Welcome to the Hooniverse News! As always, this is a weekly recap of some of the biggest stories in the automotive industry without the fluff or bull (there’s actually content this week). I just throw in a little opinion of mine because I can. This week:

• Ford honors the Apollo missions with a custom Mustang

• GM refreshes its pickup line

• Volvo finally buys up Polestar

• Mazda prices the all-new CX-3

• The Hooniverse News does Autoweek Magazine again!

• What’s your automotive news?

Ford Mustang Apollo Edition

It’s been a new tradition of Ford’s to create a one-off Mustang for the annual Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture in Oskhosk, Wisconsin. They’ve been doing it since 2008 and each year they’ve created a Mustang with a unique aviation theme to it, ranging from WWII icons to modern stealth fighter jets. This year though, they’ve created a Mustang that’s out of this world (too easy – sorry).
The one-off Mustang for this year’s AirVenture Oshkosh is the Apollo Edition Mustang and it’s built to honor the legendary Apollo space program that brought humanity to the moon. “The entire [Apollo] program was extraordinary – one of our nation’s greatest technological achievements,” said Edsel Ford II. “With this year’s stunning Apollo Edition Mustang, we salute that spirit of American ingenuity with the quintessential American automobile – Ford Mustang.” Fair enough.

Apollo’s Mustang starts life as a 2015 Ford Mustang GT fastback and gets unique styling and performance treatment from Ford Design and MAD Industries. The exterior features a glossy pure white and pure black non-production paint scheme that helps tie it to the Apollo program. There’s also a carbon fiber front splitter, rear diffuser, rocker moldings, and other thematic accent treatments. Most noticeably, there’s also LED underbody lightning to symbolize atmospheric re-entry and a simpler time when people were still putting underbody lighting on their cars.
So the Apollo Edition Mustang looks like the Saturn rockets that the Apollo astronauts rode into orbit, but can it go like one? Wernher von Braun may not have been involved with propulsion for this one, but a Ford Performance supercharger is. The 5.0 V8 gets forced induction and X-pipes with side and rear exhaust to sing through. 627 horsepower and 540 lb.-ft. of torque is available for punching through the atmosphere. There’s also a short shifter, sport suspension, six-piston Brembo brakes, and tires of some sort wrapped around custom 21″ Forgiato performance wheels.

Ford will have this car on display at Oshkosk before being auctioned off at the Gathering of Eagles charity event on July 23. All proceeds will benefit EAA youth education programs, including Young Eagles, which helps to grow the next generation of aviators… and maybe astronauts too.
[Source: Ford]

2016 Chevrolet Silverado/GMC Sierra

General Motors’ two truck brands are about to launch a refreshed version of their most popular pickups. The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra in their current forms are only a few years old, but designers have already decided that they didn’t look modern enough or something. So what you’re looking at is the facelifted 2016 Silverado and Sierra, coming to you by the end of this year.
The facelift on the 2016 Chevrolet Silverado is being marketed as “the new face of strong”, but I think it’s really the new face of “throw everything you can onto it”. There’s a lot going on here, starting with new “dramatic lightning” and a muscular appearance. They also added a bunch of horizontal elements to it  along with a more sculpted hood. So basically they’ve done a bunch to the face to make it look modern and powerful, but has it really made it any better?

For GMC, their 2016 entry for lead role in the new Transformers movie follows a similar ideology of modernizing and adding muscle. The new face has LED c-shaped headlights and taillights, a new shiny grille, and a revised front fascia. Their redesign is a bit less… busy than Chevrolet’s but at least the Silverado isn’t decked out with chrome anymore.
Regardless of how… eh  they look, all of the hardware on these trucks is unchanged. No major updates were made anywhere else, so while they may look different, they’re still as hard working as they are now. Each of these trucks will be available by the end of this year.
[Source: General Motors]

Volvo acquires Polestar

It was only a matter of time. Volvo has had a great relationship with Polestar, a tuning house that specializes in making the Swedish cars we all love a little bit more special. They’ve been working together in motorsport since 1996 and have recently begun collaborating on road-going cars as well, still as separate entities. Now though, Volvo has acquired Polestar and will continue to join forces for the greater good.
Volvo now has full rights to the Polestar brand name and all Polestar employees will now technically be Volvo employees. You can expect even more Polestar goodness in upcoming Volvo products, including their twin-engine (hybrid) cars with a focus on performance. Polestar was always thought to be what AMG is to Mercedes-Benz, and now it officially is.
The Polestar racing team will remain under its current ownership and will continue racing Volvos wherever they can.
[Source: Volvo]

2016 Mazda CX-3 priced

Mazda’s latest crossover is the all-new 2016 CX-3, a subcompact designed to handle urban landscapes and weekend getaways in the wilderness. It’s meant to be just the right size for as many potential buyers as possible but still be loaded with the kind of features someone would expect from a new car in 2015.
It’s also reasonably priced. $19,960 (plus $880 for destination charges) will send you home in a 2016 Mazda CX-3 with good standard features, versatility, and Mazda’s awesome new Kodo design language. Deliveries are expected to begin mid-August. Standard features available in the entry-level CX-3 Sport include a 2.0-liter four-banger producing 146 horsepower and the same in torque with a six-speed automatic sending power to the front wheels. All-wheel drive is a $1,250 option. Interior amenities include a standard seven-inch infotainment screen with Bluetooth and audio streaming capabilities, a backup camera (by the law), and steering wheel controls.
Stepping up to the mid-level CX-3 Touring adds leatherette seating surfaces with cloth inserts, heated seats, blind spot monitoring, rear cross traffic alert, and other luxuries. The top-of-the-line CX-3 Grand Touring adds a power moonroof, navigation, pop-up heads-up-display, leather and suede two-toned seats, a seven-speaker Bose sound system, LED lightning, and more.
[Source: Mazda]

Hooniverse News does Autoweek’s 30 & Under issue

In case you’ve forgotten, I’m young.
There’s a lot of passion for cars and the open road in today’s youth and there’s also huge talent in the automotive journalism/photography industry from people who hardly remember life before power windows. The fine folks at Autoweek have once again shined a light on some of the young guys and gals that, despite their age, have a huge passion for these machines and the adventures they can take us on. Their July 20th issue is their 30 & Under issue, and like the name suggests, it’s filled entirely by people under the age of 30. This is the exact same formula from their Eternal Combustion issue last year. I’m still under 30, so I was invited back.
Autoweek Magazine is subscription only but you can get a free download from their site. I compiled the news column (surprise!) and the words are mostly the same as the news from June 26th, but the art department made it look much prettier than I ever could. But don’t stop on my part. Read through the rest when you get a chance so you can see how bright the future of car culture really is.
And again, thanks for reading. After almost four years of this I’m still as excited as I was when I started. This is still fun to me but having an audience is a huge part of what keeps me going (..echo…. echo…….. echo).
Cheers and have a good weekend.

What’s your automotive news?

[No picture this week]
So now it’s your turn. If you saw anything, broke something, bought a thing you know you’ll regret, or otherwise did anything newsworthy that you want to share with your fellow hoon, sound off in the comments.