These Are The Autopian’s Best Stories Of 2025, Made Possible By Our Amazing Members

I Wrote Some Deep-Dives, Did Some Things

The three things in this life that I love most (other than family) are: 1. Writing 1a. Learning how things work and 1b. Cars. Naturally, I tend to try to get technical with my stories; this also allows me to remind myself that I’m an engineer even though I’ve been out of the biz for a while. My Ford Mustang GTD deep-dive was an extremely detailed byproduct of perhaps the most fun press event I’ve ever attended:

The Ridiculous Engineering That Turned A Regular Ford Mustang Into An 815 Horsepower Track Monster Called The ‘GTD’

When the Slate EV came out, you know I had to crawl under it to get the details:

Here’s The Engineering Behind Jeff Bezos’ $20K Slate EV

When I had a chance to drive the new 4Runner off-road, I naturally had to do a thorough dive into how it compares to the Land Cruiser:

I Drove The New Toyota 4Runner. Here’s How It Compares To The Land Cruiser

Does anyone need to know about elevator air management? Absolutely not, but I couldn’t help myself:

An Elevator Acts Just Like A Piston In A Car Engine. Here’s Why That’s A Problem

Here’s an explanation of the insanely simple way Jeep engineers got two fuel tanks out of one:

The Genius Way Jeep Made A 20 Gallon Gas Tank Hold Only 15 Gallons

I also wrote about IIHS’s most stringent new crash test:

A New Crash-Test Is Kicking Automakers’ Butts, And It’s Not The One You Think

And did I think people cared about these big plastic eggs that patch sidewall holes? I wasn’t sure, but I did know one thing: I was interested, so maybe someone else was, too?:

Why People Are Bolting Plastic ‘Eggs’ Onto Their Off-Road Tires

I also wrote about my interview with Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson in which he mentioned that a seatbelt packaging issue was responsible for setting the Tesla Model S’s battery voltage:

Why The Tesla Model S’s Battery Voltage Was Determined By Its Seatbelt

Here’s a story about the infamous Saginaw Steering Column:

Tens Of Millions Of Cars Came With A GM Steering Column That Fails In A Ridiculous Way

Here’s one about “mockup engines,” which I knew nothing about but found fascinating:

Why Mechanics Spend Thousands On Fake Engines And Transmissions

So those were some of my technical stories. I also did a bunch of stuff, like become a father:

I Tried Doing An Oil Change While Looking After My Baby And It Didn’t Go Well

I also bought some cars:

I Just Got An Amazing Deal One Of The Greatest American Pickup Trucks Ever

I Bought A 200,000 Mile Jeep Comanche Sight Unseen And I’m Going To Try To Drive It 1000 Miles Home

Plus I went to a ridiculous Faraday Future press event:

I Went To Faraday Future’s Crazy Event For Its ‘AI’ Van, A Vehicle That Has A Face And Can ‘Empathize’

I also wrote some takes/broke some things down:

No, That Old Chrysler’s Rear Bumper Didn’t Demolish That New Kia

General Motors Is The Greatest Automotive Engineering Company In The World. There, I Said It

Why All Electric Car Companies Including Tesla, Rivian And Lucid Should Start Offering Gas Range Extenders

A story that surprised me with how well it was received was this one about the glossary I kept of corporate terms back when I worked at Chrysler:

When I Worked At Chrysler I Kept A Glossary Of Ridiculous Corporate Terms Engineers Overused At Meetings. Here Is That Glossary

Finally, I’ll stop with this Jeep Wrangler/Toyota Prius abomination. I love interviewing people about wild builds:

This Jeep Wrangler Is Actually A Toyota Prius

Only Good Stuff From Lewin

As a fellow engineer, Lewin was just great at understanding what made for a good story, and he did a fantastic job explaining how things work. I’ll grab some random good’ns from him, even though there are so many more:

I Can’t Figure Out Why BMW Charges Over $800 For This Tiny Plastic Flap

Why Off-Roaders Sometimes Tie Logs To Their Jeeps

Do Dimpled Pistons Really Offer Huge Performance Gains In Diesel Engines?

