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How about this next situation? There’s stopped traffic on I-95, and you’re the last car in the backup. In the rearview, you see a car approaching at a rather high velocity. They’ll stop, right? Or do I need to punch it and get onto the shoulder RIGHT NOW? source: Wikipedia and topsize20 The simple answer is that, unless the car in question is a softly sprung thing that buries its nose in the asphalt on hard braking, you just can’t tell....

“Rivian details actions taken after reports of bugs found in manufacturing plant,” reads the hedline by Illinois-based news site 25 News. Illinois is home to the town of Normal, which houses the former Mitsubishi plant that Rivian is using to build its R1T pickup and R1S SUV. The article begins by stating that forklifts at the manufacturing plant have reportedly been found to have bedbugs. From the news story’s discussion with Rivian spokesperson Zach Dietmeier: Illinois-based news site The Pantagraph has a photo of a forklift with a plastic cover over its seat, and some quotes from employees: Out of an abundance of caution, all the forklifts in the affected area have been quarantined and treated....

Let’s start with what the American version gets. Dubbers who could’ve hooped [Editor’s Note: I think this means tall people? Because of the extra headroom? – JT] will likely appreciate the sunroof delete, although almost everything else seems mostly like stuff you could find on eBay. We’re talking about carbon fiber trim, contrasting painted mirror caps, blue emblems, and puddle lights with logos. The sort of tat many 18-year-olds put on their first German cars....

The Beginning In the late 1980’s, when China’s economy started opening up, lots of Chinese carmakers started looking for foreign partners, often with support from local and central governments. One of these companies was called Shenyang Jinbei Automotive. This company used the Jinbei (Gold Cup) brand on a series of light trucks and minivans. The minivans were based on the Toyota HiAce and made by a joint venture with Toyota. But the Chinese wanted pickup trucks, and for reasons unknown, they couldn’t make a deal to produce those with Toyota....

I have a lot more to say about the demise of the Stinger itself, but first, let’s talk about the Tribute Edition that will take it to that autocross course in the sky. Bathed in Ascot Green or Moonscape matte paint, the Tribute Edition gets black wheels, black mirror caps, black brake calipers, and a special Terracotta interior. It’s an understated package, one that fits well with the car’s ethos – to be a fast, understated, well-equipped liftback....

Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If you’re morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. Theory Versus Practice Crash testing is one line of work you’d never want to take home, yet former Insurance Institute for Highway Safety president Adrian Lund recently found himself on the business end of a serious crash....

If we all piled into a hot tub time machine and headed back to 2016, we’d find a bewildering array of ultra-powerful gas-burning executive sedans for sale. Everyone from Aston Martin to Rolls-Royce was cranking out very fast, opulent sedans, as was the trend of the time. Mercedes even had two fast S-Class models, the S63 and the S65. Fast forward six years, and the traditional competition in this space is dying....

Now that I have a kid who is old enough to join bricks together and read the instructions, the temptation is growing to buy every new Lego set. Here’s everything I’ve seen announced recently. Technic 2022 Ford GT The headlights alone seem worth the $119.99 price of admission. With 1,466 pieces, this Technic model includes a moving V6, independent suspension, front-axle steering, and even a working diff. At 1:12 scale, the model is 15 inches long, so it’s definitely something to put on its own special shelf....

Welcome to The Morning Dump, bite-sized stories corralled into a single article for your morning perusal. If your morning coffee’s working a little too well, pull up a throne and have a gander at the best of the rest of yesterday. European EVs Might Get Tax Credits While the Inflation Reduction Act contains some fairly strict rules regarding which EVs can qualify for tax credits, there’s a chance that amendments may be made....

According to Renault, the Twizy’s story starts in 2007. A team of enthusiasts at Renault were convinced that there was a market for a vehicle slotting between a moped and a car. In Europe, this type of vehicle is called a quadricycle. Here in America, these are sometimes called an autocycle. As a story about the Twizy’s history from publication Car Body Design writes, Carlos Ghosn expected the cost of fuel to rise, and that electricity would be cheaper....

Comfortable win for the Cutlass. We do love our station wagons, don’t we? The Sable is a nice car, but there’s just something about a wagon. Well, with that, we have three winners. So now, we’re going to pit them against each other in an automotive version of that old party game classic: Choose one car to use as your daily driver, one to set up for some form of automotive competition, and one to go up in flames....

I was sent this Telegram post that has the video of the rear-display equipped Mustang: The video was shot in Kyiv, Ukraine, and I’m not sure if the Mustang owner’s NSFW license plate is real or not, but clearly someone is having fun with their Mustang, already an unusual choice for Eastern Europe. The text displayed in the LCD heckblende is as follows: I’d also like to point out that the running-horse animation is pretty badass and Ford really should be considering implementing a full LCD heckblende like this, because why not?...

I spotted this video on cristian_ybarra_bermudez’s Instagram page. He told me he saw this white Wrangler YJ towing a hay rake on the outskirts of Tulare, California. “I was on my way to pick up power tools and when I was driving, I noticed some John Deeres pulling those rakes,” he told me over an instant message. “And as soon as I saw that Jeep, I couldn’t believe it. I pulled right over and started recording....

If anything, I think this somewhat chaotic podcast gives a good, visceral explanation why I’m actually confident this new partnership of ours will work: Fundamentally, we’re just three people who love car culture. That’s it. And, I think that’s enough. Oh, and we liked doing this so much we’re looking into some sort of regular podcast of our own. Stay tuned.

Yes, door handles! One of the most crucial points of human-machine contact on a car, the literal first thing you need to interact with if you want to drive a car, or even just get inside one. Door handles have always been places for carmakers to have some fun with novel designs and clever mechanisms, and the type of design used on these three cars certainly lends itself to a particular sleek aesthetic, though I’m not convinced the layperson really likes the mechanism or method of operation....

If a Buick Encore GX Avenir were to exist, who would plunk down their cash on one? Well, every brand has client profiles for their products. For instance, the Volkswagen Phaeton sourcebook states that Volkswagen’s imagined Phaeton client was younger and earned more money than a BMW 7-Series or Mercedes-Benz S-Class owner. Since the Encore GX Avenir isn’t a product that exists right now, GM obviously won’t release a client profile on such a vehicle....

Why Is This Happening? A quick history lesson: It used to be legal to import essentially any car you wanted to the United States assuming you could get it registered and inspected. This made car dealers upset and they lobbied Congress who passed a law that is generally referred to as the “25-year import rule” or “25-year import ban” for the carveout that allows people to import cars that are at least 25 years old....

[Ed Note: Andrea Petersen is a new voice we’re featuring on the site. She’s a service advisor who brings a unique perspective on the automotive experience. You all liked her previous piece (“When it’s time to say goodbye to your car”) so we thought we’d bring her back for another post. – MH] There’s a certain type of person who likes to hunt for a bargain, but they’re a casual bargain hunter....

He can be terrible. He can be mean. And he can be right. He’s a great man. I wish I had words, man. I wish I had words… If Marlon Brando’s character in the film weighed a lot less and was really into car taillights, it would be sort of the same thing. Check this latest concept that Torch had requested [Editor’s Note: I believe I demanded – JT] I explore and you might agree....

Up top there was one of my favorite Beetles from the show. It wasn’t by any means the nicest restoration, or the rarest or oldest or most unusual, but it was a really delightfully rugged-looking 1965 Beetle, with big wheels and grabby tires and an overall look and feel like a Class 11 Beetle, the sort used for desert racing. I loved it. This is Otis. He’s a friendly old man, and he’s having a great time sitting in a terribly nice Type 2 single-cab pickup with the rare canvas top setup....