Last week was Car Week, so called because of the various events taking place in and around Monterey, California (The Quail, the vintage races at Laguna Seca, Pebble Beach, et cetera), and the annual Woodward Dream Cruise in Detroit.

Yesterday, I argued that we need more off-road parks. And more race tracks. And more drag strips. All in the name of keeping the flame for automotive enthusiasm alive, as well as growing it.

Automotive News has a story out showing that for automaker bosses who have been in their position for at least two years, median pay has risen 90 percent since 2020.

The story is accompanied by a chart with salary numbers, and some of the numbers are staggering, even knowing that CEOs tend to be extremely well compensated in this day and age.

Recently, Dodge made news by saying its beloved V8 performance cars are going full EV in the not-too-distant future. BMW is talking about a similar transition.

Earlier this week, we reported on GM filing for four trademarks for trim levels for the upcoming Cadillac Celestiq.

We mentioned that it was unclear which trim level would be which.

Ford increased pricing on the F-150 Lightning EV substantially this week, citing “significant material cost increases and other factors.” The all-electric model now comes with an MSRP that ranges between $46,974 (for the base Pro trim) and $96,874 (for the Extended Range Platinum). All told, the decision has made the pickup anywhere from $6,000 to $8,500 more expensive than it was just a few days earlier. In exchange, Blue Oval has ever so slightly upgraded the maximum range of some of the lower trims. But some of us would probably prefer a more comprehensive explanation as to what’s causing EV prices to surge in general, because it’s not just Ford that’s been raising the sticker price of in-demand electric vehicles.

Here's a brain buster for you: Let's say you woke up tomorrow flush with cash. More than you could possibly ever spend. So you decided to invest of some of it. Knowing EVs are poised to become a larger part of the automotive market, you bet on a startup.

Which one do you choose?

While often derided as highly unfashionable, minivans really are the Swiss Army knife of vehicles. They’re people haulers, cargo carriers, mobile campsites, and can even improvise as work vehicles for when a utility van (the Leatherman of vehicles) is unavailable. Minivans also drive more like cars than the brutes occupying the SUV and pickup segment, making them easier for some drivers to live with.

With vans having enjoyed a cultural renaissance during the 1970s, minivans hit the ground running in the mid-1980s and continued to swell in popularity until the millennium. By then, North Americans were buying an estimated 1.5 million minivans a year. But that’s also where society decided to apply the brakes. Sport utility vehicles and crossovers have effectively supplanted the van as the default family conveyance — though recent sales figures have suggested those dying flames are now being rekindled.

It’s a safe bet that most car enthusiasts are good drivers — or at least, generally speaking, better than the average member of the general public.

Even though we all occasionally run into trouble.

As a former co-worker once told me: “Podody’s nerfect.”

Poking around ye olde Internet today, I came across this Motor1 piece that aggregates an interview that MuscleCarsandTrucks did. The interview is with Ford’s Mustang marketing manager, Jim Owens, and concerns, at least in part, the graying hairs of the average Mustang buyer and how Ford can get younger folks behind the wheel of the venerable pony car.

Most of the time I am a genial fellow. Laidback. Not particularly quick to anger. Polite towards my fellow man.

Except, on occasion, when behind the wheel.

Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday. That’s been something of a mantra for car companies over the last hundred-odd years, and success in motorsports is considered a worthy enough goal for major automakers the world over to invest tens of millions – heck, hundreds of millions of dollars – to compete, if not to win. But, is it real? Does “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” hold water?

I think the answer is obvious – because, if winning races actually sold cars, Lancia would be the best-selling car brand on Earth.

Tonight’s the night. The wraps finally officially come off the next Nissan Z.

Your humble author is sitting at a Starbucks in Brooklyn, counting the hours until tonight’s unveiling. And thinking about the future of not just the Z, but Infiniti.

It’s Chicago Auto Show week around these parts.

You might not remember this, but there actually was a 2020 Chicago Auto Show — it took place before COVID shut the world down. This means that the Chicago Auto Show was the last one before the world fell apart, and will be the first one as we tentatively reopen and march towards some sort of normalcy.

