Auto News 5

Rumors about the return of the seven-passenger Hyundai Santa Fe have been floating around for quite a while. While we expected the 2013 Santa Fe midsize crossover to grow in just about every dimension to better fit a third row, Hyundai is also debuting the 2013 Santa Fe Sport, a smaller five-passenger model with an optional turbocharged four-cylinder engine.

According to Lexus, customers have been asking for an edgier and sportier version of the popular RX crossover. With the 2013 Lexus RX F Sport, their wish, so says the automaker, has been granted.

The Volkswagen Alltrack concept is a raised, all-wheel-drive station wagon, and you're correct in thinking we've seen this recipe before. The Subaru Outback is also an all-wheel-drive wagon that tries to bridge the gap between sedan and SUV. Volkswagen's take on that idea, the Alltrack concept, makes its debut at the New York auto show.

The current Acura RL may technically be Acura's largest, most expensive offering, but as the midsize TL range has grown in terms of size and sophistication, the supposed flagship of the Acura brand hardly offers anything its more mainstream sibling doesn't.

Nissan paved the way for mass-market electric cars with the Leaf hatchback, and now luxury division Infiniti will launch a more powerful and more refined electric sedan based on the Leaf. Shown in concept form at the 2012 New York auto show, the Infiniti LE closely foreshadows a production electric car.

Barry Manilow’s 1970s hit song “Looks Like We Made It” wasn’t blaring from the loudspeakers on the Chrysler stand at the Javits Center in Manhattan today, but it might as well have been. There was no better way for Chrysler to announce to the world that it’s back from the brink, it’s made it through its bankruptcy and painful restructuring, and it fully expects to thrive than by taking the wraps off the 2013 SRT Viper at the 2012 New York Auto Show. After all, imagine how unlikely a new Viper was only three years ago, when Chrysler almost went out of business altogether. If the company survived, bread-and-butter products like family sedans, crossovers, and pickup trucks would, naturally, have to command the bulk of product-development dollars. How could there possibly be interest in something as indulgent as a low-volume, expensive, high-performance sports car?