Innehållsförteckning för July 2021 från MotorTrend

Welcome, tiny percentage of MotorTrend readers who actually read the editor’s monthly musings in these first pages of every edition! Man, are you in for a treat. You’ve probably already noticed something’s different, not quite right. Or … is it so wrong that it couldn’t be more right? What tipped you off? My warm, gentlemanly greeting? Or was it my devil-may-care style of prose, tumbling gracefully like a figure skater who just broke a shin bone or two. Was that it? Most likely, you looked at the cover, saw my face, then screamed victoriously, like a bald eagle after gobbling up a delicious puppy. Then, in a high-pitched register, you called out to anyone within earshot: “The sportscaster dude from Anchorman is the guest editor of MotorTrend this month?! F…

Drifting a Volkswagen Golf is weird. Like, really weird. The Golf has long been a beacon of front-wheel-drive—and FWD-based all-wheel-drive—excellence, but getting its rear to swing wide typically meant yanking a handbrake or getting hit by a dump truck. The new 2022 VW Golf R, however, will happily do power-on tank slappers, drift in a circle, and sashay through a slalom. And it’s still a front-driver at its core. Huh? Credit the new AWD setup, which cans its predecessor’s Haldex center differential for an electromechanical rear axle with clutch packs on the shafts to send up to 100 percent of rear-axle torque to the outside rear wheel. Also key is software activated by a fun button marked “Drift,” which commands the ESC and rear diff to allow lurid sideways action.…

Who hasn’t been stuck seething at an interminable red light with zero cross traffic? When this happened one time too many to Uriel Katz, he co-founded Israel-based, Palo Alto, California–headquartered tech startup NoTraffic in 2017. The company claims its cloud- and artificial intelligence–based traffic control system can halve rush-hour times in dense urban areas, reduce annual CO2 emissions by a half-billion tons in places like Phoenix/Maricopa County, and slash transportation budgets by 70 percent. That sounded mighty free-lunchy, so I got NoTraffic’s VP of strategic partnerships, Tom Cooper, on the phone. Here’s how it works: Sensors perceive, identify, and analyze all traffic approaching each intersection, sharing data to the cloud. Here, light timing and traffic flow is adjusted continuously, prioritizing commuting patterns, emergency and evacuation traffic, a temporary parade of…

This month, Corrado Toxiri of Midland Park, New Jersey, writes from a notable place: “After the strangest year of our lives, when we could not travel much with our favorite cars, it seems fitting to take a picture on location while taking the first step to get out of this madness: I’m here pictured at the vaccination megasite near the New York Giants’ and Jets’ stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, while in line to get my first shot. The latest MotorTrend is keeping me company in the hourlong wait. The first thing I’ll do once I’m fully vaccinated? A road trip with my 2003 BMW E46 M3, of course!”…

Learning to drive on the limit is indeed much like drinking from a firehose. There is a lot to ingest, so I like to keep it simple and basic during early lessons. Weight management is a driver’s primary job. When you transfer weight to a tire, its grip improves, just as we demonstrated with our foot. Slide lightly, no grip; lean on it, and it sticks well. The same is true for your tires. When you use the throttle and brake pedals, you transfer weight: Slow down, and it moves forward; speed up, and it moves rearward. When weight moves rearward, the front end lightens, and the car will not steer as well. When you brake and put more weight on the front tires, it steers better. As you enter…

A dream drive in a pair of cars from two of the world’s most prestigious automakers, Bentley and Rolls-Royce? Were the world working as usual, we’d jet to old Blighty, pick up our rides in the shadow of Big Ben, and cruise up to a hotel in an old Scottish castle with haunted rooms and a French chef. Another day in the coal mines. But the world isn’t quite back to normal, so we’re simplifying. We plan to meet in Beverly Hills, one of the country’s richest neighborhoods, then waft our way through tony Brentwood and Santa Monica to the ocean. We’ll turn up the Pacific Coast Highway and cruise 30 miles through some of America’s finest scenery before stopping for a picnic on the beach. We’ll take Route 101…

Maybe you love the Fast and Furious moves, or perhaps you’ve never forgiven them for that reference to the “MoTeC exhaust.” Either way, it’s impossible to deny the impact the movies have had on society and car culture. With 10 films, including this year’s Fast 9, Fast and Furious is one of the most successful franchises in Hollywood history. It’s been 20 years since Brian O’Conner moseyed into Toretto’s Market and Café for a tuna on white with no crust, and the car world has never quite been the same. MotorTrend features editor Scott Evans well remembers the impact of 2001’s The Fast and the Furious: “The buzz was everywhere. Even in my small California town, everyone had heard about this new street racing movie. I went to the theater…

