Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2020 i MotorTrend

Back on August 3, 2017, a press release went out announcing that the company now known as the MotorTrend Group would enter into joint venture with Discovery Communications. During the transition, a wise man told me, “Ed, this place is going to look very different in six months and completely transformed in a year. In two years, it will be unrecognizable.” I don’t remember believing those words at the time, but they have since proven prophetic in many ways, as we saw at the close of last month’s Cybertruck issue. Four days before Tesla’s announcement, we made our own noise, by celebrating MotorTrend’s 70th anniversary and our 2020 Car, Truck, SUV, and Person of the Year, in a venue I would have never expected: our headquarters in El Segundo, California.…

A new Chevrolet Suburban is big. In dimension. In investment. In importance. As the sun sets on the current Suburban, which came out in 2014 as a 2015 model, a new and massive three-row SUV with vast improvements takes its place, extending the life of the longest-running nameplate in automotive history at 85 years and counting. The 2021 Suburban will go on sale next spring, riding on the same new architecture that underpins the Silverado 1500 and Silverado HD pickups, as well as its full-size SUV sibling, the 2021 Chevrolet Tahoe. The Tahoe is the SUV for those who tend to carry four people regularly (instead of six or eight) and use all the rear space for cargo. The Tahoe’s wheelbase grew by 4.9 inches to 120.9, and overall length…

Kia Seltos With 7.2 inches of ground clearance, the Seltos is gunning at Jeep, thank you very much. Arriving at dealers any minute with a starting price under $22,000, it can be had with a 146-hp four-cylinder and a CVT or a 175-hp turbocharged four with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic. All-wheel drive is optional. Toyota RAV4 Prime Worried your hybrid SUV isn’t quick enough? Toyota has a Prime for that. Retuning the gasoline engine, enlarging the battery, and bulking up the electronics and front electric motor (the rear motor is the same) make the RAV4 Prime Toyota’s second-quickest vehicle behind the Supra at 5.8 seconds to 60 mph. Expect 90 mpg-e with a 93-mile all-electric driving range. Mazda CX-30 Sliding between the CX-3 and CX-5, the CX-30 will come in…

@markrechtin The world of car design recently lost one of its iconoclasts when Jerry Hirshberg—pop star, painter, author, and the dynamic force behind cars as diverse as the Buick “Boattail” Riviera, the Infiniti J30, and the Nissan Z and Xterra that saved the company—died after a yearlong battle with glioblastoma. He was 80. But I’ll miss Jerry for far more than his immense contributions to the automotive landscape. I’ll miss a friend and debate partner. Jerry must have missed the “media training” meeting where PR minders lodged clichés and banalities into the craniums of executives, forbidding them to speak freely to journalists. “You can’t script him,” said former Nissan sales boss Mike Seergy, himself no stranger to the piquant comment. With Jerry, it was never an interview, it was a…

In technical director Kim Reynolds’ figure-eight testing report on the 2020 Chevrolet C8 Corvette Z51, he spoke of strong understeer, combined surprisingly with a fair amount of snap oversteer in this unique limit handling test, one that MotorTrend has used for years as a standard of comparison. I’d like to point out that a good chassis tester like Kim focuses on the negatives, elucidating where it can be better. It’s something I’ve always done as a racer, too, and it’s a key to my successes. So I’m guessing that the Corvette engineers also read this report, and as a result, we were quite honored that they contacted us and offered to show us how their new supercar works when tuned more for handling at its limits. Enter a team of…

And the new AMG models just keep on coming. The redesigned 2020 Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 Coupe sports new AMG family threads and a hand-built 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that packs an impressive 382 hp and 354 lb-ft of punch. Funneling all that mumbo to terra firma is an eight-speed AMG Speedshift dual-clutch transmission and the AMG Performance 4Matic+ all-wheel-drive system. The bottom line? A swoopy Corolla-sized four-door that AMG says will zing from 0 to 60 in about 4.0 seconds and reach a top speed of 155 mph—168 if you order the AMG Dynamic Plus package, which also gives you bigger brakes and a Drift mode. It’s sporty, so the ride is very tight. Comfort mode generates a lot less noise, vibration, and harshness than we experienced in the A…

