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Hot air balloons caught in high winds drag fullsize SUV

A sudden storm front whipped up enough wind to send some hot air balloons flying into the air in Wisconsin over the weekend. One ballon proved so energetic that it was able to drag a fullsize SUV across a field and into a stand of tents. The freak accident occurred at Balloonfest in Waterford, Wisconsin. Spectators were horrified as balloons dragged handlers to the ground and launched with terrified pilots clinging to their baskets. Organizers had started packing up the colorful balloons due to ominous storm clouds when the wind kicked up. "Happened just like that; it was crazy," Nathan Fricke, crew member, told Fox 6. Winds were clocked at 40 to 50 miles per hour. A balloon caught in the wind dragged a large SUV (we think a Suburban or Yukon XL) hundreds of feet and into a cluster of tents on the edge of the staging area where balloons were on display for festival goers. Considering that the SUV surely weighs well over 5,000 pounds, it's lucky that no one was injured in the incident. News Source: Fox6Now Weird Car News Chevrolet GM GMC SUV

Buyers ditching expensive European sedans to buy expensive American trucks

The New York Times ended the automotive week with a story that adds numbers and context to a range of other stories, from the crossover craze to the increasing median price of a new car to ever more grandiose pickup trucks. The NYT piece reveals that the shift to larger vehicles isn't merely about the average U.S. buyer swapping the midsize sedan for a Ford Edge. Luxury buyers are migrating from plush sedans to plush SUVs and trucks that creep close to six-figure prices, and the Detroit Three are running Treasury presses because of it. From 2013 to 2017, the truck category — everything from pickups to minivans — climbed from 30 percent of the market to 41 percent. In January of this year, trucks claimed 66 percent of new vehicle sales. At the milk-and-honey end of profits, GMC alone accounted for 11.3 percent of all vehicle sales over $60,000, not just trucks. That puts the luxury truck maker behind Mercedes-Benz and Ford, The Blue Oval's feasting on Lariat, King Ranch and Raptor versions of the F-150, which make up more than half of that pickup's sales, putting it ahead of Chevrolet, Porsche and Lexus on the high-dollar sales list. The average transaction price of a GMC in Denali trim last year was $56,000; it's easy to see why, when one dealer told the NYT he just swapped a 2012 BMW 550i for a $71,000 GMC Sierra Denali. That truck starts at $52,900. The NYT started its story with a buyer who took home a Ford Raptor instead of an Audi A6, and optioned that $50,020 Ford Raptor close to $80,000. Over at Lincoln, the new $72,055 Navigator — the one so popular that Ford will increase production — crossed hands for an average sale price of $77,000 in January. And a Jeep dealer told the NYT that the two $93,000 Trackhawks he had on his lot "won't be here more than a few weeks." While trucks head up in sales volume and price, cars are headed so viciously in the opposite direction that "the Detroit Three and even some foreign manufacturers acknowledge they are now losing money on many of the cars they sell." So ... get ready for a lot more crossovers and trucks. Related Video: Find out what vehicle is right for you. Give our Car Finder tool a try.

Could the GMC Jimmy come back as a Wrangler fighter?

Every three or four years, two cars go into heavy media rotation in stories about supposed new competitors. The headlines go something like, "X automaker working on a vehicle to fight the iconic Y." The Y cars are the Porsche 911 and the Jeep Wrangler. For this story, the X automaker is GM. And since GM already has its 911-fighter poised for debut next month, we speak here of the Wrangler. Car and Driver writes that GMC might take another shot at a Jeep challenger, this time by rebirthing a body-on-frame Jimmy SUV. For any who don't know, GMC sold an S-15 Jimmy from 1982 to 2005, a twin of the Chevrolet S-10 Blazer. Those SUVs started their lives as the Chevrolet S-10 and GMC S-15/Sonoma pickups. The Blazer name has returned to the light, albeit without its old-school rugged manners. There's still an opening on the GMC side, though, so C/D says the idea would be to work that old magic on the GMC Canyon pickup. The report is more chaff than grist for the rumormill, with liberal application of phrases like "looking to come up with," "could be," "could take," and "could arrive." Having said that, a potential Jimmy model could come in a few years, could use the same six-cylinder gas and four-cylinder diesel engines as the Canyon, and could start around $30,000. The Jimmy could wear GMC's new mud-and-guts AT4 trim name, or become a mud-and-guts trim for the Canyon just as the ZR2 is for the Colorado. It's not an entirely crazy idea, however, when a body-on-frame Trailblazer SUV based on the Colorado sells in Latin America, Asia, and Australia and does pretty well in the mud and muck. GM's been on the edge of going to war with the Wrangler for at least 12 years, when a Hummer exec said the HX concept would debut at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show and go on sale in 2010 as the H4. In 2015, The Wall Street Journal said GM was canvassing GMC dealers about something to get in the ring with the Wrangler. And all that was before every other automaker had to watch Jeep open a money-counting operation to handle its Wrangler profits, and dealers started charging $20,000 markups on Gladiators. In May, spy shooters caught a sensor-laden Jeep running at GM's Milford Proving Grounds in Michigan. Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported GM is considering a Hummer revival as an all-electric hardcore SUV. So we will not be surprised if GM rolls out a Wrangler fighter in the near-ish future. But we won't be surprised if GM doesn't, either.