Welcome to the Hooniverse News! As always, this is a weekly recap of the biggest stories in the automotive industry without the fluff or bull. This week: Cadillac goes crazy and makes a V-Series Escalade, Toyota confirms new Sequoia on the horizon, Hoonigan builds a rad Gymkhana car out of a Subaru GL Wagon, and Mad Mike is working on a Mazda3 of our dreams.

Cadillac Escalade V-Series

Dodge has built a reputation over the last decade or so for being the ones with the fewest amount of shits to give. From all the SRT models to the 30 different models with the 392 motor to the Ram TRX, they didn’t stop caring about being smart and efficient, they never cared to begin with. But now Cadillac of all brands is beginning to channel that energy a little bit. They’ve had the popular V-Series cars for a while, but now they’re bringing that level of performance to the Escalade for the first time. Because honestly why the hell not.

Details are basically nonexistent at the moment and it’ll be that way until spring when they’re ready to talk about it again. But they dropped some images and a teaser video which gives us enough information to know it’s going to be nuts. The video doesn’t even try to be cryptic about it – it’s going to have a big V8. And it is almost guaranteed that the V8 in question is the same 6.2-liter supercharged V8 that provides the CT5-V Blackwing with a monstrous 668 horsepower and 659 lb.-ft. of torque. It even sounds like the quick-shifting 10-speed automatic makes an appearance as well.

It’s entirely possible the motor will be detuned or that it may be something else entirely, but all we do know for certain is there will never be another Escalade like this. Just how Dodge looked at a Hellcat motor sitting in the corner and thought “what if that but in the Durango”, Cadillac is looking at this tremendous engine they have and going “eh, what the hell”. It’s certainly going to be the dumbest vehicle of the year. But it’s one that will be hard not to love.

[Source: Cadillac]

New Toyota Sequoia is coming

On Tuesday, January 25th at 9:30 PM eastern, Toyota will debut the all new Sequoia. It felt inevitable as Toyota runs through and refreshes their entire full-size lineup. The current 2nd generation Sequoia is as old as the previous Tundra that just got replaced, which is to say really freakin old. 2007 is when the family-hauling giant went into production. Face lifts and feature updates have kept it… uhm, “fresh?” since then but the competition is just too strong to rely on something that old. Toyota has the opportunity to do something cool with this.

We’ll keep you posted on this one.

[Source: Toyota]

Meet Travis Pastrana’s new Gymkhana car

This car is still the highlight of the week for me and most people on the internet. Hoonigan introduced their latest project in collaboration with Subaru and Vermont SportsCar, the same company who built Travis’ ridiculous WRX STI that starred in Gymkhana 2020. They’re apparently ramping up for another feature and have debuted the car we’re expecting to see in the starring role. It’s a 1983 Subaru GL wagon. And it’s the raddest thing to ever come out of Hoonigan.

In an hour long Hoonigan special, they show it off a tiny bit and Travis casually mentions it has around 900 horsepower. You can also see (and hear) it shred a little. It sounds just like the last car did which isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s an awesome-looking car and should be a great thing to watch slide around in the next Gymkhana. And it’s pretty much guaranteed to win an award at any Radwood it gets taken to.

[Source: Hoonigan, Subaru]

Mad Mike’s Pikes Peak car revealed

Mad Mike’s name is thoroughly deserved. He’s built insane rotary-powered Mazdas for years now and always manages to one up himself. This week he did that again by revealing a work in progress build for this year’s Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. It’s a Mazda3 powered by a (you guessed it) 4-rotor engine producing 1,200 horsepower. And it’ll be one of the more practical builds of his with 4 doors and 4 seats for trips to soccer practice and the grocery store.

It’s a build so crazy that it’ll fit right in at PPICH and it’s already gotten me excited for this year’s event. It’s also cool to see someone building a race car out of the gorgeous new Mazda3. We were supposed to get a Mazda3 TCR race car by now but that program was cancelled because of *gestures wildly towards the sky*. But I guess this is the next best thing. When we get more than just an Instagram rendering, I’ll cover this again for sure. If I can remember.

[Source: Instagram via Jalopnik]

What’s your automotive news?

That’s all I’ve got for you this week, so now it’s your turn. If you saw anything, fixed something, broke everything, or otherwise did anything even remotely car related that you want to share with your fellow hoon, sound off in the comments.

Have a good weekend.