McLaren's Planned Plug-in Will Be Named Artura

McLaren Automotive has decided on a name for its upcoming plug-in hybrid. But we know you don’t care much about premium automobiles reserved for people with more money than sense, so we’ll keep this one brief.

Formerly referred to as the P16, McLaren’s new PHEV will be called the Artura. The name, which is of Celtic origin, is supposed to denote nobility. While we cannot say for sure, the brand may be dropping hints as to the type of customers it’s targeting — because the model will no doubt come with a princely sum.

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The 2021 Aston Martin CALLUM Vanquish 25, a Future Rare Ride

Aston Martin’s V12 Vanquish was the company’s heavy hitter GT of the 2000s decade. Between 2001 and 2007, just over 2,500 examples of the Vanquish were produced, composed of 1,492 standard 2+2 coupes, and 1,086 of the sportier S version that ditched the rear seats.

Now, a select few customers can have a thoroughly reengineered Vanquish S, created by the man who designed the original.

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Halo Hero: Maserati Reveals MC20

Thanks to a particularly slow news week, everyone has had extra time to gawk at the 2021 Maserati MC20 — a vehicle that serves to set right all that is wrong with the Italian nameplate and will be the first new vehicle the company has built in almost five years.

Despite being most famous for its racing vehicles from the 20th century, the brand has been passed around more than a basketball and has been forced to evolve its identity. Under Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Maserati has remained fixated on luxury and had straddled the line between premium mainstream cars and hyper exclusivity. With a base price of around $200,000, it’s pretty clear what side of the line the MC20 is on. But it’s hard to criticize something that’s biggest problem is being a supercar — especially when it’s part of a larger effort to rebuild the brand’s racing pedigree and garner extra attention from the sort of people that are serious about cars and have money to waste on sleek, flame-belching baubles.

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Guilty Pleasures: Pink McLaren 570S Obliterated in London

There are swaths of London that are famous for drawing in the most ostentatious supercars in existence, often with one of them pin-balling itself down a row of parked cars in a high-end neighborhood. This is especially true in the summer months, when foreign business magnates seeking milder climates unleash their children onto the city. Someone even produced a documentary about it a few years back — Millionaire Boy Racers — that pitted stodgy Londoners with furrowed brows against young hooligans in six-figure cars.

The real gift arising from the situation is the large number of non-serious crashes involving those ultra-premium rides that the drivers did nothing to achieve. For example, just last week a pink McLaren 570S managed to demolish itself in a 20-mph zone near Montagu Mansions. While we cannot say it was another millionaire boy racer, the fuchsia paint scheme would certainly suggest so.

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Fire Risk Prompts McLaren Recall

McLaren is recalling 2,763 vehicles built between 2016 and 2020. Considering the ultra-premium auto brand rarely moves more then 4,000 units a year (a tally it hopes to ramp up to 6,000 by 2025), its a sizable recall. Affected models include the $1-million Senna, 570GT, GT, and 720S.

As if hearkening back to the supercars of yore, the issue poses a potential fire hazard.

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Ford GT Returns With More Power, Look-at-Me Trims

A Blue Oval vehicle you’re sick of seeing everywhere, the GT, arrives for 2020 with extra oomph in tow, as well as appearance schemes aimed at setting it apart from the other GTs prowling the Lowes lot. A lack of paint is what’s notable with one of these entries.

A Canadian-built, limited-edition supercar, the GT still makes use of a finely tuned 3.5-liter Ecoboost V6, only now there’s more ponies on tap.

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Rare Rides: The 1996 Vector M12, an Elusive Supercar (Part II)

Today is the second portion of the Vector story, which we began in our most recent Rare Rides post. Troubled from the start, the company underwent a hostile takeover by a firm called MegaTech, and fired its founder almost immediately.

The first MegaTech-developed product is our subject vehicle ⁠— the long and low M12. With an NAIAS debut in 1996, it seemed like Vector had a promising immediate future. Or did it?

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Rare Rides: The 1996 Vector M12, an Elusive Supercar (Part I)

Which elite-class supercar features the marker lights from a Miata, rear lamps from a Cavalier, and the steering wheel of a Mustang? There’s only one answer: The Vector M12.

