Fiat Chrysler remains adamant that its new Jeep Gladiator won’t be its only midsize pickup truck, but consumers had best hunker down for a wait. While the company announced the development of a conventional midsizer in last year’s five-year product plan, the new offering won’t appear until the end of that window.

Between now and 2022, CEO Mike Manley and the team at Ram must find a way to offer a midsize pickup at a price point designed to woo Colorado, Ranger, and Tacoma intenders. First on the to-do list is finding a platform. (Read More…)

Most of the gearheads in this audience turn a wrench or three. It’s part of what makes the community at TTAC such a great one: authors and readers alike enjoy (and understand!) wrenching on cars as much as they enjoy driving them. Those attributes aren’t a requirement for hanging around these digital pages but it sure does help.

You author spent a leisurely few minutes changing over the tires on his trusty Dodge Charger from winter to all-season rubber. While spinning lug nuts, I started thinking: what is the first tool bought by most gearheads?

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After writing about junkyard cars since early 2007, I just realized that the newest discarded Mustang I’d documented was a 1984 model. As you’d imagine, Mustangs from the late Fox and SN95 eras are easy to find in North American wrecking yards, so I resolved to shoot the next interesting one I found… which turned out to be this much-abused ’95 GT I spotted in a Silicon Valley self-service yard. (Read More…)

Sleeper enthusiasts have a space in their heart reserved for General Motors. While the company’s most famous performance vehicles have typically been difficult to ignore, there was an era where some of its meanest models flew below the radar. This peaked in 1991 with the GMC Syclone pickup and Typhoon SUV — both of which played host to a 4.3-liter LB4 turbo V6 that could give high-end exotics a run for their money in a drag race.

While each of GMC’s unassuming monsters had a tragically short lifespan, evaporating by 1993, Specialty Vehicle Engineering (SVE) announced it would be bringing back the Syclone as a limited-edition “modern classic” earlier this year. Now the company is saying it’ll happily do the same for the Typhoon if General Motors decides to hand over the Blazer to GMC.  (Read More…)

Wrangling between Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the city of Detroit, and a prolific landowner reached an end on Friday, with all three parties signing deals designed to bring more Jeeps to the city.

As part of a $4.5 plant investment strategy announced in February, FCA wants to convert its Mack Avenue Engine Complex into an automobile assembly plant, earmarked for the next-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee and a second, larger model. The adjacent Jefferson North plant, which currently builds Grand Cherokees and Dodge Durangos, won’t see its product roster change, though it will see cash for expansion and interior upgrades.

Once unionized FCA workers get first crack at the 4,950 jobs, remaining positions will go to Detroit residents. (Read More…)

Last week, we examined the precarious situation impacting the way Jaguar Land Rover does business. If you want the abridged version, JLR isn’t sure what to do about Brexit, overestimated the Chinese market, and is concerned with tightening emission rules in Europe. The company’s now mulling the layoff of a sizable portion of its workforce to stem financial losses while parent company Tata considers what life might be like if it sold off its British properties.

Refreshingly, JLR isn’t secretive about its problems and doesn’t attempt to spin them into something positive. It knows it’s confronting real problems. It wants us to know that, too.  (Read More…)

Remember when we told you you could purchase Fiat Chrysler’s beastly, 1,000-horsepower Hellephant crate engine last week? Well, you’ve missed the window. After just a few days of availability, Mopar’s mightiest engine is entirely sold out.

According to Allpar, FCA’s inventory was depleted within 48 hours of pre-orders opening for “Hemi Day” (April 26th) after third-party sources began saying the motor was no longer available. The outlet posited that the $29,995 hand-built unit was likely produced in extremely limited numbers and reached out to the manufacturer for verification about its availability.  (Read More…)

It sounds like something that should be taken with a grain of salt, though recent sales figures back up a report that claims the basic version of the eighth-generation Volkswagen Golf won’t make it to the United States.

The regular, non-performance version of VW’s long-running hatch wins praise for offering budget fun and above-par fit and finish, but the current generation’s replacement might not come here without GTI or R lettering on the back. (Read More…)

Mahindra, the company that produces the intentionally Jeep-like Roxor, is looking at sites in Detroit, Oakland County, and Genesee County in the event that it lands a $6 billion contract to supply the U.S. Postal Service with delivery vehicles.

While USPS has already begun supplementing the now-ancient Grumman LLV with more-modern vans and utility vehicles, it launched an official search for a replacement in 2015. Mahindra was one of the finalists, along with AM General, Karsan, Oshkosh-Ford, Utilimaster, and VT Hackney.

The Postal Service plans on making a final decision this summer as to who will build some 180,000 replacement vehicles over the next six years.  (Read More…)

You read the title correctly. There’s a Triumph TR8 for sale in the urbane and international city of Tampa, which is in Florida. Miraculously, the sporty convertible has traveled just 90 miles since 1981.

It’s beige, malaise, and showroom fresh, so let’s have a look.

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We know, we know — you’re torn on the answer to this age-old question. Well, Toyota thinks its 2020 Corolla sedan, which adopts the platform and powertrain changes seen on the 2019 hatch, is hot, sizzling stuff. And you will, too, it seems.

So much so, you’re liable to engage in a lewd public act, possibly encouraging a visit from the cops. (Read More…)

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Tesla cash-raising bonanza, the electric automaker is looking to boost the size of its stack once again.

After Thursday’s shelf offering of stock and convertible notes, Tesla announced Friday it wants to boost its injection of capital from $2.3 billion to $2.7 billion, issuing further common stock and debt. CEO Elon Musk now says he’ll buy $25 million of the new stock, up from $10 million yesterday. (Read More…)

Americans love their Ford F-150s, but buyers are increasingly opting for a powerplant boasting fewer than eight cylinders. As such, the automaker is cutting the third shift at the Windsor, Ontario engine plant tasked with building the 5.0-liter Coyote V8.

Ford V8s and Windsor have a long association, but the extraneous employees needn’t worry about hitting the job boards. There’s a much larger V8 in need of assembly. (Read More…)

Timothy writes:

Sir, I have a problem with my 1994 Buick Roadmaster. You remember the one that I inherited from my parents but didn’t care for the way it rode? Yeah, that one.

I followed a lot of your advice in making it a much more desirable car for me: big sway bars, rebuilt the front suspension with police grade goodies. Same with brakes. Redid the steering box, too! But now there’s a problem: the darn thing keeps blowing its horn!

Usually I’m in a store when it goes off and the call comes over the loudspeaker that my car is screaming at the top of its lungs. And those triple horns are loud!

Please tell me how to get this fixed! (Read More…)

At this point, it feels that every Chinese automaker has delivered an unrealistic promise of bringing fresh product into the United States within a couple of years. Last November, Zotye, Ford’s partner in Asia with a penchant for producing copycat models of European cars, announced plans to bring something over in 2020.

The firm now claims that the T600 crossover — which looks in no way like something from Volkswagen Group; certainly not an Audi Q5 or VW Touareg — will be first model in line for a boat trip to America.  (Read More…)