Mercedes-Benz stepped into the electric world early on with the EQS, but that hasn’t gone over well. Whereas its luxury competitors largely stuck to conventional styling for EVs, Mercedes utilized the newfound space to make a larger cabin with shorter overhangs. The result was a spacious interior imprisoned in a bulbous body that has been sharply criticized since its debut.

Meanwhile, the S-Class soldiers on as the company’s combustion-powered flagship sedan, sharing the top spot in Mercedes’ hierarchy with the EQS but existing as a separate model. But that’s going to change, according to recent statements from Mercedes-Benz CEO Ola Kallenius. A new electric S-Class is in the works, effectively eliminating the EQS and, in theory, its oddly-proportioned design when the next-gen car launches later this decade.

With two very different powertrains powering a single S-Class, though, what can we expect from the new EV? Here’s everything we know so far.

What Will It Be Called?

This is an easy question to answer…mostly. Speaking to Autocar, Kallenius already said there would be two S-Class models for the next generation—one combustion, one electric. In that regard, it will be the S-Class but specific submodels will delineate the powertrain differences.

That’s where the mystery lies with names; it could be as simple as an E designation or, Mercedes could stick with the awkward “EQ Technology” branding it currently uses with the new electric G-Class.

What Will It Look Like?

The future electric S-Class will incorporate more traditional sedan styling compared to the current EQS. Criticism of the EQ lineup notwithstanding, Kallenius confirmed the electric and combustion S-Class will have similar designs. Our rendering depicts a blending of EQS features like the Black Panel grille that morphs seamlessly into the headlights. A conventional sedan shape utilizes electric door handles and cameras in place of side-view mirrors for efficiency.

It’s important to note that, while the EV and ICE sedans will share a similar design, they will utilize different platforms. Rumors say the MRA architecture of the current S-Class will be modified for use on the next-gen model, while the electric S-Class uses the MB.EA Large chassis. As such, we don’t expect the sedans to be identical like the G-Class variants, which still share a ladder frame for ICE and electric powertrains.

A report from earlier this year suggested the next S-Class could adopt a "yoke" steering wheel, like its competitor the Tesla Model S. With that, Mercedes will likely ditch most of its touch-capacitive controls for real, hard buttons.

What Will Power It?

We’re a long way off from knowing powertrain details like horsepower, range, and charging capacity. That said, there’s no reason to think it will be any less powerful or capable than the current EQS. That means single-motor or dual-motor options, likely starting around 360 horsepower and stepping up to over 500 horsepower for dual-motor variants. Battery packs exceeding 100.0 kilowatt-hours with a range between 350 and 500 miles aren’t out of the question either.

When Will It Debut?

The current-generation W223 S-Class debuted in 2020 and is approximately halfway through its estimated lifespan. The electric model won’t debut until the next generation arrives, which should happen in either 2029 or possibly 2030.

How Much Will It Cost?

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is a large luxury sedan, and that doesn’t come without a steep price. The 2024 EQS starts at $105,550, and the S-Class is even more at $118,450. When a debut takes place at the end of the decade, a starting price in the $120,000 range isn’t unreasonable.

The Future Of The S-Class

With summer coming to an end and fall right around the corner, Toyota is rolling most of its new 2025 models into dealerships. With the model-year changeover, some of Toyota's best-selling products are seeing major changes, from the Camry and Corolla sedans to the GR86 and Supra sports cars.

Toyota has three entirely new models joining its lineup for 2025. The Crown Signia is a fresh nameplate, replacing the outgoing Venza Hybrid. An all-new 4Runner is slated to go on sale by the end of the year, and the latest Camry is already in dealerships. But it’s not all addition; Toyota has discontinued its four-cylinder Supra after just two years on sale.

2025 Toyota 4Runner

What's New: Sixth Generation, Turbocharged + Hybrid Engines, Updated Interior, Trailhunter Trim

The Toyota 4Runner is totally new for 2025. Toyota ditched the old platform and dated V-6 engine for a modern new chassis shared with the Tacoma, and a base turbocharged four-cylinder engine that makes a healthy 278 horsepower and 378 pound-feet of torque. The optional I-Force Max hybrid makes 326 hp and 465 lb-ft. Both powertrains are paired to an eight-speed automatic (sorry, no more manual).

Two-wheel drive is standard on the base 4Runner but part-time and full-time four-wheel drive are available. The TRD Pro and new Trailhunter trims are the most capable 4Runners of the bunch. The Trailhunter has 33-inch off-road tires that lift the ride height by 2.0 inches up front and 1.5 inches in the rear, 2.5-inch Old Man Emu forged shocks, and steel skid plates.

Inside, the new 4Runner has a standard 8.0-inch touchscreen and a 7.0-inch digital instrument cluster, with an optional 14.0-inch touchscreen and a 12.3-inch digital cluster available on higher grades. That includes wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Toyota hasn't listed pricing information for the 2025 4Runner, but the all-new SUV is slated to go on sale toward the end of this year and should start at around $45,000.

2025 Toyota Camry

What's New: Redesigned Exterior + Interior, Standard Hybrid Engine, Updated Tech

It may look entirely new, but the 2025 Toyota Camry is thoroughly redesigned. Not that that’s a bad thing. The updated exterior looks sharp, the interior is more premium, the suspension is retuned, and a 2.5-liter four-cylinder hybrid engine now comes standard. The 2025 Camry makes 228 horsepower and 163 pound-feet of torque, paired to an electronically controlled variable transmission and front-wheel drive.

A new 8.0-inch touchscreen and 7.0-inch digital instrument cluster come standard inside, but buyers can upgrade to larger 12.3-inch displays for both. That includes wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The 2025 Toyota Camry starts at $29,495 for the base LE model with destination included. Buyers can choose from four different Camry trims for 2025: The LE, SE, XLE, and XSE. The Camry XSE has more standard premium features and starts at $36,620.

2025 Toyota Corolla

What’s New: Design Upgrades, New Trim

Toyota doesn’t try and fix what isn’t broken with the 2025 Corolla. It gets some minor visual updates for the new year, but it’s the same affordable compact sedan we know and love. The standard Corolla has a 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine making 169 horsepower, while the Hybrid model has a 1.8-liter four-cylinder with battery assist making 138 horsepower and returning up to 50 miles per gallon combined.

For 2025, the Corolla adds a new FX special edition that honors the Corolla FX16 from 1987. That trim comes with 18-inch satin black wheels, a blacked-out roof, black badges, and black accents.

Inside, the Corolla comes standard with an 8.0-inch touchscreen that runs wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, alongside a 4.2-inch digital instrument cluster. Toyota Safety Sense 3.0 comes standard across the board, with equipment like adaptive cruise control, a lane-departure alert with steering assist, road sign assist, automatic high-beam headlights, and more.

2025 Toyota GR Corolla

What’s New: Automatic Transmission, Design Updates, New Trim

If you’ve been waiting for a GR Corolla with an automatic, you’ll be happy with the upgrades Toyota added for 2025. The new GR Corolla has an eight-speed automatic transmission alongside the standard six-speed manual. It comes from Gazoo Racing and the European GR Yaris, and it ups the standard torque from 273 pound-feet to 295 pound-feet. The turbocharged 1.6-liter engine still makes 300 horsepower.

Performance upgrades include launch control and a lightly tweaked suspension for better handling performance. Front and rear Torsen limited-slip differentials are now standard for 2025; they were previously optional on lower trim levels. The redesigned front bumper also improves cooling.

There’s a new Premium Plus trim for 2025 that adds a few more features. Inside, there’s a head-up display and new trim finishes, while the exterior adds a carbon fiber roof and vented hood bulges. The 2025 Toyota GR Corolla goes on sale later this year.

2025 Toyota Crown

What’s New: New Trim

The Toyota Crown carries over into 2025 mostly unchanged. It still comes with your choice of a hybrid powertrain with a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine making 236 horsepower, or a Hybrid Max powertrain with a turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine making 340 or 400 horsepower, depending on the trim.

The new Nightshade model darkens the exterior accents and adds new 21-inch wheels finished in matte black. It can be added to the mid-tier Limited model. The top-of-the-line Platinum is the most well-equipped, with features like a two-tone exterior, a panoramic sunroof, and the most powerful Hybrid max powertrain. Inside, every Crown comes standard with a 12.3-inch touchscreen running wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity.

The base Crown XLE starts at $42,535 for 2025, while the new Nightshade model costs $49,860. The top-trim Platinum model asks $57,060.

2025 Toyota Crown Signia

What’s New: New Model For The US

The Crown sedan isn’t the only royalty in Toyota’s lineup for 2025. The new Crown Signia SUV joins the lineup next year as a replacement for the outgoing Venza hybrid. The Crown Signia has a 2.5-liter four-cylinder hybrid engine making 243 horsepower and 178 pound-feet of torque, returning up to 38 miles per gallon combined.

The Crown Signia has a Lexus-like interior with standard leather seats with heating and ventilation, leather trim on the door panels and center console, and up to 66.1 cubic feet of cargo space. A 12.3-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto also comes standard.

The Toyota Crown Signia XLE starts at $44,015, while the Limited model costs $47,990.

2025 Toyota GR86

What’s New: Hakone Edition

For 2025, the beloved GR86 Hakone Edition returns. Honoring the iconic Hakone Turnpike in Japan, the GR86 Hakone Edition has a special Ridge Green paint job and 18-inch bronze wheels, updated throttle mapping for a quicker response, retuned shocks, and unique badges.

Under the hood is the same 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine making 228 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque, paired to either a six-speed manual or a six-speed automatic. Rear-wheel drive is still standard.

Toyota will only make 860 Hakone Edition models for the US in 2025, and it’s expected to hit dealerships this fall. The standard GR86, meanwhile, doesn’t have a price for 2025.

2025 Toyota GR Supra

What’s New: Four-Cylinder Discontinued

The biggest news for the Supra in 2025 is that Toyota has discontinued the four-cylinder model. The four-cylinder model debuted in 2021, but after a short three-year run, the company has pulled the plug on its entry-level Supra.

Otherwise, the GR Supra doesn’t see any major changes for 2025. The sports car now starts at $57,345 for the six-cylinder model with the destination fee included, which is an $840 increase from last year. It has the same turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six engine making 382 horsepower and 368 pound-feet of torque, and you can still get it with a six-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic.

2025 Toyota Land Cruiser

What’s New: New Model

The iconic Toyota Land Cruiser is back. The off-road SUV returned for the 2024 model year with a retro design, a tough interior, and a turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder hybrid engine making 326 horsepower and 465 pound-feet of torque. Full-time four-wheel drive with low-range gearing also comes standard, as do a host of other off-road upgrades. Buyers can choose from three different Land Cruiser trims: The base 1958, the mid-range Land Cruiser, or the First Edition.

The 1958 and First Edition models have rounded headlights that separate them visually from the standard Land Cruiser. The base 1958 has rear and center locking differentials and an 8.0-inch touchscreen inside with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

Moving up to the traditional Land Cruiser gets you horizontal headlights, a bigger 12.3-inch touchscreen, and a slightly nicer interior, while the top-of-the-line First Edition adds leather seats, LED headlights, a 14-speaker audio system, and more.

It should be noted that Toyota hasn't released all the info for the 2025 model, but the 2024 Land Cruiser costs $57,345 for the base 1958 trim, $63,345 for the standard model, and $76,345 for the first edition. Pricing for 2025 trims should be released in the next few weeks.

2025 Toyota Sequoia

What’s New: 1794 Trim, Massaging Seats, Tow Tech Package, Mudbath Color

The full-size body-on-frame Sequoia heads into 2025 with a new trim called 1794. Inspired by Texas, the 1794 grade adds walnut wood grain and bespoke leather-trimmed seats to the big SUV. Those seats also have massaging functions for the front, a feature that’s now optional on other Sequoia trims for 2025. Toyota adds a new exterior color called Mudbath to the Sequoia’s palette, but it’s exclusive to the TRD Pro trim.

You’ll still find the twin-turbocharged 3.4-liter i-Force Max hybrid powertrain under the skin. It’s standard issue for all Sequoia trims, including the entry-level two-wheel-drive SR5. A new Tow Tech package makes trailering a bit easier, notably with backup assistance and a wireless trailer camera option.

2025 Toyota Tundra

What’s New: TRD Rally Package, Fully Power Liftgate, Mudbath Color

Toyota added a new TRD Rally package to the Tundra’s options list, along with a few other minor updates for the 2025 model year. TRD Pro buyers can pick a new exterior color called Mudbath, while the 1974, Platinum, and Capstone trims now come standard with massaging seats. There’s also a new power liftgate available and a wireless tow camera system.

The Tundra TRD Rally Package is a TRD Off-Road with a graphics package, with Toyota sticking its red-orange-yellow TRD decal around the truck. It’s on the front doors, grille, tailgate, and the wheel center caps. Beyond that, the TRD Rally benefits from the Off-Road’s all-terrain tires, skid plates, locking rear differential, and Bilstein dampers, but it’s only available with the standard twin-turbocharged 3.4-liter V-6 engine.

Toyota is still updating some of its models for 2025—we'll update this list with more information as it comes in.

Check Out These Lists

Reliability is important—especially when shopping for a used car. That’s why Consumer Reports put together a list of the most reliable used car brands you can buy from in 2024. The CR study focused on reliability of five to 10-year-old models, giving each brand an average score based on how well their vehicles performed. The full study lists the top 26 brands, which you can see here.

The top 10 is especially interesting. There are familiar faces, like Toyota and Lexus, and some surprises, like BMW. Many of the brands in the top 10 also have the most reliable cars in their respective segments, according to Consumer Reports.

1. Lexus

As you’d expect, Lexus tops the list of the most reliable used car brands. The automaker scored an average of 75 out of 100—just three higher than the next-best automaker (which also won’t surprise you). Used vehicles like the Lexus EX, GS, IS, RX, and others were accounted for in the ranking.

2. Toyota

No surprise here: Toyota comes in second on the reliability list behind its luxury counterpart, Lexus. The Japanese automaker scores an average of 73, with a whole host of models—from the 4Runner to the Venza—taken into account. The Corolla Hybrid, RAV4 Hybrid, and Tacoma all rank as CR’s most reliable cars in their respective categories, and many of these models made the recent iSeeCars list of longest-lasting cars.

3. Mazda

Mazda is ranked third with an average of 59, well below Toyota and Lexus. The Japanese automaker has six models accounted for in the study: the 3, 6, CX-3, CX-5, CX-9, and Miata. The 2019 Miata also ranks as the most reliable sports car under $20,000, while the CX-9 is the most reliable three-row SUV under $20,000.

