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60 Years Later, A New Jensen Interceptor Is Here
By: Razvan Calin
The GTX of 2026 is here, and it carries a supercharged LT V8 with 1,200 hp and 1,100 lb-ft on tap. And no, its not a Mopar, but a British supercar – the Jensen Interceptor. Jensen International revealed the all-new Jensen Interceptor GTX, a track-only two-seater developed entirely in the United Kingdom. This front-engined, rear-drive prototype foreshadows future road-going models and serves as a proof of concept for the historic brand. The launch marks 60 years after the original 1966 debut.
Jensen’s future product roadmap includes an ultra-high-performance street-legal GTR version alongside a luxury grand-touring GT model. Managing Director David Duerden stated the project was approached from an engineering perspective rather than a nostalgic marketing exercise.
Approximately 80% of the exterior form of the GTX, including key body panels (and associated tooling), will transition directly to the road-going models. Jensen collaborated with Avant Design to create a forward-looking reinterpretation that avoids overt retro styling, but keeps the subtle cues very visible in key places.
The car retains classic cab-rearward proportions, featuring a long bonnet and a tightly drawn passenger compartment. Slim horizontal LED lighting and massive functional air intakes dominate the vehicle's very aggressive front fascia.
The signature Jensen Interceptor wraparound back glass and floating rear roof section reference the historic styling of the iconic Interceptor. Aerodynamics heavily influenced the design, with designers relying on computational fluid dynamics to translate their vision onto a stable platform.
The track-focused motorsport package incorporates a prominent front splitter, a flat floor, and a large rear diffuser. A structural carbon fiber adjustable rear wing (generating over 350 kg / 770 lb of downforce) is what sets immediately spills the beans on what the GTX is really all about.
Coventry Metalcraft handcrafted the bodywork entirely from aluminum, combining digital with traditional metal-shaping techniques. The flowy GTX required more than 30 artisans turning ten English Wheels and other specialized equipment to shape the complex panels, and weld the whole thing together. The team invested some 600 hours preparing the finished body for in-house painting.
For the full interview, please continue reading on our site.
The disappointing Tesla Cybercab event has pushed autonomous driving features way into the background
By: Cristian Agatie
Tesla has made the Cybercab the centerpiece of its mid-term strategy, with other models basically abandoned. Elon Musk touted autonomous driving as the new automotive evolution, with the Cybercab becoming the poster child of this transformation. With no steering wheel and no pedals, the Cybercab promised to revolutionize the automotive industry.
Tesla announced that it would build millions of Cybercabs, thus aiming to turn it into the dominant car model on Earth. However, it fell short of explaining how it would be able to sell it without human controls, even if its autonomous driving software gets industry-wide approval. So far, the Cybercab appears to be innovative, but not the breakthrough Tesla thought it would be.
Starting with the launch event in Austin, everything is a little less than most people expected. Hundreds of people, most of them Tesla die-hard fans, have made travel arrangements worth thousands of dollars. However, when they arrived, they were greeted with a 15-minute presentation.
The highlight of the event was the Cybercab rides on the streets of Austin. However, these are not much different from other unsupervised Robotaxi rides that people have been able to book for months. It was even worse for people not attending the event. Tesla decided (or just forgot about it) to not offer a live stream of the event, leaving everyone in the dark.
If you look at the social media posts from Tesla's official accounts, you will notice that they are all drowned in a sea of negative comments. It's fitting for a company that disbanded its PR department to stick it to the "mainstream media." Instead of an event where everyone was eagerly waiting for Tesla to shape the narrative, they got radio silence. As some of our colleagues said, the media wanted to listen, but Tesla was on mute.
To make things worse, Elon Musk skipped the event, and other Tesla officials attending the event were incapable or unwilling to offer more details. There is no word on how many Cybercabs will be deployed, an official timeline for further expansion, or the cities where Tesla wants to start operations next. Tesla also communicates that it assumes no responsibility if anything goes wrong, and riders must acknowledge that before ordering a Cybercab.
Regulators are already on red alert, hours after the Cybercab started its career. The NHTSA has opened an audit query (AQ) into the Tesla Cybercab "to examine the process and technical data on which Tesla relied when certifying the Cybercab and related issues." The agency took issue with the lack of sideview mirrors, pedals, and a steering wheel, all required under the FMVSS. It appears that Tesla hasn't sought an exemption from the FMVSS rules for the Cybercab.
