1999 Chevrolet Tahoe Lt Sport Utility 4-door 5.7l on 2040-cars

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The cars and trucks of 'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts'

The latest spectacle in the Transformers franchise is about to hit the theaters. The final trailer was released, giving us peeks at what appears to be a pretty boilerplate story about the end of the world. There's some kind of ancient interplanetary war brewing and it's up to some teenagers to sort it out with the help of their robot buddies. But this is Autoblog, so we're not even going to try to suss out a plot so thin it won't hold a spittle globule's worth of water. We'll just go over the cars. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts | Official Final Trailer (2023 Movie) Porsche 911 Carrera RS 3.8: Mirage So far the star of the film, car-wise, looks to be a blue-on-silver 964 Porsche named Mirage that is voiced by Pete Davidson. It's been the most promoted of the movie cars, even more so than formerly central characters like Bumblebee and Optimus Prime. Except, this isn't just any ordinary 911; it's a Carrera RS 3.8, a European-exclusive model of which Porsche only built 55 units. As the name implies, it came with a bored-out M64 turbo flat-six as opposed to the 964 Turbo's 3.6. It wore the Turbo's wide-body badonk with a bi-level rear wing, but Porsche reportedly stripped out 570 pounds' worth of weight despite embiggening key performance parts like brakes and wheels. Fortunately, no actual RS 3.8s were used in the movie. Producers instead built five cars for different purposes — shooting closeups of actors, jumps, the obligatory driving backwards real fast — out of lesser 911s. However, the sound department did record the engine note of an actual RS 3.8 for accuracy, as the higher crank speeds of the 3.8 have a distinctive sound.  In the original 1984 Transformers lineup Mirage was a Ligier JS11 Formula 1 car, complete with faux Gitanes cigarette branding (on a children's toy!). An F1 racer would raise an eyebrow on the streets, so it made sense to update to a street-legal sports car. If you're wondering why this Porsche isn't the character Jazz, whose original vehicle mode was an ultra-cool Martini-liveried Porsche 935, well, he was remade into a Pontiac Solstice voiced by Darius McCrary during the GM product placement rewrite in 2007's Transformers reboot, then unceremoniously killed. 1977 Chevrolet Camaro: Bumblebee Formerly the franchise star, Bumblebee gets far less screen time in the trailers. He's still a Camaro, but because Transformers: Rise of the Beasts takes place in 1994 he's not a fith-gen.

Chevy keeps teasing next Camaro, 70 percent of parts unique to it [w/video]

Watch this week's Top Gear America used-car challenge

Top Gear America is back for the penultimate episode of the first season. Used car challenges were some of the highlights of the original UK edition. In our exclusive clip, Tom Ford, Antron Brown and William Fichtner run their $7,000 sports cars in a drag race. As expected, the trio chose very different cars for the challenge. Watch the video to see if a Subaru WRX's all-wheel drive can overcome a power deficit to beat a Ford Mustang and a Chevy Corvette. Brown and Fichtner also spend some time relaxing with an old Jeep Wagoneer. Like them, we're really hoping Jeep will bring back the Wagoneer nameplate. Brown also drives a Maserati Levante, proving that not all family cars need be boring. This week's guest star is actor, rapper and former host of Pimp My Ride, Xzibit. Top Gear America airs Sundays at 8 p.m. Eastern on BBC America. Related Video: Celebrities TV/Movies Chevrolet Ford Subaru Top Gear exclusive top gear america