In 1991, Italian clothing maker Benneton released a controversial ad campaign. Huge billboards and full page magazine ads displayed rows of crosses in an American military cemetery, a priest kissing a nun on the lips, a black woman breast feeding a white baby and other images designed to shock even the most jaded sensibilities. In 1992, Benneton upped the ante with photos of a dying Aids victim, a Kalashnikov-wielding African guerrilla holding a human leg bone, a boat overcrowded with Albanians, a group of African refugees, a weeping family contemplating the bloody body of a Mafioso and two Indians caught in a Calcutta flood. “Reality advertising” had arrived. And now it’s here, courtesy of, of all companies, Chevrolet.

As part of the evaluative process, I cracked open the ES350's owner’s manual. Check it: there’s a "Lemon Law Guide" to help customers find legal recourse should their Lexus fail to, well, anything. Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to be a particularly useful part of the program. After all, under its swanky skin, the Lexus ES350 is little more than a reliable, durable and, let’s face it, forgettable Toyota Camry. Does that make the ES350 an example of the kind of badge-engineering that this site regularly condemns as lazy, cynical and brand corrosive? No, no and yes.

Upon first inspection, GP cars seem to be the automotive embodiment of modern thinking. Extreme aerodynamic development, lightweight materials of almost unimaginable strength, mind-boggling precision in both design and manufacture — they’re an astounding technological showcase on every level. But like all highly evolved organisms, the four-wheeled missile you see today is merely the way-point on a journey from the past to the future. In the most fundamental way, today’s F1 cars’ trace their lineage back to the very first GP cars.

Volvo arrived late to the SUV party, but they brought some killer tunes. The XC90 was a full-sized soft-roader CUV thingie before full-sized soft-roader CUV thingies were cool. Well, OK, it’s hard to argue that any Volvo was or ever could be “cool;” but the instantly recognizable ride was an instant hit with America’s safety-minded Soccer moms. Although the initial model sported a decidedly anemic five-cylinder engine, the company rectified the situation (for a price) with Yamaha’s V8; an inline six finally replaces the five banger for ‘07. Oh, and there’s a new, smaller XC60 coming too.

Leave it to the Germans. When it comes to resurrecting, producing and managing foreign niche marques, the Aktiengesellschaft do the job right. While German ownership is not without its faults (think BMW’s troubled relations with MG Rover), their batting average is league leading. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the pile… Not to put too fine a point on it, GM does European automobiles as convincingly as Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin sang O Sole Mio in karaoke; the results are muddled, embarrassing and on view for an international audience.

“It handles like a go-cart.” For the past five-years I’ve taken this description of the BMW’s born-again clown car’s dynamics at face value. Living in Los Angeles, I’ve seen more of these faux-Brits than Carnaby Streeters ever did. And I’ve often wondered if the MINI was small and extraordinarily nimble like its forbearer, or just plain small. Other than sipping cheap wine next to the trio of stunt cars used in the third Austin Powers movie, I’d never had a chance to get up close and personal with a MINI. More importantly, I’d never put the British-built roadster’s handling to the test– until this week, when RF charged me with the task of assessing the “old” new MINI before the “new” new MINI arrives stateside.

For many years, US President Abraham Lincoln thought that deporting slaves was the only workable solution to an intractable political issue. In 1861, a “colony” was established off the coast of Haiti for this purpose. Black families with no common language suddenly found themselves living together. The former slaves created their own language, complete with unwritten (but rigid) rules of grammar, tense, appellation, the lot. Semanticists have used this example to suggest that our brains are hard-wired to create shared linguistic constructs. I would suggest that the same genetic predisposition applies to tuner cars. Something new and wacky appears on the automotive scene, like low-riders, donks or VIP style. The next thing you know, a growing number of participants exert their collective unconscious on the movement, creating unwritten (but rigid) rules for what’s acceptable, what unacceptable and what’s da bomb. Strangely enough, the same process applies to vehicles that haven’t been tuned. After all, who decided what makes a Merc a Merc? Maybe that’s why I like my cars bone stock: I figure it’s the purest expression of the manufacturer’s aesthetic. Either that or I’m boring. But then I have owned Ferraris. As discerning rappers will agree, why would you want to mess with that?  

During my soujourn on the other side of the pond, I was delighted to score an early drive in the new CL550. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm was somewhat blunted by the French Mercedes salesman’s incessant questioning. He kept interrupting my concentration to ask me how to adjust his seat massage system. Then, thanks to his oafish fiddling with the car's COMAND navigation system, I was distracted by a computerized frenchwoman ordering me to make a U-turn s’il possible. I contemplated pulling over sur le grand-rue to garrote both of my companions, but I couldn’t find a Parisian parking space of sufficient enormity to berth the German dreadnought. Tant pis pour moi.

