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Aston Martin says it will continue to produce its V-12 engine for the next five years.It’ll be seen in the upcoming V12 Vantage, along with the replacements for the DB11 and DBS.We won’t see a V-12 in the DBX SUV or in the upcoming mid-engined Vanquish and Valhalla supercars.Given that fewer than 50,000 12-cylinder cars are produced around the world each year (including Bentley and Audi’s W-12 examples), the question of which automaker will be the last to produce a V-12 engine might seem like a peripheral one. Yet the fate of this aristocratic cylinder configuration is one we take a keen interest in given the number of significant cars to have used V-12s. Now Aston Martin has confirmed it plans to keep offering its own V-12 until it is forced to stop by toughening European emissions standards. This means it will stick around for another five years, until 2026 or 2027.This is mildly surprising given that the newly announced DBX707 will use a reworked version of the twin-turbocharged AMG 4.0-liter V-8 making 697 horsepower—nearly as much as the 715 hp the twin-turbo 5.2-liter V-12 makes in the range-topping DBS. But Aston CEO Tobias Moers says there is no logic in using the new engine to replace the V-12 in its existing applications.“We won’t do that, the V-12 still has a bit of potential,” he said at the online unveiling of the DBX707, “and having the V12 Vantage shows there is still room for a V-12 in our sports car generation.”

The new V12 Vantage will be launched later this year and it will use much of the front structure developed for the V12 Speedster that Aston launched last year. We can also expect to see the V-12 continue in the cars that replace the current DB11 and DBS, with Aston insiders having confirmed that these cars will continue to use the same core structure of the current models. Moers did say that there are no plans to put the V-12 in the DBX, though.

V12 Speedster
Aston Martin

“Why should I get rid of the V-12 for the time being?” Moers asked. “The end of the life cycle for all these V-12s is the year 2026-2027.” That timeline corresponds to the proposed arrival of ultra-tough combustion standards in Europe, including real-time emissions reporting. “We’re not going to re-engineer the V-12 to make that.”Others of the select band of V-12 manufacturers have already confirmed plans to end production of their powerplants sooner. BMW is marketing a run of Final Edition M760Li sedans to mark the retirement of its engine. But while Aston’s V-12 is set to last longer than others, it is unlikely to be the final automaker with one in production: Lamborghini has confirmed the Aventador replacement will be launched with a hybridized naturally aspirated V-12, one with a lifespan that will run into the 2030s.

Moers also confirmed that the Vanquish and Valhalla mid-engined supercars Aston are developing won’t use the V-12, with both set to use versions of a V-8 based around the AMG GT Black Series’ flat-plane-crank V-8. This will be hand-built by the British company in the U.K. He also said this hybridized powerplant will come in both two- and three-motor configurations, with the latter using a pair of electric motors on the front axle capable of torque vectoring, like the Ferrari SF90 Stradale.
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In a world of possibilities, some of them become missed opportunities. And that was enough of a thought on which to hang this week’s episode of Window Shopping, an inspired idea submitted by viewer John Alterio.Five seasoned car writers—all dedicated, professional, and knowledgeable—gathered once again over Zoom to review old memories of the cars they nearly bought but, for some reason, let pass. These are cars that bring with them a haunting regret. Oh, the adventure that never was.Please join the five of us for this week’s episode of good, mostly clean, nearly coherent, always obsessive and informative automotive fun. Does that competition matter? No. So who cares if it’s corrupted and always inconsistent? Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Have you noticed that it’s better edited than before? Hey, there’s a dedicated video guy on board now, and his name is Carlos Lago.Mentioned in this episode: split-journal cranks, Dodge Viper parts, Triumph wheel-trim rings, CarMax, Carmex, Porsche nerdiness, and a surprising comparison of a 1.6-liter’s torque peak with childhood torture. As in every episode of course, the proper positioning of Porsche wheel crests and the incredible Toyota Tundra are mentioned. Somehow, and disappointingly, the importance of the color of brake fluid never arose.Who “won”? YouTube. Again.

