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- 🚘 800-HP manual Hennessey, $15K trucks, Ram axes hybrid
🚘 800-HP manual Hennessey, $15K trucks, Ram axes hybrid
PLUS: Jeep Scrambler returns, 3-row Model Y, EV Miata
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2026-08-05
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Releases & Reviews
Hennessey's next hypercar goes analog — rear-wheel drive, a six-speed H-pattern manual, no hybrid assist. Hagerty details the Ilmor-built 6.2-liter V8, the most powerful naturally aspirated engine in a road car at over 800 horsepower (597 kW) and 9,000 rpm, in a sub-3,000-pound (1359 kg) carbon tub.
The most off-road-focused Telluride skips the hybrid, so you get only the turbocharged 2.5-liter four: 274 horsepower (204 kW), 311 pound-feet (422 Nm), and 7.5 seconds to 60 mph, a full second behind the hybrid. The all-terrain tires cost grip but deliver a genuinely plush ride.
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Technology, Market Data & Analysis
Ram is phasing out the eTorque mild-hybrid system on the 5.7-liter Hemi for 2027, and automatic stop/start goes with it. The non-hybrid V8 makes 395 horsepower (295 kW) and 410 pound-feet (556 Nm). The move follows February's federal rollback of emissions rules that had rewarded automakers for fitting stop/start.
Federal investigators found the oil-bathed timing belt sheds debris that clogs the oil pump pickup screen, starving the engine. Across 355 complaints covering 2014–2017 Fiestas, 2015–2018 Focuses, and 2019–2021 EcoSports, the average failure came at 70,000 miles (112,630 km), with 98% arriving before the belt's scheduled replacement.
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Car Culture
The Hagerty Price Guide shows a market split: show-grade trucks have gone stratospheric while the higher-mile examples sit flat or fall. A #3 Toyota Pickup 4x4 has dropped 5.2% to $12,700, and a Jeep Comanche — same 4.0-liter six as the XJ Cherokee — is down to $11,000.
Just 99 will be built, each in one of nine original Miura colors, with two-tone lower bodywork and a modern take on the Miura's "cannelloni" seat stitching. Mechanicals are untouched: a 6.5-liter V12 and three motors for 1,001 horsepower (747 kW). It debuts at Monterey Car Week.
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Miscellaneous
The Scat Pack refused to shift out of Park three times — in moving traffic, in a parking lot, and at a green light — and wouldn't power down on command. Stellantis took four weeks to trace it to a body control module misreading the hood latch sensor.
BMW confirmed the banner is part of a Marvel partnership running through August 10 in more than 70 countries, on cars built after July 2020. Tapping it plays a full-screen animation with music and an ambient light show, despite a BMW executive's earlier promise the company wouldn't run in-car ads.
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The $10,995 Direct Connection kit bolts a 3.0-liter twin-screw blower onto any Rumble Bee, lifting the 5.7-liter Hemi from 395 to over 600 horsepower (295 to 448 kW) and the SRT's Hellcat past 900 (671 kW).
Jeep's desert-running halo truck reportedly ditches the solid front axle for independent front suspension, tops out with the 6.4-liter 392 Hemi in SRT form, and has rear seats that flip backward for tailgating.
The twist buried in the 7:32.070 lap is that the CLA 45 is fully electric, using three axial-flux motors for 680 horsepower (507 kW) — a record a twin-turbo V8 would have set a few years ago.
Borrowing suspension hardware from the Civic Type R, the front-drive coupe swerves through the emergency-avoidance course at roughly 45 mph (72 km/h) without drama, a test that has put plenty of taller cars on their sides.
An IEA report puts EVs at 29% of global new car sales this year, with records in 50 markets, while the U.S. sits at just 5.8% of second quarter sales a year after its federal tax credit expired.
Edmunds finds the stretched Model Y L fixes the cramped third row of the standard Model Y, adding wheelbase, height, and pillar air vents, though the lower car seat anchors remain awkward to reach.
With Mazda's CEO saying the next MX-5 must be ready for a world without combustion, the piece argues a heavy, torque-rich EV misses the point and pitches a brief F1 style KERS boost instead.
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