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The Audi Urbansphere is a concept car that looks a lot like a minivan to us.It has a 396-hp electric powertrain and a 120.0-kWh battery pack.A production version of this could be sold in China eventually, but we doubt it would ever reach the U.S.The third of Audi’s “Sphere” concepts, following the Skysphere convertible and Grandsphere sedan, is something completely different. Called the Urbansphere, this latest vehicle can’t be mistaken for anything other than a minivan.

While many of the Urbansphere’s styling cues, including the headlights and the closed-off grille, appear to be cribbed from the Q4 e-tron electric crossover, the concept’s proportions scream family hauler. It has a short hood, a swept-back windshield, lots of glass, and an upright tailgate. The Urbansphere is a massive 217.0 inches long and 79.1 inches wide—significantly bigger than any other vehicle Audi has ever made—and Audi says it has a huge 70.0 inches of headroom. The fanciful concept-car-style interior only has four seats, but each is an elegant-looking lounge chair that can swivel and recline in several different ways.
The Urbansphere is electric, naturally, and rides on the VW Group’s PPE platform that will underpin future Audi EVs including the A6 e-tron. Audi says its battery pack measures about 120.0 kWh and claims its electric motors produce 396 hp and 509 pound-feet of torque. The wheels measure a huge 24 inches, the suspension uses air springs, and there’s a rear-wheel steering system to aid maneuverability.Audi is upfront about how the Chinese market is the focal point for this concept car, as this type of vehicle is popular there as a way of chauffeuring people around. Lexus also launched a van for China, and Buick offers many luxurious versions of its GL8 minivan for Chinese customers. We wouldn’t be shocked if Audi builds a production version of the Urbansphere, but there’s no chance it would ever reach the U.S. if so. An Audi minivan may not have been on our bingo card for 2022, but the Urbansphere is nonetheless a cool concept car that takes the brand in an unexpected direction.

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The 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV is the latest model in the Mercedes EQ electric lineup.It has an optional third row that allows seating for seven and, in the dual-motor EQS580 4Matic version, has 536 horsepower.Mercedes hasn’t released an official range rating for the EQS SUV, but we expect it’ll go at least 300 miles per charge.Mercedes is finally ready for the world to meet the 2023 EQS SUV, the third model on the automaker’s dedicated battery-electric EVA2 platform after the EQS and EQE sedans. Because obedience to aerodynamics forbids anything like the grandiose form factor of the GLS-class, the EQS SUV looks more like a svelte but stout wagon. Think of this as an EQS sedan and then some.

That starts with output. The single-motor, rear-wheel-drive EQS450+ SUV makes 355 horsepower, 26 horses more than the equivalent EQS sedan, and 419 pound-feet of torque. The dual motors in the EQS580 4Matic SUV produce 536 hp, 20 horses more than in the comparable sedan, and 633 pound-feet of torque. With an already prodigious benchmark in the EQS sedan, we suspect the SUV’s accretions will be too meager to be felt in the seat of any banker’s slacks.

Mercedes-Benz

What will be felt is the extra room inside, packed into a shell that’s not too far off the sedan’s, sizewise. The five-seat EQS SUV’s 126.4-inch wheelbase is the same as the sedan’s, but the SUV’s body is 3.4 inches shorter, at 202 inches. The roof stands 8.5 inches higher than the EQS sedan, at 68 inches, but front-row headroom with the panoramic sunroof (standard for the U.S. market) is 0.6 inch more. Compared to the ICE-powered GLS SUV, the EQS SUV is three inches shorter in length, its roof sitting 3.8 inches lower.Optional third-row seating makes this the second all-electric EQ sub-brand vehicle that can carry seven, joining the EQB on the water polo team shuttle run. The second row can slide five inches, and the backrest moves forward to ease ingress to the third row. Mercedes hasn’t given a legroom measurement for this ultimate pew, but the automaker does not advise the same 5’4″ maximum height recommendation here as it does with the EQB. We were able to slide our hale 5’11” frame into the third row during an EQS SUV walkaround in Germany, but we wouldn’t want to be back there long.

