2019 Land Rover Range Rover 3.0l V6 Supercharged Hse on 2040-cars

Auto blog

April Fools' Day brings Jeep Sedan, Hyundai N Roadster, Toyota Yaris pickup and more

There is one day out of the year when public relations professionals have permission to lie to journalists and to the public: April Fools' Day. Manufacturers release details about wild, weird and wacky new technology, concept vehicles and services. Some take it to obvious outlandish extremes (Jeep Sedan anybody?), while others plot to mislead with products that are just outside the realm of possibility. Check out all the "jokes" below. BMW Motorrad BMW doesn't want to exclude anybody from experiencing the thrill of high-level racing, so it is introducing 'iRace" autonomous programming on its S 1000 RR sport bike. It includes beginner, sportsman, advanced and unlimited driving modes, and stores GPS information for all Superbike world championship tracks. Hyundai Hyundai is wrong for this. The Hyundai N Roadster is the work of South Korean designer Yeonjoon Park and features a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine, rear-wheel drive and a hard convertible top. Hyundai says this is a "concept (for now)," but we think it'd make a seriously great Mazda Miata competitor. Honda Honda wins the award for the best interactive gimmick, as its press release for the '90s-inspired special-edition Pastport includes a live hotline number with a message from Fred Savage. Call 1-833-PASTPORT for more information. Jeep Put the Jeep Cherokee face on the Chrysler 300's body, and voila! The 2019 Jeep Sedan is born. We can't decide if the name or the rendering is better. Land Rover Accessibility to charging ports is of major concern to anybody with a plug-in vehicle. So, with the recent launch of the Range Rover P400e and Range Rover Sport P400e, Land Rover is putting forth an effort to install more stations around the globe. First up is Scotland's Isle of Skye. Adventurers need juice too! Lexus Australia Lexus expands its Encore service to include doggos. The new service, called Enpaw, will take pups to luxury boarding kennels in style. Toyota U.S. Toyota created the Yaris Adventure pickup for "those who want to tell their friends they own a truck but never veer off pavement." It's part Mazda 2, part RAV4, 100 percent ute and it looks ... great? Creating a new segment might be all fun and games to Toyota, but Ford is reportedly considering a Focus-based ute in a similar, albeit larger, style. Toyota Australia Toyota is launching a new HiAce van, and it's already getting a limited-edition variant called the PieAce.

Ford's J Mays feels vindicated by Fusion reception

It's hard to think back now, but the same man overseeing the design of the 2013 Ford Fusion also presided over a rather lackluster period in Ford design, highlighted by vehicles like the Five Hundred and Freestyle. With the redesigned Fusion receiving high praise, J Mays tells Automotive News that he feels vindicated from criticisms suggesting he's not a daring enough designer.
When Mays took over as lead of design in 1997, he admits to having quite an ego ("My head would barely fit through the door some days. I've long since gotten over myself") and the workload to match. With the Blue Oval's portfolio full of premium brands like Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo at that point, along with the bread-and-butter Ford, Lincoln and Mercury models, Mays certainly had quite the challenge.
It was in the mid-2000s that Mays took over just the premium brands, and took on the new title of Chief Creative Officer. At the time, Mays endured some criticism for looking backwards to retro styling, rather than setting a new standard for American car design - criticism that Mays says he is free from with the all-new Fusion.

SVR plans to tune electrified Jaguar-Land Rover models, but not the I-Pace

Jaguar-Land Rover's SVR division has only put its name on high-horsepower gasoline-burning cars, like the XE Project 8 built in strictly limited numbers. It's open to the idea of tuning electrified models, whether they're electric or hybrid, but it confirmed it's not currently planning on making a spicier evolution of the I-Pace. "We will be developing electrified versions of our cars, be that fully electrified or plug-in hybrids," affirmed Michael van der Sande, the division's managing director, in an interview with Auto Express. But although the electric I-Pace (pictured) raced in a one-make race series held on the sidelines of Formula E events for two seasons, and SVR could credibly claim to inject track DNA into a street car, it stressed the I-Pace doesn't appear in its product plans for reasons that remain a little bit murky. Jaguar announced the end of the eTrophy series in May 2020, which might explain why it's reluctant to exploit racing's marketing power. "There are other various things we are working on which we can't talk about, but we're very interested in electrification. That's why we got involved in eTrophy," van der Sande clarified. "The technology transfer, the learning applies to that car and other cars but we're not planning an SVR I-Pace at the moment." His comments confirm we'll need to be patient to see what SVR's take on an electric or hybrid car looks like. One of the first electrified models to receive the go-fast treatment might be the next-generation XJ tentatively scheduled to make its debut before the end of 2020. It will be exclusively electric, though it won't look as radical as the I-Pace, so Jaguar will need to find a way to replace the hot-rodded XJR 575 model it positioned at the top of the last-generation model's line-up. It's not too far-fetched to speculate the next Range Rover also due out in the coming months will receive some degree of electrification, and it could spawn an SVR-tuned model, too. Related Video: