TTAC tipster Sydney (of combustionchamber.net) says he saw this bowtie-branded version of what appears to be a Holden Commodore Series II on his “local NBC affiliate,” and snapped this picture. He writes

It has features from the Series II Commodore and though the picture is kind of grainy, I can assure you that it looks complete and not digitally enhanced in any way, including the bulges on the bumper strike face, which don’t appear to have translated that well from the photo I snapped of my TV. Also, the car is clearly Left Hand Drive.

Did he and a local TV station accidentally bust the embargo on this much-hyped “return of the G8”?

UPDATE: No, this is not an official image. The TV station simply ran footage of what we believe to be a forum photoshop. Higher quality image here. Know the source of this photo? Let us know!

Model S Alpha Hits the Road from Tesla Motors on Vimeo.

Elon Musk’s desire to see “every car on the road” driven by electricity is briefly realized in this video of the Tesla Model S “Alpha” prototype testing somewhere in the coastal hills of California. Tesla’s “Alpha” phase of testing began last year, and will be followed by a “Beta” test phase before the Model S goes into production. More videos on the Model S and its technical components can be found at Tesla’s Vimeo page.

The Cobo Consensus on Toyota’s recently-released Prius V seemed to be a nearly-unanimous “nice, but couldn’t they have done more?” Unused to the Japanese and European-market practices of building a number of slightly-varying models on compact and subcompact platforms, the American press seems to agree that 60 percent more luggage space does not a new model justify. Which may be why word of this similarly-expanded Honda Fit “wagon” has yet to break into the stateside autoblogosphere. Or, it may be the fact that Autoexpress isn’t necessarily the most reputable source of leaked images. Either way, Honda’s B-segment MPV is an intriguing entry… if only as a Euro-market curiosity.

I didn’t get to spend much time with Chrysler’s revamped lineup at last week’s NAIAS, but my lovely assistant did take me on a brief tour of the lowlights: wiggly-jiggly dials, door handles that feel like they’re about to fall off in your hand and other overlooked details. Anyone can accuse me of anti-Chrysler bias, but in the preconception-free words of the light of my life (a non-TTAC-reading architectural historian), the updated 2011 Chrysler Group models were “the weakest bunch of cars at the show.”

Her harsh words were vindicated on the flight home, when a perusal of the latest Motor Trend (February 2011, featuring the news of late November 2010) struggled to justify the first part of its headline COMEBACK!: Can Chrysler Make It Stick This Time? Though MT gave the new ChryCo its best dose of pro-Detroit generosity (for example, determining that the 2011 Charger R/T is a “proper” transmission away from earning E39 M5-like “reverence”), nearly every write-up ended with a question or a qualification. And if MT isn’t willing to definitively say that these products will save Chrysler, who will? Apparently not CEO Sergio Marchionne, who is already hyping the products behind the next door…

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Mitsubishi is set to release a “mid-term” global business plan in the coming weeks, and the company says it will use that opportunity to resolve the lingering questions about its Normal, Illinois plant. Automotive News [sub] reports that four midsize (PS) platform vehicles currently built their will give way to a “new family of vehicles” based on the firm’s compact (GS) platform that currently underpins the Lancer, Outlander and Outlander Sport. The only problem: Mitsu’s midsizers will have to struggle along until April 2013, by which time the model changeover will be complete. Mitsubishi Motors North America has dismissed the report as “speculation,” but frankly, wouldn’t you be more surprised to see a new “family” of compact Mitsus in less than two years? Meanwhile, breakeven at the 240k unit capacity Normal plant has already been lowered to 70k units, but only about 27k vehicles were built there last year. With less than ten percent of Mitsubishi’s global sales volume coming from the US, maybe it would be better if Mitsu simply called it a game… but instead the firm is “planning” to quadruple sales volume. And hey, why not?

