Auto News 5

Last year at the Paris Motor Show, General Motors took the wrap off the Cruze Hatchback show car. Given GM's recent bouts with show cars, we knew the car would make its way into production, and the company just announced today that we'll see the production car at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show this March.

General Motors' North American brands are not the only ones receiving a number of new models. Its European Opel brand is also in the middle of a product overhaul, and it appears an all-new Zafira MPV is also on its way. For now, we only have a faint glimpse of the Zafira Tourer Concept, which will debut at this year's Geneva Motor Show.

"Who dat!? Who dat!?" We're in a packed seafood joint -- one of about four such seafood joints on one block-reveling with some very happy, if somewhat inebriated, football fans. "Dat," of course, would be the latest team "dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints." Once again the Saints are vistorious. We're touring the Crescent City five years after Hurricane Katrina to take the pulse of recovery efforts from behind the wheel of a brand-new Chevrolet Camaro SS convertible. If the Saints' success and the crowds they draw are a sign of the city's resurgence, the Camaro convertible is a celebration for General Motors because it's exactly the sort of frivolous product a company on its last legs would never produce. Question is, are the Big Easy and the nation's biggest automaker really back in the swing of things?