2011

This weekend is the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race at the famous Circuit de la Sarthe in France, and just one hour into the race driver Allan McNish suffered a violent crash in his Audi R18 race car after coming into contact with a Ferrari 458 Italia near Dunlop curve. McNish is a...

If you liked BMW’s limited production run of Frozen Gray M3 Coupes, chances are you’ll love its new special edition 2011 M3 Coupe, done up in what BMW calls “Frozen Black.” As with the Frozen Gray coupes, BMW is only building a limited quantity, but this time it's reduced...

Certified pre-owned programs often provide shoppers with a higher-value alternative to new cars, with a warranty that's nearly as good. Now GM is making some changes to its program in order to make it even more attractive. The program once known as the GM Certified Used Vehicles Program will be...

General Motors has issued a recall for 47,000 Cadillac SRX models, due to an issue with the crossover's side aribags. According to a post on the Web site of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the head airbag on the passenger side will not inflate in a crash if there is no...

Google built its reputation as a small, simple search engine, but there's nothing small about the company's investment in electric vehicles. Google has just placed an order for 30 Nissan Leafs and Chevrolet Volts, as well as 250 EV charging stations from Coulomb Technologies. Google will add the...

MINI recently announced an $800 million investment deal for its plant in Oxford, UK to prepare for production of its third-generation Cooper model. The new model, spy shots of which have already surfaced, will be based on a new front-wheel drive platform dubbed UKL, which will be used by BMW for...

Today's road courses bear little resemblance to the historical circuits the pioneers of motorsport ran on. Even most of the "street circuits" that are still run have been massaged and made safer over the years. But there are a few circuits that still offer the difficulty and danger those original...

Given Audi's racing connections and past dominance at Le Mans, including this year's R18 race car, it only makes sense that the R8 has been chosen as the safety car for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which takes place this weekend, June 11-12 at the Circuit de la Sarthe. The R8 safety car receives the...

Early this spring, word emerged on the Web that the 2013 Shelby GT500 could kick out as much as 620 horsepower. Shortly after we brought you the first spy shots of the new car. Today, we update the images with a new set that hints at a turbocharger replacing the supercharger under the hood. A...

Whilst Skodas have never been sold in the United States, gearheads probably know a little about the Czech Republic-based subsiduary of the Volkswagen Audi Group and some of the great cars the company has produced since becoming part of the VAG empire. As such, the brand has shaken off the...

You might not think your jeans have the capacity for causing much damage unless you're one of the unlucky souls to have once caught part of their anatomy in the zipper, but they can actually be responsible for undue wear to your car seats. A light-colored leather interior can look absolutely...

Volvo showed us its C30 Electric zero-emissions hatchback at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show back in January, which included a crashed example with the car's expensive battery pack fully intact, but now the automaker has confirmed that customer leases are about to start. Unfortunately, those leases are...

Though the 270 horsepower Volkswagen Golf R Cabriolet Concept we saw debut last week at the Wörthersee Tour 2011 in Austria is unlikely to make it to production anytime soon, there is a strong chance that this GTI-badged drop-top based on the 2012 Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet will. The latest...

Remember our post last week about Audi’s new advertisement for the 2012 A6 Avant featuring a music score very similar to the one in Eminem’s top-selling track ‘Lose Yourself’? Yes, the same track famously used, with permission from the rap star, in Chrysler’s original...

Factory-built luxury security vehicles are, without doubt, members of one of the smallest segments anywhere. But with their rarity and exclusivity comes a certain cool factor, a factor enhanced by their capabilities. Mercedes-Benz states outright that "The aim of the Guard models...is to protect...

It’s hard to believe but one of Aston Martin’s most popular models, the Rapide luxury four-door coupe, is not actually manufactured by Aston Martin. Instead, production of the Rapide is handled by independent vehicle manufacturer Magna Steyr in Austria. The decision to outsource...

After a spate of damage caused to more than 20 cars was reported this past weekend in the normally quiet Pinellas County, Florida, local police were able to apprehend the alleged perpetrator yesterday after following a trail of paint directly to his house. One of the cars was this BMW 7-Series...

Remember the awesome four-rotor Mazda 787B race car that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans 20 years ago and is now set to run the famous French circuit during a demonstration ahead of this weekend’s 24 hour race? Well, it turns out that the 787B’s appearance this weekend won't be the last...

In what may be the only silver lining of the horrific earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan in March--though Nissan certainly won't see it this way--production of the 2011 Murano CrossCabriolet was cut just as it began, halting its assault on our eyeballs just as it was about to...

Earlier this week, the news of the Cadillac SRX plug-in hybrid's pre-production demise spread quickly, followed a few days later by talk of why, including a source that blamed the battery and a lack of efficiency. High Gear Media's John Voelcker dug deeper to uncover the full story on why it was...