In case you’ve been pulling a Rip van Winkle for the past decade, you know that sedans, once the foundation of new-vehicle sales, are decidedly becoming just another market niche. People today want to buy crossovers, hybrids, and SUVs. And, of course, pickups, of all sizes, which are adapting to market realities dictating better fuel economy through things like smaller engines with cylinder deactivation, the extensive use of aluminum, and more. But right now, this is all looking like an irreversible trend rather than just another market cycle. Consider what General Motors just announced. It’s going to sink $1.5 billion to bring its newest generation of full-size pickups into the showroom, a billion of which will be earmarked to upgrade its assembly plant in Wentzville, Missouri – the onetime hometown of Chuck Berry – to produce its next generation of midsize pickups that will succeed today’s versions of the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon.

While it hasn’t yet released any details on the forthcoming midsize trucks, GM is undoubtedly facing a more crowded playing field that includes the reconstituted Ford Ranger and the new Jeep Gladiator, plus a whole range of foreign-badged competitors. Consider this: Since it reintroduced the Colorado and Canyon in 2013, GM has sold more than 700,000 midsize haulers in the United States alone. Wentzville currently builds both those pickups, along with the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana full-size vans. First opened in 1983, Wentzville Assembly now employs more than 4,300 hourly and salaried autoworkers.

If you look at the schedule for the World Endurance Championship, you’ll notice something a little bit odd. Right now, the WEC is at the midpoint of its current season, which uniquely spans two calendar years. Part of the racing lineup was an inaugural event, the Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain, which this past weekend saw Aston Martin score a very well-earned victory in a contest that saw the legendary British marque swap the lead throughout the race with Ferrari, its historic rival in the WEC’s GTE Pro category. The winning drivers were the Danish duo of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen, who gave Aston Martin its second win of the season despite starting at the rear of the grid.

This Drew Gibson image furnished by Aston Martin shows the winning Vantage GTE exiting the pits during its run to victory, a finish that saw all three works Aston Martins finish on the podium. In a battle of conserving brakes and tires on the hot Bahrain circuit, Thiim and Sorensen were able to capitalize on a botched Ferrari pit stop and assure the win, which under the WEC’s sometimes-convoluted rules structure, awarded the team 1.5 times the points for a “normal” six-hour endurance race due to Bahrain’s additional two laps of the clock. Aston Martin continues to hold the WEC lead in GT manufacturer’s points. And about that schedule: It now goes on a two-month hiatus and resumes in February with the Lone Star Le Mans at the Circuit of the Americas outside Austin, Texas.

The company that the immortal Carroll Shelby founded has a long history of doing crazy things with Fords (and, we know, Chrysler products, too, at least for a while). You can get yourself a bucking hunk of Mustang from these people, with more than enough horsepower to hurrah any highway hoon. The concept of a performance truck isn’t exactly new – you may recall the Ford F-150 Lightning, or the Chevrolet C1500 SS454 that came along around the same time – but what Shelby American is doing now is absolutely beyond the pale. The historic performance purveyor has announced that it will make 250 copies of its new Shelby F-150 Super Snake Sport available through Ford dealers. We’ll get to the particulars in a moment, but for openers, Shelby American is flatly saying this is the fastest street-legal truck available for sale anywhere, or at least at a Ford dealership.

The crowd went nuts when this beast made its first appearance last month at the SEMA show in Las Vegas. Lots of manufacturers are hitting big output numbers with their performance vehicles, but this is outrageous: Its 5.0-liter Ford V-8 is topped with a pulley-driven, powder-coated Roots-type supercharger that nearly doubles the engine’s normal capability to 770hp. Remember, that’s from 302 cubic inches. The blower is fed by functional cold-air scoops on the truck’s hood. The Super Snake Sport exhales through a Borla exhaust system, and all that momentum is stopped by Shelby-spec Baer brakes. Factory testing revealed a 0-60 time of 3.45 seconds and 0-100 MPH in 8.3. Honest, we’re not making this up. If you want the fully supercharged engine, be ready to part with $93,385. Even at this price, the trucks are a certainty to be snapped up fast by eager collectors.

