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General Motors filed to trademark “Buick Electra” with the United States Trademark and Patent Office.The Electra name recently appeared on an electric concept SUV.Buick ditched the Electra nameplate after the 1990 model year. The Electra name might return to Buick’s model line after sitting dormant for more than three decades. Well, that’s if a recent trademark filing by General Motors is anything to go by. The automaker filed to apply for the “Buick Electra” mark with the United States Trademark and Patent Office on December 20, 2021.

Buick

GM’s decision to dust off the Electra nameplate is of little surprise given the company’s pivot to electric vehicles. In fact, Buick revealed an Electra electric SUV concept car at the 2020 Beijing auto show (no doubt, the fact “Electra” and “electric” share the same prefix had something to do with Buick’s choice of name for the concept).

As such, we wager Buick will christen its upcoming EV the Electra. Like the Electra concept, expect the production Buick Electra to use GM’s latest electric vehicle hardware, which goes by the name Ultium. In other words, the new Electra could share its battery pack options, electric motors, and basic platform with other GM EVs, such as the 2023 Cadillac Lyriq.That said, we doubt GM plans to simply swap the Lyriq’s Cadillac crest for Buick’s tri-shield badge. If the Electra concept from Shanghai is anything to go by, then the potential production Electra ought to wear distinct, brand-specific sheet metal. While we suspect the concept’s scissor-hinged doors will fail to find their way to the production vehicle, it is possible the saleable Electra EV trades the traditional two-box body style typical of most SUVs for the concept’s coupe-like shape.

Buick

Of course, there’s always the chance Buick deviates from the basic look of the Electra concept and pins the name to an entirely different sort of vehicle—possibly one with an internal combustion engine. Likewise, there’s always the chance GM simply filed to trademark “Buick Electra” for no other reason other than it could. Still, we think it’s no coincidence GM is trademarking a name it recently pinned to a concept vehicle designed to show off the future of the Buick brand.
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Honda filed to trademark ADX with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.The ADX nameplate may appear on Acura’s upcoming GM-built electric SUV. Honda announced its GM-built electric SUV will wear the Prologue moniker.Acura’s upcoming electric SUV may bear the name ADX, as evidenced by a recent trademark filing for the moniker by Honda, Acura’s parent company, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Admittedly, it’s entirely possible the ADX mark finds its way to a gas-powered Acura SUV, possibly one based on the next-generation HR-V that Honda’s developing for the North American market. Likewise, there’s always the chance Honda’s filed to trademark the ADX nameplate simply to prevent another automaker from using it.

GMC

Nevertheless, if we were the gambling type, we wager Acura pins the ADX name to its forthcoming electric SUV that’s due to be built by General Motors. Despite it likely sharing a platform, powertrain, and battery pack(s) with other GM EVs that use the company’s Ultium battery-electric vehicle bits, the electric Acura SUV still ought to wear distinct exterior and interior decor that reflects the luxury brand’s current design language.Likewise, we believe Acura’s electric SUV will share few—if any—body panels with its Honda-badged kin that GM is also set to build for the Japanese automaker. Whereas Acura’s yet to formally reveal the name of its GM-built electric SUV, Honda confirmed its variant will sport the Prologue designation. We’re sure Acura will reveal the name of its battery-electric SUV in the coming weeks or months. Until the brand tells us otherwise, though, our money’s on Acura pinning the ADX nomenclature to the latest addition in its SUV lineup.
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Heritage Customs Valiance convertible brings a soft top to the Land Rover Defender.The Valiance convertible starts at a little more than $155,000 at current exchange rates, including the donor vehicle.The Valiance convertible is based on the two-door Defender 90.With its retro looks, off-road hardware, and a notable heritage, the current Land Rover Defender is a worthy foe to the likes of the Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco in just about every way save for one notable exception: its fixed roof. That’s right: whereas Jeep and Ford let Wrangler and Bronco buyers drop (or remove) their SUVs’ tops, Land Rover forces Defender buyers to make do with little more than an available power-operated glass sunroof or folding fabric roof. Although both bring some sunlight into the cabin, neither offers the wind-in-your-hair experience of removing (or folding) the roof back entirely. Presumably, Heritage Customs viewed Land Rover’s omission of a bona fide Defender convertible as a business opportunity, as the custom coachbuilder plans to lop the top off of five Defender 90s in 2022. The result is a two-door Land Rover Defender that bottles the open-air energy of its Jeep and Ford competition. Dubbed the Valiance convertible, Heritage Customs’ soft-topped Defender starts at a smidge more than $155,000 (at current exchange rates). This sum includes the cost of the approximately $74,000 Defender 90 donor vehicle.Yet, Heritage Customs doesn’t simply saw the top off Land Rover’s two-door Defender and call it a day, as it also adds a dollop of extra opulence by way of the Valiance’s three available trims: Côte d’Azur, Solihull Sand, and Kokkini Paralia.

