What BoldRide is Thankful For Boldride

In this holiday season, we have much to be thankful for. As automotive types, it always feels like the walls are closing in on us. With automated gearboxes, rising fuel economy regulations, and more intrusive safety tech, it seems like were losing the battle for ‘awesome.’ The small amount of unbridled vehicular excellence left in the automotive world is something to be cherished. Here are the things for which BoldRide is thankful. (Without these items, we’d probably be out of a job)

Local Motors Rally Fighter

VIDEO: Local Motors Rally Fighter Visits Jay Leno’s Garage

When Local Motors opened their doors, they did not set out to create this thing. The small firm runs on the crowd-source business model, creating a huge community to help design a vehicle. Well that community spoke, and the fruits of their labor was this awesome off-road coupe. It has a full adjustable suspension and is capable of the same high speeds on trails as the Ford F-150 Raptor. When the original BMW-sourced diesel six-cylinder engine was not enough, they went back to the community and asked for something better, resulting in the 350 cubic inch GM small block that now sits underhood. You can always be thankful for that.

Factory Five

RELATED: Factory Five Cobra Replica – One Hour with Massive Power

After the popularity of the original Shelby Cobra, many pretenders have arose through the years. The problem is, that they are all a Cobra only in appearance, and lack any semblance of a decent suspension, steering, or any modicum of driving characteristics. David Smith knew this, and set about creating a better Cobra. The Factory Five portfolio of project cars has been computer designed for optimal handling characteristics. This is a replica build that you can actually drive, yet still is more thrilling than any new car on the road today. For making a Cobra that won’t kill you, Factory Five, we are thankful.

A Merciful Death

RELATED: See more photos of the Suzuki G70 Concept

Suzuki has been largely forgotten for the last decade or so. With so many great startups in the auto industry, the small Japanese automaker is just the Debbie Downer at the party, whining about how her relationships don’t work out. There is no need to put the company that brought us the awesome Samurai through any undue pain. So for executing a merciful death to Suzuki, and pulling it out of the American auto industry, we are thankful.

Car Guys Doing Their Damn Thing

RELATED: See more photos of the 2013 Dodge Viper GTS

It’s funny to think about, but just three years ago, the industry was in the dumps, but boy did it come back. The best example is Chrysler. The perfect case study that suits and pencil pushers don’t know how to operate a car company, holding firm Cerebrus essentially ran Chrysler into bankruptcy. At death’s door, Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne stepped in. Sergio is a product guy, and understands that great cars, not watching the bottom line, is the key to a brand’s success. Look to Elon Musk at Tesla, and Ralph Gilles at Fiat’s SRT branch. These men are car guys, and with their leadership, the auto industry is reaching never-before-seen heights.

 The Enthusiast

PHOTOS: See more of the 1968 Chevrolet Camaro SS

Things in the auto industry have really bounced back, but even when they were down, a select few still kept their hopes up. They were the die-hards, and no matter how bad things got, they had hope that our passion for cars would drive a rebuilding of the way we make cars. Now an electric car (Tesla Model S) is faster to 60 mph than an M5, and is the Motor Trend Car of the Year. Our collective love for cars would not let the American auto industry die out. For those that turn their heads every time they hear a V8 with open pipes, and those that care enough to check in every day to see what part of the auto industry we are covering today- we are thankful. Thanks every body, and keep on reading!

24 cars with the highest resale values

After their homes and perhaps putting their kids through college, an automobile is typically the next largest financial outlay a family makes. To help wring the most value out their vehicular investments, it’s prudent to choose a model that will bring a higher resale value (in the industry this is called residual value) down the road.

Generally, the more expensive the vehicle, the more important even relatively minor differences in projected resale values will become, simply because there’s more money at stake. Last year the average new car was predicted to retain about 38.2 percent of its original value after five years, meaning that a $50,000 model will only be worth nearly $19,100 at trade-in time. Pick a comparable model that’s estimated to hold five percent more of its value than average and you’ll realize an extra $2,650.

For those leasing a vehicle, comparing residual values among competing makes and models is critical. That’s because lease payments are generally based on a vehicle’s initial transaction price minus what its residual value is estimated to be at the end of the contract’s term, financed at a set interest rate.

What’s more, with used-car values beginning to drop for the first time in years – on average they fell by 3.5 percent in October, the largest such dip in two years according to the National Automobile Dealers Association – picking a new vehicle that holds onto its value steadfastly is particularly important.

Fortunately the valuation experts at ALG are making this decision a bit easier with their 2014 Residual Values Awards in each of 24 separate new-vehicle categories. These models are expected to retain the highest percentage of their Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) after a three-year period, based on criteria including segment competition, historical vehicle performance and industry trends.

Honda was named top brand for residual values among mainstream automakers, followed byToyota, Subaru, Hyundai and Mazda. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz took top honors overall among luxury makes, with Acura, Audi. Infiniti and Lexus rounding out the top five upscale band rankings.

Toyota placed the most vehicles on ALG’s list with eight segment awards, including the Tundra full-size pickup truck and Prius c hybrid car. Audi and Honda tied for second place with three models each, and Chevrolet swept the sports car awards with the Camaro and Corvette.

The 26 Coolest Cars At The Los Angeles Auto Show

The press days are over at the 2013 Los Angeles Auto Show, and many wonderful new vehicles have been brought into the world.

More than 50 new cars made appearances at the show, as did some old classics and a few newcomers we’ve gotten to know over the past year.

For those who couldn’t make the show — and those who are gearing up to attend but don’t know where to start — we’ve rounded up the 26 coolest vehicles on display in Los Angelesthis year.

From the final Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG to BMW’s electric sports car to the Maserati for the masses, here’s the best from this year’s LA show.

Jaguar F-Type Coupe arrives in British villain style

Jaguar has decided to market its new F-Type Coupe as a “British villain,” or so the executives told us as the car was unleashed onto the world Tuesday night: “stylish, calm, calculating, and a little sexy.” As annoying as that characterization might be, when they rolled the red Coupe out, it also seemed terrifyingly accurate. Originally designed as the CX-16 Concept, the Coupe has now come to life, a sinister bullet of a car, with deeply dramatic “heart lines” that swoop from the front grille to the back tail-light, designed to turn heads and drive deep into underground fortress garages.

The F-Type Coupe comes standard with a 340-hp V-6 engine, or with a 380-hp V-6 S package. But what makes it the crown jewel of the Jaguar fleet is the R Coupe, the first time the R high-performance badge has been applied to the F Type. The R comes with a 550-hp supercharged V-8 that can go 0 to 60 in four heartbreaking seconds. It’s fitted with an adaptive dynamics system that will control vertical body movement, roll and pitch rate, an electronic active differential that works with a custom torque vectoring system, state-of-the-art stability control, and an eight-speed transmission, all of which is car-speak for “it will melt your face.” Carbon ceramic brakes and submarine conversion kit are optional.

All three versions of the F-Type Coupe are constructed on a rigid riveted and bonded all-aluminum platform. The F-Type convertible already has an extraordinary stance through tight turns, but the full-framed Coupe will almost inevitably provide a faster, stiffer, and sharper ride. The interior, even on the new R badge, is more or less the same as on the F-Type convertible, two seats of sporty leather malevolence and a streamlined dash. The Coupe has more trunk space than the convertible, enough to fit two golf bags or one very compact steel hat-throwing manservant.

The F-Type Coupe comes standard at $65,000, the S package starts at $77,000, and the R looms large at $99,000. “This is the car I wanted to be involved with when I started at Jaguar 15 years ago,” Jaguar’s director of design, Ian Callum, told us, “and it’s the car I’ve been personally waiting for for 45 years.” Villains all over the world, British or otherwise, will similarly rejoice at the sight of their sweet new ride.

How the Ford Mustang built a future on its past

1. 

