Aurelia Butler

These are the first photos and video of the production 2024 Kia EV9, an electric three-row SUV.Its bluff and blocky looks stay true to the EV9 concept from 2021.Although we sat in each of the EV9’s three spacious rows, Kia won’t yet confirm any details on its powertrain, battery pack, range, or even dimensions. We expect those details to be announced at the EV9’s official debut in early April.In both size and mission, you can think of the 2024 Kia EV9 as an electric Telluride, and we’re sure Kia would love for its latest EV to have the breakout success of that gas-powered SUV. The EV9’s debut is an especially big deal because it’s the first electric entry in the popular mid-size, three-row SUV segment, where vehicles such as the Ford Explorer, Chevy Traverse, Toyota Highlander, and, of course, Kia Telluride sell by the hundreds of thousands a year in the U.S. Sure, there are a couple three-row EVs available, such as the Rivian R1S or the Tesla Model X, but both of those are way more expensive. And the Model Y can be had with an optional third row, but it’s tiny. These first photos of the production EV9, one of 15 EVs Kia has promised by 2027, show that it adheres pretty closely to the concept that was shown at the Los Angeles show back in 2021. The Kia design team, led by Karim Habib, describes the EV9’s exterior as “refined boxiness,” a mix of sharp edges—such as the triangle shapes that jut out from the rear doors, a less dramatic version than was on the concept—but also many rounded forms. It has presence, with high shoulders but a low beltline for good visibility. Expect to see these vertical head- and taillight designs on future Kias. This early build prototype is wearing 21-inch wheels, but 19s and 20s also will be offered. The wheel inserts are also very sharp edged, with both square and triangle options on display at the event we attended in Seoul to get up close with the EV9.Everything’s Big but the FrunkKia has yet to confirm the EV9’s powertrain, battery capacity, range, or even dimensions, but we can say from standing next to it that it adheres closely to the dimensions of the EV9 concept, which are similar to those of the Telluride but with an eight-inch wheelbase stretch. This is no teardrop-shaped EV, and the tall and flat roofline makes for excellent headroom in the second and third rows, even for extremely tall adults. The only thing small about the EV9 is its tiny frunk. But of course aerodynamics are especially important on EVs, and small details such as the rear spoiler that extends from the roofline is alone responsible for a considerable improvement—0.006 to 0.007 according to Habib—to the EV9’s coefficient of drag. Again, Kia isn’t talking dimensions yet, but compared with the Telluride, the second row is at least as spacious—with generous fore-aft adjustability—and the third row has more legroom and especially headroom. Second-row seats also swivel to face the rear—remember Chrysler’s Swivel ‘n Go launched on its 2008 minivan?—but the space remaining between them in this configuration is tight. The EV9 will come in either six- or seven-passenger variants, depending on whether the second row has buckets or a bench. In uplevel models, the third row is power folding.A Spacious Interior with Details That Make it Feel Even More SoIn addition to actual spaciousness, Jochen Paesen, the VP of interior design, describes the deliberate choices to make the EV9’s interior feel even airier than it is. For example, they chose not to do a dash design that wraps around into the doors, as that can lead to an impression of feeling closed in. For the same reason, the headrests on the front seats are mesh so rear passengers can see past them. The dash is horizontal and minimalist, and what looks like one giant screen protruding from it is two 12.3-inch screens—one for the gauge cluster and a second for infotainment—with a dedicated HVAC readout between them. Physical knobs and buttons are reduced compared to Kia’s current lineup, with just a few key HVAC controls and a volume knob remaining, along with touch-sensitive controls embedded in the dash to jump to different menus. This is an entirely new generation of infotainment, but Kia isn’t yet talking details or features of this new system just yet. Based on information from a survey Kia ran, we expect the EV9 to come with either a single rear motor or one at each axle for all-wheel drive and to be priced in the $50,000 to $70,000 neighborhood. The EV9 concept claimed 300 miles of range, and that jibes with the readout in the display of this early prototype, which showed 91 percent battery and 436 km (271 miles) to empty. The concept also promises even faster charging than the EV6, which is already one of the quickest we’ve tested.We expect many of these questions to be answered very soon at the EV9’s official debut in late March, and Kia says it will be on sale by the very end of 2023 or early 2024.Director, Vehicle TestingDave VanderWerp has spent more than 20 years in the automotive industry, in varied roles from engineering to product consulting, and now leading Car and Driver’s vehicle-testing efforts. Dave got his very lucky start at C/D by happening to submit an unsolicited resume at just the right time to land a part-time road warrior job when he was a student at the University of Michigan, where he immediately became enthralled with the world of automotive journalism. More

