The off-road world is on fire again. Every manufacturer is chasing trail cred with lockers, lift kits, and desert-speed marketing shots. And yet, if you are an enthusiast, the modern showroom still feels like it is missing a few flavors. Some rigs were just right for their era: honest, quirky, tough, and built for real adventure. So, in the spirit of Christmas, here is our wish list: nine 4x4 icons we want revived, not as sterile retro props, but as living, breathing machines that deserve a seco...

4x4 Icons We Want Revived

We love Hagerty and all they do for the classic car market. December 5th, 2025 they posted an article on their AI tests (https://www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/tested-is-ai-your-next-classic-car-mechanic/). One thing they didn't understand or mention, however, is that LLMs like ChatGPT can never have a PhD in everything, just like a mechanic cannot be an expert on everything. As we move further down the path to AGI, the future of AI is agentic. We at Fraction Motors are working to bu...

The Future of AI is Agentic 

Many of the original American automotive factories no longer exist. Industrial technology progressed at a rapid rate throughout the 20th century, and the places where these companies began their work often became obsolete after only a few years. An additional factor impeding these factories’ continued existence is their location in Detroit, whose car factories have been on the decline over the last 60 years or so. It is a wonder that any remnant of these original locations would have made it int...

A Remnant of Ford's History: The Ford Piquette Avenue Plant

Throughout automotive history, car manufacturers have often gone to battle in order to prove that they have the superior car. One company will produce a revolutionary new vehicle that boasts innovations in speed, power, or mechanical engineering, and another company will answer with a car that improves upon these principles. Traditionally, these rivalries see both sides create remarkable vehicles that each have their own devoted fanbases (the Mustang and Camaro rivalry is a good example). But th...

Lost and Found: the 1963 Ford Cougar II and 1964 Ford Bordinat Cobra

Technology has advanced rapidly in the 20th and 21st centuries. Machines that would seem alien to people just over a hundred years ago are now commonplace. As humans come to rely on these machines, we continue to improve and streamline them again and again. Because these particular creations are so commonplace in our world, it can be easy to take them for granted and overlook the feats of engineering that made their existence a possibility in the first place. It is with this mindset that we hope...

The Beginnings of the Automobile

When ex-GM president Semon “Bunkie” Knudsen landed at Ford in early 1968, he challenged designer Larry Shinoda to build a Mustang that could grab the SCCA Trans-Am crown back from Chevrolet’s hot-shoe Z/28. Shinoda ditched the fake side scoops, blacked out the hood for glare-free duty, and jokingly labeled the project “the boss’s car”—a bit of shop-floor slang that stuck as its official name. Underneath, the whole exercise existed for one reason: meet the 5-liter homologation rules and win on Su...

The Boss’s Car: The Boss 302 

Across the country—and increasingly around the world—there’s a subculture of automotive enthusiasts captivated not by speed or sound, but by silence, stillness, and untouched potential. In garages tucked behind suburban homes, private warehouses, or temperature-controlled storage facilities, sit “wrapper cars”—vehicles never driven beyond delivery, preserved with obsessive care in the exact condition they left the factory....

Preserved in Time: The Allure of Wrapper Cars

Muscle cars are staples of American automotive history. A good-looking car with a massive engine specifically tuned for performance became enough of a desirable package to kick off an entire subset of vehicles in the 1960s, and gearheads couldn’t get enough of the bulky, brutish cars that were hitting dealerships. It’s been over 60 years since the muscle car craze, and both vintage and contemporary models of these high-performance vehicles are popular in car circles, especially the Mustangs, Cam...

America’s First HiPo Muscle Car, the Oldsmobile “Rocket” 88

Mercedes-Benz has been the manufacturer to beat for the last decade of Formula One. The combination of their next-level tech and their talented drivership created a legacy-defining span of wins, including their six-year manufacturer’s cup win streak from 2014 to 2020. It may surprise a newer F1 fan, then, that Mercedes-Benz has not been a competitor in the sport for very long; before the company’s return to F1 in 2010, they had not participated in a race since 1955. There are a number of fiscal ...