Mercedes-Benz

Load space in the five-seat version ranges from 23 to 31 cubic feet behind the second row, and the middle bench seatback can incline 14 degrees forward to make room for bulky cargo without having to be completely lowered. The seven-seater tops out at 28 cubic feet with the third row down. If you raise the last row, shopping-bag space shrinks to seven cubic feet. Battery specs for the 12-module pack in the floor hew to those of the sedan: 107.8-kWh capacity, 9.6-kW onboard charger, 200-kW maximum DC fast charging speed, 31 minutes at full juice to get from a 10 percent to an 80 percent state of charge. As Mercedes continues to fine-tune the production model, engineers are not yet ready to offer a curb weight, coefficient of drag, or range figure. The U.S. EPA rated the EQS450+ sedan at 350 miles on a charge and the EQS580 sedan at 340 miles. Figure a small drop from those numbers for the SUV because of the less slippery form factor and likely greater weight.

Mercedes-Benz

When we got a shotgun-seat ride in a camouflaged prototype a month ago, Mercedes showed us the Off-Road driving mode but wouldn’t tell us much about it. It will only be available on the EQS SUV, not the sedan, and is limited to trims with 4Matic all-wheel drive. Developed for the few times the EQS SUV finds itself on an unbeaten track, the Off-Road settings raise the SUV up almost an inch, a feature Mercedes believes might be useful “for steep driveways or speed bumps.” We think the variable ESP settings will do more good. In the Off-Road mode with ESP on, the EQS SUV limits wheelspin on wet ground; with ESP off, the vehicle permits the kind of copious slip necessary to trudge through sand.The 2023 EQS SUV hits the market later this year, with pricing to be announced closer to launch.
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The Ford Bronco is one of the most capable and desirable off-roaders on sale today. As such, we’ve all gotten to watch videos of these SUVs pulling off some incredible feats on the trails. That said, one Bronco driver out in Bar Harbor, Maine, learned the limits of their new 4×4 the hard way when it became lodged on a sandbar over the weekend. Unfortunately for them, that ill-advised parking spot has seen the truck drowned in several feet of deep Atlantic water. According to WDEA, the Bronco became stuck on the sandbar this past Saturday afternoon. The driver was reportedly doing donuts with the 4×4 before becoming unable to free themself. While simply getting stuck on a beach might not always be the worst case scenario, this particular owner seems to have missed the nearby warning signs that point out the dangerously high tides in the area. Perhaps that lack of local knowledge can be explained by the truck’s New Jersey plates. Either way, things became very expensive shortly thereafter.

Regardless of how it was placed there, the Bronco could not be extricated before the deeper water returned from the sea. The incoming tides drowned the 4×4 up to the base of the windshield, which had to be an awful sight for the owner. The Bronco might be able to survive fording through 33.5-inches of water, but there isn’t a chance it will survive this ordeal. Attempts were once again made to rescue the SUV on Easter morning, though you can watch how that ended in the video.It can be hard not to feel invincible when you’re behind the wheel of something like the Bronco. With the capability on offer from a modern 4×4, it isn’t hard for an inexperienced owner to get a bit overconfident. Hopefully the owner of this particular Bronco doesn’t have to wait terribly long for a replacement.

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Stellantis (previously Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) recently patented imagery for a Ram 1500 Rebel with off-road bits seemingly cribbed from the OTG concept.The Ram 1500 Rebel OTG (Off the Grid) concept was originally built for the 2019 SEMA show.The concept included a host of overlanding-related accessory items.The Ram 1500 Rebel OTG (for “Off the Grid”) concept may see the light of day if a patent filed by Stellantis (previously Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is anything to go by. Images attached to the document show what looks like a Ram 1500 Rebel wearing many of the Mopar-sourced accessories the brand affixed to the Rebel OTG it built for the 2019 SEMA show.

