The Paris Five. All aborted

Another inspiration for wet dreams of easily impressed juvenile car bloggers is dying, is bleeding to death and has a “do not resuscitate” note nailed to the head.  Lotus has been given up for dead.

Blogs from autoevolution all the way to our sister pub Autoguide reprint the happy PR fluff that Lotus wants to “boost sales five times by 2015.” With sales crawling along at homeopathetic 1,043 units allegedly produced in 2012, making 5,000 by 2015 doesn’t sound like such a big deal. Trust me, it is if you want to sell them also. By 2015, the Lotus cars will still be sitting on technology that is ripe for the museum, and there is no relief in sight. Only poor car bloggers would be a target group ripe for a 20 year old Lotus – if sold used, preferably with a salvage title. (Read More…)

GM’s new large pickups might be locked up at NAIAS, but they were wide open at the launch event I attended last month. The event included three presentations: one of both trucks together, then one each from the two marketing teams explaining how their truck was different…by saying pretty much the same thing. Both Chevrolet and GMC truck buyers have perfectly organized garages where you can eat off the floor. People with messy, disorganized garages must buy someone else’s truck.

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What better way to start of the Bodacious New Year than featuring a classic European sedan that, well, isn’t exactly trimmed out in the classic “Ab Werk” fashion.

Nevertheless, a weathered old-resto with a few period-contemporary bits, does, in itself, define a unique fashion niche—in a SoLA kind of way. As near as I can figure, this mid-late ‘60’s Mercedes-Benz 108-bodied 250 SE underwent a pretty thorough restoration sometime back in the ‘80’s—at which point it was considered a classic in it’s own right, and worthy of such attention. (Read More…)

Someone posted this photo, presumably of the production Cadillac ELR. We won’t be the first to break an embargo but the cat’s out of the bag…

GM China had a near-miss with Volkswagen this year. It scraped by being relegated into second place in China by reporting 26,128 units more than Volkswagen. VW’s 2.81 million cars sold in China were rounded, GM’s 2,836,128 were reported to the last unit. (Read More…)

Volkswagen has ended the year on a strong note. Shrugging off the troubles at home in Europe, Volkswagen increased its global group sales by a respectable 20.7 percent in December of 2012, bringing its global group sales for the year above the 9 million mark at an 11.2% increase compared to 2011. (Read More…)

Tucked away in the corner of Fiat’s booth was the Serbian-built 500L.  The most striking part of the car was the interior – it’s much more subdued than the regular 500, lacking the flashy, colorful hard plastic dash surfaces. It looks more Dart than Fiat, really.

Canadians have long been privy to a stripped down, lease-special BMW in the form of the 320i. Thanks to BMW’s insatiable quest for volume, Americans will be too. For $33,445, you’ll get a 180 horsepower turbo 4-cylinder and an 8-speed automatic, with a 34 mpg highway rating. And the unbearable stigma of the 320i badge.

In the nascent contest between the Lexus IS and Infiniti Q50, the Infiniti appears to be in the lead. Full details here, thanks to our guest editor Mark Stevenson

Lincoln tries to do an Evoque by taking a Ford platform and an Ecoboost engine while going heavy on the premium.

Any hopes of taking a look at the interior of GM’s full-size trucks were dashed, as GM briefly opened the doors up for pictures and then promptly locked them. Come on guys, what have you got to hide? Even Lexus had the doors of the $445,000 LFA Nurburgring Edition opened.

Someone at Nissan left the new Versa Note aka Versa Hatchback uncovered.

Fresh off a PR campaign to rename every new vehicle in their line-up, Infiniti has shown their new model with the updated Q-numeric model designation: the 2014 Infiniti Q50.

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“Oh yeah, that’s my new BMW 428i sDrive” doesn’t sound nearly as cool as “328is” does it? Didn’t think so.

Why does this Bentley have a hashtag on the license plate? Maybe this will become a new trend in locales where license plates can fetch millions of dollars…which also happen to be big markets for ultra-luxury brands.