Autos
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Ferrari SF90 Stradale to Star in Remake of Classic Outlaw Driving Film
You probably already know the film C’était un Rendez-Vous (“It Was a Date”), which has been passed around online forever—and via videotapes for years before that. There’s zero dialogue, the car is never shown, and the plot is nonexistent. But it’s a legend, shot illicitly in 1976 by Claude Lelouch on the open but uncrowded streets of Paris early in the morning at high speed in order to arrive on Monmartre while his girlfriend walks up the stairs for a hug. Allegedly, he drove his own Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, but the soundtrack applied is quite obviously a different car—it’s actually a Ferrari 275GTB. Like Climb Dance, a film about Ari Vatanen’s blast up Pikes Peak in a Peugeot, or Faszination am Nürburgring, RUF’s iconic film about its ...
What Is a Targa? A Very Brief History of an Automotive Staple
In the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the automotive landscape was awash with targa-top cars. Conventional convertibles required heavy mechanisms (or worse, motors or hydraulics) to work and got rid of a major structural component—ya know, the roof. That in turn sapped performance from sports cars by making them less rigid, heavier, and slower. There were also very real fears among automakers that the U.S. government would ban convertibles in the name of rollover safety in the late ’60s—even though that never happened, the automakers freaked. In fact, there were zero American convertibles built from 1976 to 1981. A solution for all of these problems was to ditch the folding fabric roof of a convertible altogether and replace it with a removable panel mounted to a sturdy roll hoop...
2020 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid Price Commands a Premium
The 2020 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid is greatly improved from its predecessor. Not only does it boast a quiet ride and a tech-happy interior, but it’s also one of the most fuel-efficient sedans around. Hyundai has released prices ahead of the sedan’s release this June, and they’re pretty reasonable. The 2020 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid Blue starts at $28,725. At this price, the base Sonata Hybrid is more expensive than the base Honda Accord Hybrid ($26,575), but less expensive than the base Toyota Camry Hybrid ($29,385). The Sonata Hybrid carries a $4,150 price premium over the base gas-only Sonata. See all 37 photos While SEL models are priced from $30,875, you’ll pay $36,275 for a top-tier Sonata Hybrid Limited. In our recent Sonata Hybrid interior review, we praised the Limi...
2020 Honda Civic Type R First Drive Review: Now Even Sharper
Since its 2017 debut, 13,000 individually numbered Honda Civic Type Rs have found their way into enthusiasts’ embraces. We lived with a 2018 “CTR” for a year and didn’t want to give it back. A mild update occurred in 2019, but for 2020, substantive changes make our favorite hot hatch even better. To answer your first question: “Does the 2020 Civic Type R get a boost in power?” No, the 2.0-liter turbo-four makes the same 306 horsepower and 295 lb-ft, which is plenty. Yet the no-options singular-trim CTR gets a modest $695 price increase over last year, but that nets a host of hard- and software upgrades and an additional, exclusive Boost Blue paint job. Magic Carpet: the 2020 Civic Type R’s adaptive dampers See all 89 photos Honda reports that the s...
Michigan Flooding Destroys Local Fiero Repair Shop
It hurts to see something like this. From all reports, Fieros Forever was a work of love by a man named Tim Evans, and his specialty shop worked on, preserved, and displayed Pontiac’s sporty little mid-engined runabout. The shop, located in Midland, Michigan, was struck by floodwaters that were released when the Edenville Dam failed during immense rainfall this month. The floodwaters then crested the Sanford Dam, upstream on the Tittabawassee River from Midland, where Fieros Forever is located. As you can see, the result is heartbreaking. Of course, these are cars, which can—given time and money—be repaired. The human cost of the flooding will be harder to fix than a handful of Pontiacs. But what happened to this Fiero shop is just a slice of the unfolding tragedy in the Tittabawasse...
Watch Big 1970s Cars Decimate Their Smaller Siblings in Vintage Crash Test Footage
You might remember that a while back, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety crashed a few modern cars into their vintage counterparts to show, in part, how far crash safety had progressed. But what stuck in our minds wasn’t how intact the passenger cells of the modern cars remained, but rather how mangled the old cars were. We’re thinking in particular of the ’59 Bel Air slamming into a 2009 Malibu, and the Nissan Tsuru (an early 1990s Sentra sold in Mexico until 2017) crashing into a modern Sentra. Yowzers. How about two 1970s-vintage cars crashing into each other? And make one of them full-sized in the 1970s sense of the term—aircraft carriers, basically—and the other the relevant company’s compact. We’re talking about the Ford Pinto, Chevrolet Vega, an...
