MotorTrend February 2023

Looking at our 15-strong 2023 Car of the Year field, it’s apparent we’re witnessing the form’s decline. Our field is not only smaller than in recent years but also more “foreign.” The Detroit Three sell a total of 10 cars between them. Add Tesla and Lucid into the mix, and that number balloons to a whopping 13. A decade ago, the Detroit Three alone sold upward of 30 car models. This year’s COTY field featured just one American car. But what if we’re looking at the car’s decline the wrong way? What if we’re being colored by recent biases? What if the traditional car—typically a three-box design with a distinct hood, body, and trunk—was a historical anomaly? Was the SUV’s rise inevitable? Looking back at the bestselling vehicles of the past 100…

Is the 2024 Cadillac Celestiq for real? This head-turning, all-electric superluxury sedan is longer than the brand’s Escalade SUV and priced in a stratosphere Cadillac has long only dreamed of returning to. To wit: Pricing will start above the $300,000 threshold, but customers can easily add up to $100,000 more via customization, all but guaranteeing no two owners have the same exact car. The mere fact Cadillac is producing the Celestiq is nearly as surprising as the vehicle itself, which fulfills a longstanding desire to build a proper flagship. An idea became a vision, then a concept car, and now a fabulous final-form four-door that brings to life almost all the gee-whiz features envisioned along the way. The Celestiq has an estimated 600 hp and 640 lb-ft of torque, a 0–60…

Few vehicles sharing the same basic platform are better differentiated than the boxy, go-anywhere Bronco Sport and the urban-outfitted, lozenge-shaped Escape. Had these C2 platform-mates looked more similar, the former might have cannibalized the latter’s sales. Both are selling at or near capacity three years into the fourth-gen Escape’s model run, but Ford has toughened up softer-looking Escape’s visage and demeanor anyway. Most of the redesign comes courtesy of a bolder new hood, which sits atop a more deeply sculpted grille flanked by a pair of LED-outlined “four-eyed” headlamps. On upper trim levels, a so-called “coast-to-coast” LED light strip connects these headlamp DRLs, illuminating the gap between the hood and grille. A new fascia incorporating a faux skidplate completes the makeover. Other exterior changes are minimal: new 17-, 18-, and 19-inch…

Big news for all of you wealthy mud-bogging fans: The G-Wagen on portal axles has returned for a second generation. The 2022 Mercedes-AMG G63 4x42, or 4x4 Squared, is bigger, more powerful, more capable, and much more expensive. The process of turning a regular G-Class into a 4x42 is fairly straightforward. In a sentence, the wheel hubs are swapped out in favor of portal axles, and that’s most of it. What’s a portal axle? It’s a hub where instead of entering the center point of the wheel, the halfshafts go into the top of the hub and then are geared down. This creates more ground clearance. The new 4x42 has portals on both its solid rear axle and the independent arrangement up front—the world’s first such setup. Other changes include bigger wheels…

The first-gen Range Rover Sport that launched in 2004 was little more than a rebodied Land Rover Discovery. It wasn’t nice to look at, and it wasn’t sporty. When the next one arrived in 2013, it was more handsome but still drove like a cost-cut Range Rover. Now comes the third installment. Is it finally the full package? It definitely looks great. There’s this terrific gangster lean to it, along with subtle curves and a squashed, sloping roof that enhances the well-defined shoulder and beltlines. As for how it drives, we slid behind the wheel of multiple versions in Spain to find out. The U.S. will get the P360 and P400 with an inline-six, the P440e plug-in hybrid, and the V-8-totin’ P530. We drove the latter, the P400, and a Euro-market…

The Toyota Crown has been the brand’s flagship for 15 generations, so the new one has big shoes to fill and a reputation for excellence to uphold. Well, except in America, where no model has worn the badge since 1972. Here, then, the 2023 model must stand on its own merits as the functional replacement for the Avalon full-size sedan. But being a big four-door is pretty much all the Crown and Avalon have in common. The former follows in the tire tracks left by AMC, Subaru, and even Volvo in being a lifted sedan; it’s actually 4.1 inches taller than an Avalon, and seeing the Crown in person is no less odd than when viewing the photos here. You understand what you’re looking at, but it’s … strange. Credit to…