Cars require untold numbers of engineers to go from first sketch to Job 1, so it always seems unfair to lay a vehicle’s success or failure at the feet of just one person. That’s the nature of leadership, though. You revel in the W or hang your head with the L. Albert Biermann didn’t personally choose the parts and calibrations that make the 2020 Hyundai Sonata N-Line drive like it does, but his philosophy has been so faithfully executed in the way it drives, it’s impossible not to recognize his influence. Biermann, as has been extensively reported, came from BMW’s M division in 2015. Before Hyundai poached him to be its performance boss (he’s since been promoted to head of R&D), it would’ve been farcical to compare the way a…

BLOODHOUND’S JET ENGINE DELIVERS 20,000 POUNDS OF THRUST. “It’s a bit Everest, isn’t it?” For a brief moment, Ian Warhurst doesn’t sound like a mechanical engineer. Echoes of Henry Segrave, George Eyston, John Cobb, Malcolm and Donald Campbell, Art Arfons, Craig Breedlove—brave, quixotic adventurers who dreamed of being the fastest ground-bound humans on earth—reverberate through the room. “You’re going into the unknown, doing something that no one else has done before.” A pause. “That’s got to be appealing, hasn’t it?” A little over a year ago Warhurst was wondering what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Having sold his turbocharger parts manufacturing business to an American corporation, he found himself at the age of 49 wealthy enough never to have to work again. But a…

Mike Cross aims for the gap in the trees and guns it. There’s a muted snarl from the 400-hp straight-six under the hood, the hiss of rubber on wet gravel, and the whoomp! whoomp! whoomp! of muddy water exploding from potholes. Cross is slouched in the driver’s seat, relaxed but eyes laser-focused, as he waltzes 5,000 pounds of SUV through mud-slicked corners with deft, minimalist movements of the steering wheel, his right hand periodically making the short reach across to the high-mounted shifter to grab another gear. The road straightens, and Jaguar Land Rover’s chief engineer for vehicle integrity buries his right foot. We hit 100 mph, hovercrafting over the cratered surface on the long-travel air suspension. Then it’s hard on the brakes and three quick snicks of the stubby…

After an exhaustive search, we’re proud to announce the hosts of Top Gear America, coming exclusively to the MotorTrend app in spring 2020: Dax Shepard, Rob Corddry, and Jethro Bovingdon. Or, as they tell it: two comedians, a guy who’s actually British, and The Stig. “If we’re ever given a script, I promise the viewers that I’m going to light it on fire and throw it away,” Corddry said. “So you can count on me for that, at least. I really think that the strength of this show is going to be an honest interplay between the three of us.” Corddry, like Shepard and Bovingdon, is both a lifelong car enthusiast and a big Top Gear fan. “I feel like that’s the one prerequisite the host should have,” Shepard said.…

Hyundai Vision T Concept Make a few tweaks, and you’re looking at the next Hyundai Tucson. The concept is slightly longer overall on a 5.3-inch-longer wheelbase, and it’s powered by an undescribed plug-in hybrid drivetrain. The coolest trick, though, is the front and rear lighting elements, which look like the rest of the metal trim when they’re off but light up when powered. Volkswagen ID Space Vizzion Nearly ready for production, it’ll replace the Golf Alltrack by 2022. The ID Space Vizzion (yes, really) is a pure EV thanks to an 82-kW-hr battery in the floor and a 205-kW rear electric motor. A front electric motor for all-wheel drive is being considered. Volkswagen expects a range of 300 miles. The interior previews VW’s new 15.6-inch infotainment display with all-new software.…