4. Acura

Acura sneaks in just under Mazda with a reliability average of 57. The luxury automaker only has three models accounted for on this list: The MDX, RDX, and TLX. It’s one of five luxury automakers that make that top 10.

5. Honda

Just behind its luxury counterpart, Honda makes the list at number five. The automaker has an average reliability score of 55, with models like the Accord, Civic, CR-V, Odyssey, and a handful of others taken into account. The 2020 HR-V ranks as the most reliable small SUV under $15,000.

6. Buick

Believe it or not, Buick makes the top 10, coming in at sixth in the reliability study. The American luxury brand scored a 47 percent average. Consumer Reports took seven Buick models into account for the study, ranging from the Enclave SUV to the discontinued Verano sedan. The 2020 Buick Envision also ranks as CR’s most reliable luxury SUV under $20,000.

7. BMW

BMW is seventh with an average of 46 percent. The study looked at seven models from the German automaker, ranging from the compact 2 Series to the mid-size X5 SUV. BMW is one of just two German automakers in the top 10.

8. Subaru

Subaru is eighth on this list with an average of 46 percent, matching BMW. Six Subaru models were taken into account for the study: The Ascent, Crosstek, Forester, Impreza, Legacy, and Outback.

9. Nissan

Nissan averages 45 percent on the reliability meter, putting it ninth on this list. The Japanese automaker has one of the more robust lists of models included in the study, ranging from the electric Nissan Leaf (which probably doesn’t help its score) to the Pathfinder three-row and the subcompact Versa.

10. Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz rounds out the top 10, becoming the second German automaker after BMW. Mercedes averages 43 percent, which puts it just above Cadillac, Mini, and Lincoln, all with 42 percent. The study takes into account models like the C-Class, GLE SUV, and GLS.

Most-Reliable Used Car Brands

More Car Lists

There’s been a new addition to my fleet. This is my newest—and sole—car: A 1996 Honda Accord DX four-door. It has a non-VTEC single-overhead-cam 2.2-liter four-cylinder mated to a four-speed automatic. It is finished in Frost White over a tan cloth interior. It was $1,500, and it is the single most boring vehicle I’ve purchased in my entire life. 

It might be the single most important car I’ve owned in my life, too. I’m thrilled with it.

After my Camry took its heroic trip over the Cascades to get me to my new home of Seattle, it immediately perished, and I got rid of it. In the intervening 11 months, I’ve gone without a car, mostly due to financial reasons (extended bouts of freelance writing will do that to a person). Instead, I have used my own two feet, public transit, and the occasional press car. It was the first time I’d gone without my own vehicle since I got my very first at age 20, a third-gen Supra Turbo. 

Of all the places to go car-free in America, I chose a good one. Seattle is one of America’s most walkable cities, and I live right in the heart of it. By US standards, the buses in Seattle are great, and the train line is decent enough to get to the most popular places. Most of my friends live nearby and my favorite restaurants are almost entirely within walking distance. A decent number of my friends are also carless (or in some cases, can’t drive at all). It’s one of the only cities in America where going car-free is possible, let alone desirable.

But not having a car reveals just how intensely even the best American cities incentivize private car ownership. Grocery stores anywhere near the pricey real estate of downtown are expensive, thanks to sky-high rents; Drive out half an hour, and you can cut shopping bills in half. Vast swaths of the city are several long-headway bus transfers away and just a bit too far to justify walking. From midnight until about 5:30 AM, the train doesn’t run, which means a late night out or an early flight requires a very, very pricey Uber. Any outdoorsy activity (which is the main hobby of half of Pacific Northwesterners, myself included) is virtually impossible to get to with transit. If it weren’t for press cars and the generosity of my friends letting me borrow their vehicles, I’d still be living in an unfurnished apartment.

Do not get me started on how tired I am of lugging cat litter up the hill to my apartment, either. 

For a while, I had an ambitious and diverse shopping list. An AMC Eagle wagon (4.0-liter straight-six a must), EG Civic hatchback (strictly a five-speed), any pillarless 1960s American sedan (Cadillac preferred), NA Miata, TJ Wrangler, E21 3-Series, and a Honda Beat all fell in the net I cast. My budget was low: around $5,000. 

This used to be sufficient—that first Supra a decade ago was roughly $3,000, as were each of the next eleven cars I owned. But nowadays, five grand won’t cut it. Virtually everything I looked at was a basket case and I only have access to a parking spot and small assortment of tools. Anything non-running wouldn’t work, and even a drivable basket case would be difficult to restore with such limited resources.

If I could spend about twice or maybe even three times my budget, I could get a nice example of something on the list, but that would mean waiting another six months to a year to actually save enough. That meant another six months to a year of hiking cat litter up the hill home, and of drastically limited horizons. Unfortunately, pretty much everything that runs and drives is expensive nowadays, as a quick search on Craigslist will reveal. This meant I was taking the bus for another year regardless of what car I aspired to.

Then a friend of mine posted on Twitter that he was thinking about selling his daily driver: a white ‘96 Accord with 284,000 miles on it. I asked him how much, and he said $1,500. The car needed a few small things, but it was running and driving, with a recent timing belt job and new front suspension wear components. The air-conditioning works. My friend even put a new battery in it for me. 

It was vastly cheaper than anything else I’d found. I could afford it, he would deliver it from Spokane directly to me for the cost of renting a car trailer, and it would be an easy vehicle for my fiancée to learn how to drive in. Insurance for it is dirt-cheap, and real-world MPGs can easily climb into the 30s. Parts are plentiful and inexpensive. The practical need to go grocery shopping on a budget vastly outweighed my desire for something interesting. 

I bought it. 

The to-do list is utilitarian. Rear struts have already been purchased, as the passenger-rear is blown, and it needs an exhaust manifold gasket thrown on to fix a small leak and a CEL. (I’ll be doing these myself in a friend’s driveway, to save money.)  I plan on getting a Club as a theft deterrent since Hondas of this vintage are wildly easy to steal, and a new radio, since it currently doesn’t have one. A new set of tires looms in the future since it currently rides on three different brands. My stretch goal is a ski rack so I can get back into cross-country this winter.

That’s about it. Engine and transmission swaps are easily undertaken for this generation of Accord, turbo kits abound, there are coilovers and other handling upgrades on the market, and there’s even the incredibly rad JACCS JTCC Accord for visual inspiration… but I won’t be doing anything that exciting. It would simply be a distraction from the car’s goal.

Every time I write a car review, I start by asking a single question: what is this vehicle’s purpose? The answer for my Accord is the same as it was when it first rolled off the assembly line 28 years ago: reliable transportation. Nothing more. That means no VTEC head swaps, no lowering springs, no JACCS livery, no alloys. The task at hand is to get from point A to point B as cheaply and easily as possible, and I need to let the car achieve that without impeding it.

The more alarming follow-up question I find myself asking: What does this car mean for me? Owning an interesting vehicle has been integral to my sense of self—not to mention my career’s success—for a decade. My career began with a story about my Supra. My first hit-it-big blog for a major site came when I wrote about my JDM Accord Aerodeck. I established myself in this industry with tales told from the driver’s seat of my Toyota Hiace. I just published a book centered on the idea that cars can make a fashion statement.

Who am I without a cool car? What’s my purpose?

As much as I’d like to be the person I was ten years ago when I bought a manual Supra without even knowing how to drive stick, or the adventurous woman who set out West in a JDM van without a plan, I’m not. I am recovering after a series of poorly-planned moves from one hostile place to another, for years on end, until I landed here in Seattle. (This will be my first year without an interstate move in half a decade.) I am healing from a stint in a psychiatric hospital, with all the difficulties and instability that entails. I am trying to take better care of my body. I am engaged to be married to a woman I love. I am trying to build a life with a future. 

What does this car say about the person that exists in this moment? I am being pragmatic for the first time. I am planning for a future I want to build. I need a sturdy foundation. There is no vehicle better for that than a dirt-cheap Honda sedan. 

As an added bonus, this car also says something physical about me, too. For the first time since I transitioned, the title reads “Victoria," rather than the name I was given at birth.  This is—legally and officially, according to the state of Washington—a new era for me. 

Perhaps it will be a boring one, but I’m looking forward to it. After all, there will come a time when I, Victoria, can finally drive something a little more exciting. That day is worth waiting for.

Cars That We Love

No modern vehicle eschews modernization more than the Wrangler, especially the two-door variant. In an off-roading landscape that increasingly favors large, luxe overlanders with trick tech and all the comforts of home, the Wrangler soldiers on with two doors, two solid axles, and recirculating ball steering. Base models have a folding cloth roof, a stickshift, and crank windows, for God’s sake.

The 2024 Wrangler was bestowed a mild update, but it’s still basically the same truck that was introduced six years ago. And as far as the Wrangler’s rugged ethos and upright, two-box design, well, that’s been virtually unchanged since the original Jeep design was drafted for World War II. 

The Wrangler is widely known as a handful at highway speeds, especially with its short two-door wheelbase. It won’t win any awards for ride comfort either. (A three-mile jaunt on I-5 confirmed this.) This truck, in Rubicon X guise, is $64,905 as delivered, gets an EPA-rated 21 miles per gallon from its turbo four-cylinder, and can fit about three shopping bags in the trunk when the rear seats are being used. If I applied traditional car-reviewer math to this truck, it would not add up.

Despite this, the Wrangler is an American cult classic, an alien phenomenon to those who have never experienced Jeep Life. The common refrain of owners is that "it’s a Jeep thing." Without driving one, you’ll never understand. 

There’s decent evidence supporting their case, too: Wranglers hold resale values better than virtually any other 4x4 truck on the market, and since the current-generation JL Wrangler was introduced in 2018, Jeep’s sold 1,288,099 of them—roughly 50% more sales than the Toyota 4Runner over the same period. I’ve never had enough hands-on time with a Wrangler to grasp their appeal, but I do love to go off-roading.

Even if I didn’t get "the Jeep thing," I’d probably still have a good time. 

The Jeep arrived exactly the way an irrational car-loving 29-year-old would want it. Two doors—check. Rubicon trim with 35-inch BFGoodrich K02s, electronically-disconnecting front sway bar, Dana axles, lockers front and rear—check. High Velocity Yellow—check. I made one last special request: Hold the doors and roof. 

Jeep set me up with a set of Mopar tube doors, mirrors, and mesh covers ($1,463 at a dealership), unbolted the roof, and told me to go have fun. When the Wrangler arrived at my apartment, I giggled with glee. In this spec, it looked like a cartoon drawing of a Jeep given physical form. Delightful.

Of course, I immediately ran into some practical issues. I don’t have covered parking at my downtown Seattle apartment, and thunderstorms were forecast for the weekend I had the Jeep. I had to get out of town quickly to avoid the rain—the Wrangler’s interior is water-resistant, not water-proof. 

I rapidly assembled a loose collection of ideas that I referred to as a "plan," of which it was certainly not. My fiance backpacked a lot before we met, but I wanted to show her dispersed camping the way I’d always done it—pick a spot on a National Forest map that looks interesting, aim for it with a 4x4, and see how close you get to the "x" on the map.

I confirmed the forests were not on fire, chose a handful of spots that seemed shielded from the coming thunderstorms, and bought a tarp just in case. "Plan" complete. 

If Brat Summer Were A Car, It Would Be This

Seattle is not a car-centric city. I’ve driven bright-red Aston Martins and satin-gray 7 Series downtown, and rarely have they garnered a glance. This Jeep, however, was a celebrity the second I wheeled it from my apartment parking lot. Instant, universal adoration from everyone who saw it—and me. A few Jeep-waves with other Wrangler drivers marked induction into a cool kids’ club I didn’t even know existed. I finally understood why Jeeps are the popular-girl car casting choice in television and movies. 

My fiancée and I packed a tent, light provisions, a handful of essential toiletries, and some changes of clothes. As soon as she got home from work on Friday night, we headed East towards U.S. 2, one of just five roads in the state of Washington that cuts an east-west path through the mighty Cascades. The freeway drive was predictably miserable. Temperatures in Seattle have been cold for August, and while the Rubicon X comes with heated seats, there’s only so much comfort to be found without a roof or doors. 

We reached U.S. 2, and slowed to a pleasant pace. We headed down a gravel road deep in the Wenatchee National Forest as twilight set in. I parked us in a clearing, we pitched our tent in the glow of the headlights of the Jeep, and crashed for the night, exhausted. 

The sunrise was glorious. It was difficult to tell how scenic our spot was when we parked in the dark, but we chose well. The morning light blazed down the mountains around us, illuminating a stunning valley lush with wildflowers. We packed our tent and drove to the end of the trail, finding waterfalls and meadows and stunning cliffside views. Nothing challenged the Jeep even remotely, but we felt reinvigorated, and that was enough. 

Outrunning God In A Rubicon 

The next camping spot sat far to the north, the only public land forecasted to avoid the deluge. The rest of the day was devoted to getting there via paved roads. We swung through the village of Skykomish for vintage architecture and coffee, visited a pioneer museum in Cashmere to indulge in road-trip Americana, and hit up a Winco in Wenatchee for supplies. As the day wore on, the valley beyond the mountains heated. The Jeep was equipped with an optional sunshade bikini top (Mopar, $220), but we’d removed that immediately in favor of blue skies and sunshine. As temps climbed into the 90s, we fatigued rapidly and realized that dropping the top might have been a mistake. We left it off anyway. 

As the Wrangler ate miles on the winding riverside road, the two of us fell in love with one of the Rubicon X’s luxury features—the Alpine stereo. Even at 55 miles an hour with the wind blasting us, no door speakers, and the trunk fully packed with camping gear, our music was crystal-clear. It did wonders for our spirits. My fiancée has a beautiful singing voice, and hearing her croon along to The Smiths as we carved through the base of the Cascades made the trip worth it all by itself. 

A few hours before sunset, just outside of Okanogan, we found a patch of Washington State public land to set up camp in. We were at enough elevation—around 2,500 feet–that the air would cool off overnight, but hopefully not deep enough into the mountains that the storms would reach us. We still cut it close, waking to a gentle pitter-patter on the tent and the distant rumble of thunder at around midnight, but the worst of it never arrived. 

As the day began to wind down, we found ourselves in the heat of Wenatchee once more, planning for the evening. We’d head to the southern section of U.S. 97, but instead of back-tracking via U.S. 2, I wanted to take a shortcut through the mountains. We had America’s finest off-roader, and I was tired of pavement. I let Gaia GPS chart me a path through 35 miles of 4x4 trails. If we got tired, we could set up camp; If not, we could push onward to home. 

