A naturally aspirated V16 that revs to 9,000 rpm is a great starting point, but Bugatti didn’t leave anything to chance. As explained in a video from the automaker, its engineers spent thousands of hours developing and testing the exhaust sound of the Tourbillon. Even a naturally talented singer can benefit from voice coaching, y’know.

The 8.3-liter, cross-plane-crank engine built by Cosworth sounds pretty great on its own. In the Tourbillon, the V16 is teamed with three electric motors to produce a combined 1,800 horsepower, getting the hypercar from zero to 62 mph in two seconds flat, and on to a top speed of 276 mph. Making this first-ever Bugatti plug-in hybrid sound good regardless of the level of electric intervention was a new challenge the engineers of the Veyron and Chiron didn’t face.

Those Volkswagen-era Bugattis were also designed not just for record-breaking performance, but with an attitude toward everyday usability more reflective of a mass-market conglomerate than a boutique brand. So the Tourbillon had to be loud, but refined. And thankfully, engineers intend for the Tourbillon to be driven with the windows down—which isn’t always the case in this era of hyperfixation on airflow. They also claim that what drivers and passengers will hear is completely natural, without any artificial sounds pumped through speakers.

A variety of engine types have powered Bugattis throughout the years, from the outgoing quad-turbocharged, 8.0-liter W16 to the straight-eights of the classic prewar grand prix cars. It’s hard to pull anything consistent out of all that, but Romain Volatier, the automaker’s head of NVH and acoustics, zeroed in on a “dirty and raw” character. The Tourbillon’s exhaust has a building rumble, not a clean metallic ring.

Of course, the Tourbillon also had to be road-legal. As shown in the video, the car had to pass drive-by sound tests by emitting no more than 72 decibels. That’s a total figure that includes not only the exhaust, but any noise the car might make. Tires, air flowing around the body, and any other mechanical noises contribute to that number, so quieting them means the exhaust can be louder.

Tourbillon deliveries are expected to start later this year but, with production capped at 250 cars, they won’t be a common sight. I hope that if I’m lucky enough to see one, I’m also lucky enough to hear it at full chat.

The post Tuning the Bugatti Tourbillon’s V16 Exhaust Sound Took a Lot of Work. It Was Worth It appeared first on The Drive.

If you want to dress up an engine, valve covers are a solid place to start. Too bad the options usually begin and end with chrome. Sixty years ago, GMC tried something very different. For reasons lost to time and General Motors’ corporate archives, the truck brand briefly offered plaid valve covers on its big-block V6s.

If you’ve never seen these, don’t be surprised. They were apparently used only on half-ton trucks equipped with the 305-cubic-inch V6 for the 1963 model year. While automakers were a lot more adventurous with colors and styling in the 1960s, they clearly did not start a trend of patterned valve covers. That’s probably just as well. I’m a fan of Pfaff Motorsports’ and Stewart Grand Prix’s plaid liveries, but this just looks bizarre to me.

As for why GMC did this, a post on the 6066 GMC Club forum (via Hemmings) citing a conversation with a former GMC engineer claims it wasn’t about fashion, but economy. The story goes that when GMC launched this generation truck in 1960, one of the main complaints from customers was the poor fuel economy of the big-block V6. Engineers tested different carburetors and camshafts to find a solution, and when they did find one, they used adhesive shelf-lining paper with a tartan pattern to mark engines running the improved setup because it happened to be around.

According to the post, people from GMC’s marketing department saw the engines wear the improvised plaid valve covers and, perhaps leaning into cultural stereotypes of Scottish cheapness, decided to put them into production. That did happen, as you can see from the very clean 1963 GMC truck in the embedded video from Kyle’s Car Farm. Given the constant churn in styling features between model years at the time, and the extra cost of applying the plaid covering, it’s not surprising that they were a one-year-only option.

This generation of half-ton trucks was already a major milestone for the manufacturer. It was the first of GM’s light-duty pickups to use a dedicated truck platform, and it lasted until 1966, when it was replaced by the seminal “Action Line” generation.

It’s hard to imagine GMC bringing this back for the Sierra or Canyon, and you’d have a hard time seeing the plaid through a modern truck’s plastic engine cover if it did. Remarkably, though, a company is selling the correct pattern for restorations of the original 1963 trucks.

The post GMC Offered Plaid Valve Covers as a Factory Option in 1963 appeared first on The Drive.

We all have to take that last ride eventually, but what if a Cadillac or Lincoln isn’t your style? For practical reasons, the choice of hearse can’t always reflect a person’s car preferences in life, but JDM fans are in luck. In their home market, Nissan and Toyota produce stately sedans that make the perfect basis for hearse conversions. One of those just popped up on Facebook Marketplace.

This 2001 Toyota Crown Athlete V has the requisite casket space, but otherwise looks like the perfect start for a drift build. It’s powered by a 1JZ-GTE turbocharged 2.5-liter inline-six—and engine with plenty of tuning potential—and it’s rear-wheel drive. The transmission is an automatic, but if we recall correctly, there wasn’t a manual option for these cars. Toyota made both sedan and wagon versions of this generation (the S170), and this hearse looks like it might have been converted from the latter.

While not as elaborate as traditional Japanese hearses, this looks like it will get the job done without drawing accusations of cultural appropriation. The wheelbase doesn’t appear to have been stretched, so the casket lies over where the rear seats would normally go. And while the cargo area is nicely decked out in wood paneling, that doesn’t extend to the hastily converted rear seating area. But it’s not like the passenger will notice.

The S170 Crown was introduced in 1999 and produced through 2002. The Athlete was the sportier version (there was a luxe Royal as well, plus the stretched Majesta), distinguished by the turbocharged 1JZ and styling elements like a mesh grille and subtle body kit.

The Crown nameplate itself is one of the oldest in the Toyota lineup, dating back to 1955. In recent years Toyota has expanded its use to a lifted sedan based on the TNGA platform and the Signia crossover (both currently sold in the United States) alongside the traditional rear-wheel-drive models (which are not).

The listing doesn’t have much information about this car, but does confirm that it has 81,797 miles. As 2001 model, it only became legal to import under the 25-year rule this year. The car is located in Washington State, but the $19,995 asking price is in Canadian dollars, so it’s possible the hearse was biding its time in Canada until it was legal to import. The asking price is $14,514 U.S. at current exchange rates, which is quite a bit higher than what similar-vintage JDM Crowns have been going for on Bring a Trailer, but this is an unusual vehicle.

There have been plenty of unorthodox hearse conversions, but this one is for the JDM fans. Or anyone who doesn’t want their last ride to be slow and stately. Short of strapping a jet engine to one, this is probably about as sporty as a hearse will get.

Got a tip? Reach out to tips@thedrive.com

The post Let’s Hope This 1JZ-Powered Toyota Crown Hearse Has Tie-Downs for the Casket Because I Want the Driver to Whip It Into the Graveside appeared first on The Drive.

Exhaust systems come in many shapes and sizes, and that can have a real effect on performance. The Fabrication Series YouTube channel recently proved that by testing both conventional and unconventional exhaust shapes. Where does this team of fabricators go from there? To a design not even intended for cars, obviously.

The subject of this video is a Tesla valve which, while it is also named after inventor Nikola Tesla, has nothing to do with the automaker. A Tesla valve might look like a silly straw design, but it’s actually a one-way valve that has no moving parts. Curved segments that look like half hearts allow fluids to flow in one direction, but not the other. Most applications involve liquids rather than gases, but that didn’t stop Justin and his team from making a Tesla valve exhaust system and dyno testing it.

Patented in 1920, the Tesla valve’s channels direct the flow back onto itself in one direction and provide a straight shot in the other, preventing the flow from reversing. A lot of these loop-like channels are needed to get the job done, but due to the limited amount of space under the car (it wasn’t intended to accommodate so many curves in the exhaust, after all), there was only enough room for four. To see how well it worked (or didn’t), the Tesla valve exhaust was run on the dyno in both the correct and reverse directions, with a stock exhaust system acting as the control group.

With the exhaust positioned correctly, the Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart test car made a little less power than with its stock exhaust, but we’re talking single-digit differences: 142 horsepower for the Tesla valve versus 146 hp for the stock exhaust, averaged across three pulls. The real difference was in the noise level. The Tesla valve exhaust made effectively no noise; everything audible was coming from under the hood.

Flipping the exhaust around didn’t completely cut off flow—the engine was still able to start—but it pegged the back-pressure gauge. The amount of back pressure was also pretty high with the exhaust oriented correctly, granted, but it seemed to have more of an effect here. Not surprisingly, the engine took longer to build revs and made less power as it did, averaging 134 hp. The reversed exhaust also generated lots of extra heat.

So while a Tesla valve might reduce noise, it does so by making your engine run a lot less efficiently. It turns out something not intended to be used as an exhaust system doesn’t work that well as an exhaust system. Nor does it work that well as a Tesla valve. As Justin points out in the video, gases can compress, so forcing them through the valve’s channels builds up pressure but doesn’t stop the flow completely, as it would with a liquid. That’s the principle behind turbochargers, and it’s why you won’t see a Tesla valve exhaust at this year’s SEMA show.

The post Shaping Your Car Exhaust Like a Silly Straw Is Horrible for Performance, Dyno Proves appeared first on The Drive.

As spoof spy movies, cool cars were obligatory for the Austin Powers trilogy. And while some of the jokes have gotten stale, classic sports cars like the 1965 Chevrolet Corvette convertible from The Spy Who Shagged Me are as cool as ever.

The C2 ‘Vette from the 1999 sequel will be one of the star attractions at Carlisle Auctions’ fall auction, scheduled for October 1-2. Decked out in an American flag paint scheme and wearing the license plate “CIA 1,” it was driven in the movie by CIA agent Felicity Shagwell (played by Heather Graham). It was the natural counterpart to the Union Jacked 1967 Jaguar E-Type “Shaguar,” which also makes an appearance here, along with a Volkswagen New Beetle with a psychedelic livery.

Like the Jag, the Corvette appears to be the only car used in filming. That’s unusual, given that movie productions often source multiple identical cars more specific shots, and to keep things rolling in the event of damage or mechanical issues. But the production didn’t call for any gadgets or outrageous stunts, so one car could do the job more easily. The same car was also featured in the music video of Lenny Kravitz’s 1999 cover of “American Woman” from the movie’s soundtrack, so buying it will give you a double dose of Millennial nostalgia.

In addition to its pop culture provenance, this is simply a nice C2 Corvette. It has a numbers-matching 327-cubic-inch (5.3-liter V8) and four-speed manual transmission. According to the listing, it was given a frame-off restoration that was completed in 2008 and has only accumulated 7,000 miles since then. Documentation, including the bill of sale from New Line Cinema to the first post-Hollywood owners, is provided.

As the shortest-lived Corvette generation, and the one from the peak of the muscle-car era, the C2 is already a darling of collectors. Whether the movie connection boosts the hammer price of this car beyond that of an ordinary 327, four-speed convertible remains to be seen, but the potential ceiling is pretty high. The “Shaguar” E-Type sold for $880,000 at auction in January 2025.

The winning bidder will not be able to drive around unnoticed. Even if people don’t remember its movie role, nothing says “America” like a star-spangled Corvette convertible (although this homemade Jeep Liberty chop job comes pretty close). The question is whether this car’s driver will get more salutes or raised pinky fingers.

Got a tip? Reach out to tips@thedrive.com

The post This Groovy and Patriotic ‘Austin Powers’ Corvette Is Up for Grabs appeared first on The Drive.

Weight is the enemy of performance, and Porsche knows it. From stripped-down specials like the 911 Carrera RS to today’s Weissach Packages, Porsche has fought many battles in the war against poundage. And the engineers in Stuttgart have just identified a new front in that war: car audio systems.

In what the automaker claims is a world first for production cars, Burmester audio systems in near-future Porsche models will have gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductors. GaN conducts current with greater efficiency and allows for greater power density than current semiconductor materials, Porsche stated in a press release, making audio-system hardware lighter and more compact.

GaN semiconductors might be new to car audio, but they’re not new overall. Their industrial use dates back to the 1990s, when they were first employed at scale in blue LEDs. Today, chips with GaN semiconductors can be found in everything from tablets and USB chargers to satellites, Porsche notes. They’re prized for high switching frequencies and lower energy losses than typical silicon-based semiconductors. This reduces the amount of heat generated, increasing overall efficiency and thus allowing for smaller, lighter hardware.

Less heat also means lower cooling requirements. Porsche claims the heat sink packaged with these chips is 20% lighter, and that other “passive components” can be made smaller as well. The heat sink is made of aluminum, so shrinking it also saves material, and considering how energy-intensive aluminum production is, Porsche expects to avoid some carbon dioxide emissions this way.

Porsche began studying GaN semiconductor tech for automotive use in 2023, and launched a development program with the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Robust Power Semiconductor Systems in 2024. The tech will first be deployed in a 400-watt amplifier for a Burmester 3D system in 2027, and Porsche is looking at other applications beyond that.

“The semiconductor can be used for power conversion in high-voltage systems,” said Dr. Lars Heuken, Porsche semiconductor manager, in a statement. “This makes GaN particularly interesting for the high-voltage systems of electric sports cars, for instance.” Porsche remains committed to EVs generally, but seems to be having trouble getting a true sports car—in the form of an electric Boxtser/Cayman replacement—across the line.

The post Porsche Finds Yet Another Way to Shed Weight, and It’s in Sound Systems appeared first on The Drive.

The design team at Ferrari isn’t above mining the past for inspiration, especially when it comes to one-off cars for customers with big budgets. But why should the factory have all the fun? Ferrari’s back catalog of legendary names and designs provides enough fertile ground for third parties to do the same.

Due to be auctioned off by Broad Arrow, the one-off Daytona Shooting Brake Hommage by Dutch designer Niels van Roij burrows deep into Ferrari lore. It’s inspired by another one-off car that was itself a tribute to a classic Ferrari. The story starts in 1972, when Bob Gittleman commissioned Luigi “Coco” Chinetti Jr.—son of Luigi Chinetti, the former racing driver who established the Ferrari franchise in North America—to build a unique car. Chinetti Jr. teamed up with designer Gene Garfinkle, and they settled on an homage to the Ferrari 250 GT SWB Breadvan.