It’s always nice when your peers step up to the plate and salute your achievement, winning one for the home team. And Toyota has just hit a certified dinger in its home market, as its reimagined RAV4 crossover has brought the Asian auto giant its first Japan Car of the Year award in an even decade. A jury of some 60 home-market journalists gave the RAV4 the nod over the Mazda3, with the BMW 3-Series placing third in the balloting and thereby winning the Import Car of the Year honor.

There’s a whole lot that’s new about the new RAV4 behind that aggressive grille. First off is the fact that it’s offered in a TRD version, which stands for Toyota Racing Development, and means that the vehicle receives standard Dynamic Torque Vectoring AWD and has a rally-tuned suspension. Improved multimedia and entertainment systems have been added to every RAV4 equipment level, and the RAV4 XLE gets an expanded, higher-capability weather package that includes a windshield-wiper deicer, something yours truly would have killed to have while living in Vermont and upstate New York. The RAV4 holds singular honors in the United States as the market’s top-selling non-pickup small SUV for the last two consecutive years.

You got money? Check. Packing a lot of, um, intestinal fortitude, are you? Boffo. Interested in succeeding Mike Tyson as the Baddest Man on the Planet? Step right up, because the boffins at McLaren Cars have something new that’s going to make you very happy indeed. Any number of auto manufacturers brag that they can sell you a race car for the street, but at McLaren, which still proudly flies the colors of its founder, that’s not a throwaway line. McLaren has just announced the impending availability of the 620R, part of the ongoing McLaren Sports Series, to be hand-assembled at its Woking, England, complex for just 350 very demanding buyers who are probably queuing up as these lines are typed. The 620R is a real, honest, roadgoing derivative of a pure racing car, the McLaren 570S GT4. That constitutes a bonus: Since the 620R won’t be contesting any existing racing series, the design wasn’t bound by any regulations or technical restrictions imposed by any sanctioning organization.

That means that this road-legal McLaren will produce 610hp from its twin-turbo, 3.8-liter V-8, which is more than the homologated 570S variant can manage, given the ECU and boost restrictions placed on it by the likes of FIA and ACO. The factory promises performance here that will be incredible: 0-60 in 2.9 seconds, and an honest top end of 200 MPH. Pirelli slicks can replace the shallow-tread Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R rubber that’s standard. Just like at Le Mans, the car uses carbon-ceramic brake rotors all the way around. The adjustable rear wing is identical to the one used on the 570S and it alone can generate up to 408 pounds of downforce, to say nothing of the other aerodynamic body surfaces. An on-track telemetry system with central-mounted screen is standard. This very well could go down as the most infinitely capable roadworthy car ever produced. Feeling strong? Be ready to fork over 250,000 pounds Sterling, which works out to about $500,000 or a little more, for your example. The price includes a Pure McLaren Track Day, which is wise. Make sure you order yours in McLaren Orange.

No, there’s not going to be a Porsche-backed team racing in Formula 1, but the pride of Stuttgart will very much be a part of the F1 scene again next year. Porsche and F1 have confirmed that the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup, the one-marque spec support division, will be a part of eight Grand Prix weekends next year. The series matches a diverse field of drivers in 911 GT3 racing cars on some of the world’s most prominent road circuits, with people from the pinnacle of global motorsports enjoying the rollicking, competitive show.

Anymore, the Supercup teams have frequently put on a better show on road courses than many of the F1 outings they’re intended to support. Michael Ammermuller is coming off a third consecutive Supercup championship for Lechner Racing in 2019; starting fields have boasted driver lineups ranging from two-time F1 champion Mika Hakkinen to American TV actor and sometime racer Patrick Dempsey. The venues being contested by the Supercup series in 2020 will include Zandvoort, Monte Carlo, Spielberg, Austria; Silverstone, Budapest, Spa-Francorchamps, Monza, and two stops at Barcelona.

Amazon co-marketing deals are like Farrah Fawcett or Lamborghini Countach posters were back in the Seventies: They’re everywhere you look. As supporting evidence, we offer the deal just reached between Ford and the online retailing behemoth that’s set up a new Ford Bronco store on Amazon.com, in anticipation of the shortly arriving revival of the Jeep-fighting SUV from Ford. That’s a big story in its own right, but the Ford-Amazon alliance aims to serve as a clearinghouse for all things Bronco, regardless of vintage.

