Welcome to the Hooniverse News! As always, this is a weekly recap of some of the biggest stories in the automotive industry without the fluff or bull. I just throw in a little opinion of mine because I can. This week:

• Volvo puts a lift kit on the S60

• Lexus shows off the GS F

• Toyota shows us how the 2016 Tacoma will look

• Aston Martin teases a high(er)-performance Vantage GT3

• Dodge announces the ability to create a truly unique Viper GTC

• What was your automotive news?

Volvo S60 Cross Country

Apparently there’s a demand for something like this. That’s according to the opening of Volvo’s press release which states they are stepping up to fulfill a void their core customers wanted filled. That void was a lifted premium sedan, or “soft-roader”. So welcome to the 2015 Volvo S60 Cross Country.
Much of what you see here is borrowed from Volvo’s other recent expansion of the Cross Country brand, the five-door V60 CC which debuted just two months ago. That includes the new ride height which is raised 2.5 inches (65mm) compared to its regular counterpart, which not only adds ground clearance but surely makes it easier to get in and out of as well – and someone must appreciate that. That ride height is put to use by its adventure-minded all-wheel-drive system, fender flares, and its eighteen or nineteen inch wheels wrapped in high-profile tires which add both comfort and all-road aesthetics.

Also familiar to Volvo enthusiasts is the powertrain chosen for the task: the T5 2.5-liter turbocharged five-cylinder petrol engine with up to 250 horsepower. That engine will be offered in Europe, America, Canada, and Russia with all-wheel-drive only. In some European markets, a four-cylinder diesel with 190 hp being sent to the front wheels and eventually a five-cylinder diesel with all-wheel drive will be offered as well.
The Volvo S60 Cross Country is expected to be available for order by this summer.
[Source: Volvo]

Lexus GS F

In news that surprises 0% of the people that read the News back in December, Lexus revealed their new GS F a week before its big debut in Detroit. As its name implies, what you’re looking at is what happens when Lexus cuts the leash off its completely normal GS luxury sedan and it sniffs the ass of  takes inspiration from the LFA. It’s a luxury sedan with a kick.
The GS F may not have the LFA’s magnificent V10 but it does have the same 5.0-liter naturally-aspirated V8 they originally stuffed in the RC F. That’s enough to give this super sedan a respectable 467 horsepower @ 7,100 RPM and 389 lb.-ft. of torque between 4,800 and 5,600 RPM. Power is sent to the rear wheels through a quick-shifting eight-speed automatic transmission.

Lexus has been touting the GS F as a track car or canyon carver from the day it was first teased, so they threw in a Torque Vectoring Differential (also from the RC F) and other numerous suspension enhancements to prove it. Whether or not it works remains to be seen, but they clearly seem focused on how well the car can negotiate challenging roads rather than how its power output stacks up against those other super luxury sedans – which isn’t all that well. The RC F is a fun car in its own smokey way as Jeff found out and there doesn’t seem to be a reason why the GS F can’t be the same.
[Source: Lexus]

2016 Toyota Tacoma

This is it.
(They’ll actually tell us something about it next week).
[Source: Toyota]

Aston Martin Vantage GT3 teased

The lads over at Gaydon must have looked at all the fun Porsche and Ferrari were having with the 911 GT3 and 458 Speciale when they thought about what direction they should take the well-matured Vantage line before it’s replaced. Both of those examples are top-of-the-line performance cars built from “standard” cars which are already very fast – surely that’s something Aston Martin could do, right? Right.
The Aston Martin Vantage GT3 is coming and it will debut at the Geneva motor show in March (or a week before online). From what the teaser video shows, they’re drawing clear inspiration from the V12 Vantage GT3 race car which means we should have a barely road legal V12-powered monster coming our way. We’ll keep you posted.
[Source: Aston Martin, YouTube]

Viper exclusivity program

You can soon spend 6,000 hours customizing your perfect Dodge Viper GTC thanks to a cool new program about to be launched. Dodge calls it the “1 of 1” program or Viper Concierge and it comes included with any new Viper GTC purchase. When someone orders a Viper GTC (starts at $94,995) they get access to 8,000 exterior paint colors, 24,000 custom stripe colors, ten wheel options, sixteen interior trims, and six aero packages to select from. That means there are 25 million different ways for buyers to customize their Vipers. Dodge will also send out a 1:18 scale model of the exact build so the buyer can confirm it or go back to the drawing board.
Once a design is chosen, Viper owners will get their own point of contact throughout the car’s build process who will keep them updated from beginning to end. And just to reaffirm the Viper’s exclusivity, Dodge will lock in the exact configuration for a year so nobody else can build the same one until the next model year.
[Source: Dodge]

 What was your automotive news?

You know the drill. This is the part where you sound off if you saw, bought, sold, drove, fixed, or broke anything that you’d like to share with your fellow hoon. Images are encouraged as well so I can use it for next week without having to use a blurry phone pic of an oil leak on my car.
So yeah, my automotive news is that I have a valve cover gasket replacement in my near future. I’ve known about some small seepage for a while but it’s been very minor and hardly noticeable – until it starts to seep onto the exhaust manifold and it smokes out the engine bay on my way home. It seems that valve cover gaskets are an easy replacement on anything that isn’t my car, which is being described as a four-six hour job mostly because of all the crap that needs to be moved out of the way. Yay.