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The CL coupe stands out as something unique in the automotive firmament. No other manufacturer builds a coupe off its top-line luxury sedan; BMW's 6-series comes closest, but it's not really close at all. The CL is more a kindred spirit to a Bentley Continental GT or even a Brooklands. A huge, luxurious, and expensive coupe makes quite an extravagant statement, and one that's AMG-fortified makes it even more emphatically. The awesome, 6.2-liter V-8, which we know from so many AMG models, provides jet-thrust acceleration accompanied by a stock-car sound track, an utterly charming combination - especially for those with their own oil well.

There is little that's unique in today's automotive world of platform and drivetrain sharing. The Lotus Elise, a niche car that ought not share much in common with anything else, is in fact powered by a Toyota engine once also seen in the Pontiac Vibe. The Volvo C30 uses the same underpinnings as the Mazda 3. Which brings us to the 3's flashier sibling, the RX-8. Here, at least, is a sports car that is not only affordable, it's unique: it shares neither its platform nor its unconventional powertrain with anything else.

Can lightning strike the same spot twice? For Michael Jackson, the G. W. Bush administrations, or Scion, the answer is an unequivocal no. To check how the Mini Cooper S weathered the automotive-evolution storm, we ordered a second-generation edition and fed it into the Automobile Magazine staff rotation for four seasons of use, abuse, criticism, and candor.

The Automotive News Green Car Conference & Exhibition was held November 14 in a conference center just outside the worried city of Detroit. While automotive industry leaders were in Washington, D.C. looking for loans, hundreds of event attendees were learning about the future of green transportation. What follows is a synopsis of our findings.