten that red means ‘stop’ and green means ‘go’. An Audi driver in Kazan unfortunately got to experience this first-hand.
Read MoreA lonely stretch of desert highway. You’ve gone off the road, and plunged 50 feet. When the car finally comes to a rest, it’s still suspended in the air, stuck in a mesquite tree. You have no food. You have no water. There is no help. That was the nightmare endured by a 53-year-old Arizona woman a few weeks ago.
Read MoreNow that Polestar is technically its own brand separate from Volvo, you may be wondering if its cars will meet the same ridiculously good safety standards that Volvo has come to be known for. Well the Polestar 1 crash test proves that yes, yes they do.
Read MoreA suspected car thief in Oregon endured the worst of all possible fates: while attempting to jack a vehicle, he somehow managed to get run over by that very car. I’m not sure if it’s more impressive or hilarious, but it is most definitely both.
Read MoreTennessee resident Joe C. Shelton Jr. was driving a Nissan GT-R supercar to work Tuesday morning when a chunk of concrete came through his windshield, hit him in the face and sent his car crashing into a pickup and guardrail, killing him, Nashville police said in a statement later in the day. He was 54 years old.
Read MoreIt’s bright yellow with stripes and stickers and patches of primer. It’s got a Olds Toronado 455 cubic inch big block mounted in the bed with chrome zoomies sticking out the back. If you’ve seen the Roadkill “Mazdarati” Mazda REPU in person, you’re not soon to forget it. Which is why it’s so freaking stupid that some thieves decided to jack the truck from the Roadkill dudes.
Read MorePerhaps you recall a few weeks back when the suspect alleged to have sent all those bombs to Trump-detractors in the mail was captured, and if you remember that, then you likely remember what he drove: exactly as you suspect, it was a white van plastered with crazy conspiracy shit. Well, guess what, American citizens! That’s our crazy-ass van now!
Read MoreSeason three of The Grand Tour returns to Amazon Prime members on Jan. 18, 2019. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. There’s a brand-new trailer for it too, which dropped today.
Read MoreImagine a Ford Focus RS and its EcoBoost turbo 2.3-liter inline-four, and then tear away the rest of the car and pop the motor in a super lightweight racing convertible that’s barely street legal in Europe.
Read MoreTop Gear host Chris Harris and a Top Gear magazine executive were uninjured after the Porsche 911 GT3 Touring they were in crashed into the side of a pickup truck that was reportedly attempting a three-point turn in the road.
Read MoreYou’ve seen all the 2020 Jeep Gladiator’s sheetmetal. It’s pretty. But who cares about that; what we want to see is the hardware, and while much of it is common with the Jeep Wrangler JL, there’s plenty that isn’t. Let’s take a dive under this beast.
Read MoreThe 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show ended up having a pretty sweet combination of enticing future tech, good old-fashioned ‘Murican iron and some stuff that was a little bit of both. Not to mention a healthy dose of practical cars that don’t suck. Here’s a rundown of what to get excited about.
Read MoreNear the top of any car enthusiast’s list of most lustworthy engine types sits the Wankel rotary. So when I had a chance to talk with Mazda’s vice president of R&D and design Masashi Otsuka at the LA Auto Show, I had to see what the company was up to in the spinning-dorito-space. What he told me is that there’s a chance that tech from the “Holy Grail” Skyactiv-X engine could make its way into a rotary.
Read MoreThe 2020 Porsche 911 is out and so are its dimensions. Mostly. And guess what? It’s larger and heavier than the outgoing model. Because of this, I believe that the 911 should no longer receive the performance-oriented RS models. Before you start screeching, let me walk you through it.
Read MoreWhen the 2019 Mazda 3 officially dropped earlier this week, we fell for its pretty face immediately, the fact that it will be offered with a manual and have all-wheel drive. And, like nearly all of you, I got to looking at the rear of the hatch version and paused. That massive C-pillar is, uh, problematic and I suspected immediately that it would massively hinder visibility. And I was freaking right.
Read MoreThe 2020 Porsche 911 online configurator is live, which means you can now happily lose about half an hour of your day browsing through options for your new, theoretical Carrera S or Carrera 4S.
Read MoreThe 2019 Mazda 3 debuted at the LA Auto Show this week, proving automakers do still care about enthusiasts, sedans aren’t dead yet, and designers can still make weird, bold cars. But if you thought you could get over the glaring C-pillar on the hatch if maybe, just maybe, a Mazdaspeed version came along, you’re out of luck.
Read MoreI can’t believe I’m saying this, but Hyundai is introducing A Real Big Boy. We’re talking Huge. Long. Thicc-with-two-C’s. The 2020 Hyundai Palisade is coming, and oh baby, it’s gonna be Hyundai’s biggest vehicle yet.
Read MoreThe 2020 Kia Soul is now in its third generation, a fun and practical if not exactly Sporty subcompact crossover that will go on sale next year. It’s for the sensible consumer with taste, someone who wants something that’s reliable and looks cool and that isn’t a Chevy Trax. Kia unveiled it this afternoon in L.A.
Read MoreThe 2020 Jeep Gladiator pickup is here, and now many folks are likely wondering: “What’s this thing going to look like when I jack it up and throw on big tires?” Here’s the answer.
Read MoreThe 2020 Audi E-Tron GT Concept electric sedan is finally completely uncovered, showing off a stunning design and boasting 590 horsepower, an electric range of 248 miles, and a recharge time to 80 percent capacity in just 20 minutes with the same 800-volt system from the upcoming Porsche Taycan.
Read MoreThe new 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT R Pro has no more power than standard, but weight-reducing carbon fiber and big aero help make it the most hardcore version of the SLS-successor yet.
Read MoreGet ready for more intensity, both on the track and in how hard you have to concentrate to say the model name in the correct order, because Porsche just announced its newest track machine: The 700-horsepower, limited-run Porsche 911 GT2 RS Clubsport, yours for track use only and a base MSRP of $478,000.
Read MoreThe last time Jeep offered a pickup truck, Lee Iacocca was CEO. Over the 26 years since, enthusiasts clamoring for a Jeep with a bed have been let down by Chrysler Corporation, DaimlerChrysler AG, Chrysler LLC, Chrysler Group LLC, and FCA US LLC. But now the wait is over. The 2020 Jeep Gladiator is here, and it is glorious. Here’s what we know about the long-awaited Jeep truck.
Read MoreI’m so glad that Lincoln is moving away from its awful, alpha-numeric naming system. It makes the cars easier to identify and gives it an opportunity to pick some cool names. The 2020 Lincoln Aviator is armed with epic nomenclature, smooth, clean lines and an impressive 450 horsepower. These are all good things.
Read MoreThough a pioneer of electrification, the Toyota Prius has had a rough go as of late. With gas cheap and definitely staying that way forever (*wink, wink*) Americans have moved full-force into big SUVs and trucks and away from hybrids and other smaller, more efficient cars. But the updated-for-2019 Prius has a new trick up its sleeve that may help somewhat: all-wheel drive, and done in a clever way.
Read MoreThe longstanding joke is that Porsche doesn’t ever really change the 911, and they all look kind of the same. Certainly some visual cues are retained with each generation, and it’s always been a four seater with the engine slung out back and bulgy fenders. But this new 2020 Porsche 911, called 992 by the cognoscenti, looks so similar to the current 991 that I’m not entirely positive Porsche isn’t pulling a large-scale gas lighting operation.
Read MoreThe new, 2019 Mazda 3 isn’t just another sleek compact car (which we desperately need in today’s market). It also now comes packed with Mazda’s very fancy spark-controlled compression ignition engine, called the Skyactiv-X. And also a manual transmission! Praise the Lord!
Read MoreA body-on-frame truck? Too much. A plump crossover? Too little. What you want is something in between. Something that’s got a unibody, front- (or available all-wheel) drive, and independent suspension, but also short overhangs and some good off-road modes for the muddy bits. Enter the 2019 Honda Passport.
Read MoreThe new, 2019 Mazda 3 isn’t just another sleek compact car (which we desperately need in today’s market). It also now comes packed with Mazda’s very fancy spark-controlled compression ignition engine, called the Skyactiv-X.
Read MoreIf you weren’t into the Rivian R1T—an all-electric pickup truck from an American startup with up to 400 miles of range and quirky features like a frunk and cubby holes—then you’re just no fun. Time will tell if Michigan-based Rivian’s the real deal or more vaporware, but as of today it has more than just the truck on offer. Meet the R1T’s more practical cousin, the seven-seat R1S SUV. I’m into it.
