Author: kirklandc008@gmail.com

FREE $1,500/Amazon Autos As part of its fall Prime Day promotions, you can score a FREE $1,500 Amazon gift card with the purchase of a new car through Amazon Autos.  From now through October 7, Prime members can land a ton of FREE Amazon credit to spend on anything the retailer sells. You’re clearly going to have spend a fair amount on a new ride to get it, but if you are in the market right now, it might be smart to weigh out your options while the FREE $1,500 is on the table  There is no coupon codes required here:…

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Porsche is practically synonymous with two-door coupes. Not to say that the brand never explores the market outside that niche, but it’s a bit like Subaru building a two-wheel drive vehicle. It’s simply not where the automaker specializes. But, believe it or not, the Cayenne SUV was not the first four-door Porsche by a long shot. Not only does there exist a four-door 911 S with rear-hinged second-row doors, but it was built in America. Porsche Has Been Experimenting With Four-Door Models Since The 1950s Studebaker Z-87 / Porsche 542Wheelsage.org Porsche’s history in the four-door segment shows the automaker creating…

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Now that most Japanese automakers have been building cars for more than half a century, some of their most iconic vehicles are getting quite old. For instance, the R32 generation of the Skyline GT-R R32 is nearly 40 years old. It’s actually about the same age today, as the very first Corvette was when it came out. So, these companies are beginning to provide new parts and services focused on these cars. Nissan even has special service centers in Japan. Now, Nissan is finally opening up these centers outside its home country. Nissan GT-R R32 from the side at Nissan…

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The Drive 🤝 your inbox. Every weekday The Daily Brief wraps up the biggest stories and our exclusive reporting on the auto industry and car culture. Have you ever been faced with a situation where a simple $2.00 part could have saved you from an expensive headache? If you own a recent Ford Super Duty that you park outside, you may be two steps ahead of me here. For those not familiar, the hood cowling design on recent Super Duties channels water to a hole directly over the truck’s fuse box. If the lid on that fuse box doesn’t seal…

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The Matic is our favorite robot vacuum and robo-mop, and it’s also now the first to escape the FCC’s Roomba ban.Well, sort of — because the Matic wasn’t banned to begin with.Here’s what’s actually happening: On October 2nd, the FCC added the original Matic, model 4MA0001, and its charging dock model 4DK0008 to its ban waiver list. That allows the FCC to approve these radio products for import, marketing, and sale.But the Matic doesn’t need a waiver, because its radios were already approved years ago. The FCC’s foreign drone, robot, and router bans only keep future products from getting imported…

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Finding a trustworthy mechanic used to mean asking a neighbor or gambling on whoever had the closest sign. That’s changed. A handful of sites now rank, review, or verify local repair shops using public data instead of word of mouth and knowing the difference between them can save you a bad repair bill and a wasted afternoon. Some of these platforms rank shops directly. Others build the review infrastructure shops use to prove their reputation, or exist as marketplaces where you request quotes. A couple serve adjacent purposes worth knowing about even if they don’t rank anyone at…

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The gap between Mac and PC is finally closing, but be careful before you pick a Mac as your primary gaming platform. Vladimka production/Shutterstock Macs have never exactly been gaming machines. For a long time, not only was the hardware lacking, but many developers never bothered to bring their titles to macOS. But the situation is different now with Apple silicon — the M-series chips are powerful, and there are new tools to easily port PC games to Mac.  But can a MacBook really handle demanding games? Technically, it can, but there are many other factors…

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The name’s Esprit. Lotus Esprit. And if we weren’t so distracted by shiny red Ferraris or Porsches, we would’ve remembered this Bond car for more than such. That being said, many Esprits in both turbocharged and non-turbo form are around for tempting sums, no doubt thanks to the market’s tendency to overlook anything without a horse on the badge. Lotus cars are a niche genre of automotive enthusiasm, but its fans are a dedicated bunch and know the value of excellent handling before they bother to read the engine specs. But at one point, dear old Colin Chapman wanted to…

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As if to prove that there may not be money for universal childcare or nationalized healthcare but there is ALWAYS more money for war, the US Department of War has awarded Amprius a $75 million grant to convert a civilian EV battery production line to churn out high-energy-density batteries for military drones. When California-based battery developer Amprius Technologies received a $15 million order for its innovative lithium-ion cells from an anonymous customer back in 2024, all the company would say was that the buyer was a, “leading Unmanned Aircraft System manufacturer.” We still don’t know who that mysterious customer might…

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The Drive 🤝 your inbox. Every weekday The Daily Brief wraps up the biggest stories and our exclusive reporting on the auto industry and car culture. There’s a Street Fighter movie coming out in 11 days, at the time of writing, and you know how Hollywood is—they like their cross-promotional PR blasts. The thing is, the show-business machine has gotten our attention with this one, because The General (yeah) enlisted a builder to recreate the iconic Lexus LS400 you get to destroy in the famous Street Fighter II bonus stage. Let’s just say it looks pixel-perfect. Sort of like those…

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