The trail we ended up on, incidentally, was the trickiest section of the Washington Backcountry Discovery Route. It’s no Moab, but it’s psychologically terrifying, consisting of washed-out potholed single-track trails carved directly into cliff faces. The most difficult section is exactly one car wide through a steep, cambered gully that angles toward a 200-ish-foot sheer drop. Here I felt truly thankful we had the Jeep. I could have tackled this in a lesser truck, but we were now 450 miles into the weekend. I was sunbeaten and exhausted, the sun was setting, and the only way out was alongside this cliff face. I needed this to go smoothly for my sanity’s sake.

I put the Wrangler into low gear and it drove through the muddy, rocky gully like it was a side street in downtown Seattle.

I Understand.

There was the real magic of the Jeep. I am fairly confident that with this truck and the tiniest bit of skill, I could have tackled basically any trail in the United States. No frontier is off-limits. The Wrangler lends itself to unplanned adventuring because the odds of getting truly stuck are virtually nil, and so you can pick any point on a map and get there.

When I returned the Wrangler on Monday morning, my prefrontal cortex tried to make its car-reviewer arguments. Our fuel mileage was terrible, the steering felt vague, and the Wrangler objectively costs a lot of money. But as an enthusiast, I was completely satisfied. I would make all those irrational trade-offs in a heartbeat for a vehicle this capable, with this joyous vibe. 

I understand the Jeep Thing.

Competitors

More Cars We Love

I'm going to rattle off some names and see how many you recognize. Ready? Apollo, Aspark, Czinger, Dallara, De Tomaso, Delage, Gordon Murray Automotive, McMurtry, Praga, Picasso, Rezvani, Zenvo. How many did you get? One? Maybe two?

Those aren't prescription drugs (talk to your doctor before taking Delage)—every single one of those companies builds a supercar or hypercar in the year of our Lord 2024. You probably have no idea what half of those vehicles even look like or where they’re built. Still, investors are dumping millions into many of these companies in hopes of becoming the next Bugatti.

If only it were that simple.

Hypercars are a relatively new concept. The McLaren F1 is often cited as the first true hypercar, with the late 1990s and 2000s spawning small-time players like Saleen, SSC, and Vector. But it wasn't until 2005 that hypercars as a genre stuck—and soon exploded in popularity.

Bugatti introduced the Veyron in 2005. In Italy, Pagani ramped up production of its then-new Zonda in anticipation of US deliveries. And further north, an upstart Koenigsegg produced its first 30 examples of the 806-horsepower CCX, with plans for a more powerful CC8S already in the works.

1999 Pagani Zonda C12

Twenty years later, Bugatti, Pagani, and Koenigsegg are considered the forefathers of the modern hypercar industry. They represent the top one percent of one percent. But in recent years, they've faced a new swathe of competition—seemingly from out of nowhere.

It seems every billionaire with some business sense thinks they can be the next Ettore Bugatti. The problem is that so many of these hypercar upstarts follow the same worn-out formula:

Take Delage, for example. The brand's first new vehicle, the D12, is a Frankenstein's monster mashup of hypercar tropes; A central seating position, a Formula 1-inspired design, a yoke steering wheel, and a 1,100-hp hybrid powertrain. That's not to say it isn't cool, but it nails every platitude.

CEO Laurent Tapie refers to himself as the "Refounder" of Delage. The former turn-of-the-century French race car manufacturer was "re-formed" in 2019 as an upstart hypercar brand. Two years ago I spoke to Tapie, fresh off the launch of his radical-looking D12, and he told me one of the major reasons he restarted Delage (with daddy's Adidas money) was in part due to the skyrocketing profits he saw in the industry.

How romantic.

Delage D12 Speedster

"I read an article about the incredible figures of hypercars, in terms of sales—Pagani and Koenigsegg were already selling ten times what they used to sell 10 years ago, same with Bugatti," Laurent told me. "So I said, 'Okay, the market is there, and maybe I have a chance to make my own car.”

Who can blame him? Supercars and hypercars are a booming business. Last year was one of the most profitable years of all time for many players in the space. Ferrari raked in €5.79 billion in 2023. That's billion with a B. Lamborghini made €723 million off its best year, and brands like Aston Martin, Bugatti, Lotus, and Mercedes-AMG can't keep their latest hypercars in stock. Most of them sell out before the general public even gets to see them.

Billionaires see these numbers and think, "Why not me?" Yet, making a profit takes years if not decades. It's been widely reported that Bugatti lost about $6 million for every Veyron it sold. Only did the company start making money with the Chiron. That profit-up-front mentality limits creativity.

Unless you've really studied up on modern hypercars, so many of them are similar. The Hennessey Venom F5 looks a lot like the Koenigsegg Jesko, which looks a lot like the Lotus Evija, which looks like the SSC Tuatara, the Pininfarina Battista, the Mercedes-AMG Project One... the list goes on.

Hennessey Venom F5 Revolution

And the specs, as impressive as they are, are mostly familiar across the board. Some form of forced induction or hybridization yielding 1,000-plus hp. The Mercedes-AMG One has 1,063 hp. The Jesko has 1,280 hp. The Venom F5 has 1,817 hp. And all of them will hit 200 miles per hour. Curb weight or the experiential aspects of driving are rarely mentioned in the marketing materials.

So many of these startups also engage in shady business practices, too. Remember DeLorean? CEO John DeLorean was indicted in 1985 on tax evasion and fraud charges. Vector was the victim of a hostile takeover in 1993. And Hennessey—well, that's a whole different set of issues.

More recently, the born-again De Tomaso brand was at the center of a huge lawsuit. The new owners attempted to break into the supercar space in 2019 with the stunning P72 concept, but one of its former founders filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming fraudulent activities. De Tomaso hasn't delivered a single car since.

"The complaint alleges that this was part of a fraudulent scheme by [majority shareholder] Norman Choi and others to manipulate the company’s value, engage in a series of non-arm’s length transactions, and cash out," attorney John T. Zach of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP told Hagerty in 2023.

De Tomaso P900

Then there's the issue of "vaporware." Anyone with a few hundred thousand dollars to blow will commission a 3D rendering or full-sized clay model that doesn't run or drive. It's usually accompanied by promises of thousands of horsepower and record-breaking speeds, useful tools to trick investors into shelling out cash for a vehicle that may never exist. More often than not, it leads nowhere.

But for every DeLorean and De Tomaso, there's a Czinger.

Kevin Czinger is a Yale graduate and a former Goldman Sachs executive turned entrepreneur. He’s also the CEO of the company that bears his name. He founded Czinger with his son Lukas in 2005. The first 21C prototype rolled off the production line in 2021 and the company delivered its first customer car this year.

At first glance, the 21C is yet another 1,350-hp, $2.8-million eye roll. But there's more to this company than meets the eye. Czinger holds about 700 manufacturing patents, and between Kevin and his son Lukas—Co-Founder and COO—the duo holds 300 patents together. With that, Czinger hopes to revolutionize the auto manufacturing industry as we know it—something we haven't heard much of from the other upstarts.

Czinger 21C

"We need to leapfrog the countries we've outsourced our manufacturing to and reindustrialize America," he told me during an interview at The Quail in Monterey. "That 100% is what my mission was in starting the company 10 years ago. No one has even taken step one to—from scratch—look at a system and say, 'What happens when we use primarily high-performance computing and machine learning to develop a system that's totally digital for engineering the built world and human-built world?' That's what this is. This is the first step in what will be a massive fundamental revolution."

Kevin also notes that so many of the parts his company produces are used by other hypercars, some of which are merely feet away from the Czinger booth at The Quail.

"It’s kind of like Amazon Web Services. We say to Aston Martin, Bugatti, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG—if you go over to Bugatti, you'll see parts that we've generated, printed, assembled, and shipped to them…. We will be your full machine learning, AI-based engineering, manufacturing arm, distributed way across the planet and we'll own and operate those."

Bugatti Tourbillon

But ultimately, all roads still lead to Bugatti.

Mate Rimac took over as CEO of the newly formed Bugatti-Rimac Group in 2021. Under his watch, we've seen the Rimac Nevera reach production and the new Bugatti Tourbillon fill the Chiron's massive shoes with its ridiculous V-16 engine. And more recently, a hardcore Nevera R debuted at The Quail in Monterey.

But Mate Rimac was Kevin Czinger before Czinger—Laurent Tapie before Delage. The Rimac company was founded in 2009. It built its first electric hypercar, the Concept_One, in 2011. Thirteen years later—even now as CEO of one of the preeminent hypercar brands—Mate Rimac’s entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well, a core tenet of his identity as an executive.

"[Rimac] customers are mostly entrepreneurs,” he tells me, as we sit and chat at The Quail near his newly debuted Nevera R. "They love this entrepreneurial story of me starting in a garage building this company."

Rimac Nevera R

But with so many unrecognizable brands now saturing the space with copy-and-paste jobs, that innovation is dwindling. Supercars and hypercars are starting to feel less special. The dozen names I mentioned earlier only represent a small sample of a laundry list of brands you’ve probably never heard of. And there are certainly more to come.

Thankfully, success stories like Czinger and Rimac keep me hopeful. Being an innovator is what drives this segment forward, and CEOs like Kevin Czinger and Mate Rimac fit that definition.

"We don't do normal," Mate says. "We always want to push the boundaries."

More Hypercar Features

Reliability is important to new and used car shoppers alike. You want to be sure that your next ride can handle thousands of miles—or in some cases, hundreds of thousands of miles. Thankfully, the good folks at iSeeCars put together a list of the 30 longest-lasting vehicles you can buy so you don't have to guess.

The study takes a vehicle's chance of reaching 250,000 miles and compares that to the national average. According to iSeeCars, the average car has an 8.6% chance of making it to 250,000. The vehicles on this top-10 list easily reach 15, 20, and even 30%, in some cases.

Brands you know and (probably) love like Lexus, Honda, and Toyota are all well-represented here. Six of the cars on this list even come from one brand. But, there's only one American brand represented in the top 10.

1. Toyota Tundra

As you’ll see, Toyota dominates this list. But no Toyota vehicle is more reliable historically than the Tundra pickup. The Tundra has a 36.6% chance of making it to 250,000 miles, which is 4.2 times higher than average. That said, reliability is a growing concern for modern Tundra owners as the company plans to replace 100,000 faulty engines in 2022-2023 Tundra and LX models. Still, the Tundra is almost always a safe bet.

2. Toyota Sequoia

Second only to the Tundra is the three-row Sequoia. Toyota’s largest SUV has a 36.4% chance of making it to 250,000 miles, which is 4.2 times higher than average. However, the most recent Sequoia faces similar problems to the Tundra; Toyota recalled a few thousand 2023 and 2024 model-year Sequoias for unexpected movement when shifting into neutral.

3. Toyota 4Runner

The Toyota 4Runner comes in at third on this list with a 26.8% chance of making it to 250,000 miles, which is 3.1 times higher than average. The 4Runner has long been a staple of the Toyota lineup, with the latest fifth-generation model being discontinued in 2024 after a hugely successful 15-year run. The new 2025 Toyota 4Runner is scheduled to go on sale sometime next year.

4. Toyota Tacoma

Even with a new Tacoma debuting in 2023, the Tacoma remains the most reliable mid-size truck on the market and one of the most reliable vehicles you can buy period. It has a 26.7% chance of making it to 250,000 miles, which is 3.1 times higher than average. Hopefully the latest fifth-generation truck proves just as reliable long-term.

5. Toyota Highlander Hybrid

The Highlander is Toyota’s tried-and-true mid-size three-row SUV. It’s been in the lineup since 2000, and the latest fourth-generation model debuted in 2019. But it’s the Highlander Hybrid specifically that cracks the top five in terms of reliability. It has a 25.9% chance of reaching 250,000 miles, 3.0 times higher than average.

6. Honda Ridgeline

Finally, not a Toyota. The Honda Ridgeline pickup comes in at 6th on the reliability list with a 25.8% chance of reaching 250,000 miles. That figure is 3.0 times higher than average and matches the Toyota Highlander Hybrid. Fun fact: The Honda Ridgeline is also the most American truck you can buy in 2024.

7. Chevrolet Suburban

The Chevrolet Suburban comes in at seventh on this list with a 22.0% chance of reaching 250,000 miles—2.5 times higher than average. The Suburban nameplate has been around since 1935, believe it or not, with this latest 12th-generation model debuting for the 2019 model year and getting a facelift this year for 2025.

8. Toyota Avalon

Even though Toyota no longer sells the Avalon (it’s since been replaced by the Crown), the long-lasting sedan is eighth on this list. It has a 22% chance of reaching 250,000 miles, according to the study, which is 2.5 times higher than average.

9. Lexus GX

With a 20.7% chance of making it to 250,000 miles, the Lexus GX comes in at 2.4 times higher than average. The GX has been in the Lexus lineup since 2002 and recently got a major makeover for the 2024 model year.

10. Chevrolet Silverado 1500

Rounding out the top 10 is the Chevrolet Silverado 1500—the only American half-ton pickup on this list. The study reports that Silverado 1500 owners have an 18.8% chance of reaching 250,000 miles, which is 2.2 times higher than the average.

Longest-Lasting Cars

Check Out These Best-Sellers

Source: iSeeCars

Apparently, my rear wheels are out of balance. I notice what feels like bumps in the road surface, except, there are none. I’m driving through the Catesby Tunnel, a former railway tunnel in the English countryside that’s been converted into a proving ground unlike any other. Over its nearly 1.7 miles, the road is flat to within 2 millimeters. Jon Paton, managing director of Catesby Projects, sitting shotgun, reminds me of this fact. That slight vibration I feel: It’s certainly coming from the car.

The Catesby Tunnel is ostensibly a wind tunnel, but one that works opposite to all others (with one notable exception). Instead of rushing wind over a static model, within the Catesby Tunnel, the air is static, but you can drive a car at up to 160 mph, providing a real-world look at how air flows over the car. But, since opening in 2021, it’s also proven to be so much more than just an aerodynamic testing facility.

In what might seem like a bit of irony, the tunnel is owned and run by a company that specializes in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), TotalSim. 

“The question nearly always comes up is ‘Why is the simulation not right?’” says Paton. “People get judged at the race track for motorsport and they get judged on the road for automotive stuff. And when things effectively don't correlate, you come up with a whole load of excuses as to why your simulation doesn't work.”

There’s always a gap between computer simulation and reality, even as computing power increases reliably year to year. 

“Simulations are always wrong,” Paton says. “But you're just trying to figure out which bits are wrong and whether it's wrong because of the reasons that you're happy with or whether it's wrong because of the actual tools being wrong.”

The tunnel helps bridge that gap.

TotalSim isn’t the first to build this sort of thing. About 20 years ago, Chip Ganassi Racing converted a disused Pennsylvania Turnpike tunnel outside of Pittsburgh into an aerodynamic testing facility. It quickly became legend, Ganassi playing coy about its existence for years. A symbol of racing’s extravagance, Ganassi’s tunnel seemed almost impossible, a classic “unfair advantage” that no doubt contributed to the team’s IndyCar and NASCAR success. 

