General

It’s 2020 and we’re looking back and forward with this month’s reading from the automotive industry.  From the Bullitt Mustang sale to Jeep’s claims about future electric vehicles, we’re bringing you a bit of everything.

Of course, as always, if you need input and assistance in purchasing a new remanufactured engine, transmission, cylinder heads, or axle assemblies, the Gearhead Engines sales team is ready to provide personalized service… and maybe even a discount or two.

Bullitt Movie Car Sells for $3.4M, Is Most Valuable Ford Mustang Ever

By Eric Stafford, Car and Driver

About 40 years ago, a certain Highland Green 1968 Ford Mustang GT exchanged hands for $3500. That same car, the one that was actually driven by Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt, just became the most valuable Mustang ever after it was auctioned off for a cool $3.4 million. Read more…

Even Jeep Is Making Big Claims About Its Electric Future

By Adam Kaslikowski, Popular Mechanics

In the several months since Christian Meunier took over the reins of Jeep worldwide, the new global president of the Jeep brand has made it clear he’s focusing less on interior features and luxuries, more on technology. Predictably, as goes the entire industry, so goes the off-roading icon. Christian recently told Car and Driver that his plans for the Jeep brand in the 2020s include an aggressive plan to launch plug-in-hybrid and, later, electric Jeeps throughout the coming decade. Read more…

The Best Used Car Bargains from 2010–2019 You Can Buy

By Will Sabel Courtney, Gear Patrol

But looking in the rearview mirror, when it comes to car shopping, is a pretty good way to spot some bargains. (Not literally, of course; if looking in the rearview mirror of an actual car reveals anything than what’s directly behind the trunk, see your doctor.) The years between 2010 and 2019, being not so long ago, are still fresh enough for us to remember the fresh-faced vehicles we were excited to see and drive — yet are now far enough in the past that those rides have grown to fill used car lots across the land. Read more…

Diesel Half-Ton Tug of War: Chevy vs. Ford vs. Ram

By K.C. Colwell, Car and Driver

When you narrow the focus to a single model rather than the entire range, it’s possible that the Ford F-150 or Chevy Silverado 1500 beats the Ram. So we lined up the Big Three’s new half-ton diesels and let them slug it out. Read more…

5 Ways to Keep Your Car Insurance Costs Down

By Penelope Wang, Consumer Reports

Many American drivers are paying more for car insurance—in some cases, a lot more—but there are steps you can take to keep your own costs down. The average annual premium hit a record $1,548 in 2019, according to a new study by The Zebra, an insurance comparison site. That’s up 30 percent from the average rate in 2011. Read more…

First Photos of Real 2021 Ford Bronco Appear to Confirm Removable Doors, Roof

By Caleb Jacobs, The Drive

Thus far, every 2021 Ford Bronco prototype we’ve seen looks exactly like what it is: a cobbled-together mule with a fake body, in this case a shorty Ranger with a weird camper shell. That’s ok, though. We’ve known all along that Ford’s going back to basics with a boxy, retro-inspired design for its reborn off-roader. Now a spy photographer has captured images of the first real Bronco tester wearing its production bodywork. It might be under heavy camouflage, but it still looks to confirm a key rumor about the truck: the removable doors and roof. Read more…

How the 2021 Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon Are the Same — and Different

By Mihir Maddireddy, Car and Driver

General Motors’ full-size SUV siblings used to be twins of each other, with the only real differences being badges and sticker prices. But GM has made efforts recently to differentiate the Chevrolet Tahoe (and the larger Suburban) from the GMC Yukon (and the larger Yukon XL). So now, when you compare the GMC to the Chevy, you’ll find unique styling cues and features—which we’ve outlined here for the new, redesigned 2021 models—but similar mechanics. This means that your choice is mainly down to which SUV’s aesthetics and creature comforts you like best. Read more…

2020 is right around the corner, and we’re busily scanning the web for relevant news from the car industry. We hope you’ll remember us for your remanufactured needs in the coming year!