The Breadvan was a race car, its unique bodywork intended to provide an aerodynamic advantage. But Chinetti and Garfinkle intended this car to be a road-going grand tourer. Starting with a 365 GTB/4 Daytona coupe, they designed shooting brake bodywork with large windows and an all-glass tailgate opening that brings to mind European hearses. The aluminum bodywork was fabricated by British firm Panther Westwinds, the company best known for Neo-Classics. The finished car reportedly cost four times as much as a stock Daytona.

Niels van Roij loves shooting brakes. He’s designed ones based on the Rolls-Royce Wraith and Tesla Model S, and even turned a 550 Maranello into a modern Ferrari Breadvan. So while the listing claims the designer was approached by a client about building a tribute to the 1972 Daytona Shooting Brake, it’s easy to imagine that van Roij already had the idea in his head.

The Daytona Shooting Brake Hommage is based on a 2009 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, which is apparent when looking at the lower bodywork, windshield, and side windows. However, the front and rear perspectives faithfully recreate the Daytona’s trademark visored headlights and all-glass Kamm tail, respectively. The transformation took about 15,000 hours, according to the listing, with modern methods like CAD modeling and 3D printing employed alongside traditional hand craftsmanship. The 5.9-liter V12, which made 611 horsepower and 448 pound-feet of torque from the factory, was left untouched.

If I’d gone through the trouble of commissioning a one-off car, and waiting nearly two years for it to be finished, I’d probably hang onto it for a little while. But despite only being unveiled this past July, the Daytona Shooting Brake Hommage will soon have a new owner. Broad Arrow expects it to sell for $524,000-$757,000 at its Zoute Concours Auction, scheduled for October 9.

The post There’s Only One of These Coachbuilt Ferrari Shooting Brakes With a Big V12, and You Can Own It appeared first on The Drive.

If you’re looking for a way to share your love of cars with your kids, and the floor of every room in your house is already a minefield of Lego bricks and errant Hot Wheels, there’s a new alternative that will also teach them how cars work.

Thames & Kosmos, a company that specializes in educational toys, has a model car kit with a working engine, transmission, differential, and suspension. Even better, the engine is a V8 and the gearbox is a four-speed manual. At $39.95, the kit is only a little pricier than an entry-level Lego Speed Champions set or traditional plastic model kits. But neither of those can show how cars actually work.

Sporting the classic cigar-on-wheels shape of a prewar Grand Prix racer or Indy roadster, the model has a tiny V8 engine with a rotating crankshaft and pistons. The block is clear so you can see everything moving, and the other components have the same level of detail. The transmission has miniature gears, synchronizers, and input and output shafts, plus a working shifter to row the gears with. An electric motor (powered by two AAA batteries) attached to the input shaft spins everything.

Just like in a real car, the rotational energy is transferred to a differential. Again, the basic workings are replicated in miniature, with a ring and spider gear splitting power between the left and right axle shafts. Double-wishbone suspension with coil springs is also faithfully replicated, and this open-wheel car makes it even easier to see the suspension at work. The steering wheel can also be mounted on the left or right side of the cockpit.

The kit consists of 233 pieces and comes with a 40-page manual that provides both assembly instructions and explanations of key mechanical engineering concepts, according to the online ad copy. It’s recommended for ages 10 and over.

Toys can show kids that cars can be cool, and video games can show them that driving can be fun. This will give them an appreciation for the engineering that makes all of that coolness and fun possible, plus a modicum of patience from having to assemble all of those tiny parts the correct way.

The post Teach Your Kids How V8s and Stick Shifts Work With This $40 Model Car appeared first on The Drive.

Bring a Trailer became the go-to site for car-shopping procrastination by specializing in offbeat listings that would normally be ignored by traditional auction houses. Today the site is often populated with overpriced Integras, supercars getting flipped, and ordinary used cars from sellers looking to maximize their earnings. But the site still occasionally serves up something delightfully unusual.

Even if you’re a fan of military vehicles, you probably haven’t seen this 3.5-ton Ford 6×6 cargo truck. It’s a prototype that was built around 1960 and has spent most of the last five decades under restoration, only making rare appearances in online posts as the current owner —who acquired the truck in 2023 as an incomplete project vehicle—has tried to unload it.

Designated the XM434E2, the prototype was part of a canceled development program for medium-duty trucks launched in the late 1950s. The U.S. Army Ordnance Corps sought proposals for a range of trucks of different capacities, and General Motors and REO reportedly submitted prototypes alongside Ford. However, the program never advanced beyond the prototype stage.

The Army’s requirements included amphibious capability and the ability to be air-dropped, according to the listing. So this truck has a duplex-drive system that allows power to be sent to either the wheels or a rear-mounted propeller. Plus, it has aluminum bodywork to keep it as light as possible. Measuring 20 feet long, eight feet wide, and 10 feet tall, with a 126-inch wheelbase, the truck is powered by a 534-cubic-inch diesel V8 producing 195 horsepower. It’s coupled to a six-speed manual transmission and single-speed transfer case.

This truck is very cool, but it’s also very much a work in progress. The seller notes that the recently overhauled fuel pump needs to be tuned, the power steering and transfer case seals leak, and the driveshaft for the propeller is missing. There’s also lots of visible corrosion and some small items that need to be addressed, like the non-functioning windshield wipers. The tires mounted on the truck in the accompanying photos look cracked, although spares are provided (along with other parts). But the truck does have a Wisconsin title and a VIN identifying it as a 1960 model, so it can be registered for road use.

Like most other automakers, Ford built up a substantial military business during World War II and tried to keep that going into the Cold War, when paranoia over the Soviet threat made fat defense contracts easy to come by. As the company is quick to note, Ford built the most Jeeps during World War II, as well as B-24 Liberator bombers. The XM434E2 was not the truck to carry on that legacy, apparently. But Ford is still trying to earn more military business with its current pickups.

The post For Sale: 6×6 Ford Truck Developed as an Amphibious Military Prototype Circa 1960 appeared first on The Drive.

As professional drivers, the folks wheeling semi-trucks should be a cut above the rest of us. But getting paid to do something doesn’t guarantee that you’re always going to do it perfectly, and when a big rig is involved, the consequences of any mistake can be embarrassingly huge.

Earlier this week, an unoccupied semi truck rolled into an excavation site at the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline in remote Saxon, Wisconsin. It collided with the pipeline, releasing a cloud of natural gas that forced the evacuation of nearby homes and the imposition of a no-fly zone in the area, a local CBS News affiliate reported Tuesday. Video posted by Milwaukee’s Fox News affiliate shows why: clouds of evaporating natural gas enveloped the site, nearly engulfing tall cranes.

Operated by Canada-based Enbridge, the pipeline carries petroleum products between Canada, Wisconsin, and Michigan. The construction work in Saxon, located in Iron County on the northern edge of Wisconsin, is part of a $1 billion relocation project to move the pipeline away from the Bad River Native American tribe’s reservation. Enbridge told local media outlets that no one was injured in the collision and that the affected section of pipeline was isolated right away. The company didn’t have an explanation for how the truck, which was parked at the construction site, was able to roll away.

The damage appears to have been contained quickly. On Wednesday, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that a haz-mat team and emergency response crews were still on-site, but that air quality monitoring showed no signs of hazardous gases outside the immediate area of the breach. A haz-mat team was conducting air quality readings within a one-mile radius of the site, sniffing for combustible gases, carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and volatile organic compounds at the time. However, around 50 residents remained without electricity after power was shut off as a precaution.

Built in 1953, the Line 5 pipeline stretches 645 miles between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. It carries up to 23 million gallons of crude oil and liquid natural gas daily. These liquids, which are primarily used to make propane, evaporate quickly when released into the atmosphere, creating both a health and environmental hazard. Though cleaner than other hydrocarbons like oil and coal, natural gas is still a potent greenhouse gas when released into the atmosphere in undiluted form.

A mechanical issue could be at fault here; potential for roll-aways is a frequent source of recalls for light-duty trucks and cars, after all. But this wouldn’t be the first time a semi-truck driver has exercised bad judgment. The next time you feel bad about making a mistake at work, remember this story.

The post Worst Day at Work Ever: Semi-Truck Rolls Into Pipeline, Area Ruled No-Fly Zone appeared first on The Drive.

Headlight glare is a real problem that current regulations don’t address. A recent AAA study found that six of 10 U.S. drivers believe headlight glare is an issue when driving at night, and about three quarters said the problem has gotten worse in the last decade. Another study backs that up, showing that many cars and trucks produce excessive headlight glare—but are still okay from the feds’ perspective.

This study was conducted by eyewear company Overnight Glasses, but the methodology is well judged. Researchers used headlight-testing data on 257 models from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), and compared that to vehicle height—because taller vehicles place headlights closer to other drivers’ line of sight—to create an index of nighttime headlight glare.

If you’ve scanned the IIHS ratings when shopping for a new car, you know that some models fall well short of the mark in the insurance industry org’s headlight tests. One of those is the second-generation (2017-2024) Nissan Titan, which produced headlight glare 615.1% above what the IIHS considers a safe limit. Note that this is the worst case among 16 different headlight versions the IIHS tested over the second-gen Titan’s production run.

The Titan was ranked the worst overall for headlight glare in the study, even though the BMW X5’s headlights produced even more glare, at 677.8% above the IIHS-sanctioned limit (that’s based on 12 headlight variants from the same spread of model years as the Titan). But because this study also factors in height, and the X5 isn’t as tall as the Titan, it received a better index score of 95.6, compared to the Nissan’s 100.

Consideration of vehicle height as well as raw glare produced by too-bright headlights meant that the ranks were mostly populated with full-size pickup trucks. The Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and Ram 1500 were right behind the Titan in second and third, respectively. The GMC Sierra 1500 was fifth, although interestingly the Ford F-150 was 10th, with a lower glare index than the Edge, Lincoln Nautilus, and Kia Sedona.

A key point emphasized here is that all of these vehicles meet federal standards—you wouldn’t be able to buy them if they didn’t. As IIHS tests show, federal rules are woefully inadequate both for addressing glare and ensuring that headlights actually provide adequate nighttime illumination. Automakers don’t feel the need to address this because not only do they not have to, but because the current rules don’t allow much leeway for new lighting technology (although the latter is beginning to change).

The post Study Finds Nissan Titan Headlight Glare Is 615% Over IIHS Limit, But Still Not Breaking the Law appeared first on The Drive.

If you’re a fan of simulated racing on four wheels, there’s no shortage of high-quality steering wheels, pedals, and other gear available to build a great rig. That hasn’t really been the case for those who prefer two wheels, but what looks like a compelling new option just dropped.

Moza has quickly gone from an upstart to a respected maker of sim gear, and at Gamescom 2026 this week it unveiled an officially licensed MotoGP handlebar controller. At first blush, a couple of us here at The Drive were a bit skeptical about it, as it brought to mind novelty controllers like the Tony Hawk: Ride skateboard or the plastic instruments for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. But this does seem like an earnest attempt to do for motorcycles what sim-rig wheels have done for cars, and not just a cash grab by MotoGP.

Moza claims the handlebar controller “closely follows” the proportions of the handlebars of real-life MotoGP bikes, with a similar control layout, and that it was “ergonomically refined” with input from professional riders. The layout is so close to the real thing that the brake lever and grips can be swapped out for parts off an actual motorcycle, Moza claims. The main structure is made from lightweight magnesium alloy.

The bars are also adjustable in width and angle, while the clutch and brake levers and the clusters of buttons on both grips can pivot for a more comfortable grip. There are 10 buttons in total (five per side), plus a five-way switch on the left side and a D-pad in the middle that can be freely assigned to different functions. The bars can be paired with Moza’s CM2 digital dashboard or DIY displays, according to the company.

The brakes and clutch use Hall-effect sensors, and the bars can be set up for leaning or steering, with native force feedback when playing MotoGP 26 and a handful of other games. To get the full effect, though, you’ll need a true motorcycle sim rig like the one in Moza’s teaser video.

Pricing information wasn’t available at press time, but Moza’s licensed racing wheels tend to be pricey. You can get a Lamborghini Revuelto sim wheel for $399, or spend $1,299 on one styled like an Essenza SCV12 track car’s wheel. At least you’ll know you’re not getting the next cursed controller.

The post Legit MotoGP Handlebar Sim Controller Promises More Immersive Game Experience Without Totally Sucking appeared first on The Drive.

Semi-truck racing has been a thing for decades, and rightfully so. There’s just something extra entertaining about watching vehicles not built to go fast hit the track. It’s definitely a niche within the niche that is motorsports, but nonetheless there are semi-truck racing series all around the world. And this might be the craziest of them all.

Held in Colombia every year since 1988, the Gran Premio Mobil Delvac isn’t just a race for semi trucks. It’s a test of skills the drivers also use on the road. Drivers lap the Autodromo de Tocancipa road course with trailers attached. They also have to negotiate slaloms and stop boxes like you might normally find on an autocross course. That kind of precision likely comes in handy on the streets of Bogota.

As far as we at The Drive know, there isn’t another event like this. There are plenty of established semi-truck racing series where professional racers in modified tractors compete on road courses, and there’s some circle-track racing as well. There are also drag races and sled pulls that put the pulling power of trucks to the test in a straight line. But we can’t think of another race where semi trucks actually pull trailers while lapping a road course.

The drivers don’t appear to be professional racers, either. Any trucker who buys a five-gallon bucket of oil from sponsor Mobil is eligible to enter, and the company claims 150 drivers showed up for the most recent race, held at the end of July. It’s kind of a throwback to the early days of NASCAR, when many racing drivers still had day jobs.

Sponsor decals aside, the trucks also aren’t the highly modified machines that compete in other semi-truck races. Most fuel-system components are unrestricted, but turbochargers are more tightly controlled. Only certain turbos are allowed for certain engines, and tricks like variable geometry, ceramic bearings, and water cooling are prohibited. Nitrous oxide is also illegal, and all trucks must have six axles, with both rear drive axles engaged for the race.

