Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i MotorTrend

Back in September, I took a small team from MotorTrend to see the Tesla Cybertruck, in the very early stages of its conceptual design. Tesla told us we were the first outsiders, and the only media outlet, to see the vehicle, period. By the time you read this, Tesla’s game-changing truck will already have broken the internet, set Twitter ablaze, and sent fanboys and short-sellers around the world into paroxysms of shock, disgust, outrage, and possibly lust. Our team has covered the story better than any other outlet, as you will find at motortrend.com/cybertruck, so it’s fun for me to disclose how some of us reacted to seeing it for the first time. Christian Seabaugh, Kim Reynolds, Mark Williams, Sean Holman, and I met the design team on a warm…

Ferrari just took the wraps off of its newest GT, called the Roma. Ferrari is calling it a “2+ coupé,” and we assume that means it’ll have room for four, though perhaps not comfortably without the proper shooting brake design of the GTC4Lusso and the FF before it. Think of the Roma as the newer, better-looking 612 Scaglietti—only smaller and cheaper. The Roma’s design is a departure from recent Ferraris. It brings back classic design cues like front wheel arches that peak above the top of the hood but adds a pointier front end and rear glass that’s more steeply raked than the 612’s. On the inside the Roma borrows the steering wheel from the SF90 Stradale and has what looks like an up-to-date infotainment screen. The Roma is powered…

As is typical with Porsche rollouts, the 911 lineup is staying true to form with base and Carrera S models soon to make way for the ever-more gobsmacking Turbo S. How gobsmacking is it? Porsche has not confirmed final numbers, but its engineers reworked the 3.8-liter flat-six engine, including new turbos, piezoeletric direct fuel injectors (as found on the new Carreras), and revised intercoolers. Expect peak horsepower to jump from 580 in the last Turbo S to about 640 hp, with torque increasing from 553 lb-ft to 580. Porsche estimates the new Turbo S will officially knock 0.2 second off the previous car’s 0–60 time, which, given the results from our 2017 Turbo S test, puts it at 2.3 seconds. Likewise, expect the top speed to rise from 205 mph…

THE MACH-E DOESN’T DEVELOP POWER IN A WAY ANY MUSTANG HAS—AND THAT’S NOT A BAD THING. Deep underground at Ford’s Product Development Center, a large studio has been converted into an “immersion room,” its temporary walls papered with endless PowerPoint slides. Normally, vision boards like this are a clear indication that both imagination and inspiration were snuffed out of the project three months in. But then something caught my eye—a slide titled “Winning Will Not Be Driven by Compliance.” Below the headline were four cars: a BMW i3, Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt EV, and an electric Ford Focus. Although I strongly dislike the poor-driving i3, have forgotten about driving the Leaf as many times as I’ve driven it, and imagine that a small battery shoved into a Focus would be…

We’ve just declared the GT500 a game changer. But how does it compare to the GT350, the Shelby that just earned second place in this year’s Best Driver’s Car competition? They’re both so good, it’s almost like having to choose your favorite child—albeit one that costs $12,460 more than the other. If we simply look at specs, the base GT500’s supercharged V-8 trounces the GT350’s naturally aspirated one, with a 234-hp advantage and 196 lb-ft more torque. At the dragstrip, the GT500 runs low-11-second quarter miles at more than 130 mph, whereas the GT350 manages 12.1-second passes at about 120 mph. The GT500 is fitted with enormous 16.5-inch two-piece brake rotors plus Brembo six-piston calipers that are larger and stiffer than the GT350’s, with 20 percent more swept area and…

Entry-level vehicles are tough to create. With low, low sticker prices to contend with, automakers can’t amortize big R&D budgets or include reams of rich materials. But at the same time, they can’t skimp on design; consumers are too smart and demanding today. Nor can carmakers cut corners on safety and convenience features; buyers expect Top Safety Pick+ ratings, Apple CarPlay, and cruise control. Into this fray enters the 2020 Hyundai Venue subcompact crossover, which slides below the similarly tidy Kona in Hyundai’s SUV lineup. The Venue shares the K2 platform with the Kona and the Accent, which dropped its hatchback version to clear a path for the Venue. So if Hyundai already has the Kona crossover in many flavors, including an electric model, and still offers the Accent as…

“You can do the same stunt five times and have different results. When physics take over … who knows what could happen?” That’s according to Robert Nagle, who, in his role of stunt coordinator for Ford v Ferrari, orchestrated cars going wheel to wheel in racetrack combat—and occasionally flying through the air. The film transports audiences back to the French countryside of 1966, portraying the personal and mechanical battles team Shelby American fought as it worked to secure victory against seemingly indomitable Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with its Ford GT40. At the behest of director James Mangold, Nagle enlisted a team that could execute stunts and maneuvers to convincingly re-create the perils of the race. To tell the story of Carroll Shelby (portrayed by Matt Damon)…

