Production Dates Revealed for Newest, Biggest Jeeps

If you spend your days decrying the bloat of American automobiles, you won’t like what 2021 has in store for you. It’ll be like 2020… only worse!

Scary stuff. For consumers enamored both with the Jeep brand and large, cargo-happy vehicles, however, next year will bring the dawning of a new age of glorious excess. Thanks to Fiat Chrysler’s second-quarter earnings report, we can now pin down post-lockdown production timelines for three Jeep vehicles boasting three rows of seating.

Read more
2023 Cadillac Lyriq: The Future Is Now, but Also 2023

The Cadillac Lyriq’s final production form remains unknown, but the “show car” revealed late Thursday is said to be a fairly close representation of the real thing. That show car is also not far removed from a conceptual rendering released in January 2019, previewing a vehicle that will enter production in late 2022 as a 2023 model.

A lot can happen in the span of more than three and a half years: Buzz can wear off, unreleased products can grow outdated, rivals can catch up. Imagine if Chrysler’s “Suddenly, it’s 1960” collection of 1957 creations were first teased in early 1953.

Cadillac’s betting that the Lyriq’s attributes will remain fresh come roll-out time, and that could very well prove true.

Read more
(Not) For Your Eyes Only: Jaguar Land Rover Loses Bid to Squash Defender Lookalike

Imitation, as the saying goes, is the sincerest form of flattery, but Jaguar Land Rover’s been burned in the past, what with a certain Chinese automaker rolling out near carbon copies of its Range Rover Evoque crossover.

In the Defender lies far more heritage, but JLR just lost a bid to keep the visual rights to the boxy off-road beast in the UK, paving the way for British sales of a model that looks very similar to the much-loved previous-generation model.

Read more
Monument Valley and Sedona in a 2019 Ford Expedition

According to pre-COVID-19 data from the American Automobile Association, 53 million Americans were expected to pack themselves and their stuff into 12 million automobiles and hit the road for an average 300-mile road trip in 2020. Most point to the relatively low cost, schedule flexibility, and reduced packing constraints as reasons to use their car versus anther conveyance.

But it’s the joy of the journey, baked together with a healthy dose of nostalgia, that drives me. Cars are necessary mobility implements in most of our day-to-day lives, but come road trip time they transform into chariots of adventure. Conduits to discovery.

As a kid, a 1979 full-size Chevrolet Van was my family’s dutiful wagon of exploration. We crisscrossed the West from Glacier National Park on the U.S.-Canadian border to Yosemite National Park in the central Sierra, up and down the Pacific Coast Highway, and points between. Road trips were coveted family time and these van-born experiences played no small part in the development of my love for the American West, as well as the automobile. And like all parents, I want to share the peak experiences of my childhood with my progeny.

Read more
Rare Rides: The 1996 Heuliez Intruder Concept - a G-Wagen Derivation

Today’s Rare Ride popped up on the Internet recently, hailing from the archive of Long Forgotten Concept Cars. This particular concept happens to be a high-riding off-road cabriolet, created from a Frankenstein-like amalgam of Mercedes-Benz parts and custom fabrications by French alteration firm Heuliez.

Buckle up — it’s gonna get weird.

Read more
GMC Hummer EVs Come Into Focus

A vehicle guaranteed to cause the least possible amount of harm to the planet and its finite resources, hands down, offered up something of a sneak peak on Wednesday.

Make that “vehicles,” plural. The GMC Hummer EV, a beast of an electric pickup due to roll out of General Motors’ repurposed Detroit-Hamtramck plant late next year, will have a sibling: An SUV, as it’s a body style worthy of the reborn Hummer name’s heritage and also the thing Americans WANT.

And check out that spa-sized frunk.

Read more
After Ford Bronco Reveal, Is GM Ablaze With Envy?

Putting aside your author’s own predilection for traditional sedans (a kink shared by many a TTAC resident, but fewer and fewer buyers), one can understand why General Motors canned its Chevrolet Sonic, Cruze, Volt, and Impala, and why Buick stands to become a utility-only brand come 2021.

Less understandable, especially after last week, is why one newish model arrived in its present form. And it seems some people at GM are wondering that, too.

