Autos
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SSC Reportedly Attempted a Top-Speed Run of Its Claimed 300+MPH Hypercar
The Pahrump Valley Times is reporting that Highway 160 was shut down this past weekend by the Nevada Department of Transportation for what appears to be a high-speed run of the SSC Tuatara. While the company confirmed to MotorTrend that it has been conducting frequent high-speed testing of its cars as part of the Tuatara’s development process, SSC representatives have been mum on what exactly occurred in Nevada that resulted in a public road closure. The first customer example of the $1.6 million Tuatara was delivered back in February after an extended gestation period of nearly a decade. The sheet metal is penned by former Pininfarina designer Jason Castriota, and power comes from a twin-turbocharged 5.9-liter V-8 with a flat-plane crankshaft. SSC claims this Nelson Racing...
Audi A6 Allroad Pros and Cons Review: Bringing a Wagon to an SUV Party
Pros Handsome sheetmetal Gorgeous interior Carlike qualities Cons Dated powertrain Fussy secondary controls Carlike qualities Square pegs don’t fit into round holes. Yes, due to some sort of legalese, the Audi A6 Allroad is technically an SUV. But you know it’s not an SUV, we know it’s not an SUV, even dogs know it’s not an SUV, probably because they can jump in the cargo area without a ramp. The only people unsure as to what the current-generation A6 Allroad is—an ever so slightly lifted station wagon—are the fine folks at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The problem becomes, what do we do with a raised wagon at an SUV of the Year party? Well, we let it in because we’re not heathens. “As the lines blur between SUVs and cars, the lifte...
2021 Chevrolet Trailblazer Pros and Cons Review: Back for More
Pros Baby Blazer looks Fancy optional equipment Huge back seat Cons Ridiculous as-tested MSRP Stiff ride Loud interior Every full-line automaker needs a strong portfolio of SUVs in every shape and size to be competitive in today’s market. Although Chevrolet has had a subcompact SUV in the Trax for years, that car has failed to gain meaningful, ahem, traxion with consumers. Riding to the rescue is the 2021 Chevrolet Trailblazer, which avoids many of the missteps made by the Trax but doesn’t go far enough to achieve class leadership. Leave aside any baggage associated with the Trailblazer name (if you can), and the all-new and entirely different model makes a good case for itself on paper. Its $19,995 starting price is noteworthy, its rear seat is enormous for the class, and it o...
Travis Pastrana’s Gymkhana Subaru WRX STI Wings It Hardcore
Where’s Sean Evans, host of Hot Ones, when you need him? Because Travis Pastrana‘s latest Subaru WRX STI track toy is both hot and loaded with wings. Built by Subaru and Vermont SportsCar for Pastrana’s upcoming turn at the helm of Hoonigan Racing Division’s Gymkhana series, this Subie sedan trades all pretense of practicality for additional performance heat. In other words, this is the Carolina Reaper-dosed chicken wing of WRX STIs. See all 10 photos Admittedly, its multitude of wings—of the aerodynamic, not chicken, variety—may look a little silly, but this WRX STI puts function over form. In fact, Subaru notes the car’s exposed carbon-fiber body was put to the test in the wind tunnel to ensure its wings sliced through the air like incisors th...
2020 Mazda CX-30 Pros and Cons Review: Stuck in No Man’s Land
Pros Nice to look at Premium-feeling cabin Sporty steering feel Cons Underpowered Poor ride Small-for-segment interior Mazda is in a state of transition. Not just from “Zoom Zoom” to “Driving Matters,” but from a builder of affordable, fun-to-drive cars and crossovers to what it considers a proper premium marque with sights set on the likes of Acura, Genesis, and Lexus. The 2020 Mazda CX-30, for better or worse, straddles that transition point between mainstream and luxury. Design might be the most elegant part of the CX-30, a crossover nominally built to slot in the narrow white space between the slightly cheaper subcompact CX-3 and slightly more expensive compact CX-5. Although not breaking any new ground for Mazda, the CX-30 nevertheless stands out in its segment...
2021 MotorTrend of the Year Testing: How We Did It
We’re a nimble bunch at MotorTrend. The global health crisis has affected our daily reality. Mobility is limited. Fear of mass-spread infection events is high. We take this crisis and the safety of our testers, editors, photographers, and videographers very seriously. But we also take seriously our obligation to provide our readers with the best, most complete information on cars, trucks, and SUVs. In confronting what is typically a logistical mountain to bring you OTY, this year added the hazards of performing these tests under threat of contagion. Traditionally, for Car and SUV of the Year, we have used Honda‘s and Hyundai’s desert proving grounds located a couple hours’ drive north of Los Angeles as the staging areas for instrumented testing and the basic driving...