Read MorePorsche has yet to officially reveal the new 2020 Porsche 911, saving it for this week’s LA Auto Show, but they’ve gone ahead and uploaded a video of Mark Webber driving it without camouflage on its website, so here’s that.
Read MoreVolkswagen’s I.D. Buzz Cargo concept is making its auto show debut in Los Angeles this week and, in many ways, it answers a question the market has been asking for some time now: Why shouldn’t cargo vans all be electrics?
Read MoreInstead of just waiting for the official reveal tomorrow, we now have official photos of the camouflaged 2020 Audi E-Tron GT electric sportback sedan from the automaker. If you wanted an electric Audi A7, it looks like we’re getting it.
Read MoreThere’s a few new teaser images of the upcoming 2020 Audi E-Tron GT due to be fully revealed at the LA Auto Show this week, which is based on the Porsche Taycan and previews a slightly different German challenger to the Tesla Model S.
Read MoreThe 2020 Kia Soul is due to be revealed later this week at the LA Auto Show, but Kia’s been teasing the heck out of it and now an anonymous tipster has sent us photos of what looks to be the real deal, and let me tell you something—it ain’t bad.
Read MoreLike a lot of electric car startups, Rivian has been something of a mystery. With just 560 employees, the Plymouth, Michigan-based company bought a former Mitsubishi factory in Normal, Illinois last year but has kept itself largely under wraps—until now. After years of working in the shadows, Rivian is debuting its all-electric pickup truck, the R1T, as well as itself as a company, today on the world stage. And if Rivian can pull this off, it could do for trucks what Tesla did for luxury sedans.
Read MoreHonda sold two generations of Passport SUV from 1993 until 2002, both rebadged versions of the Isuzu Rodeo, both built in Lafayette, Indiana. It was a successful venture for Honda, as the company moved hundreds of thousands of the mid-sized runabout. Honda has announced that the nameplate, dead for 16 years, will be revived for a new model to fit between the CR-V and Pilot, ready for launch this Tuesday at the LA Auto Show.
Read MoreWe’ve seen plenty of photos of the new 2019 Porsche 911 (also known by its internal designation code, the Porsche 992) mule running around, but these appear to be the official press photos of the car, leaked ahead of the official debut at the Los Angeles Auto Show next week.
Read MoreThe Kia Soul is a good car. It’s practical, it’s boxy, it’s weird, and while it’s hardly a hot hatch or an enthusiast’s car, it can be pretty fun to drive under the right circumstances. That’s why I’m glad Kia didn’t second-generation-Scion-xB the Soul, and appear to be sticking with what works for this new one.
Read MoreAs we move into this era of “mobility” and “autonomy” and “people favoring screens over going and doing stuff” (which is understandable when the screens have better resolutions than your actual eyesight), automakers are ditching auto shows. Auto shows are so yesterday, in fact, that Volvo’s attending the one in LA later this month for the sole purpose of displaying nothing.
Read MoreGenesis has been getting a lot right lately, mostly with the manual-optioned Genesis G70 sedan we’re kind of obsessed about. But this year, the company will focus on its bigger car at the LA Auto Show, the facelifted Genesis G90—photos of which seem to have leaked early.
Read MoreIt’s lower, wider, and it’s got a legitimate amount of oomph. Call me crazy but I’m genuinely jazzed about this all-new, 169-horsepower, 2020 Toyota Corolla sedan.
Read MoreJust ahead of the upcoming LA Auto Show at the end of the month, BMW has revealed the 2020 BMW M340i and the all-wheel drive M340i xDrive. It’s now the fastest non-M3 production 3 Series, but unlike the current 340i, the new one devastatingly loses the 6-speed manual.
Read MoreThis Honda Civic rallycross racer will zoom away to sixty MPH in about 2 seconds. It’s got a spec sheet that will slay almost anything else on the SEMA floor with 700 horsepower, 850 ft.-lb of torque, four wheel drive, four wheel steering, brake regeneration, and tailpipe emissions that exceed the 2025 EPA standards. The Civic, dubbed “Deep Orange 9" has a supercharged K20 engine in the back and a 200-horsepower battery-electric motor in the front. This isn’t a project built by Honda engineers t
Read MoreI zoomed in on the press photos. I scanned them carefully. I even hit command + F on my keyboard for the word “denim” in the press release. No dice. How is this a proper custom Lincoln Black Label Navigator for Jay Leno, then, if it has no damn denim anywhere on it?
Read MoreAmazingly, the Toyota Camry was offered with a manual in America up until the end of 2011.
Read MoreI love car collectables. I have diecast race cars all over my office, and I once found this $50 clock shaped like a steering wheel on clearance for $11. I brag about it to this day. But some collectables are totally perplexing to me, like this solid-gold miniature 2006 Ford GT model.
Read MoreThis is like that time I saw the perfect pair of suede boots but didn’t buy them because I lack the closet space. Except instead of boots, it’s a first-generation Dodge Viper, and rather than lack of space, now it’s a lack of money. Booooo.
Read MoreHere in America, we’re not allowed to have nice cars from overseas until they pass their 25th birthday, supposedly all in the name of safety. But we do have Local Motors, who built the awesome Rally Fighter. The problem is that it was almost six figures, but now there’s a budget version.
Read MoreDeLoreans have achieved a near-mythical status as a pop culture icon and with car enthusiasts alike because of its gullwing doors and its role in Back to the Future. One of the coolest parts in the second movie is when the DeLorean flew through the air, but that wasn’t real. Movies tend to be fantasy, you see. But this DeLorean does fly, sort of. It hovers. It’s a hovercraft. And it’s for sale.
Read MoreI’m still currently going through a Stranger Things withdrawal. And if you’re in the same boat as me, then there might be a some relief for you in buying Barb’s 1988 Volkswagen Cabriolet.
Read MoreIf you’re like me—and God help you if you are, legitimately—you’ve browsed the website of Ohio’s Enthusiast Auto Group and said “Yeah, one day when I get on, I’m going to dump $85,000 on a pristine E36 M3 CSL, because why the hell not?” The dealer is famous for its collection of rare and wonderfully well-kept old BMWs. Now, if you’ve got a little over $2 million burning a hole in your pocket, you can get one of the best old BMW collections I’ve ever seen in America. Or anywhere.
Read MoreMany of us feel we are living in pessimistic times at best, so it’s like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day to see some pure, unadulterated optimism. Let this Craigslist ad for a Chevy S10 suffering from a heap of problems—the least of which was temporarily being on fire—serve as a refresher for your world-weary soul.
Read MoreJohn Cena’s former 2017 Ford GT heading to auction has become the new norm, like reality got stuck somewhere along the way, on a vicious loop. It’s like popping your favorite CD from 2003 into the nearly obsolete CD player in your nearly obsolete car, hoping it won’t get stuck 30 seconds into the first song again, but it does. It always does.
Read MoreWhat’s better than the Subaru WRX? If you ask me, it’s putting the WRX’s wonderful turbo boxer engine into something that’s small and light and cool and isn’t a four-door sedan with a giant wing. I have long dreamed of swapping a WRX motor into a VW Karmann-Ghia, but this ‘Rex-swapped 1975 Dino 308GT4 for sale on Chicago Craigslist may be an even better idea.
Read MoreHaving started life as a red Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 with gorgeous Pininfarina bodywork, this chassis was delivered to its first owner in the U.S. through Luigi Chinetti’s dealer looking very different than it does now. When that first owner traded in the 1965 model two years in, Chinetti didn’t want just a regular used model sitting on his showroom floor. Working with an American pen, Bob Peak, new coachwork was drawn up for Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale to turn into metal.
Read MoreWhen Canada hosted the G7 political summit earlier this summer, someone thought it was a good idea to buy hundreds of brand-new 3.6-liter V6 2018 Chrysler 300s, Chevy Suburbans and others. Now Canada is selling them off with holes in the bumpers, low mileage and pretty good prices.
Read MoreFor the past 17 years, the Ford-backed M-Sport World Rally Championship team has kept a fleet of Volvo S60s for crushing the toughest roads of the WRC. Now they’re all for sale.
Read MoreThere are many ways to feel about this 1980 Chevrolet Corvette listed for nearly $217,000, mainly because it doesn’t look like most other Corvettes—from its time or from any other. What you see here, friends, is a Corvette with two extra doors and ample seating for four, all for about double the base price of a 2019 Corvette ZR1.
Read MoreCar puns. Jalops live for them. Usually the puns are just a few words typed onto an internet website, but one Chevrolet Astro owner decided to build an actual, physical pun using a little bit of turf.
