There’s just something about a Volvo wagon that feels right. They usually aren’t the fastest or most opulent or most efficient or most gadget-rich cars on the road, but they usually have a certain mix of style, practicality, and comfort that’s hard to resist. The modern V90 is still an absolutely stunning machine with huge presence and a gorgeous interior, which explains its fairly strong resale value. Want an R-Design model in Bursting Blue? Be prepared to pay. Fortunately, I recently learned that there is a way of getting a largely similar car for much less cash: Buy one with cladding.

Nearly three decades ago, Volvo looked at what Subaru was doing with the Outback and thought “I’ll have what they’re having.” The result was the V70 XC, the latter two letters standing for “Cross Country.” This raised-up plastic-clad wagon was an instant hit, so it’s no surprise that the Cross Country lineage has continued through to models like the V90 Cross Country. It’s been raised by 2.3 inches over the standard V90, fitted with chunky fender flares, skirts and valences to shrug off stone chips and brambles, but is otherwise the same car as its low-slung brother.

This means you get those razor-sharp Thor’s Hammer headlights, an optional Bowers & Wilkins sound system that remains the benchmark for OEM premium audio setups, 53.9 cu.-ft. of cargo space with the rear seats folded down, and front seats that can fix your life, never mind your posture. Admittedly, I’m still not crazy about the screen-heavy tablet-style infotainment system, but at least it supports Apple CarPlay and Android Auto so you can plug your phone in and forget about much of the native interface. Beyond that, every switch is nicely damped, and every material from the open-pore wood to the silky leather feels quality, which makes a second-hand V90 Cross Country seem like a lot of car for less than $20,000.

Oh yes, while that sort of pricing does only get you an early model, you aren’t exclusively looking at examples with moon mileage. Check out this brown-over-blonde 2017 V90 Cross Country T6 up for sale in Massachusetts with all the toys you could really want. The phenomenal Bowers & Wilkins sound system, massaging seats, rear side window blinds, enhanced parking assistance, and the 316-horsepower twin-charged engine. All this for $18,500 with a clean history report. Even the mileage isn’t crazy for a near-decade-old car, with 121,373 miles on the clock working out to roughly the standard of 13,000 a year. Nice.

If mileage is more of a concern than cleanly blasting “Weird Fishes” so loudly that the neighbors get concerned, something like this 2018 V90 Cross Country T5 is probably more in your wheelhouse. It skips the supercharger to produce 250 horsepower from a two-liter turbocharged inline-four, has 92,674 miles on the clock, and is up for sale in Nashville, Tenn. for $17,896. Again, a lot of car for the money.

If you don’t care much about mileage and just want to ball on a budget, this particular 2017 V90 Cross Country T6 is diabolically cheap. To be specific, $10,699, and it even has the Bowers & Wilkins sound system specced. Why so cheap? Well, it’s a one-two punch of damage history and a whopping 193,792 miles on the clock. Still, if you’re feeling brave, make your way down to East Windsor, Connecticut, where this raised wagon is up for sale.

By now you’re probably wondering what the catch is here. After all, heavily depreciated European luxury cars are often diabolically expensive to run. Right you are, as these early V90 Cross Country examples sometimes suffered teething issues. That T6 twincharged engine doesn’t have the most robust supercharger on the planet, for example. A complete replacement kit with a new supercharger, gaskets, and an alignment tool currently costs $1,684.06 plus a $250 core charge from FCP Euro. Rarer but still known enough to be noteworthy is the air-con evaporator core. Some owners have reported it failing, and this is a properly expensive job as the whole dashboard needs to come out. The part itself is only $700, but the sheer time required to replace it can push labor costs into the thousands. On a more minor note, there’s a $68 coolant line that can go brittle with time, a $102 updated sunroof seal can stop annoying air leaks, and while the LED taillights are known for water ingress, aftermarket replacements are available at significantly lower cost.

