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DS Automobiles reimagines the Citroen SM for today

Citroen's most iconic machines run a thoroughly broad gamut from the humble 2CV to perhaps the most striking car it ever produced, the Maserati-powered personal luxury coupe called SM. It's this latter car being revisited by DS, the luxury brand spun off of Citroen with the name of the equally important mid-century Citroen DS. More specifically, it's being re-revisited, as the company revealed back in 2020 a bunch of renderings its designers put together imagining a modern version. According to the Design Director of DS, Thierry Metroz, the company received many comments on those designs and learned that people were "very attached to the iconic models from our heritage" and "they didn’t want the original design to be spoilt." So it took those comments into consideration, and kept playing with the idea until they reached the SM Tribute concept you see above. It's relatively close in size to the original in most respects. It's 1.2 inch longer, 0.8 inch taller, and has 1.4 inch less ground clearance. But it's far wider, gaining an extra 5.5 inches. It's crystal clear that most of its lines are pulled straight from the original, from the full-width headlight and daytime running light wedge at the front to the tapered kamm-style tail. The window openings are all shaped basically the same, including the wrap-around rear hatch glass. But there are updates found everywhere. Most notable are the reworked rear wheel spats that now have semi-circle cutouts to help highlight the 22-inch wheels. The ultra-thin taillights continue around the sides of the car over the top lines of those spats to emphasize the line. The car also features two-tone paint, with the black parts helping highlight the most classic lines of the car along the sides. It also helps hide the aerodynamic extensions and general heft of the SM Tribute's flanks compared to the original. The interior is arguably a bigger departure from the original than the exterior. There are still echoes of the original, such as with the shape of the dash top and concave instrument display, as well as the seats with horizontally stitched cushioning. The concept departs with its concave monolithic center screen, which also adopts a small puck for shifting instead of a chromed lever, and the instruments also are shown on a screen. The distinctive single spoke wheel of the original gives way to a rectangular yoke, and the door panels feature intricately detailed "laser-engraved" leather.

We drive the Bronco Sport Sasquatch, Hummer EV SUV and more | Autoblog Podcast #846

In this episode of the Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by Road Test Editor Zac Palmer. Zac recently went down to Tennessee to drive a prototype of the 2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch. Meanwhile the two also spent time in the 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV, 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLA 35 and 2024 Lexus LS 500h out of the fleet in Michigan. In the news, Rivian deals with a fire at its Normal, Illinois plant, Formula 1 comes back strong, and Volkswagen prices the ID.Buzz. Lastly, the two debate what old, executive sedan you should buy in a Spend My Money segment. Send us your questions for the Mailbag and Spend My Money at: Podcast@Autoblog.com. Autoblog Podcast #846 Get The Podcast Apple Podcasts – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes Spotify – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast on Spotify RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown Cars we're driving 2025 Ford Bronco Sport Sasquatch 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV 2024 Mercedes-AMG GLA 35 2024 Lexus LS 500h News Fire at the Rivian factory Formula 1 is back Volkswagen ID.Buzz gets a very high price Spend My Money Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on Apple Podcasts Autoblog is now live on your smart speakers and voice assistants with the audio Autoblog Daily Digest. Say “Hey Google, play the news from Autoblog” or "Alexa, open Autoblog" to get your favorite car website in audio form every day. A narrator will take you through the biggest stories or break down one of our comprehensive test drives. Related Video:  We check out the Rivian R1S and R1T along with 3 other surprises This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Koenigsegg Jesko Attack sets Laguna Seca production car record

Lap times and top speed specs are big business in the hypercar world, even if the cars’ owners never push them to their full potential. Automakers arenÂ’t quite as shy with the machines, however, frequently wringing them out for bragging rights. Koenigsegg recently took its Jesko Attack to Laguna Seca for the first time and set a time of 1:24.86, edging out the Czinger 21C by just 0.58 second to set the production car lap record. It did that time with Koenigsegg development driver Markus Lundh behind the wheel, who, like the car, was tackling the track for the first time. Koenigsegg has set several other records with the car, including the best lap time at SwedenÂ’s Gotland Ring, where it set a time of 2:56.97, nearly eight seconds faster than the Porsche 911 GT3 RS MR. The car also holds the record for accelerating to 400 km/h (249 mph) and braking back to a stop in just 27.83 seconds, more than a second faster than the bonkers Rimac Nevera. That performance is thanks to the carÂ’s twin-turbocharged 5.0-liter V8, which makes 1,280 horsepower during regular operation. Pumping E85 pushes that output to 1,600 horsepower, and the car makes 1,106 pound-feet of torque. The Jesko Attack has a large rear wing and significantly more downforce than the standard Jesko. Koenigsegg claims an additional 1,764 pounds of downforce for the Attack at 155 mph, which increases to a massive 3,086 pounds at the carÂ’s top speed. The Jesko Absolut, which is designed for top speed runs, builds on the Attack with different bodywork that Koenigsegg says cuts downforce and improves stability at high speed. Its body is around three inches longer, and the automaker said the aero development process alone took 3,000 hours, with another 5,000 on engineering.

Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series gives the rich and famous what they want

TOPANGA, Calif. – Give the people what they want, right? Especially if they're extremely wealthy. And possibly famous.  Apparently, the requests for a convertible Maybach from existing owners and/or celebrities were so frequent and insistent that the uber-luxury offshoot of Mercedes-Benz finally decided to give them just that. The 2025 Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series answers the call. While all other Maybachs are based on a Mercedes-Benz, this is the first Maybach to be based on a car developed by AMG: the current-generation SL 55 and SL 63. This presented a greater challenge to engineers than past efforts. Although a sportier Maybach was intended (as opposed to modern Maybach's first drop-top effort, the Maybach S 650 Cabriolet), the SL 680 is, not surprisingly, seeking a much different dynamic end goal than its AMG-only cousins. According to Maybach product manager Hannes Meyer, the far shorter wheelbase than the Maybach norm was a particular challenge in making sure that its convertible offering maintained "the same ease and nearly floating driving experience" expected of the brand. To that end, the Maybach SL shares the SL 63's air suspension and trick AMG Active Control interconnected hydraulically controlled dampers, but the tuning is changed, especially with the rear air springs as the driver sits closer to those. Meyer says the damper valves in particular have a greater range between sportiness and comfort than the SL 63. The steering system is totally Maybach-specific, including a different ratio and more upright front camber, resulting in what Meyer described as a more stable and less aggressive setup than what you'd find in the SL 63.  Before you start looking for a 6.8-liter engine in the Mercedes arsenal, remember that those numbers don't really mean anything anymore. The Maybach SL 680 has exactly the same 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 as the SL 63 good for 577 horsepower and 590 pound-feet of torque. The nine-speed AMG transmission is the same in terms of hardware, but it has totally different software. In particular, the 2-3 and 3-4 shifts are most different in order to provide a smoother, more Maybach acceleration experience. The 4Matic+ all-wheel-drive system is also shared, but is programmed to have a more balanced front-to-rear power split than the rear-biased AMG. Finally, the exhaust has been retuned. Meyer said that up to 2,800 rpm, the exhaust isn't quieter than what you'd experience in the AMGs, it just has a different tone.

Texas sues GM, saying it tricked customers into sharing driving data sold to insurers

Texas filed a lawsuit Tuesday against GM over years of alleged abuse of customers' data and trust. New car owners were presented with a "confusing and highly misleading" process that was implied to be for their safety, but "was no more than a deceptively designed sales flow" that surrendered their data for GM to sell. The suit contends that at no point was selling driving data ever even suggested as a possibility, putting GM in violation of the state's consumer protection laws. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking a jury trial and at least $10,000 per offense (every GM car sold in the state since 2015) and a hefty add-on of $250,000 in cases where the victim was over 65. Texas seems to be flying high after a recent $1.4 billion settlement from Meta over other privacy concerns. This may well be a way to solve any pending budgetary issues in the Lone Star State.

