Aaron Turpen

The Shell Starship Initiative is an experiment on wheels. It focuses on energy-efficient truck design using technologies currently available while simultaneously testing lubricants and tech that are near-to-market. I was once a truck driver and I found the work Shell is doing here to be fascinating.

Arctic Trucks is an overlanding outfitter building vehicles capable of entering the Arctic Circle and returning to tell the tale. In North America, that vehicle is a Ford F-550 with a long list of mods. And I got to head into the Wyoming wilderness with it.

My family spent a week with the Taxa Outdoors Woolly Bear Overland camp trailer, and we loved it. Camp trailers like this are an off-road-ready camping option with a lot of storage, organization, and other useful features.

Ford redesigned the Ranger pickup truck for the 2024 model year, pushing it into its fifth generation. I drove both the XLT and the Raptor, comprising two of the four models of Ranger available now.

Old SJ-series Jeep models are some of the most iconic American things there are. At Vigilante 4x4 in Texas, however, adding rubber-burning muscle and a whole lot of engineering makes them even more.

BMW is getting good at building polished, driver-centric cars that happen to be electric. Viewing the EV option as a choice instead of a must makes the electric Bimmers more appealing.

Standing in the pickup zone at the Austin airport, I felt the immense humidity of that part of Texas. As a man of the High Plains, much further north on the map, I felt the powerful heat that holds that rain-soaked part of the Lone Star State during the summer. Then the giddiness of low altitude…

Most of the vehicles that were based on the Toyota Land Cruiser have seen a complete revision to follow the Land Cruiser’s new design. The Lexus GX, the closest kin to the Land Cruiser, is no exception. But it does outdo its Toyota sibling in several ways.

A lot of the time, friends and family come to me as “that car guy” to ask about vehicles. Occasionally, though, I step out of that role and do something different – I work with tools. And that is exactly what the Can-Am Defender is.

The Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and the GMC Sierra 1500 are nearly identical trucks. The major differences between a Chevrolet and a GMC truck lie mostly in their looks and interiors. GMC is, by branding, more upscale.