Full disclosure: When I go for a workout, I usually experience back pain, frequently across my shoulders. Like anyone else, I’d like the take a break from the discomfort. Here’s one way to get it done. Buick has just announced an updated version of its full-size Enclave all-activity crossover vehicle for 2020, and a little bit of back therapy is part of the package.

Buick has been providing copious comfort to drivers and passengers since the days when Billy Durant ran the company. For 2020, Buick’s flagship, the seven-place Enclave, a new Sport Touring variant has been added, which you can select as an option when ordering an Enclave at the Essence trim level. The Sport Touring gets a specific grille treatment and 20-inch aluminum wheels, but the highlight for those spinally challenged will be a new, four-way power lumbar seat adjuster with a driver and front passenger massage feature that is standard on the Premium and Avenir models. Also new is an eight-inch-diagonal touchscreen for controlling audio and other infotainment functions. Standard power is a 3.6-liter V-6 with 310hp. When the 2020 Enclaves go on sale in the fall, the starting MSRP will be $41,195.

July 20th will mark the 50th anniversary of man’s first walk on the lunar surface, but the eternal genius Don Garlits is exploring a different kind of frontier lately. On that date, he will become the first drag racer to try for 200 MPH in an electrically powered car when he assaults the quarter-mile at Palm Beach International Raceway in Florida. But here’s the rub: Big Daddy, arguably the most influential competitor in the history of drag racing, is now all of 86 years old.

Garlits has been working on his own moonshot since at least 2018, when he first unveiled Swamp Rat XXXVIII, a dragster with a tad shorter wheelbase than you’re likely to find in current Top Fuel competition, where Big Daddy so indelibly made his mark. The PBIR photo shows a substantial battery pack behind the dragster’s roll cage and just ahead of a transverse electric motor, which obviously has enough juice to light up the enormous Goodyear slicks. Garlits already holds the world record of 7.25 seconds at 185.60 MPH in an earlier electric dragster, the mark set in 2014. Nobody’s ever taken an electric dragster to the magic 200 MPH mark, a speed Garlits is believed to have been the first to eclipse in a Top Fuel car back in the early 1960s. With 141 national-event wins at the strip, Big Daddy is among the greatest technical innovators in the sport’s history; a clutch explosion that severed his foot led him to debut the first workable rear-engine dragster in 1971. If you can’t make it to PBIR, consider a visit to the incomparable Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing and Hall of Fame near Ocala in central Florida.

We couldn’t believe it at first: The Los Angeles Times, arguably California’s most respected news organization, the winner of Pulitzer Prizes, devotes a major journalistic effort to recalling the life of a street racer. But Big Willie Robinson cut a figure in and around Los Angeles that was entirely in keeping with his enormous, six-and-a-half-foot, massively muscled frame. Robinson dropped into L.A. just in time for the Watts riots of 1965, which awakened a vision in him: Get kids off the streets, let them race each other in the hottest cars around, and you’ve all but guaranteed to keep them off the corners and away from gang warfare.

Acting on his dream, Big Willie gathered the ragtag street horde of his followers together into the newly formed International Brotherhood of Street Racers, and forever wove himself in the social fabric of Los Angeles. Now, the Times has created a podcast that’s aptly named Larger than Life about the amazing existence of Robinson, who was believed to be 70 when he died in 2012. As these Los Angeles Times photos demonstrate, Willie struck a dramatic figure as he strode among his fellow racers clad in camouflage pants long before they became fashionable, a heavy leather belt, biker-style leather cutoffs with patches and his green Army Special Forces beret.

With his wife, Tomiko, always by his side, Big Willie became something of an African American version of NHRA founder Wally Parks, getting kids to quit dangerous competition on the street and move to a safe, controlled environment. The people who knew him best comprise the voices of the Times‘ podcast, reminiscing about how he founded Brotherhood Raceway Park on a strip at Terminal Island in the midst of the sprawling Los Angeles harbor. Sadly, the strip closed in 1995. Big Willie didn’t live long after Tomiko passed away in 2010. The story begins and ends with memories of Willie and Tomiko in their matched pair of barely street-legal Dodge Charger Daytonas, both powered by heavily worked Keith Black Hemi engines. This is a rare salute to one of racing’s most unlikely folk heroes.

Its founder Colin Chapman died in 1982, and it’s been a long time since Lotus Cars was a purely British company. After several ownership changes that followed Chapman’s passing, including General Motors, Lotus Cars is now a holding of the Chinese auto manufacturing giant Geely Group, which also owns Volvo. Still and all, Lotus maintains its headquarters on a former Royal Air Force base at Hethel, England, so it was very sensible that Lotus had a major presence at the just-concluded Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Goodwood is one of the world’s greatest celebrations of motorsports, and especially of Britain’s contributions to it. Lotus joined other car manufacturers in rolling out performance-oriented production cars at Goodwood, including a world debut of the Evora GT4 Concept race car and a look at a prototype Evija hypercar. More fetching, perhaps, was the assortment of historic Lotus racing cars that took on the Goodwood course during the festival. One of them was the Lotus 25 Formula 1 car in which the great Jim Clark set the still-standing lap record at Goodwood in 1965. Another was the high-wing 1968 Lotus 49-Cosworth that was originally driven by Graham Hill. It’s the only car to win the Monaco Grand Prix in two consecutive years, and was driven at Goodwood by Hill’s grandson, Josh. Particularly impressive, though was the reunion of Emerson Fittipaldi with the Lotus 72 that he drove to the Formula 1 world championship in 1972. Fittipaldi hadn’t seen the car since he last lowered himself into its cockpit in 1973.

