Before Toyota decided to add all-wheel drive to the 2020 Camry and Avalon sedans, your AWD mid-size four-door choices were fairly limited. The Toyotas double the options, so provided you’ve moved past the Nissan Altima AWD or the Subaru Legacy, which makes more sense? The 2020 Toyota Camry AWD, or the 2021 Toyota Avalon AWD? Load up the Camry with options, and you’ll find yourself spending just as much as you would for the half-size-larger, base-model Avalon XLE. So, which should you pick?
After driving both, we pored over the standard and optional equipment lists and then dove into Toyota’s online configurator. We selected the $31,920 Camry XLE AWD as our starting point instead of the slightly pricier XSE AWD ($32,460 to start) because Toyota does not yet offer the AWD option on the equivalent Avalon XSE (or Touring or TRD trims), so the luxe-oriented XLE makes for the best comparison.
From there, we threw [...]
Polestar is Volvo’s onetime de-facto performance division that has transformed into a fully realized, electrified brand with a little help from Volvo’s cash-flush Chinese parent company, Geely. Polestar’s first car, the aptly named 1, is a limited-production Bentley-rivaling grand tourer. No surprise, we were impressed with the performance of this muscular gasoline-electric hybrid machine in our recent review, which also gave us plenty of time to get up close with the seductive two-door coupe. Did we mention its tin-charged (turbo and supercharged) four-cylinder engine and set of electric motors deliver a total output of 619 horsepower and 738 lb-ft of torque? Sexy and very quick, the Polestar also is loaded with cool Easter egg details that you might not notice if you just happened upon one on the street—so we dug up the seven coolest for you:
Few and far betweenFirst of all, you’re unlikely to just come across a Polestar 1 in the [...]
Step aside, Huayra BC, because there’s a new Pagani hypercar in town. Meet the Pagani Imola; a limited-run, $5.4 million, track-focused machine from the–comparatively–young Italian automaker.
Developed at and named for the Imola circuit in Bologna, Italy, the latest Pagani model combines exorbitant power and a relatively light curb weight to make it a true menace on the track. Like the Huayra, the Imola relies on a Mercedes-AMG V-12 engine. In the Imola, however, the 6.0-liter engine makes 827 horsepower–107 more than the 2015 Huayra we drove more than five years ago. Those extra horses come well tamed, too, thanks to nearly 10,000 miles of testing at track speeds.
Further assisting the Huayra-based Imola around circuits is a seven-speed automated manual gearbox, sticky Pirelli Trofeo R tires, and an active aerodynamics system that automatically adjusts the car’s four mobile winglets to current driving conditions. Of course, the Imola’s tech wizardry adds up at [...]
Imagine building your project car with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s old tachometer, Joey Logano’s rear axle, or Jimmie Johnson’s trailing arms. Well, you can. Used race-car parts are out there, and you don’t have to wake up for an early morning auction to find them.
Quicker than a race car can be built, it can be disassembled and parted out. According to those in the industry, 90 percent of a NASCAR race car‘s parts can be recycled and repurposed, so we decided to go figurative dumpster-diving in NASCAR country to see if it’s possible to recycle last season’s race car into this year’s personal custom build.
Imagine bragging to your friends that your switches came out of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car. How to Buy a NASCAR Engine When a sanctioning body changes its spec rules, the market floods with leftover parts. Take, for instance, the Chevrolet SB2 spec engine used in the [...]
There probably aren’t many people who remember the last time Cadillac offered a diesel engine option for its coupe and sedans. Yes, for a brief period from 1978 to 1985 buyers could look forward to—if that’s the right perspective—a factory-installed oil burner borrowed from Oldsmobile in their Cadillac luxobarges. The 5.7-liter LF9 V-8 diesel could be had in the Eldorado, Seville, de Ville, and Fleetwood Brougham, and it was intended to pick off high-end car buyers who’d otherwise be flocking to Mercedes-Benz’s sturdy and luxurious diesel vehicles at the time. Today, Cadillac is giving diesel another try in its all-new 2021 Escalade SUV, and for similar reasons.
We’ll concede the idea that Caddy selling a diesel might be as difficult to fathom for Millennial Cadillac buyers who weren’t around nearly 40 years ago as it is for those older customers who were and suffered through that Malaise-era disaster. For the first time in its 21-year [...]
