Auto Moto

Valencia Red Pearl. That's the story with the 2020 Acura TLX PMC Edition. We got to see this limited edition TLX sedan at the New York Auto Show last year, but now it's in my driveway. The show lights don't do this paint justice. The setting sun reflecting off the deep and vibrant red ... now that's how this car is meant to be gazed upon.

Like I mentioned in the video walkaround above, the TLX PMC Edition is hand-assembled at the Performance Manufacturing Center in Ohio. The body-in-white is trundled across town to the NSX supercar factory where those technicians do the rest to make it road-worthy. All 360 of them are being wrapped in their own special car covers and delivered to dealers on an enclosed truck to make sure it arrives without a single exterior flaw.

The current generation Honda Civic Type R isn't a slow car by any means with 306 horsepower and 295 pound-feet of torque. But there are always people who want to go faster, and Hondata's new fuel system upgrade can help Type R owners go faster, or even way faster.

The kit includes new injectors, fuel tank pump, direct injection pump and lines, all rated for higher fuel flow, as well as a Hondata FlashPro unit with several ECU tunes. Because Hondata is marketing this toward Type R owners who will likely be further modifying their cars, the most basic Type R they've tested with is one with an upgraded intercooler and high-flow catalytic converter. On that car, running on 91-octane fuel, the fuel system and tune increased power by 57 ponies and torque by a major 90 pound-feet. Totals were 375 horsepower and 424 pound-feet.

The 2019 Subaru STI S209 is peak Subaru for America. It's the most powerful and most expensive vehicle with the Subaru badge on it, and there will only ever be 209 of them sold. It's put together in STI's small shop in Kiryu, Japan, where workers put together approximately 2-3 cars per day. 

Subaru's long-used 2.5-liter EJ25 turbocharged flat-four is back for another round, but it's been modified to make more power than a regular WRX STI. The redesigned intake, larger HKS turbocharger and better-flowing exhaust system ramp output up to 341 horsepower and 330 pound-feet of torque, gains of 31 and 40 respectively over a regular STI. It can hit 60 mph in 4.9 seconds and tops out at 162 mph. A huge number of changes were made to the suspension, steering, aero and brakes to make the S209 drive better and produce quicker lap times on track.

On April 23, NBC Universal announced the return of modern comedy classic "Parks and Recreation" for a special one-time reunion to help raise money for the Feeding America COVID-19 Response Fund. Joining the good-spirited event, Subaru announced this week it would help sponsor the special by matching donations up to $150,000. The all-new show will air Thursday, April 30, at 8:30 p.m. ET, and donations can be made through FeedingAmerica.org.

For 30 minutes, fans of Leslie Knope and her trusty crew of buddies will have the chance to temporarily escape the current stressful times caused by the coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic. The show was filmed from the actors' houses and will adopt a theme set by current times. "Leslie Knope is determined to stay connected to her friends in a time of social distancing," an NBC press release says.

The mid-2010s saw motorcycle builder Yamaha release a couple of nifty little concept cars, a departure from its powersports vehicles and occasional assistance in developing engines for car companies. It led to the rumors that the company might actually bring a car to production, and it culminated in the beginning development of one with Gordon Murray, designer of the McLaren F1. Unfortunately, Yamaha revealed that project was canceled before we even saw a concept. But now a patent rendering of that very car has surfaced at the European Union's Intellectual Property Office, and while it's cool to see, it also reminds us how sad we are it was canceled.

The car is a curvy, mid-engine coupe. It almost looks a little Lotus-like. The proportions suggest it would have been quite small, similar to the Sports Ride concept coupe from 2015. Though significantly more toned-down than that concept, this stillborn Yamaha bears some interesting design cues such as the flush door handles, as well as the Y-shaped character lines on the hood. Those lines echo design cues from both the Sports Ride and Cross Hub. Extrapolating from the Sports Ride, this unnamed coupe could have been made using Murray's F1-inspired iStream production process and featured a rev-happy Yamaha motorcycle engine.

Does anyone remember the Willy's Wheeler RC car from the '80s, also known as the Honda City Turbo? The originals are tough to come by nowadays, but luckily, there's a brand new version available with new insides.