Read MoreI’m sorry, I know this 2009 Mercedes SLR McLaren 722S is really unique and special, but I just cannot look past the paint job. Other people on staff like it a lot, they think it’s a nice school bus shade of yellow-orange, but all I see a garish jack-o-lantern. I will attempt to look past that and tell you about it.
Read MoreFound for sale on eBay is a 1981 Eagle bus that’s been turned into an RV, and that houses a chopped-up 1972 Honda Z600 Kei Car. It’s the ultimate Japanese Kei Car escape pod for when your bus breaks down or is attacked by zombies.
Read MoreThe other day, I was sitting in the back of a new Audi A8, lounging in my heated, reclined seat and playing with the silly tablet controls as me and my friends swept through the Holland Tunnel from Manhattan to New Jersey enjoying some bops on the radio. Then I realized how weird it was to have the radio still playing in the tunnel.
Read MoreTire technology has come a long way since the Ford Model T first rolled out of the factory in 1908. Modern tires are not only different in dimension, compound, and overall structure, but they’re also a different color. That’s because early tires were white, and only around World War I did they turn black. Here’s why.
Read MoreBMW says the new 2019 BMW 3 Series, which debuted last month in Paris, “moves the game on once again in terms of driving dynamics.” So, to learn the tech behind what makes the new car handle better than its predecessor, I spoke with dynamics engineer Robert Rothmiller. Here’s what he told me.
Read MoreIn July 1999, Jim Wright and his wife Joyce were traveling along a New Mexico roadway in their 1995 Fleetwood American Eagle RV when, suddenly, the vehicle’s left-front tire failed. The tire was a Goodyear G159, a tire now linked to numerous fatal crashes but has never been recalled and has never faced a serious federal investigation until recently. Wright tried—and failed—to regain control of his RV, which eventually slammed into another motorhome head-on.
Read MoreWalt Disney once mused that it’s “kind of fun to do the impossible,” so it’s likely the animation mogul would’ve been impressed by last year’s reports that fully-autonomous vehicles could soon be shuttling passengers around the amusement park in Florida that bears his name. Driverless cars are, after all, one of the most challenging—impossible, perhaps—technological tasks of our time. But the Disney project has fallen into disarray, Jalopnik found, after the companies aiming to bring the idea to
Read MoreBefore you even ask, no, this 3D-printed electric motorcycle is not production-ready. It is, as I have been informed, just a design demonstration. But it’s freaking sweet and I would very much like to play it in a game because that’s probably the closest that I’ll ever get to riding it.
Read MoreAn hour before midnight on New Year’s Eve in 1985, a bunch of Harley executives sat in a room at a bank with two stacks of papers, one for bankruptcy and another for recapitalization, if their last gasp ask for fresh investment came in. They had given themselves until midnight to get new money or go bankrupt, and time was running out.
Read MoreKymco is by and large known for its scooters and small-engine motorcycles. Here in the U.S. market, the company offers two motorcycles, the 150cc Spade and 125cc K-pipe. It also offers a brace of scooters, side by sides, and ATVs largely known for their inexpensive price. These product offerings are all about cheap fun, certainly not for world-beating performance. Kymco brought the SuperNEX electric superibike to EICMA this year in the hopes of changing that perception.
Read MoreThe production Harley-Davidson Livewire electric motorcycle was revealed earlier this week, but the reveal failed to answer some important questions. We still don’t know the price, the range, the power, and we weren’t even sure what it would sound like. Well here it is, here’s the future sound of Harley-Davidson. It’s... fine?
Read MoreHonda has a pair of 125cc motorcycle concepts on display at the Esposizione Internazionale Ciclo e Motociclo show in Milan right now, and they kick so much ass it’s unreal. The little red pocket motard is creatively dubbed CB125M, while the tiny TransAlp-esque white job is called the CB125X. Honda’s R&D center in Rome crafted both of these bikes using the new CB125R as a starting platform.
Read MoreHarley-Davidson has been making a lot of noise about developing electric motorcycles as it searches for a fresh breath of life, and its future all seems to hinge on the success of the upcoming Harley-Davidson Livewire. The good news is the production version looks just as good as the concept. The bad news is they didn’t reveal anything else yet.
Read MoreThe recent reports that Elon Musk told his employees that the $35,000 Model 3 would cost $38,000 to build made me realize some things: first, -$3,000 is a pretty crappy profit margin, and second, Tesla needs some friends. Specifically, they need some friends who build lots of good cars yet have no clear plans to build electric cars in the future. They need friends like Subaru and Mazda.
Read MoreThe Genesis G70 is as great as it needs to be, and that extends to its configurator as well, which is much, much better than it needs to be.
Read MoreThe long-promised $35,000 Tesla Model 3 is supposed to materialize early next year, but at this point, the automaker would lose money on every base model that rolls off the line. That’s what CEO Elon Musk reportedly told employees this week.
Read MoreAnchorage, Alaska suffered a magnitude 7.0 earthquake Friday morning, according to a bulletin from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, CNN reports.
Read MoreOne of the great joys of having a convertible is taking it out in the winter, cranking the heat up to the max, and putting the top down. There’s very little else that feels quite as good as the contrast of the brisk, cold air all around you as you whizz about in a fun little mobile tub of warm air. If you have a convertible and haven’t done this, by all means, do it. Unless you have a Camaro convertible, because it won’t let you.
Read MoreAfter Knickers, a giant cow, captured the spirit of the darkened pit of hell we call the internet, The Washington Post showed up Tuesday to rain on the parade. Knickers, the Post says, is not a cow. Whatever. Here’s another take to unpack, you pedantic jerks: Knickers is a car.
Read MorePresident Donald Trump cut loose Tuesday about General Motors’ decision to cut 15,000 jobs and potentially shutter four U.S. factories, claiming he’s considering axing “all” of the automaker’s “subsidies.” No one seems to have any idea what, if anything, Trump could do unilaterally with subsidies, but he does have a few options on the table, if he chooses to mess with GM.
Read MoreAfter introducing a new Corolla for the 2020 model year that looks quite sharp, Toyota debuted on Tuesday the first ever hybrid variant for the sedan offered in the U.S. At last, something other than the Prius.
Read MoreIt has been quite a while since an OEM has released a new wheel design that has made me sit up and take notice. I’ve long believed that it is the wheels that make the car, from a visual perspective, and many manufacturers have been phoning in wheel design.
Read MoreCadillac CT6, the would-be flagship that somehow never managed to upstage the Escalade, will end U.S. production early next year. But have no fear, Cadillac wants you to know, you should have no problem finding one on dealer lots. Hm.
Read MoreBurning cash at record amounts, a disastrous start to ramping up production of the Model 3, a CEO who unnecessarily stirred the pot practically at every turn. Anyone willing to look beyond the grand vision of Tesla this past year understood the company was perilously close to insolvency, even as Elon Musk tried to shoot down any suggestion otherwise. But now, he admits that everyone was right all along.
Read MoreIt’s not hard to guess what we’re thankful for: the continuing improvement of our dear Andrew Collins following his spill, my current total lack of cancer and Patrick George finally taking his first steps towards transitioning into a Bavarian super villain. Truly, the Jalopnik gang is hashtag-blessed. But the thing we’re really the most thankful for? The chance to drive the cars and share those cars with you.
Read MoreFacing accusations by the feds that it misled customers on their auto loans and insurance products, subprime auto lender Santander Consumer USA agreed to pay $11.8 million to settle the claims, a U.S. watchdog agency announced on Tuesday.
Read MoreOn Sunday, I logged on to the Internet and eventually spent $463.96 on four Michelins for my 2008 Honda Fit, which needs them. On Friday, when they get here, I’ll get them mounted and balanced, and get the alignment done as well. As soon as I drive away from the shop, though, my car will begin getting worse again, as it ambles toward death.
Read MoreWith winter upon us, it would be wonderful if we had a trained rally driver with access to a bunch of all-wheel drive and four-wheel drive vehicles all assembled in one lot to helpfully explain the difference between these two ever-more confused terms. Oh wait, here he is!
Read MoreFollowing a meeting of the board of directors earlier today, Renault’s board has decided to keep Carlos Ghosn on as Chairman and CEO of the company until further notice, following Ghosn’s arrest for alleged financial misconduct at Nissan earlier this week.
Read MoreAuto industry types theorized several months back that zero percent financing was going to go by the wayside, thanks to rising interest rates and because it’s just more expensive to offer it nowadays. That’ll change for the holiday season, reports Bloomberg, at least temporarily.