Past livestreams are available on YouTube if you want to check out a very different kind of racing. There’s plenty of weird and wild stuff out there beyond the big-name series, which is part of what makes motorsports so cool.

The post Insane Semi-Truck Racing Event Has Trailer-On Time Attack appeared first on The Drive.

If you have a vintage Jeep and need parts, you should head to Texas—ASAP. Jeep Heritage is a parts and restoration firm based in Johnson City, about 50 miles west of Austin, that’s been accumulating parts for decades. The company is moving, but before that happens, it’s selling those parts at 50% off their normal prices.

There’s a lot to choose from. On its website, Jeep Heritage claims to have parts pulled from over 150 donor vehicles. Those parts range from complete frames and axles to smaller items like trim pieces, gauges, glass, and grilles that can stop a project in its tracks. And unlike your local pick-and-pull, the parts are sorted so you don’t have to waste time looking for a car similar to yours, only to find that the one part you need has already been taken.

The catch is that you have to go to Jeep Heritage’s facility in person. The company isn’t shipping parts. You can’t just show up at any time either, as access to the parts horde is by reservation only, and only between now and August 29. Jeep Heritage also focuses on the SJ Jeeps—Wagoneer, Cherokee, and J-Truck—so most of the parts on offer will presumably be for those models.

Jeep Heritage is the company behind Vigilante 4×4, which builds high-end Jeep restomods like a $260,000 Scrambler with modern Hemi power. It’s good to know that the OEM parts taken off those restomods aren’t just thrown in the trash.

Big parts stashes like the one this company has amassed are impressive and can be a great resource for car hobbyists. Protecting such a big trove from the unexpected can be more of a challenge, though, not to mention keeping track of everything. Hopefully Jeep Heritage’s new home makes that easier.

In the meantime, I wish anybody heading down to Texas for some last-minute Jeep parts shopping happy hunting.

The post An Epic Jeep Parts Fire Sale Is Going on Right Now in Texas appeared first on The Drive.

When Lamborghini introduces a new V12 supercar, it’s usually a momentous event worthy of scientific naming. The launch of the Murcielago as the replacement for the Diablo was like the end of the Cretaceous period, putting Lamborghini’s boutique independence fully in the rearview mirror and marking the completion of its transformation into a Volkswagen Group brand. But the Murcielago was still a true Lambo, and this is among the best of the breed.

Set to be auctioned off by RM Sotheby’s, this 2010 model isn’t just any Murcielago. It’s an LP 670-4 Superveloce, and it’s one of only five of those sportier models equipped with a six-speed manual transmission that, like the standard Murcielago gearbox, had a gated shifter. It’s thought to be the last manual Murcielago of any kind built, according to the auction listing. That would also make it the last V12 Lamborghini, period, as the subsequent Aventador and Revuelto ditched stick shifts entirely. It’s also got unique paint and interior trim from Lamborghini’s Ad Personam personalization program.

Launched in 2002, the Murcielago dramatically updated Lamborghini styling with an angular theme highlighted by winglet-like engine air intakes that opened and closed as needed. The first Lamborghini developed from the ground up under the supervision of Audi (and with the money of parent VW), it used a version of the 6.2-liter V12 from the Diablo, Countach, and Miura, initially making 571 horsepower. That was later boosted to 6.5 liters and 631 hp in the LP 640-4 refresh. The number represents output in metric horsepower, “LP” stands for “Longitudinale Posteriore,” referencing the engine’s longitudinal orientation behind the driver, and “4” denotes all-wheel drive, which all Murcielago road cars had.

The Superveloce was the Murcielago’s swan song. Introduced just before the end of production in 2010, it got an additional 30 hp via new exhaust and ignition systems, and the addition of variable valve timing. It was also claimed to be 220 pounds lighter than a non-SV model, and had suspension tuned for track work. More elaborate aero elements were also fitted, including a large rear wing that this car doesn’t have. It’s one of the few specced with the little-known low-drag wing, which purportedly raised the top speed from 209 mph to 212 mph.

That’s not the only unusual thing about this car. It’s the only Murcielago painted in Marrone Eklipsis, a metallic brown that was previously used on the Diablo VT 6.0 SE, the run-out version of the Diablo. It goes great with this car’s gold wheels and Marrone Janus/Avorio Lilium two-tone interior.

The Murcielago certainly did its job, updating the bedroom-wall-poster Lamborghini supercar for the 2000s. It was also the last production car with Lamborghini’s original V12, as the automaker introduced a clean-sheet design with the Aventador. In addition to doing away with the manual transmission, that supercar introduced more technology, while the Revuelto went even further in that direction with a plug-in hybrid powertrain. So, this Murcielago truly represents the end of an era.

The post Last Lambo V12 With a Manual: This Murcielago Superveloce Is Off to Auction appeared first on The Drive.

The early days of the Internet were a magical time of possibility unencumbered by the conventions of graphic design. Before social media, if you wanted to put yourself online, you needed a website. But making one was easy, especially because the bar for aesthetic standards was on the floor. A Boston-based drift team is bringing back that look and showing that, improbably, the modern Internet hasn’t really improved on it.

The Loosen UP! drift team (which, full disclosure, counts The Drive’s own Aaron Segal as a member) recently launched a site with the excellent URL www.s13.world to sell merch, and it looks like something from the days of Netscape Navigator. There are cheesy animations everywhere, and a banner at the top reads “best viewed in 800×600.” In keeping with the bit, all the images in the site’s photo gallery are tiny. But who needs high-res photos when you have text that’s on fire?

It’s not just the graphics. The layout is also a throwback to the early Internet. There’s not a drop-down menu in sight, but there is a visitor counter and links to “favorite sites,” harkening back to a time when those things were relevant. Instead of going full-width, each page sits on a night-sky background with twinkling stars. That perfectly complements the various shades of purple used throughout, something you don’t see in today’s black text/white background orthodoxy.

The site is also the perfect way to showcase the team’s cars, which include drift classics like the S13 Nissan 240SX, MX83 Toyota Cressida, and Z33 Nissan 350Z. Primitive websites like this were current when drifting started taking off in the United States with cars like these, so the vibe is all period-correct. It’s the online version of wearing a Member’s Only jacket or loud-pattern windbreaker to Radwood.

Things have moved on, but maybe not for the better. I’ll take random animations over a deluge of pop-up ads any day. And low-contrast text and backgrounds may be harder to read, but they’re undeniably stylish. Nostalgia is at play here, granted. When websites looked like this, the Internet was new and exciting. It’s been optimized in many ways since then, but it’s also become a lot less fun.

Even if you don’t get the joke, it’s worth appreciating how unique design can make a great first impression compared to algorithm-driven social media platforms. Making a statement through a site is something that has aged a lot better than Flash animation.

The post This Drift Team’s Website Is What the Internet Should Look Like appeared first on The Drive.

Smartphone use is a well-known road-safety issue, but it’s usually assumed that texting and taking calls while driving are the biggest contributors. That’s why most states have banned holding phones while driving, and why Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are essential features in new cars. But a new study published in the journal JAMA Network Open claims there’s another potential source of phone-based distraction: streaming music.

Specifically, the study looked at rates of traffic fatalities on the days of major album releases. The authors charted an increase in the adjusted number of fatalities on the days when hot albums dropped, which, unsurprisingly, tend to be the days when people stream music from their phones more than usual. Fatalities increased by 15.1% compared to the 10 days before and after the album drops, while streaming increased by approximately 43% on those release dates.

The authors studied traffic fatalities and music streaming between 2017 and 2022, when 233,809 deaths were officially recorded in the United States. That’s based on the federal government’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), while streaming-use data was based on publicly available charts from Spotify. The top album streamed on that service during the study period was Taylor Swift’s Midnights, released on October 21, 2022, which was played 184,695,609 times on that date. Never underestimate the fanaticism of Swifties.

Album release dates are pre-planned, but record companies aren’t looking at traffic forecasts, the authors note, so there’s no inherent reason for release dates and increases in fatal crashes to align. The authors also controlled for differences like holidays and days of the week (albums tend to get released on Fridays) and did some demographic analysis as well. They found bigger increases in fatal crashes involving younger drivers, who also tend to use music streaming services more frequently than older drivers still clutching their CD players and aux jacks. That raises an important point.

Music has been part of the driving experience since long before smartphones. I’ll admit to getting a slightly heavier foot when listening to Passion Pit’s Manners, but that album was released before Spotify was a thing. The authors argue that music-streaming services create new opportunities for distraction that, in turn, increase the likelihood of a crash. That could be the case whether drivers are using their phones directly or via a car’s infotainment system.

Infotainment systems allow drivers to access phone-based features hands-free, which is supposed to be a safety benefit. But the authors argue that it also lowers the barrier to doing things other than driving. It’s another reminder that, when you’re behind the wheel, driving is all that you should be focusing on.

The post Hot Album Drops Tied to Fatal Crash Rate Increases: Study appeared first on The Drive.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a great car film, not only because it’s basically one long chase, but because the production team built a fleet of post-apocalyptic vehicles that were fully functional despite looking utterly freakish. Many of the star cars were auctioned off a few years ago, but if you missed out on that (or just didn’t have the budget), there’s another opportunity to own a Fury Road car—as long as you’re willing to settle for an extra.

One of the leftover cars built for the movie is currently up for auction on eBay. It’s a Frankenstein creation combining the rusted body of a 1948 Hillman Minx with the chassis from a Mitsubishi L300 van. Even if it wasn’t a movie car, it would be a unique addition to your local cars and coffee. You’re unlikely to see a Minx—or any Hillman, for that matter—in the U.S., and Mitsubishi hasn’t sold any work vehicles here in decades.

People are unlikely to recognize it from the movie, though. The listing claims that it was shown being transported on a car carrier, which can be briefly glimpsed near the back of Immortan Joe’s convoy. But the carrier itself is so peripheral that it’s hard to identify the Minx riding on it. According to the listing, the car was used in some scenes that ended up getting cut. When it was previously offered for sale in 2024 by Propstore Auction, the listing identified it as one of the buggies used by the Buzzards that attack Imperator Furiosa’s War Rig early in the film. The Buzzards’ rides were all covered in metal spikes, so perhaps the Hillman was originally built for that scene and not used, and then the filmmakers couldn’t find another worthwhile role for it.

This is nonetheless a pretty cool build in its own right. Like the other Fury Road cars, the body is the real deal (it’s hard to imagine someone going through the trouble of making a fake 1948 Hillman Minx body), and the Mitsubishi chassis is pretty stout. The jacked-up rear end, giant tires, and exhaust exiting from the rear wheel well give it a cartoonish look that’s part off-roader, part patinated custom, and part 1970s Street Freak.

The listing doesn’t specify what engine is under the hood, but it’s likely the same small-displacement gasoline or diesel motor from the donor L300 chassis. It’s connected to a five-speed manual transmission that you shift with your left hand because this car is right-hand drive. The interior is fully set up for stunt work with an easily accessible hand brake, roll cage, and battery kill switch. The listing claims everything works, but with the disclaimer that this car is “not intended for driving.”

That’s a bummer, because this movie extra looks like it might be a lot of fun to rip around in. It would also be a lot of fun to watch someone else try to explain it to the DMV.

The post Own a ‘Mad Max’ Movie Car Extra by Out-Bidding Everyone for This Ratty 1948 Buggy appeared first on The Drive.

Like electric cars, battery-powered ATVs can make a lot of sense. Electrification of off-road recreation and work rigs is proceeding at a much slower pace, though, so there aren’t a lot of choices around. That’s where the DIY approach comes in.

YouTuber RMS Builds converted a 2004 Yamaha RC450 to battery power, and that build apparently went well enough to warrant an encore. This time, the donor quad was a 2006 Honda Rancher, which was chosen for its shaft drive in order to make the finished electric ATV as quiet as possible. Even without an exhaust, the Yamaha still made quite a racket thanks to its chain drive. This is all explained in one video, which also covers fabrication, while a second part covers assembly and the finished product.

A 10-kilowatt (13.4-horsepower) motor is mounted where the original gasoline engine would have gone, powered by a 6.1-kilowatt-hour battery pack. The controller and other electronics are mounted on a plate attached to the top motor mount. No extensive modifications to the frame were needed to accommodate the compact electric motor, but getting its output shaft to mate with the universal joint used to send power to the rear differential involved lots of machining.

With batteries onboard, the Rancher weighs 487 pounds, which is actually about 10 pounds lighter than the lightest stock version, according to the builder. Range is estimated at 35 miles under normal conditions. And while it wasn’t able to beat a stock gasoline-powered Rancher in a pair of drag races, that wasn’t the point of this build.

The real goal was to make a quieter ATV, and combining electric power with the Rancher’s shaft drive definitely did the trick. While there’s noticeable motor whine, the electric ATV is still a lot quieter than its gasoline counterpart. And there’s none of the rattling chain slap that accompanies RMS Builds’ Yamaha, especially at higher speeds.

No open vehicle is going to be completely silent on the move, but when you stop, the lack of idling noise is definitely nice. It makes it easier to enjoy off-the-beaten-path places you’ve taken the trouble to ride to. It’s part of what makes electric off-roaders appealing, so why should ATV riders be left out?

The post Building Your Own Electric Honda ATV Is Quite the DIY Project appeared first on The Drive.

Thanks to decades of racing experience, the Brembo name is synonymous with performance. But what the company claims is its most powerful brake caliper ever for road-going vehicles was designed for an application that has nothing to do with lap times.

The Boldika (pronounced bohl-DEE-kah) is a six-piston caliper intended for use in large pickup trucks and SUVs with both electrified and straight internal-combustion powertrains. As those heavy vehicles—particularly the all-electric ones—get more powerful, stopping power is becoming more important than ever. This is why the Boldika can clamp a rotor with 8,500 newton-meters, or 6,269 pound-feet of torque.

