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The GMC Canyon AT4 Ovrlandx concept takes the company’s mid-size pickup truck to the extreme, fitting a bed cap, tent, and rear awning for those seeking to live off the grid.The Ovrlandx gains a lift kit, Multimatic dampers, and 33-inch BFGoodrich KM3 Mud-Terrain tires, as well as custom bumpers front and rear and unique extended wheel arches.The bed cap comes with an integrated kitchenette and cooler, as well as jerry cans for extra water or gas should you run out while out exploring nature.Overlanding, a mashup of off-roading and camping, has seen a surge of popularity in the U.S. recently. Along with custom builds from creative off-road enthusiasts, automakers themselves have jumped on the trend. Last year both Toyota and Ford showed vehicles prepped for overlanding duty, and now GMC is joining the party with the Canyon AT4 Ovrlandx concept, revealed today at the Overland Expo Mountain West 2021 in Loveland, Colorado.
Starting with a Canyon AT4, GMC added a heavy-duty front bumper with a winch and recovery points, an AEV rear bumper, increased underbody protection, and rocker-panel protectors. A lift kit and 33-inch BFGoodrich KM3 Mud-Terrain tires on 17-inch AEV Crestone wheels provide 10 inches of ground clearance and a 27.7-degree approach angle. The snorkel helps the Ovrlandx travel through up to 32.1 inches of water and guy lines running between the roof and hooks on the front fenders shield the windshield from branches along the trail.

The Canyon AT4 Ovrlandx also gains Multimatic DSSV dampers, front and rear electronic locking differentials, and cast-iron control arms. Visual changes include black wheel flares with integrated lighting units, custom grille and headlight finishes, unique AT4 badges, a special leather interior, and a spare tire on a swivel mount. Most importantly for overlanding enthusiasts, there is a stainless steel bed cap with a tent perched on top and an awning that extend outwards to provide shade while you cook on the built-in kitchenette. The bed cap also includes plenty of storage, traction boards for if you get stuck, an off-road jack, and jerry cans for gas and water.GMC said the truck still uses the 3.6-liter V-6 engine and eight-speed automatic from the stock AT4. The Canyon AT4 Ovrlandx is simply a concept for now, but the company did say it is “exploring GMC’s vision for its growing lineup of premium yet capable trucks and SUVs,” suggesting that a more hard-core Canyon could potentially be in the cards.
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Earlier this month, we all got to watch as racer and professional hooligan Ken Block pit his Subaru WRX STI rally car against his Baja-bound trophy truck. The unlikely competitors duked it out on a timed rally stage, with a predictable victory ensuing for the Subaru. Not satisfied with this single bout of automotive shenanigans, Block is back with another video in which his Ford Escort RS “Cossie V2” and his wife’s Ford Fiesta R2 join to compete in a 2000-hp shootout. Block and his crew decided to make things simpler this time around. Instead of sending all four cars down a rally stage, a basic out and back course was devised. All four vehicles would start from a dead stop in a box of cones before accelerating to a marked hairpin. After completing the turn, the driver simply would to accelerate back down the straightaway and get stopped in the box. Fastest time wins.
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Like the Subaru WRX STI featured in the last clip, the Cossie V2 is a serious rally-prepped machine. The Ford features a 2.0-liter Escort WRC engine, which produces around 375 hp. That is about 45 more than Subaru, but the Cossie V2 is also slightly heavier at around 3400 pounds. Both cars utilize a six-speed sequential gearbox and all-wheel drive, so the two appear evenly matched on paper. The same can’t be said for Lucy Block’s Fiesta R2, which only makes 197 hp from its 1.0-liter turbocharged three-cylinder. The R2 is a lightweight, tipping the scales at just 2240 pounds. That’s three times lighter than the 6450-pound Geiser Bros G6 Trophy Truck, but the truck packs 1100 hp under the hood. Each vehicle brings its own set of strengths to the competition, which proved closer than one might think. Block drove his trophy truck and the WRX STI, while Jax Redline was tasked with piloting the Cossie V2. Despite taking a two year hiatus from the driver’s seat, Lucy Block was responsible for taking her R2 through the course. Less of a controlled test than last time, but perhaps even more fun as a result.

Unsurprisingly, Ken and his Subaru dominated the show, dropping a 13.7 second run through the course. The Escort RS secured second place with a best time of 14.9 seconds. The trophy truck struggled to do any better than a 15.7 second pass, rearing the front end the whole time. The plucky little R2 had significantly worse road conditions to deal with than the others, and as such a slight time deduction was made in the name of fairness. The R2’s best adjusted time was 18 seconds. While we’re not sure that this test proves anything, it does make one wonder how to get their hands on four rally-ready machines. This sort of challenge seems like it would be great fun among friends, regardless of which vehicle you’re stuck with.

