BY ALISA PRIDDLE, PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARPIX AND THE MANUFACTURER

The sexy coupe gets a V-10, then drops the top—but getting your hands on either one could be a challenge.

There aren’t a lot of available Audi R8s and adding a V-10 version next year and potentially a powerful diesel option down the road will only make it worse.

In Germany, there currently is an eight-month wait for an R8, Michael Dick, Audi’s member of the board of management for technical development, tells Car and Driver in an interview at the 2008 Paris auto show. In the U.S., customers fight over the roughly 50 that arrive each month. (more…)

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BY JAKE HOLMES, PHOTOGRAPHY BY CARPIX AND THE MANUFACTURER

The everyday sports car from Lotus.

Lotus has released full information and photos of its latest sports car, the Evora. Previously known only by its “Eagle” code name, the car was revealed at the British auto show. (more…)

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BY TONY SWAN, PHOTOGRAPHY BY JIM FRENAK

So here it is, the third and final entry in the 21st-century pony-car-revival derby. Get your bets down early because we don’t expect to see any more resurrections of famous makes from the galloping go-go Sixties—Barracuda, Firebird, Javelin, et al.—and even gloomier, we think it likely that, given fuel prices and other concerns, this revival is likely to lack the fervor and duration of the original movement. (more…)

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BY AARON ROBINSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID DEWHURST

Day 2 Second and First Place: Extremists

2008 Porsche 911 GT2
Second Place: Extremists

Check it out: Black leather, red seatbelts, splashes of fuzzy Alcantara, deep-scallop buckets in glossy carbon-fiber shells, fish-gill vents, and flaring air snorkels on the wing posts. The GT2’s visual cues mix the subtle with the animal. (more…)

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BY AARON ROBINSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID DEWHURST

It’s man against motherboard in this four-way flog of max-horsepower machines.

Behold four machines sitting on the pointy end of a horsepower skyrocket that lifted off sometime in the 1980s and hasn’t hit the chutes yet.

For now, anyone can buy these vehicles by flashing a valid driver’s license and a healthy checkbook. But this may be it. The last act. The apogee right before reentry, when post-peak oil prices and carbon-emissions limits and general economic malaise threaten to make memories out of 500-horsepower cars. Maybe someday you’ll bore grandchildren with tales of Porsche GT2s practically falling out of trees for just $198,875. Is it 1971 all over again? Who knows? Maybe you’ll be telling them from the back seat of their parents’ 700-hp minivan. (more…)

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BY STEVE SILER, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGAN J. SEGAL

The quickest BMW you can get that doesn’t start with an M (until the 135i arrives, that is).

It used to be easy to write about the BMW 3-series. For the most part, we knew what we were gonna say before we ever got in the car. On the other hand, there were nuances about the character of the car that were extremely hard to put into words to convey just how good these cars feel. But we’d try, and it usually came out in the form of unbridled praise for perfect steering, elegant interior simplicity, and a brilliant ride-and-handling balance.

Maybe BMW got bored of hearing the same thing over and over again, because suddenly we had to come up with new words to describe the 3: controversially styled, technologically overwrought, and now this: quicker with the automatic. (more…)

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BY ERIK JOHNSON

Munich’s poorly kept 1-series secret is out.

It’s officially official! BMW will be selling the 1-series coupe in the U.S.! Okay, so we realize it wasn’t the best-kept secret, but now that the company has issued a press release and we figure there’s no taking it back, we’re really beginning to get excited. (more…)

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BY ERIK JOHNSON, PHOTOGRAPHY BY JARED HOLSTEIN

The new G37 gets more motor, more luxury, and more style.

Right as the filming for Star Wars drew to a close, Mark Hamill”he played Luke Skywalker, for you heathen non-SW fans”found himself involved in a serious car crash that left the famous Jedi with a busted and broken face. (more…)

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BY JARED GALL

The trickle-up effect: BMW 5-series changes find their way to the 6.

Like leap year, L.A. gridlock, and a nice MSG coma following a binge at the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, we saw this coming. BMW confirms that its numerous little tweaks to the 5-series for the 2008 model year will also show up on the 6-series coupe. (more…)

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BY MARK GILLIES

Looks sportier than it drives.

Honda and Toyota have tended to offer coupes built off their bestselling Accord and Camry mid-size sedans, but Nissan has never produced such an Altima. (more…)

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