To deliver that force consistently, the Boldika (the name is a blend of “bold” and “like,” according to a press release) features a three-piece design with aluminum components sandwiching a cast-iron bridge. This is the first time Brembo has employed this type of construction in a six-piston caliper. Benefits include lighter weight compared to an all-cast-iron design, greater stiffness, and maximum braking power (naturally).

The Boldika also has Brembo’s Enesys anti-drag technology, which ensures that the pads return to their resting place after braking. This eliminates residual friction between the pads and rotors when not under braking, helping improve fuel economy and EV range, while also prolonging pad life.

In the press release, Brembo talks up the caliper’s “muscular” design and how it was engineered to maximize pad surface area, but also claims it’s compact enough to fit inside 20-inch wheels. That may not seem like much of a boast until you hear where Brembo plans to stick those calipers.

The first confirmed application is the Chevrolet Silverado EV RST Stars and Steel Edition, which will get a set of Boldika calipers in Torch Red when it arrives at dealerships later this year. This is an all-electric pickup that rides on 24-inch wheels and weighs around 9,000 pounds. But it’s also likely to have over 700 horsepower, similar to the last RST, which Chevy said could do zero to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds. Even with regenerative braking, getting that much mass (unsprung or otherwise) stopped as quickly as it goes is a challenge worthy of Brembo’s mightiest caliper.

The post Brembo’s New Six-Piston Brake Caliper Is Its Most Powerful Ever appeared first on The Drive.

Hiroshi Okuda, an executive that helped transform Toyota into a global powerhouse and hybrid pioneer, died this week at the age of 93. His death, attributed to natural causes, was confirmed Thursday in a press release from the automaker.

Okuda served as CEO and then chairman of Toyota from 1995 to 2006, part of a 45-year career with the automaker. He’s generally credited with pushing for development of the Prius, which launched on his watch in 1997 in Toyota’s home market. That earned Okuda the appellation “father of the Prius,” although the breakthrough hybrid had many parents. Takeshi Uchiyamada has also been called the “father of the Prius” because he oversaw the development program, but he received his marching orders from Okuda, who also pushed to have the car ready for production a year earlier than the original timeline called for.

Born in central Japan, Okuda graduated from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo in 1955 and began working for Toyota almost immediately after that. He eventually rose into the top executive ranks despite not being part of the founding Toyoda family, which still exerts a great deal of control over the company.

In addition to championing the Prius, Okuda is generally credited with enabling Toyota’s growth into the dominant Japanese automaker, one that most often goes toe to toe with the biggest international firms like General Motors and the Volkswagen Group. He oversaw expansions of production capacity in Europe and the U.S., putting Toyota in an ideal position as the Camry became the dominant car in the U.S. market in the 1990s.

Okuda also advocated promotion of younger managers during his tenure, according to AP News. While this usually meant promoting men (it was inevitably men at the time) in their 50s rather than their 60s, that was still a big shift from Japanese corporate norms. And it demonstrated pragmatic leadership that made Toyota so formidable in the late 1990s, arguably the golden age of the Japanese auto industry as a whole.

Cars like the Prius and Camry aren’t exactly fun, but they’ve shaped the modern car industry. Okuda undoubtedly deserves a place in the automotive history books.

The post Longtime Toyota CEO and Father of the Prius Hiroshi Okuda Dies at 93 appeared first on The Drive.

Until the turn of the century, Lamborghini didn’t have much involvement in racing. Ferruccio Lamborghini just wasn’t as interested in seeing his cars on the track as rival Enzo Ferrari, whose crude approach to customer service was allegedly Lamborghini’s inspiration for making cars, and not just tractors. But for decades there was a place where Lamborghini raced—and won. It just wasn’t on pavement.

Lamborghini began adapting its V12 engines for marine use just a few years after it started putting them in cars. From the 1980s to the 2000s, those engines would become a force to be reckoned with in offshore powerboat racing, as this video from the YouTube channel Véhicule explains.

In 1967, just four years after launching his eponymous car brand, Ferruccio Lamborghini had a Riva Super Aquarama fitted with a pair of V12s based on the road car engine. Originally displacing 3.5 liters in Lambo’s first production car, the 350 GT, this engine would grow in displacement and gain modern updates like fuel injection over the following decades, remaining in production until the Aventador ushered in a (relatively short-lived) second-generation V12 in 2011.

The boss’ boat was a one-off, but Lamborghini eventually developed dedicated marine engines that, while not identical to its car engines, shared the gasoline, naturally aspirated, V12 format. In 1982, the company introduced an 8.0-liter engine making up to 720 horsepower. Two of these engines powered a 38-foot monohull Lamborghini racing boat (appropriately dubbed Miura) to what would be the first of many championships in 1984.

Lamborghini went on to build two specs of V12 during the 1980s heyday of offshore powerboat racing. The L804 displaced approximately 8.2 liters and had a 60-degree “V” like the road-car engine. It produced 880 hp but, despite aluminum construction, weighed 793 pounds. The L900 was even more monstrous, at 9.3 liters of displacement, but used carburetors instead of fuel injection. As a result, it made “only” 770 hp. That’s because it was designed more for longevity and reliability in large luxury yachts, according to a 2024 Silodrome post on the engines.

Lamborghini engines continued winning into the early 2000s, powering Spirit of Norway to a handful of titles in the first decade of the 21st century. The automaker wound down its involvement in offshore powerboat racing after that, although in 2020 it did collaborate with boatbuilder Italian Sea Group on the Tecnomar for Lamborghini 63, a yacht with styling details inspired by the Sián FKP 37 supercar. It had a pair of V12s, although they were supplied by MAN.

The post Lamborghini’s Legendary V12 Once Powered Racing Boats appeared first on The Drive.

Electric cars present some challenges in a world built around internal combustion, and I’m not just talking about the lack of public charging stations or an auto industry that’s afraid of change. EVs have existed almost as long as the car itself, but while an engine can be rebuilt, there’s not much you can do with century-old batteries.

The owner of this 1918 Detroit Electric Model 75B Brougham coupe—one of the lots at Mecum’s 2026 Monterey Car Week auction—got around that by installing modern batteries as part of a full restoration. The listing says the restoration was done to “concours standards,” although given the obsession with originality in judging, it’s unclear how this car would fare on the concours circuit. But at least it actually works.

The listing doesn’t specify what modern batteries were used, but scrapped EVs and hybrids, as well as the various companies offering EV conversions of vintage cars, are all likely sources. Jay Leno has a 1914 Detroit Electric that’s being re-powered with Nissan Leaf battery modules, for example. Also unclear is the impact on range and performance. The listing only says that the 75B had a range of approximately 80 miles and a top speed of approximately 20 mph when new.

The company that would become Detroit Electric was founded in Detroit in 1884 as the Anderson Carriage Company. The owners clearly saw which way the winds of change were blowing and introduced the first Detroit Electric car in 1907. In an era when concern for the environment was hardly a thing, electric cars were pitched as quieter and simpler to operate than gasoline ones. With so few gas stations, range anxiety was just as much of an issue for gasoline-car drivers as for EV drivers. People also weren’t used to the smell of gasoline, and hand cranks and manual lubrication made internal-combustion cars intimidating to newbies.

In those unenlightened times, the ability to drive an EV without the need to muscle a crank starter or generally get your hands dirty also meant that these cars were heavily marketed toward women. Despite being personally invested in a rival technology, Henry Ford and then-Packard president Henry Joy both bought Detroit Electrics for their wives. Misogynist stereotypes may have also influenced some of the design features. The driver sits facing the passengers and steers with a tiller, making the interior look and feel more like a living room where wealthy women of the time were expected to entertain guests. And 90 years before the Volkswagen New Beetle, this car had built-in flower vases.

In its time, Detroit Electric was one of many EV brands, alongside the likes of Milburn and Baker. But with bigger companies like Ford and General Motors committed to internal combustion, it was only a matter of time before electric cars lost out. Detroit Electric stuck around until 1939. There was an attempt to revive it in 2013 that followed in the tire tracks of Tesla with a modified Lotus Elise that never built charge.

The post This 1918 Detroit Electric Is Powered by Modern Batteries, And It Actually Works appeared first on The Drive.

The problem with new technology is that it becomes old technology very fast. And then what? We’ve all probably gotten too used to trading in old phones like they’re 1950s cars with last year’s tail fins, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

Nothing exemplifies the rapid advance of digital technology like standalone GPS devices. They’ve been made obsolete by smartphones and the proliferation of built-in navigation systems in new cars. Yet if you have an older device from Garmin, it probably still works. And there are some good reasons to keep using it.

As evidenced by a recent post on the r/BuyItForLife subreddit, Garmin doesn’t kid about free lifetime map updates for its GPS devices. One poster said they bought a Garmin Nuvi 1390LMT roughly 15 years ago, and a screenshot shows that it recently received a map update on July 22, 2026. The poster added that the device still works well and is providing accurate directions.

Indeed, Garmin’s website has detailed instructions on how to update maps for existing devices. That’s in part because, as another poster in the thread points out, the maps are as much a product for Garmin as the devices themselves. When automakers choose Garmin navigation systems, for example, the decision is motivated as much by access to the company’s dataset as it is by the hardware being installed in dashboards.

This means that if you have an older car, pulling that GPS device out of the junk drawer might be a viable alternative to suction-cupping your phone to the dashboard. And that could become more relevant as concerns grow over the amount of data smartphones collect, and how that data can be used (and abused) by law enforcement. Plus, it’ll be the perfect period accessory for whatever the 2000s-era followup to Radwood ends up being called.

As my colleague Andrew Collins pointed out, dedicated GPS units are also great for off-roading. Reception isn’t an issue, and this lets you use your phone for other things, or just stash it to stay in the moment. And wherever you drive, you won’t have to worry about an automaker pulling data support for your car and making its navigation system useless.

The post Garmin Keeps Updating Old GPS Devices With New Maps. Here’s Why That Matters appeared first on The Drive.

A good exhaust system can give your car more power and make it sound better, but what constitutes “good,” exactly? It’s largely down to the shape of the pipes, providing exhaust gases with the path of least resistance, so an engine doesn’t have to work as hard to exhale them. Additionally, it creates some room for sound to resonate and create that sweet mechanical music.

To prove that, Justin from The Fabrication Series YouTube channel built seven exhaust systems and tested each one on a dyno to find out which bend is the best. He tested everything from the industry-standard mandrel bend to the crinkle bends usually found on exhaust pipes from auto parts stores, to a wacky noodle exhaust made entirely of curved pieces. For each system, he measured horsepower and back pressure, but also used a thermal imaging camera to track hot spots.

The mandrel bend is the standard because it provides a consistent diameter between straight and bent sections of pipe. It was used as the control for this experiment, providing a baseline output of 144.8 horsepower (averaged across three dyno pulls) in the Mitsubishi Lancer Ralliart test car. Back pressure averaged 1.42 psi, while noise averaged 101.4 decibels.

First up for comparison was the crinkle bend, which was not favored going in. This type of bend decreases the diameter of the tubing and creates ridges that cause turbulence. Yet while average back pressure was higher at 1.71 psi, it produced about the same amount of power and was 1.0 decibel quieter, likely because the bent portions were made from aluminized steel that’s more sound-absorbent than the stainless steel used in the mandrel bend system.

Crush bends made with a tubing bender also have a smaller diameter, but the fabrication team tried to get around this by using tubing the next size up for the bends, the theory being that once it was crushed down, it would have the same diameter as the straight sections of tubing it was connected to. Two versions—2.0-inch and 2.2-inch—were tried, and both produced about 1 hp more than the control system. The smaller bend had a lot more back pressure, though, while the larger bend sounded a bit nicer.

Okay, what about no bends at all? Miter joints and pie cuts both averaged 146.3 hp—the highest in the test. Back pressure for both was higher than most of the bend options, but noise was within a few tenths of a decibel of the other systems. The difference between bends and joints was less important than just avoiding both in the first place.

The all-bend, drunken exhaust pipe had about twice the back pressure of the mandrel-bent system, at 2.83 psi. Thermal imaging also showed that exhaust gases were moving so slowly through it that there were significant temperature differences from one end to the other. It’s also about two feet longer than the other systems. But it only lost 0.4 hp to the mandrel-bent system, so there’s that.

Of course, if you just want more power and want to avoid a lot of costly fabrication, straight pipes are the way to go. Cutting the exhaust off after the catalytic converter yielded the most power—149 hp—but also the most noise, at 110.77 decibels. If you’re going to do this, you’d better hope there are no noise ordinances where you live.

The differences in horsepower and sound might be small, but that’s because the Lancer Ralliart doesn’t make a lot of power or noise to start with. They’d be more noticeable with a louder, more powerful engine. The back pressure numbers tell the real story. The most unconventional shapes showed why they’re unconventional, with higher numbers that restrict airflow and dampen performance.

The post Exhaust Shape Matters, and This Dyno Test Shows Why With Visual Proof appeared first on The Drive.

Cars are encrusted with sensors that scan the surrounding environment and the status of mechanical components, but the electronic gaze is increasingly being turned toward the driver. Driver-monitoring systems are designed not only to prevent distraction from things like phones, but also to ensure drivers are using assistance tech properly. It’s a bit Big Brother, but given the ambiguous nature of current driver-assist tech—where people have to remain alert even when they aren’t actively driving—it’s a necessity.

Automotive supplier and contract manufacturer Magna thinks the future of driver monitoring is mirrors that gaze back at you. The company claims its rearview mirror-integrated system can identify distraction more quickly, while providing more flexible packaging for automakers. The driver always has to have the rearview mirror in their line of sight, after all, so that means the RGB-infrared camera mounted in the mirror can always see them. That’s not always the case with current driver-monitoring cameras, typically mounted in the instrument cluster or on top of the steering column, which can get blocked by the wheel or a driver’s hands.

Magna also claims that this setup works with a wide variety of car and person sizes, from compact sedans to large SUVs, and from tall to short. And because all the hardware is mounted in the mirror, there’s no need to design dashboards around it, Magna notes. The company claims the same hardware set can also support related features, such as occupancy detection, seatbelt monitoring, and “additional interior sensing capabilities.”

