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Aston Martin plans to launch the first electric model in the company’s history by 2025.Before the EV, Aston will start delivering its first plug-in hybrid–the Valhalla pictured above–in 2024.Aston also says that all of its models will be available with an electrified powertrain by 2026.For anyone who hasn’t figured it out by now, the auto industry is having a moment. It seems every other day another automaker is parading its plans to transition to an entirely electric lineup by the end of the decade. Today it’s Aston Martin’s turn. To no one’s surprise, the company is targeting 2030 as the expiration date of new models with internal-combustion engines. Of course, there’s a chance it’ll still build gas-burning special editions outside its core lineup. Besides that predictable announcement, though, Aston also says it’ll launch its first electric model by 2025.

A few years ago, the 600-hp Aston Martin Rapide E was earmarked to be the British automaker’s first production EV. We even got some seat time in a prototype before Aston canceled plans to build a limited run of 155 copies. Whatever the company’s brass learned from that experience, it looks like they’re ready to try again. This time around, we have no idea what body style the first Aston EV will be, but this author is willing to bet a year’s salary it won’t be another four-door sedan. Could there be an electric version of the DBX SUV? Or perhaps the next-generation Vanquish will be available with an electric option. After all, it’s now expected to launch in 2025, which conveniently aligns with Aston’s timeline.

Aston Martin

Before the British brand’s first EV arrives, the 937-hp Valhalla–Aston’s first plug-in hybrid–will start deliveries in 2024. That model will kick-start the planned transition to an electric lineup by the end of the decade. Within four years, Aston says every model in its lineup will be available with an electrified powertrain. That means if the DBX or the Vantage is around for the 2026 model year, they’ll be offered with some type of hybrid option, if not a full-blown electric version. In the meantime, Aston is keen to let the world know that the light is green going forward when it comes to targeting net-zero carbon emissions. Welcome to the club.
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The 20,000th Lamborghini Huracán has been built, an STO painted in Grigio Acheso Matt, destined for a customer in Monaco.71 percent of Huracán buyers have gone for coupes, while 32 percent of sales have been in the United States.Lamborghini says that 60 percent of Huracáns have been customized by the company’s Ad Personam program.For most of Lamborghini’s history, the Italian supercar marque managed to sell only a few hundred vehicles per year. But this changed when the Gallardo arrived in 2003—the junior V-10 supercar sold just over 14,000 units during a ten-year production run. This blew its predecessor, the V-8–powered Jalpa, out of the water, with only 410 Jalpas being sold between 1981 and 1988. But the Gallardo’s follow-up, the Huracán, has proved even more successful, and Lamborghini announced on Thursday that it has built the 20,000th example of the V-10–powered supercar that entered production in 2014.

Lamborghini

The 20,000th Huracán to roll off the line in Sant’Agata Bolognese was an STO, the high-performance, track-focused version that draws inspiration from the Huracán EVO Super Trofeo race car. This record-setting STO was finished in Grigio Acheso Matt paint for a customer in Monaco.

With the announcement, Lamborghini provided some details on how Huracán customers have ordered their supercars so far. 71 percent of Huracán owners have opted for a coupe version, while the remaining 29 percent wanted the ability to drop the top to better hear the naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V-10 sing. The United States has been the Huracán’s biggest market, with 32 percent of sales, with the U.K. and the China completing the top three.The majority of Huracáns have come with some form of personalization, with 60 percent of the 20,000 units sold so far being decked out by Lamborghini’s Ad Personam customization program. Lamborghini says that customers have taken inspiration for colors, trims, and materials from everything from furniture and clothing to makeup and precious stones. Central Europe, Japan, and the U.K. have been the biggest markets for the Ad Personam division. With STO production underway and the recent introduction of the Tecnica model, the Huracán should continue racking up sales before a plug-in hybrid model arrives in 2024.
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• This 1978 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz embodied Cadillac’s unique approach to luxury in the 1970s.• The ninth-generation Eldorado was a symbol of wealth and success when it was new, especially in full-fat Biarritz trim, but its appeal faded and many were scrapped in the 1990s.• This low-mileage coupe is for sale right now on Bring a Trailer, and the auction ends on April 25.You’d never guess this by walking through the traffic jam of classic European econoboxes in my garage, but I love American land yachts. My parents owned a series of bargelike General Motors cars when I was a kid—I remember my dad having to park his 1985 Oldsmobile Delta 88 diagonally to fit it in our garage—but none were as special as my step-grandfather’s Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. These massive Cadillacs have amassed a following in recent years, and there is what looks like an unusually well-kept 1978 Eldorado Biarritz currently live on Bring a Trailer – which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos.

Finished in Ruidoso Saddle Metallic, this old-school coupe effortlessly illustrates what Cadillac stood for in the 1970s. It says “I’ve got it made” without trying or leaning too far towards the ostentatious side of the scale. It didn’t need to: everyone knew what they were looking at. In a way, the spot that Cadillac occupied in popular culture during the 1970s was like the one that Mercedes-Benz currently enjoys. It’s not a Chevrolet Chevette or a Chrysler Cordoba that Johnny Cash built in “One Piece at a Time.”

