Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i MotorTrend

Senior Features Editor When retro goes wrong: Making a worthy Lamborghini Countach sequel is hard. The unveiling of the new Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4 was the most controversial thing to happen during this year’s Monterey Car Week. Well, there was the rumor that Thurston Pillsbury III voted for Jack Kennedy, but we don’t talk about that. No, it was the new Countach—all 112 examples at about $3 million a pop—that had people talking, mostly not in a good way. At face value, the 2022 Countach LPI 800-4 is a rebodied Sián FKP 37 (itself a rebodied and hybridized Aventador), an 803-hp 50th anniversary homage to the world’s most definitive supercar. Lambo is building 112 of them, because the internal code name for the original concept Countach project was LP112. Logical,…

Look elsewhere for a Tesla competitor. You may wonder if Mercedes’ new EQS electric luxury sedan is a Tesla wannabe with a three-pointed star on the nose. Nope. It’s not. See, Mercedes has existed in some form or another since 1883. Tesla was founded in 2003 and only started producing mainstream EVs about a decade ago. With that extra century under its belt, Mercedes’ reputation precedes it—one that doesn’t include gimmicks like horns that make fart noises or apologists ready to defend any missteps on Twitter. It’s old money versus new money, and the 2022 EQS puts this on stark display, masterfully leveraging its quiet, swift electric powertrain and technology to deliver a superior luxury experience to any Tesla. At launch, two versions are available: the AWD EQS 580 and…

Stepping into the new GT3 Touring, you realize right away it isn’t your typical car when you notice a fire extinguisher affixed to the front passenger-side floor. Hopefully it never gets used, but you never know, because this Porsche is straight fire. It’s not the match of the AWD 911 Turbo S in brutal, blunt-force acceleration, but that’s not the point of the proudly rear-drive GT3. Rather, the GT3—and this Touring version in particular—is about balancing track strafing with dominating your favorite back road. And, yes, hearing its glorious 4.0-liter naturally aspirated flat-six scream all the way to 9,000 rpm. The only thing the base GT3 has on the Touring is its massive, highly adjustable swan-neck rear wing—otherwise, you’re getting the same experience, simply with more luxurious cabin appointments. The…

The Bronco Outer Banks trim falls above Base, Big Bend, and Black Diamond but below Badlands, Wildtrak, and First Edition in the model lineup. Jeep of course will sell you 17 styles of Wrangler (including three versions of the 4xe PHEV model). The four-door, 116.1-inch-wheelbase Bronco Outer Banks starts at $42,945, slotting between the $40,745 Wrangler Sahara and the $44,340 Sahara Altitude. Options, however, exist, so this particular Bronco Outer Banks had an as-tested price of $53,655. You can opt for an Outer Banks with Ford’s 2.3-liter turbo I-4; this one came equipped with the $1,895 2.7-liter twin-turbo V-6. The Outer Banks trim only comes with a 10-speed auto, but you can’t get any manual Bronco with the V-6, which is the engine to have. This Bronco tipped our scales…

When I first learned Ferrari was offering a plug-in hybrid supercar with hypercar aspirations, I didn’t think much of it. In some ways the SF90 Stradale is yet another update of the F8 Tributo platform, which dates to the decade-plus-old 458 Italia—and truthfully there’s some circa-2004 F430 marrow and sinew found within the new car’s anatomy. I assumed it would be nothing more than a heavier iteration of the same Maranello-flavored, mid-engine V-8 supercar with too much power for anybody’s good. Boy, was I wrong. There’s a comprehensively reworked version of Ferrari’s twin-turbo V-8 behind the passenger compartment. Displacement is up from 3.9 to 4.0 liters, and power rises from 711 to 769 horsepower, along with 590 lb-ft of torque. This engine is mounted remarkably low to the pavement: The…

We were incredibly fortunate to experience the Continental GT3 Pikes Peak firsthand, but you can get a feel for its main driver interface by bringing home its actual steering wheel and attaching it to your sim racing setup. And by “actual,” we mean an exact copy, not a poseur replica, of the wheel Rhys Millen used during this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The one you’ll be able to buy is fully functional in the real race car as well as on your gaming setup. Bentley partnered with leading sim racing hardware supplier Fanatec to design the FIA-compliant helm, and it’s a tasty bit of equipment. The 310mm wheel features a magnesium core, a 5mm-thick carbon-fiber front plate with Bentley green woven into it, a 3.4-inch circular digital display,…

