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2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Pros and Cons Review: Lunch Money Stealer
Ford Mustang Full Overview Often, history is made simply by breaking a cycle. Sounds easy enough, but sometimes a thing hasn’t been done for a good reason. The GT500 has never been the best Mustang, just the one with the biggest engine. Not anymore. The 2020 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 has changed history. “This car is the ultimate expression of what the American pony car can be,” pro racer Randy Pobst said after only driving it on the street. After driving it on the track: “God, that thing pins you to the seat running from corner to corner. It hooks up very, very well. That impresses me tremendously. Ford Performance has done a terrific job of setting up that chassis to put down power. I’m in love with the car.” “Now, this is what a proper Best Driv...
MotorTrend Best Driver’s Car 2020: The Contenders!
Well, 2020 has been different, that’s for sure. As a result, the MotorTrend Best Driver’s Car is a bit different, as well. Having to work around a pandemic, we had to shrink our field of contenders and the number of judges. That said, those cars we cut likely wouldn’t have cracked the upper echelon of vehicles we kept. And those cars (and one SUV) that remained were such a closely knit group that picking a winner might have actually been more difficult than it would have been otherwise. So here you have them, the 2020 MotorTrend Best Driver’s Car contenders, with this page updated with a fresh batch of links to each one until we announce the winner on December 30. Be sure to click through, as every story features video of that car’s hot lap put down by our on-...
Little Tikes Cozy Coupe: First “Car” for Many Has Roots In Real Car World
The holidays get us thinking about toys, and when car people think about toys, a few things are bound to come up. Hot Wheels and Matchbox, sure—maybe even Micro Machines. But for a younger (and broader) set of kiddos, the Little Tikes Cozy Coupe might have been the first car in their life. Maybe it was in yours. It’s not possible to quantify the impact these early car toys had on budding enthusiast psyches, but we can peek into the origin and evolution of this timeless kick-powered toy. Its iconic shape isn’t merely friendly and aesthetically pleasing—it’s also far more clever than it would first appear. The original Cozy Coupe prototype was the brainchild of Jim Mariol, a designer who had a stint in auto design. There’s a fantastic profile of Mariol by the Universi...
Mazda’s Logo, Like Its Stable of Cars, Has Evolved Over 100 Years
2020 hasn’t been totally terrible—among other things, it marked the 100th anniversary of founding of the Toyo Cork Kogyo Company, which we now know as Mazda. Jujiro Matsuda was an engineer in Osaka, and in 1920 he came home to Hiroshima to open a new company that manufactured cork. His first logo was a red circle with a broken horizontal line, which Matsuda intended to indicate his desire to contribute to the world. See all 22 photos Toyo Kyogo transitioned to manufacture of heavy machinery in 1927, and in 1931 they produced their first vehicle, the Mazda-Go three-wheel truck. The vehicle was named for Ahura Mazda, a Zoroastrian deity whose name literally translates to “god of wisdom,” and whose name had a happy similarity to Matsuda’s own. In 1934, Toyo Kyogo devel...
Daewoo’s Epic Flop Wasn’t the End for Its Cars
Remember Daewoo? The third South Korean automaker snuck quietly onto the American scene in 1998, with three models and a sales plan that involved college students hawking the cars, Avon-style, to their friends. So what ever happened to Daewoo? The dealers disappeared in 2002, but their cars are still very much of a presence here in the U.S. Here’s what happened, and why. The New Daewoos Are in Early This Year Daewoo certainly got an auspicious start. While Hyundai and Kia both started with a single model (the Excel and Sportage, respectively), Daewoo started with a comprehensive lineup of three. The entry-level Lanos was available as both a two-door hatch or a four-door sedan, powered by a 105-hp 1.6-liter engine. With power steering, antilock brakes, power windows and power loc...
Build Your Own Roadkill-Style Muscle Truck for the Street or Strip
It is a simple formula really: Take a common American pickup truck, stuff in more power than it deserves, and have fun. Between the Roadkill and Roadkill Garage shows, we have assembled a triple play of fast haulers, appropriately identified as the original (Chevy) “Muscle Truck” the “Mopar Muscle Truck” (MMT) and the “Ford Muscle Truck” (FMT). See all 20 photos These trucks quickly became fan favorites as a group and individually, and continue to appear in Roadkill related content and at Roadkill events. The common thread is that all are short-bed stepsides from the late 60’s to early 1970s, built for street performance and all-around vehicular mayhem. Aside of their similarities, each of these muscle trucks has its own personality with distinct d...
