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• 2013 Geneva Motor Show: The Top 20 Debuts

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 5 March 2013

  

  More than a few people think supercars are an endangered species. All the concerns about flaunting wealth inequality and using lots of gas are just some of the forces conspiring to make these most athletic of automobiles less and less desirable for both builders and buyers. So we can look forward to a future with fewer tarmac-melting monsters and more plug-in kumbaya cracker boxes, right?

  Not so fast, kemosabe. If the lineup of world debuts at this year’s Geneva Motor Show is any indication, we may be entering a new golden age of 200+ mph hypercars. The difference this time around is many of them are a bit more responsible, with overdrive (and occasionally double overdrive) 7-speed transmissions and hybrid assist. Of course, these aren’t the only automotive stars in the lakeside Swiss municipality. Here are the 20 premieres that really stir our hot chocolate.

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• Exploring the Treasure Trove that is the Petersen Museum’s Basement [Video]

  In Fast Forward / By Tom Anderson / 28 February 2013

  

  It should go without saying that any gearhead visiting the Los Angeles area absolutely needs to make time for a visit to the Petersen Automotive Museum. Located in a former Ohrbach’s (and before that Seibu) department store on the southeast corner of Wilshire and Fairfax on the Miracle Mile, this incredible, immersive museum – which traces the automobile and its impact on Southern California from the tail end of the 19^th century to today – has been educating and entertaining since its founding by magazine magnate Robert E. “Pete” Petersen and his wife Margie (both now deceased) on June 11, 1994. And you’re pretty much guaranteed to see something different every time you go.

  The museum is able to change up the exhibits fairly frequently thanks to a basement (the former underground parking garage of the department store) stocked to the brim with an incredible variety of cars and trucks, from hopped-up Toyotas to prewar Bugattis. The basement, or “the Vault” as the museum calls it, has been strictly employees only (and the occasional VIP or party) pretty much since day one. However, since this past Holiday Season, the museum has been offering extra-cost guided tours of the Vault to ordinary peons like us. MotorTrend YouTube channel host Jessi Lang tags along with museum curator Leslie Kendall for a walk through this garden of automotive delights for her bi-weekly show, “The J-Turn.” What are you waiting for? Find a way to get to the Petersen!

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• The Top 25 Debuts of the 2012 Geneva Motor Show

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 7 March 2012

  

  The Geneva Motor Show is one of the auto industry’s best-known rites of Spring. Every March, the motoring world converges on the lakeside Swiss metropolis to gawk at all the new models (vehicular and otherwise) on neutral ground. It’s absolutely one of the crown jewels of the international auto show calendar.

  And because it’s such a prestigious show, the manufacturers tend to bring their best production and concept cars to the Geneva Palexpo. This means picking out the best of the best is a mighty daunting task, which is why we’ve decided to expand the field to 25. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s hop to it.

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• Internet Gem of the Week: 1999 Rolls-Royce Silver Seraph

  In Classics / By Tom Anderson / 3 June 2011

  

  The Internet has done many things to change the world, from putting seemingly limitless quantities of information at our fingertips, to taking video chat from science fiction to science fact, to making funny pictures of cats with poorly spelled captions touchstones of Western culture, to broadening the horizons of commerce. That last one is especially good for car enthusiasts, who are no longer limited to the likes of their local paper’s classifieds or the Recycler when shopping for a car.

  We definitely harbor an appreciation for the vast dealership that is the World Wide Web, and we want to spread the gospel. How? By showing you folks what sort of awesome finds are out there waiting on sites like eBay Motors and Craigslist nationwide, of course. So to kick off this series, it would be fitting to start with something special right. And this is a special car that was built for special (and wealthy) people.

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• The Top 10 Lamest “Luxury” Cars Ever

  In Featured, Lists / By Tom Anderson / 26 April 2011

  

  When picturing a luxury car in your mind’s eye, what do you see? Is it a mid- to full-size sedan or coupe with handsome, stately styling and a sumptuous, finely crafted interior? That’s the image we envision, but not every automaker has had that same vision over the years. Some manufacturers have – due to desperation, greed, thinking a little too far out of the box or some cocktail of reasons – released vehicles that, while billed as luxury cars, fail to cut the Grey Poupon. Here are 10 such vehicles that have us scratching our top-hat-capped heads.

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• The Top 10 Cars for Getting the Girl of Your Dreams

  In Featured / By Tom Anderson / 15 October 2010

  

  An obscure Texas trio made it widely known that women dig a well-clothed chap. However, wardrobe isn’t the only means of make the ladies lock their eyes on you; what you drive can also play a significant role in modern courtship. Dating does, after all, rely heavily on first impressions, and making a good one – be it your threads, ride, greeting, whatever – could make the difference between an evening filled with awkward silence and an evening filled with awkward friskiness.

  This is not to say that there aren’t women out there whose only criteria are immaterial things like sweetness and a sense of humor (and we’d really, really like to meet those gals). But if you show up in a Plymouth Horizon wearing its original Diahrrea Metallic paint and held together with dental floss, Great Stuff and street signs obtained via means of ambiguous legality, the odds of her asking you in after you bring her home are gonna be pretty slim. What’s more, the kind of vehicle you drive might not mesh well with the kind of girl you’re after; ladies who wear “No Blood for Oil!” shirts, for instance, seldom go on second dates with guys who roll up in lifted pickups. Just like in advertising, knowing your target audience is crucial. Here, then, are 10 automobiles guaranteed (Okay, semi-likely) to win over the sort of Fräulein you fancy.

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• Video: Snow Drifting a Rolls-Royce – Hilarious or Sacrilegious?

  In Car Videos / By Zack Klapman / 3 February 2010

  

  Ever do something that was perfectly safe, totally harmless, and fun for all parties involved, yet somehow made you feel bad? That is how I feel when I watch this video. Snow drifting is to me what adopting children is to Brangelina; I do it as often as possible, wherever possible, and don’t care what people think of it. And yet, this video makes me feel dirty. A Rolls Royce Phantom power sliding in the snow just feels wrong.

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• Luxury Car Manufacturers Design Futuristic Sleigh Concepts for Santa Claus

  In Auto News / By Ari Cox / 21 December 2009

  

  For the last couple of years, CAR magazine has challenged designers from major auto manufacturers to come up with designs that upgrade Santa’s sleigh to the toy-delivery vehicle of tomorrow. In 2008, the likes of Bentley, Ford, Nissan and Rolls-Royce all delivered spectacular creations. This year Vauxhall, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Audi and Land Rover came through with some crazy cool concepts. 

  Land Rover has created transportation for Kris Kringle that follows their brand aesthetic remarkably well. The particle accelerator propulsion system is a nice touch and we dig the optional CRS (Chimney Recognition Software) technology. But we’re not sure how Santa is supposed to see over the big dome of the reindeer in front of him and it looks like every time the animal swivels its head, it would skewer ole Saint Nicholas, but these are just minor quibbles.

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• Ultimate Factories: Rolls-Royce Phantom Featured on National Geographic (VIDEO)

  In Auto News / By Ari Cox / 7 October 2009

  

  Last week’s episode of Ultimate Factories on the National Geographic Channel was absolutely phenomenol. We got an amazing inside look at the building of the Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce. This week’s show features Rolls-Royce and the production of their flagship Phantom supercar. Be sure to tune in on Thursday, October 8th, at 8PM ET/PT. Check out the video highlights and show details after the jump.

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