CAR Magazine’s automotive insider, Georg Kasher, has confirmed Ferrari’s first utility vehicle will be unveiled in 2021. Codenamed F16X, the Ferrari SUV/crossover/high-sided vehicle will be a partner vehicle of the GTC4Lusso successor, itself a direct descendant of the Ferrari FF, Ferrari’s first all-wheel-drive vehicle.

Ah, it’s all coming together now. The FF was a trojan horse.

If the 2021 Ferrari F16X comes to fruition, it will be over the proverbial dead bodies of all those Ferrari executives who have denied the possibility of a Ferrari SUV. “We will not play with SUVs,” current CEO Sergio Marchionne said earlier this year in Geneva. “It’s not that we’re not planning an SUV for now — we’re not planning one at all,” former CEO Amadeo Felisa said in Frankfurt in 2015.

But a Ferrari SUV has nevertheless been long rumored, and the rumors were stoked when marketing chief Nicola Boari discussed at length earlier this year the way in which a Ferrari SUV would need to create a new segment.

Indeed, according to CAR, Ferrari’s first foray into the utility vehicle arena will be different: aluminum architecture, suicide doors sans B-pillars, a likely hybrid powertrain, and a price tag of roughly $350,000. (Read More…)

Got your heart set on a 2018 Volkswagen Atlas, one with upsized wheels, stickier tires, bigger brakes, some red piping around the grille, and tartan seats?

I feel you. But Volkswagen’s illustrious GTI range is not about to co-sign any legislation on the other side of the aisle. Atlas? Tiguan? Tiguan Limited? Touareg? T-Roc? Amarok? Westfalia? Eurovan?

No.

“I think with the three [GTI models] we have now, we are set,” Volkswagen board chairman Herbert Diess told Autocar.

Unfortunately for the United States hot hatch market, however, only one-third of Volkswagen’s GTI lineup actually makes it to America.

Maybe a Tiguan GTI wouldn’t be so bad? (Read More…)

It’s time for performance SUVs to leave the luxury domain and make their way down into the mainstream.

And who better to bring a performance utility vehicle to the masses than the man who previously headed up BMW’s M division, Albert Biermann.

Biermann, after three decades at BMW and more than half a decade in charge at BMW M, joined the Hyundai Motor Group as head of vehicle test and high performance development in 2014. His list of responsibilities at Hyundai and Kia is lengthy. His aspirations for Hyundai’s N brand, according to Drive, are lofty.

But while conventional thought would lead you to believe Hyundai’s N performance sub-brand would focus on cars, Biermann says, “The fun-to-drive element is not limited to the size and segment of the car; you can create fun cars in every segment.”

As a result — and this won’t surprise anyone who remembers that Biermann’s previous position included oversight of M versions of the BMW X5 and BMW X6 — there’s likely a Hyundai Tucson N in the future. (Read More…)

Per inside sources, the green flag has been given for the 2017 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, with testing already underway.

(Read More…)