Read MoreAt some point watching two cops tear down an undivided two-lane road, crossing the double yellow and hitting highway speeds in pursuit of a woman accused of cashing a bad check, you have to wonder why wasn’t the chase called off?
Read MoreWe had a little tiff about ASMR videos in the office the other day, and I, unfortunately, was on the side of those who just do not get it. Sure it sounds nice to hear fingernails tap on a piece of cardboard, but was it really giving people electric chills? I was jealous. I felt robbed of chills. And then I watched this video on James May’s YouTube channel, JM’s unemployment tube.
Read MoreMost Americans aren’t familiar with the Chinese car brand Zotye, but the painful car geeks that make up 90 percent of our readership are likely to remember that there was a Chinese carmaker that built a shameless copy of a Porsche Macan. That’s them. Now, it seems they have plans to come to America, and be the first Chinese brand to sell under their own name. This could be fun.
Read MoreAs you probably all know by now, the legendary superhero-generating machine Stan Lee has died at the considerably old age of 95. While Stan Lee’s achivements weren’t of the automotive variety, he did contribute some things to the world of automobilia, including one of the strangest superhero cars in all of, um, superherocardom.
Read MoreOver the weekend, we got an email in tips saying that old episodes of Top Gear are no longer free on Amazon Prime. Goddammit! Amazon confirmed this distressing news.
Read MoreThe Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia is one of those car that even non-gearheads tend to like, because it’s just a fundamentally pretty object. It’s elegant and friendly and curvy and sleek all at once, while being approachable and inviting. It’s just a lovely little design for a car, and pioneered the idea of a sporty car, as opposed to an actual sports car. Sure, it looked like it might be fast, but it wasn’t and it didn’t care. The Ghia is an undeniable classic, so you may as well learn these five int
Read MoreAs Sunday’s Grand Prix came to an end, Max Verstappen was already on the radio to his team on the cooldown lap issuing thinly veiled threats of violence against Esteban Ocon. Ocon, in an attempt to stay on the lead lap of the race, was fighting harder than necessary with race leader Verstappen. The ultimate result of that on-track fight was both drivers spinning off and Verstappen losing a substantial lead over ultimate race victor Lewis Hamilton.
Read MoreWhile the Maven app has primarily been used to promote short-term rentals of new GM vehicles, the brand has recently expanded into the peer-to-peer car-sharing market pioneered by Turo, and Getaround. For urbanites without space for a car, or desire to keep one up, this kind of car borrowing can be the perfect compromise. Maven wants to expand their peer-to-peer operations into new territory, offering a space for people to share anything that sits idle for long periods, like boats, RVs, and lawn
Read MoreIt’s the end of the week, which likely means that you’ve used up all your brain-juices, and you’re running on fumes now. That’s good, because what I’ve come up with here is deeply, richly stupid: ten genuinely idiotic ways to describe a car.
Read MoreThe Porsche 911 GT3 is over $60,000 cheaper than the McLaren 570S Track Pack and down almost 70 horsepower, so why did the Porsche just manage to beat the McLaren in EVO’s latest track test?
Read MorePresident Donald Trump’s trade war with China is goofing up production plans for practically every automaker at this point, a list that now includes Volvo, which has canceled plans to export S60 sedans made in the U.S. to China, reports Bloomberg.
Read MoreElectric vehicle startup Arcimoto has a pretty ambitious plan that involves selling the public on a three-wheeled, semi-enclosed contraption that nets 80 miles on a single charge, and starts at just $12,000. The startup’s founder, Mark Frohnmayer, dropped by our office recently to show off his creation—dubbed the Fun Utility Vehicle—and explain why he thinks there’s a suitable market for it.
Read MoreWhat is that you see? Three spoke wheels. Hm. The faceless face. Interesting. Tucked away door handles. Whoa. What is that mystery SUV, hailing from the height of the era? That’s the Infiniti QX4, a car for today.
Read MoreFord, struggling with a depressed stock price and facing constant questions about what, exactly, it’s trying to do as a business now, offered up Wednesday a solution that’ll finally convince everyone it’s something more than a car company: the Blue Oval bought some electric scooters.
Read MoreI’m about to propose something here, and I’m pretty sure most of you are going to assume that I’m joking around, or not being serious. Well, that’s not the case. I’m as serious as a bankruptcy’s heart attack about this. This idea, however unconventional, I feel is absolutely a solid idea, and some automaker should leap on it. The idea? It’s time for a major automaker to build and sell a mass-produced amphibious minivan.
Read MoreTesla’s late night rollout of a new feature for its semi-autonomous driving system called “Navigate on Autopilot” puzzled me, if not just because of the time it was introduced to the world, but the feature itself: What’s the value in a car that tells you what lane you should be in, when it won’t drive there entirely on its own?
Read MoreSometimes I feel like, because of their oppressive familiarity, I tend to unfairly pick American, especially GM, cars for Meh Car Monday candidates. So, in the interest of spreading the thick, featureless gray paste of Meh more evenly over the globe, this week I’ve found a very reasonable and capable car that is richly and deeply meh: the Fiat Tempra.
Read MoreWith the possible exception of a toilet bowl, there’s few things that get shit on more than the Yugo, the small Yugoslavian hatchback that was sold in America from 1985 to 1992. So many stupid, hacky “Worst Cars Ever!” lists or articles include the Yugo pretty prominently, and I’m going to officially say enough. Sure, the Yugo was pretty crappy, but it absolutely does not deserve the “worst car ever” reputation it’s saddled with today.
Read MoreCadillac is likely going to eventually give up on building sedans and coupes for SUVs and crossovers. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Hennessy-modded CTS-V shows what we lose in that bargain. Maybe its price will be bargain enough to ease the pain.
Read MoreWhile the nineteen seventies was an era of decline for muscle cars, it also gave rise to a short-lived age of fun trucks, led by Dodge and models like today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Warlock. Let’s see if there’s any magic left in this machine.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Cobra is claimed in its ad to be supercharged, but there’s no evidence of it being blown in the provided pics. Could that potential mistake make its price an even bigger one?
Read MoreThe symbol of the Italian tuning house Abarth is a Scorpion, an arachnid that carries its menace in its tail. In total disregard to that tradition, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Abarth puts its power up front wheels. Let’s see if that, and its various mods make its price feel like the real sting.
Read MoreModifying your car so you can do more work is a noble goal, and as exemplified by today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Audi, it can make it one of a kind. Will the price however, make it the kind that’s too expensive?
Read MoreThere are certain cars that go under the radar until there are so few left that people begin to take notice. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe VW Cabrio might just fall in the category. That is, if you don’t categorically reject its price.
Read MoreOnce supposedly owned by prolific Hollywood producer, Ray Stark, today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Roadmaster limo is, like a blockbuster film, over the top. Let’s see if its price make it a new owner’s coming attraction.
Read MoreThe original MSRP on today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe BMW i3 was over fifty-five thousand dollars. Like all limited range electric cars, the i3’s depreciation is extreme. Let’s see if this one’s current price might make that downward spiral a fun ride at least.
Read MoreThe seller of today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe MX5 says in his ad that the car needs little to be perfect. With a Ford 5.0 under its hood it’s already a good way there. Let’s decide if its price pushes it over the top.
Read MoreNot everyone will appreciate the customization that has gone into today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Volvo. Then again, not everyone can be as awesome as it is. Let’s see if its price reflects its stature.
Read MoreThe seller of today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Jag says he’s dumped ten-grand into its maintenance and repair with no corners cut in the work. Let’s see if this supercharged cat’s price cuts it any slack.
Read MoreLarry Shinoda worked on two of the most iconic cars in American automotive history—the Chevy Corvette, and Ford Mustang. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Mustang Cobra is from the year of Shinoda’s passing. Will its price however, get a pass?
Read MoreWe live in interesting times and that calls for a car that can get you out of trouble when the shit goes down—a car like today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe armored Jeep. Let’s see if its bullet resistance makes its price a hit it can also withstand.
Read MoreThe true definition of “sport utility” is really a hot rod wagon, and when it comes to wagons it just doesn’t get any hot roddier than today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Bimmer. Let’s see if its price gets you all hot and bothered.
Read MoreIf you wanted to sit in the lap of luxury, you could probably do far worse than today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Maserati Q4 Neiman Marcus. If you actually wanted to drive that lap, you might find its DuoSelect gear change a challenge. Let’s see if its price reflects that tempestuous trans.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Ferrari represents what might be considered a rare styling stumble for the venerable Italian marque. Let’s see if that, and it’s modestly rough appearance, might make stumbling into it worth its asking.
