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Land Rover has unveiled a new special-edition version of the 2024 Range Rover called the Carmel Edition.It’s finished in an exclusive white exterior paint and has interior bits including tan and maroon leather and ceramic trim pieces.It stickers for $371,475 and only seven units will be produced.Range Rover SUVs already reach into the upper echelons of price and exclusivity with their $200,000+ SV models that offer a wide range of customization options, but this new Carmel Edition goes even higher. Revealed at Monterey Car Week 2023, this new version of the 2024 Range Rover stickers for $371,475 and only seven will be built specially for those who were invited to the Range Rover House experience in California.The Carmel Edition is based on the top long-wheelbase SV model with the 606-hp version of the twin-turbo 4.4-liter V-8 engine. Its unique exterior and interior treatments are surprisingly subtle, starting with the SV Bespoke Special Effect Gloss white paint and the 23-inch wheels with white inserts. Inside, it features the four-seat interior with a fold-out table and a fridge, and the cabin is finished in two-tone Perlino and Deep Garnet leather. There’s also Cream Ash Burr veneer and white ceramic trim, along with Pearl Oyster accents, embroidered cushions, and door sills denoting the special edition as one of seven.Land RoverLand RoverFor all the extra money that the Carmel Edition costs over the standard $235,475 Range Rover SV model, these lucky seven buyers do get a set of Titleist golf clubs and other bits of Range Rover swag. Land Rover also says that a portion of the money from the sale of these vehicles will be donated to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.More on the Range RoverThis content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Senior EditorDespite being raised on a steady diet of base-model Hondas and Toyotas—or perhaps because of it—Joey Capparella nonetheless cultivated an obsession for the automotive industry throughout his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. He found a way to write about cars for the school newspaper during his college years at Rice University, which eventually led him to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for his first professional auto-writing gig at Automobile Magazine. He has been part of the Car and Driver team since 2016 and now lives in New York City.   More

Rolls-Royce unveiled its latest coachbuilt automobile, the Droptail, during Monterey Car Week.A total of four Droptails will be built, each highly personalized.The first Droptail is named La Rose Noire and is said to be inspired by the Black Baccara rose varietal.Rolls-Royce has long indulged requests from its clients seeking special design elements, be they an embroidered falcon in the headliner or a baby’s footprints in the dash trim. But recently, the company has taken this effort up a notch, from a “bespoke” level of specialness to a new level: “coachbuild.” The first product from Crewe to flex those muscles was the Sweptail, back in 2017, a two-door fastback that looked much like the Wraith but was based on the Phantom. Next came the Boat Tail, a nearly roofless tapered-bodied coupe with butterfly doors covered in Caleidolegno-wood veneer over the luggage compartment, from which a sun parasol could be deployed. The tale of custom ‘tails now continues with the Droptail, which is again an open coupe but this time with seating for just two.This project was more extensive than the previous efforts. The Droptail’s architecture is described as a monocoque made from steel, aluminum, and carbon fiber. The car is some 10 inches shorter than a Ghost, and the body is a combination of steel (doors, front fenders) and carbon fiber (rear quarter-panels, trunklid). The 6.7-liter V-12 here got a 30-hp bump over the standard Phantom spec to 593 horsepower, and torque is increased to 620 pound-feet.The first of the four Droptail efforts makes its debut at The Quail during Car Week. Dubbed La Rose Noire, it takes inspiration from a type of rose that the commissioning owners have a particular penchant for. The Baccara Rose informs the exterior colors, which appear to be red and black, but the latter has dark red highlights. The brightwork also wears a unique dark finish. The upright elements in the Rolls grille are angled, for the first time, and the lower air intake features 202 individual rectangular projects, a three-dimensional twist on mesh.Inside, 1603 pieces of black sycamore wood trim veneer are used to create a design that suggests rose petals scattered in the wind. An (also custom-designed) Audemars Piguet watch is mounted into the dash but also can be removed and worn. And there’s a special champagne storage compartment that stores (at the correct temperature) champagne from the clients’ own vineyard. Three other Droptail commissions are