Motor News

Neiman Marcus’s 94th annual Christmas Book launched today, and the legendary Fantasy Gifts list this year includes a bespoke luxury travel trailer from Bowlus Road Chief.
Based on the Endless Highways Performance Edition of the company’s bright silver trailer, the custom camper will be personalized for one lucky recipient by Geneva Long, CEO of Bowlus.
The shiny trailer carries a $255,000 price tag, but $10,000 of that will go to charity.
A customized trailer from luxury travel-trailer manufacturer Bowlus Road Chief has made Neiman Marcus’s Fantasy Gifts list in the 94th edition of the retailer’s annual Christmas Book. A single trailer will be offered for sale with an eye-watering price of $255,000. For that price, Bowlus Road Chief CEO Geneva Long will consult one on one with the lucky recipient to create a truly personalized design for the trailer’s interior.

Bowlus Road Chief

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The Neiman Marcus trailer is based on Bowlus’s Endless Highways Performance Edition model, which measures 26 feet and can sleep up to four adults. If the trailer’s shimmering polished-aluminum exterior presents an Airstream-like appearance, that’s because this company’s history and design stretch back to the 1930s and inspired copycat travel trailers including those manufactured by Airstream today.
Custom elements of the Neiman Marcus trailer include carefully selected kitchen and table linens, a dinner service for four, coordinated interior accessories, and a pair of outdoor chairs. The company will let the buyer choose among more than 35 bedding options, 40-plus flooring options, more than 100 different awnings, and more than 400 interior seating choices. In all, there are at least 56 million possible unique combinations.

Bowlus Road Chief

Modern-day Bowlus models take a high-tech approach to luxury over-the-road travel and use lithium-ion battery packs similar to those found in electric vehicles to provide enough energy for an entire week of off-grid camping. The trailers are handmade in California and $10,000 from the purchase price of the Neiman Marcus model will go to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

Endless Highways Travel Trailer
bowlusroadchief.com
$190,000.00

For those who miss out on the Neiman Marcus one-off, Bowlus suggests its Endless Highways trailer, starting at $190,000, or the Performance Edition model for $225,000.
Other items on this year’s Fantasy Gift list include a custom-designed home library with hand-chosen books and furniture from Assouline, a year of wellness and self-improvement coaching via Canyon Ranch Resort and Spa in Arizona, a Jonathan Adler–designed custom game room, a set of six exotic-gemstone rings by high-end jeweler Oscar Heyman, and beef for a year from the Perini Ranch in Texas, which includes an in-person excursion to the ranch.

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Volkswagen and Greece have agreed to replace internal-combustion-powered vehicles with EVs on the island of Astypalea to create a “smart green island.”
In addition to EVs, the island will also have electric scooters and bikes and a charging infrastructure installed.
The project is expected to last six years and will be powered by wind and solar energy.
The transition from internal-combustion engines to electric vehicles will take decades. Even if automakers overnight switched to building more EVs than gasoline-powered vehicles, the petrol-powered legacy will survive for years. It certainly seems that the only way to make the transportation system substantially greener is to switch out the gas cars for electric ones, and that’s what Volkswagen and Greece are doing with the island of Astypalea.

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The German automaker and the Greek government have come to an agreement to make Astypalea a “smart green island.” The plan is to transition the current transportation to EVs and mobility services and implement renewable power generation. The plan includes replacing 1500 gas-powered vehicles with 1000 EVs, installing charging stations, bringing in e-scooters and e-bikes, and replacing the current bus system with ride-sharing and car-sharing solutions.

