We know you like to dog on supercars, and we’re right there with you. They’re extravagant toys for people you’re unlikely to encounter unless you were born into high society or made some exceptionally wise financial decisions. And that’s always lurking in the background whenever we discuss them. We drool over the specs as we gripe about their existence — riding the line between envy and disdain.

However, we’re still glad they’re here. Extreme performance machines show us what’s available at the outer limits of engineering and income. It’s also a great time to be the kind of person who loves mind-bending performance but hates supercars, as they’re becoming truly hideous.  Read More >

You won’t find three two-barrel carbs atop this Tripower mill. In fact, depending on the engine’s load, you might not even find three cylinders in operation.

General Motors plans to bring back a performance-focused name for its new 2.7-liter turbocharged four, Automotive News reports, giving the automaker a ballsy moniker for the engine it doesn’t want to admit is a four-cylinder. Read More >

You can go into a Fiat showroom today and buy a brand new Fiat 124, undoubtedly delighting a dealer who’s desperate to move some reworked Miatas. It wasn’t always this way, though. The 124 name was originally applied to a lineup of Fiat-developed vehicles, like today’s Sport Coupe from 1974.

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Mazda is upgrading the infotainment system of the 2018 Mazda 6 with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Starting in September, the company will even allow owners who purchased one earlier in the year bring their vehicle into the dealership and have it upgraded, free of charge.

While that’s incredibly kind of them, there’s a catch. You have to own the Touring trim or above. If you bought a lesser Mazda 6, you’ll be out left out in the cold. But the automaker previously said it wouldn’t include the popular phone integration setup until 2019, making this a nice gesture. The 2019 CX-9 is supposed to be the first vehicle to see Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard equipment, though we’ve also heard Mazda talking about future dealer upgrades for all models equipped with Mazda Connect for a small fee in other parts of the world.  Read More >

There’s no denying that every last TTACer looked at the Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross with a raised eyebrow. Not the intrigued kind, either. While the compact crossover’s design can certainly be called polarizing, an easy consensus existed in this chat room. Try again, basically.

As the resurgent Mitsubishi brand awaits new models build with help from its Renault-Nissan Alliance partners, a new addition to the team is ready to help sculpt those future vehicles. Read More >

What do buyers like? Ultra-lux trims and big-bucks window stickers, that’s what. At least, that’s the gist of General Motors’ media run-down of the new 2019 Buick Regal Avenir — the third vehicle in the Buick stable to undergo the high-zoot treatment, and a model we uncovered last week.

“Avenir” debuted on the revamped-for-2018 Enclave, then made its way to the LaCrosse sedan. It exists because Denali exists, and Buick saw what the addition of that sub-brand did for GMC sales, to say nothing of average transaction price and profits. After crunching some numbers, Buick decided the Regal Sportback was the next obvious candidate for the brand’s “highest expression of luxury.” Read More >

Monday’s QOTD post by Matthew Guy inquiring about some of the seriously overpriced metal on today’s collector car market got me thinking. And what it got me thinking about was the present state of cars, and if there’s going to be much worthy of collecting at a later date.

We’re in some dark times, automotively speaking. Allow me to explain.

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Yes, you’re right – the Raptor is as far from a base truck as The Onion is from real news. However, there’s an argument to be made that the Raptor is as much of an individual model as the Focus RS is a model separate from the workaday hatchback. That is the argument I am making here today.

Raptor pickups can quickly climb into pricing’s nosebleed section, stretching bank accounts of off-road fans and vacuuming their wallets clean. Is a no-options Raptor worth their time? Given that the majority of add-ons augment the truck’s performance not one whit, I think it is.

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Uber is shutting down its self-driving trucks unit due to a lack of progress and the controversy surrounding its multi-million dollar acquisition of Otto in 2016. The firm was purchased with the intent of developing self-driving cargo haulers, potentially saving the trucking company a fortune by outsourcing driving jobs to robots. But it was slow to reach that goal and ran head-on with a serious distraction almost immediately.

