Elana Scherr

From the November 2023 issue of Car and Driver.Positioned between the Pacific Ocean and the Laguna Mountains, San Diego has a bustling downtown and a bevy of quality taco shops. The area also features loads of car-centric attractions, from weekend meet-ups to an antique-engine museum. Those in search of a drive will find plentiful sunshine and gorgeous, twisty roads. Sticking close to town is equally rewarding, with family-friendly motoring activities and an ocean backdrop.Planes in the ParkBalb…

From the January 2024 issue of Car and Driver.If midcentury soothsayers really had a line on the future, all those Syd Mead illustrations of happy sci-fi suburbanites would have shown them darting around glass-walled skyscrapers in Porsche Macans. Talk about a flying car. The Macan looks like a June bug (especially the GTS in Python Green), but it zings and zips like a hummingbird. From the four-cylinder base Macan to the snorty, six-jug GTS, Porsche’s small SUV makes good on the badge’s sports-…

How the Velocity Invitational keeps flying under the radar of automotive events is a mystery. If you’re going to splurge on one car-related activity in 2024, put Velocity on the short list. It’s racing, yes, but so much more, with open garages that allow spectators to get right up against cars like Aryton Senna’s MP4/6, the Trans Am–winning AMC, or Ford’s new GT. Want to see two McLaren F1s? They’ll be there. And a P1. And a Sauber Mercedes. And some rally cars. They’ll be revving in the pits cl…

From the December 2023 issue of Car and Driver.There is no better day in a truck owner’s life than being in a situation where someone needs the services of a pickup and you’re able to provide them. Hauling an unexpected car-parts score or rescuing a friend who’s made an impromptu plant-rack purchase? That’s why we buy trucks. But these days, we’re buying more truck than we need.People like to buy for imagined extreme conditions. What if you had to transport a full-grown oak tree in an oversize p…

Even if it was just an excuse to load up on gas station snacks, there isn’t a staffer in the office who would turn down a chance to take on a road-trip story. There’s something about picking Point B on a map and imagining all the world you’ll see through the windows on the way there that is as exciting now as it was when we first got our licenses and permission to ramble. For 2023, we did a massive team relay-road trip where the baton was our long-term Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing, and numerous day…

There is a rhythm to racing movies. At their heart, they all ask the same question: What drives drivers to drive, or, in the case of Michael Mann’s Ferrari, what drives Adam Driver (as Enzo) to drive drivers to drive? Racing films tend to be masculine tales well marbled with tragedy, the history of racing being undeniably macho and often fatal. Cinema fans familiar with Mann’s oeuvre will easily see the appeal that Ferrari’s story held for a director whose work (Heat, Thief, The Insider, Ali, Mi…

From the December 2023 issue of Car and Driver.In 1902, a miner named William “Burro” Schmidt began digging a tunnel through a mountain in California’s Mojave Desert. He continued, by hand, for three decades, despite that a road was built during that time, and his tunnel came out on a ledge above the valley. You can visit Schmidt’s work down a silty dirt road. It’s a slidey, sandy journey, but it’s so easy in the Chevy Colorado ZR2 that if Schmidt had had one, he wouldn’t have bothered trying to…

From the January 2024 issue of Car and Driver.We turned a lot of heads as we snaked up Highway 1, California’s peachy afternoon light glinting off starkly angled windshields and glossy carbon-fiber wings. Even along Malibu’s lapis-blue coast, where exotic cars make up a good portion of the weekend traffic, our parade of rumbling bulls, prancing horses, and stylized kiwi birds was noteworthy, but less for the cars than for the drivers.“I think it’s a car club,” I overheard a teenager tell his dad…

Here we are, decades into the Safari Porsche trend, and there’s still something uncanny about sliding around a dirt corner and straight up a rocky grade with a 992’s leather-wrapped three-spoke steering wheel vibrating in your hands. The brain just expects that view—the Porsche 911’s gently curving dash, the fall of its sloped hood—to require angled approaches and speed-bump avoidance. Even on my second lap, I lifted off the throttle and winced at the base of the downhills, expecting a scrape of…

I’m pretty used to disappointing my buddy Dave Shuten. He’s always showing me some cool custom car memorabilia or rock star autograph only to suffer through my looking blank and forcing him to explain its importance. Shuten knows the custom show cars of the ’50s and ’60s like I know, well, I don’t think I know anything that well. Maybe Haribo gummi candy varieties? He works with Galpin Motors in Van Nuys, California, on Galpin president and CEO Beau Boeckmann’s unrivaled collection of custom hot…

See interior and exterior photos of an elusive California custom car that has resurfaced decades after its heyday in the 1960s.