still to come, each with its own specific detailing.Related StoriesUnsurprisingly, there was no Monroney price sticker stuck on the window of the Droptail, and it seemed gauche to ask the price. But if you’re considering having Rolls build one for you, know that the previous commission, the Boat Tail, is rumored to have cost around $28 million, so we’d guess the Droptail is in the same neighborhood. Deputy Editor, Reviews and FeaturesJoe Lorio has been obsessed with cars since his Matchbox days, and he got his first subscription to Car and Driver at age 11. Joe started his career at Automobile Magazine under David E. Davis Jr., and his work has also appeared on websites including Amazon Autos, Autoblog, AutoTrader, Hagerty, Hemmings, KBB, and TrueCar. More

Northern Californian company Aska showed this prototype of a flying car during Monterey Car Week that it hopes to produce within two to three years.The Aska A5 flying vehicle can take off both vertically and horizontally, an improvement on the “flying car” idea.The plan is to use these planes as rentals or taxis, priced at around $800,000, and 100 prospective buyers have already placed reservations, a spokesman told Car and Driver.Flying cars have been teased as a someday technology for decades, long before self-driving cars became the just-around-the-corner technology to chase. A few, such as Terrafugia, made real strides but, ultimately never made it to market. Now there’s a new player promising to land the dream in two or three years’ time.Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying MachinesAska, a company located in Northern California, has been engineering a solution with a team of about 50 for the past six years, and we got a quick (land-bound) ride in its first prototype during the Monterey Car Week happenings. It’s still very early, and rough, but Aska has a further innovation on the flying-car concept, as it can take off vertically as well as horizontally like a typical plane. That means it could get in and out of much smaller spaces. In fact, CEO and co-founder Guy Kaplinsky has grand visions of converting gas stations, many of which he sees going out of business with the transition to electric cars, into landing pads for his creation.Dave VanderWerp|Car and DriverThe Aska A5 will seat four, and is propelled through the air by six propellers, four of which can rotate from a vertical to horizontal orientation to facilitate the transition from takeoff to flight. The Aska can also take off conventionally, in which case its acceleration is boosted by an electric motor at each rear wheel. Power for the 5000-to-6000-pound craft—Kaplinsky promises the production version will be lighter—comes from a roughly 100.0-kWh battery pack, with a gas-powered range extender to make more electricity when needed. Flying range is a claimed 250 mph with a 150-mph cruising speed. Dave VanderWerp|Car and DriverTo convert to driving configuration, the front and rear wings fold over the fuselage, which takes about a minute, and the wings have to be secured to keep them from bouncing around with road impacts. This is currently a manual process, but an auto-locking mechanism is right around the corner, according to Kaplinsky. Really, a more accurate name is a “driving plane” rather than a “flying car,” however, as the Aska won’t meet all of the regulatory requirements to be fully street legal. Instead, it will be registered as a neighborhood electric vehicle. Dave VanderWerp|Car and DriverKaplinsky envisions that the driving part would be typically fewer than 10 miles, just to get to an appropriate takeoff location, and that the A5 would typically be operated as a rental or taxi. He says he already has 100 reservations for his craft, which will cost just $800,000. The company has recently begun unmanned hovering as they go down the path of FAA approval. We hope the flying car really makes it this time.Director, Vehicle TestingDave VanderWerp has spent more than 20 years in the automotive industry, in varied roles from engineering to product consulting, and now leading Car and Driver’s vehicle-testing efforts. Dave got his very lucky start at C/D by happening to submit an unsolicited resume at just the right time to land a part-time road warrior job when he was a student at the University of Michigan, where he immediately became enthralled with the world of automotive journalism. More

