Want a car you can schlep to work during the week and take to an autocross course or a racetrack on the weekends? They exist, trust us—you don’t need to purchase two separate cars to fill those seemingly disparate needs. You don’t even need to spend all that much money to buy one car that can handle commutes as well as tracks. Cars at the lower end of the price spectrum these days are better than ever at most things, and the vehicles listed here also happen to be adroit when it comes to road holding—without sacrificing comfortable road manners. Though not all of these fun, dual-purpose cars are your typical budget sports cars, they are all competent contenders for at least light track work. And all of them can be had with a manual gearbox, which ups the fun factor on streets or circuits.
2020 Mazda MX-5 Miata | Price: $28,000
Want an SUV that equally emphasizes the “S” and “U” parts of the acronym? BMW has you covered. Its X5 was an originator in the performance luxury SUV genre, combining upscale appointments and engaging dynamics with a utilitarian crossover body.
Thing is, even as the X5 was redesigned and grew larger, it still wasn’t large enough. In comparison to three-row luxury SUVs from rival automakers, the X5’s five-seat capacity paled.
BMW caught up with the reveal of the X7 in 2018. The brand’s biggest vehicle ever brought that sought-after third row, providing seating for six or seven passengers. Despite the differences between the X5 and X7, similarities remain which position the two against each other within BMW’s lineup. Follow along as we answer the question: What is the difference between the BMW X5 and X7?
SizeMost important and most obvious is the difference in size. The X5 rides on a 117.1-inch wheelbase, and has [...]
You’re forgiven for not knowing exactly what the Suzuki Jimny is—or for calling it the “Jimmy,” which was a GMC SUV in the ‘90s. The little 4×4 isn’t sold here in the U.S., which is really too bad because it’s the small, affordable, elemental SUV that’s been missing from American dealerships since Jeep’s Wrangler went huge, Hyundai and Kia grew up and started building crossovers, and Suzuki left the U.S. market entirely. With off-roaders roaring back, however, it’s worth taking a few moments to drool over the Jimny.
The Suzuki’s spec sheet describes a delightfully sparse yet rugged little vehicle. You can have your Jimny any way you want as long as it’s with two doors, a fixed roof, and four-wheel drive with low-range gearing. A 101-hp 1.5-liter four-cylinder can be paired with either a four-speed automatic (throwback!) or a proper five-speed manual. You can probably guess which transmission does a better job extracting [...]
Carbon fiber is strong and lightweight, making it a favored component in race cars and exotic road vehicles, and GMC is out to prove the material’s worth to the masses. GMC, you see, recently introduced the carbon-fiber CarbonPro bed for its mainstream Sierra full-size pickup, and the brand is using a new commercial to show off the truck bed’s strength. After all, it seems any time a pickup-truck manufacturer introduces a new material for its beds that isn’t steel—like when Ford’s aluminum-bodied F-150 debuted—it feels the need to advertise how stout that material is.
To that end, the 30-second spot (below) airing during the NFL playoff games consists almost entirely of various projectiles being flung at the GMC CarbonPro bed, including a high-speed watermelon, brick, TV, and even a sofa! So, should your pickup-truck needs involve trips through weather systems dropping and/or hurling those items and other detritus, GMC’s got your bed covered.
Actually, [...]
The U.S. government is looking into claims that certain Tesla vehicles suffer a defect that can cause sudden unintended acceleration. According to a petition filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there have been 110 crashes and 52 injuries linked to the issue. Keep in mind that unintended acceleration is a buzzword both because the idea that a car might accelerate on its own, without input from the driver, is scary and because other automakers such as Toyota and Audi have in the past been tangled up with similar accusations.
This latest NHTSA petition cites 127 consumer complaints involving 123 unique Tesla vehicles. Around 500,000 vehicles are affected by the inquiry, including 2012–2019 Tesla Model S sedans, 2016–2019 Tesla Model X SUVs, and 2018–2019 Tesla Model 3 sedans.
One complaint references an alleged incident from November 2018 in which a Model X accelerated on its own while making a U-turn, even though the [...]