Koenigsegg Gemera goes V8-only due to low take-rate for three-cylinder

It's been more than four years since Koenigsegg debuted the Jesko and Gemera just ahead of the 2020 Geneva Motor Show. The Gemera was the first home for a few of Koenigsegg's pet projects, a hybrid powertrain based around a twin-turbocharged 2.0-liter three-cylinder dubbed the Tiny Friendly Giant (TFG). The engine featured cam-less Freevalve technology and was assisted by three electric motors. The Swedes claimed a combined 1,676 horsepower and 2,581 pound-feet of torque — 592 horses and 443 twists from the TFG — and a zero-to-62-mph sprint in 1.9 seconds. Those three e-motors, one on the crankshaft and two at the rear, helped deliver all-wheel drive, all-wheel torque vectoring, and all-wheel steering. And it's all gone. Not the Gemera, but the Tiny Friendly Giant. Two years after the Gemera appeared, Christian announced that the automaker found a way to fit the Jesko's twin-turbocharged 5.0-liter V8 into the Gemera's tighter bay. Once that happened, Koenigsegg said most customers switched to the V8 — reportedly a $400,000 option. "There were so few left that asked for a three-cylinder," he said, "we managed to convince almost all of them [to go for the V8 instead]. So for the time being, it [the Gemera] is V8 only. We could frame this as conservative buyers rejecting ingenious novelty, but that wouldn't be true. This is buyers giving up one ingenious novelty for another ingenious novelty with more familiar bragging rights. See, to get the Jesko's V8 to work, Koenigsegg engineers redesigned the castings, heads, intake, exhaust, and sump. They shelved the direct-drive transmission from the Regera they'd originally fitted, and created what they call the Light Speed Tourbillon Transmission (LSTT). This was an evolution of the nine-speed direct-drive Light Speed Transmission developed for the Jesko, but smaller, lighter, better. Then the whitecoats created a new six-phase e-motor to replace the original trio of three-phase Quark e-motors that had been paired with the TFG. This one motor to rule them all is called Dark Matter, designed as a blend of radial flux and axial flux topologies called "raxial." In the original powertrain, two of the Quark motors on the rear axle could each make a maximum 500 horsepower and 738 pound-feet of torque, the third Quark on the crankshaft made 400 hp and 369 lb-ft. Their combined output when working together rang in at 1,100 hp. The Dark Matter makes 800 hp and 922 lb-ft.

Junkyard Gem: 1971 Opel GT

Beginning in the late 1950s, General Motors made a serious push to sell cars made by its European subsidiaries in the United States. American Pontiac dealers got the Vauxhall Victor from the United Kingdom, while Buick dealers received the Opel Olympia from West Germany. Opel sales here became reasonably strong during the 1960s, and one of the most interesting Opels of all showed up in the United States as a 1969 model: the GT two-seat sports car. Here's a faded but still recognizable red GT found in a Northern California car graveyard recently. The Opel GT came out of a period of inspired GM designs that led to the Pontiac XP-833 Banshee and C3 Chevrolet Corvette; its most important styling influence was the Chevrolet Corvair Monza GT prototype of 1962. It was sold here for the 1969 through 1969 model years and was considered something of a mini-Corvette, sold alongside the mini-Camaro Opel Manta. The GT looked radical, but it shared its chassis design and running gear with the Opel Kadett (albeit with the engine moved nearly 16" to the rear). The Kadett connection made it cheap to build, and the MSRP for the 1971 GT was $3,339 (about $26,358 in 2024 dollars). The GT was powered by a cam-in-head 1.9-liter straight-four engine, rated at 90 horsepower and 111 pound-feet. The cam-in-head design was something of a mashup between an overhead-valve rig (with the camshaft in the engine block and actuating the valves via pushrods up into the cylinder head) and an overhead-cam design (with the camshaft in the cylinder head and directly actuating the valves). As this photograph shows with great clarity, the camshaft in a cam-in-head engine lives in the cylinder head but off to the side of the valves, actuating them with lifters shoving directly against good old pushrod-style rocker arms. The cam-in-head engine proved to be something of an evolutionary dead end, although Ford used its cam-in-head CVH straight-four in the U.S.-market Focus all the way through 2004. A four-speed manual transmission was standard equipment. A three-speed automatic was available as a $196 option ($1,547 after inflation). The GT had no decklid, which proved annoying in the real world. There was a carpeted area for cargo behind the rear seats. The hidden headlights didn't pop up, instead rotating 180° into position via a handle under the dash. The interior in this one is largely missing, and the body is in rough shape after decades of outdoor storage.

Stellantis ready to kill brands and fix U.S. problems, CEO Tavares says

  MILAN — Stellantis is taking steps to fix weak margins and high inventory at its U.S. operations and will not hesitate to axe underperforming brands in its sprawling portfolio, its chief executive Carlos Tavares said on Thursday. The warning for lossmaking brands is a turnaround for Tavares, who has maintained since Stellantis was created in 2021 from the merger of Italian-American automaker Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA that all of its 14 brands including Maserati, Fiat, Peugeot and Jeep have a future. "If they don't make money, we'll shut them down," Carlos Tavares told reporters after the world's No. 4 automaker delivered worse-than-expected first-half results, sending its shares down as much as 10%. "We cannot afford to have brands that do not make money." The automaker now also considers China's Leapmotor as its 15th brand, after it agreed to a broad cooperation with the group. Stellantis does not release figures for individual brands, except for Maserati which reported an 82 million euro adjusted operating loss in the first half. Some analysts say Maserati could possibly be a target for a sale by Stellantis, while other brands such as Lancia or DS might be at risk of being scrapped given their marginal contribution to the group's overall sales. Stellantis' Milan-listed shares were down as much as 12.5% on Thursday, hitting their lowest since August 2023. That brings the loss for the year so far to 22%, making them the worst performer among the major European automakers. Few automotive brands have been killed off since General Motors ditched the unprofitable Saturn and Pontiac during a U.S. government-led bankruptcy in the global financial crisis in 2008. Tavares is under pressure to revive flagging margins and sales and cut inventory in the United States as Stellantis bets on the launch of 20 new models this year which it hopes will boost profitability. Recent poor results from global carmakers have heightened worries about a weakening outlook for sales across major markets such as the U.S., whilst they also juggle an expensive transition to electric vehicles and growing competition from cheaper Chinese rivals. Japan's Nissan Motor saw first-quarter profit almost completely wiped out on Thursday and slashed its annual outlook, as deep discounting in the United States shredded its margins. Tavares said he would be working through the summer with his U.S. team on how to improve performance and cut inventory.

