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View Photos of the 2026 Ford Mustang with the New FX Package

View Photos of the 2026 Ford Mustang with the New FX Package

Car and Driver9 hours ago

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The 2026 Ford Mustang adds an FX package that was inspired by the third-generation car from the 1980s and '90s. Also known as the Fox body, it was available with white wheels like those that come with the new appearance package, along with other exclusive bits.

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1990 Toyota 4Runner Driven: Finally a Four-Door
1990 Toyota 4Runner Driven: Finally a Four-Door

Car and Driver

time23 minutes ago

  • Car and Driver

1990 Toyota 4Runner Driven: Finally a Four-Door

From the August 1989 issue of Car and Driver. Since the dusty dawn of modern off­-roading, most mini-trucks with enclosed rear passenger quarters made do with two doors. That's changing faster than the weathered face of the still-wild West. Consider Toyota's 4Runners. Tall and tough trucklets from the rogues' gallery of 4Runners have glowered on the want­ed lists of sport-utility buyers for years. Now Toyota has fattened its hand with a rework of the whole 4Runner lot—in­cluding the handy option of hanging an extra pair of doors on each truck. The new range includes two-door, four-wheel-drive models that are strong­ly reminiscent of the early tough-guy 4Runners, plus thoroughly civilized four-doors fitted with a choice of two- or four-wheel drive. Each chassis layout includes two en­gine choices: a four-cylinder or a V-6. The rear-drive models offer only a four-­speed automatic transmission, but those propelled by four wheels can be paired with either the automatic or a five-speed manual gearbox. Toyota also offers a shift-on-the-move system that lets you snick into four-wheel drive at speeds up to 50 mph. Called 4WDemand, it's stan­dard with the V-6 and optional with the four-cylinder. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver Elbow past the extra doors, the added civility, and the familiar looks and logos and you see that the new breed was bred to be "bad" from the knobbies up. Yet Toyota's priority was to make the 4Run­ner all-around better by making it all-of­-a-piece. That meant doing away with yes­teryear's detachable fiberglass top. The 4Runner made its reputation for tough­ness as a pickup saddled with make-do weather protection—something like an early Conestoga wagon, albeit far more hospitable. It worked: for the past three years, Toyota's saddle-soaping of details put the 4Runner atop the sport-utility ranks in the JD. Power & Associates' Compact Truck Customer Satisfaction Index. Still, the factory wants the 4Runner to show schoolmarm manners with­out giving up old-hand toughness. So rather than tacking on a fibrous shell, Toyota builds a steel roof integral with the new and stronger unit body. Now it's all tight. Depending upon how you buy op­tions, you can brew up fixings from milquetoast mild to mountain-man wild. The trucks' stance, sheetmetal, and exte­rior trim leave no doubt that Toyota wants its 4Runners to rise from the land­scape with a meaty presence. Their curb weights, which range from about 3600 to 4150 pounds, live up to their looks. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver Taking a seat in many two-door mini­-trucks calls first for clambering up to cab height—a tallish task due to most mini­-trucks' lofty pretensions of being barely minimized maxi-trucks. Then the tight packaging pinches access to the back seat, even for flexible youths. Two doors are fine as far as they go, suggesting a certain spartan sportiness, but older and stiffer folks can scissor into the back only through torso-twisting contortions. Thanks to the more modern four-door mini-trucks, including the new 4Runner, passengers' transitory aches and pains go the way of Conestogas on the Santa Fe Trail: into oblivion. Consider main­stream sport-utility wagons that take on five-door convenience through four doors and a tailgate: the Isuzu Trooper II, the Jeep Cherokee/Wagoneer, and the Mitsubishi Montero. (Toyota's Land Cruiser, heftier and costlier than the 4Runner, has hauled the sport-utility faithful since about the time Moses said he didn't want to get his sandals wet. Age works against the Land Cruiser, though, when you idle it up beside products of fresher thinking.) The new 4Runners embody talents ex­tracted from the mountain goat, the Conestoga, and the touring car. Meant to traverse the badlands, they also ditty-bop through the good life. You feel the new­found structural solidity and a blissful in­fusion of mechanical smoothness. The isolation from NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) often makes the 4Run­ners feel eerily removed from the action of the moment. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver We sampled a gaggle of 4Runners in the deserts, forests, and mountains of northern New Mexico. The Toyotas had to brave power-sapping altitudes, mak­ing us wish for instant turbo kits, but re­vealed a glimpse of their repertoire through the 4wd paradise between Santa Fe and Taos. The 4Runners' interiors come across as handsome as the exteriors, which you could classify as strong, silent types. The designs and materials applied to Toyota's truck interiors rank alongside those fitted into its best cars. That puts them near the top for concept, comfort, fit, and finish. From basic seating to complex sound systems, the top-notch mate­rials, logical design, and righteous execu­tion seem to come through. Those parts we can be pretty sure of. We'll reserve judgment on the suspen­sions, brakes, and powertrains. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver Each 4Runner's chunky nose sits up on control arms, torsion bars, gas shocks, and an anti-roll bar. The rear holds up its end with a rigid axle, four trailing links, coil springs, gas shocks, and an anti-roll bar. The power-assisted steering turns via a recirculating ball (and slowly, at 5.2 turns lock-to-lock, which helps cushion off-road nastiness). The burly brake system bulges with vented discs up front and drums in the rear. We focused on the upmarket 4Runner we'd be most attracted to, the 4WD SR5 V-6 with the five-speed stick. Toyota out­fitted it with optional 7.0-by-15-inch al­loy wheels and matching 31x10.50R-15 M+S tires, plus a standard 10.2 inches of rock-avoiding ground clearance. The sweet manual gearbox helps sustain zip that would otherwise be lost to the elas­ticity of the even-smoother automatic. In the high country especially, the 150-hp 3.0-liter V-6 pulls its load much more easily than the 116-hp 2.4-liter four. Though unrelated, both engines are electronically fuel injected and fitted with a belt-driven single-overhead-cam lay­out. The four-cylinder offsets some of its horsepower disadvantage by making its peak torque at 2800 rpm, a useful 600 revs lower than the V-6's max-grunt point. Both engines pump valves and whirl cranks with lubricious ease. Very little crosstalk between components pen­etrates the veil of isolation that drapes the firewall and enfolds the drivetrain. View Photos Larry Griffin | Car and Driver Sport-utility vehicles now knock off more than a million sales per year. Toyota would like ten percent of this growing market by the mid-1990s, a threefold increase in its share. Because all of the vehicles we drove were proto­types, we can't predict with confidence how Toyota's new sport-utilities will do: like all strong, silent, tough guys new in town and dressed to kill, the new 4Run­ners remain unknown quantities. What we do know is that the 4Runner V-6 that caught our eye will sell for about $18,000. That seems a reasonable sum to pay for four-star four-play. Specifications Specifications Year Make Model Trim Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear/4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon PRICE Base: $18,000 (est) //Base price of vehicle as described in specs hed// Options: Option 1, $XXXX; Option 2, $XXXX ENGINE SOHC 12-valve V-6, iron block and aluminum heads, port fuel injection Displacement: 181 in3, 2958 cm3 Power: 150 hp @ 4800 rpm Torque: 180 lb-ft @ 3400 rpm TRANSMISSION 5-speed manual CHASSIS Suspension, F/R: control arms/live axle Brakes, F/R: 11.3-in vented disc/11.6-in drum Tires: Bridgestone Desert Dueler M+S DIMENSIONS Wheelbase: 103.3 in Length: 196.5 in Width: 68.1 in Height: 67.3 in Curb Weight: 4050 lb EPA FUEL ECONOMY (PROJECTED) City/Highway: 16/18 mpg C/D TESTING EXPLAINED

