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Loans Longer Than Presidential Terms The Ford Maverick was meant to reset expectations. A compact pickup with a sub-$30,000 starting price, hybrid efficiency, and just enough capability to lure buyers out of sedans and crossovers. It was positioned as the antidote to bloated truck pricing. But in today’s market, even the Maverick is starting to reflect a different reality – one where “affordable” is more marketing than math. New car prices have now pushed beyond the $50,000 mark on average, and

The drag racing season has officially started and is going into full swing this weekend with the 13th Annual Southern Big Buck Nationals at Montgomery International Dragway. Our friends at MotorManiaTV are bringing all the action to us live and free and we appreciate it! Video Description: Montgomery, AL – Join us March 20-22, 2026 at Montgomery International Dragway for the 13th Annual Southern Big Buck Nationals! Featuring Triple $20,000 Super Pro purses (Fri/Sat/Sun), $1,000/day Footbrake w

Technology for Safety If there's one thing that motorists these days prioritize, it's safety. With more drivers on the road, the risk of any mishaps or accidents increases. Automakers are taking advantage of this safety push by pouring a lot of R&D into developing multiple new-age features. Tesla prides itself on being a forward-thinking disruptor, and ever since, safety has been top of mind for them. Pioneers in many technologies, like autonomous driving, one of the newer, often-overlooked

Customers have complained that touch controls are not as engaging or as easy to use as real buttons, and Ferrari has been doing something about it. New cars are getting physical buttons on the steering wheels again, and even slightly older models can be retrofitted with more tactile controls, too. It's not the only automaker addressing the issue, either. At the other end of the price scale, Volkswagen is bringing real buttons back, but why are touch controls so proliferative in the first place?

The EV Pushback Just a few years ago, almost every automaker set a deadline to make their respective lineups EV-only. That's mainly thanks to the EU's supposed ban on fuel-fed vehicles by 2035, although that rule is not entirely set in stone. It's an ambitious target, but right now it doesn't seem all that realistic, and consumers aren't migrating en masse to pure battery power. More recently, automakers have either been delaying the move to go pure electric or cancelling plans altogether. The m

The Jeep Wagoneer S, the brand’s first all-electric vehicle for the U.S. market, is already being recalled a little over a year after the start of deliveries. FCA US has notified the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that it is recalling 11,767 Jeep Wagoneer S SUVs because a liftgate hinge cover may detach, turning into a road hazard for other vehicles and increasing the risk of a crash. Loose Plastic Trim Can Become a Dangerous Road Hazard on the Road

Here’s the Day 2 video from The Texas Motorplex and TX2K26! With the sale of Houston Raceway Park three years ago, TX2K was in need of a new home and with only one really big world class drag racing facility left, that meant that TX2K had to move to the Texas Motorplex in Ennis. This is the third year at the Motorplex, and it is carrying on the tradition that was started in Houston. This year’s action was hot and heavy, that is for sure! This track was the first all concrete dragstrip in the w

Lexus has officially launched the eighth generation of the ES sedan in the United States. Available in both fully electric and hybrid iterations, the ES 350e EV will be arriving in dealerships in April at a starting price of $47,500, which is actually cheaper than the hybrid variants. The EV will be followed by the hybrid version in June, giving Lexus buyers in this category an interesting choice to make, given the price parity between the two powertrains. We’ve covered the 2026 ES sedan before

What a Tease  Volkswagen is – once again – teasing a photo of its 2027 Atlas. Set to debut at the 2026 New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) in early April, more details of the new three-row SUV from VW have been sent to our inboxes.  The previous 2027 Atlas teaser revealed a close-up of the LED taillights, and VW seems to be pretty fond of its LED setup with the Atlas for the North American market. We even got to see the prototype of the three-row SUV.

What Is It? Affordable EVs are still hard to come by in the US. Even as more models show up, the starting price isn’t what most buyers would call accessible. The Chevrolet Bolt and Nissan Leaf still lead the way for value, while Toyota’s C-HR EV sits much higher, closer to the high-$30,000 mark. That leaves a clear gap for something more attainable. Toyota fills that gap differently outside the US. The Urban Cruiser, built in India with Suzuki and sold in Europe and Asia, is their answer. It’s m

What a Tease  Volkswagen is – once again – teasing a photo of its 2027 Atlas. Set to debut at the 2026 New York International Auto Show (NYIAS) in early April, more details of the new three-row SUV from VW have been sent to our inboxes.  The 2027 Atlas was already teased once before, with a close-up of the LED taillights, and VW seems to be pretty fond of its LED setup with the Atlas for the North American market. We even got to see the prototype of the three-row SUV.