The Taycan 4S, a little less powerful than the Turbo but a lot more affordable, will arrive in the U.S. this spring priced from $106,410, undercutting the Turbo by $47,100 and the Turbo S by a whopping $81,200. Buyers will have to forgo some bragging rights when opting for the entry-level Taycan: The 4S is eight-tenths of a second slower to 60 mph than the Turbo and 1.2 seconds slower than the Turbo S, taking 3.8 seconds for the sprint, and it only does 155 mph, whereas the Turbo twins can hit 161 mph. Two versions of the Taycan 4S will be available. The base model, which is not scheduled to enter production until June, comes with a 79.2-kW-hr battery Porsche calls the Performance Battery. Available sooner is one fitted…

Hey, can we talk? You, the car enthusiast who devours MotorTrend for the high-end stuff. And you, too, the retail-ready shopper who comes to us for practical buying advice. You both have lots of questions about the new Mercedes-Benz GLB crossover. But what you really want to know is, simply: Is it any good? Let me respond just as simply: Yes, it is. The enthusiast wants to know if it’s a real Mercedes, one worthy of a three-pointed star among stalwarts like the GLS, GLE, and our 2017 SUV of the Year, the GLC. Does it drive like a Mercedes despite its front-drive underpinnings? Meanwhile, smart shoppers want to know if it feels like a Mercedes inside, if it’s a good value, and whether there’s space for all their needs.…

The guttural V-8 growl is as familiar as the iconic winged logo on the leather-clad steering wheel. But overlaying it are sounds never before heard in an Aston Martin: a distant ticking of gravel peppering the underside, the muffled thud of rubber on rock, the swoosh of muddy water cascading over the hood. We’re dancing an Aston Martin DBX prototype through the wilderness of Oman, on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It feels right at home. We’ve covered the oily bits of Aston’s first-ever SUV on MotorTrend.com, but here’s a quick recap: The DBX is built on a brand-new all-aluminum body structure engineered and developed in-house at Aston Martin. Under the hood is the ubiquitous 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 that powers sundry Mercedes-AMG models as well as versions of…

The 2016 Nissan Titan was a monumental improvement over the 12-year-old truck it replaced, but that redesigned model was already outdated the day it was unveiled; it was the truck Nissan should’ve released many years earlier, and it showed. This year, finally, the refreshed Titan boasts improvements that bring it much closer to competing with segment leaders from Ford, Ram, and Chevrolet. The first think you’ll notice is the updated styling, which takes a refreshing step away from aping the Ford F-150 in front and establishes a better identity for the Titan. Unfortunately, that’s balanced with a new tailgate trim piece on top-trim models (not pictured) that looks like it was pried off the back of an F-150. The real news is hiding under the skin. The star of the…

What is this thing? I ask myself this as I deliberately drive the speed limit in an immaculately restored 1969 Toyota Corolla up Interstate 15 toward Victorville, California. From the outside, this looks to be a pristine vintage Corolla. But a closer look reveals so much more. The first clue are the wide fender flares that give it a more muscular look. Toyota connoisseurs with eagle eyes will then notice that this Corolla is a bit wider and longer than when it rolled out of the factory. Peering inside, its push-start button, Lexus infotainment system, and sporty seats are by no means from the year of Woodstock. Then, from under the vintage sheetmetal, comes the deep, throaty note of a V-8 engine and the swift shifting of a modern eight-speed…

Forget any American cousin you may have seen, The Stig has landed in California to film Top Gear America alongside Dax Shepard, Rob Corddry, and Jethro Bovingdon. We cornered the reclusive driver and TV personality during a photo shoot in hopes of gaining some insights on the new show. We know The Stig is a driver of huge talent but few words, so we hoped bringing a Ford Mustang Shelby GT500, a mid-engine Corvette, and a McLaren 720S into the studio would open things up. Instead, we found The Stig staring at a lamp. MT: Welcome back to the office! Don’t worry about the mess from last time. It’s all been taken care of. The Stig: … MT: I hope the A/C is on high enough in here. I know…