Volkswagen

In addition to private vehicles, police, emergency services, and fleet vehicles will transition to EVs. The energy needed to power all of this for the 38.6-square-mile Mediterranean island will be provided by local solar and wind energy.
While the island itself has only approximately 1300 residents, it’s visited by 72,000 tourists each year. VW and Greece haven’t named a date when this transition will take place, but the project is expected to run for six years.
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Set to launch in the middle of the month, this new $200 Lego set blends nostalgia for the 1984 film with play features from the new Ghostbusters: Afterlife movie, due in mid-2021.
Polish up your “Who you gonna call?” lines as you put together the latest version of the 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor hearse.
This is the third official ECTO-1 Lego set, but the others had around 500 pieces, compared to the 2000-plus here.
While we wait for the new Ghostbusters movie to escape COVID quarantine (Ghostbusters: Afterlife was supposed to open in July but has now been pushed back to June 2021), Lego can’t wait to give us something to do with our time: build a deluxe version of the ECTO-1.
Based on a converted 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor hearse, the original ECTO-1 from the classic 1984 movie made our list of Coolest Movie Cars of All Time, where we called it a “classic for an entire generation.” Even though this new Lego set is based on the version in the upcoming movie, we’re not at all surprised that the new Lego set feeds adult nostalgia while also being current with the upcoming movie.

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One of the main benefits of Lego is the fact that you can use the pieces to build the ECTO-1 you want, but the new ECTO-1 set includes features including a Remote Trap Vehicle that firmly connect it to the upcoming movie. There are also plenty of moving features such as doors (obviously) and a roof-mounted T. U. Antenna that rotates when the rear wheels move. Lego fan sites are mostly enjoying the new set, with The Brothers Brick Lego fan site saying it is a “superb rendition of the ECTO-1” and that it “looks spot-on from all sides.”

Lego

This is the third official ECTO-1 set Lego has made, and it’s much larger and more complicated than the previous versions. The first ECTO-1, from 2014, had 508 pieces, while a 2016 edition had 556 pieces. This new version, which looks like (but isn’t, technically) part of Lego’s adult-focused Ultimate Collector Series, contains 2352 pieces.

Lego

Lego has also sold a deluxe Ghostbusters firehouse set, a Brickheads pack featuring Peter Venkman and Slimer, and two small packs for its short-lived Dimensions video game.

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Lego is dealing with other delayed movies in the same way as it’s tackling Ghostbusters, selling sets based on both Wonder Woman 1984 and Black Widow, even though neither movie is yet available in theaters or on demand. At least we know when the new ECTO-1 will arrive: The Lego Ghostbusters ECTO-1 set costs $199.99 and will be available November 15.
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This article originally appeared in Road & Track in 2016, when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, and we’re bringing it back in 2020 as Biden prepares to address the nation on November 7, 2020, as President Elect.—Ed.
If you’re a gearhead, you might not want to run for president or vice president. Why? The main reason is that our heads of state aren’t allowed to drive while they’re in office or for six months after they leave. So if you’re a president or VP who loves driving, it could be nearly nine years after first being elected until you’re allowed to drive again. That sucks.
That’s the exact predicament that Vice President Biden has been in since he took office. He has a cherry 1967 Corvette that he’s only been allowed to drive three times since he took office. Three times. That has to be a little bit of hell.

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So when Biden gets the chance to hop behind the wheel of his car, he doesn’t waste the opportunity. This time it was for an episode of Jay Leno’s Garage, and with Leno riding shotgun, Biden immediately gets in the car and smokes the tires.

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What’s also apparent is just how happy he is to be back behind the wheel. Regardless of your politics, it’s always great to see a fellow gearhead reunited with his beloved car. And it’s also great to know that if Biden weren’t in office, he’d be driving this Vette as much as possible. Now he just has to wait until June 2017 before he’s allowed to hop behind the wheel again, unfettered. It’s not that far off!

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Big manufacturers have leaned hard into the crate-engine game. Chevrolet sells nearly 80 different stand-alone motors, while Dodge just added a fifth V-8—a supercharged Hemi—to its crate engine lineup. Ford currently has a healthy selection of crate motors available through its Performance Parts division. According to this latest report, that selection could expand to include the engine from the Mustang Shelby GT500.