Okay, so the Volvo V90 Cross Country isn’t the most reliable second-hand luxury car you can buy, but when it comes to large, luxurious wagons, it’s still rather tempting. Well-judged ride quality meets plenty of passenger space, a usable cargo hold, and sumptuous design inside and out. It’s relaxing to drive, exceptionally comfortable, and just a lovely object to live with every day. So long as you’re willing to take the brave pill and have a few grand set aside in case the air conditioning evaporator leaks, this is still a ton of car for the money. Didn’t know they were getting this cheap? Now you do.

Top graphic image: Autotrader seller

The post Why Did Nobody Tell Me That The Volvo V90 Cross Country Is Getting Tantalizingly Cheap? appeared first on The Autopian.

News Dungeon Crawler Carl

Peacock’s Dungeon Crawler Carl Series Has Found Its Princess Donut

Princess Donut has been cast before Carl himself

By Matthew Byrd

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Published on July 24, 2026

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At SDCC 2026, Matt Dinniman revealed that Jeff Hays has joined the planned Peacock adaptation of Dungeon Crawler Carl in the role of Princess Donut.

Hays will undoubtedly be a familiar name to fans of the Dungeon Crawler Carl books. He not only narrates the series’ audiobooks but produces them as well. While this is the only confirmed bit of casting for the series so far, it at least suggests that the show is going to stick fairly close to its source material wherever possible. If so, that would hardly be a surprise given how much its fans contributed to this series going from an entry in the still somewhat obscure LitRPG genre to a full mainstream hit.

And if you are not a Dungeon Crawler Carl fan, then just know that Princess Donut is a prized show cat (full name Princess Donut the Queen Anne Chonk) who accompanies Carl on his journey into the mysterious dungeon that appears following a transformative event. Much like Carl, Princess Donut undergoes quite a few changes in the Dungeon and emerges as one of the series’ best characters. The fact that Princess Donut was cast before Carl in the series kind of says something about the character’s fan-favorite status.

On that note, we really still don’t know much about that series outside of what was initially revealed relative ages ago. It’s going to premiere on Peacock, Matt Dinniman is creatively involved, and the series is produced by Seth MacFarlane’s Fuzzy Door. It seems likely that the series will make it to production given how absurdly popular the books have become, but we’ve of course seen stranger things happen in the world of literary adaptations. So we’ll all be keeping an eye open for any updates on this one.[end-mark]

The post Peacock’s <i>Dungeon Crawler Carl</i> Series Has Found Its Princess Donut appeared first on Reactor.

Last night, I saw Christopher Nolan’s three-hour long adaptation of O Brother Where Art Thou, set in the Bronze Age Greek world and titled The Odyssey. Christopher Nolan is, of course, a very good director and takes great care to insure that everything seen in the movie matches his vision perfectly. The entire film is a testimony to one man’s very specific vision of a particular part of the world at a particular time and place, which means that everything that shows up on that screen can be understood to be very carefully chosen.

And, of course, that includes the cars.

Like every other bit of scenery, prop, environment, and the overall mise-en-scène, Nolan has clearly very carefully curated the cars that appear in the movie, and I think he (and, of course, his team of some of the very best car-casters in Hollywood) have done a brilliant job. The cars chosen were absolutely not chosen at random; there is always some deeper meaning behind them.

One of the simpler ones is what you see up top there, where a Heinkel Trojan was used in a scene that takes place near the end of the Trojan War that kicks off the events of the whole movie. Maybe the use of a Trojan in this context feels obvious, but I think it’s a clever nod to the overall themes of the movie.

Similarly, the long panning shot of a battlefield’s aftermath and impromptu graveyard, showing the devastating human toll of the war, is deftly balanced out by the inclusion of that rare and wonderful Citroën 2CV Sahara, one of the dual-engined four-wheel drive 2CVs.

The car is very much at home in that arid, rugged environment, and its militaristic simplicity heightens the tone of the scene and establishes the context further. It just fits, and is masterful car casting on Nolan’s part.

At first I was a little taken aback by the use of an Oldsmobile Toronado in the scenes where the Trojan Horse, secretly packed full of Greeks (is this a spoiler? Do I need to do spoiler alerts for stories almost three millennia old?) is being dragged into the gates of Troy.

