Car news

The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren was, if you wish, an example of fusion (car) food done right. A stint between Mercedes-Benz and McLaren, the SLR had one paramount task - two, in fact.

On one hand, it had to pay proper respect to the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, while on the other, it had to generate F1 race car-level thrills on public road even for the noob driver. For that, it packed a 617-horsepower supercharged V-8 and an all-carbon fiber chassis, among other delicacies.

The highly anticipated arrival of the Ford Bronco is officially scheduled for July 13, and while we already know that Ford is revealing three models of the Bronco — the two-door, four-door, and the Bronco Sport compact crossover - we didn’t expect the Bronco to be more than just a model within Ford’s SUV lineup.

That’s not the case because “Bronco” will be more than that; it will be its own comprehensive sub-brand under the Ford umbrella, complete with its own unique “Built Wild” tag line. While this comes as surprising news for a lot of people, it’s not that surprising if you think about the heritage of the “Bronco” name as far as Ford is concerned. The Blue Oval’s trying to milk that heritage for what it’s worth, which brings us to where we are now.

Per Eklund is a Swedish rally driver that built an impressive and highly successful career from 1973 to 1997. He never made it to the top of his sport, but Eklund is still regarded as one of the finest rally racers of his era. One of his most impressive feats, however, took place after his active years in rally racing. It was in 2000 when Eklund drove his Saab 9-3 Viggen 4x4 at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. Competing in the Pikes Peak Open Wheel category, Eklund set a record time of 11:21.58 that remained untouched for 12 years until Frenchman Romain Dumas eclipsed the Swede’s time by almost two minutes with a time of 9:46.181. The record has been broken numerous times since 2012, and the current record holder is Clint Vahsholtz, who shot up the leaderboard in 2017 when he drove his Ford Open to a time of 9:35.747. As impressive as these record times are, it’s hard not to be impressed with Eklund’s performance in 2000 when he was at the ripe old age of 54 years old. For his record to last as long as it did speaks to his abilities behind the wheel of a rally racer.

Ford has decided to go all guns blazing on Jeep with the Bronco. The Blue Oval seems to have gotten everything covered; from stuff like removable doors and roof to tire packages that match the Wrangler’s profile. It started looking like Jeep was losing out on all its unique selling points, but it has decided to do something that the Bronco probably can’t in its infancy stage – offer more bang for the buck.

According to MoparInsiders.com, Jeep could start offering more standard equipment on the 2021 Wrangler model to fend off the attack from Ford Bronco. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?

Trademarks are funny business – sometimes automakers file them just to hang onto a certain name, and other times they manifest into official product names. And now, Jaguar has trademarked the name “EV-Type,” leading us to believe that the company is planning a second EV after the all-electric Jaguar XJ arrives next year. What that second electric model will be, however, is a complete mystery, but the name “EV-Type” name does give us some clues.

If you could get into the possession of a ’90s Japanese sports car without paying a dime, what would it be? For some, the poison would be the Acura Integra Type R because 1) the car’s an icon and a blast to drive and 2) used Integra Type Rs cost an arm and a leg these days.

New word has risen from within the bowels of Audi and, as it turns out, the company has a special operations group, known only as Artemis, that’s dedicated to “developing new business models for rapid prototypeing methods to speed development of existing models as well as data collection.” So, what in the world does that mean? Good question. Word has it that Artemis is busy developing the A9 E-Tron to take on the Mercedes EQS, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg, and there’s apparently a lot going on behind closed doors at Audi HQ.

In the 20-plus years that it’s been around, the Toyota RAV4 has evolved from a humble crossover that was looking to break into a small but fledgling segment to one of the most popular models in what is the most popular segment in the industry today.

When was the last time you heard a RAV4 beat a full-blown sports car like the Supra in a sprint-to-60-mph time? What’s that? Never? Well, consider this the first of what looks to be repeat performances from the suddenly performance-oriented Toyota RAV4.

The 2021 Dodge Durango was launched a few days back and has been welcomed warmly by enthusiasts all around the globe. Dodge has set a cat among the pigeons in form of the 710-horsepower Hellcat engine under the hood of the 2021 Durango. This is certainly bound to reinvigorate the powerful SUV segment. However, it looks like the SUV could do well in another segmentl, thanks to a rendering by X-Tomi Design. X-Tomi has rendered the 2021 Dodge Durango as a pickup truck and we have fallen in love with it. With the Ranger Raptor enjoying some sort of a monopoly on the market, the Durango as a compact, powerful truck could rival it for supremacy. Who are you betting on?

The Nissan Skyline R32 GT-R is one of the most revered Japanese cars of the past few decades and there’s a good reason why: packed with technology quite like no other sports car back in its day, the R32 GT-R is the jack of all trades that also manages to master each and every one of them.

Recently, one became the fastest AWD car in the world and the fastest GT-R in the world, beating all the fancy new R35s.

For a long while now, Lamborghini has been pretty happy with a two-car lineup. We had the Gallardo and Murcielago pair until around a decade ago, and now the Italians are relying on the Huracan and Aventador. But things are started to change as Lamborghini introduced a third model in 2019. It’s called the Sian FKP 37, and it’s also the company’s first hybrid. Come July 8, only two days from now, and Lambo will launch a new model. We don’t know what it is for now, but we have a couple of teasers to do the guessing game.

Atom is the maker of some really sweet vehicles but the Brits actually started out with building bicycles in the early 1870s, before shortly swapping to cars and for six decades between the 1910s and the 1970s, to motorcycles.

The OG Ariel Atom came in 2000, and it turned the company’s fortunes around big time. This is a run-through of Ariel Motors’ history and lineup delivered to you by Donut Media.

At the end of June, we broke the news that a turbocharged Mazda 3 was in the works and, while we knew it would lead to a Mazdaspeed revival, we thought it would at least have some performance chops. Unfortunately, thanks to a video posted by Mazda Mexico, we know that isn’t the case at all, and the Mazda3 turbo will be little more than a range-topping hatch will a little bit of daily-driving power. Talk about dropping the ball, huh?