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“We’re in early control-pack development right now to be able to run the engine,” Ford Performance product manager of engines, drivetrain, and calibrations Mike Goodwin told Ford Authority in a recent interview. “It’s a little simpler setup because it’s not full [direct injection] like the Gen 3 Coyote is, but we are working on that.”
The engine in question, nicknamed Predator, is a derivative of the naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V-8 in the Shelby GT350. It uses a cross-plane crankshaft, port injection, and a supercharger. In the GT500, it makes 760 horsepower and 625 lb-ft of torque, though it’s not clear Ford will increase or decrease output if it’s sold in crate form.
As Ford Authority points out, this V-8 would be the most powerful engine in Ford’s crate-motor lineup, should it be made available. Currently, the most powerful crate engine you can buy from the company is its naturally aspirated 572-cubic-inch V-8, which makes 655 horsepower and 710 lb-ft of torque.
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After a great deal of painstaking research last month, I was able to determine that the very last three-speed automatic available in a new car in North America came in the 2002 Toyota Corolla/Geo Prizm. After that, I hunted down the identity of the last new car available here with a four-speed manual transmission (the 1996 Toyota Tercel). It turned out to be much tougher to determine the very last new car North Americans could buy with the good old three-on-the-tree column-shift manual transmission, but now I know.

Plymouth Division, Chrysler Corporation

Chrysler put the three-speed column-shift manual on the map back in the 1939 model year, with the “Remote Control” shifter setup in the ’39 Plymouths. This rig allowed the use of a big, cushy bench seat and three-abreast seating, without a floor shifter banging into anyone’s knees.

Plymouth Division, Chrysler Corporation

Other manufacturers followed suit, and most Detroit cars of the immediate postwar era came off the assembly line with three-on-the-tree manual transmissions. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, most affordable American cars used this setup, and the three-on-the-tree remained commonplace well into the 1960s. I came of driving age in the early 1980s, and three-on-the-trees were still semi-mainstream at that point… but they disappeared quickly after that.

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If you ask a bunch of nitpicky car-history freaks to name the very last car you could buy new in North America with a three-on-the-tree, you’ll get a wide range of answers, delivered with varying levels of vehemence. The main candidates will boil down to the Chevy Nova, the Dodge Aspen, and the Ford Fairmont (and the badge-engineered siblings of those cars). The final new truck you could buy with a three-on-the-tree is another subject, but we’ll cut to the chase by letting you know it was a 1987 GM product.

Chevrolet Division, General Motors

I purchased sales brochures and owner’s manuals for numerous models, consulted with an incredibly knowledgeable Chrysler restorer with a complete set of dealership reference books from the 1970s, and dove down far too many online-forum rabbit holes populated by very angry old dudes to determine that the absolute last three-on-the-tree car available here was the 1979 Chevrolet Nova (and its Oldsmobile and Pontiac twins).

Chevrolet Division, General Motors

1979 was the final year for the rear-wheel-drive GM X-Body, and the three-on-the-tree died with the platform (the Citation and its siblings were based on an unrelated front-wheel-drive X platform).

Chevrolet Division, General Motors

You could buy three-on-the-floor manual transmissions in Detroit cars after 1979, but that’s a tale we’ll tell a bit later. The very last year for a Chrysler-built, American-market new car with a three-on-the-tree manual was 1978, when the Dodge Aspen, Plymouth Volaré, Dodge Monaco and Plymouth Fury could be purchased with a 1939 Plymouth-style shifter (your enraged uncle who swears he bought a new ’80 Volaré with a three-on-the-tree is wrong, sorry). American Motors ditched the three-on-the-tree earlier, with the 1976 Pacer and Hornet being the last Kenosha machines so equipped.

