Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i MotorTrend

@markrechtin A prayer for Bergamo I am writing this on March 24, the day before this magazine goes to print but four weeks before you likely will read it, so please forgive me if more recent events have proven this column to be hopelessly outdated. It is difficult to prognosticate when circumstances and developments are changing daily. Hang a hard right east out of Milan and zip past the Monza racetrack, and you will encounter the charming hill town of Bergamo. The Citta Alta retains its ancient cobblestone streets and Venetian walls from the time of Julius Caesar; the upper district’s narrow alleys reveal a maze of storefronts and restaurants, each one more intriguing than the last. Families have lived in their same houses for generations. It’s a place better…

Joe Eberhardt, president and CEO of Jaguar Land Rover North America, has a long career in the auto industry, with stops at Chrysler, DaimlerChrysler, and Mercedes-Benz along the way. We spoke to Eberhardt at the Chicago Auto Show following the introduction of the 2021 Jaguar F-Type. The Defender 110 is planned to go on sale this spring, followed by the 90. What will its impact be? Obviously, it helps sales volumes. It brings to the front the totality of the Land Rover brand strategy with three families or subbrands, which is Discovery, Range Rover, and now Defender. We have waited a long time for the Defender in the U.S. The rest of the world waited a few years, but there has been a 23-year void for us in the U.S.…

For many overlanders and off-roaders, modifying their SUV or truck is half the fun—I know this full well, as I’ve watched as my wife turns her Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid into a light-duty overland expedition rig. But modifying any vehicle (not to mention assuming you know better than a team of highly skilled automotive engineers) can be risky, especially if you plan on heading off the beaten path. At worst, a poorly chosen part could break, leaving you stranded a long hike from the nearest pavement. At best, you might destroy the way your vehicle drives. With that in mind, here’s a list of MotorTrend’s picks of the best new overland vehicles. All of these trucks and SUVs are ready for overland travels right off the lot, and we’ve tried and…

The irony couldn’t be more towering. As I was driving a 2020 CR-V Hybrid from Tucson, Arizona, to Los Angeles, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. was buying barrels of crude oil after its price plummeted nearly 30 percent in one day. Oil prices were at their lowest in more than a decade, and here I was, driving the first gas-sipping hybrid SUV Honda has offered in the U.S. The CR-V Hybrid represents a big step for Honda. It’s the first electrified CR-V and the first all-wheel-drive hybrid vehicle for the automaker. Are gas prices going to go back up? They always do. But that’s not the only reason to shop this new entry. Available in all four trims—LX, EX, EX-L, and Touring—the hybrid brings a host of differences from…

2020 Geneva Motor Show* *CANCELED DUE TO COVID-19 Just days before it was to open to the media, with construction nearly finished and executives and media en route (including one MT editor already on a plane), the 90th Geneva International Motor Show was canceled. It was just the third time in the show’s history, the other two being World Wars. The last-minute decision was made following a mandate from the Swiss government forbidding public events of more than 1,000 people, spurred by the recent discovery of COVID-19 cases within Switzerland and a concentrated outbreak in nearby northern Italy. Unable to present their latest models and concepts in person, automakers scrambled to organize digital debuts on less than a week’s notice. Several turned to livestreams. Others simply sent out press releases…

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program of dream machines with a break into the real world—where millennials wrangle underwhelming paychecks against a mountain of student debt, high rent, and the necessity of car ownership. Enter our showdown of lovable, affordable SUVs. Sure, there will be compromises—what do you expect from a car that costs “just” a semester’s tuition at Skidmore but doesn’t have the power to leave skid marks? That said, the better entries won’t make you feel like you compromised. As SUVs continue to dominate the automotive landscape, it was only a matter of time until every purse and purpose was satisfied. Now a new niche is emerging within the subcompact SUV segment, aimed at consumers on a budget and in search of a higher seating position and more…

At the 1963 Paris Motor Show—the 50th anniversary of the event—the Porsche 901 made its debut. Reaction was mixed. So big! So fat! And while the scribes nattered about the Porsche’s girth compared to the 356 it would replace, Peugeot executives notified Porsche that its 901 nomenclature would violate Peugeot’s trademarked “X0X” monikers. Rather than get the lawyers involved, Ferry Porsche (eventually) made the decision to simply change the name, and voilà! The Neunelfer, das 911, the sports car all others want to be when they grow up, was born. Production began in September 1964, with just over 80 units tagged 901 before the name was changed. Everything that made a Porsche 911 a 911, and what continues to do so to this day, was there. The sloping profile, the…