Ganassi and the team’s longtime aerodynamicist Ben Bowlby—also of DeltaWing and Nissan GT-R LM Nismo fame—hold a patent on using a tunnel for vehicle testing. Thumbing through the Companies House documents on the Catesby Tunnel, Bowlby was actually involved briefly, with the company. 

It was TotalSim’s managing director, Rob Lewis, who initially pitched the idea of building something similar in the U.K. Paton says the shareholders thought he was “completely bonkers,” but he put together a list of disused railway tunnels in the U.K. and presented it to the group. Catesby, built by the Victorians in 1897, was the longest on the list and only a 25 minute drive from TotalSim’s headquarters in Brackley. (Not coincidentally right in the UK's motorsports valley.)

“Then next week, he took us on a hike through a farmer’s field because the tunnel was completely derelict and there were sheep around the place,” Paton recalls. Then came the long process of buying the land, and convincing the owners that, yes, they wanted to convert this derelict tunnel into a place where you could run race cars back and forth. Work on the conversion began in 2020, and the tunnel was opened in November 2021. 

Paton talks about aerodynamic testing in terms of the compromise between repeatability versus reality. Out in the real world, you can test a real car on real tires at speed, but being outside throws up so many variables that make true repeatability basically impossible. A wind tunnel allows for tons of repeatability, but it’s not a great representation of reality. 

“Things like the steel belt that goes around underneath the tire, the tires are probably the wrong temperature, the brakes probably aren't warm, the engine is not warm so your thermal gradient is all slightly wrong,” Paton says. He also notes that in a full-scale wind tunnel, you have to tether the car down, which has its negative effects.

“Catesby Tunnel comes at it a slightly different way in that you're trying to make a real condition, but repeatable… you basically run out of excuses as to why your simulation work doesn’t correlate,” Paton says.

The fact that the tunnel is buried underground means that the temperature remains between 50 and 51 degrees fahrenheit all year. And it’s easy to go back and forth for long stretches of time, with two remote-controlled turntables at either end. In theory, you can test at all hours of the day, though you might not need to. With traditional aero testing, you might need to make 10 repeats of a test to ensure something like statistical certainty. In Catesby, it’s enough to just drive back and forth once. So you can save time, which can then be used to test other things.  

TotalSim is an offshoot of the old Honda Formula 1 team, which later became the Mercedes-AMG team. So, the firm is rooted firmly in motorsports. Yet, the tunnel has proven to be hugely beneficial in the development of road cars. Aerodynamics have always been important for road cars, even more so in the age of EVs, when efficiency has to be eked out anywhere it can be found. 

Coast-down testing is a big part of Catesby’s business. Here, you drive a car up to a certain speed, put it in neutral and see how long it takes the car to slow down. This helps you determine drag coefficient and rolling resistance. Governments around the world require this sort of testing for homologating road cars. In the U.S., coast down work done by automakers is used as part of EPA fuel-economy testing.

But there’s a lot more happening than aerodynamic testing happening here in Catesby. 

“As aerodynamicists, we were expecting the work to be 90% aero R&D, but I think that's just becoming less and less the bread and butter,” Paton says. “There’s the legislation, there's people testing headlights, there's people testing acoustics, people testing soiling, there's people testing vehicle communications… it’s a complete range of things.”

The reality is that this underground tunnel presents all sorts of possibilities. One auto engineer apparently left nearly in tears because the long, flat surface allowed him to feel a driveshaft vibration that never revealed itself anywhere else. And it showed that my wheels are slightly off. 

I visited Catesby on a quiet day. It’s one of those classic “if you didn’t already know,” situations, with the tunnel a ways back from the main road, and no hints of its existence, even if you drive over it. You can’t hear cars from outside either, even the craziest of race cars. TotalSim opened a new building nearby, Catesby Projects, but even that was designed to look old. Paton says it’s patterned after a train station in Brackley across the street from TotalSim’s old headquarters. 

Inside, the new building feels like a startup office. Modern, bright, with lots of glass. The tunnel is totally different. You enter a huge building just outside the mouth of the tunnel, where there’s a staging area to set up vehicles and equipment. There’s also a sort of construction-office trailer turned into a control room.  

The tunnel operates almost autonomously from TotalSim, with a small operations team and safety personnel onsite for high-speed testing. This is to allow clients secrecy, if they choose (although plenty of Catesby clients have made their work in the tunnel public). Paton doesn’t necessarily want to know who’s in there and what they’re doing. All he has is data from the weather stations, which hardly matters since the temperature hardly changes.

A garage door opens to reveal the tunnel itself. It’s sort of what you’d expect from a long-disused railway tunnel. Cold, dark, and damp—though Catesby is working on mitigating moisture—yet there’s something of the uncanny valley too. You quite obviously can’t see the other end and the road surface is perfectly smooth and flat. Without a safety team present, we’re limited to driving at 30 mph, which really makes you appreciate just how long it is. At an average speed of 30, it takes a little over three minutes to get to the end. There are braking markers for those going much faster. 

On the walls, there are tiny tags with targets printed on them, which, in concert with a high-speed camera system, measure speed. (There’s no GPS connection this far underground.) There are also small birdhouses for the bats that call Catesby home.

Those bats are a bit of a thorn in TotalSim’s side. A protected species in the UK, they built a “bat hotel” for them at the far end of the tunnel, but the bats decided they liked the near side better, hence the plywood birdhouses. It’s an apt metaphor for the challenge of turning Catesby into a vehicle-testing facility. 

“Nobody ever laid a road that flat,” Paton says. “Nobody's ever tried to seal or stop drips from a 2.7-kilometer long Victorian railway tunnel. Lighting, you know, it's 2.7 kilometers and we only have power at one end. Yeah. How do we fix that? Next is a dehumidifier. It's all stuff that is just a colossal scale. How do you dehumidify a 42 meter cross section by 2.7 kilometers? It's a big challenge.”

But the seemingly endless possibilities are worth the challenges. A race team recently came in and measured how small changes in rear toe affect rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag. Normally, you’d need to test that outside and in a wind tunnel. Paton makes no bones about the fact that testing at Catesby is more expensive than alternatives, but you can do things there that you can’t do anywhere else.

Paton says Catesby and TotalSim are in the marginal-gains business. It seems like building and operating this facility was a lot of work for simply chasing tenths of a percent, but that is the automotive business, both in the road-car and race-car side. Just look at how many IndyCar titles Chip Ganassi has racked up in the 20 years since it opened its own tunnel.

At the end of the day, it’s yet another tool in the engineers arsenal. “We’re a simulation company,” Paton says, “so why go build an experimental facility? Because there’s reasons you want to use both. One’s quick and easy to iterate, and one’s the real answer.”

More Engineering Deep Dives

Volkswagen needs a hit. The ID.Buzz probably won’t be it.

On Tuesday, VW announced US pricing for the long-awaited electric reinterpretation of its iconic Microbus. We knew the ID.Buzz would be expensive, but sheesh, this thing really isn't cheap. It costs $61,545, while the 1st Edition with all-wheel drive is another $10,000 dearer. And on top of that, the Buzz’s range disappoints—234 miles for the rear-drive version, 231 miles for the all-wheel drive.

Dieselgate forced Volkswagen’s hand, pushing the company hard towards EVs. It also turned public opinion against the automaker, a hurdle VW has yet to overcome. The ID.Buzz, a shameless nostalgia play at VW’s golden era, could’ve papered over some of VW’s sins and generated—sorry—buzz for the brand’s coming line of ID models. Instead, this Bus feels too little, too late, and too expensive.

Imagine if the ID.Buzz came out as VW’s first ID car in 2019 or 2020, with a price starting around $40,000. Perhaps wishful thinking, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that at a lower price, and with a much earlier release, the ID.Buzz could’ve been a moment, the return of a beloved icon at a relatively attainable price. It could’ve had a real cultural impact at a time when EV adoption felt more cautious and critical, and it could’ve changed the conversation around VW.

Instead, VW launched the ID brand with the (not-sold-in-America) ID.3 and ID.4, both of which were disappointments. The "3" in ID.3 signified VW’s third game changer, after the Beetle and the Golf. Now, it seems VW will drop the ID.3 entirely in favor of… an electric Golf… which it once sold as the E-Golf, then canceled, only to revive. Apparently.

VW’s huge Dieselgate penalties, combined with heavy and sudden investment in an EV range, meant the automaker had to cost-cut the hell out of its cars. That manifested in the ID models and its gas cars. We went from the Mk7 Golf, a high water mark for the model and one of the nicest cars in the world at any price, to the Mk8, defined by its cheap-feeling interior, user-hostile haptic controls, and a truly baffling infotainment system. The recent Golf facelift aims to right at least some of these wrongs, but the damage was done.

So now we live in a world where people are apathetic about Volkswagen at best, hostile at worst. In comes the ID.Buzz. 

We know it has a lot of the same haptic controls people already hate in the Golf, though the Buzz at least has the VW’s newer and seemingly better infotainment system. Still, it is a $60,000-plus Volkswagen minivan. The Boomers nostalgic for VW’s 1960s glory can probably afford it, but one imagines the market for the Buzz is pretty niche. 

Plus, it arrives years late, as consumer interest in EVs cools (if not becomes outright hostile, depending on your political slant). Rightly or wrongly, Americans also want range, and sub-250 miles for this sort of money makes ID.Buzz an even harder sell. 

Motor1 editorial director Travis Okulski posits that the ID.Buzz could be like the Lotus Elise. When the car finally came to America in 2005, those who wanted an Elise immediately bought them. Then sales cratered. That first year was by far the best for Elise sales, with 3,321 in the U.S. By 2011, its final year, Lotus sold 178 Elise… which was actually up from 2010, when it sold just 95. 

And as our colleagues at InsideEVs noted yesterday, automakers need expensive EVs to be successful. It doesn’t cost automakers much more to build a larger, nicer car than to build a cheaper, smaller one. So the auto industry would rather sell fewer of the former than more of the latter. But automakers actually have to sell those larger cars in the first place. It’s hard to see VW moving a lot of ID.Buzzes at this price and time.

You can’t help but imagine what could’ve been. Change a couple details in its story and the ID.Buzz could’ve been the thing that got people excited about VW and its ID line when that’s what the brand needed most. Imagine if VW had caught the #vanlife craze in full swing?

Of course, Dieselgate always signaled a decline in VW quality from the exceptional heights of the Mk7 Golf. But positive sentiment generated by the Buzz could’ve softened the blow.

Instead, we get an expensive niche product that comes long after VW’s hard-earned goodwill has evaporated. Put another way, the ID.Buzz is what Volkswagen will try to sell you, but far from what the company needs.

More On The ID.Buzz

Betting against technological progress seems to be in vogue now. That’s been a terrible bet since The Industrial Revolution. 

But when it comes to electric vehicles, the pessimism seems unending. Batteries will never get more energy-dense, the proliferation of electric motors will cause a permanent shortage of copper and rare earth minerals, and the planet will run out of lithium before your EV’s third lease payment. 

How many papers and opinion columns have you read like that? 

If you tune into the technology that’s available even right now, though, you’ll realize those columns are total bullshit. Batteries are about to take a big step, power electronics are striding ahead already, and electric motors are positively rocketing into the future. 

In the case of the latter two, we’re talking about components and drive units already in cars, not some YouTube thumbnail pipe-dream. In the case of battery cells, too, the technology already exists. It’s simply on its way to being industrialized. 

Let’s get batteries out of the way first, because that seems to be on the front of everybody’s mind. Solid-state batteries are real. Suppliers to major automakers like Ford, BMW, and Volkswagen have already sent them cells for verification. These suppliers didn’t find them on Alibaba, they aren’t some slurry-state middle-ground that’s being hyped to the moon in China. They’re real solid-state cells that are going to end up in cars. BMW is claiming it will have an SSB-powered concept vehicle “before 2025.” After that, it’s just a matter of testing and scaling the technology. BMW is already working on it.

These solid-state cells offer far lower internal resistance than their liquid-electrolyte counterparts, which means lower heating under load. Reduced cooling requirements will simplify pack construction considerably, lowering costs. For reference, the Hummer EV’s roughly 3,000-lb battery pack is an absolute monster, but only around 1,730 pounds of it is actually the battery cells. The rest is cooling passages, electronics, and structural components. 

At right around 212 kilowatt-hours, it contains a ton of energy, but if it was full of SSBs, it would be an entirely different beast. Multiple solid-state manufacturers report energy densities in the range of 390 watt-hours per kilogram. Replace the conventional lithium-ion cells in the Hummer, and you would get a 306-kWh pack. An increase in energy of nearly one-third, just by swapping cells.

Power electronics are also making big progress. Many inverters currently use insulated gate bipolar transistors, commonly referred to as IGBTs. They work, but the industry already knows that silicon carbide and gallium nitride are the future for electric vehicles large and small. Major automakers have either already adopted Silicon Carbide or are in the process of doing so. 

The switch to Silicon Carbide increases the efficiency of inverters, allowing for greater range. Likewise, while gallium nitride is currently used for lower-power applications like DC-DC converters, (i.e, the devices that take high battery voltage down to 5-12 volts for in-car accessories), they are already being prototyped into full-sized traction inverters, which promises to reduce the size, cost, and complexity of these devices. Power transistors that used to be the size of a quarter are being replaced by more efficient units the size of a grain of rice. 

If none of the latter two technological advances are enough, electric motors themselves are simultaneously becoming lighter, smaller, and more powerful. Axial flux motors are already in low-volume production cars from McLaren, Ferrari, Koenigsegg, Mercedes-Benz, Lamborghini, and more. These are real motors capable of providing a passenger car with adequate power despite hilariously low mass. A 300-horsepower car in the near future could be powered by an electric motor that weighs less than your average watermelon. These are motors being developed right now by the industry leader, YASA.

Drive units will shrink to sizes that are going to seem legitimately funny. Batteries that already exist are offering nearly 400 wh/kg. This newfound energy isn’t just a drop-in, though. It’s set to be used more efficiently than ever. None of these technologies are impossible, they are inevitable. In small volumes, all of these technologies already exist. We must simply wait for mass-market adoption.

Once you learn just a little bit about this stuff, once you get a passing familiarity with MOSFETs, or battery cells, or electric motors, you begin to understand just how amazing the next few years will be. Our current era of EVs will look stone-aged in hindsight. When we’re all commuting in fully electric or hybrid cars featuring these amazing advancements, we’ll have learned once again, never to bet against progress.

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Car warranties are fairly standard across the industry. Buy a new car, get three years and around 40,000 miles of coverage. In this case, when something breaks, the manufacturer is on the hook. Some companies even offer extended coverage for extra peace of mind once the factory warranty expires. 

