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Driving the BMW M2 Competition, Honda Odyssey and Toyota RAV4 Prime | Autoblog Podcast #651

In this week's Autoblog Podcast, Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore is joined by West Coast Editor James Riswick. This week, they talk about driving the BMW M2 Competition, Honda Odyssey and Toyota RAV4 Prime. Then they discuss James' experience testing the new Yakima CBX cargo carrier, Autoblog readers' preference for the GMC Hummer EV over the Tesla Cybertruck, and Mercedes-Benz taking a larger stake in Aston Martin. Lastly, they help James' father find a new car in the Spend My Money segment. Autoblog Podcast #651 Get The Podcast iTunes – Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes RSS – Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator MP3 – Download the MP3 directly Rundown Cars we're driving 2020 BMW M2 Competition 2021 Honda Odyssey 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime Testing the Yakima CBX Cargo Carrier on the Subaru Outback 75% of Autoblog Twitter follower prefer the GMC Hummer EV over the Tesla Cybertruck Mercedes-Benz to boost stake in Aston Martin to 20%, lend it some tech Spend JamesÂ’ fatherÂ’s money Feedback Email – Podcast@Autoblog.com Review the show on iTunes Related Video:

Here are a few of our automotive guilty pleasures

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The world is full of cars, and just about as many of them are bad as are good. It's pretty easy to pick which fall into each category after giving them a thorough walkaround and, more important, driving them. But every once in a while, an automobile straddles the line somehow between good and bad — it may be hideously overpriced and therefore a marketplace failure, it may be stupid quick in a straight line but handles like a drunken noodle, or it may have an interior that looks like it was made of a mess of injection-molded Legos. Heck, maybe all three. Yet there's something special about some bad cars that actually makes them likable. The idea for this list came to me while I was browsing classified ads for cars within a few hundred miles of my house. I ran across a few oddballs and shared them with the rest of the team in our online chat room. It turns out several of us have a few automotive guilty pleasures that we're willing to admit to. We'll call a few of 'em out here. Feel free to share some of your own in the comments below. Dodge Neon SRT4 and Caliber SRT4: The Neon was a passably good and plucky little city car when it debuted for the 1995 model year. The Caliber, which replaced the aging Neon and sought to replace its friendly marketing campaign with something more sinister, was panned from the very outset for its cheap interior furnishings, but at least offered some decent utility with its hatchback shape. What the two little front-wheel-drive Dodge models have in common are their rip-roarin' SRT variants, each powered by turbocharged 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. Known for their propensity to light up their front tires under hard acceleration, the duo were legitimately quick and fun to drive with a fantastic turbo whoosh that called to mind the early days of turbo technology. — Consumer Editor Jeremy Korzeniewski  Chevrolet HHR SS: Chevy's HHR SS came out early in my automotive journalism career, and I have fond memories of the press launch (and having dinner with Bob Lutz) that included plenty of tire-smoking hard launches and demonstrations of the manual transmission's no-lift shift feature. The 260-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder was and still is a spunky little engine that makes the retro-inspired HHR a fun little hot rod that works quite well as a fun little daily driver.

Toyota restructuring US operations, possibly moving to Texas

According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, Toyota is poised to announce Monday that it is restructuring its US operations, which may include plans to relocate some of its operations to Texas. Toyota Motor Sales has been located in California since 1957, and is responsible for North American sales, marketing, and distribution for Toyota, Lexus and Scion. According to Toyota literature, its Torrance operations presently employs 6,156 workers and represents a $2.3-billion investment.
Workers in Toyota's Torrance offices were abuzz about the possible relocation to Texas. One young offspring of a Toyota employee even posted to Twitter that her parents warned about the upcoming move, and she said she's refusing to go.
Rumors at one point had Toyota settling in Richardson, TX, just outside Plano. But Autoblog talked to Richardson Mayor Laura Maczka, who said she would be thrilled if that were true, but has not heard anything on the subject. Autoblog also emailed with Bill Sutherland, a city councilman in Torrance, CA, who said, "To date the only info I have is what I have read in the paper expecting a press release Monday."