Read MoreToday’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Audi is where it all began. This Ur-Quattro is the road-going edition of Audi’s WRC-dominating rally rocket, the racer that proved AWD was a force with which to be reckoned. Let’s see if this one’s price might be a reckoning of a different kind.
Read MoreThe second generation Honda Odyssey gained a reputation for having crap automatic transmissions. Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe ’02 solves that problem by replacing the slusher with a stick. Could that make its price automatically appealing?
Read MoreOnce upon a time, VW imagined they were Mercedes Benz and built cars like today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Phaeton W12. It’s a luxurious reminder of the company’s delusions of grandeur, but can it still bring the big bucks?
Read MoreThe full name of today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe GL350 includes a couple of surnames—Benz and Diesel—and a couple of made up words—Bluetec and Designo. Let’s see if all together they make up a car worth it’s asking.
Read MoreIf you’ve always wanted a Ferrari 308 QV, but need something a bit more practical, perhaps the uniquely Italian Lancia Thema 8.32 is the 1980s super sedan for you. With a gloriously sonorous Ferrari-sourced V8 under the hood—mounted transversely—powering the front wheels, the hotted up Thema is so freakin’ rad.
Read MoreBack in the early 1990s, electric car tech was taking off with the quickness. Manufacturers were dabbling with BEVs in a way that actually looked like could fill a need in the market. California legislators were said to be the catalyst for this, as the state demanded at least 2% of all offerings in the state be zero-emissions vehicles.
Read MoreWhen was the last time you thought about the Nissan Altima? Buyers hardly do anymore, given the current sedanocalypse. The new one has all-wheel drive, but... so do any number of better cars? Probably the last time you thought about the Altima was when you flew to Minneapolis or Phoenix for a work conference and it was your rental. But things weren’t always this way. Regular Car Reviews dives into a time when the Altima was actually decent.
Read MoreEven Nissan employees talk about visiting the home of Nismo, the Omori factory near Yokohama, like making a pilgrimage. Getting to go is a great privilege, and now I have a better idea why. You can turn up, plunk down $51,000 and buy a brand new RB26 engine out of the legendary R34 Skyline GT-R.
Read MoreIt’s right around the corner, so we automotive enthusiasts need to mentally prepare for the eventuality, SUVs from the 1990s will be seen as proper collectibles in just a few years. As a harbinger of things to come, this cherry XJ Jeep Cherokee is on Bring A Trailer right now, just begging for a huge bid to bring it home. It’s already up to $10,000 as of this writing, and could be poised for even more. It’s going to happen more and more, mark my words.
Read MoreArguably, the Bush-era cars were bad. But I’m here to say that they were actually very good, because out of those years, we got the dragonish-looking TVR Sagaris—possibly one of the coolest and rawest cars ever made.
Read MoreIf you’ve never seen Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, the sequel to the Charlie’s Angeles modern spin-off, then you are missing out. You get Crispin Glover being a weirdo, Justin Theroux with the fakest and most hilarious Irish accent ever to grace the silver screen and Bernie Mac being Bernie Mac. The movie is nearly perfect, except for a sacrilegious scene involving Demi Moore and a Ferrari Enzo.
Read MoreSouthwest Airlines has apologized after a gate agent reportedly mocked the name of a passenger’s 5-year-old daughter a few weeks ago. The girl’s name is spelled “Abcde” but is pronounced “Ab-city.”
Read MoreYou might think that by virtue of living on planet Earth, we are experts on it. But what you, and the rest of science, doesn’t know would fill a pretty big damn book. We need to look at the bigger picture, but that is tough when you’re battling gravity with combustion engines. Luckily, Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences’ new plane is the answer to many climate scientist’s woes.
Read MoreThe infamously smelly durian fruit has struck again. Banned from public transportation in some countries because it smells so strong, two tons of the Southeast Asian fruit in a cargo hold smelled so bad that passengers on a recent fight ordered it be removed from the plane.
Read MoreThere are a few things I expect from a flight crew upon boarding. Knocking the shit off the seats before takeoff is definitely one of them. But apparently, this was too much to ask of one Delta crew.
Read MoreBoeing is preparing a bulletin announcing a potential issue with one of its most popular planes, the 737 Max, according to a Bloomberg source familiar with the problem. Following the investigation of a Lion Air crash off the coast of Indonesia last week, the bulletin will warn operators of potentially erroneous flight-monitoring system readings which can cause the Max to potentially dive aggressively. The bulletin could be released any minute now, on an election night here in the U.S., while all
Read MoreHistorically, the Porsche Boxster and Cayman never received the same amount of love as their 911 older sibling. Sure, there were great variants like the Cayman GT4, but never any absurd Turbo or Turbo S models, as if the mid-engine cars were purposely undercut to keep the 911 on its king’s throne. This, I suspect, has led many to believe the 911 to be inherently the superior car. They are wrong. The 2018 Porsche 718 Cayman GTS is as perfect a sports car as they come.
Read MoreWe all spin fantasies about ourselves. We’re better looking than we are, smarter than we are, more morally pure than we really are. I thought I knew who I was. I would stand for the vanguard of the cheap, fun car. The secondhand Mazda Miatas of the world, the Craigslist gems. Porsche 911s? They could get stuffed, far as I was concerned. They were for rich people, posers, and rich posers. Then I drove the 2019 Porsche 911 GTS, and it was so good that everything else has gotten infinitely worse.
Read MoreFormula One driver Lance Stroll, whose father spent a reported $80 million to help get him onto the Williams F1 team for 2017, will join Force India next year in place of Esteban Ocon, who has a development contract with the dominant Mercedes F1 team. Stroll’s father bought Force India a few months ago.
Read MoreIt takes a certain type of object, event or situation to use the descriptor “frickin’ sweet” instinctively and non-sarcastically. The new Nissan Leaf electric race car from the company’s Nismo performance division, which weighs as much as a Mazda Miata and looks like it’s straight out of a video game, is frickin’ sweet.
Read MoreThe Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, which became the official racing school for Dodge and its SRT performance line three years ago, said this week that it’s open and holding driving classes after filing for bankruptcy in October and abruptly closing earlier in November.
Read MoreYesterday, Porsche debuted a new 911 GT2 RS Clubsport in a charming black Martini color scheme. I don’t know how many recognize the car or the race it pays tribute to, but both were among the sketchiest I’ve come across.
Read MoreWe think of Formula 1 as being a pinnacle in race car design, that the winningest McLarens and Red Bulls are high points in tech. But those are the cars that come first. What about all the bad F1 cars? Luckily for us, multi-champion Jackie Stewart reviewed one.
Read MoreAt this point in motorsport history, the general consensus is that we all want to see recent Formula One retiree (for now) Fernando Alonso race every type of car possible. He’ll be back in a familiar series soon, though: Wayne Taylor Racing announced Alonso and fellow Toyota World Endurance Championship driver Kamui Kobayashi as part of its IMSA Rolex 24 dream team on Tuesday.
Read MoreA federal court in Florida sentenced former NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Rick Crawford, found guilty of attempting to pay an undercover cop for sex with a fictitious 12-year-old girl earlier this year, to nearly 11 years in prison this week. The minimum penalty he faced going into it was 10 years.
Read MoreFormula One began mandating a halo protection bar mounted on the cockpit of each car this season, and, most of the year, its ability to save a driver’s head has been hard to argue. Then came Sunday’s season finale in Abu Dhabi, where Nico Hulkenberg flipped on the first lap and landed, upside down, in a barrier.
Read MoreWhile the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix featured a number of interesting and exciting storylines, the race at the front was hardly one of them. With a dominant pole position and a dominant run at the front, the 2018 season champion Lewis Hamilton continued his victorious ways.
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 MoreJust six months after the country lifted its ban on female driving, several women race-car drivers will participate in a Formula E test session on the Saudi Arabian streets. The test will happen right after the Formula E race in the city of Ad Diriyah on Dec. 15, and at least seven women will drive in it.
Read More“Lamborghini will debut a racing series for its new luxury SUV in 2020” is a sentence most of us probably never expected to read. But here we are, in this dystopian reality called life, wondering when we’ll wake up from the nightmare that is a world almost completely consumed by crossovers and SUVs.
Read MoreFormula 3 driver Sophia Floersch went flying through a track fence and into a photographer stand during a horrific crash at the Macau Grand Prix on Sunday, at a street circuit known for being fast, tight and downright scary. She went into spinal surgery Monday, coming out seven hours later in stable condition.
