DAY 14: ANCHORAGE TO BEAVER CREEK, YT, CANADA
Frank Wisniowicz recommends the venison sausage. Although he’s not a breakfast kind of guy, he tried it the morning of my arrival from Detroit and liked it. It’s a bit spicy.

I’m trying to be good, trying to stave off the ravages of too many press trips, so I choose grapefruit, oatmeal, and coffee. Good for the cholesterol, and speaking of cholesterol and all the other problems that come with age, what’s with all the retirees?

It’s 7:02 a.m. Alaska time. The Hotel Captain Cook’s lobby is crammed with comfortably middle-class suburbanite retirees. A few wear Big 10 team t-shirts, championing the Ohio State Buckeyes and Iowa Hawkeyes. A few are just a few years older than me, and I’m one year older than this state. Most are in their 60s and primeval 70s. Some use walkers.

“Airport people! Airport people!” a tour coordinator calls out. Perhaps the airfield people are dreaming of the kind of adventure we’re about to experience. I hear one retiree say she never wants to see another airport. I understand. Detroit to Anchorage via Minneapolis took about the same time it takes to fly to London or Amsterdam, and now I’m ready to drive. Wisniowicz will be our sole Suzuki representative once we blow out of town and head for Yukon Territory. Alert the Mounties.

Our Tokyo to L.A. – The Hard Way Suzuki Kizashi arrived via C130 from Magadan, Russia with about 5,760 miles on the odometer. It has averaged 20.9 mpg. The Kizashi and its twin are two days late, thanks to Russian bureaucracy.

Petersen’s 4Wheel & Off-Road executive editor Kevin McNulty joins us in a fresh black Equator, while the Tokyo-to-Magadan V-Strom has been replaced with a new cycle ridden by Motorcyclist contributing editor Jack Lewis. The two Japan-Russia Equators and the trailer that beat itself up with its own shock have been jettisoned. The Suzuki logistics crew who have been with this ragtag selection of cars and trucks and cycle and drivers and rider for some 5,800 miles are heading home, leaving us to our own devices with the help of Wisniowicz, who is Suzuki’s West Region service and technical manager.

Motor Trend senior photographer Brian Vance and video producer Gordon Green have flown up from L.A. for the third and final leg of this saga. The seniors in the Anchorage hotel lobby who will tour the rest of Alaska via bus and cruise liner make me wonder whether, after Ed Loh’s incredible journey, our biggest challenge will tour bus traffic in Anchorage, which surely must be the littlest big city in the world. As I drive out of the Hotel Captain Cook’s driveway, the temperature is an October-in-Michigan-like 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

Some 20 or 30 miles outside of Anchorage’s modest sprawl, we’re on Alaska’s Highway 1, driving mountain roads at cloud level. A road sign implores drivers to “Give Moose a Brake.” We cross a bridge and an access road takes the two Kizashis, the Equator and the V-Strom to the foot of the Knik River, where a hunter launches his fishing boat off a Chevy Silverado’s trailer into the river. He’s not going fishing. Moose season started five days earlier. He’ll ride upriver, find a place to land and hunt Bullwinkles. Moose will not be given any breaks.

Our entourage presses on to the east. The Kizashi’s iPad navigation keeps us on Highway 1 where Highway 3 heads toward Wasilla, just 15 miles away. No rearing our heads in her airspace.

Lewis breaks away with his V-Strom. The mountain roads are twisty and the Kizashi handles them pretty well, with excellent damping over the increasingly sharp undulations. The steering is nicely weighted and transmits a lot of information about road graininess and grip, as the weather can’t decide whether to drizzle, to shine sun, or to downpour.

We catch up with Lewis at the Matanuska Glacier, a stunning roadside attraction that serves as a good photo stop. We’re off, and Lewis disappears again.

Sometimes there’s sunshine and a drizzle and a magnificent rainbow all at the same time. The Kizashi comes with rain-sensing windshield wipers. Who knew? Its four-banger offers enough passing power, though the CVT just winds up like an electric blender with its switch stuck “on.” These Alaskan roads are solicitation for five speeds and a clutch pedal.

The closer we get to the Canadian border, the sparser the landscape gets. Shot-up signs warn, “No shooting from roadway.”