Koenigsegg pinpoints source of fire that flambeed a $3M Jesko Attack

The 70 or so road trippers who signed up for this year's 6to6 European tour were looking forward to taking off from Athens, Greece, then crossing eight countries and two mountain ranges on their way to Monaco. One entrant didn't make it out of Athens on the first day: Not long after leaving the hotel, a $3 million Koenigsegg Jesko Attack Nur Edition in raw carbon fiber with 24-karat gold accents caught fire while cruising through the city at low speed, turning into a bonfire that left little more than a pile of carbon shards melted to an engine. The Swedish carmaker had only delivered around 30 of the planned 125 Jeskos at the time. The Swedish mothership dispatched an engineer to bring the remains back to Sweden for an autopsy. In a post on Instagram, CEO Christian von Koenigsegg explained that the source of the fire was a leak in the car's pressurized hydraulic line.            View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by KOENIGSEGG (@koenigsegg) He said the systems containing other flammable liquids were intact, those being the engine and gearbox oil systems, and fuel tank. "However," he wrote, "there was a streak of hydraulic fluid behind the car on the road. Given this we have investigated the pressurized hydraulic system, which is the only system that contains this fluid." Sure enough, that was the culprit, the hose found to be "compromised at the rear of the car."  The company's checking the hydraulic system on every car that's been produced as well as those that have been delivered. It's also working on a software update that monitors hydraulic pressure and, in case of a leak, can shut the system down in less than a second. Based on the post date, that software should be on its way to cars or very close. Once the cars have been updated, Koenigsegg says they'll be safe to drive again. As for the two people in the car in Athens, they made it out unharmed. At the end of his post, Christian added, "We are also incredibly grateful to the owner of the car in Greece for giving us his continued support and that we will be able to supply him with a new car so he can continue his Koenigsegg journey." Here's a company whose customer service is almost as quick and comprehensive as its record-breaking cars. Oh, and cue the Facebook Marketplace profiteers: Autoblog Greece (no relation) reported someone put bits of raw carbon fiber up for sale, claiming without proof they'd come from the Jesko. Which makes total sense.

Watch a Koenigsegg Jesko break four speed records in one pass

In 2017, Juan Pablo Montoya drove a Bugatti Chiron from standstill to 400 kilometers per hour (249 mph) and back to standstill in 41.96 seconds. A month later, Koenigsegg took more than five seconds off that record with an Agera S, and then, another month after that, pruned another three seconds with the same car, stopping the watch in 33.29 seconds. The Swedes, feeling they still had time to shave, took their hybrid Regera to an airfield in Orebro, Sweden, in 2019 and ran off a 31.49 time for the 0-400-0 test. Rimac jumped into the ring last year, using a test track in Germany to break 23 records in a day with its Nevera, along the way doing the 0-400-0 in 29.94 seconds. Koenigsegg couldn't let that stand, dusting off a Regera to reclaim the record with a 28.81. The headline of this post tells you what happened next: Koenigsegg hit up that Orebro airstrip with a Jesko Absolut fitted with Racelogic timing gear, and reeled off a 0-400-0 time of 27.83 seconds. And with that single pass, on top of breaking its own record, Koenigsegg broke three other records, too.   It's interesting to note we're down to an all-wheel-drive battery-electric coupe with 1,888 horsepower and 1,726 pound-feet of torque against a rear-wheel-drive pure internal combustion coupe with a twin-turbocharged 5.0-liter V8 making 1,577 hp and 1,105 lb-ft on E85 (it makes 1,262 hp on regular pump gas). Both wore the same Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 R tires for their respective runs. Rimac says the Nevera's coefficient of drag in low-drag mode is 0.3, Koenigsegg reports effectively the same but with more decimals at 0.278. The marquee difference is that the Nevera weighs a claimed 5,071 pounds, the Jesko Absolut a claimed 3,064 pounds with fluids.    The only changes Koenigsegg made to the Jesko for the run were adding a roll cage, and giving company development driver Markus Lundh a seat from the Koenigsegg One:1, which he prefers. In addition to the 0-400-0 record, Lundh set records for hitting 400 kph (249 miles per hour) in 18.82 seconds, for hitting 250 mph in 19.20 seconds, and for the 0-250-mph-0 challenge of 28.27 seconds.  Lundh touched 256 mph during the blast.

Junkyard Gem: 1997 Cadillac Catera

GM's Cadillac Division was having a tough time in the early 1990s, with an onslaught of Lexuses and Infinitis pouring across the Pacific to steal their younger customers while high-end German manufacturers picked off their older customers. Flying an S-Class-priced model between assembly lines in Turin and Hamtramck hadn't worked out, so why not look to the European outposts of the far-flung GM Empire for the next Cadillac? That's how the Catera was born, and I have found a rare first-year example in a North Carolina car graveyard. Across the Atlantic, GM's Opel and Vauxhall were doing good business with prosperous European car buyers by selling them the sleek rear-wheel-drive Omega B (whose platform also lived beneath the Holden VT Commodore in Australia). Here was a genuine German design that competed with success against BMW and Audi on their home turf! So, the Omega B was Americanized and renamed the Catera. Opel wasn't a completely unknown brand to Americans at the time, since its cars were sold here with their own badging through Buick dealerships from the middle 1950s through the late 1970s (for a much shorter period, American Pontiac dealers attempted to sell Vauxhalls). Even after that, plenty of Opel DNA showed up in the products of U.S.-market GM divisions. The Catera was by far the most affordable Cadillac for 1997, with an MSRP starting at $29,995 (about $59,113 in 2024 dollars). Being a genuine German car, it looked much more convincingly European than the DeVille ($36,995), Eldorado ($37,995) and Seville ($39,995). Inspired by the ducks on the Cadillac emblem (they were really supposed to be martlets, mythical birds with no feet and occasionally lacking beaks), Cadillac's marketers went after youthful car shoppers with a whimsical animated duck named Ziggy. For the 21st century, the birds were removed from the Cadillac emblem in order to attract California buyers under 45 years of age. As we all know, the Catera flopped hard in the marketplace. What sold well in Europe turned out not to translate so well in in North America, especially when bearing the badges of such a historically prestigious brand. The Catera's engine was a 54-degree 3.0-liter V6 rated at 200 horsepower and 192 pound-feet. Just as had been the case with its predecessor, the Allante, no manual transmission was available.

What is the fastest car in the world in 2024?

It wasn't that long ago that the notion of reaching 200 miles per hour in a car, on a road, seemed basically impossible. As you likely know by now, that time has passed. And once that threshold was crossed, the automotive world immediately began eying the next triple-digit benchmark: 300 miles per hour. It may have taken a little while, but the 300-mph line has been crossed, and some cars have moved well past that seemingly insane speed number. While some of these speeds have been achieved in simulations (including the fastest car listed below), there's little doubt that a driver with nerves of steel and a heavy right foot could indeed push several automobiles up to 300 miles per hour and beyond. Interestingly, it’s not just one car or automaker in the 300-mph club, as a handful of models have earned a place (sometimes claimed but not yet demonstrated) on the leaderboard. The fastest car in the world is: Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut (330 MPH) That title goes to the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut, which recorded a staggering 330 mph top speed earlier in 2023. The carÂ’s twin-turbocharged 5.0-liter V8 lays down 1,600 horsepower and 1,106 pound-feet of torque, which plays a significant role in delivering that speed, but KoenigseggÂ’s engineers have given the car a lot more than mind-blowing power. The Jesko Absolut has a super-slippery 0.278 drag coefficient and a nine-speed transmission that shifts so quickly itÂ’s almost imperceptible. Koenigsegg calls it a Light Speed Transmission (LST), saying its shifts happen at almost light speed. While that might be a slight exaggeration, the gearbox is impressive, bringing several wet multi-disc clutches and a super lightweight construction. As Koenigsegg says, "the Jesko Absolut is destined to achieve higher, more extraordinary speeds than any Koenigsegg or any other fully homologated car before it." How expensive is the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut? If you were reading that and wondering how much the fastest car in the world costs, the price tag is just another dizzying number on the Jesko Absolut's spec sheet. All 125 Absolut cars offered sold out at a price of almost $3 million. Of course, being able to afford the Koenigsegg is just the first step in realizing its full potential. There are very few places on the map that can support a 300-plus-mph speed run, and the locations that do are not conveniently located.

