Lincoln Model L100 Concept: Are 14-Foot Doors the Future of Luxury?

Welcome to MotorTrend's inaugural Performance Vehicle of the Year (PVOTY) competition. A quick history: We've awarded our Car of the Year title since 1949. In 1978, we added Truck of the Year and then SUV of the Year in 1999. Alongside Person of the Year, these have been our automotive Of The Year awards for decades. Until now.Why, and why now? It's instructive to look back at MotorTrend's old Import Car of the Year. First awarded in 1970, the idea of ICOTY was to finally acknowledge an indisputable truth: Cars from auto manufacturers outside of America were here to stay and should be celebrated, at least for a while.We awarded ICOTY alongside COTY until 1999, when my predecessors decided to fold the former back into the latter because shifts in automotive manufacturing and global economics challenged the notion of what constitutes foreign and domestic vehicle production. What is a car's country of origin if the engine is made in Brazil, the body panels are stamped in Canada, the transmission and wiring harness are produced in Mexico, and final assembly occurs in Michigan? Or if multiple factories around the world assemble the same vehicle? Our editorial forebears ultimately decided none of this matters and that the inherent goodness of the car, the breakthrough experience it delivers, and how history would view it were much more important.They read the room and made the right call, which is what we are doing here with our focus on performance. I submit to you the following:We live in a golden automotive age. Thirteen years ago, we reported the horsepower wars were over. We were wrong. To twitch an eyebrow these days, you need at least 500 hp, if not four figures for tongues to really start wagging. This inflation is not just limited to hyper-expensive exotic cars. For $37,000, you can buy a Ford Mustang GT with 460 ponies. Need more vroom? Try the 505-hp Alfa Romeo Stelvio. Or if you need to move a couch, in a hurry, up a sand dune? The 702-hp Ram 1500 TRX has you covered.These power and torque increases, along with all the fancy systems that allow their delivery, have resulted in a golden age of performance, as well. Those who monitor lap records at the vaunted Nürburgring Nordschleife know what I'm talking about. It used to be that a stock production car lapping the iconic German test track in less than 8 minutes joined an exclusive club. Now, a hot hatch like the Honda Civic Type R is quicker than that, and we see Porsches, Mercedes-AMGs, and Lamborghinis running in the 6:40 (or quicker) bracket. Our own testing bears this out; in the past two years, we've seen our 0-60 record fall twice—first to less than 3.0 seconds and then to almost less than 2.0. This is bonkers.Megawatt advances in automotive tech are responsible for a lot of this golden-era shine. While one of the highest-horsepower production cars is still a 16-cylinder, quad-turbo, gas-burning Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, you can order our electrifying 2022 Car of the Year Lucid Air with up to 1,111 hp, or a Tesla Model S with 1,020 hp. On the truck side, the Hummer EV pickup is also available with 1,000 hp, and our 2022 Truck of the Year, the Rivian R1T, comes standard with 835 hp. Oh, and the two vehicles that broke our 0-60 record? Electric all-stars from Porsche and Tesla.As we continue to cover the evolution of the automobile and the automotive industry, we believe our electrified future is inevitable, so we're going to walk a second, parallel path with all the existing, mostly gas-burning vehicles we know and love.Internal combustion technology has never seen higher outputs, greater efficiency, or more thrills per cubic inch than right now. But as more carmakers trumpet about going all in on EVs, we receive quietly distributed notices about their final run of internal combustion engines, starting with the burliest V-10s and V-8s. Exiting right alongside: manual transmissions.We know some of you mourn the coming loss of dropping the clutch, mashing the gas, and ripping your right hand through six or seven gears. You loudly curse this transition; we hear you and understand. Every year, for more than a decade, we sent dozens of staffers on the road for two weeks, testing and driving the world's top sports cars in search of the Best Driver's Car. But that BDC program has run its course; PVOTY is Version 2.0, built upon the belief it's possible to be excited for the future, embracing all the broken barriers to come, while celebrating the end of an era. That is what we set out to do with our Performance Vehicle of the Year. We're applying our decades of experience and rigorous, industry-leading Of The Year framework to the realm of performance machines, whatever body style they happen to come in.Time is short. The world is changing. So let's round up the stickiest-tired whoop machines—whether gas- or electron-powered—and smoke 'em while we got 'em (and can still drive 'em). Please enjoy our first MotorTrend Performance Vehicle of Year competition.

