Weekend Car Culture Roundup December 14, 2024

Oldsmobile is long gone. By the time the brand was phased out in the early 2000s it was a shell of its former self, but Oldsmobile used to make interesting cars like the 442, Trofeo and Aurora. One of the brand’s last interesting cars, and likely one of the rarest, was a badge job of General Motors’ full-size wagon from the early 1990s: the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

The Honda CR-X was an economy car ahead of its time. Its chassis was well-designed and the weight was stripped back, making it a fun and exciting driver, while still keeping to its fuel sipping roots. But what would happen if you put an engine in the back hatch to power the rear wheels? That might turn the little two-seater into an incredibly fun all-wheel drive ripper that could keep up with just about anything in its era. I mean, sure, it’s only making about 220 horsepower with two 1.8-liter engines, but that’s double what a stock CR-X would make. - Bradley Brownell Read More

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, December 11, 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

In order to extract the quickest lap times from a Formula 1 car, teams run on super-slick, super-sticky bespoke Pirelli tires that are purpose-made for running on some of the best race tracks around the world. But did you know that F1 tires are also great for off-roading? - Owen Bellwood Read More

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, December 10, 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

A driver in Pennsylvania was caught up in a crash that looked straight out of a horror movie last week when a truck carrying lumber overturned and threw its load across the road. The pile of lumber flew over I-83, sideswiping a car and forcing it off the highway in the process. A tractor-trailer loaded up with lumber overturned while travelling across an overpass above I-83 in central Pennsylvania, reports CBS News. The truck flipped over and threw the lumber down an embankment and onto the I-83 below where it hit a sedan driving on the northbound highway, as CBS reports: - Owen Bellwood Read More

When BMW released the official specifications of the new seventh-generation G90 M5 back in the summer, the internet lost its collective mind over the fact that it now weighs about as much as the moon at nearly 5,400 pounds. Armchair engineers, keyboard warriors, and a lot of industry experts raised hell about the midsize performance sedan’s gargantuan heft, but the most productive thing that came of all the outcry were some grade-A memes, and none of it was unprecedented. Yes, the G90 M5 is a heavy car, but most modern cars in the era of hybridization are heavier than their predecessors. One of the latest MotorWeek Retro Reviews focuses on the controversial 2006 E60 M5, and despite being 1,000 pounds lighter than the G90, its girth was also the source of controversy nearly two decades and three generations ago. - Logan Carter Read More

A police officer in North Carolina found out the hard way that there are some places you just can’t park a police cruiser. The Greensboro officer was responding to a collision involving two vehicles in Jamestown, NC, at the end of November, reports local news outlet ABC 11. Upon arrival the officer parked their state-issued Explorer Police Interceptor over the train tracks. Mere minutes later an Amtrak train came through and destroyed the police SUV. - Owen Bellwood Read More

Unless you’re old enough to remember the muscle cars of the 1960s, Mercury’s name hardly ever comes up when talking about performance. Sure there were models like the Cougar XR-7, Tracer LTS and Marauder, but beyond those, Mercury never received anything that was really special. Things might have been different had engineers got their way in the late 1980s, though. Mercury had plans for a performance version of its Sable sedan, and it even released a special edition to test out some of the ideas. - Lawrence Hodge Read More

Good morning! It’s Monday, December 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