“A takedown artist.” That’s how Ford describes the gobby-looking new Mustang Shelby GT500. We presume that’s ‘Murican for ‘giant killer’.That’s backed up by Ford’s bullish claim that “the new Shelby GT500 will surprise supercar owners with its Ford Performance racing tech, supercharged engine and visceral swagger". Sounds punchy, until you look at the spec and discover the Shelby is every inch the musclebound supercar botherer.

Lexus' bread and butter has always been soft, comfortable vehicles like the RX crossover and ES sedan. Yet, starting with the launch of its LFA supercar, RC and LC coupes, and F subbrand, it started to look like Lexus was pivoting to become more of a sports-luxury brand.

But few have survived and here we take a look at how some of those survivors (plus a few that didn't make it) got started. Sometimes things are a lot more convoluted than you think though, with some companies claiming two (or even three) first cars… In chronological order, let's take a look at the first car made by every major carmaker:

Yes, the Honda Civic Type R is already one of the most extreme-looking cars on sale today. And yes, it can get even crazier, as proven by Mugen, a Honda-centric Japanese tuner that has taken the hot hatch to a new level visually (or a new low, depending on what you think of it).

Solid-state technology could help speed the demise of the combustion-engine car.

Elon Musk has been making some crazy claims about the next generation Tesla Roadster, but now he is topping them off with a claim that it will actually be able to hover over the ground. When first unveiling the vehicle, Musk claimed a list of insanely impressive specs for the new Roadster, including 0-60 mph in 1.9 sec, 620-mile of range, and more. Musk has been teasing those specs as the “base specs” and other versions could be even crazier.

Executives at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Ford have reason to celebrate over their muscle cars, while Chevrolet is likely taking a hard look at its Camaro. The 2018 sales figures are in from all three American automakers, and the results put Ford on top in the muscle car wars. Despite a decrease in sales of 7.4 percent compared to the previous year, Ford managed to sell 75,842 Mustangs in 2018. The figure is more than enough to claim the number one spot after its first full year on sale after a mid-cycle refresh.

Great news! Wagons sales are up. Way up, actually, versus 2013. According to data released by Edmunds and published by Bloomberg, the number of wagons sold in the US has gone up 29 percent, a total of 212,000 of them purchased in 2018. Sounds good, right? Historically, Americans have been moving away from wagons, increasingly opting for crossovers to satisfy their needs.

Tesla is way ahead of the competition, but it's not because others can't build EVs. It has much more to do with Tesla's laser-focus on battery tech and production.

In an incident caught on video, a Tesla Model 3 on Autopilot drove on some ice and slid out-of-control, but the owner claims that the driver assist system regained control of the vehicle by itself and brought it back into a lane. Driver assist systems to prevent a vehicle from going out of control is nothing new. Vehicles have traction and stability control for years, but a Model 3 owner in Quebec claims that Tesla’s Autopilot did a lot more than that.

Waymo One is the world’s first self-driving taxi service. Just two rides in, and we’re already bored of the future.

A Porsche is a Porsche, of course of course, unless the Porsche is an SUV. So goes the lament of the unappeasable purist, who sees every stilted hotcake built by an exotic automaker as an affront to history. Time for a reality check: Today's performance car market mostly rides on the subsidies provided by booming SUV sales. If you're a 911 fan, that means you, by definition, also better be a fan of the company's crossovers if you know what's best for the fabled sports car...

Lexus shocked the automotive world in Detroit three years ago with the debut of the LC coupe. It was a testament to the brand’s new sense of creative ambition, but it was only just the beginning. Since then, the Lexus design team has been exploring the brand’s evolution and the latest result of those explorations will make its debut at the 2019 North American International Auto Show with the world premiere of the Lexus LC Convertible Concept.

Great Wall Motor is launching its new flagship vehicle under its new ‘ORA’ electric car brand: the ORA R1.

Toyota is preparing to jump head-first into the ever-competitive hot hatch market with a juiced-up variant of the Corolla hatchback. Australia’s Car Sales reports that Tetsuya Tada, the man behind the Toyota 86 and new Supra, is leading the push within the automaker’s Gazoo Racing performance sub-brand to launch a fleet of vehicles.

Almost a third of new cars sold in Norway last year were pure electric.

All of us must face death eventually. That is even true of our best friends, the cars. It’s inevitable and natural. But when the death is indicative of a greater and more depressing trend, then it’s extremely sobering. This year, we saw the death of a lot of sedans. Like, a lot a lot. Here are the cars that died in 2018.

The problem with common wisdom is that it’s often not all that wise. Take for example, the “fact” that vehicles are getting heavier all the time. At an average of 4,044 lbs for model year 2017, light duty vehicles in the U.S. aren’t exactly lightweights. However, as is usually the case, that single metric doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact when placed in a larger context, the vehicle weight story is actually surprisingly positive and tremendous progress has been made over the past four decades.

I test and review dozens of cars, trucks, and SUVs every year.Most are impressive. But there are some things that annoy me.

China was no good at cars. Then EVs came along.