It also means that enthusiasts and car shoppers get to gather in person to check out sheetmetal once again.

Earlier today, I gave you my take on how Jeep should fight off the challenge posed to the Wrangler from the new Ford Bronco.

Now it’s your turn.

It’s hot almost everywhere in this country right now.

Air conditioners are straining. The words “heat dome” are in the news. Climate change is being discussed.

Tesla’s steering yoke is making news again, sort of, in part because of a video circulating Twitter and in part because our competition over at Jalopnik took some bad-faith criticism over a minor mistake.

It’s Bronco Day.

Today is the day that you, the reader, can finally read the reviews of the much-hyped 2021 Ford Bronco.

I wrote earlier this week about how BAT has broken me.

In the post, I mentioned how I browse for Fox-body Mustangs. I do this because my dad owned one when I was young and I owned one for a few years between high school and early college.

I suspect many of us have one, two, or even three models we look for when we browse sites like BAT.

I’m currently sweating my you-know-what off somewhere near-ish to Austin, Texas, in order to drive the Ford Bronco, which is probably the most anticipated vehicle of the year, and I want to give you the chance to play journalist.

Matt raised an interesting question yesterday in his piece on GM’s worker woes.

Specifically, should drug testing even be a thing for plant work when many states are legalizing or at least decriminalizing marijuana?

The Fast and Furious franchise is apparently coming to an end, at least in terms of movies that feature the main cast (who knows what other content there will be, in terms of video games or spinoffs, et cetera).

I told y’all on Friday that while the Ford Maverick might be a great truck, I can’t get too excited about it for whatever reason.

And now, it’s your turn.

Yesterday you saw our new feature, The Right Spec, which exists to replace Ace of Base. As a reminder of how it works, Matthew (or anyone who pens one in his absence) will take a popular model (and/or one recently reviewed here) and tell you how he thinks you should spec it.

As I edited his piece, I was reminded of the endless debate that takes place in auto-journo circles when it comes to specs on the cars we actually test.

Over the weekend, I had a conversation with a friend about manual transmissions. My friend is one of the few non-auto-journo folks I know who drives a vehicle with three pedals, and he made a comment about the slow death of the stick shift, especially as cars increasingly become electric, or at least electrified.

I pushed back gently, suggesting that there will also be a market, perhaps quite small but a market nonetheless, for internal-combustion engine vehicles, even after the market flips in favor of EVs. Unless the ICE is outright banned, of course. I also believe there will be a market for sports cars with hybrid and EV setups, and some might be able to offer manuals. Either way, I figure that as long as some car enthusiasts demand sports cars, including those with manuals, and as long as automakers won’t take too much of a hit to the bottom line to produce such cars, there will be a market.

It’s now been a full week since Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer. And with the pandemic seemingly receding — my state and city move to full-go reopening on Friday — people are anxious to move.

Are you ready? Are you excited? Or do you just not care?

I speak, of course, about the Ford Maverick — which was teased yesterday and will be unveiled in full next week.

Yesterday we brought you a bit on the Toyota product blitz. While most of it was relatively small in terms of news impact — two special-edition Tacomas, a special Supra, and the refreshed and updated GR86.

The pandemic isn’t over, but here in the U.S., we’re rolling toward normalcy, and assuming nothing drastic changes, we’ll get there as more folks get vaccinated.

Hopefully, the rest of the world will follow in fairly short order.

Many of you are no doubt familiar with the Am I the Asshole section of Reddit. For those who aren’t, the gist is this — some anonymous user posts about a situation in which they acted a certain way and then ask the reader to determine if they acted like an asshole or if they were in the right.

Well, I encountered a situation Friday evening that could qualify for an AITA, but I am deciding to ask you guys, publicly, if I am the asshole, since this involves a subject near and dear to this blog’s heart: Driving.