Lancia Ypsilon HF gets back to brand's rally racer heritage

At the end of 1992, Lancia walked away from the Martini-sponsored Delta HF Integrale 8V race car and the World Rally Championship a winner, drivers Juha Kankkunen and Didier Auriol delivering the Constructor's Championship. We haven't seen a racy factory-backed Lancia since, nor one that races. The dry spell is over, the Italians unveiling their new Ypsilon HF, the hot-hatch version of the standard Ypsilon, and a motorsports version for FIA Group Rally4. Starting with the street car, it gets the powertrain shared with the Alfa Romeo Junior Veloce, a single electric motor turning the front axle. Instead of the e-motor making 154 horsepower as in the standard Ypsilon, the Ypsilon HF makes 237 hp, shortening the dash to 62 miles per hour to 5.8 seconds, which is 2.9 seconds quicker than the plain Ypsilon.  Handling credentials get upgraded with a wider track and lowered suspension. The package is made to look the part with a sharper front fascia, the much larger lower intake bearing the HF logo and the side intakes getting black underlining. We haven't been given a view of the rear, but we expect there are flourishes there as well, perhaps even the large black bumper seen on the rally racer. A set of six-spoke wheels complete the attitude adjustment.     Because the World Rally Championship hasn't gone electric yet — and gave up on hybrids after just three years — the Ypsilon Rally 4 HF slides a 1.2-liter three-cylinder gas-powered mill up front. That engine sends 209 hp to the front wheels through a five-speed transmission and a limited-slip differential. A pair of hood scoops aid engine cooling, a roof scoop at the top of the windshield does the same for driver and co-driver. The white, 15-spoke wheels look back to the multi-spoke wheels on the Delta Integrale, and we'll be looking to the start line next year to see if the real racer gets Martini sponsorship. The way Lancia worded its press release, we suspect the Rally 4 car will also be pitched to privateers as "a serious candidate for drivers aspiring to victory in the R4 class and in the two-wheel drive championships." These two cars set the template for future HF makeovers already promised for the eventual Gamma crossover and reborn electric Delta. Another question we have, especially now that hybrids are taking the fore, is whether the Ypsilon with the mild-hybrid powertrain has a chance of getting the HF treatment.

Peugeot family faces rare revolt by shareholders

The billionaire Peugeot family is under unprecedented shareholder pressure over the performance of its listed investment vehicle following losses related to its holdings in the collapsed European property empire Signa. Peugeot Invest, controlled by the French clan and headed by eighth-generation scion Robert Peugeot, 74, is likely to face a group of disgruntled minority investors at an annual meeting on Friday who have made public a long list of grievances including its deep trading discount. They also criticize rising operating costs, governance, remuneration policies and investment strategy.  Among their top gripes: The company’s assets — which include stakes in carmaker Stellantis NV, investment bank Rothschild & Co. and a vineyard in Bordeaux — are worth almost ˆ6 billion ($6.5 billion), compared with its stock market capitalization of ˆ2.8 billion. That 54% discount to the value of its assets is one of the largest among European investment holding companies. One big way to close that gap, dissident investors say, would be to pay out a bigger chunk of cash in dividends. Yet Peugeot Invest rejects the idea, and will prevail at the annual meeting: The family controls almost 80% of the shares and 89% of voting rights.  “The interests of minority and majority shareholders are not aligned,” said Colette Neuville, president of the Association for the Defense of Minority Shareholders, which has teamed up with investors Moneta Asset Management and Sycomore Asset Management to push for changes in the way Peugeot Invest operates. “They are acting like there are no minority investors.” The barrage of public criticism is a first for the secretive clanÂ’s firm, which began trading in 1989 on a now-defunct bourse in the eastern city of Nancy.  The sprawling familyÂ’s fortune centers around the eponymous car manufacturer that three years ago merged with Fiat Chrysler. The clan emerged with a 7% stake in the combined group, Stellantis, one of the worldÂ’s most profitable automakers with a market value of about ˆ64.6 billion.  The stake is indirectly held by Peugeot Invest, which has been helmed for the past 22 years by Robert Peugeot and used by the family to diversify away from the auto industry.

Junkyard Gem: 2003 Chevrolet Tracker

When General Motors created the Geo brand to sell vehicles designed and — in some cases — built by Japanese partners, the first four models were introduced for the 1989 model year: the Metro (Suzuki Cultus), Prizm (Toyota Sprinter), Spectrum (Isuzu Gemini) and Tracker (Suzuki Sidekick). Geo got the axe in 1997, with the Metro, Prizm and Tracker becoming Chevrolets. Of those, the Tracker survived the longest, with U.S.-market sales continuing into 2004. Here's an example of a very late Tracker, found in a North Carolina car graveyard recently. The 1989-1997 first-generation Trackers were based on the Suzuki Sidekick, while the 1998-2004 Trackers had the Suzuki Vitaras (not to be confused with the much grander Grand Vitaras) as their siblings. Production of these trucks for the South American market (as the Chevrolet Vitara) continued in Ecuador all the way through 2014. The Tracker name has also gone onto some versions of the Chevrolet Trax around the world. This one is a base four-door hard top/rear-wheel-drive model, which had an MSRP of $17,330. That's about $29,789 in 2024 dollars. You'll find one in every car. You'll see. The engine is a Suzuki 2.0-liter straight-four rated at 127 horsepower and 134 pound-feet. A five-speed manual was base equipment, but very few American vehicle shoppers wanted three pedals by the middle 2000s. This truck has the Aisin four-speed automatic. We like it loud. It appears that someone associated with this truck graduated from Julius L. Chambers High School last year. In the United States, the Tracker was replaced by the Saturn Vue. If Tracker can handle (unspecified Middle Eastern country), it can survive the jungle back home. Siempre contigo.

Autoblog's Editors' Picks: Our complete list of the best new vehicles

It's not easy to earn an “EditorsÂ’ Picks” at Autoblog as part of the rating and review process that every new vehicle goes through. Our editors have been at it a long time, which means weÂ’ve driven and reviewed virtually every new car you can go buy on the dealer lot. There are disagreements, of course, and all vehicles have their strengths and weaknesses, but this list features what we think are the best new vehicles chosen by Autoblog editors. We started this formal review process back in 2018, so there's quite of few of them now. So what does it mean to be an EditorsÂ’ Pick? In short, it means itÂ’s a car that we can highly recommend purchasing. There may be one, multiple, or even zero vehicles in any given segment that we give the green light to. What really matters is that itÂ’s a vehicle that weÂ’d tell a friend or family member to go buy if theyÂ’re considering it, because itÂ’s a very good car. The best way to use this list is is with the navigation links below. Click on a segment, and you'll quickly arrive at the top rated pickup truck or SUV, for example. Use the back button to return to these links and search in another segment, like sedans. If youÂ’ve been keeping up with our monthly series of the latest vehicles to earn EditorsÂ’ Pick status, youÂ’re likely going to be familiar with this list already. If not, welcome to the complete list that weÂ’ll be keeping updated as vehicles enter (and others perhaps exit) the good graces of our editorial team. We rate a new car — giving it a numerical score out of 10 — every time thereÂ’s a significant refresh or if it happens to be an all-new model. Any given vehicle may be impressive on a first drive, but we wait until itÂ’s in the hands of our editors to put it through the same type of testing as every other vehicle that rolls through our test fleet before giving it the EditorsÂ’ Pick badge. This ensures consistency and allows more voices to be heard on each individual model. And just so you donÂ’t think weÂ’ve skipped trims or variants of a model, we hand out the EditorsÂ’ Pick based on the overarching model to keep things consistent. So, when you read that the 3 Series is an EditorsÂ’ Pick, yes, that includes the 330i to the M3 and all the variants in between. If thereÂ’s a particular version of that car we vehemently disagree with, we make sure to call that out.

Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Mercedes-AMG, Porsche and Koenigsegg Lego sets coming this summer

Lego has announced a slew of new automotive-themed sets. As is typical fashion for brand of building toys, the subject matter leans toward ultra-exotic, ultra-expensive vehicles, ranging from a $139,000 Mercedes SL63 on the low end to a $3 million Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut on the high end. If you can't afford those cars in real life, soon you'll be able to build your own plastic models of them. Some of the real-world counterparts aren't obtainable no matter what the cost. Take the Lamborghini Lambo V12 Vision Gran Turismo, for example. The one-off concept was designed by Lamborghini exclusively for Gran Turismo, the PlayStation racing simulator. However, Lamborghini did build a 1:1 version for the physical world, with the 808-horsepoewer hybrid V12 from the Sian FKP 37 beneath its bodywork. The Lego version is part of the company's Speed Champions line, which measure about 6 inches long. It does an excellent job of capturing the original's insectoid look and Y-shaped taillights. The set is made up of 230 pieces and will retail for $26.99. This is Lego's first Vision Gran Turismo car but we hope to see more.  Also joining the Speed Champions line are two 2-car sets. An Aston Martin-themed set pairs a Vantage safety car with an AMR23 Formula 1 racer. Both are finished in AMR's bright green with actual sponsor logos. The set contains 564 pieces and will cost $44.99. Also arriving as a 2-car set are a pair of Mercedes-AMGs. A black G 63 and yellow SL 63 Roadster, along with a pair of sunglasses-clad bros, make up the 808-piece set. It also retails for $44.99. All three Speed Champions sets arrive on June 1, 2024. If you're looking for something a bit more advanced and detailed, Lego also offers the Technic line. First up is a Porsche GT4 e-Performance, a 1,000-horsepower race car based on the 718 Cayman. This set can also function as a remote controlled car that moves forward, backward, and steers via a downloadable smartphone app. The 834-piece set costs $169.99. Last but not least, there's the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut, a model of the Swedish supercar that is said to have a top speed of over 300 mph. The model does an admirable job of capturing the car's 0.278 Cd drag coefficient, considering it's comprised of 801 individual plastic bricks. This set will retail for $49.99 and, along with the Porsche, comes out August 1, 2024. Related Video LEGO Speed Champion Build: 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback

Junkyard Gem: 2006 Hummer H3 SUV

After General Motors bought the rights to the Hummer brand from AM General in 1999, it continued to sell the civilianized versions of the military HMMWV that was made famous after appearing in the heavily televised Operation Desert Storm. The Hummer H1 (as it became known) never sold in large numbers, but The General decided to make everyman Hummers based on existing GM truck platforms. The Silverado-based H2 came first, debuting as a 2003 model, followed by the Colorado-based H3 as a 2006 model. Here's one of those first-year H3s, found in a Denver self-service car graveyard recently. Now it's time for some Hummer brand history. After the American Motors Corporation bought Kaiser Jeep in 1970, it spun off the fleet and military parts of that operation into a new company called AM General. The best-known AM General products for many years were the Jeep DJ Dispatchers, generally called "Mail Jeeps," and they were sold all the way through 1984. 1984 was also the year that the United States Army put the first AM General-built High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV, which soldiers pronounced "Humvee" at first but eventually adopted the "Hummer" nickname). Around the same time, militarized VW-powered sand rails were being purchased from Chenowth by Uncle Sam. After Arnold Schwarzenegger convinced AM General to build civilianized Hummers, sales of the not-so-civilized brute that became the H1 began in 1992. The H2 and H3 had the misfortune to be launched just before the Great Recession hit and fuel prices went crazy, while a couple of overseas conflicts that were much less popular than Gulf War I made grim headlines and reduced the street appeal of combat-inspired civilian wheels. The H1 got the axe in 2006; GM tried and failed to sell the Hummer brand to a Chinese manufacturer in 2010, as it struggled through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, finally giving up and killing the brand alongside Pontiac, Saturn and Saab. Then the Hummer name was revived in 2022 as an electron-fueled GMC model, and you can buy a 2024 GMC Hummer EV SUV right now (though GMC's website warns of "LIMITED AVAILABILITY" in big red letters, so you might have a hard time actually taking delivery of one). The final 2010 H3s were built for Avis at Shreveport Operations, which itself shut down two years later.

Lancia concepts sweep Stellantis Drive for Design contest

Stellantis describes is annual Drive for Design contest as "an opportunity for high school students to win fabulous prizes while learning about exciting career opportunities in automotive design." Winners not only get gear like a Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16, they're eligible for summer internships in one of Stellantis' design studios. For the last two years of the contest, Rocco Morales won first prize — last year with his Ram Stadion concept, and in 2022 with his Chrysler Helios concept — and that was after coming second in 2021 with his Jeep Crazy Horse concept. With Morales having graduated, aging out of the entry pool, Rohan Sieber could be the next in the repeat winner's circle. Sieber, a junior in Portola, California, won the 2024 Drive for Design challenge. Students were asked to create a fresh concept for any of Stellantis' global brands. Everyone who made the podium chose to create a fictional Lancia. Sieber's entry is the Lancia Zero, "an electric sports car concept inspired by Lancia's legacy of radical design and legendary performance" that reworks the philosophy of the Stratos HF Zero. A junior this year, Sieber has a chance to replicate Morales' record if he enters and wins next year. Second place went to Ryan Panizzoli, a sophomore out of Plymouth, Michigan. The single image provided doesn't put a name to his Lancia creation, but tiny captions indicate a slide-out module in the rear that contains a cooking station.   Owen Bronson of Canton, Michigan claimed third place with this Lancia Pugnale concept, explicitly called a "modern interpretation of the 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero HF Concept." Bronson kept more of the original than Sieber, and included the same kinds of cues that the actual Lancia brand applied to its Pu+Ra Zero and Pu+Ra HPE concepts that previewed future styling for the reborn automaker, like the Ypsilon lighting signature in front, the circular aperture on the roof, and the twin taillights.   The second- and third-place finishers get an Apple iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, a chance to network virtually with the Stellantis Design Team, a scholarship for a four-week summer program at Detroit's College for Creative Studies, and because they're Michigan locals, an invitation to be a Student Judge at the EyesOn Design at Ford House car show in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in June. Congratulations to all three of this year's winners. Design/Style Lancia Stellantis

