It was never Porsche’s first choice to build the original 911 Targa. Porsche planned to develop an open-air 911, but back in the 1960s, the future of the convertible was under threat by impending U.S. regulations, so the company came out with the Targa, an almost-convertible with a permanent roll… Continue reading
BMW is getting ready to implement a midcycle facelift for its current, F30 3-series (pictured). Part of the 2016 update will be new engine options, according to the website bmwblog.com. The 3-series will receive a plug-in-hybrid version with a four-cylinder gasoline engine, and the 3.0-liter 335i will be replaced by… Continue reading
Tuner cars, those science projects engineered to make already-fast cars truly berserk, are often more trouble than they’re worth. But what if you could make a two-ton-plus sports sedan run a sub-11 quarter-mile with nothing more than a computer upgrade? Wouldn’t that be worthwhile? READ MORE ›› Continue reading
Conventional wisdom and legally-required safety labels have trained us to understand that we shouldn’t look directly at laser lights, lest we become blinded by their eye-searing output. That’s still almost universally true, except when it comes to BMW’s laser-powered headlight concept. These lasers were designed to prevent blindness—specifically when it comes… Continue reading
What It Is: With the new NX now in play to do battle on the smaller end of the CUV spectrum, the sales-champ RX sees a size increase for 2016, and the fourth generation of Lexus’s bread-and-butter crossover may see the addition of third-row seating. Have a gander at these… Continue reading
In spite of our history of doting on the BMW M3 as though it were an internal-combustion golden retriever, we wouldn’t mind an American car making the BMW tuck its quad tailpipes between its legs. The previous Cadillac CTS-V came close, but the Corvette-powered special was always too big and… Continue reading
Full-size pickups have become so large that a more rationally sized truck seems like a big deal. Indeed, General Motors has been basking in attention for more than two years since announcing that it was bringing all-new mid-size trucks—the Chevrolet Colorado and the GMC Canyon—to market. Now they’re here for… Continue reading
No one talks about personal luxury cars anymore; use of that term peaked some 40 years ago. But the 2015 Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG coupe reminds us that, even if there isn’t a modern term for the concept, there remains a distinction between the average luxury car and one so egotistically… Continue reading
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced today that it will vastly expand its recall of older Dodge, Chrysler, and Mitsubishi vehicles to replace driver’s-side airbags manufactured by disgraced auto supplier Takata. The expanded recall affects an estimated 3.3 million vehicles built between 2004 and 2007, 2.9 million of which are in the… Continue reading
While we have nothing but praise and admiration for Ford’s decision to spread stick shifts around the new Mustang lineup, the fact is that many of you will buy automatics just as your forebears did in the 1960s. Back then, slushboxes were the gooey, horsepower-gobbling Neanderthal ancestors to today’s computer-linked,… Continue reading
You can pretty much set your watch by the Mini product plan—the basic versions come first, followed by the progressively hotter iterations and myriad body styles. The arrival of a John Cooper Works version of the third-gen F56 hatchback marks a coming of age, the equivalent of Porsche pulling the… Continue reading
We simply cannot talk about the GMC Yukon Denali without getting the sticker-shock vapors out of the way. Gaze upon the $ 74,720 figure on our tester’s Monroney, then huff smelling salts like a teenage Dee Dee Ramone left alone with a tube of Testors’ finest cement. That is a… Continue reading
