We obsessively cover the auto industry…

Crowd-funding projects are quickly emerging as the way to get things done in the tech business, and the idea is even jumping into other fields as well. But it hasn't exactly caught on just yet in the automotive industry. A few months ago we reported on a crowd-funding campaign to revive the Castle Three Motor Company to build a retro trike roadster similar to the Morgan 3 Wheeler, and various outfits have attempted to harness the public's contributions to jump-start electric vehicle development. But while those projects haven't gotten very far (as of yet), Spyker very well could.

For those unfamiliar, Spyker is a Dutch sports car manufacturer that has taken on some rather ambitious projects. It's produced successive versions of the C8 over the years, but canceled plans for the Zagato-designed C12, has repeatedly postponed plans for a high-end SUV, got in over its head with its own Formula One team and ultimately had to divest itself from the sinking ship that was Saab. But now it's trying to get back on track with the B6 Venator.

Expected to be half as expensive as the $300k+ C8 Aileron, the new B6 was unveiled in concept form at last year's Geneva Motor Show and as a Spyder roadster concept at Pebble Beach just months later. Production is scheduled to gear up later this year, with the first US deliveries to follow next year. While the C8 often arrives in collections as an owner's seventh or eighth car, the B6 will more likely be a buyer's third or fourth.

Spyker says it's amassing orders, but in order to actually start production, it needs capital. That's why it's turning to a rather unconventional way of financing the project. Rather than simply taking deposits to get started, Spyker is selling bonds. Each of the 100 bonds will be priced at £100,000 ($167,000 at today's rates) and be redeemable for one Spyker B6 Venator, which itself will be priced at £125,000 – a quarter more than what the bonds are being sold for. Alternatively, investors will have the option to cash out the bond after three or four years, or turn it into stock if Spyker issues an IPO.

Bobby Unser is one of the great American racing drivers of his generation, having won the Indianapolis 500 in 1968, '75 and '81 and belonging to the Unser racing dynasty. But he might be getting the oddest tribute of his life at the 2014 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance. Infiniti has created a tribute to his Indy-winning 1968 car out of a Q60 Convertible (previously the G37), and he will be driving it around the event.

The Infiniti is wrapped in red, gold, black and white livery with the number 3 designed by the company's design director Alfonso Albaisa. While the connection seems dubious, Offenhauser-powered racecars are one of the featured vehicles at this year's concours, and the Japanese luxury automaker worked with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum to bring Unser's 1968 Eagle, which used an Offenhauser engine and flew those colors, to the show. The brand wanted a car of its own to match... no matter how outlandish it looked.

Honestly, while certainly a nice gesture, the choice still seems a bit weird. At least visitors will get the chance to see American racing royalty and his winning car. Scroll down to read Infiniti's full explanation for their effort.

Bentley may step down a segment with a new, smaller luxury car that it hopes to have ready by 2019. The British luxury marque's fifth model line, assuming that its SUV ever makes it to market, though, is still in the earliest planning stages.

Kevin Rose, Bentley's head of sales and marketing, spoke with Autocar at the Geneva Motor Show about the proposed new vehicle. "At the moment, our line of thinking is for a smaller car. But smaller doesn't necessarily mean cheaper," he said. The brand believes the price floor of its models should be 100,000 pounds ($167,240).

The smaller Flying B isn't the only project being worked on. Rose hinted that it is considering an even more expensive model above the Mulsanne priced at around 300,000 pounds ($501,735) that would compete with the Rolls-Royce Phantom. "The twin pillars of the Bentley brand are performance and luxuriousness. Any car that offers something unique, with both of those bases well covered, is on the table," he said.

Regardless of whether either of them ever gets built, Rose indicated that new generations of the Continental GT and Flying Spur are currently in development, and they will be the first to debut.

Last week, we all watched with enjoyment as Jalopnik editor Travis Okulski got epically pranked by a mustachioed Jeff Gordon. As we explained then, Gordon starred in a memorable "viral" ad for Pepsi, which saw the NASCAR champion disguise himself and take a car salesman on a wild test drive. It was all called out as bull, and Okulski was one of the most vocal critics.

As payback, Gordon and Pepsi teamed up to get the unwitting editor back, for a second Test Drive commercial. This time, Gordon played a cab driver, while Okulski sat in back on his phone. It was all downhill from there.

The video has been a bit of a hit on YouTube, racking up nearly 14 million views since it debuted on February 27. Now, Okulski is sitting down with Mike Spinelli from Drive to explain absolutely everything that happened before, during and after the commercial.

Have a look below for both the original commercial and the interview on Drive.

Snagging a celebrity endorsement is a big deal for automakers, as evidenced by the recent efforts of the Detroit Three to try and woo The Tonight Show's newest host, Jimmy Fallon, into one of their trucks.

After announcing during Wednesday night's show that he was in the market for a pickup truck, Fallon set off a firestorm of efforts on Twitter, with both Ford and Chevrolet petitioning the funnyman to test out a truck. According to Ad Age, Ford recommended the King Ranch edition of its next-generation F-150 while the show was still airing. Chevy, meanwhile, waited until the next morning to pitch a Silverado to Fallon.