Junkyard Gem: 1997 Geo Metro LSi

General Motors created the Geo brand in order to sell cars built in partnership with Suzuki, Isuzu and Toyota in the United States, and Geo-badged machinery was sold from the 1989 through 1997 model years. Today's Junkyard Gem, found in a New Orleans self-service boneyard recently, is one of the very last Geos ever built. There was always a close relationship between Geo and Chevrolet, which GM demonstrated by sneaking the Chevrolet bowtie into the Geo logo. The first three Geo-branded models began their careers with Chevrolet badging before getting Geo-ized for 1989. The Spectrum, twin to the Isuzu I-Mark, was a Chevrolet from 1985 through 1988. The 1985-1988 Chevrolet Sprint was a badge-engineered first-generation Suzuki Cultus, with its second-generation successor becoming the Geo Metro. The Prizm was a NUMMI-built Toyota Corolla Sprinter, which replaced the Sprinter-based 1985-1987 Chevrolet Nova. The Daewoo-built Pontiac LeMans never became a Geo, presumably because its ancestry was South Korean rather than Japanese. In 1989, Geo added the Storm (Isuzu Impulse), followed by the Tracker (Suzuki Sidekick) as a 1990 model. In December 1996, GM announced that the Geo brand would get the axe in the fall of 1997, with the Prizm, Tracker and Metro becoming Chevrolets. This car was built at CAMI Automotive in Canada in May 1997, making it one of the final handful of Geos assembled. The Chevrolet Metro stuck around through 2001. For its final model year, the Geo Metro was available with one of two trim levels: base and LSi. This car is an LSi three-door hatchback, which had an MSRP of $9,180 ($17,906 in 2024 dollars). The base three-door hatchback for 1997 listed at $8,580, or $16,735 after inflation. The most important difference between the base and LSi versions was found under the hood. The base Metro got a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine rated at 55 horsepower and 58 pound-feet, while the LSi got the 1.3-liter "big-block" four-cylinder with 70 horses and 74 pound-feet. I owned a '96 Metro with the four-banger for a brief period, and it wasn't quite intolerably slow. This car has the optional three-speed automatic, which added $595 ($1,161 today) to the price. It also has air conditioning and a Delco AM/FM radio, which were included as part of the $1,346 1SE option package ($2,625 in today's money). It was thus a boring but serviceable commuter car that sipped gas and got its job done for 27 years and 113,610 miles.

Junkyard Gem: 2010 Pontiac Vibe

Just over a month before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2009, General Motors announced that the 83-year-old Pontiac Division would be "phased out" by the end of 2010. Only three Pontiac vehicles were sold as 2010 models in the United States: the Solstice, Vibe and G6 (new G3s were sold here during 2010 but they were all 2009 models, while the G5 was available as a 2010 model only in Canada and Mexico). Today's bit of junkyard automotive history is one of the very last Vibes ever built, found in a yard near Denver, Colorado. This car is significant not just as one of the final vehicles to bear Pontiac badges but also as one of the last cars built by the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated GM-Toyota joint venture in California, better known as NUMMI. The NUMMI factory began life as GM's Fremont Assembly, which built its first vehicle (a C-Series pickup) in 1963 and closed in 1982 after building its final vehicle (an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera). Rebooted as NUMMI, the first 1985 Chevrolet Nova (an Americanized AE82 Toyota Corolla Sprinter) rolled off the line in December of 1984. A quarter-century and better than eight million vehicles hence, NUMMI shut down production after its last Corolla was finished on April 1, 2010. While there was some noise about the Oakland Athletics building a new stadium on the site at the time, Tesla ended up buying most of the site soon after that. Tesla now builds more vehicles per year there than NUMMI ever did. The Vibe was co-developed with Toyota and based on the same platform as the ninth-generation Corolla. The Toyota Matrix was mechanically identical and was built in Canada, while the Japanese-market version (known as the Toyota Voltz) was built on the same NUMMI line as the Vibe and shipped across the Pacific. The Vibe/Matrix/Voltz got a redesign for the 2009 model year, but few noticed due to all the turmoil in the GM world at the time. The final Vibe was built in August 2009. This car was built in July of 2009, just before the end. It was living in West Texas just prior to coming to Colorado. El Paso is about a ten-hour drive from this car's current location. Once in the Centennial State, it got parked somewhere it shouldn't have been and ended up being auctioned to Pick Your Part. An occupant of this Vibe had time to sample some of the local agricultural products before that happened.

Russian company starts Citroen production at former Stellantis factory

MOSCOW — Russian company Automotive Technologies announced it had started assembling Citroen C5 Aircross models in batches at a plant south of Moscow formerly owned by Stellantis, with the cars set to be sold in dealerships from May. Reuters exclusively reported in February, citing customs data and two people familiar with the matter, that Automotive Technologies had imported at least 42 car kits from China for assembling Citroen models at the plant. Manufactured in China, the kits were produced by China's Dongfeng Motor Group, the data showed. Stellantis reiterated its response to Reuters in February, that it had concluded since Dec. 31, 2023, that it had "lost control of its entities in Russia." "On March 27, batch assembly of Citroen C5 Aircross crossovers started at the factory in Kaluga," Automotive Technologies said in a statement. "The cars will arrive in the salons of official Citroen dealers in May 2024, but it's possible to book a car as soon as April." The developments highlight the lack of control Western companies have over their brands after suspending Russian operations or leaving the country since Moscow's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and demonstrate Moscow's increasing dependence on Beijing, particularly in the car industry. In February, Stellantis said it recognized a loss of 144 million euros ($155.75 million) from losing its Russian operations, including 87 million euros of cash and cash equivalents. Chinese trade data for 2023 shows that exports of cars to Russia were almost seven times higher than in 2022, with the value of those exports jumping by almost $10 billion. Dongfeng and Stellantis, the world's third-largest automaker by revenue, operate a commercial joint venture in China, through which Dongfeng can build and sell Stellantis cars in China.   Plants/Manufacturing Citroen Russia Stellantis

Peugeot 9x8 WEC racer installs a rear wing and a pack-of-lions livery

After France's ACO racing organizing body created new rules for the Hypercar class in World Endurance Racing, manufacturers like Toyota, Glickenhaus, and eventually Cadillac, Ferrari, and Porsche created traditional-looking top-class race cars. Peugeot did not, debuting its 9x8 single-seater with an unmistakable headlight signature and an unmistakable rear end that went without a wing, its concept focused on ground-effects aero instead of silhouette aero. The aft aero consideration was a small airfoil between two vertical strakes hanging off the back of the bodywork, its location making it more like a long ducktail spoiler or Gurney flap. With two years of racing in the World Endurance Championship completed, it appears the consensus at Peugeot Sport HQ is that a more traditional approach is needed; the 9x8 scored points, but outside of a third-place finish in Monza last year, usually finished toward the back of the class. The new 9x8 for the 2024 WEC season returns to the old ways of a rear wing. Peugeot Sport Technical Director Olivia Jansonnie said rule changes at the beginning of the 2022 season put Peugeot at a disadvantage with Balance of Performance (BOP) rules. On the new car, in the works since early 2023, "The idea was therefore to go back to a car design that is similar that of our rivals car design," he said, "so that it would then be given equivalent treatment by the BOP." But he also stressed that the new car is a heavily upgraded version of last year's 9x8, not a brand new car. Adding a rear wing lead engineers to rework 90% of the bodywork and change the weight balance. The new regulations encouraged a switch to staggered tires instead of the 310-mm rubber previously used all around. And engineers took steps to improve engine and gearbox reliability.  As on the last car, Peugeot Sport worked with Peugeot Design on a new livery in Peugeot Sport's various colors, described as "black, grey, white and kryptonite." The scheme puts the brand's lion icon all over, in different sizes, symbolizing a pack of lions that "conveys the sense of collective that reflects the values of Endurance racing perfectly." It can take a second to make out the heads because they're bigger than you'd expect, but start by looking at the dark gray graphics, the icons are easier to see.  After entering the previous 9x8 in the 2024 WEC season's first race in Qatar, the updated 9x8 enters the fray at the 6 Hours of Imola on April 21.