   This early sketch bears the hallmarks of 1990s design with what appears to be a cab-forward layout and steeply sloping hood. From this angle it looks more likely to have a mid-engine layout than the classic front-engined Mustang

New Nissan GT-R Nismo becomes Japan’s fastest sports car

Adolescent video game addicts, strident fanboys and curdled automotive journalists like to complain about the Nissan GT-R. They say it is too Brobdingnagian, too rattly and unrefined, too carousing and inelegant, too focused on trick technological solutions that make driving it impossibly quick far too simple.

They’re right.

It is also monumentally, stupendously, idiotically fun, and a lark from which you’ll never forget soaring. Driving a GT-R is like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. If the barrel were a padded rubber ball the size of the Astrodome. And filled with fuzzy puppies. And laughing gas. And jelly beans.

Now seven years old, and having reached maturity — or what passes for maturity —Nissan has decided to inject a bit more amusement into its behemoth amusement park. Today it unveiled theNISMO GT-R, an upgraded, up-powered iteration of this endorphin IV, with bigger turbos, custom Bilstein suspension components, custom Dunlop tires and an assortment of gilled, straked, and unwrinkled carbon trim bits hovering around the vehicle’s peripheries to create the downforce necessary to prevent it from becoming an unmanageable airborne event.

Oh, and 600 horsepower.

Inside there’s other compellingly superfluous elements, including carbon-fiber framed seats, a fuzzily Alcantarated steering wheel, the availability of a cheerily ivory semi-aniline leather interior, an app to instantly upload your lap time and telemetry data to your phone if you’re really that kind of dork, and more red stitching than a bordello sofa set.

All of this adds up to a car that can lap the fearsome Nurburgring Nordschliefe race circuit in 7 minutes, 8 seconds — a time that makes it competitive with the fastest volume production cars in the world, depending on who’s defining “production.” (Fanboy debate commences…now.) Nissan wouldn’t tell us exactly how much it will cost, except to say that it will be somewhere between $0 and $200,000. We’re guessing it will land in the top quartile-ish of that range.

If you hate fun, you will hate this car. Otherwise, you should definitely just shut up and revel in the fact that something this ridiculous exists.

Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo brings video-game design to reality

In the race to own the minds of couch-bound racers, Microsoft’s Forza and Sony’s Gran Turismo video game series have played a eight-year leapfrog match, with each new generation using ever-swelling oceans of polygons and physics simulators to create the most realistic worlds possible inside a game console.

Today, Mercedes-Benz revealed the latest move by the creators of the Gran Turismo series: Making the dream cars inside the game a reality, beginning with this, the AMG Vision Gran Turismo, powered by a twin-turbo 577-hp V-8. These images aren’t screen captures — they’re photographs.

As part of the upcoming Gran Turismo 6 game launching for the PlayStation 3 on Dec. 6, Gran Turismo invited several of the world’s leading car design studios to create unique concept cars that players can eventually download and race inside the game, with at least 15 expected to be unveiled over the coming months, ranging from General Motors and Chrysler’s SRT division to Italian design houses Zagato and Bertone.

Working in bits rather than metal frees corporate designers from the demands that all too often make concepts unworkable, and as the Red Bull X2010 showed in the previous edition of GT5, the allure of no constraints can lead to overwrought designs. That Mercedes chose to make a full-scale version of its virtual entry suggests how seriously professional designers take such tasks.

While the AMG Vision Gran Turismo has a few classic Benz touches — especially the long front and gullwing doors — in many other respects it’s like nothing that Mercedes has produced in recent memory. The front grille has a weave of LED lights; the two-seat greenhouse has been pulled back and tightened, and the rear tapers in a Jaguar-like fashion. It’s not just a styling buck; the AMG Vision Gran Turismo weighs 3,053 lbs., with a full aluminum-carbon fiber chassis holding the V-8, along with an interior supposedly inspired by F1 cars — although the wheels fit so tightly in the fenders it’s unclear how the car would survive a speed bump.

We’ll see the car in the metal and carbon-fiber this week, after which it will live on only on millions of screens — and for the designers at Mercedes and elsewhere, that’s a far better payback for a concept car than they’re accustomed to. And we’ll be shocked if the AMG Vision Gran Turismo isn’t the only GT6 concept to come to life.