The automotive industry is in a tight squeeze right now, wedged within the transition from internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) amid a global pandemic, a war in Europe, and supply constraints and rising material costs. Several BEV automakers including Tesla, Hummer, Lucid, and Rivian have raised their prices in recent weeks, and other automakers have delayed orders, limited buyer options, and in some cases, shipped vehicles without supply-limited components, with a promise to fulfill missing parts when supplies are available. And here is why it's not likely to change very soon.That's the outlook through 2024, according to a report from industry analyst AlixPartners. In particular, the report says semiconductor shortages will continue to negatively impact new vehicle production through the next couple of years, caused in part by the rising market share of BEVs planned to go on sale as the majority of the industry shifts away from internal combustion.BEVs will increase chip demand at a growth rate of 55 percent per year, according to the study, which will remain a key bottleneck in new vehicle production. That means that, as automakers introduce a lineup of new BEVs, the technical requirements of these new vehicles will increase the strain of supply because BEVs typically require more chips than ICE vehicles.That will likely force automakers to continue to hold back on production levels, meaning the number of cars on sale will probably remain limited for a few more years. This gives automakers more pricing power if demand for new cars remains high, so cars likely won't get any cheaper anytime soon.That doesn't necessarily mean automakers are making too much profit from higher pricing. As an example, via CNBC, Ford recently said the Mustang Mach-E has lost most of its profitability due to rising commodity costs.Pricing will continue to be negatively impacted by rising material costs, for both new BEVs and ICE vehicles. AlixPartners puts the raw material costs for ICE vehicles at $3,662 per vehicle, and BEVs materials cost more than twice that at $8,255 per vehicle since the battery and motor requirements require more raw materials.Those costs per vehicle are more than double what they were just two years ago, according to CNBC, reflecting the impact of the market constraints mentioned above.AlixPartners predicts that BEVs will only overtake ICE vehicles in the majority of market share way out in 2035, as suppliers and automakers likely scale back or slow down the recently rapid introduction of the resource-heavy, higher priced BEV models planned to be introduced, and customer interest and EV infrastructure need time to grow.AlixPartners says $48 billion in infrastructure investment is needed by 2030, but so far only $11 billion has been committed, so infrastructure support for BEVs will be catching up for years to come.

In honor of Independence Day, we're bringing back this 2015 story on the greatest American cars of all time. Did your favorite make the list?America may not have invented the automobile. That honor goes to German engineer Karl Benz and his Patent Motorwagen of 1886. But America quickly made the automobile its own. By 1904 the United States led the world in automobile sales and production, and by 1913 80 percent of all the cars made in the world were made right here. American automakers — there were 253 of them active in 1908 alone — were pioneering new technologies and new vehicles at an astonishing rate.So as we celebrate the Fourth of July, why not celebrate the 10 greatest American cars of all time? You can define greatness is many ways, but these are all automobiles that were hugely influential in terms of their technology, design, engineering, and their impact on society and popular culture. These are machines that changed our world.There are other cars that are perhaps equally deserving of inclusion on this list. So let the arguments begin. If you think we've missed an all-time great, let us know.Ford Model THenry Ford's Model T was produced for 19 years, from 1908 to 1927, and almost 15 million were made, with prices falling from $825 to $260 by 1925 as Ford refined the mass-production process. But the Model T was more than just a car. It put America on wheels and so changed the way Americans worked, the way they lived, and the way they played. Shopping malls, motels, planned suburbs with affordable housing, well-paid manufacturing jobs, and an emerging middle class eager to enjoy the perks of prosperity — this was modern, 20th-century America, and the Model T helped create it all.Ford Model 18Launched in 1932, the Ford Model 18 was the first mass-market car in the world with a V-8 engine, and created a paradigm for American cars that continues to this day. In the 1930s Ford V-8s were prized for their performance—gangster John Dillinger wrote to thank Henry Ford for building "as fast and sturdy a car as you did"—and after World War II they formed the backbone of the nascent hot rod movement, being cheap, plentiful, and easy to modify for extra performance. With '32 Fords—Deuce Coupes—still regarded as the most desirable of all hot rods, this is a car that's remained a pop-culture icon for more than 80 years.Duesenberg Model SJAlso launched in 1932, the Duesenberg Model SJ was the antithesis of the cheap and cheerful Fords and Chevys most Americans drove through the depths of the Depression. The Duesenberg SJ was, simply, a hand-built, money-no-object supercar, the 1930s equivalent of a Bugatti Chiron. With their twin-cam, four