The new Tamiya Honda City Turbo RC car sits upon the Tamiya WR-02C chassis. The chassis features rear-wheel 2WD with fully independent double wishbone suspension. It also shares the 185mm wheelbase of the original WR-02 chassis. This is an assembly kit, so don't expect to pick one up and start driving right away, but popping wheelies with one of these (which is totally possible thanks to the model's weight distribution and motor) will be all the more satisfying after putting in a little work to make it happen.

The 2021 model year upgrades received by the Toyota GR Supra in North America and Europe will soon find their way to Japan too, headlined by two new special edition models.

When Lexus launched the fifth-generation LS at the end of 2017, the Japanese luxury maker predicted its once-brand-defining sedan would sell 12,000 units per year in the U.S., a threshold the model hadn't reached since 2010. The LS managed 9,301 transactions here in 2018, its first full year on sale, falling back to 5,528 units in 2019. Through the first three coronavirus-affected months of this year, Lexus dealers have sold 801 LS sedans, compared to 1,404 units in Q1 2019. There's a mid-cycle refresh supposedly due for release in the fall of 2021, and the June issue of Japanese magazine Mag-X (translated), via Lexus Enthusiast, claims we're due for a couple of big surprises that could jolt the sales figures. The first shock is that Lexus is supposedly bringing back the LS 600h moniker for an LS with a V8 hybrid powertrain. 

Lexus debuted the LS 600h L in 2007 for the 2008 model year, retiring the hybrid trim in 2016. Its heart was a 5.0-liter naturally aspirated V8, and when combined with an electric motor, combined output came to 439 horsepower and 385 pound-feet of torque. The fifth generation introduced the LS 500h that switched to a naturally aspirated 3.5-liter V6, producing a combined 354 hp and 369 lb-ft., taking second place in output to the twin-turbo V6 in the non-hybrid LS 500 with 416 hp and 442 lb-ft.

Subaru's DriverFocus system in our 2019 Subaru Forester long-term tester serves multiple purposes, but its facial recognition abilities are especially intriguing. If your face is registered in the car's system, the infrared camera will recognize you and adjust your seat and mirrors to the position initially chosen during the setup process. It'll store up to five faces, automatically adjusting everything to the person's face it sees.

The camera can recognize you in the dark or with glasses on, according to Subaru. It looks for the points on a person's face, but doesn't remember a specific person. This gave us an idea for a test. Can we trick it by using a photo of somebody else's face? Check out the video above to see what happened.

The 2021 Nissan Rogue was outed by Brazilian authorities last month and it appears their Argentinean neighbors wanted in on the fun as they've apparently revealed the production version of the Ariya concept.

TOKYO — Nissan plans to slash the number of cars it produces at home in May by 78% from last year, as the impact of the coronavirus shakes the troubled automaker which has already been struggling with falling sales.

As global automakers reel from plunging sales amid lockdowns imposed in many countries to curb the spread of the virus, the hit is particularly severe for Nissan, whose profitability has been deteriorating as it grapples with the turmoil that followed the ousting of former Chairman Carlos Ghosn.

When Nissan unveiled the Ariya concept in October in Tokyo, it said the electric crossover would not only go into production, but was pretty much the same deal buyers would find in showrooms. Now, new images purportedly pulled from Argentina's patent office appear to back that up.

Instagram account @cars_secrets spilled the beans with a series of rough black-and-white renderings, similar to those ones found recently showing the next-generation Rogue, that look almost indistinguishable from the Ariya concept EV. The only thing that suggests this remains more concept than production model is the lack of side mirrors.

Isuzu’s D-Max GO2 pickup truck is a special project meant to showcase how easily a regular D-Max can be turned into an extreme off-roader.

If there's one thing Honda is exceptionally good at, it's packaging. That includes managing to squeeze as much interior space from an exterior footprint as possible, and then from that, as much interior storage space as possible. Cupholders, bins, cupholders that slide to reveal more bins, under-floor storage ... each Honda has some trick up its sleeve to help you store and stuff more stuff inside. 

The 2020 Honda CR-V is one such stuff-stuffing champion. Besides its copious cargo capacity, the CR-V;s front center console is cleverly designed to provide more than just a pair of cupholders and a big covered hole. To test its ability, I grabbed a disparate pair of water bottles that should provide a challenge to cupholders, made off with my wife's purse (she hasn't gone anywhere in days), and of course my iPhone.