A Miata With Honda Guts, A Snapped Cybertruck Frame And A Swiss Mine Full Of VWs In This Week's Car Culture Roundup

Good morning! It’s Friday, August 9, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. - Owen Bellwood Read More

When Tesla officially revealed the new Cybertruck, it made some big claims about how the Cybertruck was designed to survive the apocalypse and off-roading on Mars or whatever. While it won’t be crash-tested anytime soon, we can at least say it’s been durability tested by YouTuber WhistlinDiesel, and let’s just say this was not a normal test. Cody Detwiler, the man behind the YouTube channel, did not hold back. Damage to both the Cybertruck and the F-150 it was tested against was guaranteed, but even Detwiler didn’t expect the structure of the truck to snap. - Collin Woodard Read More

Good morning! It’s Thursday, August 8, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

After over 120 years of building cars, the automotive industry has provided us all of the puzzle pieces we need to build the perfect sports car. Honda really knows its powertrains, and Mazda really knows its chassis and handling. If you take the peanut butter and the chocolate and put them together, you get the perfect sports car. This K-swapped NC Miata is ready to completely embarrass a lot of much more expensive modern sports cars. - Bradley Brownell Read More

The Tesla Cybertruck has been a menace on America’s roads ever since it finally went on sale late last year. The angular electric vehicle has been causing a ruckus in Maine, has been bricked by car washes and has failed at basic truck stuff. Now, one budding car modder has uncovered a neat way to make the truck instantly less offensive: googly eyes. - Owen Bellwood Read More

The number one key ingredient to finding joy in driving is “handling.” The term is a bit subjective as handling isn’t a quantifiable metric that you can hang a number on. In large terms, handling is what a car does in response to the driver’s inputs. If the response is predictable, tactile, and agile, it will usually be described as a car with good handling. If the response lags behind your inputs, is erratic, unpredictable or wallowy, it will usually be described as a car with poor handling. - Bradley Brownell Read More

The world is changing, there’s an electric pickup leading sales of six-figure cars, an electric vehicle is the best-selling car in Europe and now Dodge is preparing to release an all-American, all-electric muscle car. Ahead of the Charger Daytona’s release later this year, Dodge has teased the wail that it will make when terrorizing your streets. - Owen Bellwood Read More

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, August 7, 2024, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. - Owen Bellwood Read More

You know how some people seem to move through life with a level of weaponized obliviousness that simultaneously terrifies and intrigues you? The type of people who manage to put diesel into a gasoline car or who drive off with the gas nozzle still in their car? As it turns out, gas pumps have been designed with these folks in mind — the hoses have dedicated breakaway connectors that allow hoses to pop off without damaging the gas station and without spilling any gas. Steve-O of the “Jackass” franchise put these breakaway devices to the test to determine how easy it is to do. As is always the case with anything involving the “Jackass” franchise and any of its members, don’t try this at home. - Logan Carter Read More

Usually mines are filled with coal to run power stations, salt to keep our roads free from snow or rare earth metals to keep our electric cars running. One thing you don’t expect to find down a mine is a Volkswagen Beetle, let alone a whole swarm of them. That’s exactly what a group of urban explorers found when they went off piste in Switzerland. - Owen Bellwood Read More