Hyundai knows 210 horsepower in a 3380-pound car won’t astound anyone. It imagines the base Genesis coupe with its 2.0-liter turbocharged four as a blank canvas for tuners and speed-widget makers chasing the young buyers who will be hooked by the turbo’s $22,750 starting price. One thing is certain: There will be lots of zoom parts available. The 1998cc four is the same basic engine as in the 291-hp Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, both engines being byproducts of the Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance, a joint venture among Hyundai, Mitsubishi, and Chrysler.

C’mon, really? Hyundai? No pedigree. No racing history. No factory museum filled with dusty glory machines. Yet here’s what Hyundai dares—dares!—to call the phosphorescent-Slurpee spill of paint on our Genesis coupe: Lime Rock Green. Puh-leeze! Weren’t these jokers riding around on donkeys when Bob Sharp was running 240Zs at Lime Rock? There’s also Nordschleife Gray and Interlagos Yellow. On a Hyundai? They can’t be serious!

Kia needs a “breakout” vehicle that—like Hyundai’s latest Sonata—finally achieves what marketers call front-of-mind awareness. Kia’s Borrego V-8 might have been that vehicle, had its debut not ­coincided with $4-per-gallon gas and the wholesale cratering of heavy-metal SUVs. But hard on the butch Borrego’s heels comes the bubbly five-door Soul, awash in political correctitude and practicality. So excited is Kia about this car that it shipped one Korean-spec Soul to each of its 640 dealers just so buyers could peek at the thing before U.S.-legal cars alighted.

Volvo has been a longtime leader in the mommy-car milieu, a position that has imbued the Swedish company with a safety-oriented persona that’s given it the high ground in the family market. But that persona doesn’t translate very well with singles or young couples who want utility yet value cool above sensible.

There are luxurious cars, and there are fuel-efficient cars. There are even some that offer moderate levels of both characteristics. But no vehicle has managed—or even attempted—to take luxury and fuel economy simultaneously to such high levels as has the 2010 Lexus HS250h, the industry’s first dedicated luxury hybrid. Think of it as the Prius of Lexuses or the Lexus of Priuses—your choice—and you won’t be far off.

“It’s a game changer.” “It’s an environmental champion.” “This car will revolutionize the way we think about transportation.” We hear this kind of hopeful hype about a lot of vehicles—off-hand, we can think of the Tesla roadster, Chevrolet Volt, and Fisker Karma—and sometimes, it even rings true. But few pieces of fanciful transportation have seemed as far-fetched, at least at first glance, as the 2e, scheduled to be produced just six months from now by California-based Aptera Motors. We recently paid the company a visit to take a quick spin in two of its latest prototypes and to see how close this wingless bird is to hatching.

When Subaru's product developers responsible for the 2010 Legacy began probing Legacy loyalists about their likes and dislikes with the current model, the loud-and-clear message was: "We want more space!" And by far the loudest shouts from the chorus were to expand its rear legroom. Well, Subaru has gotten the hint -- and then some.

When Land Rover introduced the current-generation Discovery, there was a global split, and what became our LR3 was the world's Discovery 3. It made sense once the LR2 came out-the nomenclature implied smaller model, smaller-number designation. That's not the case, as evidenced by the new LR4. For Land Rover, a different number simply means it's that significant a change from the LR3 -- and this is the fourth generation of the vehicle. (Of course, they have it much easier where it can be called Discovery 4.)

Short answer? Yes. Those who love what the Range Rover stands for -- being able to experience genuine off-roading surrounded by a luxurious cabin -- will be absolutely thrilled with the latest generation of Land Rover's flagship model. And the 2010 contains technology you can't find anywhere else.

A week after unveiling its bigger and better Legacy, Subaru is now letting the other shoe drop. Or should we say letting its hiking boot drop. Since 1994, the Outback has been the Legacy's rough-and-tumble alter ego. Their Indiana Jones to the Legacy's tweedy Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr. And like Harrison Ford himself, the Outback has gained in both savvy and physical size since his swashbuckling debut, though neither one appears to be any less willing to tackle genuine adventure.