The federal government is not impressed with Tesla. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) is further probing Tesla's Full Self Driving Beta and Full Self Driving (Supervised) degradation detection system, which was deployed after the automaker began moving away from using both cameras and radars to just cameras with its Tesla Vision system in mid-2021. The agency is concerned that, despite an update, it "fails to detect and/or warn the driver

New Design Language, No New Z4 Yet BMW recently revealed the BMW i3, an all-electric sedan that became the talk of the industry following the German marque’s first product on the "Neue Klasse" platform. Gasoline variants of the 3 Series will be launched later this year, which we’re eagerly anticipating. However, the press event did leave more questions than answers. Aside from the i3, teasers were also dropped for a 3 Series Touring, and I’d like to see BMW make an April Fool’s joke out of this

After launching more than 20 new and refreshed models in 2024 and 2025, Audi has significantly rejuvenated its lineup, but it doesn’t plan to stop there. The luxury car manufacturer aims to continue its model onslaught in 2026 and bring to market several new models. Those include the first-ever Audi Q9 flagship SUV, the A2 e-tron compact electric car, the third generation of the Audi Q7, the facelifted Q4 e-tron compact electric SUV, and the new Audi RS 5 high-performance model, which has alread

Wilwood Racing announces the release of the newest evolution of its legendary Wide 5 hub series for rear axles, a Starlite 55XD featuring 1-Ton Bearing Races. Building on more than 40 years of proven performance, the Starlite 55XD continues the legacy established by the groundbreaking Starlite II “bubble” hub—an industry-transforming design that introduced lightweight strength through advanced engineering pioneered by Wilwood.   The Starlite 55XD model, with 1-ton bearing races for rear ax

Lamborghini boss Stephan Winkelmann says he's been misunderstood. Referring to the Lanzador EV, he called the development of electric vehicles "an expensive hobby" and said that demand for such a product is "close to zero." This seemed to indicate that an electric Raging Bull was canned, but speaking with Autocar, Winkelmann said his quote was "a bit taken out of context." Rather than canceling EV development altogether, Lamborghini will continue its expensive hobby, but the results will only be

Replicating Chevy’s Record: The Mission Behind the Madness DragTimes set out with a very specific objective: prove that Chevrolet’s headline-grabbing 8-second quarter-mile claim for the Corvette ZR1X wasn’t a one-off, factory-controlled miracle. Instead of a prepped press car with engineers on standby, this was a customer-owned example, piloted under real-world conditions at TX2K in Dallas, Texas. The goal was simple on paper: replicate Chevy’s reported 8.6-second pass while validating whether t

All Lit Up Illuminated grilles aren't exactly new. For those old enough to remember, the 1965 Chrysler 300L had something called the center-grille running light. It would take a while before we would see a lit-up grille bearing the now-defunct automaker Mercury, first on the Sable and later on the Villager minivan. Fast forward to the 2010s, and Mercedes-Benz began offering illuminated grille badges, eventually evolving into what we see today. BMW then took it to the next level by illuminating t

The Business of Bespoke Bentley has doubled down on Mulliner, its in-house coachbuilding and personalization arm, to get more out of every car that leaves the factory. What makes Mulliner stand out is just how far you can take it. Expanded color choices, unique interior finishes, and options that go well past what most brands call luxury. But the newest option isn’t about paint or leather. This time, it all starts with sound. Bentley’s new Naim for Mulliner system is now the foundation for a who

Century’s Ultra-Luxury Era Begins With Its First Tokyo Showroom We knew Toyota was taking the Century beyond a mere badge, and now they’ve made it even more of a reality. The brand’s first standalone retail space, dubbed the Century Studio. Sitting within what was once the Lexus Aoyama showroom, Toyota is now taking a bold step into ultra-luxury. The space now represents something much, much more exclusive than anything Toyota itself. To reinforce this notion, the showroom’s initial exhibit feat

With the sale of Houston Raceway Park three years ago, TX2K was in need of a new home and with only one really big world class drag racing facility left, that meant that TX2K had to move to the Texas Motorplex in Ennis. This is the third year at the Motorplex, and it is carrying on the tradition that was started in Houston. This year’s action was hot and heavy, that is for sure! This track was the first all concrete dragstrip in the world, and also the first to see a 300 mph pass, and we’re sur

It was in September last year that Mercedes-Benz first teased a new G-Class Cabriolet with a single shadowy image, and in December, the German automaker showed images of a prototype wearing camouflage, announcing that development had begun testing on the road and track in Austria, where regular G-Wagens are built by Magna Steyr. Mercedes added that prototypes would then head to Sweden for cold-weather testing, but revealed nothing else. But a new report from Automotive News, following a meeting

BMW has just revealed its new electric 3 Series, the i3, wearing the brand’s Neue Klasse design language. It will eventually replace the i4, marking a clear shift in design direction for the brand. The public reaction has been mixed, but a new rendering from Avante Design shows how this controversial design language could translate onto the facelifted G87 BMW M2. And we think he may understand the Neue Klasse design language better than BMW itself. Neue Klassify the BMW M2

The most potent Mercedes CLE Coupe you can buy right now is the CLE 53. This AMG model’s 3.0-liter six-cylinder turbocharged mill makes 443 horsepower, which is plenty, but it also leaves room for an even more powerful ‘63’ model higher up in the lineup. We now know just how powerful—and exclusive—this CLE will be, thanks to information obtained by Automotive News. A special-edition CLE 63 two-door is on the way and will pack 646 hp, but production will be limited to just a few units globally. F

Revoked Around 13,000 immigrant truck drivers recently had their licenses revoked in California. The Federal Government forced the state to cancel the licenses of these truck drivers after barring the state’s DMV from fixing the situation. Truck driver shortages could become a problem for the state in both the short and long terms. Now 13,000 drivers short, logistics in the state could take a hit. However, regulators are also pausing the state’s DMV from issuing new Commercial Driver's Licenses