Autos
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This 2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe Is Supercharged and Spotless
From the outside, this 2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe is as clean and simple as it gets, and to the average onlooker, probably doesn’t look like much more than a well-maintained, lowered car with nice wheels. To those who know a thing or two about cars, a little closer inspection reveals plenty of unique details and clever installs that give this build a split personality of sorts, which is exactly what owner Ray Prado was after. “The goal for my car was to make the G35 clean and simple with a twist,” he notes. “I wanted to leave the exterior as close to stock as possible but focus on mods in areas that were hardly looked upon – the engine bay, trunk and interior.” His and Hers—Vanished Well before his obsession with the fine details and his Infiniti build, Pra...
2020 Honda Civic Si Road-Trip Review: Comfortably Sporty
Honda Civic Full Overview A lot of folks who aren’t car enthusiasts tend to believe you’re making a lot of compromises when you buy the sporty version of a car. Miserable ride quality, useless rear seats (if any), equally useless trunk, terrible fuel economy, and more. In some rather extreme cases, that’s true. It’s not true at all for the Honda Civic Si. I grew up in a rural area on the other side of the mountain from Silicon Valley, but it was plenty close enough to see the wealth that lived high in those hills. Back then, though, it was stealth wealth. At least to me. Sure, these people owned Ferraris and such, but they only took them out on weekends for a quick drive, a wash, and then back in the garage for the rest of the week while the BMW or Mercedes did comm...
Elation Hypercars Freedom Is a 1,900 HP Hyper-EV Hopeful
Hyperbolically powerful EVs are sprouting all over the automotive landscape like weeds these days. The Porsche Taycan Turbo S makes an already frankly ludicrous 750 horsepower, but the Lotus Evija, Rimac C2, and Tesla Roadster all have it beat. Now there’s a new player in the game. Elation Hypercars, an American-based “hyper-EV” company, has just announced its first project, and it’s as wild as you’d expect for a new player in this space trying to make waves. According to Elation the Freedom, their first car, will be powered by a 100 kWh lithium ion battery and four electric motors that will make up to (approximately) 1,903 horsepower. The battery is a T-shaped unit that’s integrated into the car’s chassis. If customers so desire, they can spec a 1...
2021 Mercedes-Benz Metris First Look: The Van Still Exists, Now With More Tech
We recently spent some time in the comfortable and well-equipped Metris Weekender, a camper van that arrives this spring. It was cool, mostly because it was a reasonably sized, classy camper. The Mercedes-Benz Metris van on which it is based is a little less flashy and lower-profile than the larger Sprinter work van, although for 2021, it receives a much-needed update with plenty of new tech. Okay, that new tech has limits. Open the 2021 Metris‘s doors, and you won’t find a glamorous widescreen display like those found in Mercedes-Benz’s upper-crust sedans and SUVs. Instead, the new Metris trades in its old 5.8-inch central display for a new 7.0-inch touchscreen with smartphone integration. The face-lifted Metris also receives high gloss black trim for the center con...
2021 Dodge Durango Scores Big Black Friday Discounts—For Four Days
Dodge’s long-serving yet somehow still relevant (and satisfying) three-row SUV, the Durango, was just refreshed for 2021 with updated styling inside and out, additional towing capability, and upgraded infotainment and tech options. And now all that freshness will be available with a pile of cash on the hood courtesy of Dodge’s “Power Dollars” incentive program. Well, provided the Durango you want is laying around a dealership sometime between November 27 and 30. That’s right: This Black Friday deal for in-stock examples only runs through the 2020 Thanksgiving weekend. The special is the same $10-per-horsepower discount we’ve come to expect through the “Power Dollars” program, which was started in 2019. The following discounts are available on...
2022 Porsche 911 GT3 First Ride Review: Big Talent
Porsche 911 Full Overview There’s the merest hint of a twitch, caught instantly with the tiniest flick of the wrists. Andy Preuninger keeps his foot down. The corner opens onto a short straight running between trees with hints of the red and gold and brown of autumn among the green. The tach needle swings past 8,000 rpm, a steely manic snarl behind us as Preuninger reaches for the shifter on the center console and plucks the next gear. “A Porsche 911 GT3 is like a human being,” he says, watching like a hawk for damp patches on the tarmac. “It likes warmth. It likes operating in the same temperatures we do, 15 to 25 degrees centigrade. When the dampers and the tires are cold it communicates that it’s not happy.” Andreas Preuninger’s anthropomorphism...
