Rumors

BMW and its M division are gearing up for a busy 2022. It’s got quite a lot of vehicles lined up for debut, like the M2, the M3 Touring, the XM, and even the iX M60. Amidst all this, we now get news that the performance arm of the German automaker is planning for a special vehicle. This is rumored to be a special edition of the BMW M4 to commemorate BMW M’s 50th anniversary. But, do you think the company will mark its Golden Jubilee with just another M4?

The next-gen BMW 5 series has been spied numerous times in 2021 despite the fact that the current-generation model was just updated. We’ve also recently seen the i5 – the 5 Series EV that will be sold alongside the traditional 5 Series- but now we’ve learned that the i5 won’t be just an electric sedan – there’s actually more to it. And, by more, I mean more interior space and cargo room.

Honda just revealed all the dirty details about both the 2022 Honda Civic Hatchback and the Civic Sedan, and, on top of this, we’ve learned a little bit about the Civic Si and Civic Type R. Honda didn’t go all out and spoil the party of anxiety leading up to the launch of these two gems, but we did learn a couple of things about them, including a very strange twist that nobody saw coming.

Update 10-18-2021: Honda has released a final teaser of the new Honda Civic Si along with the promise that it will be revealed on October 19, 2021. Check out the new image and what we know about it below.

The Toyota Yaris Cross, basically a high-riding hatchback with crossover ambitions, is one of Toyota’s newest vehicles and the company’s only subcompact crossover. Now, it looks like Toyota is going to share that love with Lexus, however, this news might not be a big deal if you live in the United States. The Tiny Lexus will share market designations with the Yaris Cross, which is currently only available in Europe, Japan, and Australia. According to the report, the Lexus crossover will be powered by the same 1.5-liter, hybrid, three-cylinder that powers the Yaris Cross. In that model, it’s good for anywhere between 90 and 118 horsepower with the electric motor – either 3.9 kW or 59 kW – adding from 5.2 to 79 horsepower into the mix.

It’s not likely that Lexus will simply rebadge the Yaris Cross, so expect the typical Lexus front end, nice interior materials, and – perhaps – a small increase in power output, at least for the higher trim levels. For the record, it would slot below the Lexus UX, which means that the trademark filing for “LBX” and “Lexus LBX” could have been hinting at its name. That said, the LBX is largely considered to be a concept, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens with that. Another rumor claims the sub-UX crossover would be called the Lexus BX, it would arrive in 2023, and would sit somewhere below the $30,000 mark. That sounds a little more like it to us, but we’ll have to see what happens.

Veloster fans out there, please do not despair. Despite what some rumors might have suggested a couple of days ago, Hyundai is not throwing the regular version of its sporty hatchback under the bus. However, some trim levels will have to go.

A trademark filed by BMW in October 2020 with the US patent office has been submitted to the UK office on April 5, 2021. It’s called “XM” and Carbuzz thinks “it sounds like it could be a bespoke, M-branded SUV.”

It seems the Nissan GT-R lives up to the Godzilla name, not only in terms of performance but also in terms of its lifespan. Although it’s ancient (for a supercar), the Japanese supercar slayer is still holding its ground with the dignity and decisiveness of a true samurai. If for some reason you had doubts, that the GT-R is a great performance car, think about this: When a performance car of this caliber comes out, it’s usually at the top of the performance car food chain for maybe three years, before someone else dethrones it. But that isn’t the case with the GT-R.

Big Alfa Romeo Sports sedans don’t really exist today, with the last important model that comes to mind being the 166 that was produced between 1996 and 2007. But, what if Alfa Romeo, now under the leadership of Stellantis, decided it wanted to forget about the SUV segment for a moment and compete with the likes of the BMW 5 Series, Mercedes E-Class, and even the Audi A6 or Maserati Ghibli? Well, believe it or not, an uncited report is claiming this could very well happen, and it could happen sooner than you’d expect.

While Audi did make an all-electric R8 which it showed at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show, the project was so short lived that come 2016, Audi decided to scrap it altogether. It didn’t even get the chance to have its own configurator and back then, Audi was asking around €1 million ($1,1 million) for one unit.

The 2021 Ram 1500 TRX (unofficially AKA the Rebel) was a proverbial shot toward Ford, and it hit the Raptor right in the face. Where Ford thought it would continue to dominate the off-road truck market with the F-150 Raptor, Ram took years to develop something that was able to impressively compete, and it even comes with a Hellcat V-8 engine under the hood with nearly double the power of the F-150 Raptor’s puny little V-6. Within days of the TRX’s debut, Ford had a Shelby-powered F-150 Raptor on the road, which is intended to be a shot back at Ram, but a new report paints a slightly different picture.

Whenever there is news of an upcoming Grand Theft Auto game it is BIG news. The current GTA game has so far grossed $6-billion, which is more than any blockbuster movie in history and it’s still being bought today, nearly six years after it was released. Now we know there is a new installment in the works, GTA IV, and this is what we know about it so far.

It’s likely going to feature a multiple city setup that will see the characters travel from one city to another via airplane. Seamless integration of all platforms is also one of the rumors - you’ll essentially even be able to play the game with the best possible graphics settings on your smartphone via streaming and play with people connecting through different platforms. GTA IV will have several main characters which the player will be able to cycle through to advance the story, however there is a chance that one of these characters is a cop or female... or maybe even both.

This and plenty more will be analyzed below in this frenzied quest to uncover as much about the next GTA as possible, a quest that was sparked back in March of 2018 when the YouTube channel “The Know” uploaded a video containing several bits of information about the upcoming Rockstar Games title. Back then the big news was the possible return of the series to a familiar and fan-favorite location.

Just before starting the production of the Corvette C7 in 2013, GM added 150 new jobs at its Bowling Green Corvette plant. That number rose to 250 very next year. Right now, as the C7 spends its last days on the Bowling Green production lines, GM announced that it would add a new workforce of 400 workers just before the mid-engine 2020 Corvette C8 production starts later in 2019. The move of adding more jobs is a commonality with the introduction of the new cars. Especially ones that make a significant departure in terms of design and underlying architecture compared to its predecessors. The C7 was a significant departure compared to the C6. Actually, it shared only two parts with it - the cabin filter and the rear latch for the removable roof panel. On the other hand, I feel that the C8 will share more with the C7 despite such a profound change in its form. The added complexity of the new design could be a part of the reason for the significant workforce increase.

After years of working on it, Land Rover is going to reveal an all-new Defender this year. The old Defender was phased out in 2016 mainly due to the fact that it did not meet safety standards for both occupants and pedestrians - they couldn’t even equip the old one with airbags, so a ground-up redesign was decided.

Nissan is currently celebrating five decades of the GT-R with the debut of the 2020 GT-R 50th Edition at the 2019 New York Auto Show. While we’re happy to see Nissan paying tribute to one of the greatest Japanese sports cars of all time, you’d be forgiven for saying the automaker is dragging its feet when it comes to introducing a new generation for Godzilla. However, recent comments made by a few folks high in the Nissan corporate food chain seem to suggest that the company is indeed working to pin down exactly what the R36 will bring to the table, including electric power options, handling upgrades, and possibly even self-driving capability.