Rather than host its event at a booth-side stage, Ford booked the Cobo Arena for its highly-produced (yet not without its stumbles) presentation. It began with the usual corporate propaganda, centering around the “One Ford” theme and highlighting the Blue Oval’s global operations. Then Alan Mulally zoomed into the middle of the arena in a 2012 Focus ST and, to gales of spontaneous sycophantic applause, began introducing the K-Car-like range of future products based on Ford’s Global Compact platform.

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How’s this for a way to kick off a car show? The Porsche 918 RSR looks tastier than the complimentary breakfast that preceded its launch this morning, all gullwings and gleaming sidepipes. Its direct-injected V8 makes 563 HP at a dizzying 10,300 RPM, and electric torque-vectoring motors on the front wheels add a combined 150 kW, for a total power output of 767 HP. Porsche says the interior is more “gentleman’s racer”-oriented than the 918 Concept… but what gentleman makes his consort sit atop the energy-storing flywheel that replaces the passenger seat? And don’t get us (specifically Jack Baruth) started on the copious 917 references in Porsche’s promotional literature. Still, this Porsche is hard not to like… right down to the giant orange “Hybrid” splashed across its rear wing.

Speaking of platform-sharing between brands, Volkswagen’s division of labor debates have been progressing this year with the result that Audi will develop the conglomerate’s SUVs, while Porsche is in charge of sportscar development, as well as the erector set that will become VW’s modular platform menace. Future luxury sedan development (think Porsche Panamera, Lamborghini Estoque and Bentleys)  are also said to be the purview of Porsche, although the German newspaper Der Spiegel recently revealed that

Volkswagen’s boss recently decided that, in 2014, the brand will distance itself from sportscars, instead offering a sedan based on the Audi A8.

Which is an interesting choice. After all, the king of über-luxury sedans, the Rolls Phantom, is based on a unique platform, whereas the A8 shares greasy bits with even the lowly Volkswagen Phaeton. Initially the Bugatti sedan strategy was to build the most expensive luxury sedan (as envisioned by the Galibier Concept) on the market to out-Phantom the Phantom, while (VW-owned) Bentley nips at its heels with the new Mulsanne, but that plan fell apart as a worldwide recession took hold. Now the idea seems to be to create something considerably more modest and brand-engineered… which doesn’t sound like much of a payoff for the most superlative of modern brands. We’ll just have to wait and see where this goes.

Mass SUV consumption may have been weaned over to car-based Crossovers, but pickup trucks are still hugely popular and a major challenge for automakers facing steep increases in government CAFE standards.The average 2010-model American pickup truck weighs nearly 5,000 lbs, making it some 22 percent heavier than its equivalent ten years ago. Thanks to that weight gain, average pickup truck efficiency has improved by a paltry two percent since 2000. This year, the fleetwide light truck fuel economy standard was 24.9 MPG, but by 2016 light trucks will need to average about 30 MPG to comply with already-set CAFE increases, and could face another sharp increase by 2025. As a result, it seems that the era of cheap pickups may be coming to an end. Though the Detroit automakers say hybrid and plug-in drivetrains will help, it’s clear that more than anything else, trucks need to lose weight. That’s where things start getting expensive…

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With the second collapse of a Mahindra US-market initiative this year, some might believe that the Indian automaker has abandoned all efforts to make a good name for itself in the USA. And certainly, the implosion of its Pickup truck distribution deal with Global Vehicles looks difficult to salvage, given that both sides are locked in a legal dispute. Needless to say, when GV dropped us an email hyping a Spring 2011 launch for US-Market Mahindra products, we were more than a little skeptical. Now, however, the delay might have a legitimate explanation. According to Mahindra’s Arun Malhotra, senior vice-president for sales and customer care, speaking at the launch of the Mahindra Thar (see video above)

We are working on a lot of models. There will be a pick up on a completely new platform. We plan to bring it in the second [quarter] of 2011. It will be positioned near the top-end of our commercial vehicle pickup range, with a payload capability of above 1 tonne.

