Shivon Zilis, a top executive at Neuralink, gave birth to twins last year. The father was Neuralink — and Tesla — boss Elon Musk.
This happened in November, just weeks before Musk and singer Claire Boucher, who performs under the name Grimes, announced the birth of their second child.
The tasty RS 7, with a 4.0L bi-turbo V8 belting out nearly 600 horsepower packed into a slinky sportback body, is the sort of delightful lunacy which acts as a speedy tonic to the raft of dour crossovers and SUVs which crowd parking lots at the mall. A new exclusive edition – a trim infuriatingly spelled in all lower-case letters – ratchets up the rarity even if it doesn’t provide any extra German horses.
The price goes up, too. A lot.
In yet another example of want-it-can’t-have-it from companies which sling cars on both sides of the pond, Honda has introduced a Limited Edition of its spellcheck-vexing ‘e’ all-electric city car. Appearing next to the machine is one Max Verstappen, who appears to somehow be standing on his own without support from ex-F1 race director Michael Masi.
We return to Kia’s large sedan history today, at a point shortly after the launch of the K7. Kia’s full-size front-drive for the 2010s, the K7 was called Cadenza in all export markets, and was a successor to the unfortunately styled Opirus (Amanti in North America). Kia hired Peter Schreyer from his longtime employment at Volkswagen Group in order to usher in a new stylistic era at Kia.
Though it went on sale for the 2010 model year, Kia wasn’t quite ready to send the Cadenza to the North American market. With the market’s general rejection of the Amanti in mind, Kia called on Schreyer to refresh the Cadenza and lux it up before its North American launch.
There are some unassailable truths ingrained in the minds of most gearheads: the check engine light will illuminate just after you catch up on all your bills, fuel prices will rise before a long weekend, and a clean car runs better.
Americans continue to buy vehicles nearly as fast as they arrive on dealer lots, as the nation is rife with stories chronicling perpetually empty lots and some establishments making bank with obscene markups.
We’ll leave those latter two topics for another day. Meanwhile, despite a consumer hunger for new cars, the market is down sharply compared to this time last year – double-digit percentages, in fact.
I’ve seen the new Kia Sportage in person. I’ve also seen the new Hyundai Tucson up close. Both show the companies’ latest take in a series of outrageous designs that are meant to win over consumers.
Editor’s note: This is the first in an occasional series.
Enzo Ferrari. You probably know who he is, thanks to the eponymous car brand he started in 1947 — but what you probably don’t know is that il Commendatore was already a legend, years before he hung out his own shingle … and the twin-engine, Alfa Romeo Bimotore racer from 1935 is a big part of the reason why.
This wasn’t some crazy, “let’s see if we can” sort of project, either. This twin-engine terror was born out of necessity — the necessity to beat the German Auto Union and Mercedes-Benz “Silver Arrows”, anyway.
I’ve always had mixed feelings about Lexus’ NX compact crossover. I’ve found it to be fairly sporty – in general, and not just by staid Lexus standards – and overall more engaging to drive than the larger (and highly popular) RX, but also a bit cramped inside. Not to mention that the NX, like most Toyota and Lexus products, just seemed a step behind when it came to infotainment.
Lexus addressed two of those criticisms with the current model and did so quite nicely.
The Big Idea
When one’s employer tells you that you are required to go to San Diego, California for a company event I guess most people’s reaction would be “hey, I hear they have a great zoo there”.
I suspect I am slightly an outlier in that my first thought was “I should buy an old car and drive up the Pacific Coast Highway and consign the car with a shipping agent to transport it home”.
Yes, yes – we’ve talked about this subject and the related topic of ceramic coatings in the past. We promise we’re not repeating ourselves, at least not until we’re safely ensconced in the Old Age Home for Recovering Gearheads. We’ll be in the wing where they keep folks who had an odd affinity for terrible ’90s GM cars, like the Oldsmobile Toronado Troféo.
Compared to a ceramic coating, polishes are a lot easier to apply, taking less effort and fewer steps. One shouldn’t slap this stuff on their car in direct sunlight – that goes for most of the car washing process, by the way – but it is certainly possible to spend a lazy afternoon treating your car to one of these polishes in the shade of a tree. Those with more motivation will get the job done far more quickly.
We’ll see you in the old age home.
Maybe it’s just automotive Stockholm Syndrome, but after 15 years of testing vehicles, a huge percentage of which have been crossover SUVs, I’m ready to say it: Crossovers aren’t so bad.
Yeah, I know, you’re going to ask me to blink twice if I am OK, but hear me out.
Edsel received an honorary mention a couple of weeks ago, in our current Rare Rides Icons series on the Lincoln Mark cars. Then it was mentioned again the other day in Abandoned History’s coverage of the Cruise-O-Matic transmissions. It’s a sign. We need to talk about Edsel.
Those of you who prefer wine and cheese over beer and burgers would probably find yourself at the Monterey Car Week 2022 & Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance rather than the Woodward Dream Cruise – both are held on the third weekend of August. While your author is firmly in the latter’s camp, he appreciates the bonkers amount of money being tossed around at the former.
As they often do, RM Sotheby’s will be using the occasion to hold a high-dollar auction. Lots include the likes of a 1955 Ferrari 410 Sport Spider by Scaglietti allegedly raced by Fangio himself.
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