Seen as a successor to the early ’90s Honda Beat kei car, the new S660 roadster, which will go into production in 2014, was introduced at the Tokyo Motor Show. The midengined car, as the nomenclature indicates, is powered by a 660cc three cylinder turbocharged engine driving through a seven speed paddle shifted transmission. While kei cars are meant specifically for the Japanese domestic market, there is a possibility that it might be sold, with modifications in other countries. Honda senior designer Ryo Sugiura, when asked about selling the little roadster outside of Japan, said, “I cannot tell you if it will or will not. It’s a secret. The car would certainly need some re-engineering.”  Read More >

The stagnant mid-size truck segment is about to get shaken up in a big way, as Chevrolet unveils the new Colorado mid-sizer at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

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Lexus has added a turbocharger to the LF-NX concept that it introduced at the Frankfurt auto show, calling the result the LF-NX Turbo and unveiling it at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show.

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Not many details have been released so far about the Subaru Cross Sport Design concept, which the company says is a combination of “sport” and “utility” and features “easy seat access, a comfortable interior, and abundant luggage space” and it’s supposed to show the direction forward for urban SUVs. They also could have said that it’s a stretched, jacked up BRZ station wagon, since with a horizontally opposed engine up front driving the back wheels, the Cross Sport Design is based on the sports car platform shared by Toyota/Scion and Subaru. Read More >

At the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show today, Subaru unveiled its Levorg concept, a sporty wagon that’s set to arrive in Japan next year but, unfortunately, isn’t likely to cross the Pacific.

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Ahead of its debut at both the Los Angeles and Tokyo Auto Shows, Jaguar has unveiled the F-Type Coupe, with a 550-horsepower F-Type R as the flagship.

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Mazda3 Skyactiv-CNG Concept

Last week,  Mazda CEO Masamichi Kogai said that the company had no plans for a production Wankel rotary anytime in the near future, though the company most identified with the engine that goes “hmmmm” will continue to do research on rotaries. Now, at the Tokyo Motor Show, Mazda is showing that its future powertrain plans include diesel, natural gas and hybrid drives.

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Jalopnik does it again, with this Edmunds-supplied leak of the Chevrolet Colorado. GM’s mid-size truck looks like it’s gotten a thorough cosmetic revamping compared to the global variants, but no word on what powertrains we’ll be getting.

Jalopnik managed to snag a promo image of the Subaru WRX driving in the dirt, thanks to a now disappeared Edmunds video. Looks like the “Impreza with a Guy Fawkes mask” styling is here to stay. Expect an official reveal at tomorrow’s Los Angeles Auto Show.

The ’91 GSXR 1100 was a feral beast. It had been tame once, well “mostly tame” anyhow, but the bike’s previous owner had stripped away the thin veneer that civilization had imposed upon it and restored it to its primeval form. It hadn’t taken much, really. Larger carburetors, performance cams and a full race exhaust had transformed the bike from a wickedly fast street machine into a full-race bike that, despite the license plates, had no business being on the street. Still, it had a sort of lethal charm that attracted men like me: confident, experienced, prideful. It was a battle of wills I would not lose. I was determined to master the bike and, like a living thing, the bike was determined to kill me. Read More >

Plans for a ressurected rotary engine appear to have hit a snag with Mazda CEO Masa-michi Kogai claiming that the required volumes for commercial viability are unrealistic.

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The naturally aspirated engine has always been a cornerstone of Honda’s engineering philosophy, but the company looks set to abandon that in the near future, with a move to turbocharged engines happening by the end of the decade.

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This week marks the 50th anniversary of the November 22, 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Shortly thereafter, the city of South Bend, Indiana suffered another tragedy: the announcement of the closing of the American factories of the 111-year old Studebaker Automobile Company on December 9, 1963. Over 7,000 local workers engaged in building the company’s Avanti and Lark models would lose their jobs – it was not the most joyous of holiday seasons in South Bend.

We will leave the story of Studebaker’s demise to other sources, like this fine article over at Ate Up With Motor. I traveled to Indiana recently to cover the Studebaker National Museum but discovered that fellow South Bend native Jim Grey had just written an excellent series about the collection for our friends at Curbside Classic. Undeterred, I decided to follow the story of one fascinating car on display and discovered some nutty tales from the company’s old test track, the Studebaker Proving Grounds. Read More >

If you haven’t read the first-ever Road & Track Performance Car of the Year story, I would highly recommend reading the Baruth-penned story, which gives any British buff book a run for its money, despite a dearth of derring-do heroics on Welsh backgrounds. Some of the most illuminating information comes not from the Disco Hoodied One himself, but from other R&T staffers. Take this choice quote about the Nissan GT-R for example:

There’s a lot of chuckling in the paddock over the blue seats and odd Track Edition badging on Nissans newest GT-R, but on the runway, it’s serious business. It’s also damn near the fastest car in the test. “It’s so good — and it used to be so terrible,” says Cammisa.

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Photos of the re-designed MINI Cooper have been leaked ahead of its debut at this week’s Los Angeles Auto Show. As you can expect, it looks a lot like the old car.

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