Heritage Customs

Côte d’Azur leans less on the Defender’s innate ability to rove all sorts of ranges and instead focuses on the cloth-topped Valiance’s inevitable life as a beach cruiser for the well-off (hence the trim’s name). It certainly looks the part of a way for the wealthy to take in some ultraviolet rays while cruising the Mediterranean coastal roads of the Côte d’Azur, or South Beach, or Manhattan Beach, or . . . well, you get the idea.Credit the SUV’s big 22-inch wheels wrapped in whitewall tires. Heritage Customs complements the trim’s throwback wheel and tire design with a coat of blue paint about the vehicle’s body, a rich brown soft top, and copper exterior and interior trim pieces.

Heritage Customs

Those who find the ritzy style of the Valiance’s Côte d’Azur trim a bit much may prefer the more classic decor of the SUV’s Solihull Sand trim. Inspired by the first production Land Rover from 1948, the Solihull Sand kit brings a set of old-school-looking 20-inch wheels to the Valiance, as well as a green exterior hue, gunmetal trim pieces, and a tan top. Finally, Heritage Customs offers the Valiance in Kokkini Paralia trim. Whereas the Côte d’Azur and Solihull Sand trims seem to crib their aesthetics from the past, the Kokkini Paralia embraces the present. Modern-looking 22-inch wheels accompany the likes of a coat of red paint, a black soft top, and gunmetal exterior bits.

Heritage Customs

No doubt, the Heritage Customs Valiance convertible is a rare and attractive machine. Whether it’s worth north of $150,000, however, is another question. Arguably, the Wrangler and Bronco offer the same basic convertible vibe of the Valiance at a much more affordable price point. Then again, neither is particularly rare, nor do the Jeep or Ford badges offer the clout associated with the Land Rover one. Unless Land Rover formally produces a Defender convertible of its own, the Heritage Customs Valiance is arguably one of the best options for those with the means and desire to own a Defender without a roof. The rest of us in search of an open-topped off-road SUV will just have to settle on a Wrangler or Bronco. Either that, or we start writing letters to Land Rover begging it to mass-produce a sub-six-figure drop-top Defender.
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As time goes on, the Lexus LFA becomes more and more desirable to collectors. More than a decade after its release, people are finally starting to realize just how special a car it really is. Widely touted as the best-sounding production car ever built, just 500 were made through two years of production. And just 50 of those cars came with the high-performance Nürburgring package. Now, one of those cars is for sale.

In addition to the flashy BBS magnesium wheels and fixed wing out back, Nürburgring package cars got a retuned suspension, stickier tires, a big front splitter, dive planes, and a recalibrated six-speed single-clutch automatic transaxle for even faster shift times. Combine those with a naturally aspirated 4.8-liter V-10 engine making 562 horsepower—10 more over the standard car—and you have one of the best vehicles Japan has ever come up with. In a successful attempt to live up to its name, a Lexus LFA equipped with the Nürburgring package was able to set a Nordschleife lap of 7:14.64 back in 2011—a record at the time.