Winter Tire Performance Can Vary Greatly

By Brian Silvestro, Popular Mechanics

When it comes to winter tires, you might think they all perform similarly. But really, they’re like to every other tire, in that rubber compound can change performance drastically, regardless of tread pattern.  Read more…

Chevy Suburban Turns 85 in 2020

By Sven Gustafson, AutoBlog

Let us take a moment to ponder the Chevrolet Suburban. When it first launched as a mammoth eight-seater with removable seats, folding second-row seats and a 60-horsepower inline-six, the U.S. was in the grips of the Great Depression. America’s entry into World War II was still six years away, and motion pictures were offered in color for the first time. The Chevy Suburban has since survived all the subsequent wars that Congress never formally declared, America’s changing cultural mores and consumer preferences, the oil crisis of the ‘70s and having its name borrowed by several other automakers, including sister brand GMC.

And with the 2020 model year, the venerable people-mover turns an astonishing 85 years old.

Read more…

Dogs in Cars, Getting There Safely

By Norman Mayersohn, The New York Times

Recent studies have confirmed what many of us already knew: Having a dog in the family is good for your health. Let’s expand that — dogs can make car trips better, too. Read more…

Electric Ford F150 Confirmed for Michigan Assembly

By Bengt Halvorson, Green Car Reports

In November, the United Auto Workers ratified a four-year contract with Ford—one that included an agreement to invest more than $6 billion in U.S. plants and, as was reported then, included plans to keep high-visibility electrification plans for the F-150 in Michigan. Read more…

Jeep Museum Is Coming to Toledo, Ohio, Where One Belongs

By Colin Beresford, Car and Driver

Toledo and Jeep go together like off-roading and Jeep. So it’s about time Toledo, Ohio, gets its own Jeep museum. A nonprofit organization has formed and is announcing it will open a 56,000-square-foot museum called “The Jeep Experience,” which will tell the storied legacy of the American nameplate. Read more…

New Study Shows Just How Bad Vehicle Hacking has Gotten

By Kyle Hyatt, Road Show By CNET

For many people around the world, a large portion of their lives is lived online. Not in some kind of Second Life-Matrix hellscape, but they conduct business, maintain personal relationships, manage their money, buy stuff and even get their car news using the internet.

This has been amazing for convenience, but that convenience has outpaced security, and so we hear about companies being hacked on a near-daily basis. This problem is increasingly spilling over into our vehicles, which have become increasingly attractive targets to hackers as they’ve gotten more technologically sophisticated.

Read more…

It’s been a busy month with SEMA, the L.A. Auto Show, and the debut of the Mustang Mach E, but our gearheads took a few minutes between order fulfillment to read online industry articles.

2021 Chevy Trailblazer debuts at LA Auto Show

By Steven Ewing, Road Show by CNET

We’re having a bit of deja vu. Back in May, Chevrolet showed the 2021 Trailblazer after sister brand Buick debuted its platform-mate, the Encore GX. And now, following the US-spec Encore GX’s announcement on Tuesday, Chevrolet has announced more details about the 2021 Trailblazer, which is on hand at the 2019 Los Angeles Auto Show.

The 2021 Trailblazer slots between the Trax and Equinox in Chevy’s crossover lineup, and definitely takes a lot of design influence from the larger Blazer SUV. We don’t know exactly how much it’ll cost just yet, Chevy only saying the Trailblazer will be priced “under $20,000,” according to a statement.

Read more…

34 Ways to Soup Up your Current Car with Tech

By Eric Griffith and Alex Colon, PC Magazine

For those of us with older cars, we’re stuck with incredible phones while driving vehicles that won’t talk to them, charge them, or display what we want to see from them. And that’s just the start. Modern high-tech cars should be laden with tech safety features, methods of connecting to the outside world, full diagnostics, and ways to keep passengers entertained.

There is a massive aftermarket of gadgets and add-ons that work with just about any existing vehicle on the road today. Here’s our deep dive into the tech you can add to your old jalopy to make it feel a bit more Tesla-esque.

Read more…

Is Chevy’s 1988 Full-Size Pickup Secretly a Sports Truck?