“I’M VERY CONFIDENT ABOUT THE NEXT GENERATION OF ESCALADE. IT WILL EXCEED EXPECTATIONS.” Employees past and present agree: Mary Barra is the right leader for General Motors at this time in history. She’s smart and business savvy, knows product, and is capable of managing crises and making hard choices. She has gained the confidence of employees but is still able to be vulnerable and accept help from her senior team. For the full interview, head to MotorTrend.com. Congratulations on Corvette being the MotorTrend Car of the Year. Was it a big debate to get rid of C7 as opposed to offering both C7 and C8? No. We had really taken the C7 architecture style as far as we could go without going to mid-engine. So it was time, and it…

THE C8 WILL SIT WELL WITH ITALIAN EXOTICS; THE SHELBY GT500 COMES FROM A MORE PURELY AMERICAN PLACE, THE PONY CAR. Mustang vs. Corvette? Go ahead, pinch your thumb and index finger to the bridge of your nose, squint your eyes, and blink hard. When you look again, the words on the page won’t have changed. Rarely has MotorTrend conducted (or concocted) such a bold comparison. But it’s a mad, mad new world we’re in now. Forget the Blue Oval’s sacrosanct rivalry with Camaro, which had always left the Corvette to chase the elusive, pricier Porsche 911. Oh sure, the base pony car models will still compete, same as always. But the top-end Mustang GT500 is so excellent it deserves higher-octane competition. The final piece of evidence: The Mustang Shelby…

One of the hottest-selling SUVs in the country is back, and its maker is tired—tired—of competitors muscling in on its turf. Redesigned for 2020, the Toyota Highlander demands your attention with exactly the same formula it’s used for almost two decades—wait, that’s not right. Actually, the 2020 Highlander builds on its winning formula with more than just comfort, convenience, and a reputation for reliability. The three-row family hauler boasts improvements that should attract more buyers. But can it challenge the popular Ford Explorer and SUV of the Year–winning Kia Telluride? The 2020 Highlander rides on a new advanced platform, but what really defines this new family hauler is a revised storage tray. Yes, really. First off, don’t knock it until you’ve lived with it—and my sister has. The look of…

My wife loves to-do lists. Crossing off each item gives her a little spark of joy, no matter how many boxes are left to check. If the engineers for the redesigned 2020 Mercedes-Benz CLA 250 are anything like my wife, it’s safe to assume they have similar self-satisfied smiles. Mercedes introduced the original CLA in 2013 as a hip, inexpensive entry point meant to lure people out of their Accords and Camrys and into a Benz. Although it certainly attracted a fair number of buyers, it also attracted criticism—most notably for its low-grade interior, recalcitrant transmission, and droopy styling. You would be correct if you imagined these shortcomings atop the to-do list for the product planners in Stuttgart. Far and away the greatest progress has been made inside the CLA.…

Remember sedans? They’re not dead yet, though you’d be forgiven for thinking so by looking at what’s parked on your street. With more people making the switch to SUVs every year, Detroit’s automakers have given up on the family sedan. But Hyundai is betting that making the 2020 Sonata sexy, comfortable, and effortless will convince you not to defect. The way Hyundai tells it, the last Sonata was fine but kinda dull. This is, they say, because they were chasing best-in-class interior space at the expense of design. Believe that if you want, but now Hyundai product planners say leading the specifications charts is not enough. SUVs of equal footprint have more space by nature, so sedans need something else to pull you in. The new strategy embraces the idea…

First things first: The 2021 Audi RS Q8 drives nothing like the platform-sharing Lamborghini Urus. I defy you to find anything about the Audi’s driving manners, engine note, shift patterns, steering, braking, design, or styling that would conjure thoughts of its Italian affiliate. Does it drive better than an Urus? I guess that depends on the type of driver you are. And whether “better” is worth it depends on the depth of your pocketbook, as the Lambo is likely $100K upward of Ingolstadt’s edition. In fact, the RS Q8 seems to have more similarity with Audi’s RS 6 wagon than it does the Urus. It’s the same sausage, different shapes in this corner of the Audi delicatessen. Can the Audi match the Urus’ 3.0-second 0–60? Audi suggests a 3.8-second dash…