Read MoreI know that for some who pray to the Gods of Octane it is heresy to say this, but I’ll say it anyway: I like electric vehicles. I spent much of my misguided youth terrorizing the East Coast in electric golf carts and as I grew older that attraction never faded. So when I got the chance to be among the first to drive a Tesla around the Nurburgring Nordschleife in anger, I jumped at the chance. And even its tepid, limp mode lap didn’t dull my enthusiasm. And I’ll let you in on a little secret: lot
Read MoreComing into the final, title-deciding race in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series, it was Joey Logano versus the Big Three—the season’s three dominant drivers, who have won 20 of the year’s 36 races combined. Despite it all, Logano came out of the race with his first Cup Series championship.
Read MoreTwo drivers, two photographers, and one race marshall have been hospitalized after a terrifying crash sent Sophia Flörsch flying, with her front wheels dangling off her car, up and over another driver, through the track’s crash fencing, and then into a photographer’s stand on the outside of the corner. This is what can happen at Macau, the tightest street course in the world.
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 MoreEveryone you know probably jokes that in NASCAR, the person who makes the best left turns is the champion. But deciding the NASCAR champion is far from that simple these days, to the point that you might need a guide to fully grasp what’s going on. Good thing you found one, right?
Read MoreIn 2006, BAR Honda went to the Bonneville Salt Flats and became the fastest outright F1 car ever made at a bit over 248 miles per hour. It was an incredible project. I just never thought about what it would take to clean up afterwards.
Read MoreDrag racer Katarina Moller died as the result of a crash during an exhibition run in a jet dragster at Sebring International Raceway on Thursday, a spokesperson for the track said that night. She was 24.
Read MoreThe era of the Zombie Dodge, which long outlived its planned exit from the NASCAR Xfinity Series after Dodge left the sport six years ago, ends along with the NASCAR season this weekend. When NASCAR starts back up in February, the car won’t be legal—killing, for good, the one car that refused to truly die.
Read MoreFormula One’s leaders finally admitted they’re “concerned” that a woman protesting the Bahrain Grand Prix on Facebook got thrown in jail for three years, the Guardian reports. It’s an acknowledgment from the series’ new owners that people do suffer outside of race-track walls, no matter how much past owners tried to ignore their politics and controversy.
Read MoreJackie Stewart is a legend, possibly the greatest F1 driver to have ever lived. Not only did he come away with three championships to his name, he revolutionized the sport pushing for safety. He was always well-spoken, too, and that got him the opportunity to test and review a number of cars, including the Le Mans-winning Jaguar XJR-9. But Jackie and the Jag did not get along.
Read MoreTruly, there’s nothing worse than a fanboy. Yesterday, we covered the Tesla Model 3 Performance racer who got disqualified at a Global Time Attack Super Lap event at Buttonwillow Raceway Park because his car wasn’t running on an approved fuel type—i.e. gasoline. He was even pulled mid-podium, according to the video of the event. The nerve!, I thought, as many of you did too. Problem is that’s not exactly accurate.
Read MoreThe Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, the official school of Dodge and its SRT performance line, closed down Monday, according to reports. The closure comes a month after the school filed for bankruptcy in “a difficult yet important step towards becoming a stronger company,” it said at the time.
Read MoreNASCAR Hall of Fame member and three-time champion David Pearson died Monday, the sanctioning body announced that night. He was 83 years old, and NASCAR said in a statement that the cause of death was unknown at the time.
Read MoreMax Verstappen is a dick, but in today’s Brazilian Grand Prix he certainly had the fastest car on track this weekend. Red Bull spent all of their efforts in qualifying attempting to finalize their in-race setups rather than focusing on their grid position. As a result the two Red Bull drivers started behind the Ferrari and Mercedes duos. It wasn’t long before Verstappen and teammate Daniel Ricciardo were fighting at the sharp end, however.
Read MoreAnyone who’s ever had the misfortune to hit a bird while driving knows how much it blows. Now imagine how quick hitting a bird at up to 200 mph could really ruin your day. Such are the unfortunate worries of McLaren driver Stoffel Vandoorne at the Interlagos circuit this weekend.
Read MoreFor the past few years, enigmatic Polish driver Robert Kubica has been inching back into Formula One after surviving getting impaled in a rally car crash. Now he has a standing offer for a race seat with Williams and a possible reserve role at Ferrari, as Autosport reports.
Read MoreMuch like your high-school algebra teacher who did their best to explain that, yes, letters do belong in math, NASCAR really, really wants race teams to stop cheating. And much like said teacher, the punishments—zeros on homework, potentially championship-ending penalties—just aren’t stopping the crimes.
Read MoreFormula One’s had an iffy record with planned races lately, with the 2019 Miami Grand Prix debuting a mess of a proposed street course then getting pushed back until at least 2020. But F1 does, at least, have more solid plans for 2020: the Vietnam Grand Prix, which will run on part street course and part race track.
Read MorePeople say that the old spirit of NASCAR is gone, and stock car ain’t what it used to be. All I know is that a car chief named “Cheddar” Smith just got suspended for cheating. Seems to me like the glory days never left.
Read MoreIn modern NASCAR, the title comes down to four drivers and a 400-mile shootout in Florida. There’s only one race left before that shootout, and three days after driver Kevin Harvick secured himself a spot in it, he’s now lost his guarantee and sits at risk of playoff elimination—all thanks to a huge penalty.
Read MoreIf you see a car in this video, it will crash.
Read MoreThere are only 20 cars in the current Formula One field, meaning competition for seats that happen to be open for the upcoming season is fierce. Because of that, it sometimes takes a little extra to get noticed—like how Motorsport.com reports that Formula 2 driver George Russell used PowerPoint to make his case.
Read MoreNASCAR has a lot of rules these days, from races broken into segments to the severity of penalties categorized by “levels.” But even NASCAR gets those rules wrong sometimes, which led to seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champ Jimmie Johnson getting mistakenly shoved to the back of the field on Sunday.
Read MoreGeely, the massive Chinese automaker that owns Volvo, Lotus and, weirdly, a flying car startup, now owns a new piece of real estate in the U.S.: the Utah Motorsports Campus in Tooele County, Utah.
Read MoreIf you’re like me and spend too much of your free time delving into the historical annals of Formula One races, you’ve probably realized how tough they can be to watch. Sometimes ambient race car noises and good battles are all you need—but how are you supposed to know who’s down a lap, which passes are for position?
Read MoreThe 2005 U.S. Grand Prix was an absolute disgrace for the sport, the fans, and the drivers. There were a number of behind-the-scenes communication and planning breakdowns that caused the race to ultimately start with only six cars on the grid—and result in Tiago Monteiro’s only career F1 podium. The video below helps break down exactly what happened, and in what order, to cause such a farce.
Read MoreWhile Pescarolo Sport’s Courage C60s—with naturally aspirated V10s—proved quicker in qualifying, Champion Racing’s turbocharged Audi R8 prototypes won the day back in 2005. The 24 hour endurance race at Le Mans favored the open-top Audis, this one taking the top step of the podium by two laps with Tom Kristensen, JJ Lehto, and Marco Werner doing the driving. Thirteen years later, a handful of years after Audi ultimately ended their LMP program, this R8 is still on track doing big things.
Read MoreThis may not come as a surprise to some of you race fans out there, but I would like to restate this, just one more time for the masses: Max and his father Jos Verstappen are, undoubtedly, 100% the kind of passive aggressively bad people who can ruin your day just by the fact of their existence.
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 MoreOnce upon a time, Porsche was adamant as hell that it didn’t care about Nürburgring lap times, saying that a car that scores an awesome time on the Nordschleife will probably be “a dog on the street and everywhere else.” That was in early 2017. Evidently Porsche does care, having later scored a road car record with the GT2 RS and an all-time record with the 919 Hybrid Evo. Now it’s back with another big win, but let’s be very clear what this car was.
Read MoreJust the other day Felipe Massa tweeted out his support of Brazil’s new fascist president Jair Bolsonaro. And for some reason, today Formula 1 decided to re-air the 2008 Brazil GP in which he suffered probably the most heartbreaking loss in recent racing history.
Read MoreElon Musk has always treated the names for his impressive ventures a bit like a 14-year-old kid would. The lineup of Tesla’s cars was originally planned to spell SEXY (it’s closer to S3X at the moment, thanks to Ford), and the ambitious rocket system and associated human-carrying spacecraft SpaceX has been developing has been called the BFR and BFS, for “Big Fucking Rocket” and sometimes known as “Big Fucking Spaceship,” though officially SpaceX says it’s Big Falcon Rocket. Well, now it’s neithe
Read MoreThree weeks ago, a Russian and American crew was streaking towards the International Space Station in a Russian-built Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan. It would’ve normally barely been a blip on the news. The Soyuz is widely known to be extremely reliable. But something went wrong, and the crew had to abort and make an emergency landing. This is the moment everything went wrong from the outside.
