Auto News 5

What if a Hummer suddenly became one of the greenest cars on the planet? This could happen given the right scenario, and two companies are attempting to align stars and planets to make it happen.

The ichange, the latest Frank M. Rinderknecht concept car creation, is backward but definitely not retro. It nicely recapitulates the fender profile of 1942-48 Buicks but applies it back to front. In other words, backward. As a kid, I admired those swoopy lines on Buicks and find they still look just fine here, especially as contrasted with the big bubble canopy, the teardrop shape of which gives the necessary directional thrust to the overall design composition. As an adult - or at least as someone of adult age - I have also admired the many multifarious Rinspeed concept cars without ever liking any of them very much. Every year, as reliably as the bird in a Swiss cuckoo clock, a new one pops up at the Geneva show. They are always interesting but also always a bit skewed from mainstream lines technically and more than a bit unrefined in style.

As legions of recent divorcés have shown, there's no better way to put your troubles behind you than with a new sports car. Such is the hope at Stile Bertone, the storied Italian design house that has suffered some recent unpleasantness, including legal wrangles within the Bertone family and a split from the company's financially insolvent manufacturing arm.