Initially, things looked promising. Otto was famous for engineering a truck that hauled a trailer full of beer across 120 miles of Colorado highway without human intervention. But it found a different sort of fame after its founder, Anthony Levandowski, took over as head of Uber’s self-driving car research and Waymo faulted him with handing over trade secrets.

As a former engineer for Google’s autonomous vehicle project (which would later evolve into Waymo), Levandowski was privy to sensitive information he was later accused of selling as part of the Otto buyout.  Read More >

Who isn’t talking about the Infiniti Q70? Okay, maybe more than a few people. The Infiniti brand’s largest passenger car enjoys low but fairly stable sales, returning volume in the high 5,000s in both 2017 and 2016.

Alongside the rear-drive, V6- or V8-powered four-door was a hybrid variant, but that green companion dies for 2019 — leaving just one gas-electric model in the Infiniti stable. Read More >

Take the following information with a golf ball-sized grain of salt. Faraday Future, the automotive startup that’s been teetering on the verge of collapse for years, says deliveries of the FF 91 will begin in December. Despite being ghost-funded by a Chinese billionaire who’s been blacklisted due to unpaid debts, losing a factory deal with the State of Nevada, witnessing a mass exodus of its staff, and accumulating heaps of debt, Faraday claims it’s ready to move forward with assembly.

You’ll have to excuse the skepticism. But the brand has burned us in the past — delivering an ambitious but incomplete prototype, loads of hype, and little else.

Saying that production is an assurance with no request for additional investment is like getting an email from a Nigerian prince who just wants you to know that he’s good on the money front and wishes you well.  Read More >

For a product or service to dominate a body of customers, another must fade to the background. Think of direct and alternating current, or perhaps digital cameras and 35mm film.

It gets a little fuzzier when the topic of personal transportation arises. Some modes of transport are so much more more useful than what they replaced (cars and horses, jetliners and ocean liners) that the preceding mode is relegated to a niche category. In others comparisons, the usefulness of a certain mode remains strong only in certain areas. Think trains.

But in a car-based world, consumers now have more options than ever in how they get around when their personal vehicle is left sitting at home. A recent survey shows just how pleasant regular car renters find app-based ride-hailing services, and traditional rental companies would be foolish to not take note. Read More >

BMW is trimming some of the fat off its car subscription program after the media collectively realized that paying twice what you would on an average lease didn’t constitute a good deal. Frankly, most car subscription services that exist right now are an incredibly poor value. Bavarian Motor Works was the rule, not the exception.

However, most of these programs are in their infancy and cater to wealthier individuals who get a kick out pestering automakers to submit to their whims by occasionally delivering a new vehicle. It was presumed that those lofty fees would come down as competition ramped up and mainstream automakers entered the fray. That, along with some public criticism of the subscription model, seems to be helping push automakers away from astronomical prices.

That’s not to say the German manufacturer is suddenly offering a bargain alternative to leasing. But if you love the idea of having a car for every occasion and don’t want to deal with insurance agents, Access by BMW has become more affordable.  Read More >

Let’s face it: there’s few things more romantic than trains, and robberies of said trains have formed the backbone of great novels and films for over a century. The modern reality is not quite Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, however. It’s impoverished and not quite moral bandits piling rocks onto tracks in a bid to derail a train, then making off with whatever they can sell. No dynamite and bank vaults here.

In Mexico, the rising popularity of such robberies is proving an expensive headache for automakers shipping cars from Mexican assembly plants. Read More >

The list of new vehicles available with a manual transmission grows shorter each year, and for the vast majority of the driving populace, that’s just fine. But driving enthusiasts bemoan each model lost to the advancing wave of computer-controlled everything, closely keeping tabs on which vehicles can still be had with a three-pedal setup. A few might even buy one.

Even sporting European brands are not immune. In BMW’s stable, the 5 Series jettisoned its last 5 and 6 Series sticks (by then relegated to M models) in 2016. Other models went two pedal-only in recent years, including the 228i, 328i, and 428i. But BMW says there’s still a flame that keeps the transmission option alive in certain models, and it’ll keep building them until buyers give up, or our robot overlords take over. Read More >