This is the automotive poster child for damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't. No, it's not a Toyota Prius. It's not a $40,000 Chevrolet Volt, either, a car the Treasury department's automotive task force figures will cost all sorts of money General Motors can't afford to lose in the coming years. It's the model critics point to as the General's cynical, too-little too-late response to the hybrid movement.

Traveling business or first class is like having a private cabana at a crowded YMCA swimming pool -- it may be crammed and noisy around you yet nothing but space, comfort, and relaxation are filling your world. But c'mon, unless it's on the company dime, sitting up front in the Airbus and eating with real silverware aren't really worth the sky-high premiums. Of course, there's always economy class, which pleases the pocket book but not much else -- namely, the feet, knees, shoulders, elbows, well, you get the picture.

As MT editor-in-chief Angus MacKenzie once said in regard to the 2005 Land Rover LR3 (our 2005 Sport/Utility of the Year award winner), “Whether it's Rodeo Drive or the Rubicon Trail, there isn't a sport/utility in the world that will cover the terrain as quietly, confidently, or comfortably." While we didn’t get the chance to tackle the Rubicon during our recent drive of the 2009 Land Rover LR3 HSE LUX, we can attest that the latest edition of Land Rover’s midrange premium off-roader still lives up to all the hype when cruising Rodeo.

"Outlander" suggests something extravagant, something different. The actual Mitsubishi Outlander has become more of an antonym of that definition. Since its introduction in 2001, the Outlander has fit neatly into the compact-crossover segment, and this year it continues the trend.

Mini is the new Saab, having become what Saab wanted to be: a quirky brand that's growing despite its quirkiness. This is the conclusion an admittedly cold brain reaches when driving a new Interchange Yellow Mini Cooper S Convertible around twisty Alpine roads in Austria. The top is down and it's snowing. Not bad, though. The pinstriped cloth seat's bunwarmers fry your derriere if you keep them on "high" for more than two minutes. An aerodynamic black Mini cap is required and the windows are up-a nerdy look on any convertible except the boxy Mini and the 9-3 ragtop, the car Saab tried to market as a "four-seasons convertible."

There's a new Kia and town, and its name is Forte -- finally putting an end to months of Internet speculation surrounding the official moniker of the long-awaited Spectra successor. Now that the name game's out of the way, upon initial examination, the Forte badge is affixed to a familiar Kia package, but with lots of welcome additions.

It has a mid-mounted, quad cam supercharged engine, forged alloy wheels, carbon fiber body panels and Brembo brakes. Claimed top speed is 190mph. It's a fast, good looking supercar with the sort of spec sheet you'd expect to find on something made in Italy. But the Spirra S is built near Seoul. Yup, meet Korea's first ever production supercar. It was only a matter of time.

Those who were disappointed with the upsized and redesigned second-generation Scion xB may have a new vehicle to consider. The 2010 Kia Soul, introduced as a concept at the 2006 Detroit auto show and teased for the last nearly three years, contains the fuel efficiency and smart interior packaging of the first xB, wrapped in a likeable, edgy body unlike anything Kia has ever sold here before.

All the leaves are green, and the sky is blue. I've been for a drive, on a winter's day. I'd be scared and cold, if I wasn't in L.A. California drea-- ... drat! I just lost a leaf. The so-called "Efficiency Leaves" display on the dash of the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid is a real charmer, one of those brilliant interactive creations that, like the touchscreen of the Apple iPhone, proves as user-friendly as it is delightful.

Even before this year's massive gas-price-spike hit, buyers had begun fleeing the traditional SUV segment in favor of more fashionable and fuel-efficient crossovers. Automakers have noticed, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find a compact SUV that's still actually an SUV. The 2009 Suzuki Grand Vitara we recently had in for a test spin is one of the few capable compact offerings left for the U.S. market.

From the noisy and lovable Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to the time-traveling DeLorean in "Back to the Future," flying cars have been a fixture of movies and science fiction that never quite cut it in the real world -- until now.