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M.Vision X concept from Hyundai Mobis envisions autonomous travel of the future with touchless controls.Controlled by voice and gestures, the concept features windows designed to transform into video screens.The Munich Auto Show, or IAA Mobility, opens in September and will be focused on future transportation tech, with emphasis on EVs and autonomy.Hyundai Mobis, which is the South Korean industrial giant’s automotive supplier arm, is headed to the IAA in Munich next month with the M.Vision X concept that promises to fit right in with the Mobility theme of the new show. Designed as an autonomous vehicle meant for four passengers, the M.Vision X concept features windows that can transform into displays for the benefit of the passengers, perfect for watching videos. In fact, just about every horizontal surface is a screen, with the vehicle permitting passengers to constantly be entertained by something, offering 360 degrees of viewing surfaces.

If this sounds like a preview of our entertainment-obsessed future, where even windows become screens for our entertainment, then what is even the point of autonomous cars, one would say, if not to allow ourselves to watch cat videos on YouTube instead of driving?That future looks contact-free as well—perhaps previewing a permanent pandemic state—judging by the concept’s use of gesture and voice controls.”The core solution of M.Vision X is the vertical cockpit in the center of the interior, which looks like a square pillar,” the company notes. “On each of the four sides of the integrated center cockpit is a 28-inch display. This integrated center cockpit communicates with passengers in a contact-free fashion using the gesture recognition functions. As a result, passengers can control all driving-related functions, e.g. the autonomous driving mode, AI speakers and infotainment. There is also a sterilization function that uses UV lighting to automatically sterilize the vehicle once the passengers get out of the car. This new technology is also a feature of M.Vision X.”
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The M.Vision X can seem either utopian or dystopian, depending on your view of pandemic-friendly touchless controls for everything. It also echoes the countless lounge-like vehicle concepts we’ve seen from South Korean and Japanese automakers, dating back maybe 20 years—long before any semi-autonomous vehicles were even in prototype stage. In that sense, the M.Vision X concept may prove to be more tangible and easy to picture than ever before, especially given that prototypes with Level 4 autonomy have been around for a few years now; we’ve even gone for a spin in a handful of them. With Level 4 autonomy being carefully rolled out on a small scale, perhaps we’re approaching the point where autonomous, geofenced shuttles like this one are a couple of years away from seeing limited, but very real, use, with custom-designed bodies meant to serve as autonomous taxis. The M.Vision X concept certainly looks like a robotaxi that could be deployed soon on a wider scale, even as prototypes now approach limited use in some cities.”We worked hard to sublimate the changes in life people have had to cope with in the post-Covid 19 era with new mobility technologies,” said Vice President Cheon Jae-Seung, head of the Fundamental and Advanced Lab of Hyundai Mobis. “The new mobility platform, as presented by Hyundai Mobis, contains the spirit of technical exploration, which also enables people to share their thoughts and feel the joy of everyday life.”

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Jeep has added a new Tuscadero exterior color to the 2021 Wrangler’s options, and it’s a bright pink. It joins Gecko, Hellayella, and Snazzberry on the list of flashy color options for the off-road SUV. The new pink costs $395 and is available through November, Jeep says. Jeep is adding a vibrant new pink exterior color choice for the 2021 Wrangler shortly after Ford added a few new colors to the Bronco’s palette for its second model year, which included Eruption Green and Hot Pepper Red.

The Wrangler’s new color choice is called Tuscadero, and it’s available on all Wranglers from the Sport model to the 470-hp Rubicon 392 and new plug-in hybrid 4xe. This includes both two- and four-door configurations with either a hard or soft top. Jeep says it’s only available on the Wrangler for now and didn’t comment on the color’s availability on the Gladiator mid-size pickup although it recently added the limited Gecko color to the Wrangler-based pickup. Tuscadero will cost $395 and is available to order now. Customers can do so through November. The option joins other exciting colors including Gecko, Hellayella, and Snazzberry. Pricing for the 2021 Wrangler starts at $30,565 and can reach up to $75,890 for the V-8–powered Rubicon 392.
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Aston Martin CEO Tobias Moers tells Car and Driver that future plug-in supercars will switch to AMG V-8s, made by the company he once headed. A high-performance DBX and a plug-in hybrid are under development. Valkyrie deliveries will start this year, and an even more extreme track-only version is planned.UPDATE 8/25/21: In an interview with Motor Trend, Aston Martin CEO Tobias Moers confirmed that a different DBX variant will debut this year before the high-performance version arrives in 2022. This new DBX model is expected to use the same supercharged 3.0-liter inline-six with a 48-volt hybrid system that is found in the Mercedes-AMG 53 models. When Tobias Moers became Aston Martin’s CEO last August, there was no doubt the former boss of AMG would make radical changes to the crisis-hit sports-car maker. The first part of this was stabilizing Aston’s position, cutting unsold inventory, and streamlining its production process. The second, now underway, involves some radical alterations to the English manufacturer’s future model strategy.

