It will surprise exactly no one to find a Hyundai on deck for this week’s Ace of Base; after all, value for money is this brand’s modus operandi. The new Palisade isn’t the brand’s first crack at the three-row crossover segment but, also unsurprisingly, it is certainly its best effort.
Fresh for 2020, this machine has space for all hands and an enormous grille that’s sure to menace its way through the pick-up lane at school. Is it packed with features at a reasonable price? You bet it is.
My father has historically been a Ford man. Despite numerous forays into Chevrolet, Chrysler, Volkswagen and Toyota, he has always returned to the Blue Oval when the time came to purchase a keeper. Other nameplates came and went, receiving slightly less attention, but there was always at least one well-maintained Ford in the garage. As a result, I became familiar with dealerships using the suffix “Ford Lincoln Mercury” at a very young age.
For me, it was an opportunity to ogle the fancier sedans my father claimed didn’t make financial sense. “It’s the same car,” he would always say. “This one just costs more.”
When you’re eight and have nothing to distract yourself with other than the swizzle sticks you stole from the coffee area, fatherly advice has a way of sinking in. I’ve often wondered why automakers would even dare place their premium offerings so close to their less-expensive models. But times have changed. Read More >
In last Wednesday’s QOTD post, we began our discussions on the finer examples of sports car design from the 1990s. Our first stop along the route was America. This week, we take a trip across the ocean and consider sports cars from Europe.
Superfans of BMW’s M subsidiary — or, more accurately, its cars — are in for some good news. The German automaker announced an extra special heritage edition of the M4 on Tuesday. Called the BMW M4 Edition ///M Heritage, and limited exclusively to the F82 coupe, the model is supposed to commemorate everything the M Division stands for.
While that absolutely includes making BMW money, the automaker has yet to provide the model with an MSRP. That said, its special nature will undoubtedly push it beyond the model’s $70,000 base price. It’s also limited to just 750 examples worldwide, which ought to tack on a premium of its own. Read More >
When you’re selling a car that starts at just a tick under $3 million, one that’s already regarded as the most powerful and expensive sports car in the world, does more speed really add to the package? Without a supply of rarified air to tap into, this author can only assume that bragging rights grow more important the more a person makes. Why else do wildly affluent people scale Everest only to die on its frigid, oxygen-free slopes?
For Bugatti, maker of the 1,500-horsepower, 16-cylinder Chiron, a speed record crushed under the wheels of a “near production” prototype last month serves only to add additional — and perhaps unnecessary — glitz to the ultimate of halo cars. Read More >
Former Renault-Nissan Alliance director Arnaud Deboeuf is leaving Renault to chase sunnier pursuits at French rival PSA. It’s no secret that the relationship between Nissan and Renault has become severely strained, however, Deboeuf’s departure throws more light on how personal issues are impacting the broader business. He effectively blamed Renault CEO Thierry Bolloré for his leaving the alliance.
“Thierry Bolloré told me no one wanted to work with me … and that I could not go to work at Nissan either,” Deboeuf explained in a final letter to his colleges. Read More >
If there’s one thing the lads at Ram enjoy more than making torque, it’s making new trim variants for its various lines of pickup trucks. The old Ram 1500 Classic has enjoyed countless special trims during its long life, including a few colors which your extroverted author found to be quite fetching (Ignition Orange and Sublime, anyone?).
Now, the marketing arm of the company is applying similar treatments to the new Ram 1500. In addition to a Night Edition, which slathers the grille and other addenda in inky paint, the off-road focused Rebel gets a fresh trim as well.
Recently, Rare Rides featured its first-ever TVR, a wedge from the decade or so where all of TVR’s offerings were variations on the same doorstop shape. The 2500M predated wedge design and thus maintained a more traditional British roadster shape. In Part I of this two-part series, we’ll cover the humble beginnings of TVR’s M Series cars.
Overwhelming geek that I am, I’m often reminded of The Simpsons in odd situations, mostly as the show’s been on so long, it can’t help but have covered a circumstance ad nauseum. In the car-centric season four episode “Mr. Plow,” the family heads to an auto show, where a suspiciously named automaker shows a slow-motion video of a crash test while Lisa watches. Disconcertingly, one of the dummies starts to crawl away from the scene of the crash, at which point the OEM rep shuts down the exhibit.
I did recently get the chance to watch a controlled car crash at Honda’s research facility. Just as important as seeing how the car handles the stresses of the impact is measuring how a human occupant reacts. Honda has a massive family of dummies, all ready to sacrifice themselves for the real people of the world.
With less than two weeks left before contracts with Detroit Three autoworkers expire, the United Automobile Workers has chosen General Motors as the first company to enter bargaining talks. What occurs between the UAW and GM will set the stage for subsequent contracts with Ford and Fiat Chrysler.
Going into the talks, which UAW does under a dark cloud born of its bribery and kickback scandal, the union comes armed with a strike authorization approved by its members. Read More >
With Labor Day in the rearview, the grim prospect of winter now rears its ugly head. For many of you, it’s no big deal. It might rain. You’ll have to put on a light jacket before leaving the house. For others, Mother Nature awaits with several gigatons of snow and ice.
Suddenly, that two-wheel drive vehicle that served your needs just fine throughout the summer is no longer king of the road. Sufficient, sure, but not ideal. Bringing all wheels online would improve your car’s winter prowess and boost driver confidence (possibly by too much of a degree), yet few passenger car makers think of adding it to models lacking boxy, cargo-happy bodies.
If AWD is something you covet, would its presence sway you away from a crossover and into a normal car? Read More >
The model that helped relaunch a long-departed brand — a brand which subsequently failed to clear the tower — is effectively dead in North America. Fiat Chrysler has taken the retro-themed, pint-sized Fiat 500 off life support, removing it from the brand’s North American offerings for 2020.
The newly turbocharged 500, its beefier Abarth brother, and the eco-warrior 500e electric, were victims of America’s unrelenting desire for large, spacious automobiles. The illness took hold almost as soon as the 500 arrived. Read More >
Think of it as a swan song for gasoline propulsion, not the Macan itself. For the 2020 model year, the hottest version of Porsche’s entry-level ute returns with more power and less displacement on tap, but the Macan Turbo sings its siren song against a funeral dirge backdrop.
This vehicle is a get-one-while-you-still-can proposition. Read More >
Howdy, campers. Unofficially, summer ends this weekend. Bummer! Of course, from a meteorological standpoint, you still have a few weeks left before fall, um, falls.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been pretty good about letting companies test autonomous vehicles on public roads. And yet pretty much every automotive manufacturer, ride sharing firm and tech giant still wants laxer rules. To a degree, it’s understandable. Take General Motors, for example. Back in 2017, GM sought exemptions from NHTSA to deploy fully automated vehicles without steering wheels or pedals, but that would have placed the car in clear violation of preexisting safety standards — as they were not in line with the General’s vision of what a self-driving car should be.
GM’s autonomous division recently said the self-driving Cruise AV it had been prepping for the end of this year will likely have to be delayed. While development issues assuredly played a role in stalling the car’s commercial deployment, it could never have launched as initially designed anyway.
Earlier this year, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and NHTSA asked for input regarding the testing of automated vehicles to help decide if the “removal of unnecessary regulatory barriers” would be a prudent move. You can probably guess the feedback received from the automotive and tech industries. Read More >
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