Great Articles From Contributors

We’ve had some amazing stories from contributors, like Adrian Clarke, whose writing is among the most entertaining I’ve seen in the entire car-journalism world:

We Promised You A SsangYong Rodius, And Now There Is One Outside My House And I’m Not Happy About It

When Adrian is annoyed/angry, the result is absolute gold. Here’s what he wrote when that weird new Jaguar concept hit the scene:

Why Does The New Jaguar Type 00 Look Like A Concrete Shithouse? An Ex-Jaguar Land Rover Designer Explains

And here’s what he wrote when he drove a Yugo:

I Just Had The Worst Driving Experience Of My Life And All I Got Was A Lousy Keyring

We’ve also had some gold from Huibert, our in-house suspension enginerd:

The Technical Reason Why Front-Wheel Drive Cars Sometimes Suck

Why Your Car’s Nose Dives When You Brake And Lifts When You Accelerate, And Why It Matters

One Surprising Reason Why A Racecar’s Front Tires Lean Inward (And It’s Not Because It Looks Cool)

One of my favorite stories was this one from an anonymous electric vehicle engineer going by the name of Zero Entropy, breaking down how EV powertrains work:

How Electric Motors Killed The Transmission

Here’s a great one from Andrea about Fiat’s nuclear reactor:

Why The Car Company Fiat Once Built Its Own Nuclear Reactor

Any wrenching piece from Stephen Walter Gossin is gold:

How I Rescued A Long-Neglected Citroen 2CV Covered With Bullet Holes

And we can’t forget The Bishop, who is not only a wonderful, wacky writer, but a huge help in coming up with great story ideas:

How Ford Could Make A Mad Max Falcon Instead Of A Four-Door Mustang

It’s Time To Redeem The Misjudged ‘Big’ 1971 Mustang With A Modern Remake

How To Make A Modern Four-Door Super Beetle Out Of A Porsche Macan

There are so many other contributors’ articles that I’m not remembering right now. But it’s New Years Day and I need to wrap this story up, so to our contributors I haven’t mentioned: Thank you!

We’ve Had Some Amazing Partnerships

I have to give a shout-out to eBay Motors, XPEL, Copart, and Vredestein.

eBay Motors is enabling me to do the greatest car project ever:

Here’s My Plan For How I’m Going To Build A New World War II Jeep From Scratch

XPEL enabled us to buy the greatest car ever (nice writeup by Matt):

‘It’s Like An Urus, But Cool!’ How Our Ridiculous Convertible SUV Stood Out Among Lamborghinis, Ferraris, And The World’s Best Exotics

Vredestein sent us some free tires, which helped our Crosscab really stand out at Pebble Beach, and it helped it kick butt off-road:

I Took Our Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet Rock Crawling And It Was Almost As Good As A Jeep

And Copart let us do the craziest road-trip in a 350,000 mile former New York City taxi cab:

Here’s What It Looks Like To Drive An $800 Taxi Across The Country

Member Posts

Everything we do here at The Autopian is made possible by our members, as Membership is a critical pillar of our business. Part of membership means you get exclusive content, and this year we’ve written some good stuff, I think. Here’s the tale of how Subaru basically went nuts when I pointed out its sad “skidplate”:

The Time A Certain Automaker Got Upset When I Wrote About Its Pathetic Design

Here’s a piece about the fake “Editorial Board” Jason, Andrew Collins and I started at Jalopnik to try to save the place:

The Time We Created A Fake ‘Editorial Board’ To Try To Save Jalopnik

And here’s Jason detailing a strange interaction from an upset PR person:

Guess Which Automaker’s PR Person Called Us Bad Journalists And Yelled At Us From A Race Car

Here’s Matt writing about a publisher’s conference he attended:

I’m At A Conference For Publishers And It’s As Weird As You’d Expect

These “Exhaust Leaks” pieces are “inside baseball” stories about what it’s like to be a car journalist. Some of our exclusive content is just about what’s going on in our lives. Here’s a story I wrote when a number of us were dealing with bug infestations at the same time:

Here Are All The Infestations The Autopian Staffers Have At Their Homes: Only Fanbelts

Here’s an Only Fanbelts from our Managing Editor Peter Veiera, who is a big reason why the site looks so great, as he makes most of the article topshots:

Building Radio-Control 4X4s Is Intoxicating: Only Fanbelts

I also want to give credit to Griffin Riley, our Video Manager, who has made our videos awesome, and grown our social accounts significantly. Plus we have to give lots of love to our sister company, Galpin, plus Inkcentric for helping us with merchandise and our tech partner Jazel, who keeps our website up.

There are tons of others to thank for enabling the Autopian team to produce these amazing stories, but above all, I want to thank you, dear readers. You’ve made this little slice of the vast internet a true destination; our comments section is second to none, complete with insightful and pleasant discussions, and sometimes valuable critiques.

I’ll finish by expressing gratitude to members, whose contributions are critical in keeping the stories churning. If you’re a reader who wants to become a member, click this link. Thank you so much! Here’s to a 2026 filled with even better stories from even more voices. Happy New Year!