AutoGuide Hot Takes: Sayonara Summer

AutoGuide.com Staff
by AutoGuide.com Staff

It's officially fall—while the weather may still be great for golfing and baseball—those of us in the northeast need to start thinking about winter tires and putting our classics away for the long winter sleep. As always, AutoGuide is here for it. We don’t always cover every piece of news, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have thoughts and opinions—many of them.


Managing Editor Mike Schlee, Road Test Editor Kyle Patrick, Site Coordinator Michael Accardi, and Editorial Director Greg Migliore weigh in on the hot topics of the week. If you disagree, please get in the comments and tell us why we’re wrong.

1) A Porsche with the active rear wing stuck in the up position is definitely worth laughing at. Downforce while parking is obviously essential, especially when it's one of those Cayenne coupes. For an extra giggle, if you see a 911 like that in traffic, ask the driver if their car is broken and watch the color drain from their face.


2) Speaking of Porsche—the 718s are keeping their engines. Hell yeah. The next-gen Boxster and Cayman will have ICE in their veins for at least the top-end models, which could mean the GTS and RS. It gets murky from here, as Porsche maintains the new generation is still being primed for electric propulsion, and it looks unfeasible for the current underpinnings to carry over just for gas. We’ll let Porsche sort that out. A mid-engine electric sports car sounds great, but the 718s are examples of cars that still need engines. They’re low volume, their emissions aren’t significant on a grand scale, and they’re supposed to be fun.


3) Hyundai Canada is making American hockey fans jealous with the Palisade NHL edition, which offers the Limited trim with the NHL logo of your choice displayed on the door sills, floormats, and cargo trays. The NHL edition is done up in a creamy white exterior with a charcoal cabin. You also get a rolling Yeti cooler. Unlike some fanboy partnerships, this is kinda cool, which means Gary Bettman wasn’t a part of it. Hyundai could certainly move versions of this in Detroit, Boston, Chicago, and Minneapolis.

4) Have you heard about the fake Chinese airbags? The counterfeit parts are working their way deep into the American replacement car parts market with OEM-looking packaging and construction. The problem lay in the accelerants used to deploy the airbag in the event of a crash. Fake airbags don’t deploy; they explode with the force of a grenade, sending metal shrapnel directly into the faces and necks of drivers in otherwise survivable crashes.


5) Okay, this has gone on for too long: Rivian founder RJ Scaringe is a cleaned-up Steve-O from an alternate universe who started an electric car company instead of joining the Jackass crew, right?


6) The Miata has been an obvious bit of enthusiast catnip for years now, but have you tried to explain its appeal to non-car people? Can it be appealing to them? I’d argue that, with dwindling sales and the age of the current car, Mazda must be asking that same question.


7) It’s a great week for racing game fans, with news of a free update coming to Gran Turismo 7 before the end of the year, with 8 cars and two tracks: Yas Marina (meh) and Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve (hell yeah). Right after we got confirmation, Forza Horizon is finally heading to the most-requested country: Japan.

8) Speaking of Japan, the Japan Mobility Show is a month away. We expect the local brands to go big, as they tend to do. Top of mind? A hotter WRX, more Mazda goodness, and the next-generation sports cars from Toyota and Lexus.


9) Tesla is getting left behind in the Robotaxi race. Earlier this month, Lyft and Waymo joined forces; now, Lucid and Uber have announced that autonomy specialist Nuro will be converting Gravity SUVs for use in an autonomous ride-hailing fleet that should roll out starting next year. Tesla may have stretched its camera-based FSD functionality as far as it safely can, especially if you look at the track record of the automaker's nascent Robotaxi service.


10) McLaren is going to build an SUV. It was really only a matter of time before that happened. Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Aston Martin have all gone down this path. The only real holdouts at this point are Bugatti, Pagani, and Koenigsegg. Hopefully, McLaren's workpiece is hot like Purosangue and not lukewarm like the DBX.


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AutoGuide.com Staff
AutoGuide.com Staff

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  • Sal82005388 Sal82005388 on Sep 28, 2025

    So now China is sending fake OEM airbags that explode to America plus Fentanyl and Tik Toc which aren't allowed in China.

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