But, the more I thought about it, the more sense it made: there’s a power to the big V8 Toronado, one that reflects the power of Troy at that moment, during the actions that lead to their destruction. And, like the Trojan Horse, the Toronado holds a sort of secret, at least it did when it was first introduced, in the form of its front-wheel drive layout. I think that’s what Nolan is getting at here, and, as a gearhead, I appreciate it.

Nolan’s films are generally quite dark, something he has been criticized for in the past, and while I tend, generally, to agree that often his scenes feel too underlit and desaturated, sometimes there’s a Caravaggio-like chiaroscuro that these dramatically lit scenes take on that works phenomenally well.

Here we see a Volvo 240 with additional driving lights used to great effect in such a dark scene; you never really get to see the car clearly, and I think that just makes its use all the more powerful.

There’s a powerful scene of Odysseus finally making it back to the shores of Ithaca, where he is visited once again by the presence of the goddess Athena. The scene is one of finally getting a glimmer of hope after an incredibly long and torturous journey, and I love how Nolan emphasized this flickering spark of hope by having a yellow Amphicar swim by in the background, unmentioned but a potent reminder that this beleaguered man’s fortunes have, at least, the possibility of change, if he can live up to this long-sought outcome.

While I’d hesitate to say The Odyssey is a car movie, or even really about cars, I do respect the car casting and how appropriate and careful it all seemed to be. It would be really easy to make the cars feel like just some tacked-on afterthought in a movie like this, but Nolan managed to pull it off with an artful grace and an unexpected gravity.

Fantastic work. I definitely recommend you go see it, and if there are other cars that you think deserve special mention, let me know in the comments!

The Odyssey images: Universal Pictures

The post These Are The Best Cars From Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ appeared first on The Autopian.

Nintendo urged a court to dismiss a lawsuit demanding that it pass tariff refunds on to customers, saying that people who bought a Switch console or other products have no legal right to refunds that Nintendo is due to receive from the government.

Nintendo said in a motion to dismiss yesterday that plaintiffs are "ask[ing] this Court to invent a legal duty out of whole cloth to retroactively re-price completed sales simply because the legal landscape has changed." Nintendo said the plaintiffs "have no legal entitlement to the tariff refunds Nintendo stands to receive."

The lawsuit was filed in April by two customers who seek to represent a class of all US residents who bought Nintendo products from February 2025 to February 2026. California resident Gregory Hoffert and Washington resident Prashant Sharan filed the class action complaint in US District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleging unjust enrichment and a violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act's prohibition on unfair or deceptive acts.

"Nintendo engaged in unfair acts by: (i) raising prices due to tariffs; (ii) failing to disclose that it intended to seek tariff refunds; and (iii) retaining tariff refunds despite having passed the costs to its customers," the lawsuit alleged. In their unjust-enrichment claim, plaintiffs said Nintendo profits were "unjustly obtained as a result of its price increases on goods subject to unlawful tariffs." Nintendo raised prices for the original Switch console by $30 to $50 and added $5 to $10 to the prices of various Switch 2 accessories.

Nintendo told the court that "the doctrine of unjust enrichment does not apply when a party voluntarily pays a purchase price and receives a product in return." Nintendo said plaintiffs "received exactly what they paid for: Nintendo products that Plaintiffs knowingly and voluntarily purchased at the advertised price. Nor is there anything 'unjust' about Nintendo retaining money that it may receive from the government as tariff refunds. The fact that Nintendo stands to receive tariff refunds does not give Plaintiffs any legal entitlement to those funds."

Consumers paid price of Trump tariffs

A similar lawsuit was filed in May against Sony by plaintiffs who bought PlayStation consoles. Sony has not yet filed a motion to dismiss that case, which is in the Northern District of California, but is likely to fight it using similar legal reasoning as Nintendo's. Another lawsuit seeking tariff refunds for Xbox buyers was filed against Microsoft on July 17.