While the vehicle in the patent images seems to forgo the likes of the OTG’s Yakima bed rack, rooftop tent, collapsible awning, and bed-mounted slide-out kitchen, it does appear to sport the concept truck’s snorkel intake, rear bumper with integrated LED lights, and bespoke grille and steel front bumper, replete with provisions for a winch and driving lights.
Whether this patent signals a new addition to the Ram 1500 model line, a special Mopar trim, or nothing at all is a bit of a mystery. We reached out to Ram to learn more about this patent, but a company spokesperson would not comment on the matter.That said, if we were the gambling type, we’d wager Ram plans to use the OTG concept as the template for its next limited-run Mopar model, a special variant of the vehicle the brand is prone to occasionally building and selling.
As its name implies, the Mopar special edition truck includes a number of Mopar-brand accessory items. These special Ram models are more than just trucks with the gamut of items in the accessory catalog attached to them, as Mopar curates the pickups to create vehicles that stand out from their stablemates.If this patent previews an OTG-inspired Ram 1500 Rebel Mopar model, then expect the concept truck’s 10,000-pound Warn winch (pulled from the Ram 2500 Power Wagon), LED driving lights, 2.0-inch lift, beadlock-capable wheels, and 35-inch Goodyear off-road tires to accompany the aforementioned updates to the truck’s front and rear bumpers, grille, and snorkel. Then again, it’s possible we’re getting ahead of ourselves and the Ram 1500 Rebel OTG concept remains the closest thing to a real-life version of the truck pictured in this patent.
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• This 1965 Ford Ranchero Deluxe, powered by a 289-cubic-inch V-8 and featuring three pedals, is currently up for auction on Bring a Trailer.• Showing just shy of 35,000 miles and with a mostly rust-free body, it may be almost 60 years old but still looks young at heart.• Bidding is open until Wednesday, April 20, with the current bid sitting at $17,750 as of Monday.What do a mullet and the Ford Ranchero have in common? The “business in the front, party in the back” aesthetic, of course. There are other lines of comparison to draw, primarily the occasional resurgence of the two oddball styles in their respective fields. Even now, with the introduction of vehicles like the Hyundai Santa Cruz, the spirit of the ute lives on, but that look may not exactly scratch the same itch as in years past. However, if turbochargers or unconventional gearboxes don’t tickle your fancy, and you aren’t held back by the lack of creature comforts like power windows and air conditioning, the founding father of the segment, the Ford Ranchero, has you covered. And if you want to go there, this 1965 Ranchero Deluxe model is currently up for sale on Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—in an auction ending on Wednesday, April 20.

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Starting production in the 1957 model year, the Ranchero was born from a platform dedicated to sedans and wagons. Start with a wagon, take a little off the top, and you’ve got yourself a ute. That’s another hair-related joke, but it’s not that far off from Ford’s process for the first Ranchero. While the introductory model was essentially a chopped-up version of Ford’s full-size Ranch Wagon, the second iteration, starting with the 1960 model year, was based on Ford’s new Falcon compact sedan. The Ranchero was even marketed as the Falcon Ranchero during this time, sharing bits including the owner’s manual and floor mats with its sedan counterpart. The Ranchero ended production in 1979, leading into the company’s shift to a more rugged truck package in the Courier and Ranger small pickups.

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This particular Ranchero, a low-mile example owned by the seller since 2014, appears in mostly excellent condition, with only a few areas of imperfection to note. After a lovely Honey Gold and Wimbledon White repaint and interior refresh prior to current ownership, some scratches have accrued, as well as a bit of paint damage and corrosion around the gas cap. Additionally, a previous battery decided enough was enough, and caused additional corrosion on the battery tray. Thankfully, a new battery has been installed, as well as an accelerator pump. Having been driven roughly 400 miles under current ownership, this relic of years past is begging for some seat time. And, seeing as it has some beauty marks, why hold on to it like a museum piece?

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Sporting a V-8 shared with the Mustang of the time, and with three pedals to boot, there’s an awful lot to love about this Ranchero. What’s more, it has an incredibly clean interior, a crisp exterior, and practically zero underbody rust. Those are hard to come by in a near 60-year-old ride. The last 289-powered model on Bring a Trailer sold for $17,000 roughly one year ago, and with bidding already ahead of that figure as of this writing with two days to go, who knows where this will end up.

