Toyota’s 2021 GR Supra Sport Top unveiling, a part of their SEMA custom vehicle builds, ensures that Toyota’s performance concepts continue to catch the attention of fans of the brand, along with the automotive aftermarket.
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Category: Enthusiasm
Overland Expo West has been postponed again, this time to September 24-26, 2021. The largest adventure travel event in the country, held in mid-May in Flagstaff, Arizona, has been pushed back to ensure the health and safety of participants, exhibitors, staff, attendees, and the community. Lodestone Events, producers of the Overland Expo event series, made the announcement last week.
Electronic Arts said it had reached an agreement to buy Codemasters in a deal worth $1.2 billion, beating rival video games maker Take-Two Interactive Software to the finish line for the British company.
The first new ABT RS7-R Limited Edition version of the 2021 Audi RS 7 has been completed by GMP Performance in Mooresville, North Carolina, at their facility in Lake Norman.
Zero to sixty in 3.8 seconds, or 0.3 seconds faster than the outgoing version, the 2021 Jaguar F-PACE SVR is also said to be 2 mph faster, with a top speed of 178 mph. The real question is where outside of Iredell County, North Carolina, scene of NASCAR racer Kyle Busch’s infamous 2011 speeding ticket (128 mph in a 45 mph zone), could you get anywhere near those limits?
The National Auto Body Council announced the award winners in their first NABC Rides for a Reason Virtual Car Show. At this event, NABC member auto body shops, their employees, and enthusiasts had the ability to put their rides on display in a virtual format.
The show included top cars, trucks, and motorcycles from member shops, car clubs, and individual owners. Winners were selected by celebrity automotive judges. Proceeds from the event are being used to support the NABC’s mission to change and save lives. Recycled Rides, First Responder Emergency Extraction, and its Distracted Driving Initiative are among the NABC’s programs. Read More >
The motion picture industry has been making movies about cars and car racing since the silent film era. After all, they’re called “motion” pictures, and race cars certainly do move. Racing has other elements, as well, that provide for dramatic and entertaining stories, not the least of which is life-or-death danger.
In many cases, though, racing movies have disappointed either car enthusiasts for their lack of realism, or their financial backers for their less-than-blockbuster ticket sales. Now and then, however, a gifted director gets the budget, the actors, the story, and the technical wherewithal to make a film that resonates with both knowledgeable enthusiasts and the general public. Read More >
My first installment centered around the neglected, beancounted “heart and soul of an American hero,” with a sense of pride in bespoke platforms and powertrains. But the re-killing of the Ford Taurus lacks nationalistic sorrow: the hometown hero was a name looking for a globally-engineered sedan, in a declining market, foolishly butted up against another Ford sedan with cooler stuff (a la hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and a SHO-worthy Sport with 325 turbocharged horses).
Ouch. RIP Ford Taurus.
It happened: TTAC’s Ford GT arrived.
And the moment felt extra special because it isn’t a foreign exotic — it’s an American Supercar evoking a rich branding history buried deep within many of us. I reckon every GT delivery is loaded with Ford-centric stories involving family, friends and passersby.
The prolonged journey of TTAC’s Ford Sierra is partly because of my prolonged recovery from Stevens-Johnson Syndrome. While other projects never help matters, the excuses end now.
Because, even during the depths of my recovery, my vision never faltered; thanks to prednisone’s side effects during treatment, said vision became a C4 Corvette-like laser-infused slalom but with Young the Giant screeching in the background.
So it’s about time I drove to my friend Brian’s shop and made it happen. Read More >
Answering a question with a question isn’t my way of being rude. It’s my way of finding out what the questioner truly wants to know.
Their question comes in a variety of forms. What’s the best car? What’s the best car on sale right now? What’s the best car ever?
I want to know how much money they’re allowing me to spend, to which era I’m limited, whether I’m buying for my current life situation as a married work-at-home father or for some other situation, such as life on my neighbor’s farm.
With a recent move to a new province, I’m getting the question with far greater frequency — the result of meeting new people who are confused or delighted or dismayed at what I do for a living. I’m not sure I’ve ever had the answer pinned down before, but being asked so often has forced me to develop a thoughtful response.
What’s my favorite car? I now know. Read More >
Automotive television is, at best, a mixed bag. At worst, it’s a cultural wasteland of gimmicky programing that persists only because of our deep love for cars, bolstered by a handful of engaging personalities. Suggesting that I am generally dubious of any new car-related entry into the entertainment landscape would be a gross understatement. So, when the rebooted Top Gear America aired over the weekend, my expectations were already incredibly low.
I suppose the nicest way to phrase this is by saying it did not exceed those expectations.
While it attempts to capture the magic of vintage Top Gear in much the same way the current British version strives to, the first episode fell far short of the mark. Whether that’s down to the hosts not having adequate time to develop legitimate chemistry or a systematic flaw in the show’s design remains to be seen. But something is definitely wrong here.
Episode One felt extremely awkward, although not entirely hopeless. And I’ve reminded myself that I didn’t much care for Richard Hammond the first time I saw him on the screen, either. Fast forward 15 years and I enter into a panic every time he’s in a scrape, terrified that God might take that adorable little man away from me. Read More >
Since Dodge started producing trucks way back in 1921, it has never held the crown of the best-selling pickup truck in America. Not once. Not even when Dodge was the top brand in America.
It seems from the get-go Dodge has played third-fiddle in Ford versus General Motors pickup truck wars. But being third child meant that Dodge often struggled to be recognized in the market when compared to its more famous competitors.
For enthusiasts, that has always been a good thing.
It meant Dodge always had to be different. Dodge always had to be innovative, or more enthusiastic, or just plain shout more than anyone else. The result of all that was Dodge brought us some very trick trucks along the way that were cutting-edge, that defined a market, or were just plain cool.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at 40 years of pre-Y2K Dodge truck highlights (even when they haven’t been so successful).
The Japanese market is notorious for being closed to the outside world. It has forced successful U.S. companies to abandon the country, as Ford did recently, and propped-up sales of niche producer Porsche to outstrip sales of corporate giant General Motors. At first glance, it would seem Japanese buyers just don’t want cars built by companies outside the Land of the Rising Sun.
On this side of the Pacific, imports are so popular that domestic manufacturers attempted to make them their own multiple times. We’ve had Opels called Pontiacs and Buicks, Mitsubishis masquerading as Dodges, Toyotas and Suzukis selling as Geos, and Isuzus branded as Chevrolets.
But has it ever gone the other way? Have Japanese brands ever tried to appropriate the automotive culture of other countries to move the metal?
The Volkswagen Golf GTi may be what many consider the definitive “hot hatch,” and most enthusiasts credit it with popularizing the idea of a functional yet fun-to-drive and economical daily driver. From its roots have sprung countless pocket-sized performance variants, right up to today’s current Focus RS.
But the Volkswagen Golf was far from the world’s first hatchback. It wasn’t even close.
So where did the idea of a hinged-rear body panel begin? More than 40 years prior to the launch of the GTi, another innovative car introduced the world to the idea of the hatchback, among a few other new features. Are you surprised that it was French, after our Matra article last month?
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