Mazda’s new mid-size SUV, the two-row CX-70, is bigger than we expected, apparently sharing a platform (and wheelbase) with the three-row CX-90.The 2025 Mazda CX-70 will offer the turbocharged 3.3-liter inline-six engine in two power ratings, as well as a plug-in-hybrid powertrain.Black accents on the grille, mirrors, and door handles give the CX-70 a slightly different look than its sibling.Automotive marketing decisions are not our primary purview, so we’ll just mention that we were surprised…

McDonald’s promotional stunt shows the Hamburglar character driving a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda around the United States. The themed muscle car has a custom interior that matches Hamburglar’s costume. This is very silly, but we’ll give the marketing team props for good taste in cars.UPDATE: The original press release didn’t have drivetrain info for the Hamburglar’s ride, but since this is clearly the most important car of 2024, we tracked down designer Sean Smith, who let us know that th…

Its big eyes goggle at you from hats and T-shirts, from the back glass on station wagons and the inside of toolboxes. The Mooneyes logo has graced the side of land speed streamliners, nitro funny cars, and even an AMG GT3 endurance car. It’s probably just below the Hooker Headers heart in recognizable American automotive branding, but how many people know the story of Moon Equipment Company’s creation, or even more interesting, of its rescue and regeneration as Mooneyes after the death of its fo…

“There is always some madness in love. But there is always, also, some method in madness.” Thus spake the famously cuddly philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and who would know more about passion than a nihilist? Even when nothing matters, love does, and thousands of poets and pop stars and country singers agree with ol’ Fred. We all go a bit crazy in love, which is why our lists of 10Best and Editors’ Choice and even Lightning Lap winners don’t always include our personal favorites. For our guide…

From the March/April issue of Car and Driver.Medieval alchemy practitioners theorized that the right combination of earth, air, fire, and water would create a fifth element: the philosopher’s stone. They believed that the stone, described as brilliant blue, could turn lead into gold and allow the holder to defy earthly limitations. We aren’t saying that Lucid has discovered the secrets to the quintessence, but the 2024 Air Sapphire has alchemy right in the name and comes only in a brilliant meta…

From the March/April issue of Car and Driver.Flavio Manzoni holds the title of chief design officer for Ferrari, a position both enviable and intimidating. Manzoni has been at Ferrari since 2010, and his portfolio includes the F12 Berlinetta and the LaFerrari. Manzoni took a break from penning the next great prancing horse to talk to about the 296GTB.C/D: You studied architecture; how did that transition into car design?Flavio Manzoni: It’s a bit complicated. When I was young I really liked to c…

After claiming a Nürburgring lap record with a prototype Turbo GT, Porsche unveiled the production car at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California. Driver Lars Kern set a new lap record of 1:27.87, beating the previous record of 1.30.3. The 2025 Turbo GT can reach 60 mph in 2.1 seconds, boasts a top speed of up to 190 mph, and, with the Weissach package, drops 157 pounds compared to the Turbo S model.One rarely thinks of time in measurements of a minute and a half, unles…

As the 9:30 a.m. Pilates class filtered out of the studio, nearly every fit and flexible practitioner gave the 2024 Porsche Cayenne at least a passing glance. The instructor asked to sit inside and commented on the pleasant leather and roomy back seat. Somewhere, a Porsche designer felt the warm glow of successfully reaching the desired audience. The Cayenne was created for exactly the demographic that can take a pricey midmorning exercise class and appreciate both a chiseled body and a firm yet…

From the March/April 2024 issue of Car and Driver.Sarah Winchester was convinced her house was haunted. Or rather, she was convinced she herself was haunted by the restless souls of people killed by Winchester rifles. She spent much of her firearms fortune paying carpenters to build new rooms, secret passageways, and staircases to nowhere in hopes of distracting the ghosts in her home in San Jose, California. At one point, before the great 1906 earthquake, her house stood seven stories high, wit…