Autos

Even though Audi has been around since 1969, the brand’s first-ever rear-wheel-drive car came out in 2018. It was the R8 RWS, a limited-edition, less expensive version of the R8 sports car that lacked front drive shafts, weighed a whole lot less than the standard all-wheel-drive model, and had slightly less power. Audi has already repeated the RWS formula with the facelifted R8 that came out last year, but for 2021 the automaker is bringing it stateside as a regular member of the R8 lineup. The rear-drive Audi R8 will once again serve as the entry point to the R8 range, and it will come in both coupe and topless Spyder forms—the latter being an option unavailable on the limited-run R8 RWS last time around. The entry-level, non-Performance-spec Audi R8s are dead for 2021, meaning if y...

The most obvious changes are the brand new driver’s area, the addition of a fully digital driver’s display that the brand is calling the Acura Precision Cockpit, and a brand new central tunnel that contains a drive mode selector much like the one found in the NSX supercar. Another massive screen sits atop the dashboard, revealing a reworked infotainment system that’s more elegant than before. Other photos reveal the new look to the seats. There’s now more detailing in the way of contrasting stitching and piping, as well as intricate quilting. It also looks like there are tiny holes for seat ventilation, too. The leather with the contrasting piping continues into the second (and perhaps even the third) row of the new MDX. See all 6 photos Lastly there’s a look ...

One of the greatest elements of spectatorship in any sport is rivalry. Whether it’s Yankees vs. Red Sox, Bird vs. Johnson, or Borg vs. McEnroe, some of the greatest sporting events in history include this layer of neck-and-neck competition that makes for dramatic victories and upsets. For NASCAR fans of the 1980s, they had already found their undisputed king, Dale Earnhardt. The Kannapolis, North Carolina, native created an empire through his image and his undeniable mastery of stock-car racing. The cowboy hat-wearing, blue-collar poster boy looked like the epitome of what a NASCAR legend should look like. That is, until Jeff Gordon showed up. See all 13 photos Gordon, hailing from Vallejo, California, was everything Earnhardt was not. With a humble demeanor, sleek haircut, and style...

Future Ford Bronco owners are probably as excited as anyone right now to get their rigs into the great outdoors for some off-road adventure. Sure, some will do more traditional wheeling with their rigs, but there’s a whole lot of interest in long-distance—off-the-grid—overlanding these days. Ford is providing some inspiration for these individuals in the form of the Bronco Overlanding concept. It’s a 2021 Bronco Badlands four-door wearing Area 51 paint and sporting a seven-speed manual transmission. More importantly, it features a whole lot of upgrades. For rolling stock, the Bronco Overlanding concept wears 17-inch Fifteen52 Turbomatic wheels finished in black and wrapped in 35-inch BFGoodrich KM3 mud-terrain tires. A Warn winch sprouts out of a modular steel bumper (both Ford...

Amidst 2020’s ongoing 2020-ness, it would seem irresponsible for anyone to promote or encourage gatherings, let alone college football tailgates. Dos Equis is doing just that with its Save Our Saturdays marketing ploy celebrating football’s “return,” but makes up for those potentially disastrous optics with free beer and an even cooler delivery vehicle for those beer giveaways, a Dos Equis-themed El Camino. Oh, and the beer brand also is packaging its beer in six-foot-long coolers that double as social-distancing markers (dubbed the “Seis-Foot Cooler”)—which fit snugly in the six-foot pickup bed of an El Camino. Safety! We’re sure you have questions, the first of which might have to do with that free beer. Where can you get it? Sign up at the Dos E...

In conjunction with NASCAR Productions, the MotorTrend Group recently pulled together a documentary on the Motor Trend 500 called The MotorTrend 500: NASCAR Heads West, about the legendary stock car race held at the Riverside International Raceway, in Riverside, California. The Motor Trend 500 ran from 1963 to 1971, and was foundational to the westward and eventual international expansion of the budding series known as the National Association for Stock Car Racing. In the early 60s, NASCAR was still in its infancy, a mostly southern United States racing series, nowhere near the racing juggernaut it is today. NASCAR races were not yet broadcast on TV, or even nationally on radio. It was only regional newspapers and some national, special-interest automotive magazines that covered such ...