By MÁTÉ PETRÁNY, Road & Track

For 1988, General Motors came out with a radically redesigned full-size pickup line known as the GMT400 platform. The truck GMC dubbed the Sierra was also available at Chevrolet as the Silverado, the Scottsdale, or the top-of-the-line Cheyenne. And at $13,319 with all the bells and whistles, the long-wheelbase Cheyenne was an impressive truck for its time.

Read more…

Watch a Souped-Up Mail Truck Do Some Epic Burnouts

By Brian Silvestro, Popular Mechanics

LS swaps are a dime a dozen, so it’s not often one catches our eye like this one has. One man decided it would be a good idea to drop a 6.0-liter V-8 into a decommissioned Grumman LLV USPS mail delivery truck and turn it into a full-on burnout machine. We’re in love.

It took David Stacy, the builder, over two years to find a mail truck for sale suitable for the swap.

Read more…

GM and Lordstown Motors Both Say Their Electric Pickups Are Coming Soon

By Colin Beresford, Car and Driver

Just a couple of weeks after Lordstown Motors acquired GM’s Lordstown plant in Ohio, it has announced that it is accepting $1000 deposits as preorders for the 2021 Lordstown Endurance electric pickup truck.

It’s entirely possible that would make it the first electric pickup truck on the market—but not the last, as General Motors, Tesla, and Ford are all preparing their own entries in the new market segment.

Read more…

AMC’s First-Ever Mid-Engine Prototype Is Finally Getting the Restoration it Deserves

By Brian Silvestro, Road & Track

Back in the late 1960s, AMC thought it would be a good idea to break into the high performance sector with an exotic mid-engine supercar. Dubbed the AMX/3, it would compete against some of Europe’s finest exotics, packing a massive American V-8 and stunning looks. Except it wouldn’t, because the project was canceled before production ever started.

Read more…

Here’s a sample of the industry articles we’ve read this month. Of course, if you’re in the market for a new, remanufactured engine, transmission, differential, or heads, you know you can trust in Gearhead Engines!

Mustang, Camaro, Challenger: Muscle Cars Across The Years

By Nelson Ireson, Motor Authority

Muscle cars have an interesting dynamic amongst car enthusiasts. For some, the heavy, big-power, anything-but-subtle looks, and often low-tech engineering are the antithesis of what it means to build a performance car. For others, the raw, unfiltered nature and rubber-laying potential of the muscle car outweighs (or erases) the drawbacks.

Read more…

This V-8-Swapped Fiero Is the Perfect Budget C8 Corvette Alternative

By Brian Silvestro, Road and Track

Interested in owning a car like the new mid-engine C8 Corvette, but don’t want to drop $60,000 on a new car? We feel you. This V-8-swapped 1987 Pontiac Fiero is the perfect alternative…

The engine is an LT1 taken out of a 1996 Corvette with around 25,000 miles on the clock. The car has done 10,000 further miles since the swap, meaning the powertrain still has incredibly low miles. Moreover, the seller claims all of the relevant gaskets and seals have been replaced, and the heads have been rebuilt.

Read more…

15 of the Greatest Automotive Instrument Clusters of All Time

By Bryan Campbell, Gear Patrol

As a driver, there are few parts of a car you look at more than the instrument cluster. Your attention there is divided among occasional glances at the speedometer and tach, and if you’re really fancy, navigation instructions… But the dials on some cars are so pretty they deserve a more extended gaze.

These are 15 of the best automotive instrument clusters of all time.

Read more…

Ford hopes ‘Mustang-inspired’ SUV will shock Tesla, electric vehicle world

By Chris Woodyard, USA Today

Ford Motor has made it official: it’s going to unveil a “Mustang-inspired” electric SUV next month.

“We’ve busted the myth that electric vehicles have to be boring,” the automaker says in a statement.

In showing a drawing of the roofline and hints as to the look of the front of the new vehicle – yeah, it sort of looks like the current Mustang – Ford appears to be taking direct aim at electric-car leader Tesla.

Read more…