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You may be more familiar with the Jensen Interceptor, but the Jensen GT shooting brake is worth learning about.This rare example is for sale on Bring a Trailer in an auction that ends on Monday, April 4.In its day in the Seventies, the GT was overpriced compared to the Datsun 260Z and the Corvette. So far at auction, bidding is at a mere $5000 but should go up from there.How often does the chance come up to own the last of a British breed? Although Jensen Motors is better known for building the big-block-powered Interceptor, it’s this ultra-rare 1976 Jensen GT shooting brake that served to sunset a badge that had been in business since 1934. The car is currently up for auction on the Bring a Trailer auction site—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos.

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Related Jensen-Healey roadsters have appeared on Bring a Trailer before, most recently in the form of a 1974 model selling for $15,350 in February 2022. With only 511 examples of its hardtop Jensen GT sibling ever built, however, it’s a much rarer find. In fact, only a trio of examples have found their way to the auction site in the past three years, and of those, two were projects that required serious attention. The current bid on this particular 1976 GT, which presents well as a driver and boasts recent engine servicing, sits at $5000 with five days to go.

The original open-top Jensen-Healey was intended as a replacement for the long-running but defunct Austin-Healey, with the project coming to life after Donald Healey was brought on by head honcho Kjell Qvale as Jensen’s chairman in 1970 and hired his son to engineer the model. Healey’s lightweight, well-balanced sports car debuted for the 1972 model year.

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Following on in 1975 was the Jensen GT, which in addition to its fixed roof also boasted a vestigial rear seat that only hinted at practicality. With Healey’s name wiped from the masthead after internal strife pushed both Donald and his progeny out of the Jensen picture, the roadster’s bodywork was stretched without any input from its original creator. The GT also benefited from a less troubled version of the initial roadster’s problematic dual-overhead-cam, all-aluminum Lotus-built engine good for 140 horsepower and 130 pound-feet of torque. With a few hundred pounds extra to cart around compared to the convertible, the Jensen GT was slightly less spry but still boasted a top speed of well over 100 mph.

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The GT was overpriced compared to equally exciting competitors from Datsun (the 260Z) and Chevrolet (the Corvette), but it had a combination of big comfort and a small package. However, many buyers were unwilling to extend Jensen the olive branch after reliability concerns with early Jensen-Healeys wrecked the automaker’s reputation in the U.S. Unable to save Jensen from economic turmoil, the GT ended up bookending the brand as it slid into bankruptcy, with only 269 models making it across the Atlantic before the company went out of business in mid-1976.Not quite a Europa, and a few paces behind the baby Interceptor that Qvale originally imagined, this 1976 Jensen GT nevertheless remains an intriguing piece of automotive history. It was inexpensive to run and rarer than many a modern exotic. And when was the last time you had the opportunity to pick up a genuine four-wheeled, one-of-500 anything for a price approaching affordability?

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The Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer are rumored to get Stellantis’ new inline-six engine, dubbed Hurricane.The high-output version of the twin-turbo 3.0-liter is slated to produce 500 hp and 475 pound-feet of torque.Owner’s manuals and a screenshot from Jeep’s configurator purport to reveal towing and pricing specs for this new engine option.Stellantis recently revealed a new inline-six engine called Hurricane, and it appears that the Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer will be among the first models to use this new powertrain. TFLTruck.com found an amended owner’s manual for the 2022 Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer that lists towing specs for the new twin-turbo 3.0-liter engine, while journalist Gary Gastelu tweeted a screenshot of Jeep’s online configurator that briefly showed the inline-six as a $2000 option (it’s since been removed from Jeep’s website).
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If we put all this evidence together with Stellantis’ claims for the Hurricane engine, we can surmise that the Jeep Grand Wagoneer will soon offer the high-output version of the inline-six in addition to the standard 6.4-liter V-8. The Hurricane engine’s claimed 500 hp and 475 pound-feet of torque beat out the big V-8’s 471 hp and 455 pound-feet. The less expensive Wagoneer might use the lower-output version of the new inline-six, which claims 400 horsepower and 450 pound-feet of torque. The Wagoneer currently offers a 392-hp 5.7-liter V-8 engine with an eTorque hybrid system.The owner’s manual shows that the 3.0L models offer maximum towing capacity of 10,000 pounds when equipped with rear-wheel drive and a towing package. This matches the 5.7L Wagoneer’s max rating.Stellantis previously said that the Hurricane could make its way into any of its products with longitudinal engines, so this is likely just the start of this new powertrain’s prevalance across the lineup. We think it will eventually replace the Hemi V-8s currently found in Ram trucks, Jeep SUVs, and many other products.
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Kia has confirmed that a production version of the EV9 SUV will arrive in Europe in 2023.While Kia hasn’t yet confirmed whether the EV9 will be offered in the U.S., we’re sure that it will reach our shores.The all-electric, three-row EV9 concept was revealed at the L.A. auto show last November.Europe will be the first to get a production version of the Kia EV9 SUV sometime in 2023, according to a press release on Kia’s U.K. media site. Although the company didn’t say anything about a U.S. version, we believe that the EV9 will eventually make it to our shores, too.