Scrapyard Gem: 2006 Citroen Xsara Picasso Desire

YORK, England — By the time our current century got started, most American car shoppers had become fully committed to pickups and SUVs as their preferred rides. Cross the Atlantic at that time, however, and you'd find that the compact MPV was one of the most popular choices for Western European drivers seeking plenty of passenger and cargo space in a small package. The Citroen Xsara Picasso was one of the best-selling compact MPVs of its era, and I've found this '06 in a self-service scrapyard (as they call them here) in York, England. It has been 51 years since new Citroens were sold in the United States, and so I've only managed to document a handful of them during my junkyard travels. Citroen began building cars in 1918, merged with Peugeot in 1974 and became part of the mighty Stellantis Empire in 2021. How did it happen that Citroen is allowed to place Pablo Picasso's famous signature on its cars? In 1989, Pablo's son sold the rights to Citroen for $20 million. The brochures for this car bear down very hard on the Pablo Picasso connection. Although the Xsara Picasso never came close to being sold in the United States, here's one in the brochure negotiating the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange in Los Angeles (where the bus-jump scene in 1994's "Speed" took place). The California high desert in 2006, where cops in 15-year-old box Caprices hide behind Picasso billboards in order to bust speeding Citroens. The U.K.-market 2006 Xsara Picasso was available in Desire, VTX and Exclusive trim levels. This one is the base Desire model. These badges now live on my garage wall. For a car that weighed well under 3,000 pounds, the Xsara Picasso offered an amazing amount of interior space. There's room for five inside, with airliner-style folding tables for the rear-seat passengers; those rear seats are removable to make room for bulky cargo. This type of vehicle never caught on in North America, despite the best efforts of Japanese manufacturers. The Xsara Picasso was succeeded by the C4 Picasso, which has since evolved into the kind of crossover SUV that would look right at home on American roads. It took awhile, but the SUV craze finally has conquered Europe. The Xsara Picasso was one of the first vehicles designed by Donato Coco, who went on to work at Ferrari and Lotus. In addition to his work designing many Citroen models, Coco was behind the styling of the Ferrari 458 Italia.

The biggest gas-guzzlers of 2024: 'The Meanest List' is the opposite of greenest cars

In some circles — especially some automotive circles — bigger is better. This explains the Hummer, for example. In its so-called “Meanest List” of a dozen models, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) makes no apologies for berating “the worst-performing mass market automobiles” sold in 2024 in the U.S. The most diminutive car on the list is a Chevy Corvette Z06. At the top of this particular heap is the Mercedes-Benz AMG G63, a gas-powered SUV that the environmental agency says was “the worst-performing vehicle of the more than 1,200 models assessed by Greener Cars and has an annual fuel cost over $4,000.” Not to mention its MSRP of around $184,000. Rank Make & Model Powertrain Green Score MSRP Estimated Annual Fuel Cost* 1 Mercedes-Benz AMG G63 Gas 20 $184,000 $4,242 2 Ram 1500 TRX 4x4 Gas 22 $98,335 $3,819 3 Ford F150 Raptor R Gas 24 $79,975 $3,777 4 Cadillac Escalade V Gas 26 $152,295 $3,388 5 Dodge Durango SRT Gas 26 $74,995 $3,332 6 Jeep Wrangler 4dr 4X4 Gas 27 $35,895 $3,260 7 Jeep Grand Wagoneer 4x4 Gas 28 $91,945 $3,058 8 Mercedes-Benz G550 Gas 28 $143,000 $3,186 9 GMC Hummer EV SUV EV 29 $98,845 $1,746 10 GMC Sierra Gas 29 $37,700 $3,069 11 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 Gas 30 $114,395 $3,169 12 Mercedes-Benz Maybach S680 Gas 30 $234,300 $3,031 *ACEEE analysis using EIA data of the annual cost of driving 15,000 miles In terms of numbers, the dirty dozen of the meanest includes seven SUVs and three trucks. Lonely at the middle of the list is the sole electric, the GMC Hummer EV, which weighs in at 9,000 pounds. The council notes that “though EVs have lower emissions than similarly sized gasoline models, the Hummer demonstrates that size and efficiency, not just fuel source, are important factors in a carÂ’s environmental impact.” ItÂ’s also worth reminding prospective buyers that the average fuel cost of a vehicle on the “Greenest List” eats up only a fifth of the fuel cost of a vehicle on the Meanest List, “showing that greener options can also be more affordable.” The ACEEE also put out a "Greener List" of efficient gasoline and hybrid cars that don't require plugging in.  By the Numbers Green Cadillac Chevrolet Dodge Ford GMC Hummer Jeep Maybach Mercedes-Benz RAM Emissions Fuel Efficiency Green Automakers Truck SUV Electric Hybrid

5 classic trucks and their polarizing modern revivals

EVs are helping eliminate Detroit's gas-guzzling problem. Some revivals of gas-powered classics are getting the EV treatment.  But not every revived model looks exactly like its original counterpart. We're in a new era of hulking Detroit metal, and you can thank EVs. Americans can't get enough of their big, beefy trucks and SUVs. But for many years, some of the biggest gas guzzlers fell out of fashion as gas prices rose and emissions regulations tightened. But in the past few years, some of the most iconic American truck nameplates have been brought back to life with electric motors, like the GMC Hummer. In other cases, as with the Ford Bronco, improvements in engine technology and more interest in rugged adventure vehicles made a gas-powered revival possible. Even some revivals that started as gas-powered, like the Chevy Blazer and the Jeep Wagoneer, are now getting electrified spinoffs. (Even if they don't always look quite as sleek as their original inspiration.) Here are side-by-sides of five classic American trucks and their modern counterparts. The Jeep Wagoneer 1975 Jeep Wagoneer and 2024 Electric Jeep Wagoneer SStellantis After a long wait, Jeep released its revival of the classic Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer in 2020. Starting later this year, an electric version of the luxury Jeep SUV will join the Wagoneer lineup. The Chevrolet Blazer A 1973 Chevrolet Blazer and a 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EVGetty Images, General Motors The Chevrolet Blazer was first rebooted in 2019 as a sporty family SUV. The modern Blazer shares zero resemblance to its boxy, off-roading older sibling, but it has still managed to become one of Chevy's more popular SUVs in recent years. The Blazer EV came later, and was one of the first models GM built on its new Ultium battery platform. The Hummer A Hummer H2 and the 2023 Hummer EV pickup truckGetty Images, General Motors Once the poster child for Detroit's big, bad gas guzzlers, the Hummer got new life as an electric pickup truck in 2021. The Ford Bronco A 1971 Ford Bronco and a 2022 Ford BroncoFord Motor Co. After a rouge group of engineers and designers inside Ford spent years trying to breathe life back into the Blue Oval's boxy off-roader, the Ford Bronco was finally resurrected in 2020 amid a rise in popularity for rugged adventure vehicles. The Ford Ranger 1985 Ford Ranger and a 2024 Ford RangerFord Motor Co.

