Auto News 5

The Nissan DeltaWing is Automobile Magazine's slam-dunk Racing Car of the Year. In fact, we just as easily could have named it Racing Car of the Decade or even Racing Car of the Half Century. Not merely because the revolutionary, Batmobile-like design explodes conventional wisdom about how race cars are supposed to look and perform, but because the very existence of the DeltaWing forces us to question some seemingly self-evident truths about racing.

It wasn't even four years ago that Chrysler seemed beyond saving -- and it almost wasn't. With a loan from the feds and a shotgun marriage to Fiat, the fate of America's oft-troubled carmaker was consigned to the hands of Sergio Marchionne. Call it foresight, or call it luck. In retrospect, it doesn't really matter. What counts is Chrysler's position today. Through September 2012, the company has seen thirty consecutive months of year-over-year sales increases. Sales shot up 24 percent in the first three quarters of 2012. That handily outpaced the recovering industry (up 15 percent), just as Chrysler did in 2011 (up 26 percent, versus 10 percent for the overall market) and in 2010 (up 17 percent, compared with 11 percent for the industry as a whole). And it's not just sales that are better; the products are better, too. Coming out of the new-product drought of the Cerberus years, Chrysler has staged a remarkable showroom renaissance, with a new Jeep Grand Cherokee, a greatly upgraded Dodge Charger and Chrysler 300, the return of the Viper, and notable enhancements to the carryover models. The Italian connection is also starting to pay off, with the successful launch of the Fiat brand in the United States and the arrival of the first U.S.-brand product to use a European platform, the highly regarded new Dodge Dart.

There's a good reason I keep a 1:18-scale model of the 1993 Porsche Boxster concept car sitting on a teak cabinet in my studio: it's gorgeous, the first Porsche to bring the spirit of early Porsche 550 racing cars to the road. And there's an equally good reason that my 1:18 model of the 1997 production version stays inside that cabinet. It simply didn't measure up to the concept. A revamp for 2005 improved the production Boxster a bit but not enough to make it sparkle. However good it was to drive, the car we could buy just wasn't as attractive.