But Ferrari is not your average car company. 

The iconic Italian supercar maker sells highly specialized vehicles with unique use cases. As such, its slew of warranty and certification programs reflects the specific needs of its customers. Ferrari offers no fewer than three different types of warranties, ranging from the manufacturer warranty for new cars all the way to specialized coverage for the hybrid batteries in cars like the LaFerrari and SF90 Stradale. It also has three different levels of certification and authenticity verification.

Usually shrouded in ambiguity, the company has shared some exclusive details that shed light on how these warranties function, which parts are covered, and which cars qualify. The company has also shared exactly what it takes for a Ferrari to achieve Classiche certification.

The Manufacturer Warranty

Like any carmaker, Ferrari offers a factory warranty program with all of its new road cars, regardless of price or rarity. And like most manufacturers, the factory warranty covers the car bumper-to-bumper for three years, save for regular wear and tear. But that’s where the similarities end.

While your average new car warranty has a mileage limit, Ferrari’s does not. This is an unlimited-mileage warranty. That means, theoretically, any new Ferrari owner can put hundreds of thousands of miles on their car in the span of that first three years and still be covered on anything that breaks. 

While we’re sure high-mileage edge cases like this exist, Ferrari was not able to provide any specific examples to Motor1.

Full coverage will likely depend on following strict maintenance procedures carried out at certified Ferrari repair locations. It’s unlikely a dealer will cover the replacement of a new engine if you show up after 100,000 miles and no record of past service. But that’s true of most car warranties.

The idea behind offering an unlimited-mileage warranty as standard is obvious. Ferrari knows most owners won’t drive their cars much, meaning they won’t swamp dealers with warranty claims. But it gives buyers that peace of mind knowing they could drive their cars as much as they desire without worrying about a mileage limit. It’s a win-win.

Extended Coverage Plus

After the factory warranty expires, Ferrari will sell you an extended warranty called Extended Coverage Plus. Think of it as a four-year extension to the manufacturer warranty.

Everything covered by the factory warranty applies here, meaning bumper-to-bumper coverage. Consumables like brakes and tires are not covered, obviously, nor are other wear and tear items.

Not every used Ferrari will qualify for Extended Coverage Plus. To be eligible, your Ferrari must be less than 15 years old and have fewer than 75,000 miles on the clock at the time of purchase. So if you drove the wheels off your car to take advantage of that unlimited-mile coverage, sorry, you’re out of luck here.

Almost every modern Ferrari is eligible to be paired with the Extended Coverage Plus program. All versions of the 488, the Portofino, the F8, the SF90, the 296, the 812, the Roma, and the Purosangue qualify. Even cars like the LaFerrari and the Monza can get the extended coverage. Only a select few Limited-series Ferraris, like the Daytona SP3, don’t qualify. 

Ferrari declined to share pricing numbers for the Extended Coverage Plus program, saying that ultimately, the price is between you and the dealer. But expect the cost to differ based on whether you have a V-8, V-12, or hybrid-powered car.

Power15

Think of Power15 as a sort of “catch-all” warranty meant to cover Ferraris up to 15 years old that might not otherwise be covered by the two warranties above. It covers cars with up to 56,000 or 75,000 miles (depending on the model).

While Power15 isn’t bumper-to-bumper, its coverage is fairly extensive. Offered on a per-year basis, all of the big stuff worth worrying about is taken care of. Here’s the full list of items covered by Power15, per Ferrari:

Step up to the “Main Power15” package, and this warranty will even cover routine maintenance like oil changes. You’re still on the hook for wear and tear items, though.

It’s through this warranty that LaFerrari owners can have their complex hybrid systems covered. The battery pack is a particularly expensive failure point for these cars, and as such, the warranty costs a bit more for LaF. 

While no other hybrid Ferrari battery pack is currently covered by the Power15 program, the company does offer an extended warranty specifically for batteries found in plug-in models like the SF90 and the 296 GTB. 

As with the Extended Coverage Plus program, Ferrari declined to share exact pricing, as it’s the dealer who determines final numbers. But like that program, pricing varies depending on car, drivetrain, and whether there’s hybrid systems involved.

Three Levels of Certification

Ferrari Approved

The first level of Ferrari certification isn’t so much a badge of honor as it is an assurance that you’re buying a car that’s all up to date on maintenance and in proper working, original order. It’s essentially just a certified pre-owned program, where dealers perform a 101-point inspection and verify the car’s history. 

Ferrari will repair or replace anything that’s not right before offering it as a Ferrari Approved used vehicle. If you want a way to break into the brand and still have the opportunity to access warranty coverage, this is your best bet. 

Premium Certificate

Think of the Premium Certificate as a certificate of authenticity for your Ferrari. Having one tells the world your car is fully up to date with the latest and greatest parts, and most recently serviced by qualified experts. 

Obtaining a Premium Certificate is no easy task. The car must be unmodified and in good working order. Any parts that are outdated must be replaced with better versions from the factory. All scheduled maintenance must be up to date. Any outstanding recalls should be resolved. And, of course, all of this servicing must be done by qualified Ferrari technicians. 

Only when a car turns 10 years old can it receive a Premium Certificate from Ferrari. Weirdly enough, the certificate itself is totally complimentary—there’s no cost to having one issued for your car. But considering all of the money you have to spend on maintenance to get your car to qualify, it’s not exactly free.

Ferrari Classiche

Ferrari Classiche is the final form of authenticity for a Ferrari. Available only once a car reaches 20 years old, it’s the ultimate representation of a car’s overall health and originality.

Securing Classiche certification takes the Premium Certificate process several steps farther. Ferrari looks at five key areas: Chassis number, body number, engine number, gearbox number, and rear axle number. A car can only achieve Classiche certification if three out of five of those numbers are original to the car. Additionally, a bevy of different parts are checked for originality and good working order. 

There are a handful of items that can disqualify a Ferrari from Classiche certification, even if it passes the above assessments. A modified exhaust system or non-factory sized wheels, for instance, would be disqualifiers. Repaints are permitted, so long as the new paint color was offered for the car in-period. 

Ferrari says Classiche certification can cost anywhere from €3,000 to €18,000 (roughly $3,200 to $19,500), not including any work that needs to be done to restore the car to its original state. If the car already has a Premium Certificate issued, then Classiche certification can be granted free of charge.

Depending on the age and historical significance of the model, research must be performed to verify the car’s authenticity. In some cases, Ferrari goes as far as performing full metallurgic and dimensional checks of the chassis to make sure it matches the company’s historical records.

There’s a great deal of work involved in Classiche certification, but it’s always worth the trouble.  The certificate has long been a measure of a Ferrari’s originality and provenance, often mentioned prominently at auctions and in for-sale listings of the most desirable prancing horses.

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The Olympics just wrapped up. Over the last few weeks, you probably saw a lot of breakdancing, racewalking, and trampoline in your feeds. Shoutout to Raygun, by the way. But for all the weird and wacky events at this year's Olympics, one thing you didn't see in Paris was auto racing.

Auto racing has never caught on at the Olympics, not that they haven't tried. At the 1900 Summer Olympics, Renault founder Louis Renault and a dozen or so other drivers raced around France in two-seat Citroens and Peugeots. Renault took home the gold and a lofty ₣4,000 cash prize. A second "Olympic Rally" took place during the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, with British racing driver Betty Haig in a Singer Le Mans and Swiss driver Paul Abt in a Riley Falcon both taking home golds.

Unfortunately though, while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) acknowledges these races took place, the IOC doesn't recognize either of them as official events. And there hasn't been another attempt to bring motorsports to the Olympics in the 88 years since.

In 2001, it seemed all hope was lost. The IOC all but banned motor racing in its updated charter. In chapter 5, a single line stated: “Sports, disciplines or events in which performance depends essentially on mechanical propulsion are not acceptable.” Thankfully, the IOC removed that rule in 2016 and the amended charter from 2023 makes no mention of it.

Initially, I wanted to examine why Formula 1-style racing isn't in the Olympics. Take the world's best drivers, put them in a single-seat race car, and let them loose on a track. But top-end motorsports would be insanely expensive at the Olympic level, hard to regulate, and not every country would be able to field a spec vehicle (even the ones with some of the world's best drivers).

So what's the next-best solution? Go-karts.

Dozens of modern professional drivers got their start in go-karts. Before he had three F1 championships, Max Verstappen won multiple karting trophies. Charles Leclerc, Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton, and Logan Sargeant—all go-kart champions.

But this isn't a new idea by me, clever as it is. Go-kart racing—or as it's called, Olympic Motorsport—was introduced at the Summer Youth Olympic Games in 2018. Six teams of two racers competed in electric karts. Even though no medals were awarded, current Formula 2 driver Franco Colapinto and teammate Maria Garcia Puig took home the (theoretical) gold.

F1’s governing body, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), has been trying to bring go-kart racing to the Olympics ever since. The FIA put in a bid for karting at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, but it was bumped along with kickboxing and karate.

But there’s still hope.

The FIA will make another push for karting at the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane, Australia. Yes, that means another eight years of waiting, but it also means this could be the first real chance we get to see go-karts at an Olympic level.

"The fact that the possibility of karting being included in the official program of the Olympic Games has been considered is already a satisfactory first step. It encourages us to continue our efforts to refine an offer adapted to the format of this unique competition in order to be able to present a bid again in the future."

FIA Spokesperson via InsideTheGames.

Fingers crossed.

Go-karts would make a lot of sense as a catch-all solution for Olympic racing. The basic concept is pretty simple (in theory). Every kart would have to meet an agreed-upon, Olympic-approved standard, and each country would supply a team of mechanics, engineers, etc. to oversee their respective team's vehicles. As opposed to an F1-style vehicle, karts are way, way, way cheaper and far easier to standardize.

Next would be securing the locations. The Youth Olympic Games used the go-kart track at the Autodromo de Buenos Aires Oscar y Juan Galvez for its event in 2018. With the 2024 Paris Olympics as a template, the karting track at Circuit Paul Ricard could host every race, which would make everything nice and tidy from a logistical standpoint.

But there is a second, more fun option: A road course around the streets of the host city. While much trickier logistically, crazier things have been done in the name of Olympic competition. Just imagine the world's best drivers booking it down the Rue de Rivoli in Paris this year or racing around the iconic Place de l'Etoile.

Each country would then have to decide on drivers. As with most Olympic events outside of maybe basketball, the competitors would most likely be young and talented—but relatively unknown—kart racers from around the world. That, of course, would mean huge recognition for potentially undiscovered drivers trying to get their shot on a larger stage, which is a great thing.

But again, there is a second, more fun option.

Let’s just take the world’s best pro drivers and drop them in an Olympic-style go-kart competition. Assuming every driver is eligible, we could draw from major series’ like F1, Formula E, IndyCar, NASCAR, and the World Endurance Championship. The 10 top countries (based on theoretical qualifying) would be eligible for the event, and similar to something like Race of Champions or the 2018 Youth Olympic Games, a total of 20 drivers would compete in a multi-race, knockout-type series to determine the medalists.

So let’s have some fun with this. Here’s what my dream teams would look like for each country (sorry if your driver or country isn’t represented in my fake go-kart Olympics):

Just imagine Kyle Larson and Lewis Hamilton going tire to tire on the last lap around the Arc de Triomphe, or Verstappen and De Vries trading paint beneath the Eiffel Tower, all while hoards of French bystanders shake their baguettes with enthusiasm. Sounds like a fever dream I’ve had.

Auto racing is definitely gaining momentum with the IOC, which is great news—and not just on the Junior Olympic stage either. In 2021, the IOC and FIA teamed up for the Olympic Virtual Series, which gathered pro gamers from around the world to compete in a multi-race Gran Turismo tournament. Vallerio Gallo from Italy took home the (virtual) gold. And we could see more virtual Olympic events in the future.

But for getting real racers on a real track for a real chance at Olympic gold, karting makes the most sense—and it sounds like it would be fun as hell. Let’s hope the IOC and the FIA can agree to bring it to Brisbane in 2032, and let’s hope it attracts the biggest names in motorsports eager to make their home countries proud.

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Sometimes, you just get lucky, and just so happen to be in the right place at the right time. Chance often plays a role, especially in the lengthy development of new cars. Audi timed the market perfectly, taking 21 months to develop the 50, the first small car from a German manufacturer. It debuted in 1974, following the 1973 oil price crisis.

The Audi 50 is also a blueprint for the almost identical Volkswagen Polo, which the Wolfsburg-based company launched seven months later. We were able to drive one of the now rare small Audi models to celebrate its 50th birthday.

Addition Downwards

Let's look back: The 50 was meant to round off the lower end of the model range, pairing nicely with the Audi 80 and Audi 100. As early as 1970, the engineers at Audi NSU Auto Union AG, which was founded in 1969, set to work, led by Chief Technical Officer Ludwig Kraus: A successor was needed for the tried-and-tested NSU small cars around the Prinz 4, which was particularly popular in Italy, whose end of production was in sight.

At the same time, VW in Wolfsburg was busy taking time-consuming detours to arrive at the Golf as the successor to the Beetle. It is conceivable, although not proven, that the smaller Audi 50 provided another layer of security, with it later rebranded as the VW Polo. Incidentally, the Golf and 50 shared Italian design influences, even though the final designs were produced in Germany—Giugiaro for the Golf and Bertone for the Audi.

Although the oil price crisis of 1973, with its empty highways, gave the small car class an additional boost, important cars had already come before that. In addition to the Mini from 1959, models such as the Autobianchi A112 (1969), Fiat 127 (1971), and the Renault 5 (1972) from Italy and France came from countries that had always had an affinity for small vehicles. 

At the beginning of the 1970s, developers knew exactly what was going on. The key to success was the transverse-mounted engine. With it, the Ingolstadt-based company created a car with a relatively large interior and an overall length of just 11.45 feet.

Clever Lightweight Construction

The 50, which weighs just 1,510 pounds, launched in two versions: the Audi 50 LS with 50 horsepower and the Audi 50 GL with 60 hp. Both came with a 1.1-liter engine. The 50 LS reached 88.2 miles per hour, and the GL a respectable 99.5 mph. While the 50-hp version ran on regular petrol, the extra 10-hp unit required premium fuel.

In 1977, this variant was replaced by a newly developed 1.3-liter engine that ran on regular petrol. Hartmut Warkuß, who had also designed the Audi 80, was responsible for the design of the Audi 50. Warkuß drew a timeless, filigree shape around Kraus's package. However, the Audi 50 never came in a five-door version.

