Utility Vehicle Cars

Hennessey Performance is celebrating Christmas by delivering Christmas trees as fast as possible. The company’s previous sleigh, a Jeep Trackhawk, managed to deliver it by touching speeds of up 181 mph. But, this time, they want to get it done even faster. So, they’ve upgraded their sleigh to an Audi RS6 Avant that’s been tuned to make 800 reindeer; err., I mean 800 horses. They tried the same with a tuned Porsche 911 Turbo S recently, but it failed. But, the Audi RS6 Avant managed to break the record and is now officially Hennessey’s fastest Christmas tree transporter!

Doug DeMuro recently got a chance to take an up-close look at the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 392. The Wrangler has pretty much had a niche market to itself for the longest time, but we first saw the Rubicon 392 about a year ago and it was obviously conceived in response to the revival of the Ford Bronco.

With the pandemic still looming over our heads, 2021 was a pretty action-packed year for the auto industry. Sure, you had challenges, with automakers having to contend with issues like chip shortages, causing delays to consumers. But regardless, the show had to go on and we got some pretty cool cars making their debut, predominantly towards the latter half of 2021.

Let’s get one thing out of the way, 2021 really was also the year, when the market as a whole began to embrace EV’s and you could see several automakers both the legacy as well as EV startups bring several new models to market. Having said that, we did see some pretty cool ICE cars, also make their debut. Now there were several cars that made headlines this year, it was very difficult to pick out the best ones, but the cars on this list definitely stood out. Here’s our list of some of the most highly anticipated and important cars that were unveiled in 2021.

The Nissan Frontier has been a trusted workhorse for its owners for a very long time. The truck has been as reliable as it can get. Last year, a Chicago-based delivery driver, Brian Murphy, clocked one million miles on it! However, Nissan took the ‘don’t fix if it ain’t broke’ philosophy a little too seriously. At a time when automakers come up with significant changes even in facelifts every year, Nissan retained the same design language on the Frontier for 15 years! But, for the new, third-gen 2022 model, we get a revamped design that puts it in line with the modern trucks. The company introduced a new engine and gearbox for the previous model year and the same has been carried over this time as well.

The 2022 Nissan Frontier in the top-sped PRO-4X off-road trim arrived at TopSpeed’s headquarters recently, and here’s all you need to know about it.

Although it was bound to happen, this comes as a surprise. GMC dropped a short trailer teasing the new upcoming Electric Sierra Denali. The automaker hasn’t revealed any details about it, but gave us a glimpse of its front fascia. Well, something’s better than nothing and we at least know GMC has already started working on electrifying the Sierra.

CarWow has been synonymous with its drag racing videos on YouTube, but this time they have something different in-store. This time, two Toyota off-road vehicles are being pitted against each other, to determine, which is the better off-roader and workhorse? Moreover, both the Toyota Hilux and Toyota Land Cruiser (Prado) are not being sold on the US market, so the real question is, are you missing something?

Ford launched the F-150 Lightning earlier this year. The electric truck checks almost all the boxes and can be considered as the first mainstream electric pickup truck for the masses. There are a lot of electric trucks launched in recent years, like the Tesla Cybertruck, the Rivian R1T, the Lordstown Endurance, the Bollinger B2, etc. But, none of them offer the all-round capability that the F-150 Lightning does.

The Ford truck comes with all the bells and whistles one can ask for, and then some more. For now, Ford has launched it in one body style and three basic trims plus an exclusive work truck model, but expect it to grow in the coming years. With all the subsidies and credits, the F-150 Lightning works out to be the cheapest full-size truck in the market today! (more on this in the ‘Pricing’ section). From the looks of it, the F-150 Lightning seems to be an all-rounder that offers good power outputs, decent range, and a lot of tech features. Do you think it will be a runaway success, or will the loyalists look around at other trucks?

Just a few days ago, we reported that Ford is aiming to be the world’s second-largest electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer in the world, and as a matter of fact, the company has confirmed that it now has 200,000 reservations for the F-150 Lightning. Unfortunately, it is also because of that reason that led the Blue Oval brand to close reservations for its full-size EV pickup.

Now the three-row SUV segment is an incredibly crowded place with some popular options like the Honda Pilot, the Toyota Highlander, the Hyundai Palliside, and the Kia Telluride. Believe it or not, buyers now have a choice of 30 different vehicles to choose from, depending on their budget and size requirements.

Until a couple of decades ago, two-door SUVs were extremely popular. Time, as they say, is not kind to anyone, but that doesn’t stop certain tuning studios from bringing them back to life, in the form of bold conversions. That’s exactly what Flat Out Autos has done with a 2018 Chevrolet Z71 Tahoe, which was shown at the 2021 SEMA Show.

