The IRA (no, not that IRA, a different one) will have major effects on how Americans build, source and buy EVs. First and foremost, for new cars to qualify for the tax credit, the EVs have to be built in North America. Sorry, Hyundai, Polestar and Subaru. Tough luck. Furthermore, those EV batteries have to be built in North America and ultimately with minerals sourced in the United States or its free-trade partners....
Named after the race in which Porsche won first place in 1984, the Porsche 911 Dakar has been put through the wringer by Porsche engineers, the Stuttgart-based brand would like you to know. Porsche’s press release mentions that the car saw many hours in an off-road proving ground in Weissach. That appears to be a gravel quarry — pretty much the only place one can go off-roading in Germany, in my experience:...
The new 7 Series, known by Bimmer trainspotters as the “G70,” has visual bulk problems. In other words, because of its dimensions, it looks fat. But all is not lost. I recently checked out BMW’s U.K. website to have my first look at the car — specifically in its best-looking mean matte-black guise, M-Sport Pro. This trim brings the largest standard wheel of any 7 Series, and I think this is critical to balance out the car’s thick proportion....
Look, they even color-coordinated the rubber impact strips on the bumper! And look at the dude they have modeling with the car, dressed to match that rolling, V8-powered Werther’s Original there. That’s not a guy you’d see in modern premium car ads. Also, here’s something I wasn’t aware of: Lincoln offered a “Carriage Roof” option in place of the vinyl half-roof, and this one covered the whole roof, but eliminated the opera windows in favor of “personal mirrors” inside....
Just so we’re all on the same page, the word “Parisienne” means, literally, a woman or girl from Paris, France. In popular culture, the implications of a Parisienne are usually of young, attractive, and stylish woman, as is maybe most obviously portrayed by Brigitte Bardot, who starred in a movie called La Parisienne: When you hear the term Parisienne, I suspect that for most people the vague images conjured up in their heads is something like what you see up there, all coquettish and maybe saying ooh-la-la in a café....
No surprise there. Charisma and a clutch pedal versus dowdy practicality and an improvised trunk latch. You all are my kind of foolish. I know a lot of people were concerned about parts availability for the Subaru, but really, if the seller did all that work, the parts are out there. You just have to look further than O’Reilly for some of it. It’s like a scavenger hunt! Who doesn’t love a scavenger hunt?...
Instead of that: “Can’t we just get A.I. to do it?” croaked Elon through a haze of sweet-smelling smoke, probably. Yep, it’s time for another rant. But before we get into the specifics of how A.I. will or won’t affect car design let’s take a look at the broader trends of what’s going on. The tech industry, flush with cash for years and hungry for The Next Big Thing, didn’t look at a single industry they thought couldn’t be improved by their disruption and insight....
I mean, look how they lit this Grand Safari, alone and forlorn on a dock that looks like it’s barely big enough to hold it: And now look at Caravaggio’s 1599-1600 painting, The Calling of St. Matthew: See what I mean? If Caravaggio was hired to paint a Pontiac wagon, I’m pretty sure the result would be almost exactly like what Pontiac did in this 1974 Brochure. You know what else is interesting?...
As a baseline vehicle without touchscreen infotainment, Vi Bilägare gave a 2005 Volvo V70 some time off from schlepping furniture and strollers. While the V70’s center stack is essentially an anvil compared to modern cars’ touchscreens, it’s still a fairly busy traditional dashboard with plenty of buttons and knobs. The team at Vi Bilägare chose a litany of fairly simple tests for drivers to perform. The first was an obvious winter morning routine of turning on the heated seat, bumping up HVAC temperature by two degrees Celsius (3....
In keeping with the general theme of sucking, I think I’d like to pick a Mercury that many, many people would likely say sucks: the Mercury Bobcat. They’d likely say this because the Bobcat was a re-badged Ford Pinto, a car that’s best known for having a design flaw so egregious and dangerous, and the handling of it so callous and bungled that the whole thing is now tort law legend....
