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NEW CARS

Capricorn 01 Zagato: The 900-HP Yellow Comet That Thinks It’s a Race Car

By the time most boutique hypercars have finished their first digital render, the Capricorn 01 Zagato has already built three working prototypes and shipped one of them across Europe. The latest version landed at the Retromobile show in Paris just months after the car’s first public appearance in Belgium, making one thing very clear: this isn’t a vaporware fantasy—it’s a functioning, fire-breathing machine.

The first Capricorn 01 appeared in classy Verde Knokke green over brown leather, a look that nodded politely toward Italian grand-tourer tradition. The Paris car, however, throws subtlety out the window. Finished in a vivid Giallo Sole yellow with blue suede inside, it looks less like a vintage Zagato tribute and more like something that escaped from a modern Le Mans paddock.

And that’s exactly the point.

Capricorn describes both versions as “engineering-driven vehicles,” which sounds like marketing fluff until you realize that they’re fully operational prototypes, not static show cars. Even more impressive, a third example is already being assembled at the company’s facility in Mönchengladbach, Germany. This is a startup acting like a serious manufacturer.

The Zagato influence is unmistakable. The trademark double-bubble roof arches over the cockpit, while almond-shaped headlights peer out from an aggressively sculpted nose. The body is packed with race-bred aerodynamic elements, including flying rear struts that recall the Ford GT, gullwing doors, a deeply channeled hood with twin exhaust outlets, and a full-width light bar across the rear. It looks dramatic because it is.

Inside, the Capricorn 01 rejects modern touchscreen minimalism in favor of something far more tactile. There’s a cluster of matching analog dials, a visible open-gate manual shifter, and a round steering wheel fitted with rotary controls. Blue suede, exposed carbon fiber, and modern racing buckets complete a cockpit that feels more like a homologation special than a luxury hypercar.

But the real story sits behind the seats.

The Capricorn 01 is built around a carbon-fiber monocoque and powered by a mid-mounted, supercharged 5.2-liter V8 sourced from Ford and heavily reworked. Output is claimed to exceed 900 metric horsepower and 1,000 Nm of torque—numbers that put it firmly in the upper reaches of the hypercar world.

That power goes only to the rear wheels through a five-speed manual transmission, which feels almost rebellious in a segment obsessed with dual-clutch gearboxes and all-wheel drive. With a curb weight under 1,200 kilograms, Capricorn claims a 0–100 km/h time under three seconds and a top speed of 360 km/h. Whether those figures survive independent testing remains to be seen, but the power-to-weight ratio suggests they’re not fantasy.

The first customer cars are scheduled for delivery later this year, and Capricorn says only a “minimum number” of the planned 19 units are still available, each priced at €2.95 million. That puts the 01 Zagato directly in the crosshairs of Ferrari, McLaren, Bugatti, Koenigsegg, and Pagani—names that usually don’t lose sleep over newcomers.

But Capricorn isn’t exactly new to the business of going fast. The company has supplied lightweight components to Porsche’s LMP1 program, Peugeot Sport’s Le Mans and Dakar racers, Mercedes, Lotus, and Caterham in Formula 1, and Volkswagen’s WRC effort. This may be their first road car, but they’ve been quietly shaping the racing world for years.

The Capricorn 01 Zagato doesn’t feel like a startup’s hopeful first step. It feels like a company finally deciding to put its name on something wild. And if the prototypes are any indication, the hypercar establishment just got a bright yellow new problem.

Source: Zagato

News

Ford Explorer and Capri Gain More Power, More Range, and a Better Battery

Ford’s European EV lineup just received the kind of mid-cycle glow-up enthusiasts usually have to beg for—and it happened at the bottom of the price ladder. The rear-wheel-drive, Standard Range versions of the electric Explorer and Capri have quietly become much more compelling, thanks to a new battery chemistry, a stronger motor, and a big leap in real-world usability.

The headline change is under the floor. Out goes the 52-kWh nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) pack, replaced by a 58-kWh (net) lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) battery. LFP chemistry is cheaper, more thermally stable, and—crucially for everyday drivers—far happier being charged to 100 percent on a regular basis. That means owners can actually use the whole battery without guilt, a big deal in the real world.

Ford didn’t just bolt in a bigger battery and call it a day. The rear electric motor has also been upgraded, jumping from 125 kW (168 hp) to 140 kW (190 hp), while torque climbs from 310 to 350 Nm. The result is a modest but welcome performance bump: 0–100 km/h now takes 8.0 seconds instead of 8.7. No, it won’t pin you to the seat like a Mustang Mach-E GT, but in the compact-SUV EV class, every tenth of a second counts.