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The 1987 Porsche 959 Komfort shown here has a current bid of just over $1.6 million on the Bring a Trailer online auction website, with bids being taken until Monday, February 14.This 959 shows just 1300 kilometers (807 miles) on the odometer.The car could set a new Bring a Trailer sales price record, potentially beating a Porsche Carrera GT that sold on the site last month for $2 million.Things are moving fast at Bring a Trailer (which, like C/D, is part of Hearst Autos). In January, the auction website had its most expensive sale ever, a Porsche Carrera GT that sold for just over $1.9 million. Then just two weeks later, another Carrera GT hit the $2 million mark. Now, there’s another car that stands a good chance of toppling that record: a 1987 Porsche 959 Komfort with just 1300 kilometers (807 miles) on its odometer. The current bid, with 10 days to go, is $1,651,959.

Bring a Trailer

Even if it doesn’t set a new record, this Guards Red 959 has already doubled the price of the last 959 to appear on BaT, a silver example with 24,000 miles that failed to meet reserve at $810,000. That was five years ago, however, and 959 values certainly have risen since then.

Bring a Trailer

This ultra-low-mileage example was imported into the United States in 2015 after spending time in a museum in Japan. Service in the past year includes a clutch slave cylinder, an air-conditioning recharge, and new tires. There is, however, mechanical work still to be done, as the selling dealer has disclosed that the height-adjustable feature of the suspension and the ABS brake feature are currently not functioning.

Bring a Trailer

Bidders appear to be undaunted. Opportunities to purchase a Porsche 959 don’t come along often, as just 337 were built over the course of three years (1986–1988). The car was not sold in the United States when new, but it can now be imported.

Bring a Trailer

The 959 was a mind-blowing supercar in its day and one of the most significant Porsches ever made. Its flat-six engine was derived from the motor that powered the 956 and 962 racing cars, and it produced 444 horsepower. Driving all four wheels, it was good for a sub-four-second zero-to-60-mph time and a top speed of 197 mph. In a period road test of the 959, C/D said, “We have just returned from West Germany, where we finally got a chance to drive the Porsche 959 on the street, and the word ‘perfect’ is difficult to avoid.” In 2020, we called the 959 one of the greatest cars of all time.

Bring a Trailer

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The U.S. Postal Service announced last spring that it would buy around 150,000 new mail trucks from Oshkosh Defense, and that they would be gas-powered instead of electric.The EPA is now asking the USPS to pause the contract and take a more serious look at EVs for these daily work trucks that follow a known route and return to a centralized location each night.The USPS is independent of the executive branch and so doesn’t have to follow the EPA’s request, but it looks like this messy fight isn’t quite finished.

U.S. Postal Service

Robert Alexander/Getty Images

Upgrading the U.S. Postal Service’s truck fleet has been a long and controversial process, and we’re not done yet. As a quick recap, the USPS started looking for replacements for 150,000 or so Grumman Long Life Vehicles (LLVs) in around 2015. For a while, it looked like the new fleet might be made up of mostly electric vehicles, but when the contract for the new mail trucks was awarded to Oshkosh Defense in the spring of 2021, the USPS said only 10 percent of the new mail trucks might be electric. One of the contenders for an electric truck, Workhorse, sued the USPS last summer over the deal.Now the government is asking the USPS to pause on the $11.3 billion contract and reconsider the gas-powered truck purchases in the face of climate damage.

U.S. Postal Service

The Biden administration and the EPA told the USPS, which operates independent of the executive branch, that the new Oshkosh trucks are just 0.4 mile per gallon more efficient compared to the outgoing LLVs—8.6 mpg versus 8.2 mpg for the older vehicles. It also said that the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) the USPS conducted as it decided where to award the contract were not conducted correctly. The EPA sent a letter to the USPS yesterday that said that the whole reason to buy new mail trucks was to make them cleaner, better, and safer. The EPA said last fall that it had a problem with how the USPS conducted an earlier EIS about the truck purchase and that “the final EIS remains seriously deficient.”

“Specifically,” it went on, “the final EIS does not disclose essential information underlying the key analysis of Total Cost of Ownership, underestimates greenhouse-gas emissions, fails to consider more environmentally protective feasible alternatives, and inadequately considers impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns,” the EPA letter said. The EPA or the Biden Administration could also sue the USPS to reconsider the truck purchases, something that Adrian Martinez, an attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, thinks could work. “It is hard to predict what courts will do, but the Postal Service’s work here is just so embarrassingly flimsy,” Martinez told the Washington Post. “They don’t reveal the source of the information for many of their conclusions, instead dismissing electrification outright.”Powering the USPS’s standard mail delivery trucks with electrons instead of gasoline would go a long way to hitting President Biden’s January 2021 executive order that would replace the federal government’s current fleet of vehicles with EVs as part of an expanded Buy American act. The federal government had more than 645,000 vehicles in its fleet in 2019, about a quarter of which would be replaced by the 165,000 new trucks the USPS is looking to buy over the next decade.