ELON MUSK’S ELECTRIC PICKUP CHANGES THE WORLD, ONE ELECTRON AT A TIME Some moments you never forget. Seeing my bride walk down the aisle toward me at our wedding. Driving my first car home. And now, in a somewhat distant but still significant third place: my initial glimpse of the new, industry-changing Tesla Cybertruck electric pickup in a clandestine September meeting at the automaker’s design headquarters just outside of Los Angeles. Few outsiders have ever been allowed inside the top-secret Tesla Design Studio, nestled away next to the sprawling SpaceX factory, a Falcon 9 rocket, and a scale replica of Elon Musk’s Hyperloop in a corner of the Hawthorne Airport. Elon and his right-hand man, chief designer Franz von Holzhausen, invited us to be the first journalists inside to see…

Preparations for the 2020 Olympics forced half of the Tokyo Motor Show to a remote location 10 minutes away from the halls at Tokyo Big Sight, but the high funkiness factor of the rolling stock made the commute seem worthwhile. Here are nine of our favorite concepts and production cars. Nissan Ariya The Ariya electric, two-motor, Rogue-sized SUV concept represents the last step before the 2017 Tokyo show’s wilder IMx concept becomes an electric production crossover. Ariya’s design features copper-tone trim outside and stark minimalist interior trim and switchgear inside and is said to preview the look of future Nissan EVs. Unofficial reports put the EPA range at 300 miles and the 0–60 time at less than 5 seconds. The Ariya features Nissan’s ProPilot 2.0 driver assistance system, which enables…

Ford v Ferrari is Jim Mangold’s first time directing a film about racing, or even about cars. As the car nerds that we are, should we be worried about his depiction of that historic 1966 Le Mans race? The short answer: No. In the following excerpt from a (much) longer interview, available at MotorTrend.com, Mangold delves into his core beliefs about movie making, his relationship with facts and the truth in creating a dramatic narrative arc, and how directing a racing movie changed the way he views cars. Before you saw the script, did you know the story? I had heard of Carroll Shelby, and I knew of him, and I knew the cars he had designed. And I knew he had moved from being a driver to a designer.…

We got a chance to take an early ride in an all-wheel-drive long-range prototype of the Mustang Mach-E4. If our short time with the vehicle is any indication, this extension of the Mustang nameplate just might be a worthy endeavor. I hopped in the back seat of a camo-wrapped prototype, and before we even starting moving, I was impressed by the Mustang Mach-E’s packaging. At a hair over 6 feet, I frequently find my head smooshed up against the ceiling when I’m subjected to the back seat, but that wasn’t the case here. There was a good 2 or 3 inches between my head and the glass roof, which is especially impressive given the electric SUV’s swept-back profile. On the street, the instant torque from the electric drivetrain is immediately…

Last corner. Hairpin, zero camber. Be patient with the throttle, or it’ll just push. Start to unwind the wheel, roll hard into the throttle. Let all that weight out back dig in and put the power down hard. Front straight, lap Vmax will be the instant before you brake. Keep your foot in it, keep your nerve. A little farther, a little farther, now maximum brake. Too far, too late. Not slowing fast enough, briefly fixate on the weeds you’re destined to meet. This isn’t going to end well. No, knock that off. Look where you want to go, turn but don’t lift, hope ABS does its job and lets you brake and steer at the same time—or else. Like magic, it’s turning! However, new problem, the rear end is…

I won’t waste your time. I’m not going to yank your chain. No dillydallying here, heaven forbid. If you’re shopping for an American three-row luxury SUV, it would be a regretful mistake to buy a Cadillac XT6 over the Lincoln Aviator. From a pricing perspective, they’re pretty even. Each carries a starting price in the high-$50,000 range. As tested, Lincoln’s three-row comes to $75,120 and Cadillac’s rings in at $73,040. Both have their strengths, but by almost every measure, the Aviator provides a superior luxury three-row experience. Here’s why. Powertrain: Engine, Transmission, and MPG Both cars generate power with gas-fueled aluminum V-6 engines, one force-fed (by two turbochargers) and the other naturally aspirated. The free-breathing powerplant lives under the hood of the Cadillac, and it’s the same 3.6-liter V-6 that…

The previous two generations of the Bentley Flying Spur had Volkswagen DNA under their luxurious skins, their platforms shared with VW’s highly underrated Phaeton sedan. The 2020 Bentley Flying Spur shares its platform with a Porsche. And it’s a better car for it. In fact, the 2020 Flying Spur—effortlessly fast, opulently detailed, and brimful of raffish charm—is the best Bentley sedan of the modern era. Powered by Bentley’s mighty W-12 engine, the 2020 Flying Spur is built on an extended version of the VW Group’s MSB platform, which underpins various Porsche Panamera models as well as Bentley’s Continental GT coupe and convertible twins. More important, the front-engine/rear-drive architecture allowed Stefan Sielaff’s design team to finally give the 21st century Flying Spur the front-wheels-forward stance of a classic British luxury car.…