2021 Honda Accord First Look: Improved Value, But One Big Loss
There are two plot arcs in the 2021 Honda Accord story. Which one you follow depends on whether you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of buyers who snatch up new Accords year in and year out, or if you’re among the extreme minority who purchase the midsize sedan because of its available manual transmission. To the bigger group, the headline changes to Honda’s Accord for 2021 are its minor restyle and richer standard equipment across the lineup. That’s pretty standard mid-cycle refresh stuff. To the smaller group that enjoys shifting Honda’s sweet-driving sedan for themselves, bad news. Just as Honda had warned, the Accord’s six-speed manual transmission option is gone. The automaker even wrote what read as an apology to the shrinking number o...
Devilish Durango: Hennessey Tunes Dodge’s SRT Hellcat SUV to 1,000+HP
Cue AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell,” because the folks at Hennessey want to get 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat drivers on the road to Hades as quickly as possible. Why else would the famed tuning company see a need to tweak this three-row SUV’s supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 engine from 710 horses to an eye-widening 1,012 ponies? Yes, you read that right. Hennessey has a kit for the Durango SRT Hellcat that ups the total number of ponies in the Dodge SUV’s stable to over 1,000. Christened the HPE1000, this mighty Mopar promises to hit 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and cross the quarter mile in just 10.8 seconds. That’s a claimed 0.8-second improvement over the standard Durango SRT Hellcat’s manufacturer estimates of 3.5 and 11.5 seconds, respectively. Wha...
2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport Review: Looks Can Be Deceiving
I was on my final haul of the season, moving the last two kitchen-table chairs, four large wooden flower boxes, two coolers, suitcases, and other miscellaneous items on an almost 12-hour trek north. It was a perfect assignment for the 2020 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport, which has the most interior space in the midsize SUV segment. VW took its three-row Atlas, its top-selling vehicle, and sliced the bologna a bit thinner to create a two-row, five-passenger Atlas Cross Sport. The result is an outrageously large second row and cargo area, nice weapons to have in competition against vehicles such as the Chevrolet Blazer, Ford Edge, and Honda Passport. In other words, the VW is the ideal transport for the task ahead. The cavernous interior—77.8 cubic feet of stowage is available with the second-...
Prances With Horse: The History of the Ferrari Logo
When presented with a car like the 986-horsepower, 211-mph plug-in hybrid SF90 Stradale, it’s easy to forget the high-tech, hypercar-building Ferrari of today got its start not long after cars started edging-out horses for daily transportation needs. In the years since, the Ferrari marque has gone through many cycles and changes, not the least of which have been changes to the Ferrari logo itself, the famed Prancing Horse. Origin of the Ferrari Logo The Ferrari Cavallino Rampante, or Prancing Horse, has been traced to origins as ancient as 1692, when a similar design was found on the regimental banner of the Royal Piedmont Regiment of the Duke of Savoy, Vittorio Amadeo II, by the Museo del Marchio Italiano. As Ferrari itself tells the tale, the marque’s eponymous founder, Enzo ...
Report: 2021 Toyota Sienna’s In-Van Vacuum and Fridge Put on Ice
Speaking to Roadshow, a Toyota spokesperson revealed the two features will not be available at the Sienna’s launch due to a supplier issue. “Availability is to be determined,” the spokesperson added. See all 19 photos As Roadshow reports, Toyota still plans to begin shipping Siennas to dealerships by the end of the year. The fridge and vacuum should eventually make their way to the minivan, but the exact timing remains unclear. We’ve reached out to Toyota for comment and have yet to hear back. The Odyssey was the first minivan to offer a built-in vacuum cleaner when it arrived for the 2014 model year. Now, the feature has spread to the Chrysler Pacifica. Toyota had planned to make the vacuum standard on the Sienna Limited, and the refrigerator standard on the top-ti...
Confirmed! Mazda MX-30 Gets a Rotary Range Extender
We’ve been waiting years for Mazda to bring back its rotary engine, and now, it’s finally happening—albeit not in a sports car such as a revived RX-7 as we hoped. Instead, in an expected move, the first modern Mazda to get a rotary engine is the MX-30 electric crossover. In it, the smooth-running engine will act as a range extender (basically, a fuel-fed generator to extend the MX-30’s driving range between charging stations). This head-rotating information comes directly from Mazda President and CEO Akira Marumoto. In the video below, Marumoto confirms that automaker will bring out early copies of the rotary assisted model next year. Expect the final MX-30 EV to hit Japan in 2022. Mazda introduced its first production rotary engine in 1967, having licensed Wankel technol...
