Autos

If you don’t closely follow motorsports, you might not be familiar with BMW’s M4 GT4. In brief, it’s the German automaker’s turnkey race car built for amateur class racing—essentially, if you’re not paid to race but have a bunch of cash and want to go wheel to wheel in sanctioned competition, this is the BMW to do it in. Since its launch in 2017, the GT4 has proven to be a winner all over the globe, and it’s appeared in road races and endurance events like the 2017 24 Hours of Spa, where it came first in its class with Top Gear America host Jethro Bovingdon behind the wheel. And now BMW has seen fit to give it four new liveries celebrating both its overall success and its fourth year of racing. The quartet of fresh looks are winners from a...

We’ve already seen some of the SEMA360 vehicle reveals and teasers, so you might already have heard that the SEMA aftermarket industry parts and culture event has transformed into a virtual show for 2020. Jeep has already teased an overland-ready Gladiator loaded up with Mopar parts, and Chevrolet pulled the wraps off its resto-modded K5 Blazer-E powered by a Bolt EV crate powertrain. Toyota’s SEMA360 GR Supras trade truckish purposefulness for a focus on drift performance, and aesthetics. See all 45 photos Two of the Supras are drift builds, but first let’s discuss the Ornamental Conifer GR Supra. As you can see, despite the name it’s not a Christmas-tree-themed build. Ornamental Conifer is the alter ego of Nicolai Sclater, a British artist who is at the art direct...

Infiniti is fine-tuning its Q60 luxury coupe to offer more standard features and color options. Alongside those changes the automaker also has revealed pricing for the 2021 Infiniti Q60: The two-door will start from $42,675, making it more affordable than rivals. It may not offer quite the same brand cachet as some German competitors, but the Infiniti is much cheaper. Compared to the 2021 BMW 4 Series coupe ($46,595) and Audi’s 2021 A5 coupe ($45,045), the Q60 is much cheaper and closer in price to the 2021 Lexus RC, which starts at $43,145. See all 20 photos Grand Blue and Slate Gray are new paint colors for 2021. Infiniti has also made rain-sensing wipers standard on all models. One step above the base trim is the Luxe, priced from $51,225. It adds a host of new standard ...

Last year, when the SEMA show was still a physical affair in Las Vegas, Toyota showed off a GR Supra Heritage Edition show car that paired upgraded performance with the style (and, in modified form, the actual rear wing) of the legendary fourth-generation Supra. One thing it didn’t have was the MkIV’s available removable targa roof panel. It looks like this year’s version will address that, and Toyota is calling this new GR Supra concept the Sport Top Edition. It’s coming soon—at least, in concept form—on the heels of Toyota’s other SEMA360 Supras, but this video doesn’t leave much to the imagination about what we can expect. Toyota says this is a companion to last year’s Heritage car. We get a glimpse of what the final vehicle will look like in a ...

To say that the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season has been unprecedented would be the height of understatement. It’s a season that demanded an in-depth telling of how it unfolded, and NASCAR 2020: Under Pressure does just that, documenting a year on the track unlike any in NASCAR history. Debuting this Saturday, October 31, only on the MotorTrend App, NASCAR 2020: Under Pressure brings fans over the pit wall and into the thick of the action like few NASCAR programs have before. From the pandemic and NASCAR’s reaction to it with the opening episode “Hit the Brakes,” to the Bubba Wallace led conversation on racial equality in the second episode “We Stand United,” (debuting Nov. 7) the seven-part docuseries examines the seismic events that have unfolded during ...

We know about letting sleeping dogs lie, but we’d struggle to give such courtesy to the Jeep Gladiator Top Dog concept. Can you blame us? After all, this modified Jeep pickup looks ready for adventure, not naps. Besides, it’d need to sit still long enough to snooze in the first place, and parking this rig anywhere but out there seems like a crime. See all 27 photos Credit the truck’s numerous upgrades, the most notable of which are its K-9 Blue paint (either someone at Jeep loves Blue’s Clues or is very into hallucinogens—possibly both) and PCOR-sourced storage system that takes the place of the Gladiator’s standard pickup bed. The setup includes the likes of pull-out drawers and storage shelves on the passenger’s side and a battery-powered refriger...

The system will enable hands-free driving on prequalified sections of divided highways. These eligible zones consist of more than 100,000 miles of roads in North America. The feature combines active cruise control and lane centering to navigate the vehicle down the road. At the same time, Ford tracks the driver’s eye gaze and head position to make sure they’re still paying attention to the road ahead. See all 27 photos The 2021 Ford F-150 and Mustang Mach-E arrive this year, but they won’t get the hands-free capability right away. It’ll be available as an over-the-air update starting in the third quarter of 2021. Early vehicle buyers will start off by purchasing a hardware package, and then add the software update once it arrives. In the second half of 2021, new cus...

Cadillac has just announced that the eighth most abundant element in the earth’s crust—magnesium—will be used for wheels on the upcoming Blackwing versions of the  CT4-V and CT5-V, and Cadillac notes that “2022 CT4-V Blackwing and CT5-V Blackwing will be the only GM products to offer magnesium wheels in the near future.” Interesting. First, let’s focus on the magnesium alloy itself. Magnesium is both very strong and very light—it has the highest strength-to-weight ration of any commonly available metal—and that makes it an ideal candidate to reduce unsprung mass in cars without compromising the integrity of the wheels themselves. Porsche has used magnesium wheels on some of its cars in the past (the 918 Spyder and most recent 991 GT2 RS come to mind)....

Atlis CEO Mark Hanchett thinks big. When he set his mind on building the Atlis XT electric pickup truck, he wanted to solve the biggest problem first—namely getting 500 miles’ worth of electric charge into the truck at about the speed a diesel pump could do the job in a conventional vehicle. We got him on the phone to answer a few questions about how all this will work in advance of a November 11 virtual unveiling event for the Atlis XT truck. Fast Charge, Every Charge: 1.5 MW at 1,600V One key to cramming a lot of electrons into a battery quickly is managing thermal loads, and the flow rate of the current is key to that. The higher the voltage, the lower the current at any given power delivery rate. So while the state of the recharging art tight now is 400- or 800-volt DC curre...

Remember the doors Ford showed off when the wraps came off the new 2021 Ford Bronco? Not tube doors, although those will probably be available, but “donut doors” that looked like traditional doors with a quadrangular hole in the center. These doors originally appeared on a two-door Bronco loaded up with a bunch of accessory add-ons. Given that appearance, you’d be forgiven for thinking the cool looking pieces were already given the green light. See all 289 photos Not so, according to information that first surfaced at Bronco6G.com (and has since been partially confirmed by Ford). The buzz is that the “donut doors” fail to meet crash test standards and therefore will not be offered as an option. A set of tube doors, however, will be available. We reac...

And look, we know that fuel economy doesn’t really matter in when it comes to a super-truck like the TRX. When you have a supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V-8 under the hood and a capable off-road suspension under the body, how many miles you’re getting to the gallon is almost definitely among the last things on your mind. Topics such as where the nearest dunes are located, or what kind of sweet jumps you can do are surely rattling around louder in your brain bin. But hilariously bad fuel economy is still bad fuel economy, chuckles aside. So, just how bad is it? According to FCA, TRX owners can expect 10 miles to the gallon during city driving, 14 mpg on the highway, and just 12 mpg combined, according to Ram. That’s ’80s supercar thirsty. See all 40 photos While in...