Let’s play a festive game of ‘Spot the Viking Longboats’. Really. There are four in this picture. OK, you can only see two of them, but they’re there. They are. Found ‘em yet? No? They’re in the headlights of this, the Volvo S60 concept, apparently. Not actual longships, as far as we know.

Look at recent economic history, and karma begins to make sense. Here's the cycle: increased oil demand; record crude prices; record gas prices; consumer panic; a slew of new vehicles poised to solve our oil dependency dilemma. It could be argued that this series of actions were led by karma. Translated from Sanskrit, the word "karma" means "work, action, the law of cause and effect."

There’s a new Mini convertible out. A new new Mini convertible, that is, not a new old Mini convertible. Right. Hang on. See, although the second generation of the new Mini was launched back in 2007, the convertible remained as the Mk1 version. Until now – Mini has chopped the top of the Mk2 and it looks… well, it looks pretty much exactly like the Mk1.

No pain, no gain. The Caparo T1 hurts. It's a bruising process just clambering over the sides and squeezing into the carbon tub, grazing yourself on all the hard edges that crowd in, pulling muscles as you reach for the harness. And the noise, even at idle! If you don't have earplugs or ideally a full helmet, it shoots an agony into your auditory canals.

We've just driven the Tesla. And now, so can you. The astonishing electric supercar is on sale in Europe, with the first orders expected to arrive next spring. You'd better be quicksharp, though - Europe will get just 250 Roadsters for 2009, and Tesla's Darryl Siry tells us that 50 of them have already been snapped up. "Companies would pay millions for our list of potential customers," he told us. "We've got some big names in there..."

A Mini plastered in Big Fun Stickers is a surefire sign that there’s an unctuous estate agent in the vicinity, but here’s the exception. This is the Mini E, the all-electric One set to debut at the LA Auto Show next month.

There's more similarity than you might imagine between Mazda and Subaru. Yes, yes, both are Japanese, but that's not the issue here. They've both persevered over the last few years with a USP so tricky it would've seen many a rival call it a day and head forlornly home.

We like the Kia Cee'd here. We really do. Well, apart from the daft spelling. And the looks. So you'd have thought we'd prefer the Pro_cee'd, because apart from the even more ridiculous spelling and under_scoring, this three-door version is much sharper looking.

.

Over on the Lexus stand, the wraps have just come off the IS250C convertible - the posh Toyota with the folding hard-top that'll be gunning straight for the 3-Series convertible when it reaches Europe next summer. In the flesh, it's not good-looking, exactly, but certainly a lot better than the monstrosity that is the SC430.

Striding to the front of our 'Dull but Worthy' Paris show category comes the Suzuki Alto. We've known about the Indian-built A-segment car - and close relative of the Nissan Pixo - for a while, but now we've got some firm information on the drivetrain and othersuch bits and pieces that confirm our initial suspicions: dull but worthy.

There are some seriously good wheels going on down on the Citroen stand. And none better than those on the C3 Picasso. We know, we know - cool wheels and mini-MPVs don't often occupy the same region of the automotive Venn diagram. But the C3 Picasso is a mini-MPV with a difference, a mini-MPV that you might actually get excited about.

The Cadillac CTS-V lapped the Nürburgring in under eight minutes, which is a record for a production saloon. Though do bear in mind that protons are now lapping a circuit of similar length in 0.0009 of a second, albeit they’re not the Malaysian hatchback kind of Proton, and the large hadron collider doesn’t have any corners as tricky as Pflanzgarten. Anyway, by saloon car standards, the CTS-V is a bit of a weapon. Its supercharged engine is related to the one in the Corvette ZR-1, and in this application has the stick to beat the current king of the hill, an Audi RS6, never mind the M5 and CLS AMG. It makes 556 horsepower, and gets to 60 in 3.9 extremely smoky seconds.

Impressive stuff, those nuclear scientists in their giant tunnel under Switzerland, whizzing protons into each other at the speed of light in their quest to discover God and dark matter and how to scare those of us who don’t understand physics.

During yesterday's press briefing, General Motors let its upcoming Saab 9X Air concept out of the bag ahead of its official debut at the Paris Motor Show, and today we finally have official pics and details of the new Swedish open air coupe.