Chevrolet Division, General Motors

In theory, the first-year Ford Fairmont could be purchased with a three-on-the-tree manual, which makes 1978 the last year for a Ford car with such a shifting rig, but I am extremely skeptical that anyone in Dearborn actually signed off on spending vast sums of money to build a one-year-only bespoke steering column for a desperately obsolete shifter configuration on the brand-new Fox platform. Most likely, the 1977 Ford Maverick/Mercury Comet was the final real-world three-on-the-tree Ford car here. If it turns out that three-on-the-tree Fairmonts really made it off the assembly line, then someone needs to build a three-on-the-tree 1990s Fox Mustang using that special steering column.

Since the 1979 Oldsmobile Omega and Pontiac Phoenix were mechanically identical to the Nova, the three-on-the-tree was the base transmission hardware available on the entry-level versions of those cars. However, anyone willing to buy the Pontiac- or Olds-badged Nova probably felt able to spring for the automatic or at least the three- or four-speed floor-shifted manual transmission in those cars, and I’ll bet close to zero three-on-the-tree Omegas or Phoenixes made it out of the showrooms in 1979. When the new Oldsmobiles were in early for 1980, the three-on-the-tree was history.
So, next time you’re talking about the racing prowess of the three-on-the-tree and someone claims the ’80 Aspen could be purchased with that most American of transmission hardware, set them straight with the truth: the 1979 Nova, Omega and Phoenix were the final three-on-the-tree cars sold new here.

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Last week, we set our sights on the very real task of finding the most reliable car possible for $5000, but this week’s challenge is rooted in fantasy. For our 34th episode, we decided to ask the Window Shop crew to show us which cars they’d buy if they won the lottery and suddenly had $1,000,000 to burn.
Not surprisingly, the challenge was met with a lot of Italian exotics of different vintages but also one very curious and rare Gumpert Apollo, a mid-engine supercar that contributing editor Jonathon Ramsey selected. It turns out Ramsey has actually driven one and knows quite a bit more about the beast—and its Audi RS6–sourced engine—than the rest of the crew. Undaunted, we pick apart his choice of supercar, discover it can get stuck on a speed bump, and then question if it’s even street legal.
With John Pearley Huffman out for the week, we invited contributor Scott Oldham to spend an imaginary million dollars with us. He picked a Ferrari worthy of the Cannonball Run. Senior editor Joey Capparella also went with a Ferrari but his is more modern and has over $60,000 worth of options.Capparella and Oldham aren’t the only two editors to think alike. Deputy testing director K.C. Colwell and I both landed on iconic Lancias. And unlike Ramsey’s Apollo, you can definitely drive either of these rally cars on the street.
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Hyundai has announced that its performance-oriented 2021 Sonata N Line will start at $34,195, compared with the $24,595 base price of the standard Sonata.
The vehicle will have 290 horsepower and 311 ft-lb of torque from a turbocharged 2.5-liter engine.
The 2021 Hyundai Sonata N Line will be in dealerships in November.
If you wish the Hyundai Sonata were faster and don’t mind dropping an additional 10 grand for performance, the 2021 Sonata N Line, starting at $34,195, could be your answer. This is the first Sonata in Hyundai’s performance-oriented N Line trim, and it is expected to appear in dealerships in November.

Hyundai

The N Line Sonata makes 290 horsepower and 311 ft-lb of torque from a 2.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine. For comparison, the 2020 Sonata’s 2.5-liter makes 191 hp. Hyundai added the extra 99 hp by swapping out the head (which has an integrated exhaust manifold), adding unique internals, and of course adding a turbocharger.
An eight-speed dual-clutch transmission similar to the one in the Veloster N and a tuned suspension round out the performance elements of the upcoming Sonata.

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Design-wise, the vehicle is outfitted with 19-inch wheels and a choice of all-season or optional summer tires, which will set customers back an additional $200. A rear spoiler, dual exhaust, N badging, N Line–specific front and rear fascias, and a panoramic sunroof will let others on the road know this isn’t the typical Sonata.
Hyundai says the sedan will have its own unique exhaust note and launch control. The automaker didn’t share a claimed zero-to-60-mph time, but we look forward to putting the quicker Sonata to the test.
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