A flower vase seems like an unlikely thing to find beside a car’s speedometer. It cannot tell you whether the engine is overheating, help you find your way home or hold a takeaway coffee. Yet a
Look down beside the pedals of an older car and you may find a small metal button poking through the carpet. It is easy to mistake for an abandoned starter or some ingenious accessory installed by a p
Rolls-Royce is taking no chances with the trunk of its $9.5 million Nightingale. Before owners even get their cars, the automaker plans to open and close the unusual side-hinged trunk 15,000 times. At
Press the accelerator hard in a conventional automatic car and its behavior follows a familiar rhythm. The engine climbs through the rev range, the transmission changes gear and the engine note drops
Pulling into a gas station should not require advance planning. Yet anyone driving an unfamiliar car knows the little moment of uncertainty that arrives before choosing a pump. Which side is the fu
Few automotive features can make a parked car look as alive as pop-up headlights. Turn the switch and two neat sections of bodywork rise from the hood, pause with theatrical precision and reveal the l
The usual explanation sounds perfectly logical. When a car slows down, its weight moves toward the front. The front tires carry more load, so the front brakes provide more of the stopping force. That
A dashboard without a radio now looks unfinished. Even the most basic car is expected to provide music, news and something to fill the silence when traffic has stopped moving but the clock has not.
The Subaru BRAT had a cargo bed, a tailgate and the general proportions of a very small pickup truck. American versions also arrived with two plastic seats bolted into the bed, facing backward and exp
Audi has brought back the A2 name, but the new car takes a very different route from the lightweight aluminum hatchback that disappeared more than two decades ago. The A2 e-tron is now a compact elect