Rivian is already showing what some of those other capabilities might be. The R2 has a mirror-mounted RGB camera that, in addition to serving as a driver monitoring device for Rivian’s own Universal Hands Free driver-assist system, has a Pet Cam mode that is exactly what it sounds like.

This system isn’t available in the U.S. right now, but Magna has been slowly ramping up production. It started producing the hardware set in 2024, and announced plans to launch it on Chinese-market cars from a Germany-based automaker in October 2025. Earlier this year, Magna announced a supply agreement with an unnamed European automaker, but with no details on which markets that would include.

In-car cameras might always feel a bit creepy, but they’re the most effective tool for preventing misuse of driver assistance systems right now. The only viable alternative is steering-wheel sensors that measure torque or grip, and they’re being made obsolete by the latest hands-free systems. There’s a conversation to be had about whether increased driver assistance is a safety feature or a convenience feature, but either way, this tech is out there on public roads, and the risk of misuse is too high.

The post Your Next Car Will Know You’re Distracted Before You Do Thanks to Smart Rearview Mirrors appeared first on The Drive.

Whether it’s the folksy “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” or its anodyne MBA-speak replacement “road relevance,” the connection between road cars and race cars is one of the fundamental forces of the motorsports universe. It usually takes the form of actual cars, either showroom models prepped for the track or homologation specials built purely to make a race team’s machinations legal. But 40 years ago, BFGoodrich did the same thing with tires.

In 1984, looking to promote its T/A radial tires, the company put together a two-car team and went endurance racing in both the IMSA GT Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where chassis HU-2 scored a class win on the street tires the team was created to promote. HU-2 will be among the featured lots at Mecum’s 2026 Monterey Car Week auction, alongside its sibling car, chassis HU-3. It’s expected to sell for around $300,000—about $100,000 more than its sibling.

Tires are arguably the most important part of any car, and a lot of engineering goes into making them work. Unfortunately, even most diehard car enthusiasts don’t care. In the early 1980s, BFG tires and a Mazda RX-7 chassis proved to be a winning combination in the IMSA GTU class, but those wins weren’t getting enough attention. So the tire company decided to up the ante.

“The problem was, nobody really cared about any RX-7 doing well,” Chuck Patrick, then a BFG tire engineer, said in a 2005 Vintage Motorsport article on the project. “So the guys in marketing asked, ‘How do we demonstrate that we are really making a fine product?'”

The solution was to step up to the FIA C2 class, then the second-tier class for prototypes in endurance racing. BFG contracted with racing driver Jim Busby to run the team, and he selected the then-new Lola T616 chassis, which would be paired with the 1.3-liter 13B rotary engine from the RX-7. And while the all-important street tires retained the same overall design as the retail versions, they had to be reshaped for the 13×11-inch front and 13×14-inch rear wheels demanded by the regulations. A 3,000-mile testing program ensured they were ready.

Both cars ran the major IMSA races in 1984, including Sebring and Daytona (they’re claimed to be the first cars to run street tires on that track’s high banking), and chassis HU-3 won its class at that year’s Monza 1,000-kilometer race. But the crown jewel was Le Mans, where John Morton, John O’Steen, and Yoshimi Katayama nabbed the C2-class win and 10th overall. The second car, driven by Busby, Rick Knoop, and Boy Hayje, came home third in class and 12th overall.

According to drivers quoted in that Vintage Motorsport article, the tires were less of a factor than the engine, which was both less powerful and less fuel-efficient than most of the competition (with the exception of the factory Mazda 727Cs also running that year). The T616 had to be driven fairly conservatively to save fuel, and the chassis was designed for a heavier, more powerful engine, both of which might have helped mask any differences in performance between its street tires and the purpose-built racing rubber on other cars.

Team BFG’s class win was also the second in a row for a Mazda rotary-powered car, helping to build momentum for the Japanese manufacturer’s overall Le Mans win with the 787B in 1991. It’s hard to say if the win actually sold any tires, but it certainly makes for an interesting story, one that won’t be repeated in today’s more restrictive environment.

It’s also surprising that both cars still exist to tell that tale. They’re not exactly as well known as period Group C cars like the Porsche 956, after all. Thankfully, Busby and Knoop acquired and restored the pair in the early 2000s. They’ve been making regular appearances in vintage racing ever since, a testament to an unlikely marketing gambit that produced an unlikely win.

The post For Sale: Rotary-Powered 1984 Lola That Won Its Class at Le Mans on Street Tires appeared first on The Drive.

Stellantis dropped a bunch of Dodge and SRT news this week, and while it’s still not doing the obvious thing by putting a V8 in the current-generation Charger, it is doing something else that should have been part of the program for the controversial new muscle car from the beginning.

Stellantis commissioned a pair of drift cars that, while still powered by the twin-turbo, 3.0-liter Hurricane inline-six, will at least be able to eradicate tires like true muscle cars. One is a coupe dubbed the Boost, and the other is a sedan dubbed the RPM (for Rapid People Mover), which will give rides to attendees at the automotive lifestyle events these cars were built for. They’re debuting at Roadkill Nights in suburban Detroit, then head to the next Gridlife event at Laguna Seca, as well as FuelFest in Arizona.

The builds started with the Sixpack H.O. spec of the inline-six, which is rated at 550 horsepower and 531 pound-feet of torque from the factory. Both were upgraded to what Stellantis calls a “conservative estimate” of 750 hp with aftermarket turbos (with a single-turbo setup for the coupe), new intakes, and MoTec engine management systems. The coupe also got a new exhaust system, while the sedan received new intercoolers and cooling-system hardware, perhaps to ensure reliability during repeat taxi rides.

A drift car needs more than power, so the Chargers were also converted to pure rear-wheel drive (stock versions have all-wheel drive with a front-axle disconnect) and had their eight-speed automatic transmissions swapped for manuals. Obligatory modifications like roll cages, reinforced driveline components, and widened fenders top things off. It’s a shame Dodge won’t build cars like these itself, but they should at least look pretty cool smoking tires in front of crowds of enthusiasts. And that takes the Charger a step closer to fulfilling its potential.

The reason why the new Charger has been such a disappointment for so many people is that it misses the point of the last one. Combining the iconic styling of the 1968 Charger with modern powertrains seems like a recipe for success until you realize that nobody cared what the last Charger looked like. It was beloved as a cheap and easily accessible route to rear-wheel drive and V8 power. Maybe that’s why new Charger sales have been dismal. The new Charger is technically a better car, but it doesn’t do the things fans want.

Dodge seems to realize this. It’s gifting cars to content creators to prove that the new Charger is a great tuning platform like the old one (which is why you’re seeing so many Charger videos on YouTube), and the drift cars will serve a similar marketing purpose. They’ll do the things fans want Chargers to do. Now all Dodge needs to do is make that V8 option happen.

The post Dodge Is Doing Everything It Can to Make People Like the New Charger—Except Give It a V8 appeared first on The Drive.

Trucks are cool because they can be used for all kinds of highly specialized purposes. That usually requires highly specialized equipment as well, like snow plows and dump beds. But one vital task only calls for a decent amount of bed space and a night owl driver.

In municipalities around the country, trucks patrol the streets with giant foggers to keep mosquito populations in check. It’s an especially important job in coastal areas where the blood-sucking insects thrive, and in some cases, specialized trucks have been doing this work for decades. Miami-Dade County has operated spraying trucks since 1935, while the Bristol County Mosquito Control Project in Massachusetts has been monitoring—and when necessary, eliminating—the insects since 1959.

The trucks used for this job are ordinary pickups with large tanks of pesticides and automated sprayers in their beds. They’re driven slowly through affected areas to deliver the pesticide, usually at night when the majority of mosquito species are most active. Escambia County, Florida, usually runs its fogging trucks between dusk and 10 p.m., according to a page on the county website. The streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts, get sprayed between 2 a.m. and 10 a.m., reports The New Bedford Light.

If you happen to see one of these trucks, the clouds of insecticide wafting out of the bed will be hard to miss. Local authorities told The New Bedford Light that the spray is nontoxic to humans and other mammals, but that drivers try to avoid getting too close to people nonetheless. Escambia County also cancels spraying runs if winds are less than 2 mph or exceed 10 mph, or if temperatures drop below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

As for how municipalities figure out when to deploy spray trucks, that decision is based on resident call-ins (Miami-Dade County encourages residents to call 311 to request spraying) and data from mosquito traps. Those are important both for tracking the number of mosquitoes and whether they’re carrying diseases, the latter determined by testing of individual bugs caught in the traps. Massachusetts and Florida also have opt-outs if, for example, you’re keeping bees on your property and don’t want them to become collateral damage.

It may not be pushing these trucks to the limits of their capabilities, but it is real work. And that’s what trucks are built for.

The post These Trucks Exist Solely to Spray Mosquitoes With Giant Foggers appeared first on The Drive.

If you’re of a certain age, you might remember sliding a highly pixelated Ferrari Testarossa around an equally pixelated city in an arcade, accompanied by the smells of stale popcorn and spilled soft drinks. One builder gave that experience an upgrade.

Across eight YouTube videos, 19kfox has been building a Gran Turismo 7 arcade cabinet that makes for a cool new way to play the current installment in the Gran Turismo series. It started out as a junked Sega Jambo Safari cabinet that needed a lot of work, but that also ensured that the finished product was a standard size that could be placed alongside other machines. That wasn’t the case with a previous build made from scratch, which proved to be too bulky.

The salvaged cabinet nonetheless required lots of modifications to fit the ambition of this build. It was widened to accommodate a new monitor and seat, and the shifter was moved from the dashboard to the right of the seat—more like a real car. Much cutting and welding made this happen. Reproduction stickers capture the feel of the originals, but unlike standard arcade cabinets, there’s a button to turn off the marquee light above the monitor to help players focus. In a darkened room, even VR can’t beat this level of immersion.

That builds on the game’s meticulously rendered cars and tracks— a hallmark of the Gran Turismo series. GT7 may play it safe when it comes to format, and isn’t as concerned with a realistically-rendered environment beyond track limits as, say, the Forza games. But that still makes it a good fit for this arcade setup, which is super cool but retains a bit of fun that purpose-built sim rigs for aspiring racing drivers lack.

It may be four years old, and may have launched with plenty of cars, but developer Polyphony Digital is still finding good additions for the monthly update cadence. Where else can you choose between a Renault Twingo and the Yangwang U9, the 1,300-horsepower, quad-motor electric hypercar with active suspension that lets it drive on three wheels?

There’s no shortage of epic gaming rigs that are built or bought. But the marriage of Gran Turismo 7 and an old school arcade cabinet is one of the best between game and playing medium.

The post DIY Guy’s Gran Turismo 7 Arcade Cabinet Is So Much Cooler Than VR appeared first on The Drive.

It’s always tempting to go with the cheapest-possible option, especially as wars and tariffs drive up the cost of everyday items. But there’s always the risk that you’ll get exactly what you paid for, as demonstrated by this very thorough test of car batteries from Walmart and O’Reilly Auto Parts conducted by the YouTube channel Project Farm.

Host Todd doesn’t do things by half measures, and this battery test was no exception. He rounded up nine brand new Group 65-rated batteries—four from Walmart and five from O’Reilly. The test group included one absorbed glass mat (AGM) battery from each brand, with the rest being conventional flooded lead-acid. Walmart lived up to its reputation for cheapness with prices ranging from $79 to $189, compared to $100 to $260 for the O’Reilly batteries.

Todd started by measuring voltage, amperage, and state of health at ambient temperatures with a multimeter and battery analyzer, and the results weren’t good for the Walmart batteries. The four lead-acid batteries all showed fairly high internal resistance, meaning current can’t flow as easily through them. That’s obviously a problem for a device meant to absorb and discharge current, and a potential indication of poorer manufacturing quality. The Walmart lead-acid batteries also had an indicated state of health ranging from 84% to 88%, which shouldn’t be the case for brand new batteries.

Todd then hooked all the batteries to a carbon pile load tester to measure their performance under load, chilled them to zero degrees Fahrenheit to measure cold cranking amps, and measured their reserve capacity to see if it matched what was on the label. The lead-acid O’Reilly batteries outperformed the equivalent Walmart batteries in the load test, although Walmart’s AGM beat O’Reilly’s AGM here.

The Walmart AGM battery also did reasonably well in the cold cranking test, but the O’Reilly lead acid batteries did even better. The entry-level $100 O’Reilly Super Start Value registered 827 amps at zero degrees Fahrenheit. That was 302 amps higher than the cheapest Walmart battery, which only cost $20 less.

In the overall scoring, O’Reilly batteries took the top two spots, and all O’Reilly lead-acid batteries outperformed their less-expensive Walmart equivalents. Walmart’s AGM battery beat O’Reilly’s, and at $189, it’s $79 cheaper. But it also tied for third place with one of the O’Reilly lead-acid batteries, so it still falls short of expectations.

The post Walmart Brand Car Batteries Flop in Absurdly In-Depth Test appeared first on The Drive.

An 80-Series Toyota Land Cruiser is a great off-roader that’s also reliable and practical, but unfortunately for those shopping for one, this isn’t a secret. Like older generations of Land Cruiser before it, the 80-Series is making the shift from used car to collectible. Clean versions that haven’t been beaten or modified into oblivion are getting harder to find, and prices for the best available examples are on the rise.

Just a few years ago, it would’ve been hard to imagine an 80-Series Land Cruiser at a Monterey Car Week auction. These auctions are usually the domain of supercars, unobtainium muscle cars, and the vintage race cars one might trailer down the road to Laguna Seca for the Monterey Historics. But this year Mecum’s catalog includes a 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser in unassuming Super White. It’s bone stock and powered by the 1FZ-FE 4.5-liter inline-six, which sends 212 horsepower and 275 pound-feet of torque through a four-speed automatic transmission and four-wheel drive system with low range and a locking center differential.