Now that it’s effectively too late to avoid a crisis, the United States has begun asking itself whether or not now is the time to put into motion a plan that will eventually lead to the nation manufacturing its own semiconductor chips. As you’re undoubtedly aware, the automotive sector has taken a beating as Asian-based supply chains are experiencing what can only be described as unprecedented demand. But they aren’t building enough to satisfy everyone and the local markets are taking precedent.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo proposed a $52-billion solution on Monday that would cram fresh government funds into production and research that could result in seven to 10 new U.S. factories. But that’s just to get the ball rolling on an industry that will take several years to mature, leaving some to wonder whether the country should even bother.

Genesis teased the rather handsome G70 Shooting Brake (wagon) this morning, highlighting the brand’s ability to design sophisticated automobiles that don’t need to compete directly with the cost of your home. Unfortunately, just about every automaker on the planet has decided that wagons have no business in America. This includes Genesis. The manufacturer made it clear that the liftback G70 was designed specifically for Europeans.

While the body style used to be the king of the road, it was supplanted by the minivan in the late 1980s. By 1996, the last American full-size wagons (Buick Roadmaster and Chevrolet Caprice Classic) were discontinued. The region had lost its taste for them and the industry has been operating under the assumption that the feeling has gone unchanged for thirty years. Aren’t we due for a resurgence?

Color counts when selling or buying a car. But which colors help or hurt? iSeeCars.com, a car search engine, performed exhaustive research on this topic, recently publishing the results.

There I was the other day, driving down Chicago’s famed Lake Shore Dr., stuck in traffic, when I looked over to my right and saw a kid at the wheel who was almost certainly too young to be a licensed driver.

He was supervised by an adult in the passenger seat, but the sight was still jarring.

Volkswagen has announced pricing for the 2022 Taos subcompact crossover, dialing things in at $24,190 for the base, front-wheel-drive version. The sum syncs up perfectly with the Golf hatchback the vehicle will effectively be replacing on the North American market (GTI excluded) and leaves us with some nagging questions about VW’s overall plan. Volkswagen is effectively killing off the Golf so Taos can have an uninterrupted moment under the spotlight, but it’s making the brand lineup look conspicuously redundant.

With Taos models priced so close to the Tiguan, there’s going to be loads of overlap on everything that isn’t the base model S trim. The larger crossover starts at $26,440 (including destination) and automatically comes with more interior volume and a beefier powertrain, though neither vehicle could be considered quick.

Jan, Toyota’s innocuous ad spokesperson, poses our question of the day (QOTD) to picture yourself in a new Toyota. We’re asking, what new vehicle of any make would you picture yourself in? Assuming, of course, dealers still exist.

I was running an errand earlier this week and spotted a Ford Bronco Sport street parked on Chicago’s famed State Street. Coincidentally, I had just tested one off-road a bit over a week prior.

The baby Bronco impressed me on our first drive, despite some flaws. And our own Adam Tonge has argued that the Escape-based Bronco Sport may spell the end of the line for the venerable crossover that lends it its platform.

Buick is on my brain.

Not only does an Envision test vehicle sit some 20-odd stories beneath my feet in my parking garage, but the brand has been running its usual ad blitz during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (and presumably, the women’s, too). The tourney is one of my favorite sports events of the year, so I’ve been tuning in.

This means I’m seeing many Buick ads. This means the brand that this here site once put on Death Watch — and earned me at least one angry phone call from Buick PR — is still soldiering on.

Stellantis leadership is going to have some tough decisions to make in regard to Chrysler and Dodge. While both brands are a shadow of their former selves, Fiat Chrysler viewed their rightsizing as more of a distillation process. Despite lacking the full complement of vehicles necessary to occupy every segment, the two have the oversized American sedan segment almost entirely to themselves. In fact, their more-is-more ethos is becoming increasingly rare within the overall industry and (allegedly) at odds with the coming age. We’ve been told the only way to continue playing is through powertrain downsizing and electrification. The V8 is becoming taboo, reserved for the incognito browser.

What will your neighbors think when they learned you bought a Hemi? The jokes about the size of your member for needing such a big car with such a big motor will perpetually have you on edge and peering over a shoulder. You’ll be a fugitive inside your own mind, forever teetering on the brink. What if your alarmingly massive penis is actually as demure as your bother’s wife suggested when you brought the car to the last family dinner? Wouldn’t it be easier if we all just drove bland crossovers with modestly sized motors? Why do you have to be so different?