Porsche 911 GT3 dukes it out with MP4-12C on track and GT-R on spectacular roads

The Porsche 911 GT3 has always been a favorite among auto journalists and car enthusiasts alike, but with the introduction of the new 991-generation GT3, which is the first GT3 with electric power steering and no manual gearbox option, how does it stack up to the competition from McLaren and Nissan?

Evo‘s Jethro Bovingdon attempts to answer that question by pitting the rear-engine Porsche against the mid-engine McLaren MP4-12C on a racetrack and the front-engine, all-wheel-drive Nissan GT-R on some amazing, twisty European back roads. We won’t give away the victor of either comparison, but we will say that, in Evo‘s test, the McLaren’s 141-horsepower advantage doesn’t give it as much of an edge over the Porsche on a racetrack as one might think, and the lack of a manual gearbox and the inclusion of electric power steering on the GT3 isn’t detrimental to enjoying the car on a back road.

Watch the video below to find out which car Bovingdon prefers on road and track – we think you’ll be happy to see him drift around turns every chance he gets.

Motor Trend dubs the Cadillac CTS its 2014 Car of the Year

Each fall, Motor Trend anoints a winner in its annual Car of the Year competition. And then, about one second after the announcement, loyalists of various car brands begin quarreling with the selection. Why didn’t the Ferrari 458 Italia win? What about the Camaro? Did these guys even drive any cars?

Yes, in fact, they did. But, contrary to the expectations of many a passionate commenter or letter-writer, not all cars are eligible for Car of the Year. First of all, a vehicle has to be all new or significantly revised to warrant consideration. Second, price is a factor. The cap was once $100,000 but has crept up toward $120,000 thanks to inflation. If you can afford a McLaren 12C, feel free to consider it the Car of the Year.

For 2013, those two criteria resulted in a broad field of 22 candidates, ranging from entry-level cars like the Kia Forte and Mazda 3 on up to the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and the SRT Viper. Both of the latter cars can exceed $120,000 with some options, but base price is what counts.

First, Motor Trend convened the group — which ballooned to about 40 cars, once divergent trims and engine options were brought into consideration — at Hyundai’s California City proving grounds. There, the staff spent several days conducting performance tests and engaging in general tire-squealing good times. They also narrowed the field in half, to 11 cars, for the final three days of on-road evaluation. That’s where I picked up the thread, on the first day of finalist testing on a drive route outside Tehachapi, Calif.

It was a rigorously scheduled proceeding, with all drivers assigned a departure time that assured every judge got to drive every eligible vehicle. No two-hour joyrides in the Corvette Stingray, then. As drivers cycled in and out, mini-debates and impromptu soapbox sessions erupted in the parking lot — senior features editor Jonny Lieberman wondering how the Cadillac CTS 2.0 on hand costs more than the 420-horsepower V-Sport, while, a few cars down, former Chrysler designer Tom Gale critiqued the lines of the Mazda 3.

For all the miles driven, stats quantified and notes taken, the Car of the Year selection ultimately amounts to getting everyone in a room and arguing about cars. And in a year like this, when there is no all-conquering Tesla Model S to sweep every award short of the Daytime Emmys, there’s plenty of debate to be had.

When I left, I honestly wasn’t certain which car would win. But I had a feeling. The topic of discussion shifted from the Corvette to the Jaguar F-Type to the Mazdas, but the focus kept returning to that Cadillac CTS. Which, as it turns out, is Motor Trend’s 2014 Car of the Year.

Maybe you cheer that decision and maybe you don’t, but know that above all else it was not reached lightly. And if you were pulling for the Bugatti Veyron, well, maybe next year.

International Motor Show in Dubai

The five-day event at the Dubai World Trade Center will showcase 108 global and regional launches, including 15 concept cars by the world’s leading motoring manufacturers. With over 65,000 square meters of exhibition space and more than 600 vehicles on display, the show is expected to attract well over 100,000 visitors from throughout the region.