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The hottest modern sports cars rendered as rally racers

The modern-day World Rally Championship a monumental amount of fun to watch – I should know, as I recently was lucky enough to head to the UK to watch WRC Wales Rally GB – but even the most monstrous of the current WRC cars are based on fairly pedestrian European hatchbacks. Back in the heyday of rally, the Group B era in the 1980s, much hotter cars were the basis of even more incredible competition machines, for the most part. Take the exotic Ford RS200, or the Lancia Delta S4 with its twin-charged engine. And the hatchback-based Group B cars were bonkers, too. So what would some of our favorite modern cars look like if Group B had never ended? A British site named CarWow hired an artist to reimagine everything from the Rolls-Royce Wraith to the Porsche 911 as a retro-inspired rally car, and they were kind enough to let us share the results in the gallery above. The gallery features an Alfa Romeo Giulia in Martini livery, an Audi TT in classic Ur-Quattro colors, a Fiat 500 Abarth sporting massive flares and a hood blister full of auxiliary lights, a new Ford Mustang in RS200 livery, a Lancia Delta in Alitalia colors, a Porsche 911 in Rothmans livery, a Renault-Alpine in classic blue, a Rolls-Royce Wraith tribute to the Jules cologne Corniche Coupe, and a relatively modern-looking VW Touran. So far, the favorite around the office is the incredible Mercedes-Benz S-Class that is an homage to the wonderful 300 SEL 6.8 AMG "Red Pig" that essentially put AMG on the map. Check out the gallery above and see which one you like the best. Related Video:

Three automotive tech trends to watch in 2018 and beyond

Every year, technology plays a bigger and bigger role in the auto industry. To put things in perspective, 10 years ago iPod integration and Bluetooth were cutting-edge in-car innovations, and smartphones and apps weren't yet a thing since the first iPhone was only about six months old. And I can't recall anyone talking about autonomous cars. Compare that to today, with mainstream coverage of the auto industry dominated by autonomous technology, along with electrification and almost every move made by Tesla. These three topics were the most significant trends of car tech in 2017 and I believe they will continue to shape the auto industry in 2018 and beyond. Let's examine them. Full Autonomy Gets Closer to Reality While there were many developments this year that indicate we're inching closer to fully autonomous vehicles, I was behind the wheel for hours to witness one of them. In October I had the chance to test Cadillac Super Cruise on a 700-mile, 11-hour drive from Dallas to Santa Fe – and had my hands on the wheel for maybe 45 minutes max throughout the entire trip. Super Cruise is far from making the Cadillac CT6 or any GM vehicle fully autonomous, and has limitations such as functioning only on pre-mapped main highways. While it simply adds a layer of lane centering to adaptive cruise control, the technology will go a long way in making mainstream drivers more comfortable with letting machines take over. On a separate front, GM is pushing ahead with fully autonomous vehicles and announced last month that it plans to launch of fleets of self-driving robo-taxis in several urban areas in 2019. While most automakers are also in the race to make autonomous cars a reality, GM's turbocharging of its efforts appeared to be in response to Waymo, which announced just weeks earlier that its Early Rider Program in the Phoenix area would go completely driverless. The Early Rider Program launched last April, offering the public a chance to ride in Waymo's autonomous Chrysler Pacifica minivans. In this new phase of testing, Waymo is using its own employees as guinea pigs instead of the public while the vehicles operate without a human behind the wheel, and takes another giant step forward for fully autonomous driving.

Mercedes gets handy with Apple Watch app

Whether you yourself have been caught up in Apple Watch fever or not, automakers have been embracing the new wearable device one after the other. The latest is Mercedes-Benz. The MB Companion App for the Apple Watch initially focuses on seamless navigation. Punch in your destination on your watch or iPhone and it'll port over to the onboard navigation system in your Merc. Park the car, get out and the directions will switch back over to the Apple Watch to guide you from your parking spot to your destination on foot. It's similar to the app Mercedes had designed for Google Glass, only in this application it actually stands a chance of catching on. Designed by Benz's Silicon Valley R&D center, the Apple Watch app is being rolled out this fall in the new C-Class and S-Class equipped with the COMAND Online navigation system. It's earmarked to to spread to other models as well, with further updates to the app planned to allow it to display the vehicle's fuel level, range, odometer and maintenance code. Of course, Mercedes isn't the first automaker to release an app for the Apple Watch. It's not even the first German automaker to do so: BMW previewed its app for the device back in September, and Volkswagen got on board earlier this month. Mercedes-Benz to introduce new App: Guided all the way: Mercedes-Benz is one of the first to introduce Door-to-Door Navigation with Apple Watch May 15, 2015 Stuttgart/Sunnyvale. Mercedes-Benz creates an intelligent integration between Apple Watch and Mercedes-Benz vehicles with its new MB Companion App. The MB Companion App allows Mercedes-Benz costumers to search for directions on the Apple Watch or on iPhone initiating a complete door-to-door experience. A seamless integration unfolds: giving walking directions to the car on the Apple Watch, driving directions on the vehicle navigation system and again walking directions on the Apple Watch from the car to the final destination. The destination that the driver selects on Apple Watch is passed to Mercedes-Benz COMAND Online once the driver starts the vehicle. He then receives safe and non-distracting driving directions to his selected destination from Mercedes-Benz navigation. When the driver parks and leaves his car, Apple Watch gives him walking directions to the final destination making it the perfect guide for "Last Mile Navigation".