The Ingolstadt-based company presented the Audi 50 to the international media in Sardinia in the summer of 1974. It arrived at dealers for the first time on October 26, with the Audi 50 LS priced at 8,195 German Deutsche Marks and the Audi 50 GL at 8,510 marks. The "little Audi" was initially planned and developed in Neckarsulm, later in Ingolstadt Technical Development, and finally built at the Volkswagen plant in Wolfsburg. By March 31, 1975, exactly 43,002 Audi 50 units had rolled off the production line, after which the series production of the almost identical but initially significantly less well-equipped VW Polo also began.

First Impression

The Audi 50 you see here is from 1977, supplied to us through the company's classic division. This model is rarer than many Ferraris. Due to poor sheet metal and a lack of rust protection in the 1970s, the number of survivors in Germany is in the low three-digit range. Finding an Audi 50 is just as tedious as finding spare parts for it.

The Audi 50 is 11.55 feet long, 5.12 feet wide, and 4.40 feet high. However, a wheelbase of 7.64 feet and the transversely mounted engine provide a relatively good amount of space, even for tall people. The large windows and narrow roof pillars also help. You definitely don't need a parking aid here.

What else stands out? The trim strip on the side, which rises boldly towards the rear. The circular forced ventilation, which could be mistaken for the fuel filler on the c-pillar. Or the rear lights, which are delicately reminiscent of the EA 266, a mid-engined Beetle successor that was discontinued shortly before production. Trunk space? 10.1 to 31.8 cubic feet.

I take a seat in the cockpit. There's not much to discover here: A few buttons, relatively soft seats due to their age, flimsy plastics, and a steering column lever for the hazard warning lights. But at least there is a rev counter, which was once not standard in our LS version.

Nimble on the Road

That rev counter isn't necessary, though, as the 1.1-liter petrol engine with overhead camshaft clearly communicates when it's time to engage the four-speed gearbox. A British brochure from August 1977 wrote: "The pleasure of driving this compact car comes from its unusually lively acceleration." In practical terms, the car hangs well on the throttle and feels faster than it is because it hardly weighs anything. 

With 50 hp, I can cut through the countryside with a nice elasticity, and everything feels very engaging. "Can be handled with confidence," writes the brochure. Loosely translated: There are still reserves. And that’s despite 145 SR tires. It is not without reason that the Audi 50 was also active in motorsport. At any rate, this car is in better shape at 47 than I was at 46. If it weren't for the chrome, it would be hard to believe that the Audi is already so old.

Short Life with Continuation at VW

And yet the Audi 50 was only allowed to live for four years. The reason was the VW Polo, which looked exactly the same and went into production in March 1975. It was significantly less well-equipped and, therefore, cheaper than the Audi, which was roughly on par with the Golf at the time.

Car chronicler Werner Oswald sees the VW Group as being to blame in retrospect with no model upgrades, and the Audi 50 was also systematically banished by dealers in favor of the Polo. Production of the Audi 50, which totaled 180,828, ended in the summer of 1978. From then on, Audi concentrated increasingly on mid-range cars and the segments above.

Before this, the company had developed the VW Derby with a notchback, which appeared in 1977. Even though the Audi 50 was only on the market for a few years, it established the small car segment within the Volkswagen Group: Millions of the VW Polo were built in its subsequent generations. Audi did not bring a clever little car back onto the market until 1999 with the A2.

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To stand at the back of the Czinger 21C, rear clamshell open, is to understand that this is like no other hypercar. There are bits that look familiar, yet for every one of those, there’s seemingly two more that look alien. That is, of course, by design.

Czinger is the automotive offshoot of Divergent, a Southern California firm specializing in a unique approach to additive manufacturing. Ran by father-son duo Kevin and Lukas Czinger, Divergent has its own production method, the Divergent Adaptive Production System (DAPS). Essentially, you plug in a set of parameters for a part into Divergent’s ultra-powerful computer system, and through AI iteration, the part is designed with the minimum material required to hit the required parameters. Then the part is 3D printed on Divergent-designed machines with unique alloys devised by the system.

“The idea was to start with a clean sheet of paper, and the one thing we know we have right now is growing computing power,” Kevin Czinger tells Motor1. “So you can fully simulate all of the load cases plus all of the manufacturing and all of the assembly.” 

With that growing computer power, Divergent can “build a full-model simulation generating the minimal amount of material and energy that go into a structure while meeting all of the linear and nonlinear requirements—everything from stiffness to durability to crash plus optimizing manufacturing and optimizing assembly. All done as one total model simulation,” Czinger says.

The result, in Czinger’s view, is something that more resembles the natural process of evolution. Albeit evolution that happens within hours inside a computer, not over eons. 

The DAPS-created front subframe of the 21C, with electric motor attached.

“Go out into your garden and go look at that insect, look at that animal, that squirrel, look at any flora, any plant, you’re like ‘Wow, it’s incredibly adapted,” Czinger says. “Same thing here. Form follows function right? Like obviously taking a single gauge of steel and stamping it: Is that form following function? No. It's human beings crudely doing what these things are out there.”

“This is literally, within the design space, simulating what evolution is,” he continues. “Adding, subtracting material against environmental requirements, perfectly optimizing. Because out there in nature, material and energy are being fought after. With this simulation, using supercomputing and machine learning, you’re fighting for the same thing. And then form follows function.”

One of the more illustrative parts of the 21C is what Czinger calls the “BrakeNode,” which combines rear suspension, upright, and brake caliper into one unit. 

Czinger 21C Brake Node

Czinger 21C Brake Node

“All of the thermal management, all of the stiffness, all of the structure, all of the simulation is being modeled as this is being generated,” Czinger says. “So you get better thermal management by incorporating it throughout the structure… same thing with hydraulics.” 

Czinger tells Motor1 that the BrakeNode has about 40 percent less mass than a system with a traditional fixed brake caliper, but 30 percent more stiffness. Plus, better thermal management.

It’s got a lot of other car companies interested. Divergent will manufacture suspension components for the new Bugatti Tourbillon, and recently began a partnership with McLaren and Mercedes-AMG. Czinger told us more automotive partnerships are soon to be announced, and that’s in addition to Divergent’s existing work with Aston Martin, in aerospace, and defense. 

Of course, designing parts is one thing. Making them is a different matter. 

“To print at this speed, with this quality, you have to design your own materials, your own printers, each in a feedback loop where you're simulating as to what you're going to build,” Czinger says.

The mind boggles at the complexity. Computers define the parts themselves and also define the materials they’re made of, and the tools you use to make them. 

“That microstructure relates to material elements that are being generated by a machine-learning based material system, what the microstructure is, what the parameters with which it’s being printed,” Czinger says. “If you were to take the tiniest piece of microstructure and look at what it actually is, you fall down a light-years deep hole of engineering.”

As a kid in Cleveland, Czinger read about John von Neumann, the programming pioneer, and his theory of self-replicating machines—the robot that makes the robot. He realized around a decade ago that the computing power to make the self-replicating machine was available. 

“I was like, shit… finally, that massive amount of data processing to do model simulation here, we have it.”

“Then if [you] don’t give an F and are ready to do stuff, you sit down and go ‘I’m going to create a company.’ Boom,” he says.

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Ferrari will reveal its first electric vehicle by the end of next year, and it'll be a big deal for the Italian automaker. CEO Benedetto Vigna has been adamant that Ferrari’s first electric vehicle won’t lose the brand’s "unique" feel, confident the company can harness the technology’s full capabilities to create a fun and exciting driving experience.

We won’t know what the final package looks like until 2025 at least, with Ferrari offering few concrete details about the car. In an interview earlier this year, Vigna joked that the EV "will have four wheels," which is good to know. The automaker is already putting thousands of miles on heavily camouflaged prototypes ahead of its debut, but specific details won’t solidify until closer to its debut next year.

Until then, here’s what we do know about Ferrari’s first electric car.

What Will It Be Called?

Trademark filings often provide a peek into the possible names a company might use for future models, but Ferrari hasn’t filed anything that we’ve found yet. It’s unclear if Ferrari will give the EV a proper name like the Roma or Purosangue, opt for an alphanumeric designation like the 296 GTB, or pick something descriptive like 12Cilindri or LaFerrari.

What Will It Look Like?

Ferrari will seek outside influence for the EV’s final design. The automaker tapped former Apple Design Chief Jony Ive and industrial designer Marc Newson to hone the car’s appearance.

Our first look at Ferrari’s EV was hiding underneath a heavily modified Maserati Levante body with fake exhaust tips tacked on the back. But just because the prototype is an SUV doesn’t necessarily mean Ferrari’s EV will be one as well. It’s unclear what the final form looks like at this stage of its development, although we expect some light crossover-like features (like minor cladding and a slight lift).

We did our best to render the future Ferrari EV, but again, the details are still fuzzy.

If the janky Levante body is any indication of the Ferrari’s final shape, the electric supercar could have short overhangs and stout proportions. The all-electric powertrain will present new challenges for the company, like where to place the battery, which many automakers put underneath the cabin, creating noticeably thick floors and high stances.

Ferrari engineers will have to rethink how to package the car to best optimize its balance and driving dynamics. A 2022 patent filing showed Ferrari testing the idea of sandwiching a portion of the battery underneath the passenger compartment while putting the bulk of it behind the cabin, while another showed off four-motor platforms for EVs and hybrids.

What Will Power It?

Ferrari hasn’t confirmed what kind of chemistry its EV battery pack will have, but we know the company won’t use lithium-iron-phosphate batteries. Ferrari has been getting battery components from SK On, a South Korean vehicle battery manufacturer, and the pair recently signed a Mutual of Understanding to continue their ongoing collaboration.

We also don’t know how many electric motors it will have or how much horsepower it’ll deliver. A two- or four-motor setup is possible, giving the EV all-wheel-drive capability and presenting unique software opportunities that could enhance the diving experience.

Ferrari Electric Sports Car Patent

What Will It Sound Like?

Raucous V-8 and V-12 exhaust notes have been integral to the Ferrari experience since its inception, but that changes with electric vehicles. The lack of internal combustion and the necessary hardware to pipe explosions out the back means Ferrari will have to take a different approach. The automaker is working to develop "sound signatures" for the vehicle.

"Electric cars are not silent," Vigna said earlier this year. What the company’s EV could sound like remains a mystery, but Vigna said he’s confident Ferrari can harness the EV technology "in a unique way" to deliver a special driving experience.

When Will It Debut?

Ferrari will reveal its EV before the end of 2025, but the company hasn’t provided a specific date yet. It’ll likely debut in the fourth quarter of next year, but we shouldn’t have to wait long after that before it hits the streets.

When Will It Go on Sale?

The new Ferrari EV will go on sale sometime in 2026, with the automaker preparing to kick off full-scale EV production early that year. The automaker opened its new e-building facility in June in Maranello, where it’ll build the brand’s first electric vehicle alongside combustion cars and hybrids.

Ferrari Electric Turbo Patent

How Much Will It Cost?

A report suggested Ferrari would price the EV at over $500,000 to start. However, in a recent interview, Vigna said that the number was "a surprise" to him. The automaker doesn’t set a model’s MSRP until one month before the car launches, so we likely won’t know how much it costs until early 2026.

It’ll likely cost much more than the Portofino M, which starts at around $250,000, but it could cost less than the SF90 Stradale that’s on its way out. It starts at over $520,000, but the SF90 is one of several models reaching the end of their lifecycle, so it’s unclear where the new EV will sit in the brand’s evolving lineup.

Is Ferrari Going Fully Electric?

No, Ferrari isn’t going fully electric anytime soon. The automaker will continue to offer combustion vehicles, hybrids, and electric powertrains based on demand. However, it expects EVs and hybrids to account for up to 80 percent of its output by 2030, even as it looks for ways to keep gasoline engines past 2035.

Turn two at Wilmot Hills Road Racing Course is a sharp uphill right with an apex precisely at the crest. I’m driving a Porsche 718 Boxster Style Edition, wondering how drivers would handle this challenging corner at speed. I’m not worried about careening off the track, however. At a brisk 20 mph, my laps are purely ceremonial. 

Wilmot Hills Road Racing Course shut down 57 years ago.

It’s one of three ghost race tracks I visited as part of our ongoing series on abandoned tracks, but my mission here goes far beyond artsy photos of crumbling pavement. Of the many emails I received since the first abandoned tracks feature went live in January, a few pointed me to old tracks between Chicago and Milwaukee. One kind reader shared with me the story of his father, who raced a Porsche 356 and an RS 550 Spyder in the very same region. 

How amazing would it be to visit these places—Wilmot Hills, Lynndale Farms, and Meadowdale Raceway—in a modern Porsche? Could I at least get a hint of what it was like 60 years ago, when the racing was grassroots and the tracks were wild? I had to find out.

Porsche loaned me a 718 Boxster Style Edition for the trip, a modern successor to the 356 and 550. With the state of these tracks, I couldn’t enjoy the old straights and curves at speed. But in the Boxster, I could at least feel the same sun that warmed those drivers’ faces back in the 1960s, the peak period for these tracks. 

Visiting these extraordinary locations was a surreal, emotive experience. 

Lynndale Farms Road Racing Course: 1964-1968

There’s no other way to say it... Lynndale Farms is now a subdivision. Approximately 25 miles west of Milwaukee, this was the last stop on my day-long ghost track tour, but the most surprising. The outline of the original 2.5-mile road course is largely preserved through the subdivision’s roads, including the 2,000-foot front straight and the esses leading up to it. 

Yes, esses in a subdivision.

Chuck Reupert didn’t drive a Porsche on this course, but he was among those who raced at Lynndale during its four short years of operation. I chatted with his granddaughter Michelle, who still lives in the area and races along with her husband Adam, and father Mike. Chuck campaigned an H Modified Dart and had a chance to buy a plot of land at Lynndale when its fate was sealed, but passed on the opportunity. A combination of bad weather, noise complaints, and its proximity to Road America were factors in Lynndale’s brief existence. But thanks to Michelle and her family, we get a sense of what the track was like through some vintage photos.

Photo Credit: Cheryl and Mike Reupert

Photo Credit: Cheryl and Mike Reupert

Six decades later, this place still feels like a racetrack as you drive past the houses. Turn one is a modest right with a surprisingly steep drop that must have been thrilling and terrifying. It flows into turn two, a fast right that leads to a hairpin and eventually, the back straight. Or rather, it would’ve led you there if it still existed. The hairpin is now a cul-de-sac, so I’m forced to casually turn left onto Lynndale Lane. That takes me to the back stretch, which also leads to a dead-end.

I’m surprised by how the neighborhood roads capture the essence of the track, but also by the people who live there. For 45 minutes I paraded around the quiet subdivision in a visually striking Porsche, accompanied by ace photographer Jeremy Cliff who wasn’t shy about guiding me to the best places for pics. Surely someone would wonder what the hell was going on, but we were met only with smiles and friendly waves. Clearly, photobombers in neat cars are familiar to Lynndale residents.

