Auto News 5

We got our first up close and personal look at the 2012 Mercedes-Benz C-Class -- including the wagon version -- at a dinner last night. While we’re lusting over the wagon version that we likely won’t get in the States, we can at least report that the new interior in the sedan and wagon is as classy as it appears in photos and a substantial improvement over the outgoing car.

Sensory overload seems to be the name of the game with the Hyundai Curb concept at the 2011 Detroit auto show. The Curb showcases all the style and technology the Korean automaker can possibly stuff into one vehicle, it seems. It’s Hyundai’s attempt to catch the attention of easily distracted, city-dwelling, young college grads.

Talk about déjà vu. Three hundred sixty-five days ago, General Motors showed a preview of its next-generation subcompact line at the 2010 North American International Auto Show. This year, the automaker is rolling out the finished product -- the 2012 Sonic hatchback and sedan -- for another Detroit debut.

One of the great ongoing debates in the automotive world is which of the many alternative-fuel strategies will emerge as the magic key to consumer acceptance and big sales for automakers. Will it be parallel-series hybrids like the ones already on sale for the past decade? Will be it dedicated battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) like the new Nissan Leaf? Or will it be plug-in hybrid powertrains like the new Chevy Volt? No one really knows, as evidenced by the fact that the Ford Motor Company is hedging its bets and plans to provide vehicles with a wide range of alternative-fuel powertrains. Witness the upcoming C-Max, which will be offered both with a familiar parallel-series hybrid powertrain like the one in the current Ford Fusion Hybrid sedan as well as a plug-in hybrid powertrain in the C-Max Energi. Ford will also offer its new Focus not only with conventional powertrains but also as an electric model beginning in late 2011.

Enough with the teasers. After receiving numerous photos that showed pieces of the car or wrapped it underneath a cover, Audi has finally shown its all-new 2012 A6 sedan in its entirety.

While we are sure Porsche's engineers care just as much about trees and puppies as the next guy, they haven't always been focused primarily on building environmentally friendly cars. It does quite often happen as a byproduct of building racing cars however. A passion for endurance racing is a passion for efficiency, which equates, in a roundabout way to being good for the environment. Their latest ground pounding, track melting, green machine the 918 RSR is another step in taking hybrid technology to a new level of performance.

Chrysler has been showing off its expansive range of revised 2011 models over the past several months, but one -- the 2011 Chrysler 300 model -- remained somewhat under wraps. That no longer seems to be the case, however, as the automaker released a handful of photos detailing its new flagship.

Love this Flex Titanium and its white and black color scheme, especially the black F L E X letters on the leading edge of the hood and the blacked-out, three-bar horizontal grille. I don't even mind the twenty-inch polished-aluminum wheels, and I'm not usually a fan of such wheels. The whole look: white bottom, black cap greenhouse, works well for me. I think it looks quite cool.
- Joe DeMatio, Deputy Editor

Back in 2007, Kia debuted a funky concept dubbed the Soul, which went into production one year later. Now Kia's Southern California's design studio is enlarging its Soul with a new, larger, funky, cubic concept dubbed the KV7.