The Ford Ranger seems to strike a personal chord with pretty much everybody in America; I remember being crammed into the jump seats of my dad’s as a kid. When the “return” of the truck in the form of the 2019 Ford Ranger was announced, people reacted like it was going to be personally delivered by God himself. Now it’s finally here, and it’s not the stripped-out little truck we all remember—but it’s pretty good at what it’s trying to do.

Gordon is a New Yorker who for decades has remained loyal to his Volvo P1800, a vintage Swedish vehicle that holds a Guinness Book of World Records certification for having registered the greatest number of miles driven by its authentic owner for personal purposes. According to a feature in the Indianapolis Star, Gordon fell head-over-heels for it in 1966 and nearly used all his savings to purchase the Volvo.

Toyota Research Institute had a breakthrough last year in its pursuit to make driving safer. It was so profound that Toyota wants to open up to other automakers. The inspiration was modern-day fighter jets, which use a low-level flight control system to translate the intent of the pilot and keep the aircraft stable and tucked neatly inside a specific safety envelope. TRI calls it blended envelope control, an approach that lets its “Guardian” driver assist system combine and coordinate the skills of the human driver and the vehicle they’re driving.

With a new 2020 Ford Bronco rumored to debut at the 2019 Detroit Auto Show , and never-waning fanfare around the original 1966-77 Bronco, it would appear there's a market for these SUVs whether old or new. But what if you could have both? Now you can, thanks to a company called Gateway Bronco out of Hamel, Illinois. Founded by mechanical engineer and entrepreneur Seth Burgett , Gateway Bronco began in 2016 as a Ford Bronco restoration company, but Burgett had higher ambitions.

Tesla's sleek, upscale electric vehicles have captured a wide audience -- wide enough that traditional makers of luxury vehicles are feeling the need to compete directly with the Silicon Valley upstart. At the same time, Tesla has inspired other start-up electric-vehicle makers, some of whom are aiming for the same market that Tesla has so far had for itself. On top of that, the mainstream automakers are drawing inspiration from Tesla as they design their own electric vehicles for the mass market.

Find yourself wondering whether your headlights are out, only to discover they've been working the whole time? It might be because the plastic covering the bulbs has become clouded or yellowed. In fact, at an average of 11 years old, the typical vehicle on the road today is generating only 22 percent of the light that it did when its headlights were new, according to a new study by AAA. "We were really shocked by the amount of deterioration in light output that we saw," said Greg Brannon, AAA's director of automotive engineering. "It's a major safety concern out on the roadways today."

Electric vehicle batteries will cost less than $100-per-kWh to make by 2020; and less than $50-per-kWh by 2025, significantly reducing manufacturing costs for EVs, according to a Chinese supplier of EV batteries. The $100-per-kWh threshold has been heralded in the industry as the price at which an EV could be made cheaper to produce than a gasoline-powered car.

For your next car, would you consider plugging it in instead of filling it up? "Electric vehicle sales are still under 2 percent of the new car sales every month, so it's a very small number," said Kelley Blue Book executive analyst Rebecca Lindland. But she said that's beginning to change, especially in the luxury market.

It's not just Tesla with Linux under the hood. Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, and Toyota, to name a few, all rely on Linux.

With more than 46 million Toyota Corollas sold globally since its introduction in 1966, it would be difficult to find a driver who did not recognize the name. Everyone, it seems, has a Corolla story. Many, though are going to be doing double takes when they see the re-imagined and reconfigured 2020 Toyota Corolla sedan. And that’s exactly the point.

Get your hydraulic lifts ready and prepare to drop some engines: these are the hardest cars to service you'll ever come across.

Add Aston Martin to the growing list of companies using nostalgia to sell customers on the idea of an electric vehicle future. The British automaker announced this week that it’s starting a “Heritage EV” program where owners of classic Aston Martins can have their cars converted to an all-electric powertrain.

With General Motors set to end production of its Chevrolet Cruze compact car next year, another high-volume, entry-level option will be crossed off American car buyers' shopping lists. On top of similar moves by Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, the demise of the Cruze adds to growing affordability challenges in the new-vehicle market.

In October, we finally got a chance to drive the Hyundai Kona EV, a rather wonderful little electric vehicle. Based on the internal combustion-powered Kona, it packs in 64kWh of lithium-ion to give it an EPA range of 258 miles (415km). On top of that, the little Kona EV also sported a rather nifty Smart Regeneration System that uses the car's cruise control radar to maximize energy recuperation when following other cars. The one thing we couldn't tell you back then was how much this EV would cost.

Toyota is an automaker with a rich history dating back to the 1930s. But, until recently, very little was known about the earliest Toyota models, which had likely been melted down and repurposed as planes, guns, or piston rings during World War II. In fact, following the war, even the plans for Toyota’s first-ever vehicles were lost; that was, until a 1936 Toyoda Model AA was found in a barn in Russia. The Toyoda Model AA was built between 1936 and 1942, and only 1,404 units were produced. But, after the war, all knowledge of this early model was lost.