As part of their updated "Small but Beautiful" midterm plan, Mitsubishi Motors is doing a lot of things to bring back the brand’s "Mitsubishi Motors-ness". The revival of Ralliart is one of them, but oh boy you’ll be disappointed on how this famed motorsport sub-brand made its comeback.

For a company that comes up with pretty much a new generation of the F-150 every five years, it sure milked the Ranger for a very, very long time; 11 years to be precise. Ford sold the Ranger T-6 for 11 years without a major update, but times are changing now.

The Blue Oval has unveiled the next-gen 2023 Ford Ranger. It is based on an upgraded chassis, comes with new styling cues, and also features a new V-6 diesel mill. The mid-size truck will also have a longer wheelbase, a wider body, and a whole of tech features inside.

The Ford F-Series can be given the tag of ‘The Truck of America’ without a doubt. The F-Series has been the best-selling range for close to five consecutive decades. Although the F-150 gets the major chunk of the volume for Ford, there are many other heavy-duty models in the range that have been ruling the respective segments. We recently laid our hands on the 2021 F-250 Super Duty Crew Cab. This Limited trim F-250 featured a four-wheel-drive system and came with the V-8 diesel mill that puts out a four-digit torque figure! Read on to know more about it.

Sam CarLegion, once again, gives us an epic YouTube video of awesome vehicles drag-racing each other. This time, the Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk has the uneasy task of defending its turf against the BMW X5 M Competition and Range Rover Sport SVR. All three SUVs are the top versions of their regular counterparts, but who is going to come out on top?

Imagine the unholy love child of a Mercedes S-class, a city bus, and a Hummer. That is what the TORSUS Praetorian is like.

Sometimes, the strangest of vehicles show up at the drag strip to see how they fare in a ¼ mile run. This time around, the Wheels YouTube Channel put out a video of a Quad bike taking on the local Jefferson County Sheriff’s Ford Explorer Police car, at the Bandimere Speedway in Morrisson, Colorado. But it didn’t stop there as the Quad bike also went up against a Mitsubishi EVO X and another Quad. Let’s see how things pan out.

Luxury SUVs are expensive, but that term can vary depending on someone’s purchasing power. While a Land Rover Range Rover Sport is already out of reach for most of us, a Bentley Bentayga easily costs twice as much. Does this mean that the Bentayga is two times better than the Range Rover Sport?

GMC took the wraps off the 2022 Sierra today and it seems to be an impressive upgrade over the outgoing model. The company has introduced two new trims which are basically upgraded versions of the existing trims. One is the Denali Ultimate, and the other is the AT4X. Apart from this, there are a lot of tech upgrades as well, but the highlight of the lot is the introduction of the Super Cruise hands-free driver-assistance technology. If you had only the Ford F-150, Ram 1500, and the Chevy Silverado shortlisted for your next truck purchase, well, skimping the 2022 Sierra will be a cardinal sin.

There’s something to be said about a drag race between pickup trucks. Straight-line performance is not really the main selling point of these types of vehicles, but it still gives you an idea of how good the powertrains are at propelling them. Last time, Sam CarLegion had a RAM 1500 TRX vs Ford F150 ROUSH drag race, instore. This time, it’s the Honda Ridgeline vs the Hyundai Santa Cruz, and here’s what happened.

It took a lot of us by surprise when Land Cruiser decided not to bring the new Land Cruiser 300 to the U.S. The beast wasn’t moving in numbers that would justify it being alive here. However, the Toyota Group has decided to replace it with the new Lexus LX600 SUV instead and will be arriving Stateside. The company released a teaser last week announcing that the LX 600 will debut on October 13 at 12:30 p.m. ET, and here’s the live stream for you to watch

What has the world come to? Just a decade ago, you wouldn’t think much of pick-up trucks in terms of straight-line acceleration. Sure, we’ve had things like the Ford Lightning or the GMC Syclone, but nowadays, you can buy a pick-up truck with well-over 600 and even 700 horsepower out the box. On today’s drag racing video from Sam CarLegion, we have a RAM 1500 TRX going up against a Ford F-150 Roush. The goal is simple – to find out who’s quicker at the quarter-mile.

When Ford launched the Focus RS with its famed, albeit accidentally created drift mode, it was a very cool marketing gimmick. There’s not a lot of use for such a thing for most folks, but it’s cool to say you have the functionality. What we didn’t know at the time, however, was that Ford’s happy little accident sparked a whole new trend, and that trend is already starting to get ridiculous.