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Car News In the Rearview: Not Good, But Don’t Panic

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Welcome once more to In the Rearview, where I, like a mother bird, bring bites of car news to your open, cheeping mouths. This is not a perfect metaphor.

First up this week, we have Dodge releasing another teaser for the Challenger SRT Demon. However, rather than releasing more details about the car, Dodge just released details about a tool box for the car. Meh.

Then, in other sports car news, Ford has just delivered the first of its Ford GT Heritage Edition models, and somewhat appropriately, our first video glimpses come to us from some guy crashing a local Cars and Coffee.

Since it is still stubbornly cold outside, we decided it was time to put an old car myth to bed: you don’t need to keep your gas tank full because your gas might freeze. You do need to do it, but not because of freezing gas.

In other mythological news, Mitsubishi, now that it is under the benign guidance of Nissan, may be planning to bring its Triton pickup truck (or a version of it) to the US at some point. Here’s hoping it will have a better time of it against the American brands than Nissan has had.

Speaking of trucks, lately automakers in the US have more and more needed to bow down to the desire of car buyers to shun any vehicle labelled “sedan,” and so General Motors has decided that it will most likely steer into the slide and cut car production in favor of making better-selling SUVs, CUVs, and pickup trucks.

Meanwhile, Columbus, Ohio, can now call itself more smarter than dozens of cities across the US, as it has officially won the Department of Transportation’s Smart City Challenge, earning it a giant chunk of cash to reform its transportation for the future.

As summer approaches, it is time for many to start planning vacations, and the TSA is promising that soon, its security checks are about to get decidedly more handsy. So, take our advice and take a road trip!

Finally, I am brought back once more to talking about Donald Trump, as our new president has ordered new EPA head Scott Pruitt to reopen the fuel economy standards for 2022-2025, which was pushed through in January just ahead of the new administration taking office. This will likely end with regulations for those years shredded or simply trashed, but at least we have standards set until 2022.