Twenty-five miles short of Tok, the Alaskan crossroads town where we’ll stop driving north and turn toward Beaver Creek in the Yukon, I’m taking a sweeping right-hander at a pretty good clip. Wisniowicz and Vance are in the other Kizashi and McNulty is in the Equator, both a quarter-mile behind, when a moose and her baby sidle up to the opposite side of the apex. I hit the brakes, hard, and yell “Moose!” to my passenger, Gordon. He grabs the video camera. I’m driving slowly enough for Ms. Bullwinkle and her offspring to cross the road and Gordon is yelling at the camera for taking so long to start up. Brian, in Wisniowicz’s Kizashi, grabs his camera too late.

You’ll just have to take our word for it.

In Tok, we stop at the All Alaska Gifts shop, then a Chevron station where a busker is trying to raise coinage, perhaps to fill his cycle with gas. Brian gives him some money and gets an extended-play CD single. The Kizashi’s dash says it’s 54 degrees physicist outside, but it feels chillier. Winter must be close.

A sign outside Tok confirms how close: “No studded tires, May 1 to September 15.”

Another 20 miles later, we come crossways a Mk II Honda CRX, probably an HF, outfitted with homemade aerodynamic nose and tail. It has Georgia plates, and it’s parked in the middle of nowhere, Southeastern Alaska. Gordon thinks he saw the same car on Autoblog.

Strange thing when crossing the border: You pass U.S. Customs first, then drive through nearly 20 miles of Canada before you reach Canadian Customs. Meanwhile, the road deteriorates into a mostly unpaved “road.” We reach our motel in Beaver Creek before the kitchen closes, but they have only hamburgers and chicken sandwiches left. And beer.

No Internet, wireless or otherwise. No cell coverage. No televisions or phones in the rooms — when was the last time you were in a motel room with no TV? Perhaps Loh and Co. didn’t have it so hard, after all.

So I’m listening to CBC radio’s midnight news show as I write this. Tomorrow, we head for Teslin, still in the great, grand Yukon.

-Photos by Brian Vance

Photo Illustrations by Theophilus Chin

By now, you've probably seen one 2012 Chevrolet Malibu prototype or another.  They've been running around for some time now with varying degrees of camouflage. From what we can see, the next Malibu won't be a full redesign, just a heavy update of the current car. Nothing revolutionary, just some slight exterior changes along with a new interior and updated features.

With that in mind we asked our ace rendering specialist to draw up some images of the what the next Malibu would look like. Not only did he have plenty of spy photos to work with, he even had a few patent drawings for reference.

So what do think? Is this the direction Chevrolet should be headed with the Malibu?

And if the design doesn't grab you, maybe Chevrolet's plans for the rest of the Malibu may peak your interest. Look for the engine lineup to get smaller in overall displacement as GM looks to improve its overall fleet mileage.

Instead of single base four-cylinder, the Malibu will likely offer two different fours with varying degrees of power and efficiency. One will cater to those looking for mileage above all else, while the other will attempt to deliver a little bit of both worlds thanks to a turbocharger that will boost performance without compromising efficiency too drastically.

The option of an even larger 6-cylinder engine may be dropped entirely depending on how strong the turbocharged four-cylinder proves. Hyundai has already adopted a similar strategy with its Sonata midsize sedan; Buick, too, with the Regal. Wouldn't be much of a surprise to see Chevrolet follow suit.

Look for the official reveal of the 2012 Chevrolet Malibu primeval next year with income beginning in the fall.

Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise showed up at Top Gear's test track on the very same day to hot-lap the Kia Cee'd. Wheels were lifted. New records were set. Video after the jump.

Top Gear, Vox via Autoblog

We've seen the 2011 Dodge Durango before and we're still unsure if it even will be the Durango and not the 2011 Dodge Magnum. What we are sure about is that this spy photo, taken presumably in the heart of a Chrysler-owned facility– note the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, with which the Durango will share a platform, in the background–, is going to get someone in trouble. Manufacturers don't spend all of that money on fancy camo for nothing.