Oshkosh Defense

Too Expensive, Says USPSThe USPS’s defense is that it would simply be too expensive to buy tens of thousands of electric vehicles.”While we can understand why some who are not responsible for the financial sustainability of the Postal Service might prefer that the Postal Service acquire more electric vehicles, the law requires the Postal Service to be self-sufficient,” a USPS spokesperson told the Post in a statement.President Biden’s social spending package proposal unveiled last year included $6 billion for the USPS to purchase new vehicles, but that proposal is still being debated in Congress. In late January, the California Air Resources Board asked the USPS to hold a public hearing about its vehicle purchase plans, and the EPA joined that call in its letter yesterday. EPA officials told the Post that even if the USPS goes ahead with the gas-powered vehicles this year, there may still be time to shift the bulk of the purchases to electric in the coming years.
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Gran Turismo 7 releases on March 4, 2022 with over 400 cars and 34 locations with more than 90 different layouts.Music Rally and Music Replay are new modes that bring driving and music together in a fun and relaxing gameplay experience.A new Cafe location will feature conversations with car designers of some of our favorite cars from automotive history. As its March 4, 2022, release date draws nearer, Sony is spilling more information about the highly anticipated Gran Turismo 7 racing game coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles. Polyphony Digital CEO and Gran Turismo producer Kazunori Yamauchi says the 25th anniversary of the GT Series is the biggest yet, and GT7 will be a return home for longtime fans of the driving simulator that debuted in 1997 on the original PlayStation.

At launch, GT7 will have more than 400 cars; 34 locations with over 90 different layouts; and completely new modes and features that highlight historically significant cars, details, and people from automotive culture. On certain tracks, GT7 uses meteorological data from NASA to produce beautiful starry-night skies as you’d see them from that location in person. Moons and other planets will be visible. More cars and tracks will arrive after launch, though details on an additional content schedule haven’t been released yet.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Remember the kickass intros from previous GT games? The computer-generated look inside a combustion chamber followed by Lenny Kravitz from GT3? Or the emotionally charged orchestral ‘Moon over the Castle’ introduction to GT4? We do, and music is the theme of two new modes in GT7. Music Rally and Music Replay. Music Rally is a relaxed gameplay experience where players drive to the beat, instead of their limits. It’s just you versus the music, in a harmonious battle to make it to the very end of the song. Yamauchi hopes this lighthearted mode will pull some of the seriousness out of the simulation and get new players interested in driving cars.

Music Replay creates camera positions, video cuts, and movement influenced by music rather than using predetermined cameras following car positions. This means the cinematic replay from your most intense races will have several different compositions depending on which song you’ve chosen.Haptic feedback and adaptive triggers while using the PlayStation 5 DualSense controller will give extra input while driving to simulate the real thing. Yamauchi said players will be able to feel the different racing surfaces, curbing, tire slippage, and effects of tire wear and weather. In previous GTs, ABS was just a light that would flash in the interface under braking; now it’s a sensation felt through the controller, and players can also experience simulated locked-up brakes through the adaptive triggers. We hope this mode is more than just loud vibrations and delayed input, but it sounds promising—especially for people playing without a steering wheel and force feedback.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

