Every year we choose the ten most popular materials of the year… Well, of course not! Because we don’t choose, and we don’t! This list contains the articles you read most often. This means it is the readers’ choice. It’s impossible to predict it, but you can check it: if you missed something, now is the time to find out what it is.
10th place. Lamborghini Diablo in Russia
The editors of Motor worked on this video together with Gleb Rachko from Oldtimer Cars. And in it we propose to look at this legendary supercar from a new angle: what you need to know about the Diablo as a purchase, an investment and… a car. And is it possible to legally bring such a car to Russia today?
Alexey Sulima
9. Forgotten Concepts: Ford Big Red – Space Age Giant Truck
Riding the wave of cosmic romanticism, Ford unveiled its most striking concept truck in 1964—and we decided to re-embrace it 60 years later. The engine of this giant is a gas turbine (in those years, all three American auto giants experimented with this type of internal combustion engine), and its 600 horsepower would be enough to accelerate a road train weighing 77 tons to 115 km/h.
We periodically publish materials like this in the Forgotten Concepts section, and in 2024 we added a lot of interesting things to it.
Officially, the prototype was called the Ford Gas Turbine Truck, but everyone (including company representatives) called the truck Big Red.
Ford
8. Could, but failed: Renault Vel Satis
“The ridicule of journalists, misunderstanding of buyers, dealers clutching their heads – these are the main markers in the career of the big Renault and a natural fiasco in the “Historical status” column. But only cars that deserve a better fate than the one they received fall under the heading “They could have, but they couldn’t.” Did Vel Satis even have a chance?” — writes Mikhail Medvedev. We are very glad that the fate of interesting cars that “didn’t take off” finds such a response from you. We created this section especially for them.
Renault Vel Satis
Renault Could, but failed: FIAT Multipla Could, but failed: Matra Rancho Kaiser-Darrin: corvette of failure
7. How Lada e-Largus is assembled
An article about the production of a car that you can’t even buy? Details about the resumption of Lada Largus assembly? As it turns out, all this is very interesting to you! Of course, the Lada e-Largus is called the most localized electric car in Russia! In general, it may seem surprising that a report on production turned out to be so popular. But this is no longer a surprise for us. Another report was close to the top ten most read materials of the year – about the production of Citroens in Kaluga. And the story about the assembly of elite Aurus sedans in Tatarstan became the most popular material of 2021.
Lada plant in Izhevsk
Sergey Ilyin
6. The sixties: which cars were considered fast, and what were their real dynamics?
All those legendary cars of the sixties – were they really fast, or did they just seem so? I would like to see reliable numbers. And the point is not that overclocking figures in factory brochures could be embellished – often they were not published at all. Therefore, Asatur Bisembin turned to the field measurements of the American magazine Car and Driver. The archive of this respected publication turned out to be a real treasure: almost immediately it became clear that the history of the fastest cars of the sixties would have to be continued in the seventies, eighties and nineties. The two thousandths, of course, were also considered. The criterion for “fast” is very simple: acceleration to 60 mph (97 km/h).
Chevrolet Corvette C2
Chevrolet Seventies: the fastest cars and their real potential What could the fastest cars of the 1980s do? Cars of the 90s: who is the fastest? Fastest in the 2000s: iconic sports cars and daring upstarts
5. Cars of the nineties: who is the most powerful?
This is a coincidence, but in fifth place is an article from a related series: when we figured out the fastest cars, we decided to trace their power through the decades. The most popular was the material about the nineties. Is it any wonder if this is the time when hypercars emerged as a mature phenomenon… Of course, any topic should be studied in context. That’s why we also looked at the most powerful cars of the eighties and two thousand. And then, just for fun, we made a chart of the least powerful cars.
Homologation Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, also known as the Unicorn
Mercedes-Benz The most powerful cars of the eighties The most powerful cars of the 2000s Shoot ’em: the weakest cars Torque kings: only the strongest
4. Aurus, Chinese, Maybach and Gelik: armored cars of the BRICS leaders in Kazan
Last fall, the 16th BRICS summit was held in Kazan. For three days, the city became the center of world politics: the event was covered by about two thousand journalists from 59 countries. “Motor” also closely followed the event, but from a special angle. Sergei Ilyin carefully examined the cars of the distinguished guests. Wheeled “boards No. 1” were delivered to Kazan by planes and trains from Moscow, Ankara, Beijing, Ashgabat and even Vladivostok. Details are in the photo report.
Aurus Senat in armor
Sergey Ilyin
3. 60th Anniversary of Plymouth Barracuda
We dedicated a separate digest to the anniversaries of 2024, and the most popular material on this topic was the article about the 60th anniversary of the Plymouth Barracuda. The Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro are called “pony cars” – they say that these youth hits have not grown up to real muscle cars. But few people remember that Chrysler Corporation had a competitor to these FoMoCo and GM models: it was the Barracuda. And although the term “pony car” appeared thanks to the Mustang, the class itself was created by Plymouth.
In August 2024, this 1970 Plymouth ‘Cuda Hardtop [продали](https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/29263/lot/201/1970-plymouth-cuda-hardtop-chassis-no-bs23v0b100413/) at Bonhams Cars California auction for $112,000.
Bonhams Cars/Golden State Muscle Car Collection
2. Bugatti Tourbillon
In a recent selection of the main premieres of 2024, we only mentioned the Bugatti Tourbillon – and promised that this hypercar will appear in another digest. Now meet: the second most popular material of the year on “Motor”. No daily automotive everyday life will be able to discourage our readers from interest in great cars. More often than not, this big word is referred to as the masterpieces of the past, but it’s not difficult to spot the pearl in the new Bugatti. The evolutionary design even confused many. We saw a lot of comments in the style of “Is this a restyling of Chiron?”, but their authors clearly did not read our material. This is a completely different Bugatti! Even just replacing a W-twin engine with 16 cylinders and 4 turbines with a naturally aspirated V16 engine is worth it! And these incomparable “mechanical” devices…
Bugatti Tourbillon
Bugatti Controversial hero: what he is proud of and what he hides in Photoshop Ferrari F80 Inspired by Formula 1: the flagship hypercar has returned to the McLaren range Less rare: special Bugatti Half Porsche
1. Tokyo Motor Show
We did not expect to see in the first place a gallery with new products from the Tokyo Motor Show. And yet, this is the most popular material of the year on “Motor”. Moreover, all the reports from major international auto shows arouse your keen interest. Let’s admit, we miss these big old-school exhibitions: “Geneva” is no longer there, and “Frankfurt” is no longer in Frankfurt, and the editors’ passports have fresh visas – exclusively Chinese ones… But let’s not talk about sad things! After all, the Japanese, it turns out, are still capable of surprising. And not just each other.
Tokyo Auto Show
You can take a look at all the results of the past year here. /m
The ten most popular materials of “Motor” in 2023 The 10 most popular materials of “Motor” in 2022 Hype on “Motor”: the most popular of the year
