Autos

Acura will discontinue the slow-selling RLX after the 2020 model year, which means it might be the perfect time to snag one if you’re in the market. Right now, you can find discounts of up to $12,000 on the large sedan. The biggest deal isn’t being advertised on TV or online, though. According to CarsDirect, Acura is offering a dealer cash incentive of $11,000 on the RLX. Dealer cash is given by brands to its dealers so they can discount new cars at their discretion. Typically, its purpose is to help move vehicles off the lot, although dealers can choose to keep the money rather than pass on the discount to consumers. All versions of the 2020 Acura RLX are eligible for the incentive, according to CarsDirect. Buyers may have to do some shopping around to get the best deal. In ad...

Mark your calendars, Lexus fans, because the Japanese luxury brand officially plans to unveil its 2021 IS sports sedan on June 15. Lexus even sent out a pair of teasers that show the new car’s rear end. Acura recently pulled a similar move with its 2021 TLX sedan, one of the IS’s competitors.  As Lexus’s photos and video show, the new IS compact luxury sedan incorporates a full-width light bar tail lamp style cribbed from the UX crossover SUV. Despite its all-new uni-taillight, the rest of the car is fairly familiar—it reportedly sits atop the same platform used by the current model. There are improvements, of course, including a wider rear track, but the new IS won’t be “all-new,” just mostly new.  We expect the same four- and six-cylinde...

Update: Nissan has released a teaser image of the 2021 Rogue ahead of its debut on June 15. The Nissan Rogue has been the automaker’s bread-and-butter model in the United States for years, having surpassed the Altima sedan as the brand’s bestseller in 2016. As such, the Rogue is a hugely important model for Nissan, and any redesign thus carries tremendous expectations on its roof racks. The next-generation Nissan Rogue will arrive for the 2021 model year, and we have a pretty good idea of what it will look like thanks to a patent application, a new teaser image, and the skills of our illustrator. 2021 Nissan Rogue Design Recently, a Nissan document filed with the Brazilian government, and unearthed by Motor 1, revealed featureless design renderings (see the images in our g...

The 2020 24 Hours of Le Mans was originally scheduled to take place this weekend, from June 13-14, but the world’s most famous, glamorous, and important sports-car race is just one of countless events delayed due to the global pandemic. And while the French endurance classic won’t complete its 88th running for real until September 19-20, there’s a great substitute at hand: This weekend, some of the world’s best-known pro drivers will still wage battle on the 8.469-mile Circuit de la Sarthe, along with elite sim racers, in the Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans. And you can watch all of the action here, uninterrupted from flag-to-flag. The Virtual 24 Hours of Le Mans livestream begins at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, June 13, with the race beginning at 9 a.m. Coverage conc...

The automotive world was treated to a rare look inside the politics of the American auto industry last fall when General Motors filed a racketeering lawsuit against Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) for allegedly bribing UAW officials in a bid to undercut it. But, with the automotive world being a complex place, that was not the only legal action FCA saw this past holiday season: On behalf of the Jeep brand, it won an interim victory in its International Trade Commission infringement case against Mahindra’s Roxor, which we can all agree looks a lot like an old Jeep. This week, the victory was made final, with the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) issuing orders to force Mahindra to stop production and sales of the Roxor as currently designed. The interim finding issued by the...

Good racing films don’t happen very often, and rarely do they receive as much critical acclaim as 2019’s Ford v Ferrari. Propelled by the real-life drama behind Ford’s historic 1-2-3 sweep at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, the movie brings the adrenaline and danger of racing in the 1960s to life, carefully weaving that action into a character-driven origin story of the Blue Oval’s most iconic race car: the Ford GT40. Though the film gets a good majority of the facts straight, it presents the viewer with a condensed version of Ford’s road to victory at Le Mans. And even at a bladder-busting two and a half hours, there just wasn’t time to mention the GT40-based road car Ford was considering from the outset of the program. Wait, a GT40-based road car? That&#...

Millennial car nuts are right in their sweet spot for vehicle nostalgia, and for many of said nuts, Micro Machines were the toy of choice for a few years. The fast-talking pitchman made the tiny cars, trucks, and planes stand out from the larger Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys. As those have become collectible, spawning renewed interest (and, yes, even full-size, drivable recreations like you can see in our MotorTrend App show Hot Wheels Life Size), it was maybe inevitable that Micro Machines would get their second day in the sun. That time seems to be now. This big, glossy book from Bitmap is called “Micro But Many: An Unofficial Micro Machines Collection.” As you can tell from the title, it’s a work that’s not authorized by current owner Hasbro, nor is it related to ...

Automotive News reports that a group of owners of 2011 and newer Ford Mustangs is suing the company over alleged defects in the sports car’s Getrag MT82 six-speed manual transmission. The suit alleges that Ford knows of the issue but has not taken adequate steps to prevent it, despite a series of technical service bulletins (TSBs) and other guidance to dealerships about various transmission problems. The TSBs address a number of issues, all related to shift quality: Grinding, higher-than-expected shift effort, delayed clutch re-engagement, and notchiness. A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation found there was no safety risk associated with the issues, and Ford provided a few fixes that are claimed to address these complaints. You can check out the NHTS...

David Freiburger has been a busy (rumble) bee while working from home, and he’s uncovered even more automotive treasures. The lifelong hot rodder and off-roader has amassed such an impressive collection automobilia, parts, tools, and cars that it was all too much to show you in one installment! Dive in for another journey with Freiburger through the mini-Mecca that is his garage! Vintage Stickers and Decals on David Freiburger’s Toolbox Most of us car nuts have collected many a sticker and decal in our travels, and Freiburger is no different. They come with speed parts, they get handed out at events, sometimes we even pay for them because they’re just too cool to pass up, but the collection on the side of Freiburger’s toolbox is more than just a random hodgepodge of...

We all know that Tesla can update its cars “over the air,” meaning via a wireless internet data connection. Even though the tech is getting standardized across the industry, Tesla is one of the few companies that can do things like add driving range or power via a software update, unlocking electronically cordoned-off battery capacity or energy distribution. Your Tesla can always get better, it seems, but not only by Tesla’s hand. That’s right—a Canadian company is now offering its own squirts of extra performance for the Model 3 sedan by way of software updates of its own, and for less than half the price Tesla charges its customers for a similar boost. According to Elektrek, a Canadian company called Ingenext has found a way to unlock an extra 50 horsepower from a...