There's a small strip of original track on the eastern side of the subdivision. It’s not accessible to vehicles, but it is preserved on public land. Coincidentally, the homeowner living next to it arrived while we were snapping photos. He was all too eager to talk cars and said the old pavement was protected as part of a conservancy. As long as the subdivision exists, that small section of Lynndale Farms Road Racing Course lives on.

Meadowdale International Raceway: 1958-1969

A most amazing race track once existed barely 40 miles northwest of Chicago. The 3.27-mile course had a main straight nearly a mile long, connected to the back straight by the Monza Wall—a steeply banked 180-degree corner that, sadly, no longer exists. But portions of the original tarmac still do. The entire layout is preserved as a hiking and biking trail in the Raceway Hills Forest Preserve. And it’s absolutely beautiful.

The Preserve strikes a wonderful balance between honoring the legacy of the track while creating a peaceful sanctuary in the decidedly hectic suburbs of Chicago. During my visit, I encountered no shortage of people biking and walking the old route, enjoying a mix of forested and open areas.

The back straight is particularly wide—the track’s straights ran side-by-side here before the Monza Wall. At three-quarters of a mile, the front straight seems to just disappear into the woods. A flat expanse of tarmac connects the straights to where the Monza Wall once stood.

Photo Credit: MiRPA Archives

Photo Credit: MiRPA Archives

Linda Daro is the president of the Midwest Racing Preservation Association (MIRPA), which she founded in 2008. The group is dedicated to keeping the memory of Meadowdale alive. Aside from saving portions of the track and the original silo—the only remaining structure from the old days—the non-profit organization hosts automotive-themed events throughout the summer.

“I love racing, and there are so many memories, so much history with the people who raced at Meadowdale, we didn’t want to lose that,” Linda explained. “We’ve had great support from the community; There’s so much passion for this place, even with those that aren’t race fans. Our annual car show usually brings about 300 to 400 cars, all parked on the straightaway, and people fill the park to take it all in.”

Cars usually aren’t allowed on the trail, but Daro was all too happy to open the gate by the silo for me and the Boxster. Meadowdale was a tough track. It had a rough track surface even when new, with few runoff areas. When the last checkered flag dropped in 1968, this place could've easily become a shopping mall. Instead, its shell and spirit are under the protection of the Dundee Township Park District, the Forest Preserve District of Kane County, and the Midwest Racing Preservation Association. I wish I could’ve driven portions of the old surface, but that’s okay. There are worse fates for old racetracks.

Wilmot Hills Road Racing Course: 1953-1967

It was hot and humid as I rumbled into Wilmot, but I still lowered the Boxster’s roof. This track is different from the others, notably because the old track is still mostly there. More than anything from this journey, I wanted a taste of what racers experienced back in the day. Lynndale and Meadowdale still had their outlines, but only Wilmot has an accessible surface for the Porsche to bite. 

And I got that taste right away. I'd seen satellite images and old photos of the course, but I was still taken by surprise when I steered the Porsche down the driveway for Wilmot Mountain Ski Resort, through an S turn and onto a broken straight. 

I suddenly realized this was the back half of the track. 

In fact, it started a couple hundred feet prior—I’d idled by without realizing it. And then came the cruel irony as I passed a crooked 15 mph speed limit sign. 60 years ago, racers like Joseph B Swanson Jr were going through here at five times that speed.

“My dad started out racing in 1961. His first car was a new Porsche 356 Super 90 Roadster,” said Joseph Swanson’s son, Joe. Joseph received the car from his uncle as a gift, but didn’t cruise town with it. Instead, he yanked off the bumpers and hit the track.

“[T]hat first year, he was the class champion in the Chicagoland SCCA”, Joe said. “He did very well, then he bought an RS 550 Spyder from a dealership in Chicago and had a successful season racing that. He wanted to move up a class, so he sold the 550 and got an Elva Mk VI. Then in 1963 he got married, and the family basically said they didn’t want him racing anymore, it was too dangerous. So that’s where he stopped.”

Standing at the entrance to turn one, I understand the Swanson family’s concerns. It’s a fast right coming off the main straight, and there’s a hell of a big hill leading to turn two. You don't see the apex until you're at the top, cresting just in time for the corner. Between the poor visibility and the elevation change, it's the kind of corner you want to master for the sheer satisfaction of getting it right.

Sadly, I’ll never have that experience. Buildings sit on the southern end of the track now. The track surface is a collection of potholes and cracks that finger out in every direction. Wilmot’s racing days are done, but the resort’s General Manager Chuck Randles isn’t opposed to a car show. How cool would it be to have Swanson Jr's old Porsche 550 back under the sun at Wilmot? He passed away when his son was eight years old, but the younger Swanson researched his dad's racing legacy and found the 550 still exists.

As for the new Porsche I was driving, the Boxster Style Edition was a perfect companion on this 1,500-mile road trip. 300 horsepower is far more than the 356s and 550s had in their period, but the 718 isn’t far removed from Porsche’s mid-century ethos. The Boxster is smaller and lighter than the 911, and the drop-top’s four-cylinder mill is a direct callback to the flat-fours used in those classics. That’s especially true for the 550, which also utilized a mid-engine layout like the 718.

Cresting turn two at Wilmot, I rolled on the gas with the roof down and the flat-four soundtrack behind me and tasted that faded glory. Lapping the short one-mile layout must have been one hell of a ride. And the experience became even more bittersweet with news that Porsche is ending the Boxster and Cayman as we know them, paving the way for a new generation of electric roadsters. 

Back at the hotel that evening, I was sunburnt, exhausted, and already contemplating where to go next.  Instead of one day for three tracks, this trip could easily be a full day for each. I yearned to walk the loop at Meadowdale, talk with residents at Lynndale, and hammer that crest at Wilmot. And it would all flash by like Joseph’s 550 or Chuck’s Dart crossing the finish line. At least the future for these places is secure, leaving me room to return someday. Other old tracks aren’t as fortunate.

They deserve one more moment in the light, before they’re gone for good.

Take A Virtual Ghost Track Tour:

Though it's been little more than a year since Ford ended production of the Fiesta, it still boggles my mind that higher-ups thought it was a good idea. The Fiesta's death was yet another slap in the face for people who still want cars. In 2022, the Mondeo went the way of the dodo, and in 2019, the Ka city car perished. And the sales numbers don't lie—the decision to focus on crossovers isn't paying off.

According to figures published by the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA), Ford is way down this year. Demand in the European Union, European Free Trade Association, and the UK plummeted by 16.9 percent to 226,365 cars. There are 27 countries in the EU, plus another four in EFTA, while the UK is listed separately since it left the EU in early 2020.

Ford Fiesta

Ford's market share in the EU+EFTA+UK region dropped from 4.1 percent to only 3.3 percent through June. That's hardly a surprise. The discontinuation of the Fiesta certainly hampered sales. According to automotive research specialist Dataforce cited by Automotive News Europe, all but one model that made it to the top 10 in the small car segment was up in H1 2024. Most of the others were up double digits.

Overall, the segment increased by 5.7 percent to 956,865 superminis. That's an extra 51,392 cars compared to H1 2023, despite the Fiesta's cancellation. With Ford's small hatchback gone from the lineup, customers decided to buy something else, and then some.

But another problem looms. Ford is about to pull the plug on the Focus, as well. The decision was announced in mid-2022 when the Blue Oval said it would discontinue the compact car in 2025. A couple months ago, the company reiterated plans to phase out its Volkswagen Golf rival in November 2025 at the Saarlouis plant in Germany.

Ford Focus ST

Looking at sales charts once again, wiping out the Focus from the lineup is the Fiesta story all over again. The compact segment grew by 11.5 percent in the January-June 2024 interval in the EU+EFTA+UK region. That equates to an extra 86,161 cars, bringing the total to 837,351. Sure, the Focus was down by 19.8 percent, but production was halted for a while due to a strike at the factory. Despite this setback, Ford did finish fifth in this segment with 47,070 cars. It came ahead of long-time rival Opel/Vauxhall Astra.

Once the Focus dies, the only car (that isn't a crossover or an SUV) in Ford's European lineup will be the Mustang. As much as we all love the pony car, the sports coupe/convertible duo won't move the needle. It's a niche car powered by a big ol' V-8 that will deter buyers because of hefty taxes on large-displacement engines in many Euro countries. Through June, Ford only sold 1,323 'Stangs, down by 26.6 percent, albeit the seventh-generation is just coming out.

Although much smaller, the mid-size segment, which included the Mondeo (Fusion in the United States) until a couple of years ago, also grew in the first half of 2024. Demand jumped by 6.6 percent to 178,679 cars, representing an extra 11,004 units over the same period of last year.

Direct replacements for the Fiesta, Focus, and Mondeo are not planned. Instead, Ford is launching an electric Explorer large SUV and is bringing back the Capri, also as an electric SUV. The two are based on the Volkswagen Group's MEB platform, so they're related to the ID.4 and ID.5, respectively. Ford can't realistically expect the EV duo to compensate for the demise of long-running nameplates such as the Fiesta, Focus, and Mondeo.

In the first half of 2024, purely electric cars had a market share of only 12.5 percent, according to data published by ACEA. Ford is also cooking up an all-electric Puma as its cheapest EV offering in Europe. The Puma Gen-E debuts later this year and it'll face stiff competition from Stellantis. As a refresher, Ford has backed down from its objective to go fully electric in Europe by 2030, citing "softer" demand for EVs than originally projected.

The slump in sales highlights something key: there's a limit to crossover buyers. The Fiesta, Focus, and Mondeo segments still generate strong sales in Europe, but Ford is now watching from the sidelines. The company is dead set on selling SUVs and the occasional Mustang.

Ford Taurus

But Europe isn't the only place where Ford killed off its cars. The Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, and Taurus have been dead for years in the United States where the company switched focus (get it?) to big crossovers and trucks. However, CEO Jim Farley recently said Americans need to embrace smaller cars—the very ones Ford no longer offers.

In an interview with CNBC at the Aspen Ideas Festival in late June, Ford's head honcho said: "We have to start to get back in love with smaller vehicles. It's super important for our society and for EV adoption. We are just in love with these monster vehicles, and I love them too, but it's a major issue with weight."

At least for now, this statement shouldn't be mistaken for a promise from Ford about selling smaller cars. America is a truck country after all. However, the situation is different in Europe where people prefer more sensibly sized cars. With the EU set to effectively ban sales of new gas/diesel cars in 2035, it's likely too late in the game for a revival of the Fiesta and/or Mondeo.

The Focus is on its way out, so the next years are shaping up to be difficult for Ford in Europe, considering rivals haven't abandoned regular cars. To make matters worse, EV growth is slowing down in Europe, with ACEA numbers showing electric cars were up by only 1.3 percent through June. That's a worrying sign Ford's electric Puma, Explorer, and Capri might not perform as initially estimated.

Ford Puma ST

The silver lining for Ford of Europe is that the not-for-America gas Puma subcompact crossover is still selling like hotcakes. Deliveries rose by 8.4 percent to 83,668 units in H1 2024. However, the bigger Kuga (Escape in the US) suffered a decline of 10.1 percent to 54,995 vehicles.

The decision to channel its efforts into crossovers and EVs doesn't seem to be paying off for Ford, especially when compared to how rival companies are performing in Europe. It saddens me to see the death of true Fords to make room for VW-derived products that are far more expensive.

Check Out These Features

Source: ACEA, Dataforce

Monterey Car Week has become the go-to car event for manufacturers to reveal their latest models. The mid-August collection of car shows, parties, and concours happening on the California coast is no different for 2024, where we expect some of the biggest debuts of the year from the likes of Lamborghini, Pagani, BMW, Rimac, and more. 

We've put together a rundown of all of the important debuts and reveals you can expect from Monterey Car Week, happening August 12 through 18. No matter what you're into, we bet there's something cool coming out for you. 

BMW M5 Touring

BMW confirmed back in April it would sell the upcoming M5 Touring in the United States, and it plans to show the car to the world for the first time in Monterey. This will be the first M-badged wagon sold in America, giving Stateside buyers a taste of the usually forbidden fruit.

We expect the M5 Touring to share its mechanicals with the M5 sedan revealed back in June. That means 717 horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque from a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V-8 and an electric motor, sending thrust to all four wheels. Because of the extra bodywork, the M5 Touring should also be even heavier than the 5,390-pound sedan. Pricing should start somewhere around $130,000, with deliveries beginning by 2025.

Cadillac Sollei Concept

The Cadillac Sollei concept is a stunner. The name is a combination of the words SOL, for the sun, and LEIsure—and this is Cadillac's first new hand-built car in more than 50 years. The open-top, four-seat luxury vehicle was inspired by the equally stunning Ciel concept from 2011, but it uses the Celestiq's Ultium electric platform underneath. The exterior and interior wear an Aurora Yellow paint job inspired by the vehicle's name, while meticulously hand-cut wood veneers line the interior.

Will Cadillac produce this beautiful droptop? Your guess is as good as ours. But the company did say that this vehicle would preview the near-limitless possibilities of bespoke commissions in the future.

355 By Evoluto

Evoluto Automobili announced in July its plans to create a limited run of sports cars based on the Ferrari F355. Called the 355 by Evoluto, it will make its global debut at Monterey. Each of the 55 examples will use new carbon fiber body panels designed by Ian Callum, along with new exterior lighting, modern aerodynamics, and a redesigned interior.

Powering the 355 by Evoluto is a naturally aspirated flat-plane crank V-8 making 420 horsepower (45 more horses than the original car). Thankfully power is still sent to the rear wheels via a gated six-speed manual transmission. There’s also upgraded Brembo brakes and a 23-percent stiffer chassis thanks to a process the firm calls “carbon fusing.” There’s no word on price, though it’s safe to assume this car will cost much more than a standard F355.

Honda HP-X Concept

Honda is bringing something special to Monterey Car Week. At this year's Concours d'Elegance, the Japanese Automaker will roll out its first sports car concept: The HP-X. Built in 1984 for the Turin Motor Show, the 40-year-old concept car will compete on the main lawn during Sunday's Concours event. The concept underwent a full ground-up restoration, and it will be the first Japanese car on the main event field in over 50 years.

Lamborghini Huracán Successor

The biggest reveal of Monterey Car Week 2024 will be Lamborghini’s Huracán successor. Trademark filings suggest the car will be called Temerario, the Italian word for reckless. Expected to go on sale in 2025, the Temerario should have a starting price somewhere around $300,000. 

