Tuning

Kuhl Racing Turns the Toyota GR86 into a Rally-Ready Rebel

Sports cars are born knowing exactly where they belong: low, stiff, and glued to asphalt. Anything else is heresy. Or at least it was, until Lamborghini bolted all-terrain tires to a Huracán and Porsche sent a 911 drifting into the desert. Suddenly, the idea of a lifted performance car stopped sounding ridiculous and started sounding… fun. Really fun.

Now Japan is weighing in, and it’s doing so with one of the best possible candidates: the Toyota GR86. The result is the Kuhl Racing GR86 Outroad, a rally-flavored reinterpretation of Toyota’s lightweight rear-drive coupe that looks ready to trade apexes for gravel rooster tails. And somehow, it works.

Kuhl Racing isn’t exactly subtle in its approach. The headline change is ride height. The Outroad sits roughly three inches higher than a standard GR86 thanks to a bespoke suspension setup, instantly transforming the car’s stance and proportions. If that’s not enough clearance for your imaginary WRC stage, there’s also an optional hydraulic lift system that can jack the car up an additional 1.6 inches at the press of a button. When you’re done playing rally hero, it drops back down for normal driving duties.

That lift does more than just add drama—it changes the whole personality of the car. The GR86 has always been about balance and approachability, a modern echo of classic lightweight sports cars. Raising it up and toughening it out taps into a different but equally romantic tradition: the idea that driving fast doesn’t require perfect pavement.

Visually, the Outroad looks like it’s itching to throw rocks at passing supercars. Chunky fender flares widen the body to make room for beefier tires, while redesigned front and rear bumpers improve approach and departure angles. Skid plates and protective cladding hint that Kuhl expects owners to actually leave the pavement behind, not just park aggressively at cars and coffee. Auxiliary lights add full rally cosplay energy, and roof rails finish the transformation, because nothing says “weekend adventure” like mounting gear on a sports coupe.

Despite the rugged makeover, the Outroad doesn’t abandon the GR86’s mechanical simplicity. Under the hood sits the familiar 2.4-liter flat-four, unchanged in its standard form. That means 232 horsepower going to the rear wheels—still modest, still honest, still very much in the spirit of the car.

For those who want a little more punch to match the tougher look, Kuhl offers an optional turbocharger kit. With revised cooling and ECU tuning, the turbo setup bumps output by about 50 horsepower. That’s not supercar territory, but it’s enough to make the Outroad feel properly lively, especially on loose surfaces where traction—not power—is the limiting factor. Buyers can still choose between a manual transmission or an automatic, which means the Outroad remains refreshingly democratic in an era of increasingly rigid configurations.

What really elevates the GR86 Outroad from wild show car to legitimate enthusiast proposition is that it’s not just a one-off. Kuhl plans to sell the Outroad as a full conversion package for existing GR86 owners. Better yet, customers can pick and choose individual components. Want the lifted suspension but not the full rally body kit? Fine. Just the wheels and aero? Also fine. Kuhl will happily let you build your own version, dialing the madness up or down depending on your taste—and courage.

Pricing reflects that modular approach. The full Outroad conversion rings in at ¥4,150,000, or about $26,600, assuming you already own the car. The body kit alone costs ¥1,771,000 ($11,800), the wheels add another ¥440,000 ($2,800), and the turbocharger kit tacks on ¥1,250,000 ($8,300). None of it is cheap, but neither is the idea of doing something genuinely different with a modern sports car.

The GR86 Outroad will make its public debut at the Tokyo Auto Salon next month, with sales in Japan planned for later in 2026. Whether it ever officially reaches other markets is unclear, but that almost doesn’t matter. The point is that someone looked at one of today’s best affordable sports cars and decided the solution wasn’t more grip or more downforce—it was dirt.

In a world where performance cars are increasingly defined by lap times and software updates, the GR86 Outroad is a reminder that driving enthusiasm isn’t limited to smooth tarmac. Sometimes, the best way forward is sideways, slightly lifted, and covered in dust.

Source: Kuhl Racing

News

The Karma Revero Takes Its Final Bow—But the Brand Isn’t Done Yet

The last Karma Revero has rolled off the line, closing the book on one of the most circuitous stories in modern automotive history. Last week, Karma Automotive quietly announced it had completed final production of the Revero, a sedan whose roots trace back more than a decade to the ill-fated Fisker Karma.

If that name rings a bell, it should. The original Fisker Karma arrived in the early 2010s with Hollywood flair, ambitious tech, and unfortunate timing. Fisker Automotive collapsed into bankruptcy in 2013, but the car itself refused to die. Its assets were scooped up, reworked, and reborn as the Karma Revero, which officially entered production in 2016 under new ownership.

To mark the occasion, Karma shared images of the final car on its social channels, describing it as a tribute meant “to honor where we began and illuminate where we are going.” The company didn’t dive into build specs or production numbers, but the send-off model wears a deep green exterior paired with a tan interior—a tasteful, almost nostalgic farewell for a car that’s lived multiple lives.