Aston had already begun to develop two entirely new mid-engine supercars, the Valhalla and Vanquish, which were set to use a hybridized V-6 powerplant the company was to engineer itself. That new engine has now been canceled, with Moers telling C/D he arrived to find that development on it had hardly begun. “If that engine had been ready to go, I would have been happy to go with it,” he said, when we interviewed him in Aston’s Gaydon, England, HQ this week, “but it was not here, unfortunately—it was only at a concept stage.”

Aston Martin Valhalla.
Aston Martin

Instead, Moers confirmed, both Valhalla and Vanquish will use AMG-sourced V-8 engines, although these will be substantially different from the customer-spec motors the company currently uses in the Vantage, DB11, and DBX, and will effectively be built around the company’s requirements. “We are going to create a bespoke engine for the Valhalla out of the V-8 toolbox of AMG, and the Vanquish will get another,” Moers said. “We will be able to make substantial changes, much more than before—you cannot just take a Black Series engine for example [that’s the one with the flat-plane crank] and put it into a mid-engine car. You need to change it. And we will do that ourselves.”The V-8 engines will be integrated with a plug-in-hybrid system that Aston will design and engineer itself, and which won’t come from Mercedes, according to Moers. “An electric-drive front axle will be standard in that segment by then, so we will have to create that ourselves,” Moers said, “also a gearbox which is capable of electrification.”Adding electrical assistance to both ends of the car suggests a layout similar to that of the Ferrari SF90 Stradale and one more advanced than that of the McLaren Artura, albeit some way behind it to market.Before coming to Aston Martin, Moers was largely responsible for the forthcoming AMG Project One, the car that features a detuned Formula 1 powerplant. As the only person in the world to have driven prototype versions of both cars, he is uniquely placed to compare them.

Aston Martin Valkyrie.
Aston Martin

“They are not rivals, they are totally different cars,” he said. “The Valkyrie is, from a car perspective, not really a car; it’s a two-seat Formula 1 experience. The Project One is much closer to a normal, standard vehicle, but one with a powertrain that is very bespoke.”Moers said he has committed more Aston Martin engineering resources into delivering the Valkyrie, which will be reaching customers this year. Production of the hypercar has also been moved to Aston’s Gaydon factory as part of a dramatic simplification of the company’s manufacturing activities. The previous plan had been to build it in a different facility. Company insiders say that the proposed AMR Pro track-only version is also being redesigned and made even more extreme. Moers admitted to also be considering other possibilities for the Valkyrie’s Cosworth-built naturally aspirated V-12 engine. “It is a huge investment [for one car]. I try to be creative about what else we could do with that.”

As for Aston’s existing sports-car lineup—the Vantage, DB11, and DBS Superleggera—Moers said these will be freshened with heavy facelifts. Expect these in early 2023. However, these will not include hybrid powerplants, he clarified. Instead they will continue with pure combustion power until they are replaced, with the company’s existing twin-turbocharged V-12 likely to retire due to tougher European emissions standards by 2027. Beyond that, Moers confirmed that Aston’s next-generation sports-car platform will be EV.More attention will be paid to the DBX range, delivering on the promise of range expansion made by Aston executive chairman Lawrence Stroll. The first variant will be a higher-performance derivative, due next year, with Moers saying this is targeted at offering more competition to the Lamborghini Urus: “Its life at the top is a bit too comfortable at the moment.” Beyond that, a plug-in-hybrid version will follow in 2023, and it’s set to use the same AMG V-8 plug-in architecture, which will carry “73 AMG” branding when fitted to Mercedes models. Plans to relaunch the long-dormant Lagonda brand were put on ice before Moers’s arrival, and the new CEO says it is likely to stay there for some time longer. “We just have to focus fully on Aston,” he said. “I like the idea of doing a Lagonda, but we have to keep it to one side at the moment.”This story was originally published May 11, 2021.
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Lucid announced that the Air Dream Edition, the exclusive launch model, will be sold in two versions: the Performance and Range.The Performance will get 1111 horsepower and a claimed sub-2.5-second sprint to 60 mph, while the Range makes 993 horsepower.Both the Range and Performance will cost $169,000, and Lucid says it will reach out to reservation holders soon to see which variant they want.The global COVID-19 pandemic and resulting parts shortages have caused enormous headaches for some of the world’s biggest automakers, so unsurprisingly the pandemic has also brought challenges for fledgling startups like Lucid Motors. The company’s first product, the electric Air sedan, was originally slated to begin production in the spring of this year, but deliveries were delayed to the end of 2021. Now Lucid is updating the options for the exclusive launch model, the Air Dream Edition, announcing that it will come in two variants: the Dream Edition Performance and the Dream Edition Range.