One of the more unexpected resurrections of a seemingly dead nameplate continues. Meet the 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV, a sibling to GMC’s 2022 Hummer EV pickup. As you might remember, the Hummer brand burned out before it could fade away, shifting from macho fashion accessory to environmental pariah before being killed off in 2010 in the wake of GM’s bankruptcy. But it’s back in a big way and hoping to put a real—ahem—charge into the EV market, of all things. The pickup arrives this fall and is on trend; EV pickups are imminent from Ford, Rivian, and others. But the SUV, the body style Hummer is famous for, will be the sales leader once it goes on sale in the first quarter of 2023. As with the truck, the…

Six years after first emerging as a concept, the 2022 Santa Cruz is here to serve urbanites who need a city companion but also regularly drive out of town to hike, surf, or bike. Hyundai is betting it’s as much truck as they need. The trucklet is essentially the new Tucson SUV with its cargo area open to the sky. The bed is 4 feet by 4 feet, meaning you can fit mountain bikes with the front tires hanging over the tailgate or, with the tailgate in a half-open position, sheets of plywood on ledges molded above the wheelwells. Drop the gate, which supports 500 pounds, and you should be able to strap down a dirt bike. Bed payload capacity is a bit more than 600 pounds, at least 800…

The new 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander SUV has launched amid positive reviews, raising the prospect of a long but slow crawl back to relevancy for the Japanese automaker that’s lost much of its luster in North America. In 2016, Nissan rescued beleaguered Mitsubishi, buying a controlling stake and bringing it into the Nissan-Renault Alliance. We were told at the time that Mitsubishi would find its place as an SUV-centric brand that would share its AWD expertise and plug-in hybrid technology with the family. Mitsubishi products would then use shared Alliance architectures—the first example of which is the much-improved Outlander, which shares underpinnings with the Nissan Rogue. We spent some time with Mitsubishi global design boss Seiji Watanabe. At the 2017 Tokyo auto show, Mitsubishi showed the e-Evolution concept, a crossover highlighting…

To hear Rob Corddry tell it, his first day of shooting Top Gear America was almost his last. As he was hustling a decommissioned Police Interceptor through an abandoned neighborhood with the Stig hot on his tail, the reality of what he signed up for truly sank in. “Oh, God. What have I gotten myself into?” Corddry says. A year later, he can still remember the thoughts running through his head: “I’m afraid of danger. I have a low tolerance for pain. I’m not a daredevil. What am I doing? There are so many ways I could die.” Watch this segment on Episode 5, and you see this interior monologue unfold in real time during the height of the chase. Full of fear, his eyes flick between the road and…

Editor’s Note: Rob here, and I’m excited to present this peek behind the curtain, a rare opportunity for MotorTrend readers to understand a bit about how the sausage really gets driven. Please send thank-you cards to my publicist, Sam. Per normal protocol, an editor gives a writer notes aimed at improving a story. A second draft is written, and the process repeats until that word-turd transforms into a turd-butterfly, flying on wings of gracefully plotted ideas and sentences. But there exists a class of elite magazine writers, car journalists in our case, who have evolved beyond this rubric, those with the experience and skill to dazzle in their very first draft. Those with the guts to use the word rubric, even if somewhat improperly. These are the untouchables, and they…

One hundred and thirty miles from Beverly Hills, we arrive at our destination: the Folded Hills Winery and Farmstead in Gaviota, California. Here, owners Kim and Andy Busch make wine in much the same way Bentley and Rolls-Royce build their cars: by using old-fashioned methods and craftsmanship. General manager Tymari LoRe takes us on a socially distanced tour of the winery and the farmstead, and she explains to us what sets Folded Hills’ wines apart from others. The grapes are grown organically on the hillside above the winery, and many of their varieties are still stomped by foot. “Big Wine,” we learn, will frequently use additives to give its products consistency. Folded Hills does no such thing, so each year’s wine tastes a little different—Mother Nature has her say in…

1 The original film was inspired by a 1998 Vibe article titled “Racer X.” 2 Eight different fourth-gen Supras were used to represent Brian’s car in the original movie, with the production paying $24,000 for the most expensive example. That’s about the equivalent of $35,500 in 2021. Nowadays, clean fourth-gen Supra Turbos can sell for six-figure sums. 3 The studio originally wanted Timothy Olyphant to play the role of Dominic Toretto. Olyphant turned the part down, and Vin Diesel was cast in his place. 4 The 1969 Dodge Charger driven by Dominic Toretto in The Fast and the Furious is actually a 1970 model made to look the part of a 1969. 5 The Honda S2000 driven by Devon Aoki’s Suki in the first sequel might not look familiar, but…