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The seventh edition of the massive celebration of all things Porsche will return next year following the longest hiatus of the event’s 22-year history.Porsche isn’t yet saying where or when it will be held, other than that it will take place next year. Previous Rennsport Reunions have been held at Lime Rock Park, Daytona International Speedway, and Laguna Seca.The last Rennsport took place in 2018 and attracted 80,000 fans and 2500 vehicles, including the 356 Speedster, RS Spyder, 959 Dakar, and 919 hybrid.If you’ve been awaiting signs that things are slightly returning to normal, look no further than Porsche’s Rennsport Reunion VII, which will take place somewhere at some point in 2023. That’s all the information Porsche is announcing at the moment, but now we know the longest pause in Rennsport Reunion history is coming to an end.

The idea of race car driver Brian Redman and a Porsche Cars North America spokesperson, Bob Carlson, the first Rennsport Reunion was held at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut in 2001. Since then it has been held every three to four years at Daytona International Speedway in Florida (2004 and 2007) and then at Laguna Seca in California (2011, 2015, and 2018). The last Rennsport Reunion drew a crowd of more than 80,000 fans and 2500 vehicles.”We’re all excited to be able to announce the return of the Rennsport Reunion, which is always a highlight of Porsche motorsports enthusiasm and heritage,” Kjell Gruner, president and CEO of Porsche Cars North America, said in a statement. “Rennsport Reunion has grown quickly over the years into a truly one-of-a-kind experience of sight, sound, and emotions. For a few days, it feels like everyone thrilled by the brand is united in one place, on and off the track, as one Porsche family.”

Porsche

Porsche said it will announce the theme, date, and location of Rennsport Reunion VII “soon.” Given that Porsche does not mention Laguna Seca at all, we wouldn’t be surprised if it will be held somewhere else. The Porsche-related blog Flatsixes notes that Porsche has been in discussion with the owners of that track to make important upgrades, like a new bridge over the track at the start-finish line.Some of the vehicles that showed up at the 2018 event included the 356 Speedster, RS Spyder, 959 Dakar, and 919 Hybrid. The theme that year was “Champions,” and Porsche didn’t forget to mention that, “with over 30,000 race wins, the sports-car manufacturer from Weissach is by far the most successful brand in motorsports worldwide.”
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Hot Wheels has unveiled a 1:64-scale die-cast of the 2021 Hot Wheels Legends Tour-winning 1969 Volvo P1800 Gasser, built by Lee Johnstone of the United Kingdom. The model debuted at Classic Car Club Manhattan earlier this week, on the eve of the annual New York auto show.Johnstone, 71, is a motor mechanic by trade and was the first international Legends Tour winner. His P1800 Gasser emerged victorious from a 25-stop international Hot Wheels Legends Tour spanning five continents. He and his daughter, Victoria Upham, were on hand for the global unveiling and were truly astonished at the treatment given by Hot Wheels to their family passion project.
The Gasser, monikered Ain’t No Saint, was officially inducted into the Hot Wheels Garage of Legends, a collection of the brand’s most iconic and celebrated designs existing both in 1:64 and life-size scale that was also on display at the clubhouse on Manhattan’s West Side. Ain’t No Saint joins previous champions including the inaugural 2018-winning 2JetZ from New Jersey (whose owner, Luis Rodriguez, drove the street-legal jet-powered vehicle straight through the Lincoln Tunnel to CCCM), the 2019 winner, THE NASH, and the 2020-winning 1970 Pontiac Firebird as the next permanent fixture in Hot Wheels history.

Jon Langston

In addition to the legendary cars that have been turned into Hot Wheels Legends die-casts, the epic Hudson River-fronted venue was decorated to showcase examples of how Hot Wheels has influenced popular culture far beyond cars and toys. A replica Gucci-owned custom Cadillac Seville and a Super73 Hot Wheels-branded e-bike to an IWC watch and a working RC car of the Tesla Pickup that apparently does 30 mph were all on display.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the unveiling event was a presentation by members of the Hot Wheels design team. The designers walked attendees through the entire 18-month process of bringing an idea to a blister pack on a shelf.