For the full article, please continue reading on our site.
This gold-plated 1953 Elegante one-off is the most expensive Cadillac ever
By: Razvan Calin
The 1953 Cadillac Elegante just shattered auction records, selling for an astounding $1,275,000 at the Auburn Auction. It is now officially the most expensive Cadillac ever sold at public auction. The totally unique concept car proves that special coachbuilt American vehicles can command premium values in the modern collector market.
Until this spectacular weekend, the auction record belonged to a 1934 Cadillac V 16 Fleetwood Aerodynamic Coupe. That magnificent classic vehicle previously achieved an impressive $940,000 hammer price at a Broad Arrow Auctions in 2023.
Now, the futuristic 1953 Elegante has eclipsed that mark by a substantial margin. This historic luxury vehicle sale resets the financial ceiling for the prestigious American brand.
The origins of this multimillion dollar treasure began in 1953 with two incredibly ambitious friends. Commercial artist Harry Birdsall teamed up with Joe Mascari, a successful insulation contractor from Long Island. They shared a bold vision to manufacture a totally unique American sports car featuring dramatic aeronautical styling.
Their dream required extraordinary dedication, launching an incredible journey of passionate automotive engineering. To establish a reliable mechanical foundation, the duo originally sourced a heavily damaged chassis from a 1953 Series 62 convertible. The donor vehicle was caught in a fire inside a White Plains dealership.
Despite heavy cosmetic damage, the underlying frame remained perfectly intact, providing the architecture necessary for the customized design and complex building process. Seeking stylistic perfection, Birdsall and Mascari immediately enlisted Albrecht Goertz, the brilliant automobile designer who later achieved worldwide fame by shaping the 1956 BMW 507 and Datsun 240Z.
Goertz refined the early sketches, injecting his signature graceful lines into the vehicle. The resulting futuristic silhouette blended massive American scale with refined European elegance alongside the sporty proportions.
Because Mascari maintained business connections in Italy, the team successfully commissioned Carrozzeria Rocco Motto for the body work. The Turin artisans spent 30 months forming the aluminum body panels. Construction consumed $30,000, an absolute fortune back then. The founders desperately hoped to place the Elegante into limited production with an intended retail price of $20,000 for the ten copies planned for American buyers.
For the full article, please continue reading on our site.
6 cars you've never heard of, all powered by the same Mercedes V8
By: Alex Oagana
According to quite a few popular myths, Mercedes-Benz is not as prolific as BMW when it comes to making great engines, but the truth is that both German carmakers have built their fair share of legendary powertrains.
Regarding V8s, for example, some would say that the three-pointed star is well ahead of its rival from Bavaria. An example as good as any would be the M117, which not a few would regard as one of the greatest V8 engines of the twentieth century.
Introduced for the first time in 1971, on the 280 SE 4.5 (W108) and 280 SEL 4.5 (W109), it was originally developed to satisfy power demands in the United States. The first version was essentially a longer-stroke sibling to the M116 V8 engine, albeit it gradually increased even further in displacement. Its cast iron block was pretty much unbreakable, and despite the OHC design and only two valves per cylinder, it could be made to deliver quite a lot of oomph without too many reinforcements.
In production for over three decades, it was the top-of-the-range Mercedes-Benz engine until the even more impressive M120 V12 arrived to rewrite all the rules in the early 1990s, but that is a story for another time. Meanwhile, the M117 V8 was modified in so many ways that it powered everything from the S-Class to the incredible G 600 TE AMG that Clay Regazzoni drove in four Paris-Dakar editions despite being paralyzed from the waist down.
Isdera Erator GTE Mk III: A Rolling Job Application For Porsche That Started an Enigmatic Legend
There aren’t many cars in history that can claim to have been used as literal CV, apart from indirectly being the launch pad for a boutique supercar manufacturer. The third iteration of the Isdera Erator GTE is simultaneously both of those things, and the story behind it could be very well made into a movie.
Eberhard Schulz was a young mechanical engineering student in late 1960s Germany who left his studies before completing his degree in order to follow his lifelong dream of designing the coolest and also most bizarre cars in Germany. Using his laundry room and front yard for space, he designed and built a Ford GT40-like sports car that gradually became a supercar.