According to the highly credible “Ford and GM set to merge” journalists over at Automotive News, The General has agreed to pay bankrupt parts supplier Delphi’s remaining union workers an unspecified amount of money for an unspecified amount of time to avoid a planet-killing strike. Yes, it’s The Mother of All Extortion Pay-Offs– providing you don’t count that huge pile of money GM’s already agreed to pay twenty thousand not-so-dearly departed members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) who labored on behalf of Delphi. And here’s the funny part: that’s the good news. 

A four wheel-drive Ferrari? On one hand, it sounds like a bald-faced betrayal of Ferrari's brand proposition: extreme rear wheel-drive performance cars prone to lurid oversteer slides into solid objects and/or mid-engined marvels that snap into gyroscopic spins that scrub off a bit of speed before sliding into a solid object. Ferrari claims their new system won't detract from their products' traditional balls-out driving dynamics. But one wonders if Ferrari buyers will soon be talking about "the good old days," when you had to be a "real man" to drive a Ferrari at speed. Remember: it took Porschehiles years to get over the fact that their ass-engined 911's were no longer magnetically attracted to the scenery. Still, as I pointed out to Mr. Spinelli in today's talkfest, it's in Ferrari's best interest to keep their customers alive. Besides, Vee Dub's Bugatti Veyron proved that putting power to all four wheels is an excellent way to make a 1000hp car go in the direction its driver intends. Does this mean the new four wheel-drive system will help Fezza make an even more monstrous car than the Enzo or, maybe, the big Bug? Count on it.  

General Motors is at it again. After failing to flog captive imports from Opel, Isuzu and Suzuki, The General’s drafted in Daewoo to give Chevy’s “American Revolution” something to sell. Considering GM’s lack of success with captive imports in the past, and Daewoo’s Titanic troubles in the US market, you have to wonder about RenCen’s reasoning vis-à-vis the rebadged machine known on this side of the Pacific as the Chevrolet Aveo. Has GM made yet another logistical mistake, or will they have the last laugh as vendors of the only domestic nameplate selling a high-mileage subcompact car in the US?

Rabbits are renowned for their reproductive skills. Clever ads for Volkswagen’s long anticipated A-platform hatch show city-dwelling Rabbits multiplying by the dozens. Ironically, the tiny population of US-bound Volkswabbits is hardly bound to satisfy demand, never mind dominate the landscape. A prospective buyer is lucky to sample Wolfsburg’s new bunny prior to placing an order, and then faces a wait of around 60 days. VW dealers couldn’t care less; nurturing understandably impatient leads is hardly worth the pennies of revenue it generates. So, with lukewarm fanfare, scarce availability and laughable profit, the Rabbit is back.

I arrived at the Paris Mondial de L’Automobile too late for the press days. Big mistake. My first attempt to gain entry to the second largest auto show in the world fell on a weekend. I could barely squeeze through the entry gates, let alone get up-close-and-personal with the more attractive models. So I retreated into the Metro, vowing a working week return. Monday morning proved a bit more relaxed, although by midday the crush returned. Luckily, there were a few machines worth the scrum.

Subaru is hard at work on the successor to the legendary Impreza WRX. Spy photographers recently caught several camouflaged test vehicles strutting their stuff. The shots lead us to believe that the new car will be a hatchback, drawing its design inspiration from the ’00 B5-THP concept car. The change from four doors to five will throw the WRX STI against cars like the Volkswagen Golf GTI, Opel Astra OPC and Ford Focus ST. Do the European and American hot-hatches stand a chance?

My first car was a golf cart, courtesy of The Ocean Reef Club. Actually, props to the parental units. They handed me the key to the open-sided electric conveyance, slipped me a charge-worthy room card and gave me the run of the joint. The cart was surprisingly peppy and the freedom it imparted almost got me laid by a startlingly attractive college girl– an astounding piece of happenstance given that the average Club member was older than cuneiform. And as I returned to our bungalow after this almost getting laid experience, Homone-Crazed Endorphin Boy over-cooked it in a corner and crashed. Neither cart nor driver were damaged, but the accident taught me a valuable lesson: avoid vehicles with three wheels. Of course, the new Mitsubishi electric car is likely to have four wheels, reasonable acceleration, respectable range and some airbags. How great is that? Maybe not as great as a gas-sucking AMG monster, but in certain circles, well, you'd be in like Flynn. Life's funny that way.