The next time you don your best wool and tweed garb and grab the Holland & Holland for a day of upland game hunting on the moors, you might want to leave the largest of Rolls-Royces in your heated garage. That’s because the next-generation Ghost, the most affordable of Rolls’ cars, will send power to all four wheels.

Retailing for a mere $314,400 (2020 model), the now decade-old Ghost is a suicide-doored alternative to the gauche, look-at-me Phantom, Wraith, and Dawn, to say nothing of the Cullinan SUV. Due for a full revamp this fall, the Ghost stands to gain some of the features modern drivers can’t do without. (Read More…)

The other week we brought you a list of best used car buys for teen drivers. Driver safety factored heavily into the choices compiled by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) and Consumer Reports, with the cheapest offerings obviously being car-like in nature.

With their lower prices, cars remains the ride of choice among teens, despite the new vehicle market shifting violently away from traditional three-box conveyances. They’re also the type of vehicle teens are most likely to turn up dead in, and the trend shows little change, despite the rapidly evolving auto landscape. (Read More…)

Everyone’s favorite rear-drive South Korean liftback sedan, the Kia Stinger stands to gain a refresh for the coming year. Appearing in its home market Wednesday, the ’21 Stinger aims for added aggression, but Kia didn’t lose its mind applying this facelift.

Details on powertrain alterations, if there are any (there might be!) are off the table for now, but the rest we can see with our own eyes. (Read More…)

This Question of the Day took form as your author drove into the hills, away from the city, in a fruitless search for awe-inspiring meteors. What a bust. And something sauntered past in the dark, too, so that wasn’t great for the ol’ nerves.

On the trip up to that spooky secluded roadway overlooking a fog-cloaked valley, yours truly got to thinking about the Toyobaru Twins and their low sales numbers, and the fact that a successor is nearly upon us. Who’ll buy such a vehicle in today’s hostile buying climate for small, sporty coupes? A few possibilities come to mind. (Read More…)

Dhivya Suryadevara, General Motors’ chief financial officer, is on the way out. After helping the automaker weather its worst storm since the 2008 recession and concurrent bankruptcy, Suryadevara announced her resignation Tuesday, effective August 15th. She’s leaving for a non-automotive position at Stripe, a San Francisco-based financial services and software company.

GM’s first female finance boss, Suryadevara took on the role in 2018, but the pandemic that rocked the auto industry this year also created new opportunities elsewhere. (Read More…)

Frankly, who isn’t thinking about size? We could all use some more.

We’re talking about generous passenger and cargo volume, right? Surely. In that area, Jeep suggests it has your future size needs covered. (Read More…)

The Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon gain arguably overdue refreshes for 2021, ensuring continued consumer traction amid boosted competition from rivals. The midsize pickup segment has grown, and not just in volume.

Joining the GM duo and perennially popular Toyota Tacoma last year was the Ford Ranger; meanwhile, Nissan’s long-awaited Frontier revamp lands for ’21.

Word is that the Canyon, which sees a new AT4 trim for the new model year, will don extra goodies by year’s end. Good news for a truck that’s increasingly playing second fiddle to its bowtie-wearing sibling. (Read More…)

The recipe stays pretty much the same, though the dish stands to see some new ingredients.

Following years of tepid sales and speculation about the Toyota 86/Subaru BRZ twins’ market viability, word eventually came that neither automaker was willing to cede this niche segment. A successor was a go. Now, physical proof of the upcoming next-generation cars has appeared on social media. (Read More…)

The Lucid Air, an unabashed luxury electric expected to roll out of an Arizona factory early next year, just got the PR boost it needed.

Working with FEV North America at the firm’s Auburn Hills, Michigan test center, Lucid and its partner put the Air to the test, applying standard EPA testing procedures to wring out the vehicle’s maximum driving range. The resulting number was impressive, to say the least. (Read More…)

General Motors desperately wants to reopen a case dismissed last month by a federal judge, but Fiat Chrysler’s having none of it.

The racketeering lawsuit filed by GM against its crosstown rival alleged that FCA secured unfair labor advantages over GM via bribed UAW officials, with the automaker claiming last week that it possesses new evidence capable of convicting its automotive foe. A number of offshore bank accounts fueled the bribery effort, GM claims, with the automaker’s court filing accusing former UAW Vice President (and ex-GM board member) Joe Ashton of being a paid mole.

Gripping stuff, but FCA says it’s seen this movie before — and it’s a stinker. (Read More…)

It was a wild weather day in parts of the Midwest yesterday, something that’s to be expected when temps soar and humidity turns your drapes into a damp dishcloth. When violent weather threatens, the first concern is protecting life and limb.

Second on that list? House and home.

Then comes the car. (Read More…)

The Buick Encore GX, a larger, unrelated Encore with fewer cylinders than you’re used to, quietly appeared in the brand’s stable just as “pandemic” became every newscast’s favorite word. Like its Chevrolet Trailblazer fraternal twin, the Encore GX boasts a more spacious body than its subcompact stablemate and a brace of three-pot engines designer for power and thrift.

While the little Encore has been Buick’s sales leader for years, the brand says that’s already changed. Still, there are no immediate plans to ditch the GX’s smaller namesake. (Read More…)

Maybe established automakers can impress investors with electric promises, after all. Following Hyundai’s announcement that it will turn the Ioniq nameplate into an electric vehicle brand encompassing several models, the company’s stock lit the afterburners, achieving its best share price showing since 2017.

Lofty electric ambitions aren’t a sure-fire way to juice a stock, as Ford has shown year after painful year, but they can achieve results. (Read More…)

A defunct minivan is under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration after three owners reported fires breaking out in the interior of their vehicles.

The preliminary probe, opened August 6th, covers only the 2014 Chrysler Town & Country, the high-zoot sibling of the Dodge Grand Caravan. It seems the trouble lies with the vehicle’s charge hub, which sits between the second- and third-row seats. (Read More…)

Low-end electric cars don’t get a lot of press these days, not with Silicon Valley upstarts and established OEMs rolling out mega-torque, high-zoot green vehicles at a steady clip. Yet the Hyundai Ioniq Electric has provided an alternative to the base Nissan Leaf since 2016, combining a usable-but-not-class-leading driving range with a relatively bargain basement price tag.

Joined by a super-efficient hybrid as well as a plug-in variant, the Ioniq lived in the shadow of competing nameplates its entire life. It’s bound to get more attention now, given that Cadillac Hyundai is turning the model into a brand. (Read More…)