Volkswagen’s 40th anniversary model of its Golf GTI will be shown this year in Frankfu — and they’re probably already all gone.

The GTI Clubsport carries the same 2-liter, turbocharged, four-cylinder engine found in the current GTI, but increases its output to 261 horsepower (290 horsepower when overboosted). Power is shifted through a six-speed manual or six-speed DSG automatic.

In addition to being a turbocharged manual hatchback, the GTI Clubsport hits the fanboy superfecta: It won’t go on sale in the U.S.

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On Tuesday night, Toyota dropped the new Prius from the sky in Las Vegas in front of journalists (we guess our invite got lost in the mail, Toyota?), “social influencers” and bartenders, because most of them had already seen the leaked photos that you have too. 

The 2016 Prius is a little Mirai, a little Corolla and a whole lot of vague right now. Toyota didn’t detail any of the car’s official specs or price, but according to CarNewsChina the 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine and electrons in the back combine for 150 horsepower and will propel the car up to 60 mpg. According to the report, the Prius will also travel up to 34 miles on electricity alone.

Even though the car won’t go on sale until early next year, Toyota is ramping up production at its plant with “unprecedented” levels of overtime.

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* for $450,000 or so.

Audi announced Wednesday that it would make available its race-winning R8 LMS GT3 car for anyone comfortable with its $443,348.12 price tag and access to the race series for which this car is appropriate.

For your cool half-mil you get the R8 LMS, presumably that wing, some spare parts and 585 of the loudest horsepowers you could imagine. Customers can order their cars starting today. (Take a check?)
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Cadillac will release later this week the first “official” looks at its replacement for the SRX — the XT5 — before unveiling the car first in Dubai, and then shortly after in Los Angeles. Autoblog first reported that the XT5 would be shown in Dubai.

The Dubai International Auto show will be held Nov. 10-14, and the Los Angeles Auto Show will be held Nov. 20-29 for the public, with a preview for media on Nov. 17.

The XT5 has already been extensively photographed in the wild before (See above. And go ahead, Google it if you want to see more, we’ll wait right here) so the reveals this week and in November may be a little anticlimactic.

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The 2016 Chevrolet Volt won’t be released nationwide this year, General Motors told Autoblog after purported pictures of a delivery timeline showed that only 11 states would receive the 2016 model year were published by HybridCars.

Only 11 states: California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, will see the 2016 car, according to the document. Dealers in California have already begun accepting orders for the car.

Prospective buyers in the 39 other states (presumably Puerto Rico and Guam, too) will have to wait until next year to get their cars.

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Slate has a story about hit-and-run crashes in China that proves that truth is usually stranger than fiction.

Geoffrey Sant, who teaches law at Fordham and is on the board of the New York Chinese Cultural Center, details a trend among Chinese drivers to kill the people they hit with their cars to keep from paying millions in medical costs over their lifetimes. Often, the drivers plead ignorance — that they thought it was a bag of trash, or a box — and rarely serve significant jail sentences.

Incidents captured on video show drivers sometimes backing over their victims several times to insure that they’ve been killed, according to the report.

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Rolls-Royce took the cover off its new Dawn convertible (see what we did there?) Tuesday in an online reveal ahead of its debut at the Frankfurt Auto Show.

The car, which is powered by a 6.6-liter V-12 that produces 563 horsepower and 575 pound-feet of torque married to a ZF 8-speed transmission, is Rolls-Royce’s answer to what we’ve all been asking: How can I be even more noticeable in my Roller?

Here’s your answer: A 22-second folding “silent ballet” droptop with open-pore wood tonneau, hand-stitched leather everywhere, 16 speakers and self-closing doors.

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Julien Montousse, the man who designed the interiors of the new Miata and Mazda6 for Mazda, and the last-generation Camaro for General Motors, will lead the automaker’s California design team, Mazda announced Tuesday.

Montousse takes over for Derek Jenkins, who left the company in July for a “stealth project” according to Automotive News, who cited Jenkins’ LinkedIn page.  (Read More…)

Porsche announced on Sunday that when its new 2017 Porsche 911 Carrera and Carrera S go on sale in March 2016 they’ll be force-fed air through twin turbochargers — and not naturally aspirated like nature intended.

Instead of a 3.6-liter flat-six behind its rear wheels, the new 911 Carrera and Carrera S will sport a twin-turbocharged, 3-liter, flat-six engine. (Porsche didn’t directly specify in its statement the engine’s number of cylinders, so if you want to play a fun game today, read how some outlets have written around it.)

As our own Tim Cain points out, the output of the new turbocharged Carrera and Carrera S, which is 370 horsepower and 420 horsepower respectively, is shockingly close to the 415 horsepower produced by the 996 Turbo from 2000.

Unsurprisingly, Porsche boosted the price too — a new Carrera will run $89,400 before delivery and options, which is more than $5,000 dearer than the current generation.

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Nissan on Monday released a teaser of a new crossover concept car that will be unveiled this month at the Frankfurt Auto Show.

The crossover, which Autocar suggested could be the next Z, could also be its next-generation Juke, which should be updated by 2017.

According to the automaker, the concept could be a “new way to feel driving excitement” (Nissan left it open to the reader) because some of us get hot and bothered when we see a crossover.

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Seven spectators are dead after a rally car plunged Saturday into a crowd of 20 people, killing at least seven and injuring at least 12 more, media outlets are reporting.

The BBC reported that six people were initially dead after the crash in the province of Galicia, which is in northwest Spain. The Daily Mail reported that a young girl who was severely injured in the crash died from her injuries Saturday night.

The La Coruna rally was immediately cancelled after the deadly crash.

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Speaking at the Formula One Italian Grand Prix this weekend, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles CEO Sergio Marchionne told Reuters that a merger with General Motors was at the top of his list.

“That discussion remains a high priority for FCA,” Marchionne told Reuters. “We consider it to be the best possible strategic alternative for us and for them. General Motors does remain the ideal partner for us and we represent a not easily replaceable alternative for them.”

(Emphasis mine. But what are the other “strategic alternatives?”)

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California electric vehicle drivers may pay $100 more in registration fees each year under a proposed bill that aims to raise $3.6 billion each year through gas taxes and fees that would repair and maintain California’s roads, according to the Associated Press (via Autoblog).

The proposed fees would be a sweeping reform to transportation funding that would increase California’s gas taxes by $0.10 per gallon, add $35 to vehicle registrations and increase vehicle fees by 35 percent over five years.

Already, gas and oil companies are lining up against the proposal. (Read More…)

AutoNation won’t sell any cars with open recalls, used or new, at its dealerships, according to Automotive News.

AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson said the costly policy would mean that roughly 5 percent to 10 percent of cars on its lots would be unsellable at any one time. The change in policy for AutoNation comes while different bills work their way through Congress that could prohibit used car dealers to sell cars without recall repair work.

“The recall situation for the U.S. auto industry is a black eye. It is a dysfunctional nightmare that the industry should be ashamed of, and customers are right to be angry and confused,” Jackson told Automotive News. “As part of the industry, we have to hold a mirror up and say, ‘What can we do better as a company?'”

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Toyota announced Friday it would invest $50 million in research facilities at Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study and develop artificial intelligence for future safety and autonomous driving.

The facilities will teach computers to recognize and monitor objects — a swerving car vs. a parking one was provided as one example — on the road that drivers are too busy for because “Candy Crush.”

The joint programs at MIT and Stanford will first develop enhanced safety systems designed to “share control” with drivers and computers. Eventually, researchers believe, people will just forget that they care and give up driving to the robots.

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