If you came across a ninth-generation Mitsubishi Lancer with a crosshair grille and Dodge badges, then you would probably think that someone was into weird modifications. If such a car was, however, found in a parking lot inside Dodge premises, then we’re talking about the discovery of a never-before-seen, badge-engineered prototype.

For many young car enthusiasts, the Toyota 2000GT is a model they only know because of games like Gran Turismo. Its real value and worth are as deep as cars like the Shelby Cobra or the Ferrari 250 though. Just 351 were ever made yet their impact has been great.

There's a new Doctor in endurance-racing town, his name being Valentino Rossi. The 49-year-old Italian motorcycle racer won two World Championships in 125- and 250-cc before ringing up seven top-class World Championships in 500-cc and four-stroke MotoGP over a 26-year professional career. Retiring from the saddle at the end of the 2021 season did not mean retiring from racing, though. The man nicknamed The Doctor announced he'll be campaigning a full season of GT World Challenge Europe with Belgium's W Racing Team (WRT). His weapon will come with two additional wheels and be one of the best in the field, just as his Yamaha M1 once was — the Audi R8 LMS GT3. WRT won the GT World Challenge, formerly known as the Blancpain GT Series, four times in the past eight years. Rossi will be one of two drivers trying to take the win ratio to five times in nine. WRT hasn't announced who will partner the man from Urbino yet.

Rossi wrote in a post on social media, "I am delighted to join Team WRT for a full Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS programme. Everybody knows that I have always been a great car racing fan and that I have always been interested in racing on four wheels once my MotoGP career would come to an end. Now I am completely available to devote myself to a car racing programme at a high level and with the right professional approach. Team WRT is the perfect fit I was looking for and I am anxious to start this new adventure in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS with them."

Imagine you're an American Mercedes-Benz salesman during the winter of 1989-1990, looking over your inventory of majestic W126-chassis 560 SELs… and then you glance across the street at that brand-new Lexus dealership and flinch at the sight of your rivals gloating over a lot full of futuristic-looking big luxury sedans priced at less than half the cost of your top-of-the-pyramid S-Class. This was how it looked when mighty Toyota, riding high just before the popping of the Japanese asset price bubble, instantly muscled its way into the American high-end luxury-car market, and the result of that six-year, 145-billion-yen development process was the original Lexus LS. Here's one of those first-year LS 400s, used up at age 32 and residing in a Denver self-service car graveyard.

Lexus has launched the configurator for the 2022 LX and revealed U.S. pricing will begin at $86,900.

The Ford F-150 Raptor is right at home on the snow but a Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R V-Spec may seem out of sorts in such conditions. As it turns out, though, both perform very well in snowy conditions.

The all-new Toyota Land Cruiser isn't just one of the most desirable SUVs on the market right now but as it turns out, it is also very safe.

There are certain old-fashioned technologies that are fetishized by the off-roading community, such as solid axles, ladder frames, and more. The Suzuki Jimny proves that the mix of old-school and modern tech is a recipe for success.

Toyota and Lexus trundled into the 2022 Tokyo Auto Salon with a bundle of modded gear. There are two especially racy bits — one, the GRMN Yaris we've already covered, and this, the Gazoo Racing GT3 Concept that is philosophically, if not aesthetically, related to the Yaris.

Toyota believes it can provide more enjoyment for customers by commercializing race cars than by making customer cars racy. So instead of turning one of its road cars into a GT3-class competitor (Toyota does sell a Supra GT4), the GT3 Concept could be a customer potential race car that, as required by GT3 homologation rules, would become a road car.  

Toyota went all-in on performance at this year's Tokyo Auto Salon, and the company's efforts weren't just limited to gasoline-powered cars. Therefore, we get the Toyota bZ4X GR Sport Concept. Yeah, the name sounds even more like a fax machine now with "GR" tacked onto the end of bZ4X.

If you've already seen the news on the Subaru Solterra STI Concept, then you may have presumed this was inevitable from Toyota. After all, what one of these mechanical twins does is almost certain to result in the other also taking part. Unfortunately, Toyota's modifications to the bZ4X are similar to the Solterra's, in that they are narrow in scope and don't add much in the way of performance.

