A sharp-eyed reader caught this and sent it to me on Monday. There’s been a variety of speculation about the “2017.5 Raptor” ever since a few Raptors with camouflaged rear ends were spotted on public roads late last year — but this truck, as you’ll see, isn’t wearing any disguise.
It’s Spy Shot Weekend at TTAC. In addition to the Chinese metal driving around Ann Arbor we published yesterday, here are images of what could be a next-generation Nissan NV200 Compact Passenger van plying the highways of California by way of eagle-eyed TTAC reader Felix.
The current NV200 van is only available in cargo van or Taxi of Tomorrow guises. The latter landed the City of New York in a lengthy legal battle.
The van in the photos has all the hallmarks of being a Nissan prototype, including similar camo to that used on other Nissan models, explained spy photographer Brian Williams in an email.
Spy photographer Bark M strikes again! Well, actually, this is the first time he’s struck. Any guesses as to what it is? For reference, our man spotted this vehicle outside Auburn Hills. What’s throwing us off is that there’s no Alfa Romeo bodywork clumsily attached to the rest of the car…
This morning, our man in India, Faisal, showed you renderings of the fourth generation Range Rover. TTAC reader Penaloza looked up from his (free) coffee at the Embassy Suites in Corpus Christi, TX, and there it was: (Read More…)
TTAC’s own Israeli man of mystery, Tal Bronfer, has been busy with non-TTAC related work this summer, but he’s just checked in from the Alps with brand new images of the Hyundai Sonata Wagon (known in Europe as the Hyundai i40) brake testing on Austria’s Grossglockner High Alpine Road. Tal was blasting through the Grossglockner in some rapid Teutonic metal (let’s just say it has at least one “R,” and one “S” in its name, and a review is forthcoming) when he smelled brakes. Naturally, his first thought was to check his own, but the culprit was this lightly-camouflaged wagon “slowly, braking downhill all the way from the top of the mountain.” Another Sonata Wagon was tow-testing.
What these pictures reveal is that the Sonata Wagon is not a simple sheetmetal job, as the elongated roof falls away gracefully towards the rear of the car, and appears to offer integrated roof rails. It’s a Euro-style “sport-wagon” in the mold of the European Accord rather than a US-style “cross-wagon” like the Venza or Crosstour, which indicates that it won’t come to the US. After all, with the Mazda6 and Subaru Legacy wagons discontinued, the mass-market station wagon seems all but dead. On the other hand, the Sonata has been punching above its weight since it debuted, and with the Euro-Accord wagon coming stateside as the TSX Sportwagon, and a Buick Regal wagon rumored, the i40 may yet come to the states as a Sonata Wagon.
Goodness gracious, but the re-born Volkswagen Phaeton [as spied by AutoExpress] sure looks like a giant Passat. If anything, it might even be less distinctive than the old version. Because sometimes you have to learn a lesson the hard way. Twice.
An AMG-tuned S Class Coupe prototype (note that the CL moniker has been dropped) gets stuck in a drift while testing in the icy north. Auto Motor und Sport reports that it took the combined efforts of an ML prototype and an S Class prototype to pull the beast from its icy resting place. Sportisch!
This spy shot was sent in to us by an anonymous tipster, who caught what appears to be an extended-wheelbase Ford Fusion Hybrid. But it’s not just stretched: those wheel arches are definitely not stock Fusion kit, which suggests that the Fusion Hybrid body might just be a mule body concealing an unrelated chassis under development. Can you spot any other clues that might hint at what we’re looking at? Got a guess? Let us know in the comments. [Thanks to you know who you are!]
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