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Jeez, you guys. I get it; you didn’t like the Eagle. But man, some of the comments were brutal. For the record, I always liked the Premier and Monaco, and as several commenters pointed out, it was historically important for Chrysler. Its arrival led their engineering teams in entirely new directions they hadn’t thought of before, kinda like that leftover arm and brain chip in Terminator 2. Oh, and for those requesting a “neither” vote choice: No....

Back in 2021, owners of thousands of Hyundai and Kia vehicles in Milwaukee, Wisconsin fell victim to a new trend. Thieves–sometimes teenagers following what they saw on social media–figured out that some Hyundai and Kia models are easy to steal. In 2021, Milwaukee residents were the victims of 10,479 vehicle thefts. Just a year before, the number was less than half at 4,500 vehicles stolen. Before the year was even out there was a clear difference in what was getting stolen, too....

Reverse Lamps Have Aways Deserved Better The Backlighters are a sad, strange group ostracized by the more glamorous, prominent, larger, and more colorful taillight sections and their respective factions, and as a result they’re constantly imbibing a cruel brew of resentment and pride, genuine in their beliefs about the value that reverse lamps bring to humankind, yet constantly chafing at the lack of respect from their peers. I really can’t think of any good reason why, but reverse lamps tend to be treated with at worst near-contempt, and at best disinterested forgetfulness by the greater taillight community....

I’d just turned 26 when I made the trade with my landlords, a sweet couple that has been so accommodating to my automotive tomfoolery over the years. I’d just like to quote an old story I wrote back in 2017 titled “How The 2017 Ford Raptor Lowered My Neighbor’s Property Value,” because it really spells out how awesome my next-door neighbors/landlords are. To set the scene, I’d just received a text from the couple asking me to come to their house just days after I’d torn up my muddy backyard with a Ford Raptor....

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. Hyundai Might Be Going Down To Georgia Last month, Hyundai announced plans for an electric vehicle factory on American soil. Thanks to Reuters, we may know a bit more about where Hyundai might plan to build their new facility....

[Full Disclosure: Acura invited me out to Atlanta, Georgia to drive its entire line. Acura put me up in a nice hotel, fed me probably too much food, and let me giggle like a kid behind the wheels of expensive cars.] Earlier in my day with Acura I got to take a drive in the automaker’s 1991 Acura NSX. This car wasn’t just one of the first of the first-generation of the NSX, but the NSX that is believed to be the first in America....

Selecting the proper fighting lamp was very important, and had become such a common thing that it was alluded to in car ads, like in this 1967 Pontiac brochure. That couple may look like they’re just buying lamps, but a knowing eye would spot the clues: the robustness of the lamps, the fighting stance the man there is using while holding the lamp, the way the woman is clearly assessing the destructive potential of the lamp, and, most obviously, the grasshopper on the sign, which was underground code for a lamp-fighting location:...

Every week, I go through my emails and the comments of these lovely pages to find a new Holy Grail to write about. At the same time, Autopian Publisher Matt Hardigree has been submitting his own suggestion as a grail. He’s suggested the same car for about a month now and I think it’s time to shine a light on it before he slaps a Houston Astros logo on one of my Smarts....

The hierarchy goes like this: The Lucid Air takes first place with a maximum EPA range of 516 miles; the Tesla Model S comes in second with a maximum EPA range of 405 miles; the Hyundai Ioniq 6 comes in third with a maximum EPA range of 361 miles; and the Tesla Model 3 comes in fourth with a maximum EPA range of 358 miles. Think about that for a second....

I was alerted to the existence of the Lumin Corn by my old pal and fellow autojourno Máté: — Máté Petrány (@petrany) April 28, 2022 Máté’s got my number, no question. If he was making a Torch-trap so he could capture me and enjoy the forbidden savor of torchmeat, he couldn’t have baited that trap any better. The over-the-top, unashamed, unapologetic cartoonishness of the damn thing is exactly what I love....