Molto Bello: A Visual History of Alfa Romeo’s Iconic Triangular “Trefoil” Grille
You probably know that quadrifoglio means four-leaf clover, and that when said good-luck charm appears on the flanks of an Alfa Romeo, it recalls the brand’s motorsports heritage and portends dynamic brilliance. But did you know Alfa refers to its trademark three-element grille design as a “trefoil,” which essentially means three-leaf clover? Let’s take a historic look back at what is probably the next most iconic grille after BMW‘s twin kidneys. See all 10 photos 1947 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Freccia D’Oro The classic trefoil design featuring the central three-sided shield as we know it today first appeared on the newly designed postwar 6C 2500 cars that integrated the front fenders with the grille surround. Cars like the Freccia D’Oro (“golden ar...
Will the 2020 BMW 228i xDrive Gran Coupe Win Us Over in a Year?
What is it? Who’s going to buy this thing? Why does it exist? Those are just some of the questions people asked (from a safe distance) about the 2020 BMW 228i xDrive Gran Coupe. With the Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class as its only competitor, the 2020 BMW 2 Series Gran Coupe is a niche model. For that reason alone, we don’t blame consumers for asking so many questions about this oddball luxury sedan or for not knowing BMW even offers such a model. Slotting below the legendary 3 Series, the 2020 BMW 2 Series Gran Coupe is the smallest sedan in the German automaker’s lineup. As BMW’s newest entry-level car, the 2 Series Gran Coupe has been tasked with luring new consumers—particularly younger ones—into the brand. That means the 2 Series Gran Coupe must compete with other luxu...
2022 GMC Hummer EV Pickup: What We Know
Hummer is back, albeit as a sub-brand of GMC, not a standalone brand within General Motors. Don’t call it a gas guzzler, either, because the 2022 GMC Hummer is a zero-emissions electric pickup truck. With production set for GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant, the GMC Hummer EV likely arrives in dealers in mid-to-late 2021. While GM isn’t saying much about the model’s technical details, the company did announce the EV will have 1,000 horsepower and hit 60 miles per hour in 3.0 seconds. More Videos 2022 GMC Hummer EV Electric Truck: Removable Roof Panels Teaser Teaser: Ford Mustang Cobra Jet 1400 Electric Dragster Prototype Toyota Yaris Cross 2022 GMC Hummer EV Pickup Truck – Teaser April 2020 Petrolhead Planet Preview: Epic Drives in Epic Cars Need to Know: 202...
2022 GMC Hummer Truck and SUV Getting Jeep-Like Removable Roof Panels
Hummer just teased a brief photo and video showing the open-air roof of the forthcoming 1,000-hp GMC-badged Hummer EV, with no further explanation or clarification as to how this roof works, what it looks like with the panels in place, or even whether this roof belongs to the promised pickup or the promised SUV model. Such a roof could be applied to either—or, hopefully, both, just as Jeep‘s Wrangler 4×4 and Wrangler-esque Gladiator pickup both offer topless options. From the look of it, the GMC Hummer’s open roof design involves removable panels. There is a traditional “basket handle” structure where the B-pillars would be—the roof pillars just behind the front seats—that allows for complete removal of the roof over the front seats, though we can’t ...
GM’s “Ultra Cruise” Aims to Take on Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Option
The future for General Motors includes hands-free driving everywhere, a top executive said in regards to company plans to expand the capabilities of its Super Cruise system. The hands-free driving feature currently works on pre-mapped highways. Taking hands-free driving to the streets is the next logical evolution of the technology and GM has a big team working on it. The setup is referred to as Ultra Cruise, was formally announced by GM’s Doug Parks at the Citi 2020 Car of the Future Symposium. “Ultra Cruise’s domain would essentially be all driving, all the time,” Parks said. “Ultra Cruise would be all [that] Super Cruise [offers], plus neighborhoods, cities, subdivisions.” Unfortunately, Parks was light on details, such as when Ultra Cruise will reach...