Where this update really pays off is in range. The Explorer Standard Range now stretches to a WLTP-rated 444 km on a charge, up from as little as 352 km before. The sleeker Capri does even better, topping out at 464 km versus its previous 370–393 km rating. That’s not a tweak—that’s a fundamental upgrade in how far these cars can go between plugs.

Ford also claims energy consumption has dropped by about 1 kWh per 100 km, a small number that adds up over thousands of kilometers. Combined with the LFP pack’s ability to live comfortably at full charge, these EVs suddenly look far more road-trip-friendly than their spec sheets used to suggest.

There is one trade-off. Maximum DC fast-charging power falls from 145 kW to 110 kW. On paper, that looks like a step backward, but in practice it barely matters. Ford says a 10-to-80 percent charge still takes about 28 minutes, and the Explorer can now add roughly 11 km of range per minute at peak charging speed. In other words, you’ll still have time for a coffee and a bathroom break—just not two.

The best part? In Austria, at least, prices stay exactly where they were. Orders are already open, and first deliveries start in April.

For buyers eyeing Ford’s most affordable electric SUVs, this update changes the math in a big way. More power, dramatically more range, better everyday charging behavior, and no price hike? That’s the kind of upgrade cycle the rest of the EV industry should be paying attention to. And for a brand that’s still figuring out how to win over mainstream electric buyers, Ford just made its entry-level offerings a whole lot harder to ignore.

Source: Ford

News

Ram’s Maverick-Sized Daydream Is Real—But Not (Yet) for America

By now you’ve probably seen it: Ram’s Rampage, a tidy little pickup from Latin America that looks like someone shrunk a 1500 in the dryer and forgot to pull it out. It’s rugged, modern, and exactly the kind of compact truck that makes U.S. Maverick buyers wonder why their choices still start and end with Ford. Turns out, Ram’s top brass is wondering the same thing.

Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis recently admitted what a lot of us have been thinking: the Rampage would make a terrific addition to the American market. Built in Brazil and riding on the same unibody architecture as the Jeep Compass, the Rampage is a city-friendly, lifestyle-focused pickup with just enough toughness to pass the Home Depot test. In other words, it’s precisely the recipe that’s made the Ford Maverick such a runaway hit.

Kuniskis didn’t exactly play hard to get about it. He said he loves the Rampage, he thinks it’s awesome, and yes—he would absolutely love to sell it in the United States. But that enthusiasm came with a corporate-sized asterisk. Liking a truck and launching a truck are two very different things, and Ram has bigger fish to fry first.

Those fish are wearing a familiar name: Dakota. Ram’s long-awaited midsize pickup, now officially confirmed to revive the Dakota badge, is slated to arrive in 2027 as a 2028 model. That truck, importantly, has nothing to do with the current Latin American Ram Dakota, which is based on a Chinese platform and lives in a completely different automotive family tree. This new Dakota will be Ram’s first serious crack at the midsize segment in North America in years—and it’s taking priority over everything else.

There’s also a classic internal-competition problem at play. Compact and midsize trucks tend to blur together once pricing, options, and real-world capability start to overlap. Ram doesn’t want to launch a Rampage only to have it siphon buyers away from its all-important Dakota before that truck even gets a chance to establish itself. As Kuniskis put it, the brand needs to see exactly where the Dakota lands before deciding whether there’s room for something smaller to coexist alongside it.

Even if the business case lined up tomorrow, there’s still the matter of reality—specifically, federal reality. The Brazilian-built Rampage would need to be reengineered to meet U.S. safety, lighting, and crash-test standards, which it doesn’t necessarily do in its current form. That means real money, real development time, and no guarantee that Americans will buy it in numbers big enough to justify the investment.

So while the idea of a Ram-badged Maverick fighter is tantalizingly close to being real, it’s also frustratingly far away. Yes, Ram wants it. Yes, enthusiasts want it. But until the Dakota is firmly in place and the spreadsheets make sense, the Rampage will remain what it is today: a very cool truck you can’t buy here.

In the meantime, if Ford’s Maverick already fits your life and your budget, don’t put that order on hold waiting for Ram to make up its mind. In the auto industry, dreams are easy. Timing is everything.

Source: Ram