Besides apparel galore and scale models Broncos from the past, you can commemorate the budding Bronco-R off-road race program that’s being established around the revived vehicle with a whole range of goodies, ranging from baseball caps to smartphone cases. You can also select from a variety of Bronco scale models, including the radio-controlled version from Traxxas that’s depicted here. Perhaps more useful to collectors, the Amazon store will also serve as the portal for buying a whole range of Dennis Carpenter restoration parts for first-generation Broncos, which have been kicking up a storm on the auction circuit of late. Just point your browser toward the Bronco store on Amazon’s all-encompassing website.

For whatever reason, Jaguar adopted a Hot Wheels-themed introduction for the newest in its line of immortal sports cars, the F-TYPE, all in uppercase letters as is their recent practice. We prefer to focus on the fact that any new sporting Jaguar is an undeniably major story, given Jaguar’s generations-long standing as Great Britain’s definitive car for demanding drivers. Extensively redesigned and sporting, no pun intended, a 2021 model year for its rollout, the F-TYPE is clearly evolutionary is terms of its looks and packaging. It’s still a luscious two-seater crafted from only the most premium materials, and offers all the convenience and technology a buyer of means could possibly expect.

We’ll say this much: The F-TYPE certainly evokes the lines of the original XKE from which it takes its styling cues. Under the leadership of Jaguar design director Julian Thomson, the F-TYPE’s roots are immediately recognizable. Ultra-slim headlamps blend cleanly into the car’s new clamshell hood. A monogram pattern in the F-TYPE’s J-shaped running lights accentuates the car’s width and muscle. Interior treatments available incorporate both synthetic suede and chrome, with a 12-inch programmable HD instrument cluster positioned directly in front of the driver. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are both standard, as are ergonomically optimized seats for both occupants. But this is a Jaguar, meaning that power goes all the way to the F-TYPE R’s 5.0-liter supercharged V-8 that delivers 575 horsepower, mated to Intelligent Driveline Dynamics control technologies. The chassis is based around double aluminum wishbones at each corner of the car. For the fuel conscious, a 3.0-liter V-6 with 380 horsepower is the standard engine.

This is certainly a less-than-obvious case of an automobile manufacturer recognizing a milepost in history. This year marks a half-century since the Anglo-French supersonic jetliner Concorde first took flight, and Aston Martin, which knows a thing or two about flying on the ground, decided to mark the anniversary. Limited to only 10 examples worldwide, each intensively personalized by concierge service Q by Aston Martin, the DBS Superleggera Concorde Edition commemorates not only the SST’s first flight, but also the centenary of one of the plane’s primary operators, British Airways.

The Concorde Edition is based on Aston Martin’s already existing, super-exclusive DBS Superleggera, the Italianate name a reference to its reduced weight when compared to its siblings. It’s the latest entry in Aston Martin’s ongoing Wings series of very limited-edition sporting cars, which has already seen the introduction of the Vanquish S Red Arrows Edition, the Vantage Blades Edition and the V12 Vantage S Spitfire 80. Finished in partial British Airways livery, a Concorde logo on the seat facings, seat belt buckle badges milled from billet aluminum, and a Mach Meter graphic on the driver’s sun visor. While an interesting case study in co-marketing, this is no poseur: With a 5.2-liter twin-turbocharged V-12 for power, the Concorde Edition is capable of 211 MPH as per the factory. Want one? Get in what will at least be a short line.

Bentley has marked its 100th birthday in sensational fashion, with some jaw-dropping new models, concept studies and celebrations of its storied past. As its centennial begins coming to a close, Bentley has chosen a less blazing way to mark its birthday, but one that’s deeply relevant as climate change more clearly edges toward a global emergency. In a gesture toward the future that will live forever, Bentley has planted 100 trees around the perimeter of its headquarters in Crewe, England. It’s a recognition of biodiversity’s critical importance from an automaker whose products were traditionally linked in lockstep with the most conspicuous sort of consumption.

The plantings were completed in time for this week’s observance of National Tree Week in the United Kingdom. The selection of arbor includes 10 oak trees, 15 cherry trees and a scattering of other species including maple, beech, walnut, lime and elm. The company wanted the plantings to incorporate woods whose veneers have found a decorative place in Bentley interiors for as long as the marque’s been in existence. The shockingly attractive vehicle in the Bentley image is the EXP 100 GT, the all-electric concept car that Crewe unveiled last month, which we bet has a decent chance of making it to actual production in a recognizable form.