This seems to indicate that Mahindra is replacing its 1.2-ton Scorpio-based trucks (known in Australia as the “Pik Up”) with an all-new model before launching in the US. In other words, this is the first actual, legitimate reason for the endless delays to Mahindra’s US launch. Still, as the video of the Thar launch proves, Mahindra could probably make use of this (hopefully) final delay to work on their launch skills.

Kia has been targeting Scion for some time now, having built a better xD with the Soul, and taking on the tC with its Forte Koup. Now Kia seems to be going after Scion’s last (relatively) uncontested model, the xB, with this NAIAS-bound concept called KV7. And though there are clearly some concept elements to the design which won’t make production (hello Gullwing), Kia’s statement accompanying this teaser image notes

For the past several years Kia Motors’ design-led transformation has been delivering production vehicles – such as the Soul, Forte Koup and Sportage – that bear a very close resemblance to the original concept designs that preceded them. At the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Kia will make another dramatic design statement with the world debut of an all-new, convention-challenging concept vehicle named “KV7.”

When Chrysler re-launched under Fiat, its Five Year Plan called for the Italian automaker’s dual-clutch transmissions (known at Fiat as Twin Clutch Transmission, or TCT) to make their way to the group’s D-segment models by the end of 2010. But here we are, at the end of 2010, and the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Intrepid have not been equipped with the fuel-saving transmissions. So what’s the deal? The only news on the topic comes from InsideLine which reports

By 2013 this TCT gearbox will be offered with all inline-4 and V6 engines from Fiat and Chrysler in North America. The aim is to have C-plus and D-segment cars like the Chrysler 200, V6-equipped Jeep models, and future Alfa Romeo Giulia lead the way with the TCT gearbox here.

But starting when? And with what vehicles? With Ford already offering dual-clutch transmissions in the Fiesta (with more to come), and Hyundai about to bet big on dual-clutch boxes next year, Chrysler is on pace to lag two years behind the market leaders. For a brand in Chrysler’s position, that’s a recipe for perennially playing catch-up on a crucial technology.

Talk about a blast from the past: TTAC first took note of talks between Aston Martin and Daimler nearly three years ago, and the Maybach connection first shows up a few months later. But all this time later it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of progress has been made. The FT reports that the two sides are still

Lotus has approved its Emas city car concept for production in 2013, giving the sportscar firm an in-house competitor to Aston Martin’s Cygnet rebadge of the Toyota iQ. The extended-range electric car was first shown at the last Geneva auto show,  when our own Martin Schwoerer praised its “enormous’ interior space, and well-engineered packaging. The Emas uses Lotus’s three-cylinder range extender, mated to an electric drivetrain with a peak output of 75 kW (101 HP) and 206 lb-ft of torque, and will be the only non-performance vehicle in the Lotus range. But it won’t be the cheapest bit of Lotus-branded kit you’ll be able to buy when the brand relaunches, as the NYT reports

Lotus will also put its name on an array of quotidian objects like key fobs, cellphone holders and laptop bags, which a Lotus publicist described as “cool, high-end pieces that provide an entry level to the brand.”

But with so much emphasis being placed on turning Lotus into a “lifestyle brand,” there’s a major cloud hanging over the whole project: though Lotus is one of the quintessentially British brands, the firm says it will shift production to a supplier on the European continent (think Valmet and Magna-Steyr) if the British government doesn’t make with a £40m ($62m) Regional Growth Fund loan to support a new factory in Hethel. Which means that if the British government doesn’t take a huge gamble on a firm that even Bob Lutz thinks only has a 60 percent chance of success, Lotus will not only no longer be a true British brand, it won’t even build is own cars. But  should British taxpayers bankroll such a risky play at a luxury niche?

Where did GMC get the idea to take a short-bed pickup, widen the track, fit some Fox shocks and generally beef it up to create a factory off-road “halo” truck? Oh right, from Ford. If you’re not convinced that Detroit still has at least one foot firmly stuck in the past, this halo niche-chasing behemoth should help clear up some of that doubt.