Autos
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2020 Lamborghini Huracán Evo Pros and Cons Review: More With Less
Pros Amazing engine Absolutely planted Outrageous handling Cons Body structure issues Infotainment UX No room for stuff Let’s be honest, the Huracán itself is just a gussied-up Audi R8, right? Sure, when Sant’Agata makes an all-in move with the likes of a Performante, it can win. But just a regular production car? In bocca al lupo. We probably should mention, however, that the Evo does get the Performante’s 630-hp humdinger of a V-10, which screamed loudly enough to break the sound meter at Sonoma Raceway even though we were at Laguna Seca. I kid. A little. We also had a nice demonstration of what a Performante with the ALA removed performs like. This year, our resident racer Randy Pobst went 2.85 seconds slower per lap in the Evo around Laguna Seca than he did in the Per...
2020 Ferrari F8 Tributo Pros and Cons Review: Thrills and Chills
Pros Missile acceleration Quick cornering Bumpy-road mode Cons Wooden brakes Too-light steering feel Looming snap oversteer In reviewing the 2020 Ferrari F8 Tributo with proper clarity, there is a need to go back a few years and admit with mild chagrin that our 2017 Best Driver’s Car–winning Ferrari 488 GTB might have been a ringer. This goes beyond Ferrari sending four factory techs to work day and night to be sure everything ran perfectly. (By contrast, Porsche traditionally sends Frank the PR guy, who watches the Italian antics with mild amusement.) Rather, the 488‘s testing numbers we posted were more akin to what the 661-hp GTB would have produced had it been chipped to 800 hp. And well-placed sources with deep connections say that might indeed have been the case. Bu...
The Toyota Land Cruiser Is Dead, Long Live the Toyota Land Cruiser
When was the last time you saw a Toyota Land Cruiser? You can’t go a block without seeing multiple 4Runners, Highlanders, Tacomas, and RAV4s—or even the occasional Sequoia—but spotting any generation of a Land Cruiser is a rarity. For all its name recognition and iconic history, there just aren’t that many running around the U.S. And after the model-year 2021 iterations are built, there will be no new ones sold in America, at least for a while. See all 16 photos We first heard rumblings of the Land Cruiser’s demise in the States more than a year ago when multiple sources at Toyota hinted to MotorTrend that the Land Cruiser was in trouble. Although at the time Toyota PR officially denied any such possibility existed, the automaker has finally acknowledged that its legendar...
2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Pros and Cons Review: Ultimate Track Tool
Porsche 718 Cayman Full Overview Pros Supreme balance Fantastic teacher Great track tool Cons Jittery suspension Tire noise Underpowered This car has all the makings of a Best Driver’s Car winner: engine mounted in the proper place directly behind the driver and revving to a glorious 8,000 rpm, a delightful manual shifter (unique this year), unflappable carbon-ceramic brakes with excellent pedal feel, and sticky Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires. This is a sports car that punches way above its 3,127-pound featherweight status. The 2020 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 lapped Laguna Seca quicker than a Ferrari 458, AMG GT 63 4Matic+, and various flavors of Nissan GT-R. Like any Porsche I have ever driven, I can tell it’s a Porsche in the way all of its controls have matched efforts and responses. N...
2020 Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe Pros and Cons Review: Defying Logic
Porsche Cayenne Full Overview Pros Supercar performance Well-hidden weight Great fun to drive Cons Sick-pumpkin appearance High price It’s an SUV “How do you explain it?” I asked the Porsche PR man standing along the K-wall at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Legendary wheelman/human lap timer Randy Pobst had just finished his hot laps in the 2021 Porsche Cayenne Turbo Coupe during our 2020 Best Driver’s Car, and something had gone, well, not quite right. Quite wrong some might even say. See, Porsche is owned by the Volkswagen Group, as is Audi, and Audi owns Lamborghini. At our 2019 BDC, Lambo’s Urus had set the SUV lap record at Laguna Seca, at 1:40.90. You maybe see where this is going. The Porsche, which stickers for $82,559 less than the Lambo, beat the U...
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...