Purists will have to get to grips with the Temerario’s new engine. Gone is the widely championed 5.2-liter naturally aspirated V-10, replaced with a twin-turbo V-8 making 789 horsepower. Combined with standard hybrid assistance, the car will make over 887 hp, per CEO Stephan Winkelmann. The engine should also be able to rev to 10,000 rpm, suggesting a uniquely exciting exhaust note.

Maserati MC20-Based 'Super Sports Car'

Maserati announced last week it plans to reveal a new “super sports car” at Monterey, based on its mid-engine MC20. The company says the new car will “inherit the racing spirit of the Maserati GT2,” its factory race car. The reveal itself will happen at The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering on Friday, August 16.

We expect to see an MC20 with more aero and a bit more power from its 621-horsepower twin-turbo V-6 engine, akin to something like Porsche’s 911 GT3 RS. There’s no word on pricing, availability, or delivery start dates, though at least some of that info should be available once the car is revealed.

NILU Hypercar

Nilu27 is a new brand from renowned designer Sasha Selipanov. Its first car, the NILU Hypercar, is aimed directly at purists' hearts. It comes complete with a naturally aspirated V-12 from Hartley Engines, rated at over 1,000 horsepower. The only transmission choice is a seven-speed gated manual from CIMA, sending power to the rear wheels.

The NILU is all about the analog experience. There are no buttons on the steering wheel, and all of the interior adjustments, like the pedal box, the headrest, and the door mirrors, are done manually. The only screen is mounted in the rear-view mirror to help with reversing. Nilu27 plans to build 15 track-only models before moving to 54 additional street-legal units.

Pagani Utopia Roadster 

As if the Pagani Utopia weren’t pretty enough, the Italian supercar maker is debuting a drop-top version of its latest hypercar in Monterey. The Pagani Utopia Roadster loses its roof but weighs exactly the same as the coupe: 2,822 pounds dry. It also has the same twin-turbocharged 6.0-liter V-12 engine as the coupe, making 852 horsepower and 811 pound-feet of torque, paired to either a seven-speed manual or a seven-speed automated manual with paddle shifters. The Utopia Roadster has a top speed of 217 miles per hour.

Want one? Pagani is asking €3.1 million each (or about $3.4 million USD) for a Utopia Roadster. The company only plans to build 130 examples worldwide.

Pininfarina

The $2.5-million, 1,827-horsepower Pininfarina Battista is already an exclusive hypercar. But at Car Week, Pininfarina will debut a special vehicle that promises to be even more exclusive. Pininfarina describes its latest one-off as an “entirely new vehicle.” We still don't know what it is, and the lone teaser image doesn't give us any hints, but we expect it to be plenty powerful and extremely pricey.

Rimac

Rimac hasn't officially confirmed anything for Monterey, so your guess is as good as ours. But the electric supercar maker did release a teaser video recently that suggests, “a new storm has swept through.” The Nevera's name means a “sudden storm” in Croatian, so does that mean we could see a more powerful version of the Nevera in Monterey? Or a new supercar entirely? We'll have to wait and see what the company has planned when Car Week kicks off.

More From Monterey

If you haven’t read the introduction post already, I’m building a hybrid sports car in my garage. Yes, an entire sports car, top to bottom. 

It’s intended to be "open-source" when complete, with every part fabricated off-site. That means every component needs a specification, the whole build planned out before any custom hardware is ordered. 

The engine is a focal point of the project, especially how it relates to the car’s other components. Let’s talk about it. 

For my project, I’m using a BMW K1600 motorcycle engine. It’s a 1.6-liter, makes 160 horsepower, and revs out to 8,500 rpm. It weighs 226 pounds, including the six-speed sequential transmission, which makes it pretty light overall. It’s a great foundation for any lightweight sports car.

However, there are some drawbacks to the K1600 mill, but not ones necessarily unique to this engine. I grappled with these issues for a long time without actually buying an engine, but eventually I caved. A low-mileage example is now in my garage, finally hoisted up on an engine crane so I can take some better scans and figure out how this is all going to work.

Key Details

I’ve mentioned before how this engine spins the wrong way compared to a car engine. In terms of planning, that hasn’t complicated things a ton. Other smaller quirks are really the bulk of what I’m figuring out now.

The first big decision was general engine placement. I knew I was going mid-engine, so everything sort of revolved around that. I got a rough and ready scan of the motor on its shipping dolly to help figure out how it might all work.

This scan isn’t perfect, but it gives me the size of the engine as well as some locations of key components. Easily the most important part of this whole engine placement issue is the transmission's output shaft. Since this unit is normally installed on a motorcycle, the output is not centered. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is.

I want my wheelbase as short as possible. When I started, I set a goal of less than 90 inches, which quickly became impossible. It all has to do with the rear subframe and the passenger area.

The passenger area must be a certain length to accommodate the driver. I have a human analog in my CAD model that’s about my size. I’ve also taken rough scans of a few cars to lay over my own interior, ensuring my work isn’t way off the mark. Front to rear, I give the passengers 54 inches to stretch their legs. A little gets taken out due to the seat and pedal placement, but that’s a chat for another project journal. 

My front axle centerline sits 15 inches ahead of this 54-inch passenger area. That’s as close as I’m comfortable putting the front wheels to the frame. Now that the front axle centerline and passenger volume are fixed, the wheelbase is completely at the mercy of the engine and rear differential placement. 

It’s hard to enumerate exactly how complex this issue is. It’s not complex conceptually, but there are so many facets to it.

So I wanted to keep the wheelbase short. First things first, I moved the engine right up against the firewall. Okay, that got me a few inches. Now it’s time to select a differential to get power to the rear wheels. I really wanted to use the diff out of the Audi A4 B8 like I did in the front—commonality of axles and wheel bearings would be nice (the Audi stuff is also very cheap)—but it just didn’t pan out. 

The Audi diff’s tail section proved to be too long. As a result, the wheelbase would be lengthened artificially, for no good reason, since the differential mounts more or less right up to the transmission output shaft.

I looked through a ton of options and eventually landed on a BMW differential, the so-called “small case” diff installed in a ton of cars including the BMW Z3, the earlier E30, and the E36 3 Series. It has a very short distance between the output flanges and the input shaft—the shortest I’ve seen—and it’s available in the high gearing ratios this motorcycle engine needs. 

Okay, so I found the diff. It looks like it could mount okay, and the ratio is perfect. The wheelbase is still too long, though. At this point, I wondered how much I could angle the CV axles forward to shorten the wheelbase. Anything past 15-20 degrees and your CV axles won’t last long. 

Even modest angles presented another problem. The BMW drivetrain sat centered in the car up to this point, and since the output shaft of the transmission is offset, the differential is not centered in the car. This isn’t an issue if your axle angles are relatively straight, but once they're tilted forward, the angle is more extreme on one side.

A decision had to be made. Lengthen the wheelbase to improve the CV angle, live with severely angled and short CV axles, or move the engine over to center the differential. While there’s no perfect decision, I went with the third one.

The bad parts: the single heaviest part of the car is now off the vehicle centerline, the engine mounting is more annoying, and plumbing for things like the intake and exhaust is trickier. I’m sure there are others I have yet to discover as well.

The good outweighs the bad. Yes, the engine is now off the centerline of the car which is a mass distribution issue, but the transmission output location means the engine moves to the passenger’s side. The weight of the driver offsets the engine and there’s room on that end for a fuel tank, too. The actual corner weights of the car will be set with a half tank of fuel and the driver in place. I think that will be plenty to get the mass equation sorted out.

Now I have equal axle lengths which means I can order two of the same custom axle, which will save time and money. Likewise, I can run my angle right up to 15 degrees to minimize the wheelbase. Sure, the intake and exhaust are a little wonky but those parts have to be custom anyway. In the end, the wheelbase adds up to 98 inches, which is longer than a Miata but shorter than a BRZ/GR86.

If you want a very short wheelbase in a mid-engined car, you need to make many creative compromises regarding the passenger area, the rear transaxle, or both. This is where I’ll briefly touch on a fourth option, which is to mount the engine and differential on the car's centerline. 

The issue is that there’s no good way to do it when you really examine the problem. You end up on an inescapable spectrum between sketchy and expensive, where you’re always adding weight to solve the problem. The wheelbase advantage of this more central layout is also negligible in the end. There are a few pros, yes, but it’s just not worth the trouble.

Direct drive with an offset engine is the lightest, cheapest, simplest, and most reliable option. 

This was supposed to be a post about the engine, right? It’s easy to get off track, though. Few decisions on this project exist in a vacuum. Once the scans start to land in CAD, tough decisions have to be made.

It really makes you feel for engineers developing sports cars that use a lot of parts from other cars. Those guys don’t have the luxury of developing new transaxles or engines to optimize the entire car as a package, they're handed parts they must use and have to make the best of it. They’re also dealing with tons of other constraints like crash safety, fuel economy, internal engineering requirements, and—god forgive me for saying this—marketing. It’s a tremendous challenge. 

And if the car produced by all these compromises and challenges is not particularly well received? What a punch in the gut. 

I always keep that in mind when I do this. This project is difficult, expensive, and time-consuming, but in the end it’s a drop in the bucket compared to an actual production car. 

There’s a lot more work to be done before I get the next update out the door, but it will be more substantive in terms of actual progress. I’m currently in the thick of finding suppliers and sponsors, which isn’t very exciting from the outside, but I have to make more design progress to move that process forward as well.

See you next time.

The Chrysler Firepower concept debuted at the 2005 Detroit Auto Show as a follow-up to the radical ME Four-Twelve supercar revealed a year earlier. This car would serve as a bridge between the Crossfire (on sale at the time) and the aspirational ME supercar, and would use the Dodge Viper chassis. The Firepower previewed what might have been possible for the brand as Chrysler tried to infuse high-performance driving dynamics and a premium feel into its future products. But it never came to fruition.

Chrysler explored the idea of producing the Firepower for nearly two years before Trevor Creed, former senior vice president of Chrysler Group Design, revealed to Ward's Auto in 2006 that the company "couldn't find a viable way to do it." Just like that, Chrysler's lux'd-up take on the Dodge Viper was forever put on a shelf, but not forgotten.

This is Concept We Forgot, our deep dive into the weird and wonderful concept cars you might not remember.

The Firepower wouldn't have been a Viper clone, even though it had the same platform and wheelbase. The automaker installed an SRT-developed 6.1-liter Hemi V-8 engine under the hood from the then-new 300C SRT-8 instead of the Dodge's snarling 8.3-liter V-10. It also swapped the Viper's Tremec six-speed manual for a more comfort-oriented five-speed automatic with Chrysler's AutoStick function, which gave drivers manual control over the gear selection. The V-8 made 425 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque, 100 hp and 105 lb-ft less than the 2005 Viper.

The Firepower was supposed to be a Corvette rival. The C6 that Chevrolet launched for 2005 had a 6.0-liter V-8 making 400 horsepower and 400 pound-feet of torque. It could hit 60 miles per hour in the mid-four-second range and a top speed of 186 mph. The Firepower, meanwhile, sprinted to 60 in 4.5 seconds and could reach 175 mph, according to Chrysler's original press release.

And more importantly, it looked awesome. Brian Nielander is currently the Exterior Chief Designer for Dodge, but he also styled the ME Four-Twelve and penned the Firepower's exterior. At the time, Chrysler’s upper management was looking for young designers with fresh ideas, Nielander told us in an interview earlier this week. The automaker was interested in further exploring the brand’s performance side after the launch of the Chrysler 300 in 2004 and the Crossfire in 2003. 

"We had the Viper chassis and platform, and we were trying to figure out what to do" about using the architecture for a Chrysler model, Nielander said. He couldn’t point to a specific make or model that influenced the Firepower’s design, but a lot of the styling elements were an evolution of the Crossfire, with "a little bit of Aston."

"We had the Viper chassis and platform, and we were trying to figure out what to do."

Greg Howell, now Jeep’s Exterior Chief Designer, designed the cabin. He combined Ocean Deep Blue with Oyster leather and Behr maple accents. Chrysler also added luxury features one would expect from a premium GT offering, such as leather sport seats, automatic climate control, milled aluminum trim, ornate features, and premium audio—but it never had the opportunity to help redefine the brand.

"Greg had the freedom to conjure up something beautiful," Nielander said. "I thought it was one of the best interiors we’ve ever done. It was super expressive and super beautiful." 

While Chrysler started 2005 with a bang by revealing the Firepower, dark times loomed for the industry and its relationship with Daimler. In 2005, General Motors and Ford suffered heavy financial losses, and while Chrysler was the only US automaker to report a profit that year, 2006 was a bloodbath for the industry.

The Firepower program got "pretty far along," according to Nielander. But months before the company was able to green-light the sports car, Chrysler lost $1.5 billion in a single quarter. With a lineup of cars no one wanted to buy, inventories ballooned, and executives searched high and low for new profitable models and cost savings, which did not include a costly, low-volume sports car like the Firepower.

It was quite a turn from earlier in the year when Chrysler Group CEO Tom LaSorda said in January 2006 that the Firepower was still "on our agenda."

"It kinda stung not seeing it [enter production]" Nielander said. "Every car designer that’s out there dreams to see their car on the road." But, Nielander says the fact that it never reached production almost "makes it more special."

Higher-ups approved a different concept for production—the Challenger. And while it’s a shame something as gorgeous as the Firepower never entered production, concept cars "play a lot of important roles and can influence future design," said Irina Zavatski, Vice President of Chrysler Exterior Design. "It inspires and challenges people to do new things, and it drivers a lot of inspiration."

Concepts serve multiple purposes like introducing new technologies or materials, or testing the public’s reaction to new designs and ideas. Chrysler’s futuristic-looking Halcyon EV concept, much like the Firepower, hopes to push the brand in new directions.  

The DaimlerChrysler partnership would eventually come under serious strain. A clash of cultures between Stuttgart and Auburn Hills made managing the massive global company searching for synergies difficult.

In mid-2007, a few months after Creed revealed Chrysler would not put the Firepower into production, DaimlerChrysler split. The merger was valued at $36 billion in 1998, but Daimler would end up selling Chrysler to Cerberus Capital Management for just $7.4 billion.

But that still didn’t alleviate Chrysler's financial troubles, and it ended up filing for bankruptcy two years later in mid-2009, ceasing all production during the reorganization. The company's Conner Avenue Assembly Plant in Detroit, where it had built the Viper, was the first Chrysler factory to restart operations in July 2009, but it had a new owner with Fiat that had its own ideas about how to revive the struggling automaker, which didn’t include the Firepower. 

FCA would resurrect the Viper three years later, while the Firepower would end up on display at the Walter P. Chrysler Museum, which permanently closed at the end of 2016. Many of the cars that were at the museum remain in Chrysler’s possession, including the Firepower, which Nielander said he saw just a few months ago, and it was in “good shape.” Good to hear.

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