The million-plus-dollar roadster club just got its newest member: the McLaren Elva. Named after the McLaren-Elva sports cars designed by Bruce McLaren himself in the 1960s, the new Elva will be a two-seat, open-top hypercar powered by a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 similar to the one found in the Senna. McLaren says the Elva is the lightest road car it’s ever designed thanks in part to a bespoke carbon-fiber body and chassis, special carbon-fiber seats, and sintered carbon-ceramic brakes. Parts of the bodywork flow into the cabin to accentuate the connection between the driver and the elements. The drive controls are located near the gauge cluster, not in the center stack. A rotary control is located on one side of the instrument binnacle that controls drive modes. The V-8 motivating the…

When Tesla Motors rolled out its original Model S sedan in fall 2011, some folks (self included) were a bit underwhelmed by the rather restrained styling of Elon Musk’s opening salvo in the electric vehicle wars. To me, it looked like a next-gen Mazda6, which wouldn’t have been a reach—given that Musk had poached Mazda U.S. chief designer Franz von Holzhausen with barely enough time to pull out his sketch pad before needing to design Tesla’s franchise sedan. When I asked Franz about the Model S styling, he patiently swept aside my thinly veiled critique about his design and said the conservative approach was intentional. “People need to think really hard about taking this leap into uncharted territory,” he said at the time. “I didn’t want to alienate people by…

“My gawd,” was the first thing, the only thing I could say after hot-lapping the 760-hp Shelby GT500 on a track. “What a thing!” (C’mon, Walton, pull yourself together, use proper descriptors.) “I mean, a helluva thing, a monster!” I was literally a few words shy of speechless, it was such a revelation. Like the mid-engine Corvette, this American icon pushes the limits—and the storied Europeans with all their heritage and rare-air technology—to the edge of what we once thought possible. I don’t write glibly when I say this new Shelby is both a sobering and enthusiastic realization. The car had such explosive power, controlled and exploitable through the brilliantly tuned Tremec twin-clutch seven-speed automated manual and Torsen limited-slip differential. Think Porsche GT2 RS. Yes, I just wrote that. The…

The close of a decade allows for reflection. As I look back at the last 40 years of Hyundai’s existence, there is a steady climb from bargain-basement econoboxes built under license, to mainstream legitimacy, to its homegrown luxury brand, Genesis, winning our 2019 Car of the Year. This trend of consistent learning and improvement impresses the hell outta me, and has me encouraged for the company’s future. This anticipation was heightened by the offer of an American-exclusive drive of a supercar concept around the Nürburg-ring. The anticipation was enhanced by the involvement of one Albert Biermann, famously poached from leading BMW’s M division in an aggressive move by Hyundai to become world-class in the go-fast category. When a project like this gets the green light, it’s go like a fire…

Gilbert Ryle derisively called it “the ghost in the machine,” critiquing René Descartes’ theory of substance dualism, which posits that the mind and body are separate entities and presupposes the existence of the soul. At a loss to articulate the way a car makes us feel, we often fall back on this philosophy. Ryle’s argument that the mind and body are one and the same falls mostly on the side of behaviorism. But the less rigidly defined Japanese concept of kokoro no shinka, which considers heart, mind, emotion, and soul as one indivisible entity, best explains how the soul of a vehicle like the Toyota Land Cruiser can be preserved across generations of machine. Land Cruisers, of course, cannot reproduce and are not self-aware. If artificial intelligence ever comes to…

Vallelunga, Italy, just north of Rome. The Autodromo Vallelunga is a 2.5-mile wriggle of a racetrack. There’s the snarl of a race-tuned V-10 as a winged, wedge-shaped blur flashes past pit lane. Brap, brap, braaaaap. That’s fourth, fifth, sixth gear, just before the daunting Curva Grande, a fast right-hander with a big compression on the apex and a left-hand kink on the exit. The quick guys barely lift, threading the needle at 145 mph. The garage buzzes with activity, a racing hive-mind in black and gray, trimmed with acid green. The chatter of rattle guns announces a set of freshly warmed slicks for the 620-hp Lamborghini Super Trofeo Evo race car in front of me. Super Trofeo is a Pro-Am series aimed at enthusiasts with the money to consider the…

It’s one of the wildest cars Mercedes makes. But forget about ever being able to drive it on the road. All brutalist aero and thundering V-8, maximum attack wrought in lightweight aluminum and carbon fiber, the 2020 Mercedes-AMG GT3 is your factory-built ticket to racetrack glory. GT3 has become one of the world’s most popular racing categories for drivers and fans alike, and it’s not hard to see why. Rather than anonymous high-tech spaceships shaped in a wind tunnel, GT3 racers look like the road-going supercars we lust after—Porsches, Ferraris, Corvettes, Aston Martins—and they race on some of the world’s most iconic tracks, including Le Mans, Daytona, Spa, Bathurst, and the Nürburgring Nordschleife. (Check out our coverage of GT3 racing on MotorTrend On Demand.) The 2020 GT3 is an upgrade…