Auto News 5

I drove both the automatic and manual Mazda 2 within days of each other and while both cars impressed me, the manual 2 is, in my mind, the much better package. On the highway, the four speed-auto runs out of gears causing revs to consistently stay up over 3000 rpms. The manual's fifth gear is just enough to keep revs and noise down in the cabin. I was cruising at 80 mph on the highway and, unlike the 2 with the auto box, the manual car never sounded buzzy. In fact, the engine sounded remarkably at ease. Impressive. At this speed, even in fifth gear our Four Seasons Honda Fit's 1.5-liter 4-culinder would have been deafening.

Nissan's first in-house-developed hybrid will be on sale in the spring of next year in the form of the 2012 Infiniti M35h. The Nissan Altima Hybrid, which is available only in a handful of states, borrows Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive technology. Being a brand focused on premium, sporty cars, you can be sure that the mooing we've become accustomed to from four-cylinder CVT hybrids will not be part of the M35h's package.

When it comes to $50,000 luxury sports sedans, there is the German triumvirate, and there's everybody else. Of the others, two in particular take a surprisingly similar tack in presenting an alternative. One is Jaguar. This brand, with its long and low styling, elegant interiors, and graceful dynamics, has always been a sensualist's choice. Infiniti has generally been more of a Japanese BMW than a Jaguar, but for 2011 it has redesigned and redefined its M sedan, and in so doing has moved toward what can only be described as a very Jaguar-like ideal.

If I had a working means of time travel, I'd set the machine to 2004 and loan it to Chrysler's engineers. That was the point when Chrysler (er, DaimlerChrysler) decided to end the collaboration with Mitsubishi on what would become both automakers' next generation of small cars.