Jon Langston

Fifty-four years after Hot Wheels launched its “Original 16” vehicles in 1968, the process of transforming life-size cars into 1:64-scale has changed dramatically. Beginning with CAD scanning, the Hot Wheels team digitizes every aspect of every vehicle, before additional rounds of 3-D modeling and printing help designers determine the vehicle’s final shape.Once approved, the final design must also undergo a rigorous series of Hot Wheels track tests to ensure it performs as well on those iconic orange tracks as it looks. Ted Wu, vice president and global head of design for vehicles at Mattel, announced the 2021 Legends Tour winner one week prior to the start of the 2022 Hot Wheels Legends Tour presented by Mobil 1.“The Legends Tour began in 2018 as a way to celebrate and engage the car builder community around the world,” said Wu. “Lee Johnstone’s 1969 Volvo P1800 proved to be a truly awe-inspiring Gasser interpretation that captivated the entire Hot Wheels team. As the first international Legends Tour winner, we can’t wait to share his dream with Hot Wheels fans in more than 150 countries around the world.”

Jon Langston

The 2022 tour kicks off with virtual live streams in New Zealand and Australia on April 14 and April 21, respectively, followed by the first North American live event in Miami on April 30. In collaboration with Mobil 1, Walmart and Dickies, the 2022 Legends Tour will culminate in November with a live streamed Global Grand Finale event to crown a historic fifth champion.As in the past, all fan car submissions throughout the tour will be judged on the basis of creativity, authenticity, and garage spirit. Anyone can compete in the Hot Wheels Legends Tour. See all the Hot Wheels Legends Tour die-cast cars at Walmart

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• A 1987 Maserati Biturbo may not be most people’s first impulse when looking for a vintage car, but it’s undeniably nostalgia inducing.• This car has a twin-turbocharged 188-hp 2.5-liter V-6 and (a good thing) fuel injection.• The car is up for sale until Tuesday, April 19, on the Bring a Trailer auction site, with bids at $15,000 as of Friday.Nostalgia is a potent elixir. This is particularly true in vintage-car purchases, where each generation, upon reaching middle age, becomes distanced enough from the horrors of their youth, and endowed with more than enough gelt to sustain themselves on ramen and Gallo, to be ensnared by splendidly horrible vehicles that were impossibly out of reach as new. Today’s pick of the day from Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos—is just such a car: a 1987 Maserati Biturbo Spyder.

This reminds me of a story. In the mid-1980s, when I was a scholarship student at a fancy private school in suburban Detroit, many of my classmates were, not surprisingly, the children of auto executives. One of my closest friends was the scion of General Motors CEO Roger Smith. Though Mr. Smith later became infamous as the antagonist in Roger Moore’s Roger and Me, he was a hero to me, because he allowed his son to borrow all manner of vehicles from the company’s competitive intelligence fleet, and his son often allowed me to get behind the wheel.

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One of these cars was a 1987 Maserati Biturbo convertible. And its sonorous 188 horsepower of turbocharged and intercooled V-6 bombast—experienced top down, and surrounded by enough pleated caramel leather to supply a Donna Karan factory, during one of the few sunny Michigan spring days—is etched in my mind as firmly as the antagonistic slogans scrawled in Wite-Out on my combat boots.People bemoan these cars’ unreliability and finicky tune, but many of these problems were resolved by the incorporation of fuel injection in ’87 (this one has it), and most others, in enduring cars, have been shaken out.

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This one, from the collection of a Maserati dealership owner, has been thoroughly gone through to prep it for daily-driver duty. And with small-diameter steelie-look factory alloys, a rebuilt dogleg five-speed manual, raised-white-letter BFGoodrich Radial T/As, and just 41,000 miles, it also seems like an ideal time machine. With concours-condition models going for just $15,000, it’s also likely to be a steal. I’m going to have to try to restrain myself from bidding.

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