Many companies raised prices in response to tariffs imposed by President Trump. In February, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump illegally imposed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs, and the lengthy refund process began in April.

Trump imposed another round of tariffs after the Supreme Court ruling, and those tariffs were judged to be illegal by the US Court of International Trade. Ordinary residents of the US have paid the price of Trump's trade war.

"As it stands, Defendant has retained profits generated from its sales of products subject to tariff-related price increases and should not be permitted to retain those ill-gotten profits when it is seeking a refund of the duties it paid," the lawsuit against Nintendo said.

It's easy to see why consumers are angry about having paid tariff-inflated prices. The government isn't issuing refunds to any resident who indirectly paid for Trump's tariffs. The government refund portal set up after the Supreme Court ruling is for importers and authorized customs brokers.

Over 100 tariff lawsuits against businesses

Nintendo is one of many companies that sued the Trump administration in an attempt to make sure the government doesn't worm its way out of issuing refunds. The class action against Nintendo pointed to this lawsuit as evidence that "Nintendo stands to receive a windfall: it has already recouped tariff costs from consumers through higher prices, and it now stands in line to recover those same unlawful tariff payments from the federal government."

Lawsuits seeking refunds from companies aren't just being filed against gaming console makers. Since the Supreme Court ruling, "plaintiffs’ firms have filed more than 100 putative consumer class actions against businesses nationwide that have sought refunds of tariffs paid as a result of these now invalidated charges," said a July 9 article by Foley & Lardner lawyers. These cases have been filed in more than 30 federal districts in over 20 states, they wrote.

The legal theory behind the lawsuits is not specific to any industry. "Plaintiffs have filed class actions against companies across varying industries and points in the supply chain from food manufacturers to logistics providers. The specific allegations in each case differ, but the primary legal theory is the same: companies cannot pass tariff costs to consumers and retain government refunds for the same tariffs," Foley & Lardner lawyers Erik Swanholt and Kelsey Boehm wrote.

Holland & Knight lawyers wrote in a legal alert that "any business that both passed tariff costs through to customers and is pursuing government refunds could become a litigation target."

Nintendo tries to compel arbitration

With lawsuits in the early stages, no court has ruled on the core legal theories, Holland & Knight lawyers wrote. Businesses have several potential defenses, such as arguing that there can be no unjust enrichment when there is a contract between the parties.

"In many jurisdictions, unjust enrichment is unavailable where an express contract governs the parties' relationship," Holland & Knight partners Ashley Akers and Austin Rainwater wrote.

Businesses can also argue "that the challenged charges were imposed while the IEEPA tariffs remained legally effective and enforceable," the Holland & Knight alert said. "According to this view, the Supreme Court's subsequent decision invalidating the tariffs does not necessarily render charges collected before that decision unlawful or create a retroactive obligation to refund amounts previously paid."

Although the lawsuit against Nintendo did not allege breach of contract, the Holland & Knight alert said some of the tariff cases make this claim. "This is the principal claim in many shipping and logistics cases. Plaintiffs allege that tariff-related surcharges were not authorized under applicable shipping agreements, terms of service or tariff schedules," the law firm said.

Companies are likely to ask courts to enforce mandatory arbitration provisions contained in their terms and conditions, and Nintendo has already done so. Nintendo filed a motion to compel arbitration with Hoffert because of evidence that he "affirmatively accepted contractual agreements with Nintendo at least twice." Nintendo said in its motion to dismiss that it "expressly reserves the right to move to compel Mr. Sharan’s claims to arbitration if discovery reveals his claims are arbitrable."

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In case you missed it, which seems impossible but no judgements, David has been hard at work building a World War II Jeep essentially from scratch, using nothing but parts sourced on eBay. As his Jeep was coming together in its resplendent red-oxide primer finish, I was looking for a new radio-control project with an eye toward something affordable and fun to finish rather than a higher-performance (and more expensive) model. Tamiya‘s Wild Willy 2 made the short list, and the added fun of finishing it off as an extremely loose replica (just barely) of David’s Jeep made it my final choice as a fun build that would be even more fun to share with you for Toy Car Thursday.

