MotorTrend December 2021

After a one-year hiatus from the Honda Proving Center of California, we were excited to return to the venue for our MotorTrend SUV of the Year program. For nine consecutive days we drove, tested, filmed, and photographed a large crop of sport utility vehicles, all of them either new or updated significantly for this year. The mission: to narrow the field until we elect one of them the best the industry has to offer. We drove them across multiple surfaces, including a winding road, a powersports track with a sand oval, a gravel road, and a course that mimics several Los Angeles freeways. SUV of the Year features the largest field of contenders across all our MotorTrend Of The Year competitions. With virtually every automaker now focusing mostly on high-riding vehicles,…

Acura clearly was tired of being asked when it would bring back the Integra, the beloved compact coupe and sedan model it hasn’t sold here since 2001. So the company decided to do something about it: At this year’s Monterey Car Week, it confirmed one of the two nameplates that helped launch the brand back in 1986—Legend was the other—will return in 2022, likely as a 2023 model. In fact, despite it being the entry-level Acura, the new Integra will replace the brand’s halo once the NSX drives off into the paddock in the sky after this year. “Now is the right time to retire the existing halo and bring in the volume entry car,” brand officer Jon Ikeda told us. “It’s time to return to Integra.” Brand aficionados specifically and…

We’ve known since 2017 what the new 2022 Subaru WRX will look like: It’s a dead ringer for the Viziv Performance concept that appeared at the Tokyo Motor Show that year, right down to its relative proportions and character lines. Every fifth-generation WRX is equipped with a 2.4-liter turbocharged flat-four engine that develops 271 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque. That’s only 3 more horsepower and no more torque than the outgoing 2.0-liter boxer engine. But Subaru says bigger pistons and a turbo system outfitted with an electronically controlled wastegate and air bypass valves make it more responsive and give it a broader torque curve. A six-speed manual gearbox is standard; buyers can also spec the Subaru Performance Transmission (SPT), a revised gearbox that nevertheless is still a CVT like the Lineartronic…

Tiny Croatian automaker Rimac says its 2022 Nevera electric hypercar will be both the quickest car and the fastest electric car in the world, with a top speed of 258 mph. So why shouldn’t our first drive of it happen in a flash? Rimac was in L.A. to show prospective buyers a pre-production Nevera, and it tossed us the keys to its $2.4 million baby. The only instructions? Be back in an hour. Built by hand in Sveta Nedelja, Croatia, the Nevera is an engineering marvel—especially when you consider Rimac is a 12-year-old company headed by 33-year-old Mate Rimac, and that it hails from a country that technically has never built a car before. (“Technically” because Croatia was part of Yugoslavia back in the Yugo days.) Notably, Hyundai and Porsche own parts…

When you’re interested in performance, you look to vehicles that best deliver dynamic fun—and that means cars. We’re talking coupes, sedans, and hatchbacks, not tall, heavy, bulky SUVs. Weight is the enemy of performance, as is a high center of gravity. Most new vehicle buyers today, though, want SUVs; as such, a common ground has been established in the form of the performance SUV. This “solution” looks more and more like the future of factory-built performance. And if the 2022 Hyundai Kona N is any indication, the future doesn’t look nearly as bad as you might fear. Truthfully, this is barely an SUV. Front-drive only and with just 1.1 inches of additional ground clearance compared to, say, a Toyota Camry, it’s a highish-riding hot hatch. About 6.0 inches taller and 90…

50 DECEMBER 1971 PRICE: $0.75 “Wankel Corvette?” we innocently asked on our final cover of 1971. Inside, readers found an in-depth investigative feature on the Chevrolet Corvette’s future. One option GM seriously considered at the time was (stop us if you’ve heard this before) a mid-engine V-8-powered car with a modified Oldsmobile Toronado powertrain, while another was a mid-engine rotary-powered Corvette, designed to save weight and costs. In the end, Chevy built neither. The first mid-engine ’Vette wouldn’t go on sale until 2020. 30 DECEMBER 1991 PRICE: $2.95 Speaking of rotary, the “NSX Killer” twin-turbo Mazda RX-7 was our cover car in December 1991. With the goal of building the “fastest volume-production sports car,” Mazda delivered. “It carves through canyons like a mean outside linebacker on a pass rush. Burying the throttle sends the speedometer needle hustling…