Gossips love concept vehicles, especially those that seem to belong in showrooms already. Take the Toyota FT-HS. Unveiled at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show as a "21st-century sports car," it reminded some of Toyota's well-liked Supra. And why not? It's another high-style sporty coupe with rear-wheel drive, a six-cylinder engine, and seating for four. Obviously, a new Supra was on the way, and with gas/electric power to boot. After all, FT-HS stands for "Future Toyota-Hybrid Sport."

The race may now be set not to go to the swift, but the small. Toyota, evidently spurred by the positive reception to Daimler's Smart car, is planning to bring its iQ model to America soon after it's introduced in Japan this November, and Europe next January.

Honda revealed the name and the first official images of its new small hybrid vehicle today. The car will revive the name of the first hybrid gas-electric car introduced in the United States: the Honda Insight.

Tsk. It's always the way, isn't it? You wait ages for a hybrid rival to the Lexus LS600h to turn up, and... Yes, hot on the heels of the Merc S400 BlueHybrid comes this, the BMW 7-Series ActiveHybrid. Also set to be launched in Paris next week before reaching our roads next year, the ActiveHybrid is BMW's first genuine, er, hybrid. Although still currently billed as a concept, it's powered by BMW's twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8 petrol engine mated to an electric motor that'll add some 20bhp to the combustion engine's 407bhp.

We've known about it for a while, but Abarth has finally released official pictures of the double-hot 'esseesse' 500 that'll be formally unveiled in Paris. Looks neat, huh? The esseesse (that's Italian for 'SS', innit) is the hotter version of the already-hot Abarth 500, and gets - as you might just have noticed - the same bodykit as the Abarth (including that funky little rear diffuser) and a set of 17-inch wheels. We like those wheels.

It's fair to say that Peugeot needs a bit of a kick up its collective design arse at the moment. And this might, just might, be the car to do it. This is the RC... concept. No, we're not buggering around with punctuation there - that's actually what Peugeot is calling it. See, until its unveiling at the Paris Motor Show in October, we're only being told that it'll be called the RC... . The RC-something.

The Paris motor show isn't far away... which must mean that a swoopy Mazda concept is on the way. Ah yes, here it is. This is the Kiyora concept, a glassy little number described as 'a lightweight, next generation, urban compact concept car'. Erm... Kiyora means 'concentrated fruit soft drink' in Japanese (sadly that's a lie - it actually means 'clean and pure', which is far less amusing) and, we're told, represents the harmony between driving pleasure and environmental and safety features. We don't really know what this means.

If anyone can match Mazda in the mildly-mental-design stakes, it's Citroen. And, perhaps as a riposte to the Kia-Ora (sorry, Kiyora) concept we saw earlier, the French manufacturer has shown off a couple of sketches of this, the Citroen Hypnos Hybrid SUV concept.

I feel like I've been tipped off the top of the Cresta Run. On rollerblades. And I'm blindfolded. Holy cow, this is scary. To clarify the situation, let's look at the issues. One: the track I'm on, which is full of closing-radius sphincter-tightening corners, treacherous cambers, conniving double-apex curves and, most of all, blind traps that jump up at you from behind crests. Issue two, the car. In the Corvette ZR1, we've got 638bhp, in a machine that weighs just 1,518kg fully fuelled and optioned. That's Enzo Ferrari territory. I don't know the car, and I don't know the track. That combination is so intimidating, I feel like I've about 1,500bhp under my toe.

You try to be forward-thinking and responsible and what do you get? Forced into a rolling laboratory or some wayward, almost deliberately odd, tiny plastic go-kart. The furious ducking of tax laws and deliberate obfuscation of crash tests mean that you invariably end up in something that is a cross between a mobility scooter and a quad.

When we first saw the three-wheeled Riley XR3 hybrid over a year ago, we were impressed by its mad-scientist looks and mad-scientist aims (and, perhaps most importantly, the fact that it appeared to be named after that old Escort). But, if we're honest, we were pretty sceptical it'd ever actually reach production.