You probably already know the film C’était un Rendez-Vous (“It Was a Date”), which has been passed around online forever—and via videotapes for years before that. There’s zero dialogue, the car is never shown, and the plot is nonexistent. But it’s a legend, shot illicitly in 1976 by Claude Lelouch on the open but uncrowded streets of Paris early in the morning at high speed in order to arrive on Monmartre while his girlfriend walks up the stairs for a hug.
Allegedly, he drove his own Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, but the soundtrack applied is quite obviously a different car—it’s actually a Ferrari 275GTB. Like Climb Dance, a film about Ari Vatanen’s blast up Pikes Peak in a Peugeot, or Faszination am Nürburgring, RUF’s iconic film about its Yellow Bird, Lelouch’s eight-minute film is an important part of driving movie history.
Ferrari, only incidentally involved in the original film due to the overdubbed soundtrack of Lelouch’s [...]
The future for General Motors includes hands-free driving everywhere, a top executive said in regards to company plans to expand the capabilities of its Super Cruise system. The hands-free driving feature currently works on pre-mapped highways.
Taking hands-free driving to the streets is the next logical evolution of the technology and GM has a big team working on it. The setup is referred to as Ultra Cruise, was formally announced by GM’s Doug Parks at the Citi 2020 Car of the Future Symposium.
“Ultra Cruise’s domain would essentially be all driving, all the time,” Parks said. “Ultra Cruise would be all [that] Super Cruise [offers], plus neighborhoods, cities, subdivisions.” Unfortunately, Parks was light on details, such as when Ultra Cruise will reach production vehicles, as well as which vehicles will receive the tech first.
Think of it as the Gigafactory of the north—a whopping big one that compares with Tesla’s original battery plant in Nevada. General Motors and LG Chem have begun construction of a $2.3 billion battery cell plant in Lordstown, Ohio, to make the cells needed to power a raft of electric vehicles to come: From the 2022 GMC Hummer EV electric full-size pickup truck to a new variant of the Chevrolet Bolt.
The plant is a joint venture between GM and LG Chem of South Korea, which is a leading supplier of lithium-ion battery cells. The new company is called Ultium Cells LLC. Ultium is also the name of the proprietary batteries the two companies have developed. The plant will be done in time to support GM’s next-generation battery electric vehicle portfolio (the automaker plans to roll out 20 new EVs by 2023). With the exception of an updated 2021 Bolt and the addition of the [...]
Europe gets a lot of good automotive stuff we don’t, but typically that amounts to a bunch of interesting station wagons or sports cars, not that most American of vehicle formats, pickup trucks. Someone at Ford hasn’t gotten that memo, apparently. Across the pond, not only does Ford offer the Ranger Raptor—think of the mighty off-road F-150 Raptor in smaller, Ranger-based form—it also is introducing a special edition Ranger Thunder with Raptor bits underneath. Neither are available here, at least not yet.
Limited to 4,500 copies across Europe, the Ford Ranger Thunder features black accents on its grille, and black-painted 18-inch alloy wheels, rear bumper, skid plates, fog light surrounds, door handles, and rad ’80s-style sports hoop. These details mix with red accents on the grille and the rear of the vehicle. Darkened headlight and taillight bezels look nice against the Sea Grey paint. Finally, you’ll find 3D-effect “Thunder” badges on the driver and front [...]
The Dodge Deora is a legend that’s lived two very different lives since its creation in the late 1960s. Its first incarnation was an eye-popping concept car that wowed crowds on the auto show circuit. Its second form brought it even more renown: In 1968, it became one of Mattel’s very first Hot Wheels models. Could the Deora be ready for a new transformation? A Danish engineer and designer came up with a design that is an attempt to answer that question. Meet the Deora 2022.
Let’s start with a quick look at the surprising history of the original [...]