Rolls-Royce calls this an “Ultra-Luxury Electric Super Coupé” and fits the role played by the Phantom Coupé, which explains why it looks exactly like a Phantom Coupé. The great success of Rolls-Royce has been due in large part to making exceptional cars that still feel very much like the cars they are supposed to be. Perhaps it’s the misfortune of debuting next to the stunning and wild Cadillac Celistiq, but the weight of tradition bears down so overwhelmingly on the Spectre that we’ve ended up with a car that I am sure is phenomenal and also doesn’t move me (though I am not the intended audience and based upon the interior colors I’m assuming the first car was purchased for the rich baron Lord Ronald McDonald)....
Welcome back to Holy Grails, the Autopian series where we show off some of the coolest, most underrated cars that you love. Now that this series has run long enough, I’m beginning to see a trend in the vehicles being sent in. It seems that our readers really love vehicles from that time when Chrysler was experimenting with turbocharging. Ford and Chevrolet also get some love with interesting versions of their trucks and vans....
Before Monster Energy sponsorship, liveries by famous artists, and even Subaru Rally Team USA, there was the white and gold Vermont SportsCar DC Shoes WRX STI. Not only does the Peter Stevens-designed blobeye facelift still look sharp today, but Block’s 2005 livery was also absolutely off the chain. Snow camo was something completely different in 2005. Nobody had it on their Carolina-squatted brodozer, plus Block’s pattern was particularly subtle. Then there’s the gold: Fast Subarus and gold wheels go together like nachos and tequila, and bringing those gold wheels into the livery was a great way to honor Subaru’s heritage while doing something very different from the iconic 555 WRC livery....
Well, three in Europe, and 31 out of the 50 States of America. Definitely two rear license plates no matter where you were. What’s going on here? Why would this car need an extra license plate at the rear? There’s a hint of the answer in this picture: It’s subtle, but do you see the extra license plate there? It’s laying flat, at a 90° angle to the normally-positioned license plate there....
I’ve seen a pair of Dangel 4×4 Peugeot 505 Breaks in the Peugeot Museum in Sochaux, but I don’t know much of the history. I found this article that’s been translated from AutoWeek NL to be quite interesting. First, a bit of background: Cool, but why the 4×4 wagon? ssion for motorsport. He developed a racing car under his own steam: the Mangouste. The design was very similar to the Lotus 23, but with the engine in the back....
The really crazy part is that the track conditions sucked. Not only was the tarmac damp in many spots, there was dirt on the track in spots like Kesselchen, and Mercedes-AMG claims in a press release that the session was shortened due to weather delays. Apparently, by the time the track had somewhat dried out, Mercedes-AMG only had time for four fast laps. These aren’t the ideal conditions you’d want to set a lap record in, yet here we are....
Anyway, during one of these calls, David and I were talking about the truck and realized something significant about trucks and the culture we live in: when it comes to level of shittiness, cars and trucks are not judged the same way. Trucks get a pass for coolness in ways that cars simply don’t, and this is an idea worth exploring, because I’m not entirely certain what’s going on. In simplest terms, it’s this: a beat to shit car is embarrassing, but a beat to shit truck is cool....
Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. Prices Are Down 1% Off Of Their Highs But… Most experts are saying used car prices are coming down, with Manheim saying wholesale prices are down 0.1% year-over-year and Edmunds showing a 1% decrease off their May highs, according to this story from the Associated Press....
For this past year, it seems the big news is that the achromatic (you know, grays, white, black) dominance is finally showing a few tiny cracks. According to the report: What It’s Like Unboxing A 1-of-1 ‘Beauberry’ Ford GT So, the Grayscale Monolith still controls a shocking 81% of the market. And, it looks like blue and red, despite holding the highest chromatic percentages, dropped one percent, along with green, brown, and gold....
It looks like the Cavalier takes this one, with the old repmobile pulling a handy 79-vote victory over the Metro. Frankly, I’d take the Cavalier as well. It’s no Turbo or GSi 2000, but it certainly gets the job done even if it seems a bit dodgy. Right, off to Deutschland to check out two family cars from very different eras that are both eligible for American import. 1981 Mercedes-Benz 200D – €2,950 Engine/drivetrain: Two-liter four-cylinder diesel engine, four-speed manual gearbox, rear-wheel-drive....
