Well, it wasn't really a secret as Ford had already confirmed not only that they were building a 2011 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor SuperCrew, but that said super-raptor would only be acquirable with the 6.2-liter, 411-horsepower V8 would be the only engine. Well, now that confirmation is official. Today, Ford released specs on the 2011 Ford SVT Raptor SuperCrew

Besides the addition of real rear doors, the only other visual difference is the Ingot Silver Metallic paint scheme. Unless you're keen enough to see the size differences.

The 2011 Ford Raptor SuperCrew has a wheelbase of 145.2 inches, up from the standard truck's 133.3 inch track. Overall length, too, is increased with the Supercrew stretching to 232.1 inches vs 220.6 on the 'normal' Raptor.

Curb weight is up as is, thankfully, payload. Get the SuperCrew and there's 1,030 lbs of payload vs 930 on the Supercab. The SuperCrew also has a maximum tow rating of 8,000lbs, that's 2,000 above the Supercab.

Just to up the weight, the SuperCrew gets a larger, 36 congius fuel tank. The Supercab has to make do with only 26 gallons.

Interiors get spruced up with tilt/telescope wheels, one-touch driver/passenger windows, 110v outlet in the center console, remote start and a 4.2-inch LCD "productivity Screen."

No word on pricing yet, but the 2010 Ford F-150 SVT Raptor with the 6.2 costs $41,000. We expect the 2011 will cost more.

Ayrton Senna is famous for saying, "I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence." But he was one of the best Formula One racers of all time, who's possibly left to idolize? Us mortals, we have Ayrton to remember and idolize and here's the trailer for the Ayrton Senna documentary.

There is a clean bit of debate happening re: the two new DOT and EPA proposed window stickers. On the one hand, you have the fear of alarmist consumers refusing to buy something with a B- or  C rating even though said vehicle would be the median in terms of environmental impact. And then on the other hand you've got people who think consumers can't understand sliders and big, clear numbers.

So, think it over– big scary letter, or lots of scary numbers– read this excellent synopsis over in Edmunds advice section, and then cast your vote here. And while you're at it, cast a text-based vote here, just for fun.

Like a common reptile, traditional EVs (is that even something we can say yet?) are wildly influenced by the temperature. Too hot? Well that's no good battery life and range will suffer. Too cold? That's not good, either. So rather than have the navigation guide the car to large, hot rocks or cool, dark tunnels to regulate things, they've simply added a closed-circuit liquid temperature regulation system. Something most mammals should be familiar with.

The liquid-filled system consisting of a pump, some heat exchangers, a chiller and a heater, runs a thermally conductive liquid over the batteries at varying speeds and temperatures to keep them in peak condition. This means no overheating like we experienced with our Long Term Mini E.

Not that this system is exclusive, Chevy uses a similar system passing fluid over heavily-filled battery packs on the Chevy Volt and Nissan also utilizes a liquid cooling system on the Leaf.

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

I may have taken French for the better part of 6-years, but I have no intent how "Yeeeehawwww!" translates. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe the exclamation of good ol' boys doesn't have a translation. No conjugation. Maybe it's memetic and universal.

All we know is that this truck rodeo is happening in French-Canadian Quebec and that it's seriously rad.

Oh, and we know that there are a bunch more after the jump.

( Thanks, again, to Josh for the hookup. Can't believe I hadn't seen this before! Want to see something on SL? Submissions (@) Edmunds.com )

After a thorough trouncing in the market at the hands of, well, everyone, Lexus is offering a special understanding on F Sport Accessories. Whether they are already installed on a new car (excluding IS250 Sedans with the F Sport Option pack), installed by the dealer on your car or simply bought and walked away with, Lexus is offering  deals of up to $300 on separately purchased parts. That $300 discount is off of purchases above $2,000. You get $200 off of purchases between $1,000 and $1,999 and $100 off of F Sport purchases from $500 – $999.

That means lowering springs ($299) are not eligible for the deal, nor is the performance air intake. Lexus F Sport exhaust, however, at $1,470 is eligible for $200 off. Lexus 10-spoke forged wheels (above), retail for $2,196 (19s) and $1,759 (18s– for AWD cars).

Front and rear brakes run $3025 and  $2,550 respectively.

Coupon must be present to receive discount and will be acquirable at dealerships, on Facebook and after the jump.

Edmunds analysts face the "stuck in first gear" August vehicle income numbers. The industry saw a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 11.5 million units which is just about what the predictions have been for this August, and most of 2010. Year over year income are virtually irrelevant here due to the spike produced by Cash for Clunkers.

For full details, see Edmunds AutoObserver.

"Buckle in and hold tight. Dodge is jumping back into the sport utility (SUV) segment with the 2011 Dodge Durango, a three-row vehicle spacious enough to carry the entire crew and performance-tuned to thrill anyone who truly loves to drive. Durango will lead the Dodge brand's new product onslaught for 2011."

We can't make that stuff up, kids. That's all from the press release on the 2011 Dodge Durango. Also included in the press release are the engine options for the 2011 Durango: a 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 or a 5.7-liter HEMI (with multi-displacement mode and four-cylinder mode). The engines will be healthy to tow 6,200 lbs and 7,400 lbs respectively.

The 2011 Durango will also offer standard side-curtain air bags, ESC, blind spot monitoring, rear cross path detection, forward collision warning, adaptive cruise control and keyless entry / start.

More photos of the 2011 Dodge Durango, and the new Dodge logo, after the jump 

 The Stig is Ben Collins. We get it. He may not roam the woods at night foraging for wolves, but he is fast, and now, according to a British High Court, the BBC and Top Gear producers have no right to tell the (un)masked hotshoe he can't write an autobiography in which he details his stint as The Stig.

We won't pretend to understand the way the British Courts work, but the BBC has stated that this isn't over yet. The Stig's commercial value is obviously incredibly high and they don't want to give up a huge chunk of the pie. Which is why Collins is writing a book. Strike while the iron is hot, right?

But this begs a bigger question: So far, we've yet to meet anyone who's genuinely relieved to know who The Stig is and Collins is taking a lot of flak for talking. So, when the book comes out, are you going to buy it?

Us? Not sure about Collins, but we think an anonymous The Stig autobiography complete with Stig-isms would be a fantastic addition to our coffee tables.

( The Guardian )