Rare Rides Icons: The Lincoln Mark Series Cars, Feeling Continental (Part XXXVIII)

After a review of the Lincoln Continental Mark VII’s completely revamped and modernized styling in our last entry, we’ll spend this today on its interior. As Lincoln attempted to draw a new, more youthful well-heeled customer base to the Mark, the PLC traditionalist of yore faded away. And said youthful customer - usually with an eye on European cars - was less interested in acres of faux wood panel, ruched velour, traditional instruments, and overstuffed button-tufted interiors.

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Alfa Romeo Displays Carabo Concept, Speculation Abounds

While Milan Design Week is primarily focused on showcasing the latest representations of furniture you couldn’t possibly afford, sometimes a car or two gets thrown into the mix and Alfa Romeo had one hell of an entrant prepared this year. But it wasn’t a new design.

Instead, the Italian automaker rolled out the Carabo concept from the 1968 Paris Motor Show. As one of the first vehicles to pioneer the wedge shape that became synonymous with supercars in later decades, the Alfa holds a massive amount of historical significance. However, there may be more going on than the automaker simply wanting to take a trip down memory lane.

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2023 Honda Civic Type R Takes Nürburgring Lap Record

When it comes to performance vehicles sporting front-wheel drive, the Honda Civic Type R is usually the model everyone looks to as the benchmark, and the eleventh generation seems to be no different. The manufacturer has announced that the 2023 Honda Civic Type R is now the fastest front-drive production car to ever lap Nürburgring Nordschleife.

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2024 Ford Mustang Comes With ‘Remote Rev’ System

If you’re the kind of person that wants to make a strong impression on the neighborhood and are less than concerned whether it’s good or bad, Ford is offering 2024 model year Mustangs with a key fob that lets the holder remotely rev up the engine. While a pointless gimmick, it would be a lie to say that it doesn’t sound like fun.

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Believe It or Not: Lordstown Motors Resumes Production

The Ohio-based Lordstown Motors has reportedly resumed assembly and delivery of its all-electric Endurance pickup this month, after having to pause production in February to address quality concerns.


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QOTD: Do You Actually Care About Chinese Imports?

Following our coverage of the Lincoln Nautilus Hybrid, reader feedback seemed overwhelmingly focused on the vehicle being manufactured in China. This was interesting because the article dealt exclusively with updates to the vehicle, which is technically still a product of North America.

But Ford Motor Co. has confirmed that the next-generation Nautilus will indeed be imported from China so that the Canadian facility currently responsible for U.S. volume can be transitioned into an electric-vehicle plant.

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Which EVs Still Qualify for Federal Tax Credits?

With the guidance having come in on the United States’ updated EV tax credit scheme, outlined in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, we now have a pretty good idea of which electric vehicles still qualify. Stringent content requirement stipulations have certainly culled the roster, however, and helped explain why the automotive sector didn’t have any issues with the government taking its sweet time in making decisions regarding content quotas.

There are only about a dozen models that qualify for the full $7,500 tax credit after April 18th, with a few more being eligible for a partial credit of $3,750.

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VW Debuts New Electric Motor, Likely ID.7 Candidate

Volkswagen has introduced their new APP550 drive unit that’s assumed to be powering the ID.7 we reported on earlier in the week. Though the Chinese specs seem a little modest. We're thinking the electric motor will be reserved for higher-trimmed EVs and/or Western markets.

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Rare Rides Icons: The Lincoln Mark Series Cars, Feeling Continental (Part XXXVII)


As we learned in our last entry, the new for ‘84 Lincoln Continental Mark VII headed in a different direction than any of its PLC predecessors. It was smaller and lighter than even the downsized Mark VI that came before it and rode on the newer Fox platform shared by the Mustang, Thunderbird, Cougar, and indeed the Continental sedan. The Mark’s Eighties evolution was a necessary measure as European luxury competition came in hot, and the disco-traditionalist type PLC customer of the past was no more. Lincoln’s designers had a tall order in the earliest days of the Eighties: Maintain the Mark’s identity generally as a Lincoln and a luxury coupe, and move its looks beyond everything prior to 1984.

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Waymo Briefly Sidelines Test Vehicles Due to Fog

Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving unit, reportedly had some of its San Francisco-based test vehicles stymied by dense fog earlier in the week. Compared to some of the other incidents we’ve seen attached to autonomous test cars of late, the fog delay seems to be the most minor of mishaps. However, it’s another reminder that a lot of the systems AVs use to "see" have yet to overcome inclement weather.

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Toyota Partners With Exxon to Test Low-Carbon Fuels

Toyota Motor Corp has announced it will be partnering with Exxon to develop a low-carbon fuel that can be used in gasoline engines. Considering that governments around the world are introducing stringent carbon emission standards, this seems like a worthwhile endeavor. However, Toyota also likes to throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, and previous attempts to deliver on similar concepts have fallen flat.

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Shocker! Trucker Union Opposes Exemptions for Autonomous Vehicles

The Transport Workers Union of America has issued its formal opposition to requests, filed by Alphabet's self-driving unit Waymo and autonomous technology company Aurora, seeking an exemption from some of the rules pertaining to the warning devices equipped to semi-trucks.

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Russia's GAZ Group Suing Volkswagen for $348 Million

Russia’s Gorky Automobile Plant (Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod or GAZ) is suing Volkswagen Group over vehicles it was contracted to assemble but never had the opportunity to after the German automaker pulled out of the market at the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War.

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Opinion: More Automakers Will Dump Apple CarPlay, Android Auto

If you’re someone who follows automotive trends, you’ve undoubtedly noticed just how much effort is going into infotainment screens and features associated with connectivity. This is because auto manufacturers believe leveraging consumer data in a manner similar to tech companies (e.g. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet) will yield oodles of cash. However, this is also why we’ve started seeing businesses dumping things like Apple CarPlay from their vehicles and some of us have a sneaking suspicion this practice will continue.

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GM's Cruise Recalls 300 AVs After San Francisco Bus Crash

General Motors' self-driving arm, Cruise LLC is recalling 300 robo-taxis after one of its vehicles crashed into a San Francisco bus on March 23rd.

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  • ArialATOMV8 All I hope is that the 4Runner stays rugged and reliable.
  • Arthur Dailey Good. Whatever upsets the Chinese government is fine with me. And yes they are probably monitoring this thread/site.
  • Jalop1991 WTO--the BBB of the international trade world.
  • Dukeisduke If this is really a supplier issue (Dana-Spicer? American Axle?), Kia should step up and say they're going to repair the vehicles (the electronic parking brake change is a temporary fix) and lean on or sue the supplier to force them to reimburse Kia Motors for the cost of the recall.Neglecting the shaft repairs are just going to make for some expensive repairs for the owners down the road.
  • MaintenanceCosts But we were all told that Joe Biden does whatever China commands him to!