Tested: Tesla Model Y Juniper As Robotaxi
Tested: Tesla Model Y Juniper As Robotaxi

Forbes

timean hour ago

  • Forbes

Tested: Tesla Model Y Juniper As Robotaxi

Here's some breaking news: the 2026 Tesla Model Y 'Juniper' with Full Self Driving is a robotaxi. Maybe Tesla can't call it that but that's what it is. And Waymo may have met its match. I had the 2026 Model Y for the 48-hour test drive (which Tesla just began offering) this past week in Los Angeles. The new Model Y, which hit Tesla stores in February, comes with Full Self-Driving (Supervised) version 13.2.9. But the fact that it's supervised didn't stop me from using it, in practice, unsupervised as a robotaxi, i.e., going door to door without intervention. As background, I've tested the Juniper Model Y FSD now three times: two test drives when it arrived at Tesla stores in March-April and now a 48-hour test drive. On most excursions it has gotten me door to door without intervention (see video below). That is, I just punch in the destination address and let the Model Y drive. I'm a passenger – not unlike Waymo, which I've also used many times in the Beverly Hills-West Hollywood area (more on Waymo comparison in video). Here's the short version. The new Model Y Juniper with version 13 of FSD is pretty damn close to a Tesla robotaxi and Waymo. Yes, I had to occasionally intervene but many trips in the vehicle are intervention-free = robotaxi. And, yes, it makes mistakes but so does Waymo. No FSD errors on the Model Y Juniper with v13.2.9 I've experienced have been dangerous or egregious. Mostly things like driving too slowly or taking a convoluted route to my destination (the latter is a mistake Waymo also makes). The Model Y with FSD version 13 is a vast improvement over the Model 3 I tested about a year ago. As just two examples, the Model Y took me from my home to a Supercharger location about 10 miles away intervention-free. I did nothing but sit there and witness the drive. At the end of the return trip, it took a route that I would not have chosen to take. But human taxi drivers do that too. It also took me to a Starbucks about 8 miles away intervention-free. That trip too was very similar, if not exactly the same as, what I've experienced in a Waymo Jaguar I-PACE in downtown Los Angeles. The only thing that I've found annoying is occasional speed limitations. On some short stretches of road near my home it slows to 25 mph and won't go faster unless I intervene. Tesla FSD is often compared unfavorably to Google's Waymo. That may have been true in the past. But not anymore. I use Waymo a lot in Los Angeles, as I said above. Though Waymo is amazing, it also makes mistakes. But its biggest shortcoming is its range limitations, i.e., geofencing (see this map). Los Angeles is a very big place and most of LA county is off limits to Waymo. Tesla's FSD doesn't have that problem. That is both a boon and a bane for Tesla – the latter because it's a huge challenge. But I see Tesla meeting the challenge in most cases. I will give Waymo this. In the geofenced area I use (Century City / Beverly Hills / West Hollywood) it is more refined and more confident than Tesla FSD. In some cases, more adept at avoiding and getting around obstacles. But Tesla is almost there. And, again, Tesla FSD has a huge advantage in that it is not limited to small restricted areas. I've spent a lot of time testing General Motors Super Cruise. As well as Ford's Bluecruise and Rivian's Highway Assist. Super Cruise does what it says it does. It very competently takes over the driving duties on the highway. But it ain't Tesla FSD. It won't do local roads. It's not a robotaxi. And that's the bottom line. FSD is not foolproof or flawless. And a Bloomberg story this week makes that clear. In that case, an older version of FSD was blinded by the sun, resulting in fatalities. And I've been in a Tesla when FSD missed seeing a community gate, which, without intervention, would have resulted in an accident. That was in a previous version of FSD. But it doesn't mean it can't happen again. That said, GM's SuperCruise, based on my experience, also makes the rare risky mistake. As do other ADAS (Advanced Driver Assist System) from other EV manufacturers that I've tested. Over the past year, I've tested ADAS on EVs from General Motors (Super Cruise), Rivian (Highway Assist), Ford (Bluecruise), and Tesla. My take is that the benefits of an ADAS outweigh the risks. In 2024, there were 39,345 US traffic fatalities. Needless to say, practically all involved human drivers. And that increasingly means distracted drivers using their smart device. Unlike humans, an ADAS does not get distracted. The larger picture is that, on balance, a Tesla with FSD – and any reputable ADAS for that matter – makes the roads safer. As long as the driver is paying attention and can take over when the ADAS fails. The latter unfortunately is a big if because some drivers see it as an invitation to text or nap. So, what about a robotaxi where there is no driver to intervene? As stated above, of course there's risk. But there is a much bigger risk with the average car driven by the average distracted human. With the explosion of personal devices, more and more people are distracted while they drive as they engage in things like texting – and even web browsing – while driving. I see people staring down at their devices while driving every day in Los Angeles. Those people are much more dangerous than any ADAS-controlled car. And those people would benefit greatly from an ADAS. The upshot is, an ADAS, such as Tesla FSD and robotaxi, does not get distracted and is laser-focused on the road. Humans often are not.

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