This particular car was originally sold in Canada before being exported to the United Kingdom in 2014. It currently shows just under 12,000 miles on the odometer and wears a beautiful green wrap around its original white-painted body. Prior to its listing, the car received a major service with new spark plug, as well as a brake service 3000 miles ago. This LFA is currently listed for sale on Pistonheads.com in the U.K. with an asking price of £849,950 (roughly $1.13 million at current exchange rates). Because the car was originally built for the Canada market, you shouldn’t have much of a problem importing and registering it here in the U.S., which is a plus.

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Ford has announced the recall of nearly 185,000 F-150 trucks from 2021 and 2022 model years over a problem with the driveshaft.In a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall report, Ford said underbody insulators could become loose and contact the driveshaft, which could then become damaged and even drag on the ground, causing loss of control or loss of power while driving.Ford will begin notifying owners of the recalled pickups at the end of January and will inspect and repair the vehicles at no charge.Ford will recall 184,698 of its 2021 and 2022 model F-150 pickups to address a problem with two underbody acoustic/thermal insulators. These could loosen and come into contact with the truck’s aluminum driveshaft and damage or even fracture it, Ford said. The problem affects 4×4 SuperCrew models with the 145-inch wheelbase and the optional sound insulation package, and Ford estimates only 10 percent of the recalled trucks will have the defect. No accidents or injuries have been reported as a result of the issue, which Ford started investigating in July.Owners can look for signs of trouble including a loose insulator under the vehicle or a “rattling, clicking, or clunking noise” that indicates an insulator touching the driveshaft. Ford stopped making trucks with the offending insulator by mid-November, according to the recall report filed with NHTSA.Ford has started notifying dealers and will send letters to owners of the recalled trucks beginning January 31. In the meantime, owners can check with the NHTSA recalls website to see if their vehicle is affected.

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Lotus said an official farewell to its Exige, Elise, and Evora sports cars in a grand photo op at the specialty automaker’s Hethel, England, factory.The three cars were responsible for almost half of all Lotuses ever sold.But the future looks bright, with new sports cars, sedans, and SUVs coming.Lotus rolled out the final three examples of a trio of cars that represent almost half the company’s total production ever: the Elise, Exige, and Evora. Together they made up 51,738 sales and kept the company going through good times and bad. But the three will be no more, Lotus says, as the company plunges ahead into an electric future.

Well, electric except for the mid-engine Emira, which is based on a modified version of the same platform and will be powered by a familiar Toyota-based 3.5-liter gasoline engine or an AMG 2.0-liter four. That comes out next spring, followed by the all-electric Evija hypercar. More on those at a later date. Right now we come not to bury the Es, but to praise them.The Elise, Exige, and Evora were built over the course of 26 years in Hethel, U.K. The Elise and Exige shared the same “small car platform” that carried the Opel Speedster/Vauxhall VX220 and the very first Tesla Roadsters, of which 2005 were built between 2007 and 2012. So it was a big day in Hethel. The Evora was on the Big Car Platform.As with any photo op, every executive in the building came out and made a speech. Here are a few excerpts.”First of all, I would like to thank the Lotus team who have worked on the Elise, Exige, and Evora over the years and who are now transferring to Emira and Evija manufacturing,” said Managing Director of Lotus Cars Matt Windle. “I would also like to convey enormous gratitude to all the customers of the Elise, Exige, and Evora over the last 26 years for their passion, enthusiasm, and support.”That would be you, dear customer, because only Lotus loyalists would be reading this article past the first executive quote. He continued:”These customers have given our ‘three Es’ true cult status—usually reserved for long-out-of-production classics.”Russell Carr, design director at Lotus Cars, added a personal note, saying: “These iconic cars have not only played a huge role in Lotus’s 73-year history but have also been ever-present in my daily life. Together with the Lotus design team, I have lived and breathed these cars for over 26 years. We will miss them, but a bit like Christmas, once it’s over, the excitement for the next one starts to build—and that’s what’s happening now at Lotus with the Evija, Emira, and forthcoming Type 132. 2022 is going to be a great year as a new Lotus generation swings into action.”The Type 132 that Carr mentioned is a new electric SUV from Lotus scheduled for a world premiere this spring.