I have four of them — a kind of sad-sack-looking cop car, what seems to be some kind of woody wagon, a lumpy ambulance, and a little blue pickup truck: All the cars are plastic, but look like they’ve been sculpted out of clay or plasticine, perhaps by someone not entirely sober. The toys have a sort of whimsical, haphazard look, a little misshapen and forlorn but also charming and full of character....

In addition, the compensation package for bZ4X owners who wish to keep their vehicles has grown to be quite vast. We’re talking about a free loaner vehicle, reimbursement for fuel for said loaner vehicle, a $5,000 credit on the vehicle, complimentary charging at EVgo stations through 2024, and a warranty extension. — David Conner (@OutofSpecDave) August 1, 2022 More details on compensation can be found in the above letter, confirmed by Engadget to be legitimate....

Now, we find out that for your BMW i4 to perform an over-the-air software update, the vehicle has to be level. Our readers went straight to the comments with jokes. Reader MP81 kicked off a thread by saying: And mdharrell drove it home with this COTD-winner of a banger: Sid Bridge lobbed a giggle generator of his own: In reality, this makes sense when you think about it. Should the update go downhill for some reason, there’s an extra layer of safety in having the vehicle on level ground....

[Welcome to Huibert Mees’s column, where the former Ford GT/Tesla Model S suspension engineer gets to write whatever he wants on The Autopian. -DT] Turning radius is the radius of the smallest circle a vehicle can make with the steering at full lock. It is a function of the wheelbase, the front tire width, and the angle the front wheels can be steered, but there are a number of factors that play into how automakers choose these dimensions....

Well, really, it’s the hood latch on the first-generation Suzuki Cultus, which was sold as the Chevy Sprint in America, because “Cultus” sounds like both “cult” and “penis” all at once, and that’s not a likely path to sell sensible economy cars in the U.S.. Sports cars, maybe. The same basic car was also called a Suzuki Swift, Holden Barina, Pontiac Firefly, Suzuki Forsa, and a Suzuki Khyber, depending on all kinds of variables like what market and the astrological sign you were born under and your blood type, probably....

Then there’s Akio Toyoda. He’s an easy one, and not just because it’s his family’s company and his (slightly modified) name is on all the cars. Since taking the reins as president and chief executive of one of the world’s biggest car companies in 2009, Toyoda proved time and time again to be the gearhead’s CEO, the enthusiast’s CEO—one who put his money where his mouth was to inject fun back into the conservative brand while safeguarding its profits, its reputation for quality and its massive global presence....

With all the other things happening this last week it didn’t get much attention that the president of the FIA (the governing body for most international racing) put out a tweet saying that he wanted to expand the FIA grid: — Mohammed Ben Sulayem (@Ben_Sulayem) January 2, 2023 This is a big deal as, for the most part, even the new teams in F1 are just rebadges of exiting teams (Jordan became Midland became Spyker became Force India became Racing Point became Aston Martin)....

Well, that’s pretty decisive. It’s also wrong; this is one rare instance in which the correct answer, “neither,” wasn’t a choice. Don’t get a boat. Get a friend with a boat. This pairing brought up in the comments an interesting phenomenon that I think warrants a mention: When it comes to obscure old machinery, there will always be a small but vocal group who absolutely love it, sing its praises, and won’t hear a bad word against it....

The Concorde took off at quite a steep angle; here, look: …so a level-flight Concorde that low just isn’t something that happened, because it would be loud as hell, a problem that the Concorde dealt with throughout its career. And yeah, I get this is early ’80s photo retouching and this didn’t happen, but I don’t see why we should let Peugeot off the hook 42 years later. You know what part is familiar, though?...

Like, maybe 3° at most. Of those two, do you know which one is which without looking above? The Coupe is the orange one here. Here it is in white, so you can compare it to the white Limousine: Yes, much sportier! So sporty you’ll want to get behind it and point, point like the wind! I wonder at what point in the development they decided which one to call which?...