The new Nissan Z may not be on sale yet, but we still got to see a customized version at the Tokyo Auto Salon. Yes, Nissan itself decided to put together a custom model to show off with the not-so-creative name of Nissan Fairlady Z Customized Proto. Nissan didn't give much information about the car, but as far as we can tell, it's mainly to get buyers' and customizers' brains turning as to how they'll personalize their Zs.

The Customized Proto takes the retro theme of the production car and runs with it. The front end features the biggest change with a split bumper. The narrow upper grille looks even more like that of the original 240Z, and some of the Autoblog staff find it to be an improvement over the production design. Down the sides, modest fender flares are added for extra visual width and to fit wider tires. Those tires are wrapped around wheels seemingly inspired by the famous RS Watanabe wheel design.

The Mitsuoka Orochi is considered by many to be among the ugliest cars ever made. However, a newly customized example has cropped up courtesy of Liberty Walk, the tuning house that specializes in extreme widebody kits. And dare we say it, it doesn't look half bad.

If you're not familiar with Mitsuoka, they're kind of like the Mansory of Japan. They usually take an existing model from, say, Nissan, and add sheetmetal and customization of Mitsuoka's own design. Their flagship model, the Orochi, is a parts-bin car with bits from Honda, Mazda and Suzuki, powered by a 3.3-liter Toyota V6 and five-speed combo — the same one from a Solara — mid-mounted and driving the real wheels.

The 2022 Toyota 4Runner is an impressively old SUV at this point. While it's been lightly updated here and there, it's still part of the same generation that launched for the 2010 model year. That makes it over 10 years old. And as you would expect of such an SUV, the interior is feeling pretty old. The good news is that it's still put together well and has some of the perks of being an older design. But with how newer competition has improved their respective interiors, being good enough might not be good enough.

Seeing as there are good aspects of the 4Runner's interior, let's start there. One of the highlights of the cabin is that the controls are really simple and tactile. Climate is operated with enormous, chunky knobs that fit the theme of a rugged SUV, and volume and tuning get slightly smaller variants. Then you have basic buttons for fan controls, and the 8-inch infotainment system, which was brought up to current Toyota standards a couple years ago, is plain but responsive. And it gets useful physical shortcut keys.

The Toyota Yaris took its first hardcore motorsports turn when it evolved into the rally-focused GR Yaris. At the 2022 Tokyo Auto Salon, the GR Yaris has made its own hardcore motorsports evolution into the GRMN Yaris, a limited-edition scorcher that drivers can continue to evolve after the sale with help from Toyota. There will be just 500 units made for the Japanese market in one of three versions: Base, Circuit Package and Rally Package. All start with the base, which Gazoo Racing improved over the standard Yaris with 545 more spot welds and 12 more meters of adhesive to increase body rigidity. In addition to the carbon fiber roof that's already a feature of the GR Yaris, a carbon fiber hood saves even more weight. A leaner interior shorn of infotainment system and back seats, and fitted with new Recaro bucket seats, helps save 44 pounds on the Circuit Package, and 66 pounds on the Rally Package compared to the GR Yaris that's been available since 2020. Output from the 1.6-liter three-cylinder engine stands at 268 horsepower and 287 pound-feet of torque.

The Circuit Package has been honed for finished surfaces. This grade gets a lower front lip spoiler, carbon fiber rear spoiler, extended side skirts, adjustable Bilstein dampers and a set of BBS GRMN 18-inch wheels hiding bigger brakes. This package is 10 millimeters wider than the base car, and its height is 20 mm higher while ground clearance comes down by 10 mm, and slips on tires that are five millimeters narrower in front. A closer-ratio six-speed gearset uses a new lower final gear, and the cogs themselves are put through a new manufacturing process for improved torque and fatigue strength. The Torsen limited-slip differentials in front and back on the base and Rally Package are replaced by mechanical LSDs. Finally, this one can be had in a Metallic Steel hue that will be held to just 50 examples.