A year-long trial by Ford of Europe to prove the viability of Transit vans using plug-in hybrid technology for urban use coincided with London’s establishment of an Ultra-Low Emissions Zone in high-traffic areas of the United Kingdom’s capital. Ford said its test results demonstrate that the Transit hybrid is a ready-to-go solution to meet the stricter emissions requirements in densely trafficked areas attempting to reduce pollution from vehicular exhaust. The test program took place in London and in Valencia, Spain, which involved 20 Transit hybrids that traveled a combined 150,000 city traffic miles. Ford said that in London, where the low-emission zone was created three months ago, 49 to 75 percent of the test mileage was accumulated using purely electric power. Among the partners participating in the program by using Transit hybrids were Heathrow Airport, Vodafone, British Gas and the London Metropolitan Police.

You can expect a lot – a lot – more news on alternative-energy vehicles from Ford in the future. The New York Times is reporting from Germany that Ford will announce a landmark partnership with Volkswagen as early as next week, under which the automotive giants will share the costs of creating new autonomous vehicles and advances in hybrid and all-electric power. The costs of these sorts of technological advancements will be enormous, and established carmakers will be looking to take on technology alliances so that those huge expenses can be spread out a bit. In this case, Ford’s presumed choice of Volkswagen is more than a little ironic to those who have a sense of history: Remember, back in the late 1960s, Ford invested heavily in developing the original Pinto as a direct competitor to Volkswagen’s ageless Beetle.

It’s finally almost here. After teasing the public with stillborn design studies and engineering mules dating all the way back to the late 1960s, Chevrolet is about to introduce a mid-engine Corvette that the public will actually be able to buy. It was a longtime dream of the Corvette’s creator and champion, the late Zora Arkus-Duntov, to see his beloved Corvette evolve into a true mid-engine sports car. And the author Paul Van Valkenburgh intensively examined the CERV 1 and CERV 2 engineering concept cars in his landmark design history Chevrolet – Racing? 14 Years of Raucous Silence. This time, in preparation for the 202 model year, it’s really going to happen.

Next Thursday, Chevrolet will unveil the production mid-engine Corvette in a globally livestreamed reveal from Orange County, California, which will begin on July 18th at 7:30 p.m. PDT, 10:30 p.m. in the east. There’s an online link that will allow viewers to follow the livestreaming, which will also take place over Chevrolet’s social-media channels. We’re still not sure exactly what the world is getting here, although Chevrolet has dangled camouflaged versions of the new Corvette in front of the public, as seen here in this corporate image captured during the car’s brief drive through Manhattan in April. Proportionately, the eighth-generation car kind of resembles a Lotus Esprit Turbo from some angles, albeit with less pronounced creases in the bodywork. Very few mechanical particulars have been made public so far, although most speculation indicates the C8 Corvette will get its own version of the LT2 V-8 now installed in the rear-drive Corvette Gran Sport, expected to produce around 500hp in base trim. A seven-speed automatic gearbox with dual clutches is expected to be the sole transmission offered.

Quietly and discreetly, Nissan has been significantly updating its portfolio of vehicles over the past year. The 2020 Nissan Altima was introduced to the public late last year, following by a redone version of the subcompact Versa. Nissan also rolled out 50th Anniversary editions of the fabled GT-R and the reborn Z-car, offering both in NISMO versions that we touched on here earlier. At the recent Chicago Auto Show, Nissan revealed a new version of the compact Rogue SUV for 2020, dubbed the Rogue Sport.

So, what constitutes a sporting Rogue? After all, the line will continue into 2020 with a 2.0-liter DOHC inline-four, with 16 valves and 141hp, as standard equipment. It will still be available with your choice of front- or four-wheel drive. This Associated Press image furnished by Nissan shows that the Rogue Sport will receive a significantly revised front fascia, with a new hood, daytime running lights and standard fog lamps. Nissan said the redesigned that produced the Rogue Sport gives the series “a more technical feel,” in the company’s words, distinguishing it from the non-Sport Rogue. We can tell you that the Rogue Sport will have a raft of driver and convenience assists when it hits Nissan showrooms this coming fall, including the Nissan Safety Shield 360 package, which will become standard equipment for all Rogues in 2020, including the base S model. That equipment group includes Automatic Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Detection, Rear Automatic Braking, Lane Departure Warning (LDW), radar-based Blind Spot Warning (BSW), Rear Cross Traffic Alert (RCTA) and High Beam Assist (HBA). The extras include avaiable ProPILOT Assist, a rear door alert, plus an updated audio system with standard Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, with available nine-speaker Bose audio.