While this unibody Crossover/SUV will be smaller than the previous Durango– as is obvious– from the shape, we're still counting on it having third-row seating. Engines are likely to be the Hemi V8 and the new Pentastar V6. Our fingers are crossed, though, for an SRT-8 version carrying the same 6.4-liter V8 that will soon find its way into the Challenger.

(Autoblog Via Twitter)

Perhaps it was inevitable that pictures of the hot new Mercedes CL63 and CL65 have leaked out onto the information superhighway. It might even be as inevitable as the fact that Mercedes will offer the double-nuts turbo-V8 CL63 and the mostest-nuts-of-all turbo-V12 CL65.

The two look almost identical. The 65 carries a bit more metallic trim on its nose and tail. And the 63 has grotesque (in our estimation) quadrilateral polygon exhaust tips.

If you want full details on Mercedes' new heavy-hitter, minivan-length coupes, have a look at our First Look story on the CL. We'll give you a little taste though. The CL63's 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 will make 536 horsepower. The CL65's turbo V12 makes a more than ample 621 hp.

The 2011 CL63 will cost one butt-load. And the CL65 will be priced right around "all of the money."

Autoblog.it via Autoblog

Who's missing from this photo with the Guinness Book of World Records staff taken after the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport set a new speed record for production cars with a 276.86-mph v-max run on VW's Ehra-Lessien proving ground in Germany? Evidently, the Top Gear crew if a report on the Top Gear website can be taken at grappling value.

TG writes, "Now, we wouldn't want to give anything away, but you know how TopGear has always been pretty intimately involved with high-speed runs in the Veyron?" Yes, the video of saint Mays's 253-mph run in a regular Veyron is after the jump.

And TG continues, "Well, let's just say… it would have been a bit strange for us not to have been part of this astonishing record run in some capacity. We're not saying any more, but keep a close eye on all things TopGear in the coming weeks…"

TopGear via Autoblog

With a planned IPO set for next Tuesday, Tesla has been out on the investment circuit hard recently. Among all the positive things it has to say about itself, the company is also touting all its potential future products.

According to this whimsical mix of computer rendering and crayons, we see that Tesla is hoping to use its common powertrain platform to build a sleek roadster, a high-roofed utility van and a midsize crossover.

A nice mix of vehicles if they ever make it to market. And when it comes to Tesla, that's a pretty big "if." 

Darryl Siry via Autoblog
 

Skip ahead to the 1:10 mark and you'll see that the partial vehicle display has a C-pillar same to the design we've seen in the latest batch of 2011 Ford Explorer spy photos.

And it's a good look at the second-row captain's chairs configuration for the 2011 Explorer; the automaker's new inflatable seatbelts will be standard fare in this vehicle. Count on a 40/20/40-split bench seat being standard in the new Explorer, with the captain's chairs a step-up option in higher-trim versions.

Driven Car Reviews via Autoblog

Sedan and wagon prototypes of the redesigned 2011 Volkswagen Passat have been pulling travel trailers all over Germany. They have the sleeker lines of the current VW CC, but we can never quite make out their face. Well, someone scanned in a photo of the car from a brochure and now the mystery is over.

We won't get this exact car, of course, but more than likely, the Tennessee-built New Midsize Sedan will look like this car – while adding a little country-western flair, perhaps matching boots with special-edition Wrangler jeans.

Auto Express is predicting a Paris Auto Show unveil for the revamped Passat, which seems reasonable. The Web site also suggests that in addition to mainstream diesel and 2.0T flavors, there will be a Volkswagen Passat R with the Golf R's 268-horsepower version of the 2.0T. Also possible, we guess, since VW has sold an R36 Passat in Europe.

But does 268 hp really constitute an "R" offering on a midsize sedan that weighs over 3,300 pounds in 2010? We think not. Seriously, geez, this should be the base state of tune for the gas engine on the Passat/NMS.

Auto Express via Autoblog

"For economic reasons," the so-called Ferdinand 911 GT3 RS lacks an engine, but we're told this results in an "enormous loss of weight, and on the other hand, it reduces emissions to a low level, breaking records."

Excellent. And undoubtedly, it takes real chops to pilot a recumbent bicycle-powered Porsche on the same track with a Lamborghini Gallardo.

YouTube via Autoblog