Welcome to the Hooniverse News! As always, this is a weekly recap of the biggest stories in the automotive industry without the fluff or bull. This week: McLaren teases a new Grand Tourer, Chevrolet shows off their Indy 500 pace car, new Mustang rumors are swirling, and other news from the week.
McLaren Teases New “Grand Tourer”
Apparently McLaren had announced the “McLaren of Grand Tourers” at last month’s Geneva Motor Show. I had missed it completely amongst all the other supercar news coming out at the time. For those of you who didn’t miss it, you haven’t had to wait very long to see it. McLaren is already showing us a fairly revealing teaser and a promise that they’ll “begin to peel off this disguise this May”.
Even with the camouflage, it’s easy to tell that this is going to be quite the looker. It also seems to be just different-looking enough from other McLarens that it won’t get stale.
The details are nearly nonexistent at this point, but we do know it’ll be the first McLaren to ever use a twin-turbo V8 (/s). Most importantly, it’ll have a greater focus on being a pure grand tourer having been built from the ground up to serve that purpose. It’ll be comfortable and refined on trans-continental trips and be the “most usable mid-engine car yet”.
Despite the comfortable and refined grand tourer focus, it’ll still be every bit as capable as expected from a McLaren. They claim it shares DNA with the McLaren Speedtail but didn’t elaborate on that part. They probably mean the engine and the chassis, but it’s too early to know for sure.
However it ends up, I’ll be keeping an eye on this one as they start to remove more camouflage in May.
[Source: McLaren]
Chevrolet Reveals Indy 500 Pace Car
This beautifully-spec’d 2019 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport will serve as the official pace car for the Indy 500 next month. It’s only the 16th time a Corvette has had the honor and the 30th time for Chevrolet in general. This particular car is Long Beach Red Metallic with silver stripes. Pretty, isn’t it.
[Source: Chevrolet]
The Future of the Mustang Looks…. um
There were two interesting reports regarding the future of the Mustang this week. One sounds slightly depressing, the other sounds really depressing.
Starting with the slightly depressing (but also somewhat interesting) report first, it seems Ford is full speed ahead on producing a Mustang-based electric performance crossover. A targeted 370 miles of driving range (on the European test cycle) was announced at a Ford event in Amsterdam, per Autoweek. It’s now being described as a performance all-road/crossover vehicle that’s “Mustang-based” and called the Mach-E. Based on those reports, I’d say there’s a chance that it could not suck and be rather interesting.
Just a reminder as to how good we currently have it
Unfortunately, if it’s at all related to the vehicle described in this next report, it’ll probably just suck. Automobile has published a report which confirms the Mustang will move to the new CD6 platform upon which the new Explorer and Aviator are built.
That’s a move which can reduce development cost for a market that isn’t as hot as it used to be and take advantage of a new platform that’s meant to be highly adjustable. But that also means it’s going to get bigger and probably heavier, likely bringing it in line with the Challenger. If the reports are true, it’s going to be one of the biggest transformations the Mustang has ever seen.
Fortunately, it seems to have been delayed till at least the 2026 model year. In the meantime, the current S550 Mustang will undergo a significant facelift to keep it fresh and introduce a hybrid model. Automobile’s sources indicate that could happen around 2021 or 2022.
Grains of salt and such. But if you’re interested in joining the crowd eating club, hurry.
[Sources: Autoweek and Automobile via TheDrive]
Other Coverage from the Week
We broke news on something! Our super secret spy photographer caught what appears to be the new Land Rover Defender in a parking lot and got some detail shots.
Ford revealed the all-new 2020 Escape and it’s gone through quite the transformation. Jeff goes into the details here.
And in other news, the new Nissan Altima posted higher cornering speeds than the new BMW 3 Series. Lol.
What’s Your Automotive News?
That’s all I’ve got for you this week, so now it’s your turn. If you saw anything, fixed something, broke everything, or otherwise did anything even remotely car related that you want to share with your fellow hoon, sound off in the comments.
Have a good weekend.
[Image © 2019 Hooniverse/Greg Kachadurian]