These are the kinds of harrowing questions we wouldn’t need to ask ourselves in the aftermath of a midnight screaming fit if Dodge and Chrysler stopped existing. Stellantis has that power … and it may even be considering that possibility right now. But is that really what’s best?

VW today announced the end of the road for the base Golf for North America. The question is, will you miss the base Golf when it’s gone?

In about two hours, Joe Biden becomes the 46th president of the United States. What does this mean for the auto industry?

Trucks are among the longest-lasting, most popular vehicles on the road. Whether new or used, a workhorse, or strictly for show, are your favorite trucks lifted or lowered?

The debate rages on, whether 22-inch, 24-inch, even 26-inch or larger wheels, and tires without a lot of sidewall to them, are okay or not.

Which drivetrain would you prefer: The hybrid two-motor setup that Toyota has paired with their 2.5-liter DOHC four-cylinder that puts out 245 horsepower or Kia’s conventional V6 that produces 294 HP?

White is the most popular car color, according to Axalta, covering 38 percent of all automobiles purchased worldwide.

I just got back from traveling to Michigan, from Illinois, by car, to drive a brand-new SUV. One that’s important for the automaker and the market. It was the second time in a month I’d done so, staying in hotels each time.

I might be doing it one more time this month, although a recent change to Chicago’s advisory regarding travel and quarantines might cause me to cancel and send a TTAC contributor.

Buckle up kids — it’s Election Day in America, and we’re about to get political.

Before we do, some rules. Don’t follow them, and the merciless banhammer will find you.

It’s been Hummer week around these parts, as the GMC Hummer EV finally made its debut on Tuesday night. We’ve had a whole slew of stories up — but I wanted to get a sense of what you, the B and B, think of it.

While Tesla’s Model 3 sedan is supposedly taking the world by storm, some hot competition has been reported in China. The Hongguang MINI EV has eclipsed the offspring of Elon Musk to become the country’s best-selling electric vehicle. Though at just 28,800 yuan ($4,200), it hardly seems a fair comparison. Tesla’s minimalist sedan is larger and costs roughly 10 times what SAIC Motor, General Motors, and Liuzhou Wuling Motors decided the MINI EV was worth.

That’s right, it took the combined strength of three automakers to birth this baby and we’re wondering what it would take to get you to drive one home if they were offered here.

Big Jeep day yesterday, wasn’t it? Hoo boy. The off-road brand tempted buyers not just with a plug-in hybrid Wrangler, but also a taste of what’s to come in the full-size segment.

The Grand Wagoneer Concept, which closely mirrors a production vehicle we can expect next summer, generated an instant reaction from TTAC chatroom denizens — not all of it favorable. Far from it, in fact. Looking at this hulking, three-row SUV with ultra-premium aspirations, what would you do to turn a B into an A+?

We walk through life full of our own biases, veritable containers brimming with grudges and bad feelings and memories of being burned. You’ll never hurt me again, we think of certain corporations and companies and products. And countries of origin. And people. Like cold honey, these lingering resentments harden over time.

Sometimes we realize too late that our feelings were outdated, unwarranted, or misplaced.

It’s late 1995, and your author is blundering through his first year of high school. Gangly, awkward… frankly, the whole thing is best left unremembered. Beyond those school walls, however, world events were coming to a head. O.J. apparently didn’t do it, Quebec almost became a country, the Unabomber’s manifesto made it to print, and in two assembly plants in Ontario and Delaware, big things were taking place between the front seats.

There, Chrysler Corp was busy outfitting two variants of its 1996 model-year LH cars — the Dodge Intrepid ES and Eagle Vision TSi, to be exact — with a new type of transmission. Called Autostick, it allowed the driver of Chrysler’s sportiest cab-forward sedans to make the most of their four forward gears.

