Autos

See all 8 photos What’s In a Name? Ford has been resurrecting classic names for new versions of its “icons” lineup: namely those related to the Mustang and the Bronco. On the former, Ford has leveraged the “Mach” name for its electric Mustang-branded Mach-E SUV and the gas-fed Mach 1 coupe; for the latter, Ford both revived the Bronco nameplate for its Jeep Wrangler-fighting 4×4 and slapped the “Bronco Sport” name on a smaller car-based compact crossover. The idea is to leverage these iconic names to sell more vehicles beyond the core Mustang and Bronco lineups by building each nameplate into compelling standalone sub-brands. For the electric F-150, which has been widely publicized as going on sale in 2022, the Lightning name is almost to...

Australia’s car culture is cool, but you probably already knew that. While its homegrown cars—including rear-wheel drive utes and big-horsepower, V-8 sedans—have mostly died off, the pickup culture remains strong. To wit, Australia is one of the lucky recipients of the Ford Ranger Raptor, the jacked-up, widebody version of the global midsize pickup we get a version of here in non-Raptor form. The closest we get to the Raptor’s badassery currently is the (pretty cool, but narrow-body) Ranger Tremor Package. Meanwhile, in Australia, the Ranger Raptor is getting gussied up even further with the X package. The X package is already well known in that country from doing duty on the Ranger Wildtrak trim. The 2021 Ranger Wildtrak X gets a number of upgrades, mainly cosmetic save the sn...

Is the Infiniti Q50 the Lincoln Town Car of 2021? Hear us out for a second. Like the long-gone Town Car, the Q50 packs a rear-wheel-drive punch under sedan skin. It also now includes a “Signature” trim line. Sure, Infiniti technically calls its latest Q50 model the Signature Edition, but the point stands: both of these wildly different cars include (or in the case of the Lincoln, included) a variant that gives a nod to the ol’ John Hancock. Unlike the boaty Town Car Signature trim line of yore, the Q50 Signature Edition is a “limited production model,” per Infiniti. Alas, the Japanese luxury brand failed to share just how many Q50 Signature Editions it plans to produce. Regardless, every Signature Edition uses the $48,725 Q50 Sensory trim as a base, to which I...

The second summer of the pandemic is almost here, but the outlook is totally different this time around. With millions of Americans vaccinated and eager to get out of their immediate and unchanging surroundings, there’s a lot of anticipation of an almost normal travel season ahead. And there will be frustration, too. There are still pandemic-related restrictions and precautions, but more to the point, pandemic-related shortages and supply chain issues are going to impact all of us. We’re talking about gasoline shortages, scarce rental cars, and vehicle production delays, among other things. It’s going to jam up our summer plans, to some degree, and managing expectations against pent-up travel demand is going to be important. Let’s lay out what we know about these sh...

Can you think of a better ride—a ’99 Chevy Caprice—to a bar in the middle of the desert? Why are inappropriate cars the most fun? You’d think with a lifetime of off-road driving behind him, David Freiburger could come up with a better choice for a desert-bombing vehicle than a lifted Chevy Caprice on 26-inch wheels, but this is Roadkill, and Mike Finnegan has the same sensibilities. Let the Bubblicious Bunker Bar off-road adventure begin! It might surprise you to learn that Bubblicious—as Finnegan named it for the Hillarious Car Shootout last season—hasn’t breathed nitrous since joining the Roadkill fleet. Mind-blowing, right? The two man-children that strap a bottle to every piece of junk they can haven’t gassed the V-8 in this Caprice yet? What’s even more c...

Volkswagen is at it again, and this time with a special edition of the Golf GTI Clubsport to commemorate 45 years of the iconic hatchback. The quickest GTI variant that we folks Stateside can only gawk at from afar, the Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport 45 is the latest in a storied line. See all 5 photos Essentially a spiffed-up version of the already hardcore GTI Clubsport, the Golf GTI Clubsport 45 adds a package of upgrades that reduce weight and elevate status. First up is an Akrapovič titanium sports exhaust system that improves flow and amplifies the exhaust note. The hot hatch gains 19-inch “Scottsdale” alloy wheels featuring a Tornado Red pinstripe around the rim and finished in high-gloss black paint. Other exterior updates include “45th Anniversary” badg...

So, what if the Honda Civic coupe had survived for 2022? We answered this hypothetical by having some fun with an image of the 2022 Civic sedan and Photoshop. Whereas prior Civic two-door models have sat on stubbier wheelbases than that of its four-door counterpart, we opted to keep our imagined 2022 Civic coupe on the same 107.7-inch wheelbase as the 2022 Civic sedan. We figured doing so might give our theoretical 11th-gen Civic coupe a slightly more rakish roofline. Instead, we inadvertently made a smaller version of the previous-generation Honda Accord coupe (pictured below). With its squared-off headlights, snub nose, and cleaned-up flanks, the latest Civic takes on a mature, almost Accord-like appearance. No surprise, then, that shaving off the rear doors and cutting the roofline...