Author: kirklandc008@gmail.com

If you took a gander at the performance car industry 20 years or so ago, you’d find that it was awash with a wide range of naturally aspirated machines. From the fire-breathing Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG with its mighty 6.2-liter V8, to the BMW M5 E60 with its wailing V10, you generally had to go out of your way to find an engine equipped with a turbocharger or supercharger. Wind the clock forward, and things have changed drastically. In the interests of fuel efficiency and looking after the environment, most manufacturers have adopted turbocharging as the main way of extracting power…

Adding insult to injury, early examples exhibited an alarming tendency to catch fire. Pontiac righted many of the Fiero’s wrongs for the 1988 model year but the changes came too late. Cadillac: Allanté (1987) In 1987, Cadillac seriously tried to end the Mercedes-Benz SL’s dominance over the luxurious, two-seater roadster segment by releasing its own high-zoot convertible named Allante. Pininfarina made Allante bodies in Turin, Italy, and shipped them to Detroit where Cadillac installed the running gear. Executives likely figured the Italian connection would give the Allante more prestige. Cadillac charged $54,700 (about $140,0000 in today’s money) for the Allante…

It’s hard to stand out in the Mustang world, but RTR Vehicles is doing a pretty good job at it. The North Carolina company founded by drift legend Vaughn Gittin Jr. has been upgrading Mustangs for quite a while now, and the relationship with Ford is so good that Ford now builds the Mustang RTR EcoBoost, fitted with visual and performance tweaks, right in the Mustang factory. The only other such collab in Mustang’s history was with Shelby. Base Trim Engine EcoBoost 2.3L ICE Base Trim Transmission 10-speed automatic Base Trim Drivetrain Rear-Wheel Drive Base Trim Horsepower 315 HP @5000…

As new electric vehicle brands like Scout and Slate search for alternatives to franchise auto dealers, America’s largest online auto retailer is quietly positioning itself to become the future of automotive retail. Earlier this week, online auto retailing giant Carvana was given a green light to buy shares in Jeff Bezos-backed Slate – and the timing is notable. While dealer groups across the country continue to challenge direct-sales models used by companies like Tesla and Scout in court, manufacturers are still looking for a way to market, finance, deliver, and service their vehicles at scale in a way that cuts the…

If you spend a lot of time scanning through car reviews, you know all too well about the generous usage of the word “premium.” Splashed on the page to denote paying a fine for added features or hideous dealer markups, as well as to describe the use of materials in the cabin. “The seats look and feel premium,” or my favorite, “The steering has a premium feel.” This jargon is overused on our turf, but manufacturers take pride in the details we tout as being better than others. Mazda has taken that term and reinvented it to refer to a…

Google may have just accidentally shown everyone where Gemini is headed next. According to TestingCatalog, a new Troubleshooting mode has quietly appeared inside the Gemini model picker menu for some users. It sits alongside existing options like Gemini 3.5 Flash and 3.1 Pro, which are the standard AI models you already switch between in the app. GOOGLE 🔥: A new Troubleshooting mode has been spotted on Gemini. In this mode, Gemini will explain troubleshooting process via text responses and interactive widgets. Even though it is working and available, it still looks like an unintended release and might get reverted… https://t.co/FWQLelYXju…

Motorcycles have gotten quite expensive, and not everyone can spend $20k on a vehicle that’s more of a toy and less of a necessity. In such a case, you want a motorcycle that delivers big performance with a smaller price tag. That’s exactly where the bike in question comes in. This Kawasaki naked bike offers the best balance of performance and practicality at a price tag that’s almost too good to be true. For under $10k, you get over 120 horsepower and quality underpinnings, a combination that not many of its rivals can match, even with a bigger price tag.…

Back in 2015, the two-person studio Metanet released N++, a brutally hard 2D platformer that was a decade in the making, building off of previous releases dating back to the freeware Flash title N. At the time, cofounder Raigan Burns issued some famous last words: “We hope it’s not another 10 years before we come up with a game.” But now here we are, more than a decade later, and N is getting another sequel. And this time the focus is on multiplayer.The new game is called, absurdly, N Plus Infinity Times Two. Whereas N++ was meant to be the…

Images of the upcoming new i20 while out testing

Nothing sounds like an AMG-tuned V8. The company has been tweaking Mercedes-Benz engines since the 1970s, when it was ripping the German automaker’s engines apart, including replacing cylinder heads and building custom valvetrains. Mercedes eventually bought the tuner and established AMG as a performance-focused sub-brand. The division developed high-performance versions of everything from the C-Class to the S-Class to the ML and even the oddly shaped R-Class crossovers. As for the latest assortment of AMG cars, there are more four-cylinder engines across its variants than in the past. The AMG SL 43 Roadster scrubs the traditional essence of the SL…