Hot damn—it’s a new Nissan Z! More specifically, it’s the Nissan Z. That’s right, the seventh generation of the famous sports car is the first to snip off the model designation’s numeric portion in favor of a simple “Z” badge. As you probably know, since the first 240Z rolled into U.S. Datsun dealerships in 1969, the three digits in any Z car’s moniker signified the displacement of its six-cylinder engine. This wouldn’t have held, however, if the new car adopted the long-rumored 400Z name: The 2023 Z packs a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V-6, marking the return of turbocharging to the line for the first time since the 300ZX Twin Turbo left our shores 25 years ago. Although the name is new, the V-6 is not, as it’s the same VR30DDTT found…

Mirza Grebovic’s eyes light up when he talks about brake pad compounds. He’s Cadillac’s performance variant manager, and his passion clearly goes beyond the paycheck. You see, this Blackwing is big and exceptionally powerful. Getting it stopped quickly, repeatably, and reliably on track is no small feat, yet it’s one Grebovic obviously relished, as he told us about the roughly 20 compounds his team tested before settling on one that met noise and temperature targets while surviving almost 800 laps during a marathon, 24-hour track testing session. The anecdote is important because it shows how hungry Cadillac was to get this Blackwing right. As the brand prepares to pivot fully toward EVs, this car is the last of its kind to feature a feral, screaming, torque-drunk 6.2-liter supercharged LT4 V-8,…

The 2021 Ford Bronco is easily one of the most anticipated vehicles of our fledgling decade, and we won’t keep you in suspense: Our initial impression after driving the new Bronco is that it absolutely lives up to the hype. Driven on- or off-road, viewed as a getaway/adventure vehicle, a family truckster, or as a piece of retro automotive art, the Bronco feels like a winner. Indeed, Jeep’s longtime off-road champ, the Wrangler, now has some serious competition, as does our 2021 SUV of the Year, Land Rover’s epic Defender. We had the Wrangler in mind as we saddled up a Bronco in Austin, Texas, for our first on-road drive. Our trusty steed was a midlevel four-door Black Diamond model with the 2.3-liter EcoBoost engine, manual transmission, and honest-to-goodness steel…

On paper, the attractive Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio and the new, funky-looking 2021 BMW M3 Competition are spun from the same bolt of carbon-weave cloth. Both cars are rear-wheel-drive, front-engine members of the compact executive sedan segment. Each boasts a twin-turbo six-cylinder engine displacing about 3.0 liters. The Alfa and BWM share the same ZF-sourced eight-speed automatic transmission and nearly identical power output just a tick beyond the 500-horsepower mark. Pricing—both starting and as tested—parallel each other, as well. BMW requires $73,795 for the basest of the base M3 Comp, while Alfa demands $76,095 to get things started with its arrabbiata Quad. Our test-car examples sit at a hefty $93,945 for the Italian and $97,645 for the bright yellow German, so ignite your checkbook if you want to re-create our…

The Formula Rossa at Ferrari World Abu Dhabi is the world’s fastest roller coaster, with a top speed of 149.1 mph. That’s just 4 mph more than the SF90 Stradale Assetto Fiorano reaches at the end of the quarter mile. The car, however, doesn’t stop pulling until it hits 211 mph. Yes, we strapped our test equipment to the plug-in hypercar. Our test occurred during the company’s Corse Clienti rich-person racing program’s Ferrari Racing Days at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where we were invited and encouraged to document the performance of Ferrari’s quickest-ever road car. ACCELERATION The Assetto Fiorano hits 60 mph from a standing start in 2.10 seconds. It runs a standing quarter mile in 9.6 seconds at 145.2 mph. This makes it the quickest hybrid and the quickest gasoline-burning…

*Measured using premium fuel, not required With the midsize pickup segment fully revitalized, smaller trucks like the Maverick are splashing onto the scene, aimed at folks for whom a midsizer might still be too much vehicle. Like the rival 2022 Hyundai Santa Cruz, the Maverick is built on a crossover platform. The base 2.5-liter I-4/electric motor combo drives the front wheels through a CVT. Related to the Escape Hybrid’s powertrain (but with a new in-house-developed motor), it produces 191 total horsepower. Ford says the FWD-only Maverick Hybrid will offer 40/33/37 mpg city/highway/combined and can travel up to 500 miles on a single tank. An optional 2.0-liter turbocharged EcoBoost I-4 as seen in the Bronco Sport spins up 250 hp and 277 lb-ft of torque, and it pairs with an eight-speed…

