2013 Nissan Altima 2.5 Sl on 2040-cars

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Hyundai plots a Nissan Juke fighter

A few years ago, Hyundai Motor America CEO Dave Zuchowski suggested interest in taking on the Nissan Juke with a subcompact crossover. It looks like that project is coming together, as we caught Hyundai testing a small, curiously-styled SUV in Germany recently. The SUV is expected to share a lot of the same chassis components as the i20, a hatchback that's sold in other parts of the world, with the same engine lineup as the new i30, another hatchback that Hyundai doesn't sell in the America. In the United Kingdom, the i30 is available with engines including a 1.4-liter gasoline and a 1.6-liter diesel unit. Front-wheel drive would be standard with all-wheel drive an option. The heavily-camouflaged prototype doesn't give away a lot of the SUV's design. The front of the vehicle is hidden away, but what we can see the grille features hexagonal shapes instead of the horizontal bars that we've become accustomed to seeing in Hyundais. The headlights mimic the Jeep Cherokee's design with thin slits on top and larger, round units toward the bottom. At the back, camouflage hides the majority of the prototype, but the taillights appear to be different than the rest of Hyundai's offerings. The outline of the taillights resembles the same units found on the Intrado Concept, indicating the vehicle will get some design cues from the hydrogen-powered prototype. A single exhaust outlet protrudes underneath the rear end. The overall profile of the SUV appears to be smaller than the Tucson, which is currently Hyundai's smallest crossover in the US. Related Video: Featured Gallery Hyundai SUV Spy Shots View 10 Photos Image Credit: CarPix Design/Style Spy Photos Hyundai Nissan Crossover SUV Future Vehicles

Autoblog Podcast #317

Mitsubishi Mirage, Toyota thinks of beefing up US production, Marchionne on Alfa, Dart and minivans, Ford Atlas concept, Honda Gear concept
Episode #317 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Jeff Ross and Michael Harley bookend the other podcast topics with a pair from the Montreal Auto Show, the Mitsubishi Mirage and Honda Gear concept, and in between we talk about Toyota building all its US-market cars stateside, Hyundai building a Nurburgring test facility, Sergio Marchionne's latest words about Alfa Romeo, Dodge Dart powertrains and the future of Chrysler vans. Some chatter about the Ford Atlas concept finishes up the meat of the 'cast and then we wrap with your questions. For those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Keep reading for our Q&A module for you to scroll through and follow along, too. Thanks for listening!
Autoblog Podcast #317:

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.