Read more
Some Love Lost? Ford Bronco's Most Desirable Package Leaves Something Out

The unbridled enthusiasm and lust over Ford’s reborn Bronco, which greeted hungry eyes on the evening of July 13th, lasted not quite two days before a fly hit the ointment.

Would-be owners were enthused to see that the Bronco’s gnarly, off-road-oriented Sasquatch package, is available even on the lowly(?) base model, but a reality Ford left unmentioned spoiled some of their fun yesterday.

Read more
With Bronco Fam, Ford Rolls Out the Welcome Mat for New Buyers

The Bronco family, as Ford calls the trifecta composed of the Bronco Two-Door, Four-Door, and Bronco Sport, has a singular mission: to leverage the fond memories and emotions generated by a storied nameplate to lure new buyers to the brand, boosting the automaker’s volume and profitability.

Despite the pandemic, Ford’s expectations haven’t changed. And the ideal buyers of any member of the Bronco family isn’t someone who can take advantage of Plan Pricing.

Read more
2021 Ford Bronco Two-Door and Four-Door: Forward to the Past

Eventually, the absence of a body-on-frame, go-anywhere, dedicated off-road SUV was too great for the Ford lineup to bear — which is why, after a quarter-century absence, the Bronco triumphantly returns to do battle with its Mopar foe, the Jeep Wrangler.

Talked about endlessly since Ford announced the storied model’s return and leaked as often as celebrity medical records to the National Enquirer, the Bronco makes its debut with the goodies fans want and certain things all SUVs need in the futuristic year of 2021. Namely, a four-door model.

Read more
Adventures in Marketing: Ford Bronco Goes Into the Wild

A 1970 Dodge ad campaign once said of the viewer, “If you can cope with a whole new image, you could be Dodge material.” Well, today — a week out from what this writer has dubbed B-Day — Ford is appealing to those wild at heart to leave their old lifestyles, and the pavement, in the past.

Are you Built Wild?

Read more
Rare Rides: The Beloved Ford Bronco II, From 1988

The Bronco II was a compact SUV marketed on the long-term brand recognition of the Bronco. But only a few years into its production run, the Bronco II had established an infamous reputation all its own — and eventually proved one of the most costly models Ford ever created.

Read more
Style King Bentley Bentayga Goes In for a Facelift

If you detected a whiff of sarcasm in that headline, your nose wasn’t off. Yes, style and beauty is entirely subjective, but the range-topping Bentley Bentayga has never found itself at the top of any writer’s sexiest-dressed list.

And that’s okay! It’s big, it’s bold, and it sells, so Bentley naturally loves anything that generates profits in a market quickly shying away from traditional body styles. Still, better is always possible, so the marque took the Bentayga to the plastic surgeon.

Read more
Eye in the Sky: Ford Bronco, Bronco Sport Not Safe Anywhere

At this point, if Ford wants to keep the upcoming Bronco and Bronco Sport under wraps until their respective unveilings, it had best invest in surplus anti-aircraft batteries — or just never leave the confines of company-owned production facilities. Even those walls have proven a porous barrier, however.

As the weekend dawned, drone-provided aerial spy photos appeared of the two dissimilar Broncos congregating with a Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 out in the desert, far — at least, one would assume — from prying eyes.

Read more
If It Doesn't Fit, You Must Acquit: Pesky O.J. Coincidence Forces Another Bronco Delay

Insisting earlier in the week that its scheduled debut date for the new Bronco was simply a coincidence, Ford has nonetheless found itself forced to push back the model’s reveal even further.

The automaker unintentionally made waves after its planned July 9th reveal of the reborn off-roader (already deferred by the pandemic and resulting trade show cancellations) coincided with the birthday of O.J. Simpson — a man forever linked to the vehicle following his low-speed 1994 cruise into infamy.

Everyone noticed, including the sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, whose 1994 murder — along with that of friend Ron Goldman — sparked the trial of the century.

Read more
  • Ajla On the Mach-E, I still don't like it but my understanding is that it helps allow Ford to continue offering a V8 in the Mustang and F-150. Considering Dodge and Ram jumped off a cliff into 6-cylinder land there's probably some credibility to that story.
  • Ajla If I was Ford I would just troll Stellantis at all times.
  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.