The Sterling 825: A Pseudo Honda and One of the Worst Cars in History
Some “terrible” cars weren’t actually terrible, and rides like the AMC Gremlin and Ford Mustang II have an undeservedly reputation for being bad. But some terrible cars truly do deserve every ounce of scorn sent their way, including the ill-fated Anglo-Japanese mashup at the center of this piece, the Sterling 825. It was a car that had every opportunity to be great, but turned out to be one of the worst cars ever sold in America. Honda and Rover—an Unlikely Partnership Back in the 1980s, the Austin-Rover Group—refugee from the wreckage of British Leyland—had found some success in its home market by selling rebadged Hondas, first as the Triumph Acclaim and later as the Rover 200. ARG needed a replacement for the aging full-size Rover SD1, and was itching to get back i...
This Mini Ferrari Testarossa Is a Toy We Wanted Under Our Christmas Tree
Chances are that anyone who’s reading this had available to them at least some kind of ride-on car toy when they were young. We say “available,” because often these toys were and are expensive—even some pedal- and kick-powered cars from decades past cost the equivalent of a few hundred bucks today. But the ultimate, at least for kids growing up in the later half of the 20th century and on, would be a powered ride-on toy. Power Wheels are just so common, though, and who wants just any faceless go-kart? No, the pinnacle of kid transportation has to be a lifelike, miniature re-creation of the hottest cars on sale—like this Ferrari Testarossa Junior. See all 8 photos If you were a kid in 1987, and one of these glinted at you from a parking spot near the Christmas tree, consid...
DIY Kit Turns the Miata Into a Prewar Alfa Romeo Race Replica
It’s nice to know that even if you don’t have the financial health often associated with selling a unicorn startup to Google, you can probably at least (someday) afford the replica of your favorite historically significant car. Beyond the myriad Shelby Cobra, GT40, and Porsche 550 Spyder clones that clog your local Cars and Coffee, there’s more esoteric stuff to be copied. From the Ferrari 250 GT (GTO Engineering) to the Lola T70 (Broadley Automotive) to the Lotus 11 (Westfield), there’s a replica of just about anything available at a relatively reasonable cost—including a new Miata-based DIY kit for a 1950s Alfa Romeo Grand Prix car. Yes, you too can turn your old leaky, greasy, wheezy Mazda roadster into a rather excellent approximation of the Alfa 158/159 th...
The Weird and Wonderful AMC Rambler Marlin Was a Concept Car Come to Life
The Rambler Marlin remains a rare sight in the world of classic cars, but the car’s utterly unique appearance makes them a welcome visitor to any venue. Naturally, that time we heard the Marlin Auto Club was holding a “Gathering of Marlins” at the American Motors Owners Association (AMO) International Convention in Rockford, Illinois, we had to check it out. An even 10 Marlins—mostly 1966 models for their 50th anniversary—turned out for the Gathering, and a pre-production Rambler Tarpon clone even dropped by the AMO’s big show the second day. We also got a chance to talk to artist Vince Geraci, head of the American Motors Corporation’s design studio in charge of of the AMC Marlin, who gave a brief presentation on the car. See all 7 photos Marlin Preh...
The 1990–1993 Chevrolet 454 SS Is a Cheap Ticket to Smoky Burnout Fun
Pickups are fun and relatively cheap entries into the world of rear-wheel drive performance. Older trucks especially are simple to work on, offer sensational parts availability from both catalogs and scrap yards (where millions of their brethren sit waiting to be picked apart), and can be made to accept a wide variety of drivetrains and suspension setups with relative ease. Factory performance trucks are a relatively new concept, however. Although outliers like the Lil Red Express were around in the ’70s, it wasn’t until the early 90s that Detroit began to embrace the idea of building its own hot rods and testing the waters with its loyal pickups buyers. With flashy rides like the turbocharged GMC Syclone and, later, the supercharged Ford F-150 Lightning grabbing most...
Unique Off-Road SUVs that are Cheap, Cool, and Fun
See all 6 photos ZJ / WJ Jeep Grand Cherokee By far the most popular suggestion sent our way was to take a look at both the ZJ and WJ generations of the Jeep Grand Cherokee. The ZJ represents the first generation of Jeep’s full-size SUV, which embiggened the unibody construction and looks of the popular XJ Cherokee but added numerous creature comforts as well as an available 5.2-liter V-8 engine on top of the slow, but trusty 4.0-liter inline six. It also offered solid axles front and rear, along with several different four-wheel drive systems and, eventually, a larger 5.9-liter V-8 in the last year of its 1993-1998 production run. The WJ was the next step after the ZJ, and delivered essentially the same package matched with revised styling and according to Jeep, only 127 shared comp...