For those who missed its reveal at the L.A. auto show last November, the EV9 concept is an all-electric SUV with three rows of seats that’s similar in size and shape to the Kia Telluride. However, thanks to the EV9’s blocky bodywork and futuristic styling elements, we don’t expect anyone to confuse the two.
Apart from confirming production for the European market, Kia hasn’t revealed any more details about the upcoming EV9. We already knew that it’ll share components with the Hyundai Ioniq 7, which was also revealed last year. Both Kia and Hyundai’s big EV SUVs will be based on a stretched version of the e-GMP platform that underpins the much smaller Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5.
Kia has claimed that the EV9 will have 300 miles of range on a full battery and a max charging rate of 350 kilowatts. We can only speculate at the moment, but we think the U.S. version will arrive for the 2024 model year and start around $50,000.
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The BMW Alpina B4 Gran Coupe makes 22 more horsepower than the standard M4 and 59 more pound-feet of torque than the Competition model.Alpina claims a zero to 62 mph sprint of 3.7 seconds and a top speed of 187 mph.BMW would not confirm whether the B4 Gran Coupe will be sold in the United States.Earlier this month, BMW took full control of Alpina, the German tuning company that specializes in fast and luxurious Bimmers and had enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with BMW for decades. Now Alpina has revealed its latest BMW-based creation, the Alpina B4 Gran Coupe, which ups the performance of the four-door 4-series to create the closest thing to an M4 Gran Coupe.
Like the M4, the all-wheel-drive B4 uses a twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter inline-six, tuned by Alpina to produce 495 horsepower. This slots it neatly between the standard 473-hp M4 and the 503-hp Competition model. But the Alpina’s whopping 538 pound-feet of torque far surpasses the Competition’s 479 pound-feet. It uses a retuned version of the ZF eight-speed automatic and Alpina claims the B4 can hit 62 mph in 3.7 seconds, putting it three-tenths behind BMW’s claim for the all-wheel-drive M4 Competition. The B4’s claimed top speed is 187 mph.Alpina’s Sport Suspension includes specially developed front anti-roll bars and unique spring and damper configurations, aiming to provide a composed ride at high speeds. There is also an electronically controlled rear limited-slip differential, and the B4 receives a unique Alpina exhaust system.
The B4 gains minor aerodynamic enhancements, with subtle spoilers front and rear and a diffuser sandwiched between the four oval exhaust tips. The classic 20-inch Alpina turbine wheels are wrapped in Pirelli P Zero tires developed specifically for Alpina. Inside is supple Lavalina leather, a unique sports steering wheel, and plenty of luxurious standard equipment including a heated steering wheel and driver-assistance features.

BMW would neither confirm nor deny the availability of the B4 Gran Coupe in the United States when asked, but did acknowledge to Car and Driver that “there has been no announcement by BMW of a 4 Series-based ALPINA model for the U.S.” In Europe, deliveries will begin this summer and the B4 costs the equivalent of around $100,000.
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VinFast, a Vietnamese startup, will invest at least $2 billion into a plant in North Carolina, where it will start building electric crossovers in 2024.VinFast is currently aiming to start deliveries later this year, with its VF 8 and VF 9 electric crossovers.Currently, the VF 8 is listed at $41,000 while the VF 9 rings in at $56,000.Last year, Vietnamese startup VinFast set up headquarters in Los Angeles and declared its intention to sell cars in the United States. Today, the company has revealed plans for its first U.S. factory in North Carolina, where VinFast will build its VF 8 and VF 9 electric crossovers as well as batteries, creating what it says will be thousands of jobs. The plant will be built at the Triangle Innovation Point “megasite” in Chatham County, North Carolina, on an approximately 2000-acre plot. VinFast said it will invest at least $2 billion in the first phase of construction, targeting an initial capacity of 150,000 units per year. Construction will get underway this year, with production starting in July 2024. Along with crossovers, the facility will also build electric buses and batteries. Initial reports from Raliegh’s TNews & Observer predicted the creation of between 7500 and 13,000 jobs.
Although VinFast initially sold gas-powered vehicles using BMW engines in its home market starting in 2019, its expansion to the U.S. site will bring two electric crossovers, the VF 8 and VF 9, which were previously called the VF e35 and VF e36. The two crossovers were penned by famed Italian design house Pininfarina.

