Auto News 5

You won't find it noted on most calendars, but 2011 is a milestone for BMW enthusiasts: come next year, the vaunted M3 will have been in production for 25 years. To celebrate, the Bavarian automaker has crafted this: the 2011 BMW M3 Frozen Grey coupe.

This was my first time driving the Volkswagen Tiguan; I think my expectations may have been too high. I always imagined the Tiguan to be a GTI with more ground clearance, but it's not.

BORN TO BE...AN EV
"Electric mobility is the true nature of Smart," says brand manager Marc Langenbrinck. We have to agree that the Smart ForTwo certainly looks like it should be an electric car. The tiny two-seater, with egg-like styling and plastic body panels, is so wildly different, it's sort of a let-down to find out that it's powered by a conventional gasoline engine. But the ForTwo, which first came to market (in Europe) in 1998, had been around for nine years before the first Smart EV was unveiled, in 2007. A small test fleet was soon let loose in London. A total of 100 first-generation Smart EVs were produced before the second-generation electric made its debut in 2008. Deliveries of the current, second-generation car began in Germany last November. Now, the Smart ForTwo Electric Drive is coming to the USA.