Cadillac's Coolest Concepts, Stellantis On Shaky Ground And A Forbidden Toblerone In This Week's Car Culture Roundup

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, August 21, 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

Cadillac has a long history of building show-stopping jaw-dropping concept cars, some of them among the most beautifully crafted machines of our time. It all falls apart when it translates these concepts to reality, however, because for every gorgeous ultra-luxury Rolls-Royce-fighting concept there are a hundred Cadillac wrappers on mediocre GM crossovers. Cadillac was once the standard of the world when it came to luxury and performance, and if its concept cars had been pushed into production, it could have earned back that moniker, and maintained it throughout. - Bradley Brownell Read More

I understand that building cars is an expensive proposition, and it is inevitable that costs will need to be cut somewhere, but goddamn do they need to cut costs by getting rid of automatic window switches? - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

More than two decades ago a trio of car dorks appeared on “Top Gear” together for the first time, and on September 13th they’ll end that run with one last back-to-basics Amazon Prime travel-across-a-desert special film. The Clarkson/Hammond/May throuple has been through the wringer and come back out again, making the journey from middle-aged entertainers to elderly curmudgeons along the way, and we’ve been there to see the whole thing unfold. They’ve been a long, long way together, through the hard times and the good. - Bradley Brownell Read More

I love a good gimmick. To me, cars these days are far too straight-laced and serious. I want some whimsy in my automobile – some tomfoolery. Luckily for me, Bentley is delivering on just that. I just finished up a week-long loan of a very well-appointed Continental GTC Azure, and overall the convertible was very lovely – but one thing stuck out to me above all else: its rotating screen – the Forbidden Toblerone. Sure, it’s actually called the Bentley Rotating Display, but Forbidden Toblerone is a lot more fun. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

The original Taurus was a huge deal for Ford. The automaker invested billions to develop a family sedan that could take on the up-and-coming Japanese sedans. And it paid off, as the Taurus was the best-selling car in America for years. Outside of the SHO, however, they were pretty bland cars, but one option package helped bring a little excitement to the lineup. Called the Aero GT Package, it was developed by a company called Spoilers Plus and could be ordered directly through Ford dealers. It was also available on the Taurus’s Mercury Sable sibling as well. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

Living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan means I get to see a lot of high-end vehicles owned by people who live closer to Central Park than I do. For the most part, they’re your run-of-the-mill rich guy cars: Mercedes-Benz S-Classes, BMW 7-Series, Range Rovers and Escalades dominate the streets. But, sometimes I get a treat – a very rare treat. You see, I just stumbled upon one of the rarest vehicles I’ve ever seen: this Bentley Bentayga Stetson Edition parked on Lexington Avenue. - Andy Kalmowitz Read More

Good morning! It’s Thursday, August 21, 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

We’re debating if the 2012 Civic is truly a bad looking compact.

Mazda built something different with its first crossover, the CX-7. However in doing so, the brand had to borrow some parts from more than a few random places, making the CX-7 sort of an automotive Frankenstein. - Lawrence Hodge Read More