Once, 600 horsepower was the exclusive bastion of exotic cars. Now enters the 2020 BMW X5 M, muscling its way into these lofty ranks in the shape of a five-passenger SUV. Does that make it a sports car? BMW believes so, presenting the $106,095 X5 M as a “track-capable” vehicle that just happens to weigh (and cost) as much as two actual sports cars. Based on powertrain alone, the 4.4-liter twin-turbo V-8 makes a good case for this claim. The X5 M cranks out an even 600 horsepower and a stout 553 lb-ft of torque available between 1,850 and 5,690 rpm. That’s a 33-hp bump over last year’s model, along with a peak torque band that’s almost 1,100 rpm wider. X5 M Competition models feature an additional 17 hp at…

Why 3-D printing could be a game changer for the auto industry Kevin Czinger is not a fan of electric cars. Which is perhaps surprising given that little more than 10 years ago Czinger was the CEO of an electric vehicle startup called Coda Automotive. Coda planned to build an affordable electric car for the U.S. market by re-engineering a Chinese sedan called the Hafei Saibao—an utterly unremarkable device based on a late ’90s Mitsubishi Lancer—to be powered by a 130-hp motor and a 35-kW-hr battery pack from China’s Lishen Battery. Coda Automotive went bust in 2013, almost three years after Czinger stepped down as CEO, having sold just 117 cars. But it’s the reason the 1,233-hp, $1.7 million Czinger 21C hypercar exists today. Electric vehicles are not the eco-friendly…

Fertilizing fuel cells by making H2 from ammonia at the pump I’ve long been a hydrogen fuel cell skeptic. But after laying out my case against “the fuel of the future” in a recent drive comparison of the Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo, a reader from Down Under pointed me to recent research by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) that promises to address many of my concerns regarding hydrogen distribution by making hydrogen from ammonia at the pump. These days hydrogen is typically shipped in ready-to-use liquid or gas form, but the liquifying process consumes 30 percent of its eventual energy content, and further losses occur from inevitable boil-off in transit. What the Aussies are proposing is to transport it as liquid ammonia and then convert it…

We are well and truly alone. Before us lies a seemingly endless gray desert moonscape, our silver specks of overland-loaded 2020 Land Rover Defender 110s, dancing over sand dunes, splitting the horizon with the churning South Atlantic Ocean, are the only sign of humanity. I snap back to reality as my Land Rover’s nose aims skyward as we struggle up a dune. Throttle in, the engine roaring, we rocket up the crest. Suddenly floating over the desert floor, we hear a thunk from all four corners of our air suspension—signaling we’d temporarily left earth somewhere over Namibia’s Skeleton Coast. It’s not often a new Defender comes around—the same holds true for a new Jeep Wrangler or Mercedes-Benz G-Class. Yet all three of these legendary overland-ready off-roaders have been revised during…

Twist and hold the key to start the engine. Shifting is in a standard H-pattern, though there’s some disagreement whether the gearbox has four gears or five installed at the moment. Idle speed is around 1,000 rpm like you’re used to, but all the power is up high, so give it more revs than usual when you release the clutch, or you’ll stall that legendary Porsche 917 in front of everyone. The track surface is bitterly cold and a bit damp. The car’s been sitting a while, so the Avon steamrollers have zero heat in them. But at least they’re new. This rain set has a few laughable grooves cut in, but we’ll be staying off the wet spots, won’t we? That nice British man joining us trackside—Richard Atwood was…

Mercedes-AMG surprised no one this past November when it took the wraps off the two most powerful SUVs AMG makes: the three-row GLS 63 and the two-row GLE 63 S, the latter being the subject of this review. It makes 603 horsepower and 627 lb-ft of torque, plus has hybrid assist. Fast-forward four months, and I’m cruising west on the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu behind the wheel of a blue GLE 63 S. I’m not going too much over the speed limit, 70 mph or so, and there’s a little blue square on the dashboard telling me the big boy is only using four of its eight cylinders. Moreover, another digital readout is letting me know the electric motor is sending power to the transmission. What sort of an…