I was channel surfing over the weekend and stumbled upon 2002’s Die Another Day, the last entry in the Pierce Brosnan era of James Bond flicks. Arguably the worst of the four. I’m a GoldenEye man myself, in no small part due to the video game that was big among my social groups in high school and on into college.

Anyway, while watching Die for about the fifth time this month (hey, it’s on Showtime a lot, what can I say?), I took note of the scene in which Halle Barry’s character pulls up to the ice-palace hotel in Iceland in a Ford Thunderbird. One of those retro models sold from 2002-2005 that came out with much fanfare — it was even a Motor Trend Car of the Year — before sales fell off a cliff.

Your author was backing out of his parking spot last night when something stopped him in his tracks. A glimpse of something in the side-view mirror led to a moment’s hesitation… and some serious, judgmental eyeballing.

While yours truly will always stop to admire a Fox-body anything, there was plenty wrong with this example. An example that may have been closer than it appeared. Seems the kids across the street have a visitor — or perhaps even a new ride.

Due to a lack of taste on the part of the owner, or perhaps a prior one, your author hopes this automotive outsider doesn’t linger too long in the ‘hood.

Movies and television have delivered countless heroes and villains, more than a few femme fatales of dubious loyalty, and still more ethically challenged antiheroes. Quite often, they do not take public transportation.

What’s interesting to note is that, when you think back to all the famous TV and silver screen characters strongly associated with a specific car, the star vehicle, more likely than not, sports just two doors. The mind immediately flashes to the famed Bullitt chase between two well-matched ’68 coupes. Magnum’s Ferrari 308. Rockford’s unusually powerful Firebird Esprit. Anything Don Johnson drove. Even Jerry Seinfeld’s Saab 900 convertible.

Yes, you could even throw in Uncle Jesse’s Ford pickup or Daisy Duke’s Jeep. With this mind, what four–door vehicle with an acting credit deserved to be remembered?

So, it seems the Cannonball Run record was smashed once again this week, with a team from Ohio making the New York-Los Angeles run in XX hours and XX minutes thanks to a specially outfitted German land missile and plenty of electronic help. The actual duration of the feat has no bearing on today’s question, so we’ll leave you to read about it somewhere else.

These Cannonball Run attempts are, frankly, getting annoying. They’re also inherently dangerous. But the news did dredge up an old article about a very different cross-country trip that proved far more interesting to this writer.

Whoa, whoooaaaa, easy there. Take a breath — especially you, writers and alumns of a particular blog. In no way is that headline referring to anything political.

You’ll see.

There’s no more secrets when it comes to the Ram 1500 TRX. The brand’s brawniest light-duty pickup appeared Monday with a Hellcat V8 nestled between its bulging fenders, ready to tackle high-speed runs across the desert (or Nebraska) for anyone with $71,790 burning a hole in their wallet.

Bragging rights sometimes fetch a steep price, and the TRX’s after-destination sticker only rises from there. Sure, it’s potent and contains all the goodies a sophisticated moonshine runner could want, but what about the truck it’s meant to challenge — and beat?

It happens from time to time, even to people who spend their days gazing at the long, shapely flanks of the world’s most dazzling crossovers. Sometimes other vehicle types, too.

Often, there’s just too much rolling stock out there. Too many models that hit the scene, only to be quickly forgotten amid the constant deluge of new metal, new fascias, new nameplates. Driving along in heavy traffic, pulling up to a light, or even just standing there, watching cars pass, you sometimes come across a vehicle whose identity flummoxes you. The brain draws a blank.

I should know what that is, your mind says, but what the hell is it?

Let’s keep our minds far away from the gutter, folks. We may be talking inches today, but they’re cubic inches.

Yes, displacement, a unit of measurement that spans the gamut in today’s new vehicle lineups. Thanks to the advent of the subcompact crossover segment and the proliferation of big boy HD pickups, the breadth of displacement choice has only grown in recent years. General Motors can now sell you Chevrolets ranging from 1.2 to 6.6 liters, but Ford has them beat: 1.0 to 7.3 liters.

There’s plenty to choose from out there, but today we’re looking only in one direction.