Mechanically, the Revero remains an unusual offering even by today’s standards. It’s an extended-range electric vehicle, pairing a battery-powered drivetrain with a gas engine that acts solely as a generator. Total output checks in at 536 horsepower and 550 pound-feet of torque, enough to hustle the 5,000-plus-pound sedan to 60 mph in about 4.5 seconds. Karma claimed a total driving range of up to 360 miles, including roughly 80 miles of pure electric operation—respectable numbers, even now.

But while the Revero itself is done, its underpinnings aren’t headed for the scrapyard just yet. Karma is preparing the Gyesera, a sedan that rides on the Revero’s aluminum spaceframe and uses the same 28.0-kWh battery. Power drops slightly to 566 horsepower—30 more than before, but with four fewer pound-feet of torque—yet Karma says the new car will hit 60 mph in a claimed 4.0 seconds. A redesigned cabin and refreshed styling aim to modernize what was, at times, a visibly aging platform.

Then there’s the Amaris GT Coupe, which represents Karma’s most aggressive statement yet. The two-seat grand tourer will combine a turbocharged four-cylinder generator with a larger 41.5-kWh battery, good for a claimed 708 horsepower and 676 pound-feet of torque. Karma says it’ll sprint to 60 mph in just 3.2 seconds, territory that puts it firmly in modern super-GT company.

What’s perhaps most surprising is that Karma Automotive is still standing at all. When Fisker first introduced the Karma nearly 20 years ago, the extended-range EV concept felt like a technological hedge—too electric for traditional buyers, too gas-powered for early EV adopters. At the time, the market simply wasn’t ready.

Today, the landscape looks very different. Scout has extended-range EVs in the pipeline, Ford has announced an onboard generator for the F-150 Lightning, and Nissan is moving toward a series-hybrid setup for the next-generation Rogue. As enthusiasm for full battery-electric vehicles cools in the U.S. and elsewhere, hybrids—and especially clever ones—are finding renewed favor.

That shift could finally play to Karma’s long-held strengths. The Revero may be gone, but its philosophy suddenly feels relevant again. And after everything this brand has survived, it wouldn’t be wise to count it out just yet.

Source: Karma Automotive

News

From Podiums to Police Tape: The Motorsport Hoard at the Center of Ryan Wedding’s Case

In the world of performance machinery, provenance is everything. A race win, a championship season, a rider’s name etched into a frame—those details turn metal into mythology. Which is why the latest seizure tied to Ryan Wedding reads like a motorsports hall-of-fame inventory collided head-on with a federal indictment.

Wedding, a former Olympic snowboarder, has been a recurring name in international law-enforcement circles for years. Now the spotlight has swung hard toward his alleged taste in speed. After authorities last month seized a Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR valued at around $13 million—one of just six roadster versions ever built—a coordinated multinational operation has netted a staggering cache of rare motorcycles reportedly worth as much as $40 million.

The bust involved Mexican authorities working alongside the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Los Angeles Police Department. That kind of alphabet-soup cooperation doesn’t happen for petty theft, and the photos released so far suggest a collection assembled with obsessive focus. While officials haven’t published a complete inventory, Motorsport reports that the haul includes Ducatis ridden by Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Andrea Dovizioso, Loris Capirossi, and Andrea Iannone, along with Marc Márquez’s 2012 Moto2 title winner and Rossi’s championship-winning 125cc Aprilia.

If true, it’s a museum-grade lineup—the sort of two-wheeled royalty usually seen behind velvet ropes or under factory spotlights. Paired with the CLK-GTR—essentially a Le Mans refugee with license plates—the collection paints a picture of someone drawn not just to expensive things, but to the rarest expressions of motorsport success. The irony, of course, is brutal: machines built to celebrate competition and precision now cataloged as evidence.

Wedding’s trajectory couldn’t be more stark. Born in 1981, the Canadian once represented his country at the 2002 Winter Olympics. Today, he appears on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Prosecutors allege he ran a transnational drug-trafficking network that moved hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico and Southern California, ultimately reaching Canada and parts of the United States. Authorities further claim he ordered murders to protect the operation, conspired against witnesses, and laundered money through assets ranging from real estate to high-dollar vehicles.

The U.S. State Department has raised the reward for information leading to his arrest to $15 million—among the largest currently offered—underscoring how seriously officials view the case. Investigators believe Wedding may still be hiding in Mexico and warn that he is armed and dangerous.

For car and bike obsessives, it’s tempting to fixate on the hardware: a CLK-GTR roadster is the kind of unicorn that rewrites auction catalogs, and a grid of championship-winning race bikes is the stuff of late-night bench-racing fantasies. But the deeper story is less about horsepower and more about contrast. This is what happens when elite performance, immense wealth, and alleged criminality intersect—when trophies of human achievement become footnotes in a criminal docket.

In the end, the machines will survive. They’ll be authenticated, appraised, maybe eventually displayed again, their stories scrubbed clean of this chapter. The case surrounding them, however, is still accelerating toward its own uncertain finish line.

Source: Motorsport

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