MotorTrend July 2022

I received a text from a Porsche PR person: “Hey, Jonny. We have something coming up I think Reggie Watts might be interested in: Meeting the guys who developed the Mission R concept race car and going for a ride in it.” Long story short, Porsche was conducting a press launch for notable influencers and had its corporate sights for the American influencer wave on Reggie Watts. (Watts, if you don’t know, is a musician, comedian, and band leader/de facto co-host for The Late Late Show with James Corden.) I’d met Watts three months earlier when he was our guest on the first episode of our future of the automobile podcast/vodcast, The InEVitable. Two things from that experience will always stand out to me. One is that after he left the studio,…

Suddenly, the Tesla Model X looks old and boring. Following on the heels of the impressively engineered mid-engine Emira supercar, the all-new Lotus Eletre—say “ee-LET-truh”—is a sharp, focused take on a high-performance electric SUV. It goes on sale in the U.S. by 2025, just five years before Lotus promises to build nothing but EVs. The headline details: dual motors producing at least 600 hp, a 100-kWh battery pack, a sub-3.0-second 0–60 time, and a top speed of 161 mph. Range should be about 330 miles on the EPA cycle, and the Eletre’s 800-volt architecture means 248 miles of range can be added in 20 minutes on a 350-kW charger. A multilink air suspension and continuously variable damping is fitted at all four corners. Active anti-roll bars, rear-wheel steering, torque vectoring, and 23-inch…

American enthusiasts heartbroken by the decision to keep the tiny Toyota GR Yaris, a furious, street-legal rally car, from our shores have been thrown a very juicy bone: The one-size-up, just-as-feral GR Corolla arrives in America later this year. This most monstrous of Corollas gets a more powerful iteration of the GR Yaris’ 1.6-liter turbocharged I-3 to offset its greater size and curb weight. Now boosted by 43 hp and 8 lb-ft to 300 hp and 273 lb-ft, what was already the most powerful production three-cylinder engine in the world is even more so. Peak power doesn’t hit until 6,500 rpm, and peak torque holds from 3,000 to 5,550 rpm, so midrange performance should be as strong as its will to rev out. Additional GR Yaris gear carried over includes the short-throw…

The Aston Martin DBX707 represents “a new level for the brand.” So said Andrew Tokley, senior manager of vehicle engineering, before turning the assembled journalists loose upon the unsuspecting denizens of Sardinia, Italy, in the storied marque’s new 697-hp SUV, the DBX707. We scribes were crammed in around two video monitors as Tokley and Aston CEO Tobias Moers explained what it took to transform the “regular” 550-hp DBX into this veritable monster of an SUV. My thoughts drifted to the previous evening’s dinner, where I happened to be seated across from Tokley. I asked him how much of the DBX707 is traceable to the fact former Mercedes-AMG boss Moers now runs the Aston show. He smiled and nodded. “We protected the platform from the beginning for a high-horsepower offering,” he said.…

Meet the Grecale, the vehicle that might finally restore modern Maserati’s mojo. Yes, it’s a compact SUV rather than a modern take on the elegant coupes that made the brand famous. But when 80 percent of the mass-market passenger vehicles sold in the U.S. are SUVs, the Grecale is right on point. The Grecale is clearly aimed at Porsche’s Macan. It’s slightly bigger but has a similarly sporty personality—but that’s not to say it’s simply an Italian clone. Far from it. The Grecale, which is related to the Alfa Romeo Stelvio, has a character all its own. It’s also far more spacious inside than the cramped Macan, and it has the most upscale interior ambiance among its competitive set. Yes, the Porsche is beautifully finished and offers a plethora of trim options,…

Toyota’s new bZ4X is simple, approachable, and very likable, an EV that’s futuristic in appearance but screwdriver-simple to operate. First-time EV buyers will probably love it, but experienced electronauts might lament its lack of top-tier EV features. The bZ4X’s most unusual trait is that the flat-screen instrument panel sits above the steering wheel rim, as opposed to being framed by it. The driving position is actually quite conventional, though, and once we got used to the view, we liked having the speedometer up high, close to our line of sight. The bZ4X also features a large infotainment screen, a boxy cargo area, a roomy back seat, and lots of big, clearly marked buttons—pretty much what you’d find in a garden-variety gas-powered SUV. Aside from the button for regenerative brakes, all of the…