It’s one thing to build a nation. It’s something else to maintain it. The sorry state of America’s roads and bridges is a case in point. The most recent report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) suggests 43 percent of the more than 4 million miles of America’s public roadways is in poor or mediocre condition. Of the more than 617,000 road bridges located across America—42 percent of which are now at least 50 years old—about 46,000 are in questionable order, suffering significant structural problems. The ASCE estimates getting America’s road network back into shape will require an investment of about $560 billion. The Federal Highway Administration (FHA) admits that improving and maintaining the condition of road and bridge infrastructure will require an annual spend of $136 billion,…

Let’s get it out of the way: The second-gen Honda Ridgeline looked like a Pilot SUV that had been Sawzalled into a truck—a conversion surprisingly common among L.A.’s pool cleaners. That’s not shocking given the Pilot and Ridgeline share a platform, even if the Ridgeline’s structure diverges under the bed. But when the pickup launched for 2017, the softer, rounder styling was a retrograde move from the blocky, tough-looking first-gen Ridgeline, and it has remained its biggest drawback. Enter the refreshed 2021 model. Honda listened to the critics and toughened the Ridgeline right up. The grille and headlights are squarer and more upright, and a power bulge in the hood gives a hint of the baby big-rig look full-size trucks have had since the ’94 Dodge Ram. To steal a…

There are so many things I wish I could do. I’m not talking about a COVID lockdown to-do list. This isn’t about baking a certain variety of bread no one liked until boredom drove them insane. And I’m not talking about finally guilt-reading those classic novels I faked my way through in college. Faulkner is overrated anyway, let it go. I’m talking about my exponentially expanding thirst for knowledge relative to my atrophying, middle-aged capacity to learn. It’s one of life’s cruelest jokes: When we finally want to learn, we realize our brains have retired early and moved to Florida. They play mahjong with the girls on Fridays and do the USA Today crossword each morning so they can “stay sharp.” I want to do simple math without a calculator.…

“Putting Porsche in the Pink.” That was the headline on a New York Times story published on January 20, 1996, detailing the German marque’s effort to turn around its finances and reinvent the way it had built cars for more than 40 years. As the newspaper pointed out, the company that produced must-have products for the upwardly mobile during the cartoonishly decadent ’80s—in 1986, North American sales exceeded 30,000 units—had reached its last gasp. Antiquated, inefficient manufacturing processes collided head-on with an economic recession and a misjudged, aging product range to result in just 3,713 sales in the same region in 1993. Threatened with bankruptcy, Porsche had to change. As the 968 and 928—the latter originally and inconceivably meant to replace the 911—disappeared from showrooms for good, there was a…

You can only ask this question in the context of a Fast and Furious film: How do you top a ’68 Dodge Charger with a jet engine in the trunk? Easy: a ’68 Charger with a Hellcat in the back seat. And how exactly does a Hellcat engine, even one tuned to Demon specification like this one, top a jet engine? Because it’s real. That’s right, kids, the jet engine sticking out the back of the “Ice Charger” in 2017’s Fate of the Furious was just a prop. The car was powered by a Chevy LS3 V-8 pushed back under the dashboard to make room for an all-wheel-drive system. Cool stuff, but the mid-engine Charger is the real deal. At least, two of them are. “We actually built nine,” says…

We caught up with actor Sung Kang, who plays Han in the FF films. His involvement with the movies turned him into a die-hard automotive enthusiast, so we asked him to name his five favorite cars from the franchise. 5. Ford Maverick, Fast Five The love for the Maverick came from that scene in Brazil, where we were doing the recon scene. Dennis McCarthy paired me up with the Maverick, and I was complaining, “How come everybody gets all these cool cars and I get this hunk of junk?” One of the Brazilian technicians went into this whole history of what the Maverick means to the Brazilian car community. I became a student of that car and fell in love with it. There’s a GT version with a center console…

Make a list. Write down every sports car that still offers a manual transmission. Now, cross out each one that doesn’t offer it on the highest-performance trim. Next, cross out each one with an automatic option that isn’t good enough to make you choose it over the manual. How many cars are you left with? You can count them on two hands, can’t you? Drop anything with more than two doors, and you’re down to one hand; two of the protagonists still standing are the 2020 BMW M2 CS and the 2021 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4. The door is closing on a unique time in sports car history: There was a period between the early 2000s and the late teens when we had an underappreciated cornucopia of transmission choice. Manual…