BY JAKE HOLMES, PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARPIX AND THE MANUFACTURER
The everyday sports car from Lotus.
Lotus has released full information and photos of its latest sports car, the Evora. Previously known only by its “Eagle” code name, the car was revealed at the British auto show. (more…)
BY TONY SWAN, PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM FRENAK
So here it is, the third and final entry in the 21st-century pony-car-revival derby. Get your bets down early because we don’t expect to see any more resurrections of famous makes from the galloping go-go Sixties—Barracuda, Firebird, Javelin, et al.—and even gloomier, we think it likely that, given fuel prices and other concerns, this revival is likely to lack the fervor and duration of the original movement. (more…)
BY JOHN PHILLIPS, PHOTOGRAPHY BY AARON KILEY
Antique Road Show: What would Andy Warhol drive?
This road test may be irrelevant. Which wouldn’t necessarily make it unique to the pages of C/D. This time, however, it isn’t our fault. See, Bentley is going to create only 550 Brooklands—delivering the final one toward the end of 2009—and 549 of them are already spoken for. The grand-touring coupe you see on these pages, in a color Bentley calls “Porcelain,” is the last copy for sale. Or was at the time this was written. (more…)
BY ALISA PRIDDLE
BMW adds a performance diesel to the U.S. lineup, but no seven-speed dual clutch.
BMW has released the first official pictures of the new 3-series sedan and wagon that will be unveiled this fall at the 2009 Paris auto show, prior to going on sale in North America in October. (more…)
BY AARON ROBINSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID DEWHURST
Day 2 Second and First Place: Extremists
2008 Porsche 911 GT2
Second Place: Extremists
Check it out: Black leather, red seatbelts, splashes of fuzzy Alcantara, deep-scallop buckets in glossy carbon-fiber shells, fish-gill vents, and flaring air snorkels on the wing posts. The GT2’s visual cues mix the subtle with the animal. (more…)
BY AARON ROBINSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID DEWHURST
It’s man against motherboard in this four-way flog of max-horsepower machines.
Behold four machines sitting on the pointy end of a horsepower skyrocket that lifted off sometime in the 1980s and hasn’t hit the chutes yet.
For now, anyone can buy these vehicles by flashing a valid driver’s license and a healthy checkbook. But this may be it. The last act. The apogee right before reentry, when post-peak oil prices and carbon-emissions limits and general economic malaise threaten to make memories out of 500-horsepower cars. Maybe someday you’ll bore grandchildren with tales of Porsche GT2s practically falling out of trees for just $198,875. Is it 1971 all over again? Who knows? Maybe you’ll be telling them from the back seat of their parents’ 700-hp minivan. (more…)
BY AARON ROBINSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGAN SEGAL
Quicker than a Subaru WRX, this new Lancer model offers fun on the run.
Mitsubishi knows the name Ralliart isn’t spoken with much reverence among American gasoline punks. That should change. Mitsubishi has watched Subaru ring up healthy sales with the mid-grade WRX, which neatly slots between the 87-octane Impreza and the high-test STI. (more…)
BY CSABA CSERE
Traction that finally matches the power and balanced handling.
As engine outputs have risen over the past 25 years, front-drive cars have migrated towards four-wheel-drive to give their over-burdened front tires a break. Even Saab has finally capitulated with this 9-3 Turbo X.
A Haldex 4.0 center coupling shifts as much as 90 percent of the engine’s 280-hp output to the rear wheels via electronically controlled wet clutches. Its little digital brain anticipates when power is needed in back even before the tires slip. An electronically controlled clutch pack in the rear diff prevents side-to-side slip, while the traction control takes care of the front wheels. (more…)
BY ALISA PRIDDLE
Suzuki to get pickup based on the Frontier.
At the risk of stating the obvious, Nissan finally confirms the pickup it will build for Suzuki is based on the Nissan Frontier and will be assembled at its plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, starting in 2008.
The two automakers reached an agreement in 2006 for Nissan to build a mid-size pickup for Suzuki to sell in North America as well as a version of the Nissan Serena mini-minivan for sale in Japan. In return, Suzuki was to produce a Nissan mini-vehicle for Japan and a new A-segment car for Europe. (more…)
BY ALISA PRIDDLE
This concept is a runner and could be built, if GM decides the design is right.
That Hummer plans to continue to downsize and create a Jeep Wrangler“sized H4 has been one of the worst-kept secrets in the industry. Each new Hummer entry has been smaller than the one before it.
But for three new designers at General Motors, the timing couldn’t have been better. The recent graduates of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit were hired by GM a couple years ago, about the time the automaker decided it wanted a concept in a new segment to augment the mid-size H3 and the full-size H2 SUVs. (more…)