The Lotus Elise was revolutionary in its day with its use of extruded and bonded aluminum.
Lotus

The three Es were important not just because they were fun to drive but for their technological advancements over the years, including an early industry use of extruded and bonded aluminum, parts that were squeezed out and glued together. “The impact of these three cars has been spectacular over the years, technically, structurally, and dynamically,” said Richard Rackham, head of vehicle concepts, who was vehicle architect on the Lotus Elise and part of the team that pioneered the new tech. “But all technologies and innovations move on and, if you had asked me of my proudest moment four years ago, I would have, without hesitation, said the Elise chassis. However, this has been usurped by our new Project LEVA architecture [Lightweight Electric Vehicle Architecture] for our new range of electric sports cars, starting with the Type 135 in a few years’ time. This is now the zenith of Lotus architectures as it has moved the technology game so much further. There is a lot to look forward to.”The Type 135 he refers to is the closest successor to these three now-retired cars. It is due in 2026 and will ride on Lotus’s new E-Sports architecture that will be shared by all future Lotus sports cars. That architecture will be based around a lightweight rear subframe holding both batteries and motor(s). The structure itself is more than a third lighter than that used for the gasoline-powered Emira. Lightness is essential, given the current weight of battery packs. The one in the coming Evija electric hypercar will tip the scales at more than 1500 pounds. Batteries in coming Lotus EVs can either be piled up vertically, as they will likely be in the sports cars, or laid out under the floor in the longer-wheelbase vehicles. So let’s get our Lotus product plans straight here, in roughly calendar order: Emira mid-engine gasoline-powered sports car, Evija electric hypercar, Type 132 SUV, Type 133 four-door coupe, Type 134 crossover, and Type 135 electric sports car. Maybe. We’ve been promised Lotuses before (cough—Dany Bahar—cough).But we are here to praise the Es: Elise, Exige and Evora.

Here are the three without the supporting cast: Exige, Elise and Evora, left to right.
Lotus

“From 1996 to 2000, the first-generation Elise and Exige sports cars were built in a small assembly hall at Hethel alongside the Lotus Esprit,” Lotus noted. “Those assembly lines, which were installed in 2000, will be dismantled and replaced with all-new state-of-the-art facilities in support of the all-new Emira factory. Full Emira production begins in the spring, after the prototype and test phases currently underway are completed, taking Lotus sports car production into an exciting, high-tech and semi-automated era, and increasing capacity up to 5000 units per year on a single shift pattern.”And those last three Lotuses you see parked above? “The last examples of the Elise, Exige, and Evora models are reserved for Lotus’s growing heritage collection,” Lotus said, adding specifics about the three in the photos. “Joining the collection will be the last Elise, a Sport 240 Final Edition finished in Yellow and the last of 35,124 cars; the last Exige, a Cup 430 Final Edition in Heritage Racing Green—number 10,497; and the last Evora—a GT430 Sport finished in Dark Metallic Grey—the last of a production run of 6117.”Farewell, Es, we hardly knew ye. Actually, we knew ye pretty well, and enjoyed each and every mile we put on ye, even though our kidneys and other internal organs may disagree.

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Ford F-150 Lightning and PowerBoost hybrid models offer Level 2 EV charging capability courtesy of optional Pro Power Onboard generators.The standard 2.4-kilowatt Pro Power Onboard generator, however, lacks this feature.The upcoming F-150 EV, the Lightning, offers an available 9.6-kW generator, while the PowerBoost hybrid is available with a 7.2-kW setup.Call it the EV Centipede, because Ford’s electrified F-150 models are capable of charging other electric (and presumably plug-in gasoline-electric hybrid) vehicles by using the Lightning electric and PowerBoost hybrid trucks’ available 7.2- or 9.6-kW onboard generators. Now that should generate some goodwill.Dubbed Pro Power Onboard, the optional function includes a 240-volt plug for Level 2 charging capability. A lesser, 2.4-kW variant of Pro Power Onboard is standard on both the F-150 Lightning electric and PowerBoost hybrid pickups, but it does without the 240-volt plug. Ford claims F-150 models so equipped are capable of adding up to 20 miles of range in an hour to a rear-wheel-drive Mustang Mach-E equipped with the SUV’s larger battery pack; 13 miles of range in an hour to an F-150 Lightning; and 10 miles of range in an hour to a Ford E-Transit cargo van with a low roof.