Bring a Trailer

The stately Eldorado was a big deal, too; it was the epitome of the personal luxury car, that nebulous segment that embarked on a nosedive in the 1980s and crashed hard during the 1990s. The one listed on Bring a Trailer cost $15,074 new, which represents about $66,700 in 2022, and it’s optioned with a six-way power-adjustable front passenger seat, a tilting steering column, cruise control, and a cassette player. And, look at those Biarritz-specific pillow seats! I’d bet the inflation-adjusted cost of the optional rear window defogger that they’re at least as comfortable as the seats Cadillac puts in the 2022 CT5.

Bring a Trailer

Poke your head into the cavernous engine bay and you’ll meet a 425-cubic-inch (that’s 7.0 liters) V-8 that lazily developed 180 horsepower and a stout 320 pound-feet of torque. Front-wheel drive, which the Eldorado adopted for the 1967 model year, and a three-speed automatic transmission came standard.

Bring a Trailer

Calling the ninth-generation Eldorado rare wouldn’t be accurate: Cadillac produced 46,816 units during the 1978 model year, which was last call before the drastically downsized 10th-generation model landed in showrooms. But two things make this example special: first, it survived. By the 1990s, these big coupes were widely considered anachronisms, and not very exotic ones, and many were driven into the ground by a succession of increasingly careless owners. When I was growing up in Utah in the 2000s, when Cadillac was leveraging Art and Science to disassociate itself from land yachts, the Eldorado was a common sight in self-service junkyards or beached next to barns in rural parts of the state, landau roof–deep in weeds with rust holes big enough to fit a piston through. Two, it survived with astonishingly low mileage. The odometer shows just under 20,000 miles, which represents an annual average of about 450 miles.What are the odds of finding another 20,000-mile big-body Eldorado Biarritz without traveling back to a used-car lot in 1980? Bidding currently stands at $12,500, a sign that interest in these cars is growing.

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Volkswagen starts delivering EVs to residents of the Aegean Sea island of Astypalea in an effort to transform all transport on the island to electric mobility.The automaker plans for 1000 EVs to replace about 1500 gas- and diesel-engined vehicles on the island.VW is also introducing electric ride-sharing services to the 44-square-mile island, along with electric bicycles and scooters.Volkswagen has delivered the first EVs to private customers on Astypalea as part of an experiment to transform the Greek island to an EV-only oasis. VW handed over the first examples of the ID.4 and VW e-up! hatchback to the island’s residents, in addition to the new ID.3 hatch and the Seat MÓ eScooter 125. The automaker’s Smart & Sustainable Island project, conducted in partnership with the Greek government, will eventually see 1000 EVs replace a fleet of some 1500 gas- and diesel-engined cars on the 44-square-mile island, with electric bicycles and scooters also part of a new fleet being introduced. Emergency vehicles and commercial vehicles will also be replaced with electric ones in the near future, with vehicle rental agencies switching to zero-emission models as well.

“Astypalea is a laboratory for the mobility of the future. The island is experiencing the same change as any other region in Europe, only in a much shorter time. With the first private customers driving electric now, word will quickly get around how fascinating e-mobility is,” said Maik Stephan, project manager and head of business development at Volkswagen Group.VW is working on more than simply importing new EVs. It’s also getting rid of all the scrap vehicles currently polluting the island, often sitting abandoned in ravines instead of being recycled. (If you’ve ever been to Greece, you know this is a major issue in the country, even on the Aegean Sea islands.) The automaker is now working with the municipality and the importer for Greece Kosmocar to collect broken cars, trucks, and motorcycles from the island, and ship them to the capital Athens on the mainland to be professionally recycled.

Abandoned cars are a major issue in Greece, especially on islands that often lack large-scale metal recycling facilities. As a result, old cars tend to just sit around or are discarded improperly.
Volkswagen

As on other islands in the Aegean Sea, the ability of the local industry to properly recycle scrapped vehicles is limited, which often leads them to be stored indefinitely once they’re no longer running, often by the side of the road or hidden away in the countryside, as shipping them to the mainland imposes costs.The next stages of the project will include the launch of all-electric ride sharing and vehicle sharing, just in time for the summer tourist season.”E-mobility is a perfect match for Astypalea,” said Thanos Papagiannis, shown above, who’s the first ID.3 customer on Astypalea. “The distances here are short, the power consumption is low, and the charging network is now very well developed. I really hope that Astypalea will inspire other regions to increase their efforts for climate protection (by) adopting e-mobility solutions.”

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You don’t need a license to breed. But you will need a license to drive those babies around. And you’ll want to drive them around in a minivan. Yes, we swear, you do want a minivan. Stop giggling.Infinitely versatile and persistently unstylish, the minivan is so dang practical it ought to be issued with every newborn. But which van is the least embarrassing to be seen in? Which bears the smallest stigma of family hauler? And which can be had for $35,000 or less? That’s why this week’s edition of Window Shop on YouTube exists.This week also features new microphones. Except for editor-in-chief Tony Quiroga who, through the sheer majesty of his aura, imparts his voice directly onto the Internet without the intermediary of a computer. Also participating is youthful-ish Joey Capparella; some guy from Road & Track named Pearley; everyone’s best bud, Jonathon Ramsey; and, voted Best Beard by the readers of Dog Fancy Magazine, K.C. Colwell.Will anyone want to watch a bunch of guys talk about minivans? Nah. But here it is anyhow. Please like, subscribe, indemnify and hold blameless.

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