When you open up the pages of a magazine—or, more likely in 2024, click on a link to an article—your eyes are immediately drawn to the images, not the words. As much as we here at Car and Driver focus on telling stories through writing, visual storytelling through powerful, beautiful, and creative images is just as important.
Thanks to our team of experienced photographers, each year the digital and printed pages of C/D are filled with dazzling shots of the coolest and most significant cars. The photo team documents the grueling lives of our long-term test cars, follows our writers through mud and muck, and bravely hangs out of the back of minivans to capture the meanest performance cars on track. We've rounded up some of their best work from yet another exciting year of cars.
Our 2024 Lightning Lap competition, where we pit the best performance cars of the year in a shootout around Virginia International Raceway (VIR), featured a special guest. That snarling face belongs to the Garage 56 Chevy Camaro ZL1 NASCAR, a modified oval racer that ran at the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans. In the hands of pro driver Ricky Taylor, the V-8-powered beast turned a lap time of 2:26.7, significantly quicker than any road car we've tested at the track in the past two decades.
But another special guest managed to upstage NASCAR's track-honed machine. This fire-spitting Subaru is known as the Airslayer, and the custom-made racer churns out a whopping 862 horsepower from its flat-four engine while weighing just 2606 pounds. That combination of power and weight allowed rallycross champion Scott Speed to set a lap time of 2:25.6, a new Lightning Lap record.
The Ferrari 296GTB breaks with tradition. Ferrari's mid-engined bread-and-butter supercar has long utilized a V-8, but the 296GTB instead employs an 819-hp V-6 hybrid powertrain. But two fewer cylinders and some electrical assistance didn't detract from the Ferrari's performance, as senior editor Ezra Dyer found out while carving up coastal roads outside Los Angeles.
When you put 40,000 miles on a car in a single year, as we do with our long-term fleet, things don't always go to plan. A slipping clutch on our 718 Cayman GTS 4.0 at around 26,000 miles from some less-than-gentle-driving required the removal of the transmission and, ultimately, a $4898 clutch replacement. At least the costly mistake gave us this incredible look at the Cayman's internals.
Not everyone is ready to jump headlong into the world of EVs, and plug-in hybrids have proliferated to fill in the gap for those who want to dabble in electric power without fully abandoning gas. This glowing photo illustration from Roy Ritchie depicts this dichotomy using one of the most popular plug-ins, the Toyota Prius Prime.
While EVs and hybrids seem to dominate the news cycle, badass sports cars with roaring gas engines still remain. We pitted the V-8-powered Ford Mustang Dark Horse against the inline-six-powered BMW M2 on the curvy mountain roads outside Los Angeles, where staff photographer Marc Urbano snapped this stunning shot.
The Porsche 911 has long been the sports-car benchmark, but the curvy German coupe expanded its repertoire with the all-terrain Dakar. The limited-production 911 Dakar wears chunky tires, sits 2.0 inches higher, and certainly looked like a proper off-roader while contributing editor John Phillips drifted around Montana's Bitterroot National Forest.
Yes, there is a car in this jaw-dropping landscape shot by freelance photographer Greg Pajo. Squint and you can spot the 2024 Toyota Land Cruiser perched atop one of the craggy cliffs of Canyonlands National Park in Utah, where technical editor Dan Edmunds explored the boxy SUV's off-road capabilities.
While an off-road sports car might seem like an obscure niche, the Porsche 911 Dakar faced competition from the Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato, which staff photographer Michael Simari captured sliding through the dirt. The Sterrato sits 1.7 inches higher than its track-ready siblings and wears beefy black fenders.
We already knew the Ford Bronco wasn't afraid to catch some air—a two-door First Edition leapt over a dune on the cover of our September 2021 issue. But we just had to try it out with a four-door model, with Pajo snapping this epic shot of our long-term Bronco Badlands, which wrapped up its 40,000-mile test this year.
Our 2024 EV of the Year, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, proved that electric cars can be rowdy and enthralling. This photo of the Ioniq 5 N shredding its tires speaks for itself. The N's excellence comes not just from big power—641 ponies to be exact—but a playful, engaging demeanor sparked by simulated gear shifts.
There's no better pair than a sinewy supercar and some winding canyon roads outside Los Angeles. Testing director Dave VanderWerp explored the limits of the new McLaren 750S, which managed to blast to 60 mph in a mere 2.3 seconds.
The Volkswagen ID.Buzz finally arrived in the United States this year and impressed with a spacious, airy interior. As Buyer's Guide associate editor Andrew Wendler discovered when he piloted the van around California, the retro styling generated quite a bit of, er, buzz from the general population.
The refreshed Aston Martin Vantage tried to take down the king of sports cars, the Porsche 911 Turbo, in an epic showdown in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While the Vantage's dramatic looks and 656-hp V-8 heart are enticing, the 911 Turbo could not be dethroned.
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It takes a lot to stand out in the world of lean, low supercars, but the Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 is among the most distinctive cars around, thanks to a three-seat layout, focus on driver engagement over outright performance, and, oh right, that gigantic downforce-producing fan strapped to the rear end. And how can you not love a naturally aspirated V-12 hooked up to a six-speed manual transmission?
While multi-million dollar, V-12-powered supercars are undoubtedly cool, we also appreciate the simpler things in life. We finished up a 40,000-mile long-term test of the Subaru BRZ earlier this year and fell in love with the back-to-basics sports car thanks to its agile chassis, talkative steering, affordable price, and six-speed stick shift.
It's true that many trucks never leave the pavement, but technical editor Austin Irwin put the GMC Canyon AT4X AEV's off-road prowess to the test. Michael Simari was there to capture this epic shot of the GMC sending mud sky-high via its 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler Territory MT tires.
The duo of Irwin and Simari switched things up and blasted around Michigan's Grattan Raceway with the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Manthey Racing. While the GT4 RS was already a hardcore track toy, the Manthey Racing kit takes things even further with revised suspension, including four-way manually adjustable dampers, and extreme aerodynamics.
While the Cayman's six-cylinder engine lets out a glorious wail, this Rolls-Royce Spectre impressed us with its utter silence. The electric 6443-pound behemoth of a coupe became one of the quietest cars we've tested, recording just 63 decibels inside the cabin at 70 mph.
Just as the waves ebb with the changing tide, the Fisker Ocean came and went this year. Not long after our first test of the electric SUV from the California-based startup, Fisker filed for bankruptcy and the intriguing, if flawed, Ocean went off sale.
One of the biggest questions surrounding electric trucks is how towing affects range, so Irwin used our long-term Rivian R1T to haul his 1986 Nissan 300ZX Turbo project car. The R1T's 908 pound-feet of torque made pulling the Nissan a breeze, even if he had to stop for 28 minutes to charge on the roughly 200-mile trip.
Caleb Miller began blogging about cars at 13 years old, and he realized his dream of writing for a car magazine after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University and joining the Car and Driver team. He loves quirky and obscure autos, aiming to one day own something bizarre like a Nissan S-Cargo, and is an avid motorsports fan.
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