VinFast claims the mid-size VF 8 will make 402 horsepower and 472 pound-feet of torque, accelerating to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds. A 316.9-mile range on Europe’s WLTP test cycle is targeted for the VF 8, and VinFast’s website currently lists its price at $41,000. The seven-seat VF 9 features the same power and torque output, but it is claimed to take an extra second to hit 60 mph and to achieve 422.5 miles on the WLTP cycle. VinFast says it will start at $56,000. Both crossovers will come with extensive driver assistance systems. VinFast told Car and Driver last year that the VF 8 and VF 9 will be built in Vietnam and imported into North America at first, with U.S. production expected to begin in the second half of 2024. That lines up with the timeline from today’s announcement. VinFast has previously said it aims to begin deliveries in the fall of 2022, and VinFast says its Haiphong, Vietnam, factory will have the capacity to build 950,000 vehicles per year by 2026.
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The new Lotus Eletre is an all-wheel-drive EV SUV with at least 600 hp.It has an 800-volt battery with more than 100.0-kWh of capacity and a claimed range that equates to about 315 miles using the EPA cycle. The Eletre will be built in Wuhan, China and will reach the U.S. in 2024.Almost all street-legal Lotus models have followed the same recipe for light, simple sports cars—with only a minority featuring more than two seats. So it’s no exaggeration to say that the freshly unveiled Eletre is a revolutionary departure for the Chinese-owned British brand: a high-performance electric SUV.Anyone who expected the production Eletre to be related to the existing Volvo and Polestar EVs (all three brands are part of the Geely Group) has been proved wrong. The finished car sits on a Lotus architecture which is more advanced than the underpinnings of any of its cousins, one that incorporates a new aluminum and high tensile steel structure and an 800-volt battery pack.

While there are many technical highlights to discuss, it is undoubtedly the Eletre’s dramatic styling that made the biggest first impression when we got to see the show car at Lotus’s design studio. This isn’t a far-out concept car, but rather what will soon become a purchasable model. It bears a strong resemblance to the Lamborghini Urus from both its front end and side profiles. That comparison holds true when it comes to dimensions too: Although Lotus doesn’t cite the Lambo as either a benchmark or a competitor, the Eletre’s 200.9 in length, 78.7 in width, 64.2 in height, and 118.9 in wheelbase are all within 0.7 inch of the corresponding Urus figures.
Yet closer inspection of the car in Lotus’s Coventry design studio reveals the Eletre has a more complex form than the Lamborghini. Its sculpted shape features lots of what the styling team, led by former Ford and Volvo design boss Peter Horbury, describes as “porosity.” There are sizeable apertures in the fenders and flanks to ease the passage of air over and through its low-drag shape. “As Colin Chapman once put it, there’s nothing as light as a hole,” Horbury said as he introduced C/D to the car.The Eletre also gets active aerodynamics, including a closing grille shutter and a three-position rear spoiler. The huge wheels you see here are 23-inch rims, which will be optional—we’re told that 22-inchers will be standard in most markets. The official images don’t show them in their deployed state, but the Eletre also has lidar sensors which rise out of the bodywork and will allow eventual high-level autonomous operation: there is one at each end of the roof and two more that emerge from above the front wheel arches. Lotus promises it will ultimately be possible to summon the Eletre from a parking space, or return it to one, exclusively through a smartphone app.Other futuristic details include a camera-based side mirror system which will be offered in territories where this is permitted; conventional door mirrors will be standard in more technologically unadventurous markets including the U.S. The full-width light bar on the liftgate has the ability to change green or blue as well as red and orange. It will only use legally permitted colors for stop lights and turn signals when the car is moving, but it will also be able to display a multicolor animation when the car is unlocked and will also indicate the battery charge status.
The Eletre’s cabin is where it feels most different from other Lotus models, none of which have featured milled bronze metal rocker switches or a buttressed hollow center console with LED backlighting. Company insiders say that much of the interior has been designed with Chinese tastes in mind—the Eletre will be produced in a new factory in Wuhan—and China will account for a substantial percentage of sales. Yet the overall experience certainly feels upmarket, with a stitched leather and microfiber dashboard and sports seats trimmed in high-density wool blend fabric. As with many other futuristic EVs, the Eletre’s steering wheel is far from round, but it does also incorporate paddles; the right one toggles drive modes and the left switches between regeneration levels. Both four- and five-seat versions of the Eletre will be offered, the latter having a single rear bench in place of the separate seats you see here. A full-length panoramic glass roof will be an option. It feels impressively light and spacious for both front and rear-seat occupants, the cab forward proportions allowed by the lack of a conventional engine.The Eletre’s user interface is new and, according to the design team, unrelated to the Google-based system used by Volvo and Polestar. The studio car had a display system which demonstrated the crisp resolution of the huge 15.1-inch OLED central touchscreen, but we weren’t able to test its functionality. Lotus promises it will be possible to access 95 percent of the car’s systems with three or fewer screen inputs. It will also get a head-up display with augmented reality overlays. An 800-watt, 15-speaker surround sound audio system will be standard, with a 23-speaker, 1500-watt system optional. We will have to wait for full powertrain details, but Lotus promises that even the least powerful Eletre will have all-wheel drive and at least 600 hp. The company is being similarly reticent about the battery pack’s exact capacity, saying that it will have more than 100.0-kWh of storage. Lotus claims it will sprint to 62 mph in under three seconds and top out at 161 mph. Lotus says it is targeting a range of 373 miles under the European WLTP testing protocol—that equates to roughly 315 miles according to the EPA methodology in the U.S.—and that the Eletre can replenish two-thirds of its battery in 20 minutes at a 350-kW fast charger.Adaptive dampers and an air suspension will be standard on all versions, the latter able to raise the ride height of the car by up to 2.0 inches for off-roading, and reduce it by 1.0 inch to improve stability at speed. Other optional dynamic features will include carbon-ceramic brakes, rear-axle steering, and an active anti-roll bar—but we will need to wait until closer to the start of U.S. sales for detailed American specs.
Several details are conspicuously missing from the early communications. The first is weight. While the company says that extensive use of aluminum and carbon fiber has reduced mass compared to a more conventional structure, we can still safely bet the Eletre will be the beefiest Lotus of all time: informed speculation suggests it will be around 5500 pounds. The other is price, which isn’t confirmed yet, but we’re told to expect proximity to the Tesla Model X—suggesting a starting point of around $120,000 when the Eletre reaches the U.S. in 2024.But one thing is already certain: Lotus’s future looks very different to its past.
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• The Nissan Sentra SE-R was one of the best sport compacts of the 1990s.• Offered only as a coupe, the SE-R had the 140-horsepower SR20DE inline-four and a five-speed manual transmission.• This example up for auction is practically brand new, as it only has 445 miles on the odometer.We can’t imagine mentioning today’s Nissan Sentra in the same breath as a BMW 3-series, but when the Sentra SE-R came out in the 1990s we couldn’t help but notice how it outperformed the 318is of the day. In the March 1991 issue of Car and Driver, we effectively dubbed this sporty two-door coupe the reincarnation of the legendary BMW 2002 and described it as “the dream of a brand-new $12,000 BMW come true.”