Currently awaiting U.S. Senate approval, the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act seeks to make AM radio a mandated requirement of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).Lawmakers point out that AM radio is still useful in emergencies; manufacturers argue that it’s old tech.Various manufacturers have been dropping AM radio as a feature, particularly in EVs. A bipartisan bill currently before the U.S. Senate, the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act, aims to regulate exactly what you think it does. It has already passed the Senate Commerce Committee, and it seems likely that legislation will soon be passed to keep AM radio in new vehicles. The act is waiting for full Senate approval, which won’t happen until at least after the August recess.[When] the internet gets cut off or the TV doesn’t work because of no power to your house, you can still turn on your [car’s] AM radio.”—Rep. Josh Gottheimer On one hand, the politicians behind the AM Act make some good points. Manufacturers including Ford, Volkswagen, and Tesla have quietly removed AM radio functionality from some of their new products, although Ford later changed course and announced that its 2024 models will still have AM capability. Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey said in a press release, “The importance of AM radio during large-scale emergencies cannot be underestimated, and it has, without a doubt and without interruption, saved lives and kept our communities informed. When the cellphone runs out, the internet gets cut off, or the television doesn’t work because of no electricity or power to your house, you can still turn on your [car’s] AM radio.”Why Not Just Use Smartphones?Pushback coming from manufacturer trade associations points out that cellphones are much better at broadcasting emergency alerts and can include hyperlinks with directions and information. The vast majority of cellphone users in the U.S. own smartphones, and the new iPhone 14 even has satellite link capability for emergency services. Commercial AM radio audiences have shrunk, and streaming audio is far more common. Maybe it’s time to move on.AM radio is the longest-running form of in-car audio, unless you count singing when behind the wheel. The very first aftermarket radios began showing up in the 1920s and 1930s, though they were expensive and very bulky. An early Blaupunkt car radio, for instance, cost a third the price of a new car and was the size of a suitcase.Sound EffectsAnd the kind of radio you could pick up on in those early days is absolutely mind-boggling. In 1932, when you could get a Motorola radio for your Ford Model A, the 300-foot towers at XER in Mexico were cranked up to one million watts. The broadcasting range reportedly stretched to Mexico, but accounts at the time said people were picking up the station on their telephones, bedsprings, fillings, and even barbed wire fences.AM Radio’s Wild PastThe man behind the XER “border blaster” (it was situated just across the border from Del Rio, Texas) was one of America’s most bizarre quacks and charlatans. John R. Brinkley made his fortune as the goat gland doctor, performing thousands of operations where he claimed to insert goat testicles in people to cure impotence. His radio station broadcast all sorts of highly questionable medical advice, advertised miracle cures, and to fill time he hosted up-and-coming musicians. Brinkley launched the career of the likes of Gene Autry, and deserves at least partial credit for the popular spread of country music. He earned millions yet died penniless, though don’t shed too many tears as in the latter part of his life he became a really big fan of Adolf Hitler.Later in AM radio’s Wild West period, a New Yorker named Robert Smith showed up in Del Rio, lured after having heard Hank Williams and Johnny Cash on the XERF radio station. He changed his name to Wolfman Jack and ended up spreading blues, jazz, and rock music all across a fairly repressed America. Kids in jalopies cruised at night, listening to Mexican pirate radio. The Wolfman was a sufficient icon of the time to show up later in American Graffiti.Later you had Art Bell’s Coast to Coast AM, beaming out discussions of the paranormal in the wee hours of the morning. Sports radio. Talk radio. Call in shows. Hit shows about fictional stations like WKRP (in Cincinnati) or KACL (Go ahead, Seattle, Dr. Frasier Crane is listening). AM radio outlived the eight-track, the cassette tape, and is currently watching the CD player being phased out.Can’t Beat the PriceAccording to a Nielsen survey done in the fall of last year, more than 82 million Americans still tune into AM radio on a monthly basis. It’s still a great go-to for traffic alerts and sports, and whether this legislation is government overreach is exactly the kind of thing that gets hotly debated on AM talk radio shows.Keeping AM radio in cars is, at worst, a small added expense for manufacturers that they’ll have to pass on. But as more and more entertainment options and even features embrace the subscription model, AM radio is still free. That might be an outdated idea these days, but it’s one worth keeping around. This content is imported from poll. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.Contributing EditorBrendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki’s half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels. More