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Autoblog Minute: Ford Ranger, UK Mustang, Hyundai Hybrid

Ford may bring the Ranger back to the US, the UK goes nuts over the Mustang, and the battle of hybrids heats up with spy shots of the Toyota Prius and a new Hyundai. Autoblog's senior editor Greg Migliore reports on the weekly recap edition of Autoblog Minute. Show full video transcript text [00:00:00] Ford may bring the Ranger back to the US, the UK goes nuts over Mustang, and the battle of hybrids heats up with spy shots of Prius and a new Hyundai. I'm Autoblog senior editor Greg Migliore and this is your Autoblog Minute weekly recap. 2011 was the last time we saw Ford's midsize pickup in the US but according to a report from the Detroit News we could see production of the Ranger at the [00:00:30] Dearborn automaker's Michigan Assembly Plant as early as 2018. Ranger could compete with the Chevy Colorado and perhaps revive the compact and midsize pickup market for Ford, but the future of Ranger in the US depends a lot on Ford's ongoing negotiations with the UAW. About 2,000 orders for the 2015 Mustang were placed in the UK, tying up production of the pony car until July 2016. According to details in a press release from Ford UK, [00:01:00] it looks like Brits are a lot like their American cousins, opting for the 5.0 liter V8, with Race Red as the popular color of choice. Photos of the 2016 Toyota Prius leaked generating a lot of buzz over the styling. This fourth generation Prius will have some new competition as spy shots of a new Hyundai also surfaced this week. The car is said to be a hybrid and a bonafide "Prius fighter." Those are the highlights from the week that was. Be sure to check out my full recap this Saturday, [00:01:30] including the latest in FCA rumors for 2016. For Autoblog, I'm Greg Migliore. Autoblog Minute is a short-form video news series reporting on all things automotive. Each segment offers a quick and clear picture of what's happening in the automotive industry from the perspective of Autoblog's expert editorial staff, auto executives, and industry professionals. UAW/Unions Ford GMC Hyundai Toyota Truck Hybrid Autoblog Minute Videos Original Video

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.

Sunday Drive: Spying an automotive future of performance

I spy, with my little eye ... the future of the automotive world here in the United States. That pretty much sums up this week's Sunday Drive, in which we pull out the most popular stories on Autoblog of the previous week and try to draw some sort of conclusion as to what binds them all together. This week, it's spy shots, starting with one of the biggest and baddest muscle cars the world has ever seen: the Dodge Challenger Hellcat. The Hellish coupe gets a new hood for 2019 with dual scoops, but that's about the only meaningful change for the new model year. No matter. As long as it's packing 700-plus horsepower under those two hood scoops, all will be right with the world. Moving on, we take keep the performance angle but move it from the street to the dirt with a new version of the Chevy Colorado ZR2 that we think is probably called the Bison. We think it'll keep the high-tech suspension bits of the regular ZR2, but add expedition gear that may include a snorkel and a winch. Which, if true, is pretty dang cool. Keeping the truck theme is the 2019 GMC Sierra. There's nothing particularly noteworthy about the trim level in which the truck was spied, and that's what makes this specific example interesting. Base-model trucks almost never get much attention, but they sell in droves to workers who need an honest-to-goodness truck for work or play and don't care about bells, whistles, or massive chrome badges. And finally we have the 2018 Jeep Wrangler, which is on fire on the sales floor right now. But those are all V6-powered Wranglers flying off the showroom floor. Soon, a turbocharged four-cylinder engine option will become available, and now we know that it will return up to 23 miles per gallon in the city and 25 on the highway. That makes it the most fuel efficient Wrangler that Jeep has ever sold. As always, stay tuned to Autoblog this week for all the automotive news that's fit to publish. 2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat with twin-scoop hood spied with no camouflage Chevy Colorado ZR2 Bison caught testing 2019 GMC Sierra 1500 spied in base trim level 2018 Jeep Wrangler four-cylinder fuel economy revealed Spy Photos Chevrolet Dodge GMC Jeep Truck Coupe SUV Off-Road Vehicles Performance dodge challenger srt hellcat sunday drive