Orange must be the hot color this season because both Aston Martin and Lamborghini chose this bright hue to showcase their newly fortified 2025 SUVs. The Aston Martin DBX 707, an upgrade model currently, will be the sole version for 2025, featuring the 697-horsepower engine and a host of enhancements. Lamborghini, meanwhile, follows a different route for its Urus super SUV, making a new plug-in hybrid the top model, called the SE. The new hybrid powertrain kicks up a storm with 789 horsepower.
While hurricane season is just starting, Lamborghini Huracán season is ending after 10 years. Lamborghini is sending the car out with a special track model, building just 10 examples. The Huracán’s plug-in hybrid replacement is likely to be much more powerful than the outgoing model. That’s just the start of the “electrifying” news sweeping through the upper part of the premium car segment. It looks like gas engines will stick around for a while, but there will be more plug-in hybrids coming, and, yes, even an all-electric Ferrari.
In the past, “bigger and heavier” would be a buzzkill for a sporting GT. But the 2024 Mercedes-AMG GT turns that axiom on its head. Based on the new-generation SL roadster, the AMG GT Coupe raises the luxury quotient over the first-gen GT while maintaining its hair-raising performance capability. The new GT adds standard all-wheel drive, a roomier cabin, and more chassis tech. With 469-hp GT55 and 577-hp GT63 models offered, ferocious performance is a given. The new model arrives by mid-year, starting around $136,000 and should make some competitors nervous.
If you missed your chance at last year’s Aston Martin Vantage F1 Edition, you can now get the best consolation prize ever. The 2025 Vantage is a major upgrade over the previous Vantage in every way while maintaining the striking design. The biggest news is under the hood, where a new version of the twin-turbo V8 gets a nearly 25-percent boost to 656 horsepower. The new interior shows a major leap in elegance over the previous car. You can also expect a leap in the price, which has not yet been announced.
Mercedes-Benz, through its Mercedes-AMG performance division, has launched a new AMG GT coupe, after discontinuing the successful original 2015-2023 model. The king of the hill in that original run was the AMG GT Black Series, a track machine with few peers. For those who put down a deposit for the hyper-limited $2.7 million AMG Project One hypercar, Mercedes also offered the opportunity to buy an AMG GT Black Series Project One Edition for nearly $400,000. Just 25 were believed sold in the U.S., and RM Sotheby’s Miami sale in March is offering one, with a pre-sale estimate of $550K-$700K.
Will the new Mercedes-Benz CLE be the last of this German luxury car maker’s gas-fueled coupes and convertibles? Based on the new C-Class chassis, the new CLE essentially replaces the somewhat larger E-Class coupe and Cabriolet and offers the promise of more athleticism than those cars. The CLE will cover a wide gamut in price and performance, starting at $65,000 for the base CLE300 coupe 4MATIC and going well beyond that with optioned-up versions of the six-cylinder CLE450 Cabriolet. Future AMG versions are sure to offer more power and excitement, for more money, of course.
The Mercedes SL has been that marque’s luxury-performance flagship for nearly 70 years, and the all-new 2022 Mercedes-AMG SL is the model’s seventh generation. The new SL has 2+2 seating, with all-wheel drive and a return to a soft top after two decades of retractable hardtops. Pricing starts at $137,400 and can zoom toward $200,000. If you’ve not looked at an SL in a while, this one deserves close inspection.
The new Lotus Emira – the marque’s last gas powered sports car – takes dead aim at Porsche’s 718 Cayman series. Lotus’ goal is to broaden its customer base, and anticipates a global market for 4,500 Emiras a year…a huge leap over the carmaker’s previous production figures.
Built in Italy and powered by German Mercedes-AMG engines, Paganis have set high benchmarks for bespoke engineering and innovative materials. At RM Sotheby’s Arizona sale last month, a 2018 Huayra Roadster, one of 100 made, sold for just under $2.4M, which was the starting price when new.