But this is probably the nicest 80-Series Land Cruiser on sale right now. According to the listing, it has just 4,700 miles and is unrestored, which is hard to believe from looking at the accompanying photos. There isn’t a sign of wear or rust, the Oak leather upholstery hasn’t lost any of its ruching, and even the markings on often-used controls like the seat adjuster are still legible. Plus, it’s got the gold badging package, and what would a 1990s Toyota be without that?

If this particular Land Cruiser looks familiar, you probably spend a lot of time browsing online car ads. It appears to be the same one that sold for an absurd $170,000 on Bring a Trailer in 2024. It previously sold for $165,000 on BaT in 2023, but the buyer failed to follow through, and so it was re-listed.

That selling price was an anomaly, but perhaps not for long. At the time of publication, just five other 80-Series Land Cruisers have crossed the $100K threshold on BaT, out of 808 total listings. One of those was an Icon-modified example, which likely helped juice the price, and a sixth received a high bid of $115,000 but failed to sell. All were listed within the last five years.

And earlier this year, an equally clean 1996 Toyota 4Runner set a new bar at another Mecum auction. The 6,951-mile 4Runner SR5 sold for $52,800, way more than the auction house expected and more than twice the going rate for 4Runners of this vintage in reasonable condition. It’s all part of the natural progression of things. As these SUVs get older and suffer from attrition, and as new generations of enthusiasts shift the definition of a “classic” car, higher prices are inevitable.

The post This 80-Series Toyota Land Cruiser Is Going to Sell for Big Bucks at Monterey Car Week appeared first on The Drive.

One of the many ways that the internet has failed to live up to its promise is with online car shopping. Yes, you don’t need to visit a dealership or send away for physical brochures, but online car buying guides are as much about drawing eyeballs to ads as they are about conveying information. The same goes for automaker configurators, where specs are often buried (or just nonexistent) and the graphics don’t exactly reflect the latest and greatest tech. There’s a better way, and one publication figured it out 30 years ago.

In 1996, Popular Mechanics released a “Car Guide” on CD-ROM that let people browse every new car on sale without the internet. Detailed in a recent YouTube video from LGR Blerbs, it shows just how far backwards things have gone. And it’s got a Viper with yellow wheels on the cover.

Click past the main menu with its nifty startup animation, and you get a drop down menu listing not just every model, but every trim level. Each trim level in turn has a landing page with basic information like pricing (including destination), powertrain, fuel economy, and the availability of key features like cruise control and driver and front-passenger airbags. The latter didn’t become mandatory on light trucks (a category that included most SUVs at the time, as well as pickups) until the 1997 model year, and dual front airbags weren’t mandated until the 1998 model year. Standard central locking and air conditioning also weren’t a given at the time.

You could also browse and price out the full option list and see what a car looked like in its available paint colors—and some unavailable ones. I’m pretty sure the 1996 Pontiac Sunfire wasn’t available with a full-body woodgrain wrap from the factory, but that is available here. On the more practical side, you can compare specs and features for different models and estimate fuel costs by inputting your anticipated weekly mileage and gas prices. The default of $1.25 per gallon makes me cry.

There’s a used car section as well, but with fewer models and less information for the ones that are listed. But it still fives value estimates based on mileage, just like today’s used car websites. Whether a dealer would actually agree with those estimates is another matter.

This car-buying CD should look laughably antiquated, but slow loading times and unsophisticated graphics aside, it puts many modern online buyer guides and configurators to shame. All the information is sensibly organized, with no interruptions encouraging you to contact a dealer or fill out a survey. Today’s internet hasn’t improved on this early effort because, as it turns out, easy access to information isn’t a business model.

The post This 1996 ‘Car Guide’ CD Let You Build and Price Any Car Without the Internet appeared first on The Drive.

Semi trucks are no different from other vehicles in that they produce tailpipe emissions that need to be dealt with. But while companies like Tesla are building electric semis, the need for supersized battery packs in order to deliver enough range while hauling makes electrification more challenging for big trucks than it is for passenger cars. A California-based startup has come up with an alternative solution, but it’s a weird one.

Founded in 2020, Revoy designed a module containing a battery pack and electric motor that sits between tractor and trailer, turning any semi truck into a temporary hybrid. It seems like a bit of a head scratcher to me, but Bloomberg reported this week that Revoy just completed a $27 million funding round, so some people clearly think it’s a good idea.

Revoy claims the current version of its battery booster has enough capacity for 200 miles of electric assist for an 80,000-pound truck. Instead of all-electric operation, it seems aimed more at improving fuel economy by taking some of the load off a truck’s diesel engine. The automated module is designed to add power in sync with the engine as it revs, and provide regenerative braking to help charge the battery when appropriate. But the pack is too big to be charged completely by regen, so Revoy also envisions a network of “hubs” where drivers can swap them, according to Bloomberg.

The detachable module can lower carbon emissions by up to 85%, Revoy estimates, and operating costs should be comparable to those of conventional diesel-powered trucks, even based on lower fuel prices from before the U.S. war with Iran, CEO Peter Reinhardt told Bloomberg. The startup also pitches its hardware as a way to extend the working lives of existing diesel trucks amid potential stricter emissions rules.

Revoy received approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to use its equipment on public roads in 2023, and it launched a pilot program with Ryder the following year. The startup plans to begin commercial operations on a 200-mile route near Portland, Oregon, later this year using modules assembled from Chinese components and a specially trained corps of drivers. From there, Revoy hopes to use the money from its just-completed funding round to develop a less-expensive version with a smaller battery, but with similar range between recharges. That’s assuming Revoy sticks around.

It may rely on existing trucks, but Revoy’s solution still doesn’t solve the other major problem with battery-electric vehicles: the need for specialized infrastructure to support them. Wrangling all of these units could add significant cost and complexity. The current mood in Washington is also not favorable toward imported Chinese components, and while the $27 million is more than half the $41 million Revoy has raised so far, it’s just a drop in the bucket of the costs needed to engineer a replacement and ramp up homegrown production. All-electric semis are also about to get a boost in their most important market from a California rebate program that could weaken the business case for Revoy’s hybrid system.

The post Battery-Powered Semi Truck ‘Backpack’ Converts Diesel Big Rigs to Hybrids. But Why? appeared first on The Drive.

It’s been a minute since we checked in on one of the most improbable restoration projects in recent memory. The crew behind The Questionable Garage YouTube channel has been restoring a rare General Motors EV1—VIN 212—purchased in late 2025 from an impound auction for the eye-watering sum of $104,000. But opportunities to buy an EV1 are rare because the cars were originally leased to customers and infamously recalled by GM when the leases expired, with most getting crushed.

That makes a restoration challenging, as it’s not like spare parts are easily obtainable (there are also significant differences between earlier and later cars under the skin). But in its latest video on the project, The Questionable Garage showed that it’s making serious progress. The team got 12-volt electrical power flowing through the car’s wiring harness, getting power to the dashboard, radio, odometer (showing 28,832 miles), and brake lights. The car also accepted its security code, a prerequisite to making it drivable once the high-voltage battery pack and motor are reconnected.

This car spent a lot of time sitting outside, so the first step was to clean decades of corrosion and grime buildup off the harness’ connectors. Most of that was done with an ultrasonic cleaner that uses vibration to shake the crud off. Everything was then mounted on a buck outside the car for testing, to make everything easier to access.

Next, the shifter panel was cleaned and reassembled, including the installation of new bulbs for the many backlit buttons on the panel, and removal of a taped-on screw seemingly intended to block the park-interlock switch as part of 212’s decommissioning process. This may have allowed the car, which was donated by GM to Clark Atlanta University, to be rolled around in neutral after its powertrain was rendered inoperable (via removal of parts like the power control module). GM may have been OK with some cars surviving as teaching aids, but it didn’t want them on the road.

Seeing the disembodied instrument cluster, shifter, and Oldsmobile-sourced head unit light up is a sweet moment for anyone who likes weird and obscure cars. It’s a great sign that this EV1 might turn a wheel again one day soon—once all of these parts are reinstalled and connected with the powertrain, that is. A major upcoming hurdle will be installing EV1 software onto the new powertrain control module, sourced from an S-10 EV, to make it all work.

The EV1 is one of the greatest false starts in automotive history. GM began recalling and decommissioning them in 2003, only to unveil the Chevrolet Volt concept just four years later. One wonders how different things might have been if GM had built on the momentum of the EV1 rather than shunning it, but at least the automaker is now backing the restoration of EV1 212. Hopefully that will get this project across the line sooner rather than later.

The post These Guys Resurrecting a GM EV1 Are Making Serious Progress appeared first on The Drive.

A lot of factors go into a great exhaust sound, but one of the most important is the number and arrangement of the cylinders. Arranging 8, 10, or 12 cylinders in a “V” creates sounds that are music to a car enthusiast’s ear, but V6 and V4 engines generally don’t have the same appeal. There’s something about having at least eight cylinders, but what about a number above that threshold that isn’t found in nature?

A workable V11 engine is an impossibility because it would require a different number of cylinders in each bank. However, there’s a way to simulate the sound of this impossible engine. Maisteer, a YouTube channel with a penchant for exhaust-sound experiments, pulled plugs on the 6.0-liter V12 in a modified R230 Mercedes-Benz SL to find out what a V11 (as well as a V9) sounds like.

TBH, the 11-cylinder symphony didn’t sound that different from the correctly-functioning V12 to my ears. Maybe I was just distracted by the decidedly non-stock exhaust system, which had the Mercedes shrieking like a race car, or maybe I need a new pair of headphones. There was a slight unevenness from one cylinder (number three, in this case) not firing, but the overall tone sounds pretty much the same. Your listening experience may vary, and accompanying frequency meter readouts show a definite change at both the 400 Hertz and 800 Hz frequencies.

The V11 didn’t sound bad, either, which makes sense considering that a few years ago, another YouTuber simulated an inline-11 and the results were pretty good. Such an engine could theoretically work, but it would be too long to be practical.

The engine was then run as a V10 and a V9 by deactivating cylinder 10 and then cylinder six as well. Again, the odd-numbered configuration didn’t sound as different as expected. More interesting was the drop in range as more cylinders were deactivated. The engine picked up more bass along the way, with the exhaust descending into that familiar V8 rumble when the V12 was down four cylinders. Again, a frequency meter readouts shows the true difference between the various cylinder counts even if your ear can’t pick them up.

Engine sounds are foundational to car character, which is why automakers are stressing about how best to replace that chorus in electric cars. Hyundai has already developed a sci-fi soundtrack for its electric N models, Bentley thinks drums are the best option for its Torcal electric SUV, and BMW blended sounds from a number of sources for its Neue Klasse EVs.

The post Ever Wondered What a V11 Engine Sounds Like? Well, Here You Go appeared first on The Drive.

If you’re driving through suburban New Jersey and see shrubbery holding a pair of binoculars, you’re not hallucinating. You’re just doing what you should be doing: paying attention to the road.

In an effort to catch more drivers illegally using their phones, police in the central New Jersey town of Dunellen got creative. One officer dressed up in a sniper-style ghillie suit and stood next to an extra-leafy tree on one of the town’s main streets, keeping an eye out for drivers who were holding their phones in violation of a statewide ban. According to a Facebook post from the Dunellen Borough Police Department, this unorthodox method led to 74 citations for distracted driving in six hours.

As if getting busted by a cop dressed as a plant isn’t embarrassing enough, the post also includes a photo of a guy with a walkie-talkie wearing a “Not a Cop” t-shirt. You’d have to really not be paying attention to fall for that one.

Given that the crime is distracted driving, it’s unclear if these theatrics are really necessary. If a driver is paying attention to their phone and not the road, they probably won’t notice an undisguised police officer or marked patrol car either. Nor will they notice other things around them—which is the problem.

Modern cars offer many forms of distraction, from driver-assist systems that tempt drivers to become less vigilant, to increasingly confusing dashboard controls. But the reflexive need to look at a phone when that notification chime dings exists even when driving the most low-tech vehicles. And it’s been linked to higher rates of rear-end collisions and speeding in separate Insurance Institute for Highway Safety studies.

In its 2022 study on rear-end collisions, the IIHS cited lack of enforcement of California’s anti-phone law—due to vague wording of the law itself—as a reason for elevated rates of collisions in that state compared to its neighbors. Having a law on the books often isn’t enough of a deterrent, which is why New Jersey cops are cosplaying as foliage. It’s probably easier to just put the phone down than to spend a drive eyeing every bush with suspicion.

The post Cops Imitating Plants Catch 74 Drivers on Their Phones in Six Hours appeared first on The Drive.

Thanks to Slate and Ford, there’s plenty of talk about compact pickup trucks. But if I were put in charge of the auto industry, I’d take things one step further and demand the return of the ute. Apparently I’m not alone, because people love to add pickup beds to cars that never originally had them. If you’re going to go that route, a 2022 BMW M4 Competition xDrive seems like a good choice of base car. After all, it’s got four driven wheels, just like a proper truck.

Somebody actually went and did this, and now you can benefit from their investment by buying the completed M4 pickup on Bring a Trailer. According to the listing, the conversion was done by DinMann in Los Angeles and involved cutting the stock carbon fiber roof in addition to fabricating the bed and a rear bulkhead for the cab. Billed as the M4Maloo as a play on the Holden Maloo ute, the pickup was displayed at SEMA wearing a metallic blue wrap, but that’s since been removed to reveal the factory Brooklyn Gray Metallic paint.

There are plenty of other modifications as well, including a carbon fiber grille, front lip, rear diffuser, side skirts, and fenders with a second pair of vents atop the wheel arches. The pickup sits on lowering springs with M Performance forged alloy wheels—19s in front and 20s in back. The twin-turbocharged, 3.0-liter inline-six has aftermarket turbos, as well as an aftermarket intake manifold and exhaust. The listing doesn’t specify power gains over the stock 503 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque, but I imagine they’re pretty healthy. An eight-speed automatic transmission was mandatory with the Competition xDrive in this debut model year, along with a limited-slip rear diff.

The interior is mostly stock aside from a carbon fiber steering wheel, but the car was originally specced with vibrant Fiona Red seats and door-panel trim that go nicely with the Brooklyn Gray exterior. Factory features like a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, head-up display, Harman Kardon audio system, and gesture control (not that you’ll want to use it) are retained.

