The News for July 24th, 2015

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:

• Ford F-150 Limited returns to take all your money

• Infiniti shows off all-new Q30 early

• Dodge creates insane Challenger Hellcat X for charity

• How to fix a critical security vulnerability in your FCA vehicle

• BMW bringing two new concepts to Pebble Beach

• What’s your automotive news?

2016 Ford F-150 Limited

Ever since the all-new, aluminum-bodied Ford F-150 debuted for the 2015 model year, even the most seasoned truck buyers were skeptical of how much the costs would rise. Nevertheless, sales have continued fairly well despite the initial concerns. The world’s best-selling truck got that title in part because of how good it was for the money, so Ford wasn’t going to let the cost of ownership get too out of control. That was until they debuted the 2016 F-150 Limited this week, soon to be the most expensive truck of its kind.
Ford hasn’t specifically talked about pricing yet, but they’re saying the Limited is the most advanced and luxurious truck ever; that doesn’t exactly sound cheap. The new range-topping truck will go on sale this winter and will come packed with more standard technology and driver convenience features than any other light-duty pickup along with a few unique exterior features to set it apart.
Exterior “refinements” include 22-inch polished aluminum wheels, special badging, and more chrome accents. It’s available in four colors and one of them is called Blue Jeans, so clearly that’s the one you should buy.

The new standard equipment is mostly what you’re paying for here. The Limited adds quad-beam LED headlamps, power deployable running boards, panoramic vista roof, remote start, remote tailgate release, and cross traffic alert as standard. A technology package also adds lane keep assist, 360-degree camera system, and dynamic trailer hitch assist. Ford’s Sync 3 infotainment system is thrown in along with a Sony ten-speaker sound system. For driver and passenger comfort, they’ve added heated and cooled leather front seats with a massaging function and heated rear seats.
Power comes from the 3.5-liter EcoBoost V6 producing 365 horsepower and 420 lb.-ft. of torque while allowing for a 10,100 pound tow rating. A six-speed automatic is the only available transmission.
The previous range-topping F-150 was the Platinum model, a $52,000 trim level. With everything the new Limited adds, this truck is not going to be cheap. Ford is confident that there’s a market for people who want to spend that much on an F-150.
[Source: Ford]

Infiniti Q30

Infiniti has a brand-new model coming to the Frankfurt motor show in September, but they decided to be nice and skip the teasers with this unconcealed shot. The first ever Q30 “Premium Active Compact” will try to be unique in a world already overpopulated by luxury crossovers. It will certainly look unique thanks to a design largely unchanged from the Q30 Concept that debuted two years ago.
Infiniti says it will be the perfect premium compact crossover for customers seeking urban individuality, that is until everyone has one. No technical details were made available yet, but they promise confidence-inspiring handling and an excellent ride. Customers will get to pick from a few different trim levels and can enjoy “expressive” interiors. Basically, it’ll be as neat to look at as an Infiniti should.
We’ll see more at the Frankfurt motor show from September 15 to 16.
[Source: Infiniti]

Dodge Challenger Hellcat X

The Dodge Challenger Hellcat is already one of the most powerful cars you can buy today. 707 horsepower from a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 is already enough to make it a tire shreading beast and a quarter-mile kind (sometimes). Given the fact that you can take one home for about $60,000 and use it daily, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would want more power out of it.
Getting more power out of it is the Dodge Challenger Hellcat X, an 805 horsepower grand prize for an upcoming Dream Giveaway charity event. This is a one-off Hellcat built by Fiat Chrysler specifically for a drawing that will raise money for the News Beginning Children’s Home charity, which provides grants to six other charities with noble causes of their own.
What makes this Challenger Hellcat X special is that it clearly has an “X” in its name. That’s a throwback to the Grumman XF6F Hellcat, the U.S. Navy’s supercharged and turbocharged experimental fighter that later went into mass production for World War II. The Challenger Hellcat already has a supercharger, so you can probably see where this is going. The 6.2-liter HEMI V8 in this Hellcat X is now supercharged and twin-turbocharged for a total output of at least 805 horsepower and 800 lb.-ft. of torque. Making it look the part, the Hellcat X is all black with raw aluminum hood extractors, a new center hood scoop, adjustable front splitter, and rear decklid spoiler.
If you enter the drawing you can also win a beautiful 1970 Dodge Challenger 440 R/T, also in black and one of only 100 produced in 1970 to be black. This exact car was on one of Chrysler’s TV ads back in 2012 as well.
Contest information is available at the Dream Giveaway landing page.
[Source: Dream Giveaway via Autoblog]

Uconnect vulnerability found in 1.4 million FCA cars

You probably already saw people flipping out over an article published on Wired about the hackers that were able to remotely kill a Jeep on the highway from the comfort of their own home. The Jeep was fitted with FCA’s Uconnect infotainment system and a zero-day exploit allowed two security researchers to inject their code into the system and take nearly complete control over the Jeep Cherokee they were testing with. It’s terrifying stuff when you consider any vehicle with the Uconnect system is vulnerable to this specific threat and that it’s probably not be the only one.
The full [terrifying] article is over on Wired, but I want to mainly focus on the patch that everyone with a Uconnect system in their FCA vehicle should apply. 1.4 million vehicles were officially recalled for this. Dealers will do it for you at no cost, but you can also do it yourself quickly and easily. Just take a note of your vehicle’s VIN (you’ll need it for verification purposes), download the patch here from their official website to a USB drive, plug it into your vehicle’s onboard USB port, accept the prompts to install, and that’s it. There are also guides available on the site.
If you think you may be vulnerable, please take the time to do this. The two security researchers that found this won’t be disabling your brakes anytime soon (in fact they’ve been reporting this to FCA for months), but they are planning on discussing the exploit (with some details left out) at an upcoming Black Hat conference, so someone else might do it in the future.
[Source: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Wired]

Two BMW concepts are coming to Pebble Beach

BMW North America is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, a milestone that will be honored at Pebble Beach next month.
Two new concepts will make their world debut at the BMW Villa in Pebble Beach which should give us a close look at some future BMW products. Public showings are planned as well for The Quail, a Motorsport Gathering, Legends of the Autobahn, Rolex Monterey Motorsport Reunion, and finally the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. One of those concepts is said to be an M car – 2017 BMW M2, anyone? Maybe an M4 GTS/CSL? M5 Gran Turismo? [oh god please no]
I’ll be sure to keep you posted, partly because I’m planning on being back in Monterey this year for two of those events. *Excitement intensifies*
[Source: BMW]

What’s your automotive news?

This was mine. My roommate and I rented a 2015 Mazda MX-5 Miata and explored some new roads in the north Georgia mountains. I learned to drive stick in an NA Miata but that was only around a parking lot; this was my first time driving a Miata on the open road. My god… it was a revelation. You may see some more on this later, but all you need to know now is that I get it. I absolutely get it. And I want one.
Now it’s your turn. If you saw, drove, bought, broke, or otherwise did anything newsworthy that you want to share with your fellow hoon, sound off in the comments.
[Image © 2015 Hooniverse/Greg Kachadurian]