Car and Driver May 2021

PERFECT 10 How could you drop the Miata from 10Best [January 2021]? You hurt my feelings. —Daniel Oliver Gainesville, FL This should have hurt your feelings last year—Ed. In the past, I’ve been surprised by the amount of turnover in your 10Best list from one year to the next, with what I thought were solid selections supplanted by choices I didn’t see coming. I find it reassuring that nine of the 10Best for 2021 are the same as in 2020. I’m not surprised that the Genesis GV80 replaced the Jeep Gladiator, a specialized fancy I’d figured was worth only a one-time nod (like, say, the PT Cruiser and second-generation Prius in past years). In any case, it’s good to see this oasis of stability in an unsettled time. —Archie Brodsky Watertown, MA There must be some mistake. The…

A native of upstate New York, Walker discovered her love of photographing cars at age 10 when she aimed her trusty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action camera at a ’65 Mustang. She’s since moved on to a Nikon D800 and D5, and her personal stable of cars includes a ’97 Land Rover Discovery, a ’93 Toyota Land Cruiser (FJ73), and a ’73 BMW 2002 project. In addition to what she describes as an “extensive houseplant collection that borders on hoarding” and fills her Southern California home, she cares for her eight-year-old dog, Leica, who has a crippling fear of the sound of her refrigerator. If anyone knows why that might be, please let us know. Walker’s photographs from the High Desert outside L.A. appear in “Outrage Machines,” page 42.…

The ripple effect of the pandemic has hit the auto industry where it hurts—right smack-dab in the supply chain. The microchips that control everything from your 30-way power-adjustable massaging seat to your engine’s fuel injectors are as scarce as toilet paper was a year ago. That messes things up for automakers, which can no longer build as many cars as they’d like. As we went to press, the chip shortage was stopping production of almost 2 million vehicles globally. For a list of affected North American–made models, check out our piece on page 20. This is not the first time something like this has happened. In 2004, a booming Chinese economy suddenly meant automakers couldn’t find steel. That shortage sent GM to court with two of its suppliers over pricing, and…

There’s no good answer when a police officer asks, “Do you know how fast you were going?” Better to make the effort and spend the money upfront to avoid that interaction in the first place, we say. While navigation apps such as Waze can reduce your chances of being caught in a speed trap, radar detectors have never been more effective at sniffing out Smokey. We gathered three heavy hitters for this test. Valentine’s V1 Gen2 is the first major redesign since the V1 debuted in 1992, and at $499, it’s cheaper than the original when accounting for inflation. For a steep $650, the Escort Max 360c is loaded with features, including directional arrows and a GPS antenna. Radenso, a relative newcomer, has garnered a strong following with its top model,…

Aston Martin’s gorgeous Vantage could sell on looks alone if it weren’t such a compelling car to drive too. Developed under Ford ownership, the entry-level Aston borrowed a few obvious bits from the corporate parts bin, such as the spindly Jaguar key and the Volvo fob and navigation unit. Yet it still captures nearly all the specialness of the twice-as-expensive DBS and Vanquish. Building each Vantage by hand took 200 hours, and the attention to detail shows in the spectacular leather interior, the swan doors that open with a dignified 12-degree upswing, and the machined-aluminum gauges. Aston Martin overhauled Jaguar’s AJ 4.2-liter V-8 for Vantage duty, giving it a larger bore and a shorter stroke, an additional 80 horses, and a 7300-rpm rev limiter (up from 6200 rpm). The 380-hp…

The same component that’s gumming up the automotive supply chain is inside your house. You probably even have several in your pocket. Silicon semiconductors are the bedrock of the microchips that power video-game consoles, TVs, computers, phones, and vital parts of your vehicle. A year after COVID shut down North American auto plants, a semiconductor shortage has forced several of them to again pause or adjust production. The problem began when new-car sales tanked in April 2020 and automotive suppliers slashed microchip orders. By the time sales rebounded, electronics manufacturers had swooped in and bought enough to satisfy booming demand for their own products. That left automakers short of what they needed to control windshield wipers, power infotainment systems, and keep other electronic systems functioning. IHS Markit estimates the shortage reduced global production…