Acura is making an additional 50 TLX Type Ss in a 2023 TLX Type S PMC Edition.The limited-run PMC Editions are mechanically identical to the standard TLX Type S, but these will be finished in a limited-run color, Gotham Gray.The Gotham Gray versions will run at a hefty premium over the standard TLX Type S, starting at $66,995. Acura allowed barely enough time for the red, white, and blue paint to dry on the TLX Type S PMC Edition, which was limited to 300 copies, before announcing an additional 50 in Gotham Gray. PMC stands for Performance Manufacturing Center, the same facility that built the NSX Type S supercar and will now build the special edition TLX Type S PMC Edition. We thought the price of the red, white, and blue PMC Edition was steep when we saw the $7550 premium over the mechanically identical TLX Type S. We still think that—but now Acura is charging an additional $3000 for the honor of owning one of 50 PMC Editions in Gotham Gray. Like the other three PMC Editions, Acura pulled this color from the NSX, this time from the now out of production NSX Type S, where the matte gray paint is a $6000 add-on and is limited to 70 cars. Mechanically, all that extra cash doesn’t do a whole lot for you. Mostly it gives you the peace of mind that your TLX is one of 50 in Gotham Gray. Underneath the bodywork, the components are the same as what you’ll find in the standard TLX Type S. That means a turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 engine with 355 horsepower, an eight-speed automatic transmission, and Acura’s SH-AWD system with torque vectoring. Limited Edition, Hand-AssembledAll PMC Editions are hand-assembled at the eponymous Performance Manufacturing Center in Ohio. The limited-edition PMC car does get a handful of visual tweaks from black wheels, badging and door handles to a carbon-fiber decklid lip spoiler and rear diffuser. Inside, the PMC Edition has a red leather interior with black contrast stitching, a flat-bottom steering wheel, and a host of carbon-fiber trim pieces. After production, each PMC Edition goes through the same quality control process the NSX did, including a dyno check, paint inspection, and rough-road simulation. Each of the limited-run cars comes with a unique PMC Edition serial plaque and a special shipping process that includes a cover to protect the paint and delivery to dealerships in an enclosed single-car carrier.This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Associate News EditorJack Fitzgerald’s love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1. After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn’t afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf. More

Looking for the fastest way to haul several cases of tasty salad dressing or spaghetti sauce home from the grocery store? Consider this 1988 Volvo 740 wagon.Formerly owned by Paul Newman, this brick-shaped Volvo packs a surprise under the hood: a turbocharged 3.8-liter V-6 from a Buick Grand National. This 740 is one of a series of modified Volvo wagons the legendary actor and racer owned, and it’s now for sale.Car and DriverWickedly fast at the wheel of a racing car and possessed of an effortless cool, Paul Newman was basically Steve McQueen without the unpleasant personal baggage. To most people, he was the star of films like Cool Hand Luke or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but Newman was more Lime Rock than Hollywood. A favorite son of Westport, Connecticut, and a family man with a marriage that lasted half a century (until his death in 2008), he had a penchant for Volvo station wagons. Newman, though, liked his Swedish iron extra-spicy underneath, as shown by his 1988 Volvo 740 wagon, up for auction on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos).Related StoriesA copy of the title indicates that Newman purchased this 740 in July 1988, and it’s thought to be the first Volvo he had modified to his specifications. Those extended to the fitment of a turbocharged 3.8-liter V-6 out of a Buick Grand National hooked to a five-speed manual transmission sourced from a Pontiac Firebird. Bring a TrailerBring a TrailerIn 1988, a factory-spec Volvo 740 Turbo wagon came with a turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder good for roughly 150 horsepower. Newman’s swap more than doubled the available power to approximately 320 horses (thanks in part to a chipped ECU).Bring a TrailerSubtle bodywork is complemented by a mild lowering on Bilstein dampers and springs and anti-roll bars from Volvo specialist IPD. The five-spoke 16-inch wheels are classic 1980s Volvo and wear BFGoodrich g-Force Comp-2 A/S tires. Despite these clues, any bystander would think they were looking at an ordinary old boxy Volvo, right up until this thing smoked its rear tires and hammered off toward the horizon.Bring a TrailerBring a TrailerNewman, who reportedly got his first taste of racing while filming the Indy 500–themed 1969 film Winning, went on to own Volvo 960 wagons with V-8 transplants. He turned his Connecticut neighbor David Letterman on to them, too, and Jerry Seinfeld would drive one of those for an episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.Besides movies and racing, Newman’s philanthropic work is what really puts the final gloss on his legend. His Newman’s Own brand has contributed some $600 million toward charitable causes since its founding in 1982. In 1988, the year this Volvo was delivered, he founded the Hole in the Wall Gang camp, a place where children dealing with serious illness could enjoy the freedom of summer camp. As a nod to this charitable spirit, the seller of this ex-Newman Volvo will donate a portion of the proceeds of the sale to the Hole in the Wall Gang camp. If a Grand National–powered sleeper wagon with celebrity provenance wasn’t enough, casting the winning bid on this Volvo will do a little good in the world. It’s doubtless what Newman himself would have wanted. Car and driverCar and driver Lettermark logoContributing EditorBrendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels. More