valves per cylinder, supercharged straight-eight engines, Duesenberg SJs were said to be capable of 104 mph in second gear and 140 mph in top; in 1934 a lightweight roadster averaged 135 mph for 24 hours on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Just 36 SJs were built between 1932 and 1935. Gary Cooper and Clark Gable owned the only two short-wheelbase SSJ Duesenbergs ever built.Jeep MB"The Jeep, the Dakota airplane, and the landing craft were the three tools that won the war," claimed Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied Supreme Commander during World War II. More than 700,000 Jeeps had been built by the war's end, giving Allied troops overwhelming superiority of movement on the ground. Post-war, the tough, nimble, go-anywhere Jeep enjoyed a second, more peaceful career as a recreational vehicle, establishing the nexus between capability, style, and functionality that still underpins 21st-century car buyers' love affair with crossover vehicles. The Jeep is the car that saved democracy. And it was the seminal SUV.Oldsmobile "Rocket" 88Rock 'n' roll began with a song about a car: Elvis Presley was still driving a gravel truck when 19-year-old Ike Turner walked into a tiny studio owned by Sam Phillips in Memphis in 1951 and recorded "Rocket 88," a paean to the fastest American sedan you could buy at the time, the Oldsmobile 88 powered by the 135-hp Rocket V-8 engine. Launched in 1949, the Rocket-powered 88 was America's first muscle car, proving almost unbeatable in stock car racing through 1951. The record "Rocket 88" was an unexpected hit, and the royalties enabled Phillips to start Sun Records, the label that gave musicians such as B.B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and, of course, Elvis their starts.Chevrolet Corvette Making its debut in 1953, the Corvette is 10 years older than Porsche's 911, and every bit as iconic. Like the Rolling Stones, the Corvette has had a patchy track record—the asthmatic 165-hp C3 of the mid-'70s is the equivalent of disco-era Mick and Keef phoning it in. But when it's been good, the Corvette has been breathtaking. The beautiful Bill Mitchell-designed C2 Sting Rays, particularly the fuel-injected 327s with four-speed manual transmissions, were arguably better cars than the contemporary Jaguar E-Type, while today's mid-engine C8 is a true high-performance sports car with leading-edge technology and performance equaling that of rivals costing two or three times the price.Ford Mustang The Ford Mustang not only created a new automotive genre—the ponycar—but was also one of the first cars designed for a specific demographic. When Ford's Lee Iacocca realized the first wave of baby boomers were coming of driving age, and that they would want to drive something very different from the big, soft land yachts their parents loved, product planner Hal Sperlich proposed wrapping mundane Falcon mechanicals in sporty sheetmetal. The Mustang proved an overnight sensation, with more than 1 million sold in the first 18 months of production. But performance that truly matched the style wasn't really unlocked until the Shelby GT350 appeared in 1965, establishing the formula that has kept the Mustang alive for more than 50 years.Ford GTHenry Ford II thought he had a deal. Nine months of negotiation were over, and on July 4, 1963, he was planning to be in Maranello, Italy, signing a $10 million deal with Enzo Ferrari that would give Ford Motor Company a half share in the storied Italian sports car maker. A Ferrari-Ford sports car was already being planned, with an Italian V-12 engine in an American chassis. But the deal never happened—Enzo Ferrari pulled out at the last minute. An enraged Henry then authorized the development of the Ford GT40, with the express goal of humiliating Enzo's blood-red racers in the Le Mans 24 Hour race. Which it did, convincingly, in 1966. The icon inspired two generations of successors, including the latest Ford GT powered by a twin-turbocharged V-6.Plymouth Voyager, Chrysler Town & Country, and Dodge CaravanOthers had toyed with the concept, notably VW's Microbus of the '60s and Lancia's 1978 Megagamma, but it was Lee Iacocca and Hal Sperlich—the same team who'd made the Mustang happen at Ford 20 years earlier—who at Chrysler in 1983 revealed the perfect combination of size, seating, and drivability that came to define a new segment-busting family vehicle, the minivan. Within a decade almost every mainstream automaker offered a minivan in the U.S., making traditional station wagons obsolete. The segment has declined in recent years, but the basic formula established by Chrysler remains the definitive one: front drive, sliding side doors, and a highly flexible seating package for seven or eight passengers.Tesla Model SThe mere fact the Tesla Model S exists at all is a testament to innovation and entrepreneurship, the very qualities that made the American automobile industry the largest, richest, and most powerful in the world. We've not yet become a nation of bankers or burger-flippers. America can still make things. Great things. But what marks the Tesla Model S as one of the all-time great American cars is that it has single-handedly changed the tenor of the conversation about electric vehicles. The Model S made electric cars cool for auto enthusiasts. How? It's good-looking and quick. Very, very quick. In Plaid guise, we clocked the Model S at just 2.07 seconds to 60 mph. That's monumentally impressive—the quickest production vehicle we've ever tested, and an American-made EV at that.