Remarkably, the listing claims that the pickup conversion also doesn’t interfere with the factory Park Distance Control parking sensors, surround-view camera system, or adaptive cruise control. Sure enough, the dots for the rear parking sensors are visible in their usual spots around the rear bumper. But it must’ve taken some work to maintain rearview camera functionality on a car that wasn’t designed to have a tailgate.

It’s also a bit surprising that BMW itself didn’t think of this. The automaker has a history of pickup conversions going back to the 1960s, and even made an E92 M3 pickup back when that generation of M3 was new. The one-off M3 Touring GT3 race car shows the engineers haven’t lost their sense of humor, though.

The post Someone Turned a BMW M4 Competition xDrive Into a Pickup appeared first on The Drive.

It may no longer have had Sean Connery as a pitchman, and its Bulldog prototype had failed to attract engineering business, but Aston Martin entered the 1980s with confidence. Even the relentlessly geometric Lagonda sedan didn’t satisfy the automaker’s appetite for avant-garde design, so it turned to Zagato. The Italian coachbuilder that had previously clothed Aston chassis in curvaceous sheetmetal and double-bubble roofs delivered.

The V8 Vantage Zagato was as different from the Zagato-bodied DB4GT of the 1960s as then-new brick cell phones were from the rotary-dial ones Connery’s Bond used to call back to HQ. But it was also of the moment, and if you want to relive that moment, there’s a practically new V8 Vantage Zagato for sale through brand specialist Nicholas Mee. It’s only got 600 miles, and 250 of those were added in road testing for the car’s recommissioning. “Restoration” isn’t the right word for getting a car running that basically sat untouched after it was built.

The 1980s and early 1990s were the last hurrah for limited-edition specials from Italian coachbuilders. Before automakers started taking more of that work in-house, Zagato fired off the trifecta of the V8 Vantage reskin, the Alfa Romeo SZ, and the Delta-based Lancia Hyena. All three layered styling that’s more striking than pretty onto existing platforms. As the name states, the V8 Vantage Zagato was based on a Vantage chassis, but the finished car was about a foot shorter than Aston’s version despite having the same wheelbase.

Aston shipped complete chassis to Milan, where they were fitted with mostly aluminum bodywork (the front and rear fascias are fiberglass) that helped reduce weight, while flush-fit glass and a more streamlined shape helped reduce drag. The 5.3-liter V8 carried over from the standard Vantage, but the Zagato got the “X-pack” spec that made 432 horsepower and 410 pound-feet of torque—the highest output of any production Aston engine at the time. That enabled the Zagato’s claimed top speed of 186 mph.

First shown in concept form at the 1985 Geneva Motor Show, the Zagato went into production two years later. Just 50 coupes (plus two prototypes) were built, along with 37 Volante convertibles. Either slow build times or slow sales meant that, while this car had a 1987 build slot, it wasn’t registered until 1990. It’s passed through three owners, none of whom spent much time behind the wheel.

Aston Martin still calls on Zagato occasionally for limited-edition models, but they tend to be more conservative than this Reagan-era collaboration, often stopping short of full reskins. That just makes the 1987 V8 Vantage Zagato all the more special.

The post You Can Buy a ‘New’ 1990 Aston Martin V8 Vantage Zagato appeared first on The Drive.

If you want to turn your stock pickup truck into a true off-roader, there’s no shortage of aftermarket companies willing to help. And by “help,” I mean sell you parts that you then have to figure out how to make work together, while also keeping track of the small-ticket items that inevitably follow in their wake. That can cause a build to drag on and lose momentum like a truck spinning its tires on a steep dirt mound.

That’s where AEV’s FX370 turnkey kit for the Ford Super Duty comes in. It provides everything you need, all engineered to work in harmony with the factory components so there won’t be any troubleshooting after everything is installed. AEV also claims the FX370 kit was designed to balance daily usability with enhanced off-road capability. AEV doesn’t just see this as an option for off-road toys; it claims the FX370 kit is perfect for commercial users and everyday towing and hauling as well.

So what do you get? The kit is built around 37-inch BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO3 tires, hence the “370” in “FX370.” They’re mounted on 18-inch wheels from AEV’s catalog, and aren’t simply bolted on. AEV provides a tire-clearance kit, recalibrates the speedometer, and swaps out the door-jamb sticker with a new one denoting the bigger tires and showing pressure and payload information just like it would for factory-fitted tires.

The kit also includes a four-inch suspension lift with AEV-tuned Bilstein dampers that the company claims preserve on-road ride quality. A stamped-steel front bumper can house a winch and has built-in recovery points, while a “high-clearance” rear bumper improves the departure angle and features its own recovery points. A graphics package with matte black stripes running across the doors and bed sides doesn’t do anything for off-road capability or functionality, but it certainly looks cool.

Since this kit starts at $19,999, it’s not exactly a budget option. That’s doubly true for enthusiast owners who might have the cash flow to buy a pile of parts piecemeal, but not to plunk down for everything at once. That being said, this more thoroughly engineered setup eliminates guesswork that could lead to additional, unintended costs down the road. It’s also quicker to buy the kit and install everything in one go, improving uptime for the commercial users AEV is also targeting.

If you don’t already have a truck to modify, it would be even simpler to head to the dealer and get a Super Duty Tremor. At the time of writing, the Tremor package itself costs $4,450, but depending on the trim level you add it to, there may be additional required options that raise the price. The net cost for upgrading an XLT—the lowest trim available with the Tremor package—is $13,575 once you factor in the cost of four-wheel drive and the mandatory crew cab. Tremors also ride on 35s, not 37s. And if the bigger tire still isn’t enough, AEV also offers a kit that puts the Super Duty on 40s.

The post New AEV Kit Has Everything to Turn a Ford Super Duty Into a Super Off-Roader for $20K appeared first on The Drive.

What’s the greatest supercar of all time? There’s a strong argument for the McLaren F1. McLaren’s first road car was designed by F1 technical genius Gordon Murray, was the fastest production car of its day, and won the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans despite not being designed to race. And if you’re looking for the ultimate McLaren F1, this just might be it.

One of the featured lots at RM Sotheby’s 2026 Monterey Car Week auction happening August 15, this 1996 McLaren F1 GTR is known as the “Pop Art F1” because of its oh-so-1990s livery. The one-off graphical treatment takes this car from rare (just nine 1996 GTR models were built) to unique, and it’s had a celebrity owner to boot. That’s probably why the auctioneer quotes a value “in excess of $35 million.” That’s a lot even for an F1, which is already a five-figure car in pretty much any spec.

The GTR was the race-ready version of the F1 developed at the behest of customers and in contravention of Murray’s vision of the F1 as a pure road car. Relatively minor changes, including carbon-ceramic brakes, a fixed rear wing, and general light-weighting, were enough to nab that 1995 Le Mans win. McLaren made further upgrades for 1996, including modified bodywork with a larger front splitter, further weight reduction, and a reinforced gearbox that addressed the biggest weakness of the 1995 car.

These upgrades wouldn’t be enough to keep the F1 GTR competitive against purpose-built race cars like the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and Porsche 911 GT1, leading McLaren to launch the more radical F1 GTR Longtail in 1997. In the meantime, the first 1996-spec GTR—chassis 10R—would achieve its own kind of fame on and off the track.

As the first of its kind, chassis 10R was initially kept by McLaren for testing and promotional duties. It went to the 1996 Le Mans race for testing (but didn’t participate in the race itself) in Blood Red paint with graphite wheels, but for the rest of its public appearances it wore the livery you see here, making it one of the most recognizable examples of a car that already tends to make a strong impression.

The car was eventually sold to Pink Floyd drummer and car collector Nick Mason, who had it maintained by F1 specialist firm Lanzante. The company’s stewardship includes regular maintenance throughout Mason’s ownership and a full restoration completed in 2009 after a journalist crashed it. Mason had an off of his own in 2017, but considering Lanzante’s experience with the F1, chassis 10R could not have been in better hands. That, along with the distinctive livery, celebrity ownership, and rare spec, are why this F1 GTR might be among the most expensive of its kind.

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The post Absolute Peak: McLaren F1 GTR Expected to Sell for at Least $35 Million appeared first on The Drive.

It’s easy to get frustrated with the pace of innovation—especially these days, when we’re told that electric cars are the future, even as the technology behind them continues to develop to meet its full potential. But it’s important to remember that internal-combustion engines of today are the result of the same process, which led to plenty of false starts and engineering dead ends way back when.

One of those dead ends was hidden away for 70 years, and it’s fascinating. It’s a 25-horsepower single-cylinder “hit-and-miss” engine built by International Harvester in 1915. According to a video recently posted on the YouTube channel Antique Tractor Life, it is one of just three thought to still exist today. The engine ran inside a planing mill for 70 years before being sold at auction in the 1990s, and remains in remarkably original condition.

The name “hit-and-miss” comes from the way these engines only get ignition (“hit”) when running at a certain speed, otherwise they cycle without ignition (“miss”). The speed is determined by the opening and closing of the exhaust valve, which is attached to a rocker arm like in more conventional engine designs. A governor holds the exhaust valve open to maintain speed. The intake valve is operated purely by the suction of the combustion chamber, so it won’t open if the exhaust valve is open. Like most early internal-combustion engines, it’s not the last word in efficiency. This engine generates its 25 hp from 1,100 cubic inches—about 18 liters—of displacement.

According to the video, International Harvester built hit-and-miss engines in Milwaukee from 1904 to 1917. The company started with gasoline-fueled 6-, 8-, and 15-hp models. Other variants were added later, with the 25-hp version entering production in 1910. In 1913, International began building kerosene-fueled versions, as demand from booming car production was causing gas prices to spike. Horse-portable and wagon-portable versions were offered for farm work, and stationary versions were also available to provide power in the days before electricity mains. Although it spent most of its working life stationary, this engine was originally built on a wheeled chassis.

The primitive hit-and-miss engines worked well enough compared to more labor-intensive steam engines and muscle power, but they were pretty much obsolete by the 1930s. In fact, this engine was already consigned to the scrap yard before finding its long-term home. It was given a second life at a Pennsylvania mill in 1935 after a fire caused by the steam engine that originally powered the operation. The ongoing Great Depression made affordability a priority, and the discarded engine was available cheap. It turned out to be a good investment.

The engine continued powering the mill until it was sold at auction in 1997. Some mechanical work was needed to get it running again, but a coating of oil and sawdust from its long working life kept it well preserved for engineering nerds to admire.

The post Just Three of These International Harvester Hit-and-Miss Engines Exist Today appeared first on The Drive.

Since Waymo arrived on the public stage as Google’s self-titled autonomous-driving project almost 20 years ago, the promise that self-driving cars would dramatically curtail crashes has remained just that. A handful of companies operate autonomous ride-hailing services in some cities (San Francisco is downright lousy with autonomous cars), but high-profile mishaps show how elusive real progress is. Yet Waymo may be heading in the right direction, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The nonprofit organization backed by the insurance industry and known for very thorough crash tests recently took a look at Waymo’s safety record. In a study published this week, researchers found that Waymo vehicles are involved in fewer crashes than human drivers per vehicle mile traveled (VMT). That’s based on an analysis of crash rates in the cities where Waymo currently operates—San Francisco, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and Austin—using available data. And the limitations of those data are the real takeaway.

Waymo vehicles traveled about 50 million miles autonomously during the period studied, compared to about 222 billion miles for human drivers in the same locations, over the same timespan. The overall rate of crashes for the Waymo vehicles was 68% lower per VMT than human drivers, and that mostly held up on a city-by-city basis. The crash rate for Waymo self-driving cars was 76% lower in Phoenix, 35% lower in San Francisco, and 71% lower in Los Angeles. The Waymo fleet had 4% higher crashes in Austin than human drivers, but the sample size was relatively small. And Waymo cars were involved in 85% fewer single-vehicle crashes and 81% fewer crashes resulting in injuries per VMT than human drivers overall.

But as the IIHS explains in an accompanying press release, getting any meaningful comparison between human and autonomous driving wasn’t easy. While companies are required to report crashes involving self-driving cars to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the State of California, they aren’t required to report the mileage these vehicles cover, or how much is actually done in autonomous mode. That makes it impossible to know how common self-driving car crashes really are.

Waymo publishes VMT information that other companies don’t, which is why it was the only one studied. And even with that information, researchers had to account for differences in the reporting standards for self-driving car crashes and those for crashes involving human drivers. Most states only require drivers to report crashes that cause an injury or result in at least $1,000 in property damage, and even then many drivers still don’t report them to the police. Around half of crashes and a third of injuries go unreported, the IIHS estimates.

Meanwhile, until a 2025 amendment to its reporting requirements, the NHTSA did require companies to report minor fender-benders involving self-driving cars, and their costly and vulnerable sensors often exceed the $1,000 threshold when damaged anyway. Researchers also found redundant reports, and ones where a car might not have been operating in autonomous mode. Once they’d eliminated those extraneous reports, researchers also tried to gauge whether a crash would have been reported to the police had a person been at the wheel, in order to make for a true apples-to-apples comparison.

Researchers concluded that only 22% of the 736 autonomous-car crashes reported during the period studied were likely “police-reportable.” Of that total, 89 involved Waymo vehicles (the highest for a single operator), but only 64 of those were in autonomous mode. That’s not a very big dataset, and the complex process of getting to it shows how difficult it is to make any real conclusions about the safety of self-driving cars.

“Those are encouraging signs for the future of driverless vehicles,” Eric Teoh, lead author of the study, said in a statement about the results. “Now we need to get the data collection system right so that we can ensure that level of safety continues as these technologies become more prevalent.”

The post Waymo’s Self-Driving Cars Crash Less Often Than Human Drivers: Study appeared first on The Drive.

If you’ve been following the car scene at pretty much any point since the turn of the century, you’ve probably heard of RTR. With a name so obvious—RTR stands for “ready to rock”—it’s surprising no one else thought of it. Vaughn Gittin Jr. and company led a two-pronged assault on car culture with racing and tuning, and the story of RTR’s growth from a grassroots effort into a major player in the automotive aftermarket can fill a book. Literally.

