The Cars World Blog

Despite their economic woes and cutbacks, GM announced in late April that the Corvette brand would be continue pushing the performance envelope with their 2010 models, including reviving the Grand Sport moniker and the introduction of a GT-R-esque launch control system. (That, if used, won’t void the manufacturer warranty - much to the approval of enthusiasts who thought the fact that using the launch control on the GT-R would do just that was simply stupid.)

The appearance of the Grand Sport and new technology shows that GM is still very much invested in furthering the development of the Corvette brand. That said, many current Corvette owners are either holding on to their current Corvettes - either holding out for the much-rumored C7 or just choosing not to add a new car payment to their checkbook. Some, perhaps, are Corvette enthusiasts or Corvette collectors that think demand for their particular model year will rise if GM keeps cutting production. And some are just taking advantage of dealer incentives and tax breaks to pick up the car of their dreams, and snatching up the remaining 2009 C6’s at unbelievable prices. Read the rest of this entry »

BY AARON ROBINSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGAN SEGAL

Change! It was the hottest thing last year, and anyone selling it did good business in a soft market. Sure, the new Mazda 3 has more emotion, more refinement, and a bit more power, but otherwise it’s basically the same thrifty little corner darter as before. Summon the firing squad. Read the rest of this entry »

BY RAY HUTTON

There have been endless predictions that the famous and once-revered Alfa Romeo marque would return to the U.S., having departed in 1995. And later this year, it is really going to happen—with just 84 cars from a limited production run of 500. The $250,000 8C Competizione is a special-edition, two-seat sports coupe that will serve as a kind of ambassador for the line of Alfa cars that should follow. Read the rest of this entry »

BY TONY SWAN

Are you ready for a Ferrari to drive to the office, the mall, the beach, the slopes—anywhere, everywhere? That’s the concept behind this revival of a name from Ferrari’s storied past—a fast GT that supplies style, panache, plenty of performance, and thanks to its folding hardtop and “two-plus” interior layout, an unusually high level of all-around usefulness. Read the rest of this entry »

BY JON YANCA

They say opposites attract and the relationship between Smart and Brabus is further confirmation. Known for tuning Mercedes-Benz vehicles well into the 600-plus-horsepower range, Brabus announced at the L.A. auto show that it will offer a tuned Smart Fortwo in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »

BY STEVE SILER

Aston shows that it has little trouble doing what Porsche clearly can’t: build a beautiful four-door sports car.

While we still haven’t received official information on the upcoming Aston Martin Rapide super sedan, Aston Martin has released a pair of computer-generated images following two weeks during which leaked images found their way onto the sites of numerous online publications. And though they are not actual photographs, they are revealing enough to confirm that, unlike that of the Porsche Panamera, Aston Martin’s sex-a-licious form vocabulary is indeed scalable to four-door proportions. Read the rest of this entry »

BY JENS MEINERS

If the 911 is the quintessential Porsche, then the weight-optimized and more powerful—yet naturally aspirated—GT3 is the quintessential 911. But its aficionados needed patience; while the more humble versions of the 911 were updated last summer, the GT3 and Turbo have soldiered on without changes. Read the rest of this entry »

BY TONY QUIROGA, PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM DREW AND THE MANUFACTURER

Some might call it the “poster effect”—when you finally see a Lamborghini in person after years of only seeing them on posters, the effect is childlike giddiness. The jump from wall art to reality is mesmerizing, and the crazy origami spaceship with Lamborghini badges sitting in our parking lot doesn’t disappoint. Paint one metallic white—sorry, make that Bianco Monocerus, which literally means “white single-horned beast”—and it amplifies the folded-paper look of the latest Gallardo LP560-4. Read the rest of this entry »

The Jetta shares much of its underpinnings with the Rabbit/GTI hatchbacks. It sits between the Rabbit and Passat in Volkswagen’s lineup. The Jetta is the only nonluxury German small sedan and wagon for sale in the U.S., and it offers a stiff chassis, sporty handling, and clean styling inside and out. The Jetta SportWagen—that’s VW-speak for station wagon—is new this year. Read the rest of this entry »

BY STEVE SILER

At a GM press conference long enough ago that we don’t remember when or where it was, GM confidently made the then-preposterous assertion that it wanted Buick to become America’s Lexus. We may have laughed and not even bothered to write it down, but we didn’t forget the idea. And in the years since, we’ve been looking for evidence of Buick’s march toward matching the enigmatic Japanese brand’s level of comfort and quality—and maybe even cachet. Could the 2010 LaCrosse, Buick’s new mid-size sedan making its debut at the 2009 NAIAS, be it? Read the rest of this entry »