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One Hell of a Halo: Lotus Building Most Powerful 'Production Car' in Existence

Lotus has finally revealed its new halo vehicle, the Evija, claiming it will become “the world’s most powerful production car.” However, due to the Evija’s extremely limited availability and 1.7 million-pound ($2.1 million) price, there’s a lot undercutting that claim. It also leads Lotus away from its role as a scrappy underdog, delivering stripped-down featherweights designed to embarrass similarly priced sporting vehicles with more luxurious amenities.

When you think of present-day Lotus, you don’t typically think grandiose — but that term sums up the Evija rather well. Lotus Cars CEO Phil Popham said it would be like nothing else and “re-establish our brand in the hearts and minds of sports car fans and on the global automotive stage,” while simultaneously paving the way for new models.

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Ford Readies GT Announcement for America's Birthday

Ford is planning on sharing some big, GT-related news for America’s birthday. On Friday, the company said that it would be making “a special Ford GT supercar announcement” during a dedicated press conference at the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed on July 4th.

While that’s the correct date, it’s taking place in the wrong country. But we assume Ford has good reason for that. We’re betting this is some performance-plus variant of the model aimed at achieving enviable lap times. As the Goodwood hill climb is all about the beating a stopwatch, perhaps Ford intends on showing the world what its new car can do.

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BAC Bringing New Car to Goodwood Festival of Speed

Briggs Automotive Company, better known as BAC, doesn’t make a lot of announcements, but that’s not unheard of in the weird world of British sports car manufacturers that focus solely on low-volume, high-performance models.

When BAC launched the Mono in 2011, reviewers praised the car for delivering a unique driving experience and merging track-car dynamics with on-road legality. It became an overnight automotive celebrity, spending the next few years starring on programs like Top Gear, in video games, or on popular auto-themed YouTube channels. A decade later, little buzz surrounds the company.

Fortunately, BAC says it will bring forth another vehicle in 2019.

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Lotus' First New Model Since 2009 Rolls Out Next Month

Lotus hasn’t delivered an entirely new model since the Evora debuted over ten years ago. The clock will reset come July 16th, when the company unveils the Type 130 in central London. Approved by Chinese-parent Geely and shrouded in secrecy, the 130 will represent a major change for Lotus as the brand’s first all-electric hypercar.

However, the baby is reportedly not being thrown out with the bathwater. The automaker has confirmed that the model will still be manufactured at its longstanding headquarters in Hethel, Norfolk, and remain hand-built by Britain’s finest.

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Ferrari's First Plug-in Hybrid Makes 986 Horsepower, Sometimes

On Wednesday, Ferrari introduced the SF90 Stradale — the Italian marque’s first plug-in hybrid.

The car, which represents a changing of the guard for exotics, starts with an F154 V8 engine that the company claims has been worked over to a point where it can no longer be directly compared to the exiting architecture. While the twin-turbo V8 produces 769 horsepower by itself, three electric motors lend a further 216 ponies, making for an all-wheel-drive vehicle with a grand total of 986 hp.

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Electrification's Silver Lining: Audi CEO Announces PB 18 E-tron Production Plans [Updated]

Audi unveiled the PB 18 e-tron Concept at the 2018 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance with absolutely no assurance that it would ever be more than a fun idea. In fact, the company outright said it had no plans to put the vehicle into production. Miraculously, Audi flip-flopped, and the electrified hypercar is now slated for assembly.

You might hate it, but this is one of the few concept vehicles to ever make this author cream the proverbial jeans during office hours. Maybe it’s because I normally wait until the darkest point of the evening to unfurl my shame over a bottle of homemade wine and revisit vintage photo rolls of the Honda Unibox and Suzuki Regina — the latter of which was too good for this world.

However, whether or not Audi can successfully capture the magic of the PB 18 Concept remains to be seen.

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BMW Plotting Production of New Hybrid Supercar

Despite the mainstream automotive market taking a wrench to the face, supercars continue doing exceedingly well. In fact, in 2017 the United Kingdom claimed “specialty car” registrations were up 40 percent over 2012, despite the broader market seeing a decline of nearly 10 percent. Meanwhile, vehicle prices the world over show a larger gap between mainstream automobiles and their high-end counterparts.

As it looks for a replacement for the i8, it seems BMW wants something more ambitions from a performance perspective. While the i8 was a supercar in name and exterior design, the hybrid two-seater lacked the kind of earth-shattering acceleration and handling to truly qualify. Bimmer’s next project is rumored to remedy that while keeping the i-brand’s electrified mentality alive.

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  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?