MotorTrend is the world's automotive authority. Every issue of MotorTrend informs and entertains with features on the testing of both domestic and import cars, car care, motor sports coverage, sneak peeks at future vehicles, and auto-industry news.
MotorTrend has always had an eye toward the future. We tell you what’s going on in automobiles today, but we’re just as interested in what’s coming next year, in the next few years, and beyond. Yet as we look forward to what’s on the horizon in our annual peek at future cars beginning on page 36, we also decided to take a moment to consider what we’re ready to leave in the past. If you talk cars at all, you’ve heard the complaint that today’s models have too much technology. Some of that is just get-off-my-lawn crabbiness in automotive terms, but there’s a case to be made that car companies are running out of ideas for genuinely useful new features and are instead greenlighting increasingly niche add-ons with diminishing use…
You can argue the North American brands under Stellantis have been defanged in recent years. Under former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares’ leadership, Ram trucks lost their V-8s, Jeep lost volume models and failed to launch promised new ones in a timely manner, Chrysler subsists today on minivans alone, and Dodge slow-walked the rollout of its new muscle cars. Now there’s a new sheriff in town, as Antonio Filosa, a man more sympathetic to North American demands, is the new CEO. And Stellantis brought back retired Tim Kuniskis, a man with petrol and adrenaline commingled in his veins and who had ridden off into the sunset not long ago, in June 2024. With the personnel moves came a series of quick announcements: Hellcat godfather and Ram CEO Kuniskis was promoted to…
In case you need the reminder, car companies don’t own and operate restaurants. Then again, they don’t own and operate gas stations, either, and Tesla has proven owning and operating its own charging network was a brilliant business decision. The Tesla Diner, though, is uncharted territory. Will history repeat itself? At its core, it’s a simple idea: an upscale fast-food restaurant with a retro-future theme located at a Supercharger outpost, owned and operated by Tesla. The roughly 9,300-square-foot restaurant resides in Hollywood, California, and seats 250-plus patrons combined on the ground floor and roof of the three-story building. (The second floor is inaccessible.) Situated on a corner lot, the building is surrounded on two sides by 30 V4 Supercharger towers. It’s connected at a corner to another Supercharger station on…
“ Now we will turn it to N mode, and you can use the paddles,” said the Hyundai development driver who’s been patiently coaching us around a section of the “little ’Ring” in a camoed prototype of the new Ioniq 6 N super sport sedan. Roger. Can do. Downshifting into an interminably wide hairpin, the tach swings upward and the car’s “engine” wails as we brake hard, patiently turn in, and wait for the final apex to get back on the “gas” and upshift. Whoops, we jump on it too hard coming out of the corner, and the tail wags out a little wide. No worries, just lift a bit, apply more throttle, and we’re back on it, mashing the paddles through an uphill sweeper as software-generated noise fills the cabin…
Honda’s modern crop of sporty, front-drive cars is among the best it’s ever had. But if you ever thought you’d like a specific combo of a hybrid powertrain, performance parts from the Civic Type R, and a two-door 2+2 layout with a liftback trunk, then the new Prelude is the answer. With a Prelude not seen since 2001, the new sixth-generation car will make good on the established pillars of Prelude ideology: spirited, athletic handling and cutting-edge driving technology. In this case, it means pulling the dual-motor hybrid setup from the excellent Honda Civic Hybrid and dropping it in. Beyond the 200-hp and 232-lb-ft figures—same as the Civic Hybrid’s—Honda is remaining mum about other specs. When we asked why it didn’t increase the power output, a company representative merely said…
The Honda Prelude has a storied history, beginning as a strangelooking 2+2, maturing as the showcase for Honda’s future technology, and culminating as one of the finest-handling front-drive cars of the 20th century. With a new Prelude on the way, Honda gave us the chance to drive all five previous generations of the car. Here’s what they were like, then and now. FIRST GENERATION 1979–82 For all the journalistic praised heaped on Honda in the Carter years, reviews of the Prelude were tepid. Criticism of its odd styling and useless back seat prompted Prelude owner Brock Yates to pen a defense (MotorTrend March 1980): “Can one imagine the ecstatic yelping if Porsche produced a 1.7-liter OHC coupe capable of 100 mph for under $7,000?” Indeed, the Prelude was a hit…