If this is your first exposure to hobby-quality RC, please understand that there are much more detailed, realistic, and high-tech models out there, and the Wild Willy is very much a beginner fun-runner model – in case its cartoony chibi-style design wasn’t already getting that point across. I plan to do more advanced builds in future Toy Car Thursday installments (hopefully with a Traxxas TRX-4 soon) to show you what that end of the hobby spectrum looks like, but for now, let’s have some low-cost RC fun.

First, a little about the Wild Willy 2, or 2000 as it’s also called (so named because it came out in late 1999). That’s right, we’re building what is essentially a 27-year-old kit today – and you thought full-size automakers held onto platforms for a long time.

But remember, this is the Wild Willy 2, the sequel if you will. The original Wild Willy debuted in 1982, and was dubbed Tamiya’s first “stunt vehicle,” as its high center of gravity and short wheelbase made it a wheelie machine.

The Wild Willy 2 retains the look of the original, but is on the WR-02 chassis and replaces the original kit’s solid rear axle suspension with a fully independent design. Here’s what you’ll find when you open the box:

It’s pretty much standard for all RC hobbyists to grab the wheels and tires out of the box first. The WW2 gets squishy chevron tires pre-mounted to chrome wheels. Most RC models require the tires to be superglued to the wheels so they don’t peel off under cornering and acceleration loads, but the WW2 is mild enough that no gluing is required.

Most RC models’ bodies are vacuum formed from .040 clear polycarbonate for durability and light weight, and painted from the inside. The WW2 uses an injection-molded ABS body that is mostly unchanged from the original. The biggest difference is the grille, which sports horizontal openings instead of vertical – almost certainly to avoid licensing issues.

I do wish Tamiya molded the seat and fuel tank separately so they could be installed after painting, but oh well. The proportions are cartoonified, but it’s very nicely detailed and precisely molded.

The multi-piece body is assembled with screws, no gluing required. Digging deeper into the box, we find the assembly manual and parts bags. The bags are lettered to correspond with steps, and if you can handle a no. 2 screwdriver (JIS preferred, just get the Tamiya one), you’ll have no trouble – here, page through the manual yourself.

Like a static model kit, the plastic parts are attached to sprues. Numbers molded alongside the parts make it easy to ID what each step calls for.

You’ll need a little painting skill to get Willy close to his box-art look. He’s a pretty large figure compared to tiny 1/24 and smaller guys, so it’s really not that hard to achieve decent results. You can also see the NOS bottle, winch, steering wheel, and other accessories on the tree.

Willy’s a determined-looking guy, I gotta say.

A slight bummer for me is the factory-assembled gearbox. I wanted to do it myself, Tamiya! No matter, I can still take it apart. And why would I bother? So I can install ball bearings, that’s why. Nylon bushings are standard. You can see the installed Mabuchi 540 brushed motor, the quintessential stock motor for 1/10 scale models. Much, much faster (and brushless) motors are available, but for Wild Willy, the silver-can 540 is enough.

Tamiya supplies an electronic speed control made by popular brand HobbyWing, but you’ll need to provide a two-channel transmitter and steering servo to complete the model, as well as a battery and charger to power it.

Before any assembly, I did some disassembly and installed ball bearings in the transmission. This set was just ten bucks at Amazon.

The WW2 uses a gear differential, which I opened up so you can get a peek inside. The gears are pressure-cast metal.

Power is transmitted from the diff outputs to the rear wheels via “dogbones,” a simple solution that allows for smooth suspension movement and accommodates the change in distance between the wheel hubs and differential as the suspension cycles.

The WR-02 chassis is modular, with the front and rear subassemblies completed individually and then joined together.

It’s getting there …

Figure painting underway. If your hobby bench isn’t a mess, you’re doing it wrong.

Along with the ball-bearing upgrade, a wanted to give my WW2 a better set of shocks right from the get-go. I don’t mind plastic shocks, but the WW2’s friction-damped units are pretty meh. A screw head is pushed and pulled through a greased rubber sleeve to provide damping force. It works, kinda, but the feel is terrible.

