Auto News 5

The August new-car market was little changed from July's, despite the stock market swoon and the hurricane that closed out the month in the Northeast. Industry-wide, sales were up 8% over last year, while the seasonally adjusted full-year sales rate remained just on the high side of 12 million units. The latter figure was the bit worse than last month; the former stat a bit better. Unemployment and economic anxiety remain high. The Japanese -- particularly Toyota and Honda, as well as Infiniti and Subaru -- continue to suffer shortages of some models. That has been helping the domestics and the Koreans, all of which outpaced the industry with their sales growth in August.

No doubt about it, the 1-series M coupe is just as good as Jason Cammisa claimed it was in our first drive report in our August 2011 issue, and it is clearly going to enter the history books as one of the most exciting performance cars to debut in 2011. We're well familiar with this N54-series twin-turbo in-line six-cylinder engine, having driven it in both the 3-series and the Z4 roadster, but never before has it been installed in a car with such a keenly tuned chassis. Throttle response, brake pedal modulation, brake performance, clutch pedal take-up, gearshift action, steering precision and feel: all I can say is yum, yum, yum, and double yum again. No surprise on those fronts, since much of the chassis is taken straight from the BMW M3.