The 2024 Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe follows its squarer counterpart into a new generation.Along with new exterior and interior styling, the GLC Coupe has slightly bigger dimensions than its predecessor. It features a 255-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder paired with a 48-volt hybrid system, a nine-speed automatic transmission, and all-wheel drive.In the past two years, Mercedes has introduced new generations of the C-class sedan and the GLC-class SUV. Now the German luxury brand debuts the latter’s sloped-back counterpart, the 2024 Mercedes-Benz GLC Coupe. We liked the old GLC Coupe for its curvaceous styling as well as its generous list of standard features, two things that make the jump to the new version. The 2024 model’s styling has the same silhouette as its predecessor and shares many similar design cues too. In fact, without pausing to seek out the differences, we think a lot of people will struggle to differentiate the two. Reshaped headlights and taillights are the quickest way to spot the new GLC Coupe, with the running lights now angling downward along the top edge of the housing.Just like with the more traditional-looking GLC, the coupe alternative is slightly bigger than its predecessor. At 187.5 inches from stem to stern, it’s 1.2 inches longer than before. The track widths have also grown by 0.2 inch in the front and 0.9 inch in the rear. The growth spurt helps expand the SUV’s cargo area. Its 19 cubic feet of space is 1 cube more than before.Plentiful Standard FeaturesThe ’24 GLC Coupe adds a host of new standard features to an SUV that was already rich with them. The AMG Line package is now standard along with wireless phone charging, heated seats, and a Burmester 3D surround-sound system. Mercedes has also simplified frequently combined options into single packages—a move we expect to be somewhat polarizing. As with the C-class sedan and the regular GLC-class, the SUV coupe features a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder paired with a 48-volt hybrid system. The engine generates 255 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. That power is fed through a nine-speed automatic transmission. One differentiating factor between the standard GLC and the coupe is that the former can be optioned with rear- or all-wheel drive, whereas the coupe is only offered with Merc’s 4Matic all-wheel-drive system.More on MercedesA New Look InsideThe most obvious changes to the GLC Coupe follow those of the SUV version, revealing themselves once the doors are open. The twin digital displays use Mercedes’s newest MBUX infotainment system, making use of a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster and a portrait-oriented 11.9-inch touchscreen, which is slightly angled toward the driver. The door panels are redesigned to include a floating control cluster that contains the controls for both the door handles and seat adjustments. The controls for the exterior mirrors and windows are now on a peninsula that can be grabbed when closing the door.Mercedes hasn’t yet announced pricing for the 2024 GLC Coupe, but we expect it’ll cost several thousand dollars more than its boxier sibling, so we’d wager it’ll start around $60K when it begins reaching dealerships later in 2023.This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Associate News EditorJack Fitzgerald’s love for cars stems from his as yet unshakable addiction to Formula 1. After a brief stint as a detailer for a local dealership group in college, he knew he needed a more permanent way to drive all the new cars he couldn’t afford and decided to pursue a career in auto writing. By hounding his college professors at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he was able to travel Wisconsin seeking out stories in the auto world before landing his dream job at Car and Driver. His new goal is to delay the inevitable demise of his 2010 Volkswagen Golf. More

Lamborghini shows off its new carbon-fiber front crash structure for the upcoming successor to the Aventador.The new car will be stiffer and lighter than the Aventador.An important change is that there’s no more pushrod suspension but instead, upright springs at each corner.The recently retired Aventador was the first Lamborghini road car to use a carbon-fiber structure. Now the Italian supercar maker has shown us the lighter and stronger “monofuselage” that will sit at the heart of the Aventador’s successor, the as yet unnamed model known only by its LB744 engineering code. Coming Soon, Looking BackStay WedgyWhile we need to wait a while longer to see the whole car, images of the new structure make clear that it sticks to the combination of a low roof and the wedgy proportions of its famous predecessors. We would be very surprised if it didn’t. The images also give the chance to see how the new hybridized V-12 and front electric motors will fit into the platform.LamborghiniThe LB744’s chassis will be both lighter and stiffer than the Aventador’s. The structure combines parts made out of hugely strong forged composite—a technology that was pioneered by Lamborghini and the Callaway golf equipment company—as well as carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic parts. The most obvious difference over the Aventador is a new carbon front impact structure ahead of the passenger compartment that is both lighter and tougher than the Aventador’s crash frame. LamborghiniBehind the tub, the LB744 continues to use a aluminum structure to mount its engine, transmission, and rear suspension components. The images also reveal that the new car is going to move away from the Aventador’s supremely elegant pushrod suspension, using more conventional upright springs for the double wishbone suspension at each corner. They also show it rides on Bridgestone Potenza tires. While we don’t have a weight figure for the Monofuselage yet, Lamborghini’s claim of a torsional rigidity of 29,502 pound-feet/degree represents an improvement of 25 percent over the Aventador, and is 100 percent better than the 14,751 pound-feet/degree the company quoted for the Murciélago. Although the LB744’s core structure is lighter than the Aventador’s, we anticipate overall weight will increase due to the mass brought by the hybridized powertrain’s three electric motors and 3.8-kWh battery pack. LamborghiniThe images also show off the straked design of the new car’s roof, which should help to improve headroom compared to the tight-fitting Aventador. We will see the finished car in full, and learn its new name, at the end of the month. This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Car and driverCar and driver Lettermark logoEuropean EditorMike Duff has been writing about the auto industry for two decades and calls the UK home, although he normally lives life on the road. He loves old cars and adventure in unlikely places, with career highlights including driving to Chernobyl in a Lada. More