Read MoreIn much the same way that pornography has influenced humanity’s choice of VHS over Betamax and later BluRay over HD DVD, it is possible that the shipping industry’s slow move to electric propulsion will be the impetus behind a larger shift of society at large. It’s
Read MoreNo matter how often we stress the importance of winter tires, I still hear people saying that they feel better with a all- or four-wheel drive car when conditions get icy and snowy. Then they run around and tell their clueless friends this, too! So I will continue to write about the benefits of winter tires until I have everyone convinced.
Read MoreI think it’s safe to say most of us, even those of us uncomfortably car-obsessed, don’t spend a lot of time thinking about intake manifolds. I feel like we tend to treat them as just those tubes that hold up the fun stuff, like carburetors and turbochargers and that sort of thing. Really, though, there’s a ton of engineering in these things, which is why this video showing Porsche’s radical approach is so interesting.
Read MoreJohn Krafcik, CEO of Google’s self-driving car arm Waymo, said this week that it will take decades for autonomous cars to be ready to drive in snow and winter. Hm. I wonder what else is going to happen by a few decades’ time. Oh, right.
Read MoreI have never seen a car do a better donut from standstill than this heavily modified, electrified Audi S3 with Formula E motors called the Schaeffler 4ePerformance Concept.
Read MoreThe Tesla Model 3, like most electric vehicles, uses regenerative braking to help trickle charge the car’s battery and extend the range. In theory, one could use the regenerative powers of the car’s motors to charge the battery by having the whole thing towed, and now a Model 3 owner has put that to the test.
Read MoreA week ago, several verified accounts on Twitter were hacked as part of a scam to steal bitcoin from unwitting mopes by utilizing Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s name, and reportedly made off with at least $180,000. On Monday, the hackers were back at it, taking control of several hacked accounts—including a book publisher and a clothing company—to promote the scam.
Read MoreEven if you don’t love Teslas, being a sore loser is definitely worse than being a fanboy. The driver of a Tesla Model 3 Performance equipped with the new Track Mode made it to second place at the Global Time Attack Super Lap at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in Buttonwilliow, California over the weekend with a time of 2:00.78. But halfway into the podium ceremony, he was told his run was successfully challenge by a fellow competitor, Electrek reports. Electricity, you see, was not listed as an appro
Read MoreI don’t know what’s worse: getting car sick or being the person in whose car someone is starting to feel sick. While we’re not totally certain exactly what causes motion sickness, it’s something that impacts up to 90% of folks to some degree. Now, the Jaguar Land Rover is looking into ways the car itself can combat that queasy feeling—an especially important development with autonomous tech on the rise.
Read MoreBy the end of this year, Google’s Waymo self-driving program plans on expanding its public self-driving ride-sharing program in Arizona, and in the next decade there are about 46 companies working to do the same. Many of these systems don’t yet use thermal imaging, but after a demonstration of how effective it is at identifying objects, I’m not sure I’d get in a self-driving car that didn’t have it.
Read MoreStarting today, if you’ve got a Tesla Model 3 Performance, it’s about to be a hell of a lot more fun on your next track day. Tesla is finally putting out the long-awaited “Release Version” of Track Mode for its smallest and most fun car, and it sounds incredibly clever and looks like an absolute riot.
Read MoreI’ll be honest, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in this video, or why. All I know for sure is it’s been making the rounds on Facebook and it’s oddly simple. It’s just a video of someone attempting to open a car door with a key, and that key, from the outside of the car, starts the engine. That’s it!
Read MoreCities are trying to figure out how to rein in the frenzied introduction of electric scooters, and that includes outright bans of the vehicles. Bird, one of the main scooter-centric startups, filed a lawsuit last Thursday to overturn a ban implemented this summer by the City of Beverly Hills, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Read MoreGeneral Motors seems hellbent on tearing down the house that former Cadillac CEO Johan de Nysschen built, and now, according to the Wall Street Journal, that includes the $1,800 a month Book by Cadillac subscription car program.
Read MoreTesla is planning a significant update to their “Summon” feature on its cars that will let you drive your Tesla around like a colossal R/C car, but even in its current, more limited form, Summon is pretty useful. Watch how this guy in Wisconsin uses it to get out of receiving parking tickets in the most technologically advanced way possible, at least until he’s able to teleport his car.
Read MoreBlame being thrown around in Washington for GM’s plant closures, GM’s president joins self-driving car unit, more discussions about U.S. manufacturing plants and so much more for The Morning Shift of Friday, Nov. 30, 2018.
Read MoreFord breathes a sigh of relief as it’s time for General Motors to be President Trump’s punching bag, a Chicken Tax on all cars probably would be terrible, Volvo doesn’t want to sell your data and so much more for The Morning Shift of Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018.
Read MoreThe Carlos Ghosn story is still not gone, same with Trump and GM, and BMW says they might expand operations in the U.S. All that and more in The Morning Shift for Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2018.
Read MorePoliticians are Mad at General Motors, investors are Happy with General Motors, Carlos Ghosn’s arrest blindsided the French and more await you in The Morning Shift for Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018.
Read MoreGeneral Motors is shutting down a plant as part of a global restructuring, Aston Martin looks to double production by 2025, subprime auto loans and more await you in The Morning Shift for Monday, Nov. 26, 2018.
Read MoreCarlos Ghosn in extended detention, the trade war with China, those pesky “national security” threat import cars and more await you in The Morning Shift for Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018.
Read MoreWas Carlos Ghosn’s ouster and arrest part of a palace coup? And what even was Renault-Nissan? Oh, also, Elon wants a van. This is The Morning Shift for November 20, 2018.
Read MoreFinancial scandals at Nissan, Ford’s ideas on making profit from your personal data, cuts to oil output, fuel-economy numbers on four-cylinder pickups and fewer configuration options on the next-generation Ford Explorer. All of this and more in The Morning Shift for Monday, Nov. 19, 2018.
Read MoreToyota has to scale back sliding sedans, Jaguar’s in a pickle, Tesla needs money for Chinese push, Volkswagen is betting big again on EVs, and Brexit is bothering BMW and Rolls-Royce. That and more on The Morning Shift on Friday, Nov. 16, 2018.
Read MoreIf America won’t get its shit together on EVs, maybe China will do it for us. That and more on The Morning Shift on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018.
Read MoreThe White House won’t impose new tariffs on imported cars, at least not right now, car companies band together to save the electric vehicle tax credit, tequila makers are mad at Elon Musk and so much more for The Morning Shift on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018.
Read MoreBig tariffs on imports could be coming on “national security” grounds, the German automakers are bracing for them, one of Tesla’s top lawyers quits and much more for The Morning Shift of Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018.
Read MoreThe cost of EV adoption is high, Volkswagen doubles down on offering a cheaper EV than Tesla, and General Motors talks the totally real possibilities of flying cars. All of that and more in The Morning Shift for Monday, Nov. 12, 2018.
Read MoreFord is still struggling, California will meet with the Trump administration, a and a former UAW official gets prison. All of that and more in The Morning Shift for Friday, Nov. 8, 2018.
Read MoreTesla promotes Robyn Denholm as chairwoman of its board, sedans are screwing over Hyundai and Nissan, China’s growth is stalling and Germany is bullying automakers into refitting diesels. All of that and more in The Morning Shift for Thursday, Nov. 7, 2018.
Read MoreBank scandals, electric-vehicle production, carmakers spending cash like a kid with too big of an allowance, recall investigations and how the midterm elections affected legislators who deal with the auto industry. All of that and more in The Morning Shift for Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2018.
Read MoreToyota is making tons of money and is looking to cut its product offerings, extreme corruption within the UAW, and is Elon Musk a commenter? All that and more in The Morning Shift for November 6th, 2018.
Read MoreThe one carmaker that could do no wrong falters, BMW and Lexus just went nuts, and one country figured out a genius new way to up electric car sales. All that and more in The Morning Shift for Monday, Nov. 5, 2018.
Read MoreThe relationship between Ford and VW may be getting serious, recalls at Jeep and Toyota, GM continues cost cutting, and a look at industry-wide October sales figures, in The Morning Shift for Friday, Nov. 2, 2018.
