It has taken more than four years to get to the point where the 1 Series M Coupe is even ready for production. Along the way, BMW decided not to provide its most affordable performance model with a unique engine as with every M car that had gone before it. With such a troubled birth, the big question is whether the new car can live up to the high standards of the original E30 M3, a car BMW suggests is the spiritual ancestor to the 1 Series M Coupe. If first impressions are anything to go by, the answer is  [ Read More ]

Scott Rothstein might have robbed his customers blind to get all his wealth, but there were no steals for his items up that were up for auction Wednesday. Some of the convicted Ponzi schemer’s most expensive trinkets were on the block at the Broward County Convention Center, but some who attended said you would almost have to start your own Ponzi scheme to afford some of the prices.

Everyone from serious auto collectors to families snapping pictures of their dream cars packed the OC Fair & Event Center on Saturday for the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction. During its inaugural Orange County auction last year, Barrett-Jackson — which bills its events as the World’s Greatest Car Collector Auctions — sold more than $15 million in cars. This weekend, organizers said they expected 70,000 people to attend the three-day event.

Following a recent facelift the latest Jaguar XF is great to look at and even better to drive- everything a top British luxury car should be. Its leather-trimmed interior is wonderfully detailed, and a world away from the dark, sombre cabins of many Audis and BMWs. Refined and well equipped, we say it’s one of the best executive cars money can buy. The previously limited range also now includes a smaller, more efficient diesel engine which should prove very popular with both company and private car buyers. High-performance V8 petrol and supercharged XFR variants offer incredible pace and for their  [ Read More ]

Among the flurry of fast-roofed, four-door hatchbacks coming to market over the next couple of years, one interpretation clearly stands out: the 2010 BMW 5-series Gran Turismo. Indeed, the unusual, tall proportions of the Bimmer set it far apart from Audi’s more conventionally shaped A5 Sportback and A7, as well as the more low-slung Porsche Panamera and rakish Aston Martin Rapide.

Here’s the reason. Mercedes-Benz reckons that nearly two-thirds of European buyers of the first-gen CLS cite styling as the deciding factor in their purchase. This created something of a pickle for the designers of the second-generation car. Surely the company would have loved to capitalize on a strong family resemblance to the successful outgoing CLS, yet that car won hearts precisely for representing a dramatic departure from the norm. What to do?

The Focus hatchback has proved successful – it had to be to maintain Ford’s momentum and although it wasn’t as exciting to drive as the previous generation it pretty much ticked all the boxes for buyers after a solid, well-built, attractive, comfortable and functional hatchback. It had to be better than Vauxhall’s Astra, which it was, and it also had to be on par with Volkswagen’s Golf, which it also was.

T H E   F L A T   T R U T H “[A fold-flat, second row] makes it much more of a Swiss Army knife.” —Autopacific Inc. president George Peterson on the 2005 Chrysler and Dodge minivans’ industry-first second-row “stow ’n’ go” flat seats