I picked up a set of cheap aluminum oil-damped shocks when I ordered the ball bearings. Incredibly, I didn’t even need to fill them; they arrived full of oil, ready to install.

Plastic on the left, fancy aluminum on the right (obviously). In addition to better bump-eating ability, I also bought the shocks purely for a bit of anodized color amongst all the black.

Getting close! Just need to paint a few more details …

Et voila, there he is, Wild Willy ready to go wild.

Note the wheelie bar tucked between the shocks.

I’d give my figure painting job a firm six out of ten. I’d go higher, but the detail and realism the guys who score 10 can achieve is way too impressive for me to be higher than a six.

Willy’s got NOS! It’s not hooked up to anything, but he’s got it. I’ll make a little tubing for it on a rainy day.

Lots of fun! I’ll share video on socials when I get a chance to give Willy a good shakedown run. Hopefully you enjoyed hanging out for the build, and maybe you’re even inspired to build a Wild Willy (or Racy Tracy) of your own.

Story images: Peter Vieira
Top image graphics: Tamiya; Peter Vieira

The post David Built A Jeep In His Driveway, So I Built One In My Office appeared first on The Autopian.

It feels like it’s been ages since there was more than one model of Fiat on sale new in America. First, there was that stint when the only offering was the 500X. Next, there was that run when the only model available was the 500e. However, a second Fiat has crossed the Atlantic. It’s called the Topolino, it’s unbelievably cute, and we finally know what it costs.

Back up a second: What on Earth is a Topolino? Well, the name was originally associated with the mousey-looking 1936-through-1955 Fiat 500, but has since been applied to a more modern small, low-output machine. The Topolino we’re talking about here is a sibling to the Citroën Ami, a low-speed electric vehicle built in Morocco that serves as a cuter alternative to a golf cart.

We’re talking just eight horsepower here, and a standard top speed of a mere 19 MPH. Juice comes from a little 5.4 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, and the Topolino sports a modest range of 46 miles. Granted, there is a quicker version coming. Fiat’s planning to launch a street-legal kit this autumn that raises the top speed of the Topolino to a dashing 25 MPH. Enough to keep up with city traffic, but don’t you dare try to take one of these on the interstate.

While the Topolino normally features the exact same door assembly on either side of the vehicle, you can have Fiat leave them behind at the factory. Should you live in a particularly sunny locale, the marvellously camp Dolce Vita version swaps the doors for ropes and adds a canvas roof. Just enough elemental protection for a light shower, not quite enough for gale-force winds. Best of all, the beach car version doesn’t come at a premium. Both Topolino variants carry a sticker price of $14,985 including a $990 freight charge. Yep, essentially $15,000. However, in the world of golf carts, that’s surprisingly okay value.

Let’s say you want a two-seat Club Car with a comparable propulsion system. That would be the Club Car Onward 2 Passenger Li-ION XR, which starts at $14,099 before freight. For that money, you get a top speed of 19 MPH and comparable range to the Topolino, but you don’t get doors or side panels or rear panels. It’s also not exactly street-legal, but then again, neither are the earliest Topolinos at launch.

What about something more substantial? Say, a GEM e2. With street-legal tires, proper rollover protection, and a real windshield, it was arguably the most car-like of the golf cart crop before the Topolino came along. However, the GEM e2 starts at $15,240 before freight, and that doesn’t include doors.

As crazy as it sounds, the Fiat Topolino might actually be an alright deal. It’s priced competitively against similar golf carts while offering no-cost weather protection and a windscreen defroster. Sure, nigh-on $15,000 is still a lot of money to spend on something limited to roads with speed limits of 35 MPH or less, but it could steal some real sales in this sort of space. Of course, it’s no Changli, but then again, what is?

Top graphic image: Fiat

The post The Adorable Fiat Topolino Costs $14,985 In America. Here’s Why That’s Actually A Pretty Solid Deal appeared first on The Autopian.