Auto News 5

Driving the 2012 Nissan GT-R on the street doesn't really do the car justice. Pretty much nothing does this car justice. I spent some time lapping GingerMan Raceway in South Haven, Michigan in the GT-R and my feelings for the car as conflicted as ever. Yes, the GT-R is brutally, stupidly fast. Yes, the 2012 model year GT-R is even faster and more amazing than the 2009-2011 models. No, I still don't desire one of my own.

Would you believe that we once described the Toyota Camry -- the whipping boy of the enthusiast automotive media -- as "the gold standard of mid-size motoring?" Back in 1992, the Camry was Toyota's first mid-size car and the first one designed just for the American market. It was stunning -- not just in its looks, but in the way it offered Lexus levels of refinement to the masses.

Amid the tumult of the Middle East's so-called Arab Spring, Saudi women have been quietly agitating for something most Westerners older than sixteen take for granted: the right to drive. Several women, organizing via Facebook and Twitter, got behind the wheel last June in a public protest. A few were arrested and otherwise harassed, but the campaign continues on the Internet and has recently included calls for automakers -- namely Subaru -- to stop selling cars in a country where not all are allowed to drive them.

When the Bentley Continental GT was first launched, in 2003, it was three years before a convertible GTC joined the hardtop coupe. For 2011, the Continental GT was redesigned, and so far this year, Bentley has been selling the old-style GTC convertible alongside it. Oh sure, the company has rolled out its characteristic special editions to maintain the appearance of freshness (Continental Supersports ISR convertible, anyone?), but the brand's keenest buyers know what's coming: a new GTC. And Bentley executives say, they've been impatiently asking for it.