Latest 2021 Ram 1500 Built to Serve Edition Pickups Honor the Marines
Ram is paying tribute to five branches of the U.S. military with a battalion of special-edition pickups. Celebrating the active service members, reserve members, and veterans who make up seven percent of the U.S. population, these thousands of 2021 Ram 1500 “Built to Serve Edition” come complete with unique paint colors and patriotic design cues. The latest models honor the Marines, featuring a choice between Tank and Flame Red exteriors. Ram will introduce 1,000 copies of each color for the truck honoring the Marines. All models, including the trucks paying homage to the other military branches, feature black accents on the grille, bumpers, bezels, side steps, and exhaust tips. These details pair with unique 20-inch aluminum wheels and body-color wheel flares. A special “...
Ford Ranger Now Available Without a Pickup Bed In Europe, Just as Option Disappears from America
Say you’re looking for a small pickup truck, minus the pickup bed. It might seem pointless—does a bedless pickup become just a truck? A two-seat oddity?—but if it strikes you as such, you probably don’t live in the commercial realm, where upfitters bolt any number of useful, typically specialized configurations to the chassis behind the truck’s cab. To open up its midsize Ranger pickup to such possibilities, Ford is releasing a new chassis-cab version, sans cargo bed, but only in Europe. See all 11 photos The bedless Ranger is a blank canvas for…whatever a builder would like to do to it. Go ahead, bolt on a flatbed, or an enclosed cargo box, or even a boom. (Ford has helpfully illustrated a few of those options here.) Ford Europe says its Ranger chassis cab, which is base...
Yenko’s Back With a TRX-Rivaling 800HP Supercharged Chevy Silverado Pickup
If you feel like this Yenko hot rod Chevy was introduced earlier this year, you’re not entirely wrong. You’re also not entirely right, as the tuner previously showed off its lowered Limited Edition truck. This, however, is the Off Road. Like the Limited Edition, the Off Road features the same supercharged V-8 engine and six-speed automatic transmission. Likewise, the engine carries the same host of modifications: a blueprinted LT-1 aluminum block; forged crankshaft, rods, and pistons; CNC-ported heads; and an upgraded fuel system and injectors. Drivers can mash the throttle confidently, knowing that a three-year/36,000-mile warranty backs the engine and transmission. See all 9 photos Suspension improvements come courtesy of a BDS four-inch coilover lift system (with front ...
Build Your Own Electric Rivian R1S SUV and R1T Pickup—the Configurators Are Now Live
Better late than never, right? Rivian is finally taking reservations for its sleekly styled electric pickup and SUV, and after a weeklong period during which only reservation holders for the R1S and R1T electric SUV and pickup could access the automaker’s online configurator tool, you, too, can now virtually build your dream Rivian R1S and R1T. The first thing you’ll notice when you visit Rivian’s build-your-own tool is that the limited-production R1S and R1T Launch Editions models are sold out. These variants were scheduled to arrive in the middle of next year—June for the R1T and August for the R1S. Launch Editions come with upgrades like special badging and a unique army green (aptly named Launch Green) paint option. If you didn’t get your hands on a Launch Editi...
Who Needs Baby Yoda When You Can Have a Baby Bugatti II?
Way back in 1926, Bugatti Automobiles founder Ettore Bugatti gifted his 4-year-old son a unique birthday present: a half-scale version of Bugatti’s Type 35 race car, which won the Grand Prix World Championship in the very same year. The one-off kiddie car was nicknamed the Bugatti “Baby”, and Ettore’s VIP clients soon asked him to make one for their own children. Some 500 Bugatti Baby kid cars were built and sold by the time production ended in 1936, making them very rare and expensive collectibles for well-heeled Bugatti fanatics today. But now, you can buy a brand-new Bugatti Baby II kiddie car to go along with that Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport or Super Sport 300+ you have on order. Oh, to be a (wealthy) kid again. Bugatti Baby II Prices and Specifications Three diffe...
Porsche Taycan Slides Into World Record DMs With Longest EV Drift Ever
Porsche just set the world record for longest drift with an electric vehicle. While BMW still holds the record for the longest continuous drift with a gas-powered car, Porsche put a more eco-friendly spin on the feat by attempting it in a rear-drive version of its Taycan EV—a variant it currently sells in markets such as China. The record was set at the Porsche Experience Center in Hockenheim, Germany. Instructor Dennis Retera took to a wet, 200-meter (approximately 656-f0ot) radius skidpad in a Taycan and drifted it for 55 minutes continuously. Retera covered 26.2 miles (the exact distance of a marathon) “without the front wheels ever pointing in the same direction of the curve.” In layman’s terms, he was drifting the entire time. Porsche’s new world record was com...