The fantastic Goodwood Festival of Speed in England is taking place over the July 4th holiday, and in the weeks leading to this must-see celebration of international auto racing, Ford teased that it was going to make a major product announcement during the proceedings. It finally happened, with Ford resurrecting a glorious name from its competition past to brand a new, track-day-only version of the revived Ford GT.

Unveiled at the Goodwood estate, the new Ford GT Mk II is unusual in that it’s not designed or equipped to adhere to the existing rules or specifications of any individual race-sanctioning body. Look at the car: You can see the combination of strakes, scoops and spoilers that allow it to part the air more effectively. The Mk II, named in honor of the factory Ford GT fleet that swept the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, retains its turbocharged 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6, only with a variety of demon tweaks that give it fully 200 additional horsepower, bringing total output to 700hp. Those changes ignore the welter of homologation requirements that are rife in global racing, including the current Balance of Performance restrictions at Le Mans. The Mk II starts out on the dedicated Ford GT assembly line in Markham, Ontario, before being shipped to contractor Multimatic outside Toronto for completion. Ford intends to produce just 45 examples of the Mk II for sale worldwide. What’s the cost? How about a base MSRP of $1.2 million?

Word came to the automotive world this week that Lido Anthony Iacocca, one of the industry’s most visible and influential executives of the postwar era, died at his home in Los Angeles. He was 94 and had been suffering from the effects of Parkinson’s disease. family members said. I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Iacocca in 2012, a wide-ranging conversation in which he talked about a variety of topics, cars and otherwise.

Many accolades were directed at Iacocca in the hours and days that followed his passing. He was indisputably a master salesman; the path that led to the presidency of Ford began when he was a regional sales manager and created an innovative “56 for ’56” campaign that gained him immediate notice at the head offices in Dearborn. If you’re reading this page, you likely know that Iacocca’s influence gave the Mustang project the final push it needed to reach volume production. Iacocca also championed small cars, starting with the Ford Pinto, but his successes didn’t keep him from being spectacularly fired by Henry Ford II in 1978. Iacocca then decamped to tottering Chrysler, where he overhauled a cost-cutting production mentality and got Congress to approve loan guarantees that kept the carmaker afloat, and were repaid during his tenure. Yes, the K-cars, the Dodge Aries and Plymouth Reliant, helped save Chrysler as an independent automaker – for a while, at least. The Chrysler minivans he approved, and the first compact Jeep (under Iacocca, Chrysler bought the remains of American Motors to get its hands on the Jeep brand) Cherokee, created whole new categories of vehicles that the public embraced. Before an ill-fated alliance with Las Vegas investor Kirk Kerkorian, in which the billionaire attempted a hostile takeover of Chrysler that led to its acquisition by Daimler-Benz, Iacocca’s name was seriously bandied about as a potential presidential candidate. I talked about all these matters with Iacocca. We also talked about the product that put his family on the entrepreneurial map of the United States.

Hot dogs. Yes, hot dogs.

Iacocca was fiercely proud of his Italian heritage, and told me how his forebears had first settled in this country in and around Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 1922, one of them began grilling and serving hot dogs with a secret spicy sauce. That company, Yocco’s, is still in business today and operates several excellent restaurants in the Lehigh Valley region. The chain takes its name from the correct pronunciation of Iacocca’s surname. In Italian, it’s pronounced YA-coke-a. He told me that after graduating from Lehigh University and Princeton, he landed in Dearborn where the WASPish executive force couldn’t figure out how to say his name. He decided that to end the confusion, he’d have his family name verbalized the same way it was spelled, which was EYE-uh-coke-a. The bosses who couldn’t understand a word of Italian were mollified. Iacocca told me that he’d have Yocco’s ship packages of ready-to-heat hot dogs to him once he retired to California, which were a staple of his cookout gatherings. I have a hard time imagining that the auto industry will ever produce someone as determined, foresighted and personally successful as Iacocca again. The photograph comes from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles courtesy of my pal Kurt Ernst at Hemmings Motor News.

An amped-up racer coming off a good practice or qualifying lap will gladly tell you that his machine is flying. When a new category of motorsports makes is competitive debut next year, that old saw will no longer be spoken merely figuratively. The Australian backers of a new airborne racing vehicle, called the Airspeeder, will be demonstrating it during this week’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in England.

What’s an Airspeeder? Taken at its basics, it’s literally a multi-engine drone with (later) a human pilot. Officially, they’re known as octocopters, so named for the number of rotors that are powered by electric motors at the ends of each Airspeeder’s four engine pylons. The backers tell us to take it as a combination of Formula E and traditional air racing, and say that the aircraft packs a better power-to-weight ratio than the U.S. Navy’s main fighter jet, the F/A-18D Super Hornet. When it comes to air racing, I’m more of a traditionalist who favors the Allison- and Merlin-powered ex-fighters screaming around the corner pylons at the Reno Air Races. This feels more like the next step forward (up?) in X-Sports, and is a little reminiscent of the Red Bull air races that were held for several years at Indianapolis. Remotely controlled demonstration flights are slated for Goodwood, and a full schedule of piloted races is eyed for 2020.