Test days that include a new Porsche 911 GT3 don’t come around often. Since 1999, when we tested the first 996-generation GT3 R race car, we’ve run numbers on 11 previous GT3s, including the even more track-focused RS models. We’ve now concluded our instrumented testing of the latest 992-series GT3, and if you wonder how its numbers measure up to its outstanding predecessors, hold on to your balaclava. You might not feel the acceleration differences between the 500-hp, 339-lb-ft 991.2 GT3 and the 502-hp, 346-lb-ft 2022 model, but they are there in our test data. One of the largest advancements seems to have come from Porsche’s further development of its benchmark launch control system. It now revs to a range of 6,000 to 6,200 rpm while still masterfully working the…

Hello, dolly, goodbye, axle overloads! New way to shoulder big payloads. Shortly after our long-term Ram 2500 Cummins test truck arrived, I did what manufacturers assume all truck owners will eventually do: I overloaded it. I needed two 3,880-pound pallets of cement to build a seawall. Each one, centered over the truck’s rear axle, exceeded the gross axle weight rating by about 1,150 pounds and the gross vehicle weight rating by about 2,040 (roughly 20 percent in each case). The truck easily managed the short trips I made without incident, but I recently learned of a new device that could have brought it into legal compliance on those runs. Canadian entrepreneur Lawrence Stross has devised a load-divider dolly “trailer” equipped with three air springs. It rigidly connects to a truck’s…

THERE’S NO WAY JEEP IS GOING TO STAND PAT IN THE FACE OF THIS NEW AND VERY REAL FORD BRONCO THREAT. We haven’t yet had the opportunity to pit the new Bronco against the benchmark Wrangler in a no-holds-barred off-roading test, but we certainly will do so soon. In the meantime, following our Bronco first drive experience, we looked at how the basic vehicles compare in terms of common features that potential customers will use and experience every day. We recently had access to a 2021 Ford Bronco Outer Banks (a more on-road-oriented version) and a 2021 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon 4xe, and we looked at things like their removable doors, interior usability, visibility, open-air experience, and cargo area. Removable Doors Both the all-new Bronco and the Wrangler have removable…

Think of compact SUVs, and chances are the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4 come to mind. They’ve dominated sales charts the past few years, and each has a long history of loyal customers who return to buy or lease the latest versions. Although the RAV4 is the sales leader, with more than 430,000 units moved in 2020, the CR-V is no small player—Honda sold 333,000 last year. But as the segment grows more competitive, automakers are equipping their crossover SUVs with cutting-edge tech, cool designs, and spacious interiors. Take the Nissan Rogue and the Hyundai Tucson, for example; they aren’t as popular as the Honda and Toyota, but their latest generations are more attractive and tech-rich than ever. To make this comparison as fair as possible, we asked the participating…

A Bentley Bentayga driven by Rhys Millen set the production SUV record during the 2018 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. In 2019, the same team set the production car record with a Bentley Continental GT. Pandemic restrictions in 2020 limited travel to the U.S. and to the hill climb, but Bentley and Millen were back this year with a wildly modified version of the company’s GT3 race car: the Continental GT3 Pikes Peak. The aim was to win the Time Attack 1 class, smashing the existing record. Three Pikes Peak events, three wins, three records. Call it an inevitable hat trick, one that would cap Bentley’s final official entry at Pikes Peak. That was the plan, anyway, for June 27, 2021. Can you hear god laughing? Calling Pikes Peak a…

Hyundai’s i20 N is a riot, a punchy little zinger of a car that will have you grinning from ear to ear as you pinball it down a winding road. It’s also forbidden fruit: America’s enduring aversion to small hot hatches means we won’t see the i20 N stateside. And that is a shame, because the i20 N is Hyundai’s best driver’s car. For now. Driving the i20 N brought back memories of my first drive of the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. It happened back in 2007 in an off-the-record session with the then-secret two-door at Hyundai’s Namyang R&D Center in Korea. The handling track itself wasn’t great, but the car impressed. As a first stab at an affordable, sporty, rear-drive coupe, it was a solid effort. I referenced BMW’s 3…