Named after the first name of his wife, the two-seater mid-engine coupe was based on a welded steel tube frame with a fiberglass body on top, and featured gullwing doors, thus making it not quite identical to a GT40. The Erator GTE underwent several development stages, ultimately leading to the Mk III version. The original iteration had a tiny flat-four Boxer engine from the VW Beetle, which only gave it a top speed of 175 kph (109 mph).
For the full article, please continue reading on our site.
Spy shots and renderings of the week
By: Mircea Panait
The outgoing Sportage hasn't been struggling to look modern, but that apparently isn't enough for Kia. Following in the footsteps of the newly redesigned Hyundai Tucson, the platform twin has given up enough camouflage to reveal that it's heading in a considerably boxier direction. Truth be told, "considerably" might undersell the newfound boxiness.
More upright than before, the 2028 Kia Sportage gives off mini-Telluride energy. What used to be a curvy profile is now gone in favor of sharper pillars, a flatter roof, and more upright front and rear ends. The hood is flatter as well, and it appears to have undergone the clamshell treatment. Under the camo, a full-width front light bar may be hiding as well.
Even the little details have changed, including the chunkier side mirrors and flush-mounted exterior door handles. Under the skin, look forward to Pleos Connect infotainment with clever AI voice assistance, a minimalist dashboard, and a turbocharged hybrid powertrain borrowed from the Tucson. At full chatter, the hybrid setup is capable of delivering 242 horsepower and 280 pound-feet (380 Newton-meters) of peak torque.
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Not surprising in the least, Hyundai's 2028 Kona shows more angles on every side than before as well. Photographed undergoing hot-weather testing in Spain, the next iteration shows a higher hood, squarer wheel arches, and a sufficiently rakish windshield to stop the small crossover from South Korea from being compared to a four-wheeled refrigerator.
Partly inspired by the design language of the all-new Tucson and the smaller Venue, the design adopts a shark nose-like front end with low-mounted headlights and a prominent upper light bar. The taillights, meanwhile, have moved inward toward the middle of the rear fascia, making the front-biased crossover appear wider than it actually is when viewed from behind.
The most interesting development here is the widely expected self-charging hybrid option, which should mirror the output figures and V2L functionality of the Seltos. Available with electric all-wheel drive by means of a rear-mounted electric motor, the hybrid can supply a variety of camping equipment, appliances, and electronic devices at up to 3.52 kilowatts.
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Scheduled to enter production at some point in 2027, the all-new Amarok for Latin America is a different breed from the Ford Ranger-based model that you can have in Europe and Oceania nowadays. Most likely twinned with the SAIC-developed Maxus Interstellar X electrified pickup, the German midsizer was teased under heavy camo back in August 2026.
Using the photos released by none other than Volkswagen, Brazilian digital artist Kleber Silva came up with two sets of renderings. The first depicts a crew-cabbed pickup, as you'd expect from the Amarok, while the other imagines a three-row sport utility vehicle derived from the Amarok for Latin America. Think of it as the Everest people carrier to Ford's mid-size truck.
Full-width light bars connect the headlights and the taillights, and the overall design obviously distinguishes the Latin American model from the Ranger-based Amarok sold elsewhere. To be produced in Argentina, the newcomer isn't likely to spawn a three-row SUV because there is little demand for such vehicles in Central and South American markets.
Android Auto updates are back on the menu
By: Bogdan Popa
Now that the paint has kind of dried on the GTA 6 trailer, it’s time to get back to the usual business. And this involves digging deep into new Android Auto builds to discover what’s to come.

It looks like Google is once again working on bringing weather info to users in their cars. Instead of a dedicated Coolwalk card, which wouldn’t fit on a small screen, it’s now using a raccoon (this is not even a joke) to show weather conditions.
Additionally, it’s working on something that brings it closer to its original objective of turning Android Auto into an extension of Android. Google is experimenting with quick toggles in Android Auto, and an option to enable DND has recently been spotted in version 17.6.
Google is also working on a Google Maps feature that makes perfect sense on Android Auto: a lighter mode that eliminates the clutter and focuses on roads and navigation. The feature is still in the works, but it could ship sooner rather than later.
As for CarPlay, the AI revolution continues, with Anthropic bringing Claude to the car with the latest app version. There’s still no wake-up phrase, and you should thank Apple’s walled garden for this.
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