Even if you don’t use TikTok, the short-form video app popular with people younger than you, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the video Nathan Apodaca aka “Doggface” skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” while sipping on some Cran-Raspberry juice. Since Apodaca posted the video, it’s racked up more than 26 million views on TikTok alone, with copies spreading to other platforms. It also had the effect of increasing week-over-week sales of “Dreams,” which was originally released in 1977, by 60 percent. And then Cran-Raspberry juice producer Ocean Spray got involved. The internet coalesced around Apodaca’s video because it simply could not have been more pure of heart, and clearly Ocean Spray clearly felt the sa...

John Lamm, acclaimed automotive journalist and photographer, has died in California. He was 76. In a career that spanned almost half a century Lamm wrote countless magazine and web stories and authored dozens of books, most of which featured his own photographs. His writing won him the Ken Purdy and Dean Batchelor awards, two of automotive journalism’s highest honors, and his photographic skills were employed by Porsche and Ferrari, among others. What made Lamm the consummate storyteller and visual artist was his genuine passion for all things automotive. He loved cars, and he loved the people who designed them, engineered them, built them, raced them. Even when he was in his 70s, bustling around a crowded European auto show, a camera slung over each shoulder, racing to get the shots...

Someone in Stuttgart is surely prepping a banner with the words “Welcome Back, Arnold Schwarzenegger In a Font That Looks Like Lightning Bolts” splayed across it. That’s because Mercedes officially announced plans to bring an electric G-Class into production. Instead of spending a seven-figure sum to convert an old G into an EV, the former governor of California—or you, if you have lots of money—will soon be able to saunter over to the nearest Mercedes dealer and drive off in a factory-built model. The electric G-Class is part of an onslaught of EVs the three-pointed star has plans to produce in the coming years. Alongside the forthcoming EQS flagship sedan, the German luxury brand will also sell a smaller EQE sedan, as well as EQS and EQE crossover SUVs. All four of...

No one should be surprised, as we’ve written a version of this story already many times recently: A sedan is going away, and a crossover SUV is taking its place. The models and marques matter less, in general, than the broader market forces and consumer tastes at work. In this case, the compact Jaguar XE luxury sedan will be a thing of the past. And the E-Pace crossover will be a thing of the future—or at least the thing that sticks around in the XE’s stead. Even among the European luxury automakers, Jaguar is a small player in the U.S. market. And the XE, the company’s until-now entry level vehicle, is an attractive contender with great design, but some real faults. And it isn’t, and has never been, the best car in its segment. It’s a car that engenders fondn...

If you were doing research before buying the new Tesla Model Y electric crossover, chances are you would find owners sending up online warnings about quality issues. Uneven panel gaps, misaligned trim, and paint defects are the common ones to look for, according to owner complaints, and it is up to the new buyer to either tolerate the issues and let Tesla Service fix them afterwards or refuse delivery and wait for another car (which does not guarantee to be built better). If this sounds ominous, know that the reaction common amongst new Tesla Model Y owners is a love of their new EV offset by disappointing quality issues. We’ve found the Model Y to be a pleasant adaptation of Tesla’s relatively affordable Model 3 sedan, albeit with far more interior room and a more useful cargo...

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the 2021 Polestar 2 goes 233 miles with a full charge of its 78-kWh battery pack. That’s well short of the 275-mile range estimate the brand originally targeted for the model. It also falls far short of key rivals. The Tesla Model 3 offers a minimum of 250 miles of range, per the EPA. Its crossover counterpart, the Model Y, meanwhile, offers a minimum of 316 miles of EPA-rated range. Keep in mind, the Model 3 starts at $39,190. That means Tesla’s entry-level sedan offers a minimum of 17 extra miles of range (and as much as 89 more miles in Long Range form) and costs $22,010 less than the $61,200 Polestar 2. The math doesn’t work in the Polestar’s favor if you’re willing to sacrifice some pa...