Read MoreGeneral Motors offers buyouts even after a strong Q3, Japanese automakers’ factories aim to be more flexible, Tesla’s investors want to go further and much more on this, The Morning Shift for Thursday, Nov. 1, 2018.
Read MorePassengers on a Boston-bound Amtrak train were stuck for six hours yesterday having only just left Penn Station. They had no reception and they had no power. And no power meant “unflushable” toilets. Amtrak, dauntless, had a compromise for its stalled passengers: taking a dump in a cardboard box.
Read MoreDespite the fact that China’s controversial “social credit” system isn’t scheduled to be fully implemented until 2020, many areas are already rolling it out as a way to monitor the country’s 1.3 billion citizens. Plenty of folks are already reporting that their ability to travel is being impacted.
Read MoreWomen generally experience more forms of harassment than men and it’s costing us: Data from a new study shows that, on average, women pay more to get around New York City than men do due to safety reasons. Looks like there’s a Pink Tax on transportation, too.
Read MoreThe 2019 Chevrolet Silverado is the only full-size pickup in America offered with a four-cylinder engine. But it’s not your old S10's Iron Duke under the hood—no, this 2.7-liter turbo is sophisticated, employing some cool modern technologies that help it produce more power than most naturally aspirated V6s, while still managing okay fuel economy.
Read MoreAs a devout Jeep Cherokee XJ lover, this video of The Greatest SUV Of All Time splitting apart while off-roading has kept me up in a sweat for the past three nights, but now I’ve gathered the strength to write a blog to share this tragedy with you, my dear readers. Proceed at your own risk.
Read MoreAre you a super-fan of the new 2019 Suzuki Jimny? Do you wake up in the middle of the night sitting in a deep mud pit, holding a plate out in front of you like a steering wheel, and yelling “Weee!!! Go Jimny go!”? If so, this video showing the little “mountain goat” off-road with a Land Cruiser will make your day.
Read MorePlease welcome to another edition of As The Hype Turns, and this week is a very special episode. Today we see the new Suzuki Jimny, as it is gushed upon by two weird car nerds, one of which is a Land Rover obsessive. Is the Jimny good? By their accounts, yes.
Read MoreLook at you. You bought a big beef boy Ford F-350 pickup truck and you can’t even get out of the muddy RedBud Motocross parking lot with it. It’s OK though, because somebody brought love in the form of a Subaru Impreza hatchback to help you out.
Read MoreThe current generation of the U.S. Postal Service mail trucks may be nearly three decades old and about to get the boot in favor of a new set of vehicles, but those old things can still move, alright? If you had the audacity to forget that, let this USPS truck off-roading down the side of a Florida road be your reminder.
Read MoreHave you ever noticed the height warnings on the freeway and wondered, what do trucks do if they’re cruising along and don’t meet that requirement? Well, here’s your answer. And it isn’t pretty.
Read MoreA couple of days ago we got a tip that the upcoming Jeep Wrangler pickup truck would be called the 2020 Jeep Gladiator, and now it seems official images have leaked confirming the new name. It looks—well, it looks like a Wrangler pickup!
Read MoreEarlier today, photos from a Ford event taken by somebody who has almost certainly been killed by now circulated of what appears to be the upcoming Ford Bronco or Baby Bronco. But everyone was so excited we seemed to have missed an easter egg revealing the crossover to be the Baby Bronco for sure, while also hinting at what the upcoming bigger Bronco will look like.
Read MoreAllyn Pierce really loved his Toyota Tundra, and even had a special nickname and logo for his truck: the Pandra. Pierce is a nurse who managed the ICU of the hospital in Paradise, CA, the site of the state’s deadliest wildfire ever. When the fires were raging, he drove the Pandra back into the flames to help people, severely damaging his truck in the process, but Toyota has stepped up to give him a new one.
Read MoreFor years now we’ve been patiently waiting for Ford to disappoint us with a new generation of the classic Ford Bronco, some watered-down flabby design that won’t match the original’s chunky looks. Well, we were all wrong.
Read MoreFiat Chrysler is moving forward with a Jeep Wrangler pickup, but if it were to sell us a direct competitor to the current midsize Chevy Colorado or Ford Ranger, it’d probably be this new Mitsubishi L200, also called the Triton.
Read MoreSomebody spotted an electric Tesla Semi in the wild and all I can think is that conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with these giant silent future-looking trucks.
Read MoreBack in September, Chevy showed off the 2019 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison, a skid-plated-up version of the already beefy, front and rear locker-equipped Chevrolet Colorado ZR2. The ZR2 alone costs over $42,000, so it’s no surprise that the Bison is pushing 50.
Read MoreThe mid-size truck scene is heating up, with the new 2019 Ford Ranger and the upcoming Jeep truck on the horizon. So it’s no surprise to see Chevrolet showing off two new 2019 Chevy Colorado special editions: a street-oriented model called the RST and an off-road-oriented model called the “Trail Runner.” And the grille on that RST is really something.
Read MoreIn September, we wrote a story highlighting seven different reports of Chevy Colorado side curtain airbags deploying on easy off-road trails, leaving owners with non-functional seatbelt pretensioners and air bags hanging from A-pillars. Now Chevrolet has issued a fix that it doesn’t call a recall, but rather a “customer-satisfaction initiative.”
Read MoreIt seems that a number of American fanboat owners are running their cars out of gas, and using their propellor-powered floating machines in tow to come to the rescue. Here’s one gentleman actually using a fanboat to power a pickup truck down the highway.
Read MoreWhat we need in this world is more weirdness, and Volkswagen is bringing a bit of that to Brazil. At the São Paulo International Motor Show, the company showed off a nearly production-ready concept truck called the Tarok, which features a variable length bed. Fun!
Read MoreI just got back from Puebla, Mexico, where Volkswagen told me, with some gravity, that a storied line of cars come to an end with the 2019 Volkswagen Beetle. This didn’t have too much of an impact on me because (1) as far as I’m concerned, the Beetle died in 2004 with the last of the air-cooled ones, and (B) Volkswagen has announced “final edition” Beetles of some kind or another an incredible nine times.
Read MoreIt’s always intimidating cutting into a car’s sheet metal. But when it’s your first time ever doing it, it can be downright scary. However, this was something I grew accustomed to; the 1989 BMW 325i E30 that I purchased for $1,800 five months ago hit me with a shocker the moment I began working on it: It had rust, and lots of it.
Read MoreOver Thanksgiving weekend, I drove my 255,000 mile 1992 Jeep Cherokee 1,300 miles from Michigan to and from Virginia. It’s a vehicle whose engine I had blown up three years prior and swapped with a $145 Craigslist motor that was being sold out of a field. Here’s how that cheap engine held up in its first real test.
Read MoreLast night I was wrenching on the $600 Jeep Cherokee in my ice-cold driveway, preparing for a road trip, when I decided to track down a little squeak I had heard in my front suspension. What I found was a major mechanical fault that could have left me stranded on the highway—or worse—this Thanksgiving.
Read MoreWe’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: If you live where there is serious winter, you really need to consider winter tires on your daily driver. Yes, even if you have all-wheel drive. Yes, even if it clearly says “ALL seasons” right there on the receipt from the tire store. It just makes good sense.
Read MoreI have a theory that we’re looking at city cars the wrong way. The ideal car for a dense urban environment isn’t some little hatchback with a tiny engine, like a Smart Fortwo or a Mini Cooper. No, what you really want for city living is a hulking, cushy luxury sedan. And to test this theory, I’ve recently acquired this evil crime lord’s car: a black 1984 BMW 733i, with a five-speed manual to boot.
Read MoreWhile I’ve never been the type of person to be particularly stressed about getting every possible power gain out of my car (when I owned a car), I’ve always been skeptical that a performance air filter would actually have any significant difference over a standard one. But if you do some basic tests, it looks like I’m an idiot.
Read MoreIt was lightly snowing, the kind of snow that doesn’t stick but turns everything into a horrible slush. It was December of 2017. I was picking up my coworker, Raph, double parked outside his old apartment. We were headed out to Long Island. It was two weeks after I bought the car. The check engine light came on.
Read MoreWhat do you do when the Jeep pickup that you’ve been neglecting for three years needs a transmission rebuild, but you don’t want to bother your friends to help wrench? You yank that gearbox by yourself. Very carefully. Here’s how I did it without killing myself, and how the process made me fall back in love with a truck I should probably sell.
Read MoreOver the past week I had been thinking about selling my sweet little old Volkswagen. It had a few things wrong with it, and was something I had to deal with more than something I felt was indispensable. So to fix it, I drove it.
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