Sure, those sums won’t exactly break any charging-rate records, but even so, it’s nice to know your F-150 can add a few extra miles of range to the EV of a fellow driver that ran out of electricity just a few miles shy of the nearest charging station. Likewise, it seems consumers who own two EVs yet rely largely on a single charging outlet, can create the aforementioned EV Centipede by plugging their F-150 Lightning into their grid-fed charging outlet while simultaneously charging their other EV from the Lightning’s 240-volt outlet. In fact, it seems that with enough F-150 Lightnings, this theoretical EV Centipede can go on for miles and miles, with each Ford truck drawing a charge from the one in front of it.That said, Pro Power Onboard isn’t strictly for charging other EVs. All versions of the onboard generator are capable of powering or charging small electronics such as cellphones or laptops courtesy of their 120-volt outlets. Or, as we learned earlier, an F-150 PowerBoost hybrid with the optional 7.2-kW Pro Power Onboard generator can power a house.
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The Tesla Model Y has been named to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s list of Top Safety Pick+ vehicles for 2021. It is only the second Tesla vehicle to be deemed this safe by the IIHS.Previously, the only Tesla EV to qualify as a TSP+ was the 2019–2020 Model 3. Nearly 80 new 2021 and 2022 vehicles have been named TSP+ this year.To be named to the TSP+ list, a vehicle needs to score well on six crashworthiness tests as well as get an Advanced or Superior rating for its front crash prevention. It also needs to have highly rated headlights.The latest vehicle to get the Top Safety Pick+ designation from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) is the Tesla Model Y. The only other Tesla vehicle that was awarded IIHS’ Top Safety Pick+ status was the 2019–2020 Model 3. The Model Y has also been given a five-star rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
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To qualify for Top Safety Pick+, a vehicle needs three things, the IIHS has decided. First, it needs to have scored the top Good rating on a number of crash tests, including: driver-side small overlap front, passenger-side small overlap front, moderate overlap front, original side, roof strength, and head restraint tests. Second, it needs to have been given either an Advanced or Superior rating for available front crash prevention, including vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-pedestrian evaluations. The Model Y managed to get Superior, despite Tesla’s using a camera-only system for its front sensor suite. Third, the headlights need to be considered either Acceptable or Good—and they must be standard equipment. The slightly lower Top Safety Pick rating category is exactly the same as TSP+, but with optional Acceptable or Good headlights.

IIHS

The IIHS ran a number of 2021 Model Y electric vehicles through six crashworthiness tests to determine its rating. These crash tests include small-overlap front (driver and passenger side), moderate overlap front, original side test, roof strength, and head restraints and seats. Following the small overlap front test, engineers found that the driver’s-seat crash test dummy’s position indicated that “the driver’s survival space was maintained very well.” IIHS also said that the the frontal and side curtain airbags “worked well together to keep the head from coming close to any stiff structure or outside objects that could cause injury” and that “the driver’s space was maintained well, and risk of injuries to the dummy’s legs and feet was low.” Following the moderate overlap front crash test, the dummy’s head hit the side curtain airbag during rebound, but IIHS said that, overall, “the driver’s survival space was maintained very well.”Almost 80 models from the 2021 or 2022 model year were named Top Safety Pick+ by the IIHS this year. Tesla doesn’t do model years, opting for rolling updates, but the IIHS counts the current model as a 2021–2022 vehicle, and the TSP+ rating applies to any Model Y vehicles built after April 2021. There are 10 other Top Safety Pick+ vehicles in the mid-size luxury-car category that IIHS fit the Model Y into, including three versions of the Volvo V60, the Lexus IS, and the Acura TLX.
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