It’s Educational! The academic side of GT is now expanded in a new Café location. Players will learn more about the cultural significance of cars and hear automotive designers talk about their creations, like the Audi TT’s Freeman Thomas, original Miata designer Tom Montano, and others. These instances are earned through completing challenges and collecting cars.If you’re a person who plays games just to remove the wing from cars like the Honda Civic Type R, you’re in luck. There are more than 60 types of performance parts per car, including wings, widebody kits, roll cages, wheels, and of course an exhaustive number of paint-color choices. To the relief of folks who have made amazing re-creations of racing liveries in GT Sport, Yamauchi said that stickers and liveries created there can be migrated to Gran Turismo 7. That means we won’t have to wait long for the epic GEAR Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 livery that someone has already made in GT Sport.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Tuning Is a Game within a GameYamauchi described the mechanical tuning capability as a “mini-game within a game.” The goal is that it will become a learning tool for people curious about how changing or adjusting specific parts of a car immediately affects things like acceleration, weight, horsepower, grip, and top speed. GT7 uses a new Measure feature, which will allow you to make adjustments, and the game will quickly simulate the areas in which the car’s performance has either improved or decreased. We spotted a few interesting tuning options in the preview trailer that include nitrous oxide, an exhaust silencer, and an anti-lag system.The more than 300-person team at Polyphony Digital, once just a group of 15 at the start of the series, are eager to show off the 3D spatial audio they’ve cooked up for GT7. Experienced best with headphones, 3D audio better imitates how the sound we hear in reality bounces off various objects before reaching our brains. It’s more than just making the exhaust louder in tunnels: the sound will react differently depending on the surface it hits, such as raindrops hitting glass versus puddles or tires over grass versus curbing. 3D audio makes it possible for you to identify where the noise is coming from instead of just flooding your ears with raw audio.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

The World Map, teased earlier, brings back some of our favorite GT modes that were otherwise skipped in GT Sport. License, Used Cars, and the Tuning Shop have returned. Yes, that means the gang of yellow-polo-shirted garage crew members is back to clean your car, change your oil, and, in one cute animation, pull at either side of a car to illustrate the installation of a widebody kit.The hyperrealistic photo mode, Scapes, will have more than 2500 locations where you can photograph cars. Yamauchi explained that replay and photo mode are the only two areas with ray tracing capability, to preserve performance while racing. The reflection of headlights off plastic rear bumpers, individual rain droplets running down the window glass, and tiny etches and imperfections around the gauges of the historic cars look stunning in this preview. It has become somewhat difficult to quickly tell a real photograph and a rendering from GT7’s Scapes mode apart. Just make sure you have a 4K or HDR TV display to support these promised visuals.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Used-Car and Legendary DealershipsThe Used Car Dealership also makes a return. The dealership features cars with mileage, used oil, and vehicles that would otherwise be inappropriate to see for sale in the new car dealership GT7 calls Brand Central. These vehicles are more affordable, and the variety will change daily. A Legendary dealership will feature the most expensive cars. To buy something in the Legendary dealership is to obtain a piece of significance to car history.For us, GT7 sounds like the biggest excuse to grab a Sony PlayStation 5, even if they’re still somewhat difficult to source. We look forward to getting more hands-on with GT7 before its release on March 4.

Gran Turismo 7 25th Anniversary Edition – PS5 Disc & PS4 Entitlement

PlayStation
amazon.com

$89.99

Standard Editions are available for pre-order on PlayStation 4 for $59.99 and PlayStation 5 for $69.99. Preorder bonuses include extra in-game credits, a free car pack that includes the Mazda RX-Vision GT3 concept, the Porsche 917 Living Legend concept, and the Japanese Grand Touring Championship Castrol Tom’s Toyota Supra GT500 race car. An $89.99 Digital Deluxe Edition is also available for preorder and includes extra in-game credits, PS4 and PS5 dual entitlement, and a special Toyota GR Yaris painted in your country’s special livery, as well as the game’s official soundtrack.
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Mercedes confirmed that it will reopen orders for several V-8 models after previously suspending these models’ U.S. availability for the 2022 model year.Orders are now open for the G550, AMG G63, GLE580, AMG GLE63, GLS580, and Maybach GLS600, as reported by Motor Authority.A few models are still missing, including the AMG E63, the AMG GT63 4-Door, and the AMG GLS63.Several V-8–powered models will soon rejoin Mercedes’ U.S. lineup after being dropped for the 2022 model year. A Mercedes-Benz spokesperson confirmed to C/D that the company is reopening orders for certain versions of the 2022 G-class, GLE-class, and GLS-class SUVs powered by the twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 engine.

