The season is in full swing! Racing is on at just about every level, from testing and tuning events at the local tracks to Pro Mod fields that have a sweet-16 layout completely under the four-second mark and factory drag cars in the sevens. And this train is just starting to move! We love it, we’ve been busy watching as more events happen, and we will continue to watch as racers get faster and better. We will also be watching the random tid-bits of news pile up in our inbox that kind-of-sort-of have some relevance to what we do…or are good enough to roast a little bit before we serve it up to you. Here’s this week’s Scrapple:

1. It’s a super-posh cat fight. 
Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin are currently in a very upper-crust war of words over the very concept of what a luxury vehicle should be about. In a nutshell, Aston claims that Rolls (and Bentley) are old news for old people, that the car is an “imperfect package for luxury” and the next thing you know, someone at Rolls-Royce is ready to put Aston back into their place with notes that include “don’t understand our segment”, “don’t understand our customers”, “completely different league on pricing”, “have zero clue what’s going on in the upper, upper segment; zero.”

Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce, a clue for you both: NOBODY CAN AFFORD TO BUY YOUR S#!* AS IT IS, and those that can will pick based on what they want, not what you are trying to sell them.

2. SUVs sell, learns Lamborghini. Next week’s lesson: water is wet!And that clue, sadly, was found by Lamborghini. That yellow…thing pictured above is the Urus, the long-gestation SUV that Lambo finally spit out. Nevermind it’s yet another unapproachable luxury machine that the world most certainly did not need (the damn thing usually sets buyers back a quarter-million out the door!) but now Lamborghini is starting to see the benefits of having a four-door super-ute in their lineup…Lamborghini is expecting to sell 5,000 cars in 2018, with the Urus alone accounting for up to a fifth of that projection.

3. Screaming out top speed numbers like a YouTuber hyping up for views…

Catfighting and sport-utilities, a supercar manufacturer shouldn’t need. What you need is a potent product with heritage and just the right amount of bat-shit crazy to excite buyers and dreamers alike. McLaren currently has that bragging quality going on in full-spades: they are claiming that their true successor to the 1990s F1 supercar will hit at least 243 MPH, and potentially more. They’ve sold every last one of the “BP23” cars, even though they won’t appear until 2020. And then you have the newest production McLaren, the Senna (pictured)…

4. Coming And Going…I’m happy to report that the Volkswagen New Beetle will be killed off when the generation ends. Per VW’s Head of Technical Development, Frank Welsch, there will not be another. Good…from the moment the New Beetle came in on a wave of retro-feel-good vibes, I wanted that car dead. Coming to life, however, is a production version of the car that Honda showed off as the Urban EV. It’s a little hatchback that reminds us of the Hondas of the late 1970s and early 1980s, a four-seater that will be sold at least in Europe, though a U.S. release is doubtful at best.

5. Go green.

I’m putting all of the description about the Goodyear Oxygene concept tire out for you to see, as Autoblog wrote it: “it’s touted as a sustainable urban mobility solution that employs artificial intelligence, increases safety and generates its own electricity. Also, it’s filled with living moss that can help clean the air.”

What. I can’t even make a joke on this. A moss-filled tire that makes it’s own electricity and helps produce oxygen. Somewhere an environmentalist had a moment of pure, orgasmic bliss.