Renault Scenic EV takes first place as (European) Car of the Year

The automobile awards season may not be over, but two of the more prestigious annual races came closer to a climax this week. One might need a scorecard to keep track. We’re focused here on two events: the World Car of 2024, now reduced to three finalists in six categories. Then thereÂ’s the Car of the Year, known in some quarters as the European Car of the Year. Except that the car doesnÂ’t have to be European to win, only sold there. Got that? Winners out of the way first: At the Geneva Motor Show on Monday, the Renault Scenic E-Tech all-electric has been voted Car of the Year 2024. The Scenic is a fairly compact, somewhat stylish SUV for Europe only, and is the seventh vehicle from the French brand to win the award. It sells in the United Kingdom for about $47,500. The other six finalists that had made the first cut of voting in November were the BMW 5 Series, BYD Seal, Kia EV9, Peugeot E-3008/3008, Toyota C-HR, and Volvo EX30. The trophy winner was chosen by a jury of 59 motoring journalists from 22 countries. Scenic came in first place with 329 points. The Seal was the first Chinese-made car to make this awardÂ’s shortlist; it finished sixth out of seven, just up from the Toyota. One judge explained his decision to grant the Seal zero votes. Writing in Top Gear, Paul Horrell wrote this entertaining critique: “It looks good and is well specified, so makes a strong market entry. The advanced electric system and cobalt-free battery are commendable too, and it's enjoyable enough to drive quickly. That's undermined by an agitated ride over bumps, and the logic of screens and switches is pretty eccentric.” Recapping the World Car of the Year 2024 update, the sponsors shared the stage at Geneva on Monday with the Europeans as well, although they revealed only the top three finalists in six categories. For the ultimate prize, they are the Kia EV9, the Volvo EX30 and the BYD Seal. The winners will be announced March 27 at the New York International Auto Show. Here's more on the World Car finalists. By the Numbers Geneva Motor Show New York Auto Show BMW Kia Toyota Volvo Peugeot Renault Green Automakers Best Cars

New electric Ypsilon city car is Lancia's last bid for relevance

Stellantis-owned Lancia has unveiled its first new model in well over a decade. Offered only with an electric drivetrain, the new Ypsilon is a small, premium four-door hatchback developed to make the 118-year-old Italian brand relevant again after an extended period of decline. We shouldn't be writing this story, because Lancia shouldn't be around to release a new Ypsilon. Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles until his death in 2018, planned to close the brand. It was too small, too heavily reliant on the European market, and ultimately more of a burden than anything else. He executed his plan gradually: first, he tried giving Lancia a handful of Chrysler models to sell in Europe, which didn't work. Then, he gradually pulled the plug on Lancia's range and foreign operations, leaving the company with a single model (the last-generation Ypsilon) to sell in a single country (Italy). Rewind to the 1990s, and that's exactly how Autobianchi shut down. History didn't repeat itself this time. Stellantis executives decided to give every brand in the group a chance to prove why it deserves to exist. The third-generation Ypsilon (we're counting the Y launched in 1995 as the original) is Lancia's first argument. Having access to its parent company's parts bin helped keep development costs in check, and the hatchback shares its Common Modular Platform (CMP) with other small hatchbacks you'll see meandering across Europe such as the Peugeot 208 and the Opel Corsa. Visually, it borrows a handful of styling cues from the Pu+Ra HPE concept unveiled in 2023, like low-mounted headlights and three thin strips of LEDs on the front end. Out back, you'll find a pair of round headlights ostensibly inspired by the ones fitted to the Stratos, a coupe that cemented Lancia's reputation as a force to reckon with in the World Rally Championship (WRC) during the 1970s. That's as much of Lancia's rallying heritage the brand chose to channel, however. Instead, it's highlighting the upmarket chapter of its history: for decades, the brand was associated with luxury rather than with performance. Italian presidents rolled around in purpose-built Flaminia sedans in the 1960s. Rallying was the brand's claim to fame in the 1970s and the 1980s, and Lancia unceremoniously became associated with badge-engineering during the 1990s. This is where its decline began. The new Ypsilon's job is to reverse it by giving buyers a more stylish alternative to, say, the 208 it's based on.

Fastest cars in the world by top speed, 0-60 and quarter mile

A claim for the title of “Fastest Car in the World” might seem easy to settle. ItÂ’s actually anything but: Are we talking production cars, race cars or customized monsters? And what does “fastest” even mean? For years, car publications have tended to define “fastest” in terms of an unbeatable top speed. ThatÂ’s distinct from the “quickest” car in a Usain Bolt-style dash from the starting blocks, as with the familiar 0-60 mph metric. Professionals often focus on track lap times or elapsed time-to-distance, as with a drag racer thatÂ’s first to trip the beam of light at the end of a quarter-mile; or the 1,000-foot trip of nitromethane-powered NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car dragsters. Something tells us, however, that you're not seeking out an answer of "Brittany Force rewriting the NHRA record books with a 3.659-second pass at a boggling 338.17 mph." For most barroom speed arguments, the focus is firmly on cars you can buy in showrooms, even if many are beyond the financial means of all but the wealthiest buyers and collectors. Here are some of the enduring sources of speed claims, counter-claims, tall tales and taunting dismissals that are the lifeblood of car enthusiasts – now with EVs adding an unexpected twist to these passionate pursuits.   Fastest from the blocks: 0-60 mph Thirty years ago, any car that could clock 60 mph in five seconds or less was considered extremely quick. Today, high-performance, gasoline-powered sedans and SUVs are routinely breaking below 4 seconds. As of today, the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170 crushes all with a 0-60 mph time of just 1.66 seconds. That's simply absurd, but keep in mind the Demon was engineered with the single-minded purpose of going fast in a straight line. It's also important to realize that direct comparisons are difficult, because not all of these times were accomplished with similar conditions (prepped surfaces, adjustments for elevation and so on). The moral here is to take these times with a tiny grain of salt. After the Dodge, the Rimac Nevera comes in with an officially recorded 0-60 mph time of just 1.74 seconds. EVs crowd the quickest list, with the Pininfarina Battista coming in a few hundredths slower (1.79 seconds) than the Nevera and the Lucid Air sapphire (1.89 seconds) right after that. Eventually, you arrive to the Tesla Model S Plaid, which has a claimed 1.99-second 0-60 mph time, though instrumented testing by Car and Driver shows it accomplishes the deed in 2.1 seconds.

Toyota says president, chairman of scandal-hit Daihatsu unit to step down

TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday both the president and chairman of Daihatsu Motor will step down almost a year after the small-car unit said it had rigged collision safety-tests. The departures are among the most drastic changes Daihatsu has made so far, as Toyota seeks to return the brand to its roots as one of Japan's most iconic compact car makers. Toyota faces a potential hit to its reputation from the safety certification lapses at Daihatsu, as well as separate governance issues at truck maker Hino Motors and affiliate Toyota Industries. The scandals at the three companies triggered a rare apology of Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda last month. In a statement, the world's top-selling automaker said its chief executive officer for the Latin America and Caribbean region, Masahiro Inoue, will replace Soichiro Okudaira as Daihatsu's president effective March 1. Daihatsu's chairman, Sunao Matsubayashi, will also step down and will not be replaced, Toyota added. The outgoing Okudaira had worked at Toyota for nearly four decades before becoming president of Daihatsu in 2017, a year after it became a wholly owned Toyota subsidiary. Toyota Chief Executive Koji Sato told reporters, however, that the organizational change at Daihatsu was not carried out as a punishment for the outgoing executives. In volume terms, Daihatsu accounted for 7% of Toyota's total group sales of 11.2 million vehicles in 2023, including those of the luxury Lexus brand and Hino Motors. Given the misconduct over the safety test certification applications, Daihatsu also will be removed from a commercial vehicle partnership known as the Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies (CJPT), the automaker said in a separate statement. The partnership was established in April 2021 by Toyota, Hino and Isuzu Motors to facilitate technology development for commercial vehicles. Suzuki Motor and Daihatsu joined in July the same year. Daihatsu's 10% equity stake in the partnership will be transferred to Toyota, the statement said. (Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Satoshi Sugiyama; Editing by Kim Coghill & Shri Navaratnam and Miral Fahmy) Government/Legal Hirings/Firings/Layoffs Plants/Manufacturing Toyota Daihatsu