In addition to the Mercedes-Benz G550, GLE580, and GLS580, AMG 63 versions of the G-class and GLE-class—plus the Maybach GLS600—will be available again. But not the AMG GLS63, which is still missing from the lineup. The AMG E63 and AMG GT63 4-Door will also remain absent for the time being, and Mercedes said it could not provide any details regarding the availability of these models. The S-class sedan and new AMG SL-class convertible also use this same V-8 engine but did not appear to be affected by the same production issues.We assume that the easing of supply-chain issues is the main reason that these models are returning, although Mercedes has been relatively quiet throughout this ordeal. The suspension of these models was initially blamed on “various global, external and internal requirements, as well as several other factors, including but not limited to challenges in the supply chain,” which could also include emissions regulations.

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The Chevrolet Spark will be discontinued later this year, with production lasting through August, a GM spokesperson confirmed.The Spark is currently the cheapest new car on sale in the United States, starting at $14,595.Chevy will not offer a direct replacement for the Spark, instead directing customers to its Trax and Trailblazer subcompact crossovers, both of which start over $20,000.If you want a brand-new Chevrolet Spark, you’d better act fast. Chevy’s diminutive hatchback—currently the cheapest new car on sale in the United States—will be discontinued later this year, a General Motors spokesperson confirmed to Car and Driver today.

Chevrolet

Production of the Spark will continue through August, at which point it will depart from the Chevy lineup after a 10-year run. The Spark is not expected to get a direct replacement, with the GM spokesperson saying that customers looking for a ride at “an approachable price still have strong options within Chevrolet’s family of compact SUVs.”

If you want to get your hands on a new Spark before it goes the way of the dodo, you’ll have to cough up just $14,595 for the base LS model, around a third of the average cost of a new car, which has skyrocketed to $47,077. All Sparks use a 98-horsepower inline-four, crawling to 60 mph in 10.8 seconds but returning an EPA-rated 33 mpg combined. After the Spark departs, customers looking for a cheap Chevrolet will have to turn to the aging Trax, starting at $22,595, or the Trailblazer, starting at $22,795. Both subcompact crossovers cost substantially more than the Spark, which will leave customers seeking a sub-$20,000 car to consider other brands. The title of cheapest car in the U.S. will migrate to the Nissan Versa, starting at $16,105, with the $16,125 Mitsubishi Mirage close behind.
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Polestar has built a special version of its 2 hatchback called the Arctic Circle, outfitted for driving in snowy and icy conditions.The Arctic Circle gets extra power and torque as well as studded tires, softer springs, and a prototype launch control system.LED rally-style lights are attached up front and Recaro bucket seats are found inside, but the Polestar 2 Article Circle will remain a one-off.Electric vehicle maker Polestar—spun off from parent company Volvo back in 2017—hails from snowy Sweden, and the company has used its familiarity with wintry conditions to create the one-off Polestar 2 Arctic Circle. Developed by Polestar’s chief chassis engineer Joakim Rydholm, who races rally cars in his spare time, the Arctic Circle turns up the wick on the Polestar 2 to help it better tackle icy roads at high speeds.
Starting with a Polestar 2 Long Range dual-motor model with the Performance package, the car was raised by 1.2 inches and fitted with custom studded 245/35R-19 winter tires, with each tire bearing 490 0.16-inch metal studs. Polestar also increased power and torque, with the Arctic Circle putting out 469 horsepower and 502 pound-feet of torque. This is up from 408 hp and 487 pound-feet in the standard Polestar 2, although an over-the-air update for 2022 will see 476 hp and 502 pound-feet available for customers of the Long Range dual-motor.

The springs in the Arctic Circle are 30 percent softer than those on the production Polestar 2, and the three-way performance Öhlins dampers were also retuned. Strut braces were added at the front and rear for better torsional rigidity and steering responsiveness. Polestar also introduced a prototype launch control system, activated via steering-wheel-mounted paddles.
The Arctic Circle plays rally-car dress-up with white 19-inch OZ Racing wheels, four Stedi Quad Pro LED lights fitted up front, a carbon-fiber skid plate, and gold recovery straps front and rear. The interior features Recaro front bucket seats and a carbon-fiber snow shovel in the trunk for emergency situations. The Arctic Circle is wrapped in a slick-looking matte gray and white livery. Polestar noted that the Arctic Circle will not be put into production, describing it as a “unique showpiece.” Perhaps a determined Polestar 2 owner could re-create the electric rally car look with enough elbow grease.
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