It takes lightning-fast reflexes, endurance and athleticism, and a general disregard for personal safety to be great on the track. But then there are the ones who stand apart: the legends.
If those with little personality and no detectable level of driving skill get their way, the Google Autonomous Car will be the most welcomed news of their humdrum adult lives. Sure, it has a place in the automotive landscape, mitigating traffic and hopefully decreasing the number of accidents, but it also excites us as much as a bowl of Grape Nuts and skim milk.
The Continental name has been a part of the Bentley family since the early 1950s.
The Porsche 918, the McLaren P1 and the Ferrari LaFerrari are still all about superlatives — fastest, best handling, most exotic. But they also repurpose the latest technology to maximize the “dear lord” factor.
Not that long ago, “Korean Luxury Car” sounded a lot like “Hardee’s Beef Wellington”. Something was clearly lost in both translation and execution — but those days are gone now.
We’ve been witness over the past few years of the rise of city bikes, hybrids, electric, and clean burning diesel cars; we’ve also seen prototypes of urban personal mobility vehicles, whose use will likely rise dramatically in the coming decades due to increased urbanization. And it’s our far east friends in Japan who at the forefront of the development of such vehicles, from robotically-assisted exoskeletons to enclosed electric scooters to portable motorized chairs.
While the majority of Americans look for their next vehicle at their local car dealership or online, there are some who spend countless hours to hunt down and import foreign cars that were never sold here in the states, at least legally. One of those grails just might finally be legally accessible to enthusiasts and collectors here in the U.S.
BMW has spent the past several years making its cars more luxurious and better appointed for its upmarket customers. While BMW was upping the luxury, Lexus was moving in the opposite direction, not by making their cars any less luxurious, but instead placing a stronger emphasis — maybe even a bull’s-eye target — on sportiness.
The Subaru Impreza WRX (nicknamed “Rex” by loyalists) has a cult following to almost rival the Beatles (smaller and younger, but just as fanatic). New iterations or improvements often make fan clubs and enthusiasts both skeptical and nervous; you can’t mess with perfection, and the Subaru Impreza WRX is pretty close.
Audi has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans 12 out of the last 14 years, a feat that cannot be understated. But there’s another brand whose record at the race is yet unmatched: Porsche, which has 16 wins total.
When Jaguar introduced their iconic E-Type in the early 1960s it turned heads and changed lives; new for 2014, the Jaguar F-Type ($69,000) looks to do exactly the same thing.
The Volvo station wagon has returned, and it’s called the 2015 Volvo V60 Sportswagon ($35,300).
America, as a whole, hates station wagons. But instead of despising the wood paneling, the center-of-gravity elevating roof loads and the smell of cheap vinyl seats, we should be clinging to every bit of wagon-dom that we can — who knows how much longer they’ll be around?
As much as I’d love to press my garage door opener and find a wickedly fast Audi A6 Avant 3.0 TDI bi-turbo or Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG S 4Matic Wagon waiting within, the real wagon of my dreams might actually be even more difficult to come by and definitely moves at geologic speed compared to the aforementioned family rocket sleds.
It’s no longer enough for a big SUV to transport seven; it has to look good and feel good (for both driver and passengers) while doing it. Our intrepid Octane crew drove five of the best seven-passenger SUVs out there and found a flavor for just about anyone.
For the fortunate few who need to do serious work in a serious world (or for those with big amounts of extra coin laying around), there are two serious players at opposite ends of the cost spectrum: the Mercedes-Benz Unimog U5000 and the Bremach T-Rex. Whether it’s off-road adventure, payload hauling or search and rescue, both mean business.
The best way to appreciate NASCAR is not by cracking a Bud and plopping on the couch but by getting in the driver’s seat.
Becoming a skilled driver is about more than going fast and having the will to beat everyone else. Understanding physics, driving the line well and having hours under your belt in both your vehicle and the track or road on which you’ll drive all play key roles in maximizing your abilities.
Kids love cars and trucks and things that go — get ’em hooked early and they’ll be motorheads for life. Whether you want to start small with miniature die-cast models, build patience with tedious model-building or see how well your offspring hoon, there’s a car toy out there that’ll fit the bill.
You know Buick, but you probably don’t know their rich motoring history: they won the inaugural race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, are the oldest American automotive brand still producing cars and led industry innovations such as the overhead camshaft, a closed body car and turn signals. So how does a brand more than 100 years old compete in the 21st century?