Ready To Rock chronicles the history of RTR from its founding in 2009 up to today in 256 pages with accompanying photos from top shooters. It’s co-written by Gittin Jr. and Mike Spinelli—a familiar name around these parts—and published by Carrara Media, the go-to place for books on today’s car culture.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story’s basic outline, Gittin Jr. started out as a pro drifter in the early 2000s, back when the sport was just launching in the United States. In 2005, he became the first American to win a D1 Grand Prix event, and he went on to become a double Formula Drift champion, winning the crown in 2010 and 2020. He still races a Mustang in Formula Drift, and makes occasional appearances in off-road events where RTR also competes.

But RTR is more than just a race team. Over the years, it began developing aftermarket parts for the Ford vehicles it raced, gradually leveling up to complete builds, including notable one-offs like Ken Block’s “Hoonicorn” Mustang and the seven-motor Mustang Mach-E 1400. The customer list includes rapper T-Pain, who also contributed a foreword for the book. The text is accompanied by photos from Larry Chen, Matt Marcu, and Tony Harmer, so there should be plenty of great stuff to look at as well.

The book arrives as RTR raises its profile in the car world and capitalizes on a bigger partnership with Ford. The automaker is now selling RTR-branded versions of the Mustang and Bronco through its dealerships, a big challenge in its own right.

Ready To Rock ships on November 2, but you can pre-order it now from Carrara in $54.99 Standard Edition and $124.99 Limited Edition forms. The latter is signed by Gittin Jr. and limited to 1,000 copies.

The post New Book Tells the Story of RTR, an American Drift Team That Exploded Into Way More appeared first on The Drive.

For many fans, Ayrton Senna is the greatest driver to ever get behind the wheel of a Formula 1 machine. His ability to get the most out of any car made him a legend, but his legacy extends beyond the track. Senna is one of the few racing drivers to have influenced the development of a road car—the Acura NSX. His personal NSX might seem like all a Senna superfan could want, but the people actually in a position to buy this valuable piece of F1 history apparently don’t appreciate its significance.

The red Honda NSX (as the supercar was badged outside the United States) that Senna used as his personal car in Europe came up for sale in April 2024 with an asking price of $623,000. Just two years later, it’s once again headed to a new home. The NSX will be part of an RM Sotheby’s auction in London on October 31, and is expected to sell for 500,000-800,000 British pounds. That’s approximately $665,000 to $1 million at current exchange rates. It’s looking like the current owner made a solid investment, but Senna’s NSX deserves to be so much more than an appreciating asset.

Before McLaren had its own supercars to give its drivers, the team raced with Honda power. In stark contrast to today, Honda’s engines were the class of the field in the 1980s, and Senna developed a close relationship with the Japanese automaker as a result. He had an opportunity to sample an NSX development mule and deemed the chassis “a little fragile,” leading engineers to stiffen it by 50% and rejigger the suspension, according to the auction listing. So Senna had a small but genuine role in making what is arguably one of the greatest driver’s cars of all time what it is.

Honda actually gifted Senna three cars—two black ones, and this 1991 left-hand-drive version in red. It was reportedly housed in Portugal from new for the three-time champion to use as-needed. And there’s reason to believe Senna drove it plenty. When not in Brazil, he spent most of his time in Portugal, which is a short plane ride from McLaren’s U.K. base. This was also back when Estoril hosted plenty of F1 testing—and racing.

The car stayed in Portugal after Senna’s 1994 death, trading hands a few times before being sold to a U.K. owner in 2013. That owner listed it for sale in 2024 with 39,100 miles. RM Sotheby’s doesn’t state how much mileage has been added since its current owner bought it that year, but we do know that this owner had it shipped to Japan. It’s also unclear what condition the NSX is in, but it’s likely never been fully restored, which is probably for the best. The more original it is, the stronger the connection to Senna.

Any Senna fan would cherish the opportunity to own this car, but it’s just getting flipped like so many other investment-grade classics. It deserves a long-term home with someone who truly appreciates it.

Got a tip? Reach out to tips@thedrive.com

The post Somebody Should Really Give Ayrton Senna’s NSX a Good, Long-Term Home appeared first on The Drive.

The late 1990s and early 2000s were great times for NASCAR. The racing series was achieving new heights of popularity, the field was packed with memorable drivers, and the cars sounded amazing thanks to the proliferation of X-pipe exhaust systems that made a louder, higher-pitched sound than the burbling systems that came before. And it’s all thanks to a rocket scientist who wanted a career change.

Recently interviewed by YouTuber Stapleton42, Boyd Butler worked for Hercules Aerospace, which made solid-rocket motors for NASA and the military, before deciding to get into the exhaust-system business. He started a company called Dr. Gas specializing in X-pipe systems, which tend to be a bit more efficient in pulling exhaust out of combustion chambers, making room for fresh air for the next round of combustion. Butler advertised in magazines, catching the eye of Mark Giles, a fabricator at Morgan-McClure Motorsports.

Based in Abingdon, Virginia, Morgan-McClure was in the midst of a very brief of period of success with driver Sterling Marlin and the bright yellow Kodak-sponsored No. 4 Chevrolet. Marlin won the 1994 Daytona 500, but no race team worth its hard cards rests on its laurels, so boss Larry McClure was looking for any advantage that would help ensure a repeat victory in 1995. Giles and McClure’s instincts were correct: the X-pipe system added 4.5 horsepower, equivalent to an additional 1 mph of top speed at Daytona, which makes a big difference over 500 miles of essentially full-throttle running. The sound was just a byproduct.

Butler initially sent some parts to the team’s shop, but fabricators had trouble rehabbing the round pipe into an oval form, which was necessary for ground clearance. McClure insisted that Butler fly from his home in Utah to Virginia to oversee the installation. So Butler duly packed some exhaust tubing in scuba-gear bags and boarded a plane. After two-and-half days of thrashing, the team loaded up for Daytona.

In racing, it’s best to keep any technical innovations under wraps. As soon as other teams sense an unfair advantage, they’ll try to copy it or get it banned. But there was no hiding the X-pipe, which made Marlin’s car sound completely different to anything else on track. Luckily for Morgan-McClure, nobody figured it out. Jack Roush guessed that the team was running a trick exhaust system, for example, but failed to clock the X-pipe as the trick.

Marlin duly won the race, giving him back-to-back Daytona 500 victories. Morgan-McClure locked Butler into a one-year exclusive deal, but after that the floodgates opened and other teams began using X-pipe exhausts. Their distinctive wail became the soundtrack of NASCAR (and the IROC series as well) until the early 2000s. NASCAR eliminated the X-pipe when the Car of Tomorrow was introduced for the 2008 season, and has enforced much stricter rules on exhausts and other components in recent years. That has essentially relegated wildcard engineering solutions like the X-pipe to the past.

The post How This Rocket Scientist Made NASCAR Irresistibly Loud in the ‘90s and ‘00s appeared first on The Drive.

Hot Wheels cars are a gateway to car fandom. How many people played with 1:64-scale diecasts as kids and dreamed about getting behind the wheel of the real thing? One grown-up enthusiast did things the other way around, taking a rare opportunity to immortalize their full-size 1967.5 Datsun 2000 Roadster in miniature form.

Matt Gabe, owner of the diecast-inspiring Datsun, works for Hot Wheels parent company Mattel. He told The Drive that he bought the car in 2013 because he wanted a “fun, old convertible” that also “stood out in the Mattel parking lot.” Mission accomplished. This second-generation Datsun Roadster was introduced in 1963 and produced through 1970, but never caught on like the later Z-cars. The 1967.5 2000 model is also unusual because it mixed a new 2.0-liter engine (making 135 horsepower) with the outgoing low-profile windshield and flat dashboard. This spec was only made from March to November of 1967.

As for how it became a Hot Wheels car, that’s down to Gabe being invited to the 2024 Hot Wheels Collector Convention as the guest of honor. The guest of honor gets to choose a car to be produced for the event, and Hot Wheels already had a Datsun Roadster in its standard line to use as a starting point. It was upgraded to a higher-quality “collector” version, with rubber tires and an all-metal chassis and body, and produced in a limited run of 4,000.

“I was able to convince the team to create the parts that would put it at that higher level,” Gabe said. “I designed the toy car using my car as the general inspiration (similar paint color, wheel style, and badging), but added the racing numbers to make it feel a little more Hot Wheels.”

The full-size Datsun got its own vinyl graphics, along with a hardtop to match the Hot Wheels car. Gabe still has the original soft top, but it’s not currently installed. The car also wears front lowering springs and 14-inch Panasport wheels that are faithfully replicated on the Hot Wheels version.

If you like what you see, you can make an offer on both the 1:64 and 1:1-scale versions right now via Cars & Bids. When we last checked in, the high bid was a reasonable $5,000.

The post How This Guy Scored the Ultimate Accessory to His Datsun Roadster: A Factory Hot Wheels appeared first on The Drive.

Cars rely on a variety of lubricants to keep their moving parts from becoming expensive glitter, and that’s all down to viscosity, the ability of a material to flow without deforming (known as shear). Lubricants need to be able to flow at different temperatures without becoming too thin to do their job of alleviating friction between surfaces. And as it turns out, there’s an upper limit to viscosity that’s well beyond the weights listed on each bottle of motor oil.

In practical terms, the upper limit of viscosity is unlimited. That’s because when you start to look at higher values for viscosity, the discussion moves away from recognizable fluids to the rock-forming minerals that flow beneath the planet’s surface under ridiculously high temperatures. Masaki Yoshida, a professor at Japan’s Ritsumeikan University, nonetheless decided to find the physical upper limit of viscosity, and published findings on this “absolute cosmic limit” in the Physics of Fluids journal last month.

Professor Yoshida came up with a number of 10^30±2 pascal-seconds (Pa s), a measure of dynamic viscosity that expresses a material’s ability to flow a given amount per second under a given amount of pressure. To put that very large number in perspective, water has a viscosity of approximately 10^-3 Pa s, while honey has a viscosity of about 10¹ Pa s. A material this viscous flows so slowly that the timeframe for any measurable movement exceeds the age of the Earth. In practical terms, such a material is rigid, which is why it’s generally not a subject of fluid-dynamics studies.

I’d be a bit frightened by the engine that could produce internal temperatures high enough to need a motor oil that viscous. Dynamic viscosity for motor oils is usually measure in millipascal-seconds (MPa s, or an equivalent), which is one-thousandth of a Pa s. For non-winter weights, that value is divided by the density of the oil (known as kinematic viscosity). And in both cases, the weight number you see on the bottle is determined by measuring viscosity at multiple temperatures and creating an index from those measurements.

To arrive at that “cosmic limit,” the study relied on decades of geodetic data (dealing with the shape of the Earth itself), laboratory rock-deformation experiments, and simulations based on knowledge of geological processes that unfold beneath the Earth’s surface over millions of years. Because the materials exhibiting the highest level of viscosities aren’t lubricants, they’re the building blocks of rocks, which flow when tectonic plates move.

What was the point of all this? For researchers, it eliminates the placeholder of “infinite viscosity” often used in fluid-dynamics studies, providing a concrete upper limit. Granted, it’s one so high as to not affect more conventional research, which is why scientists previously described viscosity as “infinite” in the first place. In a press release, Ritsumeikan University also claims the findings could be useful in studying geologic activity past and present, as well as high-viscosity non-Newtonian fluids, those with viscosity that changes when subjected to force (like ketchup, which gets thinner when you shake the bottle). It’s also a cool reminder that the same principles that keep your engine alive also keep the planet alive.

The post Oil Viscosity Keeps Your Engine Alive. A Scientist Just Found Its ‘Absolute Cosmic Limit’ appeared first on The Drive.

As it prepares to launch its first EV, Bentley faces the same problem as numerous other brands with charismatic internal-combustion engines. Near-silent operation might be appropriate for a luxury car like the Bentley Torcal, but customers are going to miss the NASCAR-after-finishing-school sound of the V8 engines that live under the hoods of other Bentleys. So the automaker came up with something it hopes is the same, yet different.

From the Rolls-Royce 6.7-liter V8 that served from the 1930s until 2020, to today’s VW Group engines, the V8 looms large in Bentley lore and thus served as the inspiration for the Torcal’s signature sound. But Bentley didn’t resort to simply playing fake engine noises, or remixing them with more high-tech sounds, as some other automakers have done with generally poor results. Obviously artificial background noise is no replacement for the real sound of air working its way through an engine.

That’s why I’m encouraged by Bentley’s decision to not even bother trying to replicate the sound of its combustion engines. Instead, the Torcal will play sounds recorded by real musicians, “using real instruments including drums, viola, and bass guitar,” according to a press release. The soundtrack “responds to the driver’s inputs, heightening the engagement,” Bentley claims.

Drums in particular will cause drivers to feel the same emotions that make V8s so memorable, because they come the closest to the rhythm of a rumbling eight-cylinder engine, Bentley argues. To test that, engineers had people walk between parabolic speakers playing V8 and drum sounds to compare them. What you see here isn’t a still from a dystopian student sci-fi film, but a sonic experiment.

We’ll see how successful that experiment was when the Torcal debuts. An unveiling is scheduled for September 23, and CEO Mike Rocco told The Drive in April that sales are expected to start in the third quarter of 2027. The recently revealed name of Bentley’s first EV comes from El Torcal de Antequera, an area of Andalusia, Spain, known for unusual limestone rock formations.

Bentley announced the then-unnamed Torcal in November 2024, describing it at the time as a “luxury urban SUV” smaller than the Bentayga. Rocco told us that it will still cost Bentayga money, though, and like the bigger Bentley SUV, it will share a platform with other VW Group models. In this case, that’s expected to be the upgraded version of the Premium Platform Electric used by the Porsche Cayenne Electric.

The post Bentley Thinks Drums Are the Most Natural Replacement for V8 Sounds in EVs appeared first on The Drive.