MotorTrend is the world's automotive authority. Every issue of MotorTrend informs and entertains with features on the testing of both domestic and import cars, car care, motor sports coverage, sneak peeks at future vehicles, and auto-industry news.
Chaos and uncertainty still reign in the global auto industry several months into 2026, thanks to many unknowns and changing tariffs, regulations, and policies. Snap decisions are hell for a business world that typically plans products years in advance and relies on technology years in the making. It’s always been diffcult to keep up with changing consumer tastes; add the need to account for new costs due to tariffs or to uproot your powertrain strategy because regulations play toward new favorites, and you’re looking at a chess game with a shape-shifting opponent. If there is perhaps any consolation, it’s the fact the car industry has grappled with these issues for some time now. For those who survived 2025, the instructions for 2026 read like a shampoo bottle’s: lather, rinse, repeat.…
When we last checked in on Jaguar (Spring 2025), the marque had triggered more than just a stir by revealing the controversial Type 00 concept with a promotional campaign that drew scathing comments, to put it mildly, from across the social media autosphere. A year and change later, Jaguar Land Rover engineers are putting the finishing touches on the single most important Jag product in history, the electric-powered 4 Door GT. The production car is, like the concept, a long and low-slung fastback sedan. Prototype testing occurred at JLR’s winter facility in Arjeplog, Sweden, prior to the car’s planned reveal this summer. “We’re at the polishing stage, making sure the car meets our targets for ride and handling and character,” JLR engineer Navid Shamshiri said. Gerry McGovern, JLR’s former chief…
The silhouette is something out of the concept garage in Sony’s Gran Turismo 7 video game. But what you’re looking at is neither a racing sim nor a concept car. The GR GT is a full production vehicle, built by Toyota’s Gazoo Racing (GR) performance brand for the video game generation and its high-octane racing expectations. Developed in conjunction with a GR GT3 racing version, the GR GT is designed to serve as not only the company’s flagship road-legal performance halo but also a rolling demonstration of how Toyota plans to preserve and advance its motorsports-bred vehicle development techniques. The GR GT is built around Toyota’s first all-aluminum body frame and is engineered to deliver low mass with high body rigidity. Aluminum castings form the main structure, supplemented by aluminum…
Toyota is getting back into the halo supercar game in much the same way it did in 1967 with the Jaguar E-Type–like 2000GT and in 2010 with the Lexus LFA. Only this time, instead of naturally aspirated inline-six or V-10 engines, it’s going for the supercar-standard 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, enhanced with Toyota’s hallmark hybridization. We’ve been warned to expect detailed information to dribble out over the next few months, but here’s everything Toyota has admitted so far, along with what we’ve been able to dig up or observe. BMW and Mercedes-Benz essentially pair up a couple of their ubiquitous 2.0-liter four-cylinders on a common crankshaft to create their V-8s, but Toyota’s aluminum-block 4.0-liter isn’t based on the new G20E engine family of 1.5–2.0-liter engines. Instead, it’s derived from an engine…
Although Toyota once had its own (unsuccessful) Formula 1 team, has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans five times in a row (2018–22), and has nine World Rally Championship manufacturers’ titles to its name, the company is going big on motorsports again. Very big. The GR GT3 race car will put Toyota into one of the world’s most popular racing categories. It will duke it out with racers from Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Aston Martin—elite company—as well as GT3 versions of Ford’s Mustang, Chevrolet’s Corvette, and BMW’s M4 on some of the world’s most well-known racetracks. Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda also sees the GR GT3 program as an opportunity to excite and engage talented young Toyota engineers. More than that, it’s also good business: Other manufacturers make money building, selling,…
Lexus, Toyota’s luxury arm, has revealed (yet again) what it now calls the LFA concept, a car it already essentially displayed at two previous auto shows as the Lexus Sport concept. But now, new details have emerged, in addition to renaming it the LFA: It will be all-electric, and it’s being developed in parallel with the GR GT and GT3 racer, with which it shares key hardware. Like the GR GT, the LFA concept’s design prioritizes a low center of gravity, low mass, high body rigidity, and advanced aerodynamics. Engineers provided no details about the powertrain—how many motors, whether they’ll be radial or axial flux, or how much power the car will have—but logic suggests Lexus will at least have single motors at the front and rear and close to…
