You Need A Ford Focus Rally Car What’s your winter beater like? Is it a rusted-out Outback, or maybe an old Ranger? Both are solid picks, but I posit that there’s a better winter car out there. Something that doesn’t just plod its way though snow, but can turn low-traction situations into genuine joy: A fully rally-prepped Ford Focus. Read more…

Elon Musk Is Planning To Bring His Useless Underground Loop To Dubai In an announcement of things that will definitely, for sure someday happen, Musk and the UAE’s AI minister Omar Al Olama unveiled this week plans for a new underground tunnel built by the Boring Company underneath Dubai. I guess they saw the Vegas Loop serving as a completely useful piece of infrastructure and wanted… Read more…

Audi Dakar Rally Car Tossed In Illegal Czech Dump Audi’s brief three-year stint competing at the Dakar Rally surprisingly ended with a victory last year as the German automaker shifted its focus and resources to its upcoming Formula One works program. Unsurprisingly, many of the uncompetitive RS Q e-tron rally prototypes were disposed of once the Dakar program was… Read more…

This 87-Year-Old Mercedes Bus Was A Mobile Post Office With The Wildest Front Overhang I’ve Ever Seen This week I was in Stuttgart, Germany to see some new Mercedes-Benz vehicles that I can’t talk about yet, which is too bad for you. But luckily for you, I also got to spend a few hours at the fabulous Mercedes-Benz Museum and can talk about all the wacky shit that’s in there, like this 1938 O 10000 that was used as a… Read more…

Who Played The Stig On Top Gear (Was It Really Michael Schumacher?) There are a few great mysteries in this world: how did Mesolithic man build Stonehenge, what the heck happened to flight MH370 and who the hell played The Stig on Top Gear? Thankfully, that third one is much easier to answer and won’t lead you down a conspiracy theory nightmare full of aliens, monsters and government… Read more…

Republican Senators Introduce Bills To Kill The EV Tax Credit And Add On A $1,000 Tax To Electric Cars The Trump administration’s attack on EVs started almost immediately. Billions are being cut from state EV programs. And things may get worse if a handful of Republican senators get their way. Read more…

At $11,500, Will This 2002 Mercedes E55 AMG Make For A Fast Sale? According to its seller, today’s Nice Price or No Dice E55 AMG has been ceramic coated, which explains its crazy-shiny appearance. Let’s see if we all take a shine to this performance sedan’s price. Read more…

Hertz Lost $2.9 Billion After EV Gamble Didn’t Pay Off Happy Valentine’s Day! It’s Friday, February 14, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. Read more…

Boeing 737 Max Hits Car In The Middle of Runway During Takeoff Takeoff and landing are the most dangerous parts of any flight, and the fatal mid-air collision in Washington, DC two weeks ago highlighted this. A Gol Boeing 737 Max collided with a ground vehicle while taking off from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Thankfully, the flight crew stopped the airliner before the end of the… Read more…

Here’s How Fast A Car Has To Be Before You Think It’s Too Fast Supercars can go so much faster than they could ever legally go on an American public road for as long as there have been supercars, so what’s the point in continuing to raise the top speed? Do you really need to be able to go faster than 85 miles per hour at all, anyway? Earlier this week we asked our readers to tell… Read more…

Bezos’ Blue Origin Thinks It Will Compete With SpaceX By Laying Off 10 Percent Of Workforce The marketplace for private space enterprises is far from free, especially with SpaceX CEO and eagerly willing Martian sperm donor Elon Musk holding the purse strings of the federal government. SpaceX’s competitors can only sit back and prepare for the loss of its government contracts. Blue Origin announced on… Read more…

What Car Really Has The Worst Drivers? If you want to spot a bad driver on the highway, is there a telltale sign that gives them away? You know, something like a tacky bumper sticker, some slight drifting between lanes or maybe copious amounts of damage that shows that the driver doesn’t really know what they’re doing. According to a recent study, the best… Read more…

These Are The Non-Mercedes Vehicles That Hide AMG Power Under the Hood Unless you’re Bavarian, AMG is the defining three-letter initialism of German performance cars. The Mercedes division began in the late 1960s as an independent racing engine builder founded by two of the automaker’s former engineers. Despite its close ties to the three-pointed star, outside manufacturers have long… Read more…

Mazda And Toyota Developing The Next-Generation Miata and GR86 Together Would Just Make Too Much Sense In a perfect world, housing would be affordable enough, salaries would be high enough and cities would be walkable enough that anyone who wanted a sports car owned one. Sadly, we don’t live in a perfect world, and it’s getting harder and harder to justify buying a two-door car regardless of whether it’s a coupe or… Read more…

You Wake Up In 1996 And Your Dodge Viper Has Just Arrived Open your eyes: It’s 1996. Ol’ Slick Willie Clinton is in the White House, Donald Trump is still just a tacky businessman from “Home Alone 2,” the Dallas Cowboys have won Super Bowl XXX. You’ve never heard the terms “social media” and smart phones aren’t a thing yet. Dodge just introduced an updated version of its Vip… Read more…

Google Is Tired Of Being Told Its ‘Gulf Of America’ Name Change Is Wrong Earlier this year, after presumably solving every other more urgent problem facing American citizens, President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This move has very little meaning internationally, but American companies are already falling in lockstep with the… Read more…

We Need A Cheap Second Car To Pair With Our Outback! What Should We Buy? Dan and his wife live in Portland and predictably drive an Outback. They are looking for a second car mostly for driving around town in something more fun to drive than the Subaru. With a budget up to $15,000, what car should they buy? Read more…

Ford Quietly Kills The Transit Trail Over Supply Issues Ford quietly discontinued one of its off-road vehicles but don’t worry, it’s not the Bronco or any of the Raptormodels. It’s the Ford Transit Trail which you may have forgot existed unless you’re an influencer living that #VanLife. Read more…

Ted Cruz Claims Researching Self-Driving Cars And Solar Eclipses Advance ‘Neo-Marxist Class Warfare Propaganda’ There are plenty of completely valid reasons to be skeptical of self-driving cars. Safety concerns are very real, especially since even the most advanced robotaxi prototypes don’t always get it right in what should be simple situations, and that’s before you throw inclement weather into the equation. There are also… Read more…

The Best Deals On New SUVs For February 2025, According To Consumer Reports These days, you’ve got more options than ever if you’re looking to buy a new SUV or crossover. Even Ferrari’s gotten into the SUV game if you have $400,000 to spend. Sadly, most people don’t have nearly half a million dollars lying around, and even if they do, they probably don’t want to spend it on a car. Normal… Read more…