Lucid

Previously, the Dream Edition had been announced as a single specification that brought 1080 horsepower and a claimed 503 miles of range. Now the Dream Edition will be split into Performance and Range models, with the Performance’s powertrain “optimized for speed and acceleration” while the Range is focused on maximizing driving range. The Performance will produce 1111 horsepower to the Range’s 933 ponies, and both will have more than 737 pound-feet of torque. Lucid claims the Range will hit 60 mph in 2.7 seconds while the Performance will drop that number before 2.5 seconds en route to a 168-mph top speed for both. They will wear Pirelli P Zero tires, but the Performance will receive a staggered setup with standard 21-inch wheels while the Range will get 19-inch wheels, although both trims can be had with the alternate wheel option.

The EPA range certification process is still ongoing, but Lucid recently drove two Dream Edition Range models 445 miles from Los Angeles to Lucid’s headquarters outside of San Francisco on a single charge. While impressive, this was a one-off event, and the impending EPA certification should provide a clearer picture of the car’s true range. Lucid says it will reach out to Dream Edition reservation holders soon to see which version they want. Both will cost the same $169,000 that the Dream Edition had previously been announced at. The Dream Edition is scheduled to be delivered later this year with the lesser Grand Touring model arriving soon after.
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The G-wagen 4×4 Squared is arguably one of the coolest vehicles ever to come from Mercedes-Benz. With its revamped suspension, fender flares, and massive tires, it was the perfect SUV to stand out amongst the masses of standard G-wagens, Range Rovers, and Porsche Cayennes on Rodeo Drive. It’s no surprise then, to see a new version testing on the streets of Los Angeles.

A video published on YouTube last week by KindelAuto shows what looks to be an upcoming 4×4 Squared based on the newest generation of G-wagen. Like the original, the taller ride height, gigantic rubber, and accompanying flares are clearly visible and on display, despite the selectively applied camouflage there to hide it.Interestingly, this test mule doesn’t seem to have the rally-derived parallel suspension uprights on each corner found on first 4×4 Squared, so it’s possible this could be a highly modified tuner special based on a standard G63. But given the Michigan manufacturer plates out back, we’re inclined to believe this is a real Mercedes test mule. Either way, we’re all for more G-wagens with fender flares and off-road tires. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a new 4×4 Squared out testing shod in camouflage. Back in February, a video surfaced online of two test mules testing in the snow somewhere in Europe wearing similar equipment.

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The Porsche Taycan enters the 2022 model year with new colors and technology. Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur is offering 65 additional colors, Android Auto capability has been added, a remote-park feature is newly available, and the battery packs can precondition to slightly higher temperatures to help reduce charging times. They’ll arrive by the end of the year starting at $81,250. The electric Porsche Taycan, including its new Cross Turismo ruggedized wagon model, is now Porsche’s third best-selling vehicle in North America behind the Cayenne and Macan, which will soon spawn an EV variant. It’s entering the 2022 model year with a heap of new colors to choose from, an available remote-park feature, and, finally, Android Auto capability.

Porsche

Porsche

Through Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur, you can now get the Taycan in 65 additional colors including classics like Acid Green, Rubystar (pictured), and Riviera Blue. If none of those or the 17 other standard color choices fit what you desire, Porsche says it will custom paint the Taycan to almost any color imaginable.

Other updates include an available remote-park feature that can park the car without a driver in the seat via a smartphone app, similar to Tesla’s Summon feature. Android Auto capability, also newly available on the 911, Cayenne, and Panamera, joins Apple Car Play in Porsche’s infotainment system, which includes various other changes for its sixth generation. Porsche says that the Taycan’s 71.0-kWh and 83.7-kWh battery packs can now precondition to slightly higher temperatures than before, which should help them charge marginally faster. Taycans have an 800-volt architecture and can charge at a maximum of 270 kilowatts. The EPA has yet to announce the 2022 model’s range estimates, but for the 2021 model year, the packs were estimated at up to 200 and 227 miles of range depending on configuration. The 2022 Taycans will begin arriving in showrooms by the end of the year starting at $81,250 for the base rear-wheel-drive model, the same as the previous model year.

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