Mircea Panait
19,999 ARTICLES
Personal motto:
"If in doubt, flat out." - Colin McRae
Interning for Top Gear was his first foray in automotive journalism, and not long after that, a full-time position was opened for Mircea to seal the deal. Just about three years later, autoevolution became his new home.
Especially interested in American ponies and muscle cars, Mircea also finds the Japanese domestic market appealing thanks to the quirkiness of kei cars. Full-size pickups like the Ram 1500 and off-roaders such as the Ford Ranger Raptor and Jeep Gladiator Rubicon are much to his liking as well.
A self-described master of pasta and an avid CCG player, Mircea’s past-time activities include playing his Epiphone Les Paul Special Vintage Edition electric guitar, discovering the wonders of the Carpathian mountains by foot, and driving to the Black Sea to get a well-deserved tan.
2015 Ford Focus Pricing for Europe Starts From €18,750 · Video
21 Oct 2014, 10:00 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Pretty similar to the compact executive sedan and supermini segments, Europe is a big battleground for automakers that manufacture C-segment cars. The freshest candidate is the 2015 Ford Focus, a model that recently got its European pricing announc...
Takata Airbag Recall: 4.7 Million Cars Covered in the Latest Campaign
21 Oct 2014, 08:50 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Remember Toyota's recent supplemental safety recall of approximately 247,000 cars equipped with defective Takata Corporation airbags? As it happens, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that campaign is just the tip of ...
Lotus Esprit Submarine from James Bond - The Spy Who Loved Me is on eBay · Video
21 Oct 2014, 07:53 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Let's face it - us petrolheads are boys that like to play with expensive, tire-shredding toys. As such, it's virtually impossible not to have wanted, at a certain moment in time, a car from James Bond's long list of super exotic, sup...
Toyota Recall - 247,000 Vehicles Affected by Faulty Takata Airbag Inflators
20 Oct 2014, 17:33 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / This just in from Toyota: the American division of the Japanese manufacturer is calling back a hefty 247,000 cars to have their airbags replaced with safer units. Toyota says that the affected vehicle population from 2001 to 2004 model years. Li...
2015 Ford Mustang - Euro-spec Model Loses Some Power Over its American Brother
20 Oct 2014, 17:03 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / After a year of slow teasing we found out almost every secret the sixth-generation of the breed holds. However, European customers of the new pony will be in for a little shock because the Euro-spec model isn't quite as powerful as the Mustang...
2016 Acura ILX Teased Ahead of 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show Debut
20 Oct 2014, 16:06 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Before you wonder why the photograph above is so overexposed, oversaturated and grainy, you should know that Acura provided a very dark, almost useless teaser picture of the 2016 ILX. With that detail out of the way, the Japanese automaker is geari...
Citroen C4 Cactus Crash Tested, Gets 4 Euro NCAP Stars
20 Oct 2014, 15:11 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Similar to what the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety does for the American motorist, Euro NCAP is a European car safety performance assessment programme that's sole target is to find out just how much protection does a new vehicle offer....
2015 Ford Focus Electric Gets $6,000 Discount
20 Oct 2014, 14:12 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / The Blue Oval's first all-electric passenger car is returning for the 2015 model year with a bit of a surprise for potential buyers. Slated to arrive in US dealerships by the end of the current week, the new Ford Focus Electric will repor...
2016 Cadillac CTS-V Clears its Supercharged V8 Throat on the Nurburgring · Video
20 Oct 2014, 12:54 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / While we wait for the Detroit Motor Show to open its doors in January and finally get a proper look at the 2016 Cadillac CTS-V, the performance four-door sedan bruiser has been recently caught on film dropping hot laps on the Nurburgring Nordschlei...
Chevrolet Prepared Five Concept Vehicles for SEMA
20 Oct 2014, 11:49 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / General Motors' research and development focus may be currently channeled at the future Cadillac CT6 flagship sedan and all-new 2016 Chevrolet Camaro, but GM found the time to also prepare five performance-inspired concepts for the SEMA show i...
Renault Sport RS 01 Spied Going Flat Out at Monza
20 Oct 2014, 09:08 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / The Renault Sport skunkworks is best known for its super hot RS variants of the Twingo, Clio and Megane, but the division had a go at building a limited-run racing car recently. Known as the RS 01, this Batman-inspired machine will compete in its o...
2015 F-150 Pickups May be the Hottest Trucks We Will See at SEMA
20 Oct 2014, 08:29 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / As its name implies, the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) is the one of the most important tuning shows in the United States. But as it's often the case with big car shows such as this one, both tuning houses and big automakers wi...
Hennessey Supercharges the 2015 Ford Mustang, Starts from $14,950
20 Oct 2014, 07:29 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Compared to the model it replaces, the all-new 2015 Ford Mustang is one very handsome brute that's so much better than the breed of yesteryear. Even so, a 5-liter V8 with 435 ponies isn't something to get your pants on fire. That's w...
New Cadillac CT6 Rendering Doesn't Do the Flagship Sedan Justice
20 Oct 2014, 06:57 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Our talented pixel master and Photoshop wizard masterfully rendered the upcoming Cadillac CT6 flagship sedan back in September and it seems like someone on GMInsideNews forum has been paying attention to autoevolution's own rendering. It ma...
2016 Chevrolet Camaro Masterfully Rendered
19 Oct 2014, 17:15 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Every now and again, automotive renderings have a whiff of fantasy to them, which kind of spoils a gearhead's hopes and dreams of how a pre-production car will look in production-ready clothes. However, these 2016 Chevy Camaro renderings we...
2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Priced from $63,995
19 Oct 2014, 15:42 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / While the far prettier and similarly powerful 2015 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat is $4,000 less expensive, $63,995 will buy you the quickest, fastest and most powerful production sedan ever made. By all accounts, that's a crackin' deal for...
Porsche 919 Hybrid Le Mans Racer's Steering Wheel Explained: Buttons Galore
17 Oct 2014, 18:56 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / This year's edition of the FIA World Endurance Championship was a bit of a surprise, chiefly because Porsche returned to the competition after a long hiatus with a full-on LMP1-H contender - the 919 Hybrid. Even though it was raced on just thr...
52 Million Vehicles Recalled in the US Year-to-Date, That's One in Every Five Vehicles
17 Oct 2014, 16:55 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / All things considered, 2014 was the worst year in terms of vehicle recalls, especially in the U. S. of A. The previous yearly record was stood at 30.8 million cars back in 2004. However, 2014 saw the call back of a whopping 52 million vehicle, with...
2015 Ford Mustang Recalled Over Safety Belt Issue
17 Oct 2014, 15:59 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / Even though deliveries of the 2015 Ford Mustang started just a few weeks ago, the Blue Oval recently announced the first ever recall of the sixth-gen pony car. Thankfully, only 53 examples of the breed are affected by a rather minor electronic glit...
2015 Hyundai i20 Enters Production, First Deliveries Slated by Year's End
17 Oct 2014, 15:18 UTC · By: Mircea Panait / After it made its world debut earlier this month at the Paris Motor Show, the all-new Hyundai i20 B-segment supermini in Euro-spec guise has finally entered production. Though it's wearing Hyundai badges inside and out, the South Korean urban ...