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Enthusiasts hoping the second-generation Subaru BRZ would break cover with a turbocharged engine were sorely disappointed. Unveiled this week, it receives a bigger engine that delivers more horsepower and torque, but it remains naturally aspirated. Subaru explained why its engineers ruled out adopting forced induction.

Power for the BRZ comes from a 2.4-liter flat-four that's related to the engine found in the Ascent, but the turbo didn't make the leap from the crossover to the coupe due to weight, packaging, and cost restrictions. Dominick Infante, the head of Subaru's public relations team, told Road & Track that turbocharging the BRZ would have required mounting the engine higher, which would have compromised handling by raising the center of gravity.

For time immemorial, or at least the past six years, Toyota and Lexus have sat at the top of Consumer Reports' annual survey of vehicle reliability. It was almost as much a given as blue skies and taxes. Not any more. Mazda has dethroned them both, ascending to the No. 1 spot for the first time.

According to the report, Mazda nabbed the top spot with powertrains and that used durable (and more fun) six-speed automatic transmissions instead of CVTs, which tend to be more fragile. Mazda also didn't rely on overly fancy infotainment systems, instead bucking industry trends with cockpits that discourage screen use during driving and encourage buttons and dials that can be handled without taking your eyes off the road. The most reliable Mazda was the MX-5 with a score of 98 out of 100, followed by the CX-30, CX-3, and CX-5, all scoring 85 or better.

Presented in its current form just last year, the new generation Nissan Sentra has been updated for 2021 with new features and is already on sale at dealers across the nation.

Other than the Land Cruiser, Toyota's longest-running model is the Crown, a large rear-wheel-drive sedan that has been a mainstay on Japanese streets for 65 years. It has faithfully served as taxis, police cars, town cars, and something a Japanese grandfather would proudly own. However, a new report from a major Japanese newspaper, the Chunichi Shimbun, says Toyota will be killing it off next year.

The Crown was introduced in 1955, at a time when most Japanese citizens could not afford their own vehicles. Most cars were sold to taxi services, but their ubiquity made them a staple of city streets. It was even Toyota's first import to the U.S., sold here from 1957-71. Each successive generation grew more luxurious as Japan's economy boomed, and the model became synonymous with Toyota's decades-long dominance of the domestic market.

Catalin Matei, principal designer at Acura, was the exterior design lead for the original 2001 MDX and had the same job for the new MDX Prototype. That's just plain cool, and it makes him the MDX person of record when it comes to design. 

Thankfully, Acura put him in front of a camera with the original and the new Prototype to talk design. That video is at the top of this post.

Subaru revealed the 2022 BRZ early Wednesday morning with a 228-horsepower, naturally aspirated boxer engine and a curb weight under 2,900 pounds, even with its optional automatic transmission. 

On paper, the 2022 BRZ appears to carry on in the spirit of its predecessor. While it does get an additional 23 hp and 28 pound-feet of torque thanks to its new 2.4-liter horizontally opposed engine, just about everything else on the 2022 BRZ's spec sheet appears to pick up right where the 2020 model left off. 

The 2022 Honda Civic has been officially revealed, and as expected, it looks much more like its bigger Accord cousin than the Civic it's replacing. It's technically called a "prototype," but it's safe to assume that the production model will look just like this. Honda also provided a preview of the interior and just a couple of details about feature set and availability.

Digging deeper into the exterior, you can see the Accord influence in the smooth body panels, the long shoulder line that runs the length of the car, and the window line that bumps up at the C-pillar. The proportions differ a bit from the Accord, though. The nose is longer and lower relative to the rest of the body, and the trunk lid is short. It almost looks as though it could be rear-wheel drive. The car also features a small grille with a body color accent similar to that on the new Honda Fit, and the trunk has a distinct lip spoiler to it.

Infiniti wants a bigger slice of the huge crossover pie, so it is preparing the introduction of yet another model: the QX55.

We're hours away from the official unveiling of the 2022 Subaru BRZ sports coupe. To coincide with what would have been the week of the 2020 Los Angeles Auto Show, Subaru will unveil the new BRZ to the world on Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 9 a.m. EST. 

The live reveal will be hosted on Subaru's 2022 BRZ landing page, which currently houses teaser videos of the redesigned coupe being driven on some gorgeous mountain roads. We will update this post if Subaru provides any other means to watch the unveiling. 

The 2022 Honda Civic will finally be unveiled tonight, and you can watch the reveal of the small sedan right here. It starts at 9:45 p.m. Eastern and will be broadcast on Twitch, but we'll have the stream included on this post, too.

We've actually seen a fair bit of the new Honda Civic thanks to patent renderings of both the sedan and hatchback bodystyles, which you can see at the embedded links. What we've seen so far is that the design will be heavily influenced by the current Accord. We also know that the coupe has been cancelled, but there will be Si and Type R variants coming down the road.

The car reveals are coming in quick succession today, and last up is the 2022 Infiniti QX55. Infiniti will be hosting a stream at 8:55 p.m. ET tonight to reveal the crossover coupe version of its popular QX50. Artist Aloe Blacc will be hosting the event and hyping the car up from the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles. Additionally, Infiniti will have designers and executives on hand to speak about the car and its development and background.

If this reveal is anything like the Nissan Z Proto reveal, expect a number of folks on hand and a detailed look at the crossover. You can watch it all in the video stream at the top of this post via YouTube.

File this one to the "we'll believe it when we see it" folder. Toyota is apparently now the owner of a patent for an autonomous tanker vehicle that refuels or recharges your car "on the fly." While that conjures images of a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker extending a fuel boom to an F-16, it's unclear from the filing whether the cars would be in motion or parked.

This seems to be a high-level patent, one where a company is simply staking a claim to an idea rather than having a fleshed-out product. Discovered by The Drive, it shows a nondescript boxy trailer that contains the various types of fuel. It's attached to an autonomous car that can be summoned by a customer, who provides the make and model of their car and selects different octane grades of petrol, diesel, hydrogen, or recharging for EVs. 

The 2021 redesign of the Toyota Mirai has taken the fuel-cell sedan from ugly duckling to swan, and now Toyota is releasing information about what features that swan will be packing when it arrives at dealerships next month.

The 2021 Mirai switches to Toyota's Premium Rear-Wheel-Drive Platform and for the first time will be offered in two trim levels: XLE and Platinum. Both come standard with an 8-inch digital instrument cluster and a 12.3-inch infotainment display. The latter includes Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and Amazon Alexa capability. Wireless smartphone charging is also on hand. Standard driver assists include forward-collision warning with pedestrian and cyclist detection as well as the ability to warn of oncoming traffic when making left turns. Other driver aids include lane-departure warning, lane-keep assist, lane tracing (lane centering), automatic high beams, and adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go capability. Heated front seats, 19-inch wheels, side-window sunshades, power-folding mirrors and Toyota's SofTex synthetic leather upholstery also are standard.

Subaru's second-generation BRZ is clearing its throat before its official debut. While its design remains hidden, the Japanese firm released a video that lets us hear the new coupe's flat-four engine sing for the first time.

Most of the video was shot from the driver's point of view, which is a clever way of keeping the sheetmetal largely out of sight. It allocates more screen time to America's picturesque wilderness than to the car, but the sound of an engine racing from turn to turn and footage of smoking tires breaks the National Geographic vibe.