Today marks the second time a Mazda 929 will grace us here at Rare Rides. Late last year we featured the successor to today’s car, a pristine 929 from 1992. That smooth sedan had frameless windows, rounded shapes everywhere, and was designed specifically with the North American market and Lexus customers in mind.
Let’s take a look a the much more conservative luxury sedan Mazda designed before Lexus existed.
Rare Rides featured exactly one Tatra automobile previously, and it was the grandfather of today’s subject. While today’s blue beauty doesn’t have the state authority and terrorist provenance of the black Tatra displayed on these pages before, it’s important for a different reason: It was the last attempt Tatra made to sell a passenger car.
Genesis has predictably brought the G70 onboard with the rest of its lineup’s familial styling. Fortunately, the look the company has gone for has successfully merged disparate concepts by being both spectacular and incredibly tasteful. While your author would have argued that prior Genesis models had aped German exteriors so effectively that they might actually be beating Deutschland at its own game, the new designs only serve extend its advantage. It seems as though everything Hyundai Motor Group touches these days can’t help but have a stunning exterior and it’s true from the sub-$25,000 Kia K5 right on up to the $72,000 Genesis G90.
Quad lamps (front and rear) are now the hallmark of Genesis Motor and have finally been affixed to the G70, giving it a more refined and luxury-focused appearance. It’s also quite unique across the industry and helps distinguish the Korean brand from other nameplates at a distance. While many (including your author) enjoyed the sporting musculature on the current model, 2022 will be a more opulent affair better suited to the frugal fanciness the Genesis has become synonymous with.
Sedans continue to take up a significant chunk of the marketplace, but with the ever-evolving and more functional crossover SUV becoming less compromised in terms of efficiency and safety, the crossover sales takeover continues. That said, lighter-weight sedans, especially hybrids, can still net you some fuel savings.
To wit – the 2020 Lexus ES300h.
The S-Class has always been the sparkling sapphire in Daimler’s crown. The model has historically offered unparalleled luxury and cutting-edge tech that gradually trickles down to the rest of the lineup. It also shows off what Mercedes-Benz is capable of when, running on all cylinders, it sets out to make the best car money can buy without crossing over into obscene extravagance. In this respect, the 2021 S-Class seems to deliver as it always does.
A little larger than its predecessor, the next incarnation of Mercedes’ finest comes in at 208.2 inches long, 76.9 inches wide and 59.2 inches tall. Its extended wheelbase and short overhangs gives it the impression of a smaller vehicle from afar, however. While the manufacturer happily suggests this allowed for an overall increase in the cabin airiness, Daimler admits the model’s technology is what’s supposed to get one salivating — and it did its utmost to make sure it’s omnipresent. (Read More…)
When we last checked in on the Volkswagen Passat, the manufacturer was rumored to be considering removing the model from its production lineup. Jetta’s bigger brother failed to garner much attention after its last update, and it just so happens to exist within a vehicle segment that has has seen far better days. Combine that with VW heaping added importance on a lineup of fresh new EVs, and there was good reason to think the family sedan was living on borrowed time.
Despite some company brass eager to kill off the model, it has been decided that the Passat will stick with us a while longer. Autocar recently reported the car has been approved for another generation, expecting it to launch in Europe in 2023. (Read More…)
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? (Read More…)
Rare Rides has featured plenty of Chrysler vehicles before, and some of them were even as large as today’s range-topping sedan. But none of them had quite as much trim as today’s subject.
From the last gasp of the truly full-size offerings from domestic manufacturers, it’s the 1979 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue Edition.
Everyone’s favorite rear-drive South Korean liftback sedan, the Kia Stinger stands to gain a refresh for the coming year. Appearing in its home market Wednesday, the ’21 Stinger aims for added aggression, but Kia didn’t lose its mind applying this facelift.
Details on powertrain alterations, if there are any (there might be!) are off the table for now, but the rest we can see with our own eyes. (Read More…)
Achingly simple question today, folks. With the demise of the Ford Fusion last week, the Blue Oval now fields zero domestic four-door sedans, leaving buyers to choose instead among a bevy of trucks and utility vehicles.
It’s the first time since 1908 that the automaker hasn’t built a U.S. passenger car with four doors (earlier pre-Model T models sported rear doors, but omitted the front). So, with plenty of history to choose from, which domestic Ford sedan gets your pick as best of the bunch? (Read More…)
Specifically, the Ford Fusion — the last domestic Blue Oval product with four doors and a trunk to remain in production. Until July 31st, that is. That’s the date Ford ceased manufacture of the sedan at a Mexican assembly plant.
The end of production was confirmed by Ford via Ford Authority. Next up for Hermosillo Assembly is the Bronco Sport — a retro-styled, decently modified Escape launched alongside the body-on-frame Bronco last month. Quite a looker in its final generation, the Fusion fell victim to consumer anti-car sentiment and strategic product planning. (Read More…)
Nissan’s future will not see it become everything to everyone, and certainly not in all markets. The 2010s, and the market share-chasing, globe-straddling expansionism that characterized that decade’s car-buying orgy, are violently over.
Also soon to be over, apparently, is the Nissan Maxima’s gasoline-powered powertrain. (Read More…)
Rare Rides occasionally features vehicles that have somehow slipped through the 25-year importation net and exist in this country as illegal immigrants. First up was a little Citroën Picasso hatchback from Arizona, and more recently we featured a bright orange Fiat Barchetta from Florida.
Today we venture into illegality once more, with the luxurious and beautiful Lancia Thesis from 2003.
There’s an all-new Hyundai Elantra arriving for 2021, and not a moment too soon. Your author was not a fan of the 2019 refresh, though the basic package remained as competent as before, if a little boring. And the new-generation sedan retains that basic thrift and utility, but not every Elantra driver longs for a life of numbing okay-ness.
That’s where the N Line comes in. (Read More…)
Fielding a full range of passenger cars is soooo yesterday, man. Almost no one does it anymore. Certainly, no American automaker, anyway.
Across the pond, Jaguar finds itself at a fork in the road. The sedan market is drying up, and along with it, sales of its compact XE and midsize XF models. The XJ is going electric, so that’s a decision already made.
But what to do at the bottom end of the market? (Read More…)
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