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That dream can still be alive today—minus the $12,000 part, of course—thanks to this astonishingly preserved 1992 Sentra SE-R that’s currently for sale on Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos). With only 445 miles on the odometer, it has hardly moved since it was purchased new for $13,445 in Wisconsin in 1991. That equals about $28,000 in today’s dollars, but because bidding already sits at $27,188 at the time of writing with six days left, we’re guessing that this example’s price will continue to rise far past that sum.

Back in the day, the Sentra SE-R’s performance was a big draw, as its 140-horsepower 2.0-liter inline-four got it to 60 mph in a swift 7.4 seconds. We also praised the “supple and well-damped” chassis and likened the front seats to the Acura NSX’s. Indeed, the chairs in this black on grey example look like they’ve hardly been sat on. The new owner might want to replace the original-equipment Dunlop tires from 1991, however.

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A new generation of the Mercedes-Benz GLC-class is coming for 2023.The new compact luxury SUV looks similar to the current model but should include new features.The base GLC300 model will share its 255-hp turbo 2.0-liter inline-four with the C-class sedan.The Mercedes C-class sedan’s SUV sibling is slated to get a redesign soon, and these are the first official photos of the new 2023 GLC-class compact luxury crossover. This prototype seen undergoing winter testing still has a bit of camouflage, but we can clearly see its overall shape and proportions, and Mercedes has revealed some specs about this new X254-generation model that should arrive in the U.S. later this year.

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The new model appears to be a bit larger than before, with a wider stance and more bulbous rear fenders. The five-spoke wheels on this prototype have an interesting triangular design, and the slim headlights and taillights look similar to the C-class sedan’s. Mercedes hasn’t released photos of the interior yet but says it will have a new steering wheel, the latest MBUX infotainment software, and large screens including a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster and an 11.9-inch central infotainment screen.We anticipate the base model to again be called the GLC300, as it will share the C300 sedan’s turbocharged 2.0-liter inline-four and 48-volt hybrid system. This combination will produce 255 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. 4Matic all-wheel drive will likely be optional, with rear-wheel drive standard, as the new GLC once again shares its platform with the C-class. More powerful AMG variants will follow and may use the same hybrid four-cylinder powertrains expected for the C43 and C63 AMG, with the latter expected to produce over 500 horsepower.Look for more information to come soon on the new GLC, which will likely be revealed in full within the next few months before arriving in the U.S. near the end of the year.
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