In the Rearview: Cleaning Up
Hello, and welcome once more to In the Rearview, where I get all snarky about some of the top news stories on The News Wheel from the past week.
This week, we start with a look way back over all of 2016 to remember the vehicles which were dumped from their lineups this year, with favorites like the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution and Cadillac ELR as well as cars we aren’t that sorry to see go like the Jeep Patriot and the Chrysler Town and Country.
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Following that, the other editors here were clearly more savvy than I am, because they were able to narrow down the identification of a shadowy vehicle from a photo of Duncan Jones’ upcoming film “Mute.” They think that it is likely a 1960s Mercedes-Benz 220SEb coupe, probably built on the brand’s W111 platform. I mean, when you put it that way…
Then, we had two stories about electric vehicles in a row–first, Toyota has decided that it is going to start selling its powertrain components to other automakers who would like to save the expense of developing their own (*cough*Fiat Chrysler*cough*). After that, we jump to Japan’s newest team of Nissan and Mitsubishi, who have decided that they are going to just share their electric vehicle technology between the two brands to save on development and production costs.
Next we have a review of a 4-in-1 car vacuum cleaner/air compressor/air pressure gauge/LED light, which the Amazon listing promises will solve all of your problems, but I found didn’t really do much of what it promised. I almost felt bad writing the review because the people from the company who sent me the vacuum in the first place were very nice, but like Little Red Riding Hood, I have learned that nice doesn’t necessarily mean good.
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Speaking of, the next story in the list comes from the much-maligned and exhaust-wreathed Volkswagen, which has been developing technology to have your car read street signs and remind you what they said (which is helpful, especially if you missed them the first time around).
That brings us to the streets of Michigan, where lawmakers have decided to put the state at the forefront of self-driving car technology (and remove some Michigan drivers from the road) by making it legal for an autonomous car to drive without a person in the driver’s seat, a step that other markets have been cautious to take.
Finally, we had one more look back for 2016 with the best Celebrity cars of the year. They include new cool cars like a tricked-out Jeep Wrangler and a Ferrari LaFerrari, but I still think the best is the 1960s Pontiac GTO–Praise The Great One.
The News Wheel is a digital auto magazine providing readers with a fresh perspective on the latest car news. We’re located in the heart of America (Dayton, Ohio) and our goal is to deliver an entertaining and informative perspective on what’s trending in the automotive world. See more articles from The News Wheel.