Auto News 5

A funny thing happens when you consistently surpass people's expectations. Eventually, those expectations get raised. In that vein, we were not shocked when Kia, the Korean automaker that's been producing vastly improved and incredibly good-looking new vehicles for the last three years, took the sheets off the vastly improved, incredibly good-looking new Sportage. We were eager to get our hands on one for an entire year.

When BMW redesigned the 3-series for 2012, it probably didn't consider the needs of tire technicians in South Bend, Indiana. Maybe it should have.

The Prius c might just be the most sensible and desirable model in the Prius lineup, which now consists of the small Prius c; the conventional Prius; and the biggest model, the Prius v. After all, hybrids make the most efficient use of their powertrains in urban settings, and the Prius c is an ideal city car. It's small, it's nimble, it's easy to get in and out of, it has great outward visibility, and it has strong off-the-line acceleration for dashing around town. I'm not bothered by the thin carpeting and other cheap interior trim bits; the overall interior aesthetics are just fine, the radio works well, the gauges are clear and bright. As for the Habanero color of our test car, all I can say is, "wow." I know that Prius owners generally like to telegraph the fact that they're driving earth-friendly vehicles, but this color is garish and gross.

What I would like to read right now is a classic David E. Davis, Jr., obituary on his old friend, Carroll Shelby, who died two weeks before this issue went to press. (Too mean to die, I told Shelby last fall in Las Vegas, when he was only 88. "I love you, Lindermood," he replied, quite sweetly.) David E. had the naked stories, the ones you still can't tell. He knew Shelby in the glory days and the not-so-glorious '70s, when the Detroit deals dried up and he exiled himself to Africa to hunt and to run safaris. Shelby suckered Davis into investing in some exotic Rhodesian Tuli cattle that he brought to Texas. When the deal went south, the difference between the nonchalance of the well-heeled gambler and the horror felt by just a gambler banking on becoming well-heeled was a painful experience that Davis took a while to get over. Yes, he would have gleefully built a literary pyre of Shelby injustices and reprobate behavior, poured on the gasoline, lit a match, then...blown it out at the last second and dismantled it. Because he loved Shelby.