In announcing a rash of new electric vehicles across its portfolio of brands, General Motors let slip an image of what sure appears to be a C8 Corvette-inspired SUV. This isn’t just a wild assumption; during a virtual presentation of GM’s EV plans for Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC, as well as its Hummer sub-brand, vice president of global design Michael Simcoe noted how electric full-size pickups, compact crossovers, and even “high-performance vehicles” are headed for Chevy showrooms.
Pair up the very Corvette-like SUV pictured with the promise of an inbound high-performance Chevy EV, and it’s not so great a leap. Starting on looks alone, the SUV is that’s parked behind a Cadillac and the new GMC Hummer EV sure looks like it was cooked in the same pot as the current Corvette. It wears thin, barely boomeranged headlights over a trio of angular lower intakes; nestled between those is a low, pointy hood with [...]
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t left home as much as I’d like to over the past few months. The business-casual attire I used to don before reporting to MotorTrend HQ goes largely unworn. Instead, my casual-casual clothing—pajama shorts, soft tees, cozy hoodies, and the like—is on constant rotation. Part of me enjoys the lazy functionality of this new uniform, but another misses having reasons to get dressed up, to not sit inside looking like a schlub.
Try on the Volkswagen Arteon, and you’ll find yourself in a peculiar balance between these modalities. The brand’s flagship sort-of-sedan makes you a point of fashionable focus while not asking for—or providing—any more involvement than pajama shorts or fuzzy slippers. Can that appeal more than a four-wheeled outfit bearing a more chichi label? Or should you just abandon pretenses and get some commodity car?
What’s the Best-Looking Volkswagen?
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If you want a real sports car that you can comfortably drive every day that’s also a luggage-capable weekender and even a track day adrenaline supplier, then you pick a 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera. If you want the most satisfying, involving, and purest form of that 911, then you pick the one with three pedals. It won’t be the quickest version, but it gives you goose bumps while manually conducting the entire symphony.
If You Know, You Know: Why the Porsche 911 Is SpecialDriving a Porsche 911 is a unique experience. Aside from the rear-mounted engine and rear-wheel drive, it’s also unlike others in the segment. It hardly gets noticed. We drive hundreds of cars a year and hear, “Is that the new Corvette?! Is that a McLaren, a Lamborghini, etc.?” We’ve heard them all. “Meh, it’s just a Porsh.” I like this kind of anonymity. And with a manual transmission, there’s some anecdotal [...]
The Tokyo Auto Salon, a delightful auto show that generally shows off the best and funkiest Japan has to offer, is going virtual this year, just like SEMA and other recent shows that weren’t outright canceled due to the global pandemic. Honda’s come through with a couple of intriguing and adorable concepts that add some attitude to the tiny Fit and N-Van.
The Fit you see here is the latest-generation car, now available as a hybrid (e:HEV) biased strongly towards pure electric drive modes. This one is called the 2022 Fit e:HEV Crosstar Custom, and it takes the Fit’s outdoorsy Crosstar trim level to a logical extreme. It builds on the main styling elements of the Crosstar—a blacked-out roof and pillars, roof rails, a smidge more ride height, and water-resistant seat material—and adds a bold strip of cladding to the middle of the doors, steel wheels, Toyota all-terrain tires, a Yakima roof rack, and Honda [...]
Before the first Jeep Grand Cherokee drove up the stairs and through a giant glass window at the 1992 Detroit Auto Show, a dramatic entrance for a vehicle that generated huge interest at the time, Jeep had previously shown off the Concept 1. The Concept 1’s lines were a direct preview of the “ZJ” Grand Cherokee to come, but that wasn’t the intent at the time. This was supposed to be the next Cherokee.
Jeep wanted its next Cherokee to be roomier, with greater passenger comfort and cargo space. They also wanted to update the Cherokee’s appearance, with a smoother and more elegant look. The XJ Cherokee is a cult classic now, but by the late ’80s it was simply a boxy SUV starting to age. The Concept 1, using the same unibody architecture underneath, brought a lot more sophistication and modernity to the basic idea. There aren’t a lot of photos of this concept [...]
