MotorTrend June 2022

Back in the early 1970s, MotorTrend spilled a lot of ink railing against federally mandated emissions and fuel economy standards. We argued government mandates would drive up car prices, strain our infrastructure, and force people to buy vehicles they didn’t want—and that they wouldn’t solve the air pollution problem anyway. We were wrong. Sure, emissions standards did make cars worse—for a while. Anyone of age in the 1970s remembers engines encumbered by vines of smog equipment that made them hard to start and difficult to tune. No question, the Clean Air Act led us into the Malaise Era. But the Clean Air Act also led us out of the Malaise Era. Automakers knew buyers wouldn’t stand for ill-running engines, and it certainly didn’t help Detroit that new Japanese competitors—like Honda, whose CVCC engine…

Gran Turismo 7, the new installment of the revered racing video game franchise, launched on PlayStation on March 4. GT7 features more than 400 cars, but the new 718 Cayman GT4 RS we drove just a few days prior isn’t among the 20 Porsches available to players. Why is that notable? If there’s any new car coming to market that carries the “tuner” spirit that’s been a Gran Turismo staple since the game first appeared in 1997, the GT4 RS is it. Of course, every GT-designated Porsche sports car fits that bill. But whereas the GT3 has been around for years and represents perpetual 911-performance evolution, the first-ever Cayman GT4 RS is the same beast, different animal. It arrives carrying plenty of upgrades compared to lesser Caymans, but its 911 GT3…

Efficiency is easy. Take your output and divide by your input to get output per input. Anyone who has ever calculated fuel economy from a trip odometer and a gas station fill-up can tell you that for an internal combustion car, you take the miles driven (output) divided by the gallons of gasoline (input) the vehicle requires to drive those miles, and you get miles per gallon (mpg). Simple, right? But as more and more people turn to cars that don’t burn gasoline, the equation changes, and it’s not so simple anymore. It’s even less simple when you need a metric to compare EVs to gas-powered vehicles. That was the task faced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Energy Independence and Security Act of…

The BMW X3 M40i is practical, upscale, and—most of all—sporty. Our recent test drive confirmed the enthusiastic character we know and love remains intact. But is that enough to balance out its foibles and keep the refreshed-for-2022 model competitive? Abstract art seems to have a strong influence on BMW’s styling approach, and changes made to the X3’s exterior better align it with the strange forms that permeate the marque’s portfolio. The headlights are slightly slimmer, and the signature kidney grille grows, now outlined by a single frame. The taillights also got a redesign, with a look BMW describes as having “a three-dimensional-modeled pincer-claw contour.” Right. A multitude of M badges remain, and side mirrors with tiny winglets are a new detail cribbed from the full-fledged X3 M. Under the hood, you’ll still…

The MotorTrend Car of the Year award stretches back some 70 years, and we’ve taken flak for a few winners, such as the 1974 Ford Mustang II (which we still say was the right car for its time) and the 1991 Chevrolet Caprice (Chevy sent us an LTZ with the police suspension, so it aced the ride-and-handling route). However, few of our winners have drawn as much scorn as our 1983 Car of the Year, the Renault-AMC Alliance. Honestly, we can’t help but wince when people bring up the Alliance, as one auto exec did recently. Still, going back and reviewing the history, we think our early-’80s forebears made the right choice. Step into the MT time machine, and let’s take a dive into the circumstances behind the Alliance’s 1983 COTY…

50 JUNE 1972 PRICE: $0.75 We culled NHTSA data to find 20 killer defects, ranging from fragile control arms (’65–’68 Fords) to flammable dashboards (Chevrolet Vega). Ford, Chevy, and Volkswagen were the biggest offenders. In what we realized could be our last test of midsize muscle cars, we found the Dodge Charger Rallye best and the Pontiac GTO worst. The Ford Torino Gran Sport and Chevrolet “Heavy Chevy” Chevelle tied for second. Our Used Car Buyer’s Guide offered 15 tightly packed pages on how not to get screwed when buying secondhand. 30 JUNE 1992 PRICE: $2.95 First drives included the second-gen Ford Probe (which we called a “Japanese-American hybrid”—if we only knew!) and the new LH cars—Chrysler Concorde, Dodge Intrepid, and Eagle Vision—which we (correctly) labeled “Chrysler’s salvation sedans.” In our midlevel luxury test, Mazda’s…