The winner of this social media feeding frenzy, though, was Ram. Promoting a variation of its "Guts, Glory, Ram" tagline, the Auburn Hills-based manufacturer created the hashtag #GUTSGLORYFallon. It even went so far as to park a Ram 1500 outside 30 Rockefeller Center in New York, where The Tonight Show is filmed. On the back of the Ram sat a sign, reading "Big enough, Jimmy? Test it out," referencing a joke from the Wednesday show.

Which truck do you think is best for Fallon? Let us know down in the comments.

It looks like Toyota is going to have a little more zoom-zoom in the future. The giant Japanese automaker has struck a deal with Mazda to use its Skyactiv engines for the possible replacement to the Yaris. The new subcompact will be built under contract by Mazda at its new factory in Mexico.

Keishi Egawa, CEO of Mazda in Mexico, told Automotive News that Toyota would be responsible for the interior and exterior design and would allocate 50,000 subcompacts per year to Toyota of the factory's 230,000-unit capacity. Production of the new model will begin between April 1, 2015, and March 31, 2016. Toyota has not confirmed whether the presumed Yaris replacement would also share other components with Mazda.

An official production date for the next Mazda2 hasn't been set yet, but it's expected around the second half of 2014, according to Automotive News. Mazda also hasn't said what version of the Skyactiv is going into the little hatchback. While the Hazumi concept, which likely previews the next 2, is using a new Skyactiv-D 1.5 diesel, this powerplant is unlikely for the US version.

The deal seems to be an ultimate vindication of Mazda's promise that Skyactiv would allow for class-leading, fuel-efficient engines. "You can't out-Toyota Toyota and you can't out-Honda Honda. You've got to be you," said Mazda USA's director of communications Jeremy Barnes to AutoblogGreen in 2011. Now, it has the world's largest automaker striking a deal to borrow its tech.

Contrary to popular belief, it seems that Mini's growth plans do have a limit both in size and number of models. During the 2014 Geneva Motor Show, it unveiled the six-door Clubman concept (pictured above) that was 4.4-inches longer and about two-inches wider than even the current Countryman crossover. Mini design chief Anders Warming says that this is the new size limit for its models, and the BMW subsidiary isn't building a larger, seven-passenger vehicle above the current Countryman.

"We won't build anything bigger than the Countryman, not at this moment. You should be able to park a Mini in a city, so a Countryman or this new Clubman is as big as it should be," said Warming to Auto Express in Geneva. Rumors going back to last November, pegged the Mini as developing an even larger vehicle to take on mainstream CUVs.

While Warming is ruling out a bigger Minis for now, a smaller one like the Rocketman concept still might be in the cards. He said that the project has been warmly received but still had to be investigated because "it's a numbers game." So if bigger Minis aren't coming, there still might be a slim chance for a smaller one.

If you're like us, Friday afternoons are the bane of your existence - the freedom of the weekend is so close you can taste the beer and see the red of your TV's Netflix logo, but the minutes that stand in your way slip by with all the speed of a retreating glacier. You need a way of burning that time, and as it turns out, online supercar configurators are just the answer. Lucky for you, this Friday brings a new one, with the McLaren 650S coupe and convertible available for building.

As high-end configurators go, this is a good one. There's a big picture of the car and a wealth of customization options to play with. Like a lot of configurators this one doesn't display prices, although with the hardtop McLaren middle child rumored to crest $318,000, does it really matter?

Hop over to McLaren's page and get cracking – those minutes aren't moving any faster.

Maserati is on a roll. The new Ghibli and Quattroporte have been huge successes, and it unveiled the gorgeous Alfieri concept (pictured above) at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show. The next step for the brand is getting the Levante crossover into production.

"We are getting Mirafiori ready for production [of the Levante]. The first bodies are expected for 2015," said Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne to Reuters in Geneva. He also said that there isn't much keeping the Alfieri off the streets. "The platforms and motors are there. Technically, production could start in 24-28 months," he said. However, Marchionne refused to say whether the company would actually give the concept a green light to be built.

Fiat hopes to be profitable again by 2016, and while its acquisition of Chrysler is certainly going to help, rejuvenating Alfa Romeo and Maserati are also a major part of the plan. In 2013, the Italian luxury brand saw sales more than double to 15,400 vehicles. Maser is still far away from its goal of selling 50,000 units by 2015, but it's quite a start. Fiat bought Maserati in 1993, but business went through a decade or more of doldrums and falling sales. It appears that the century-old brand is finally finding a path forward with some gorgeous new cars.

Last week, Lamborghini invited us to stop by its Sant'Agata Bolognese headquarters to have a look around the factory and pick up a few technical tidbits about its new Huracán LP 610-4. It won't surprise you to learn this, but Lambo's foyer is pretty rad.

Rather than front its offices and factory with a gift shop and a reception desk, Lamborghini puts its amazing heritage on full display by offering up the corporate museum as a first impression to visitors. We had coffee in the morning and lunch after the press conference in this space, with stunning Italian concept cars and production models serving as an impressive backdrop to it all. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to share the Lamborghini collection with exotic-car crazed Autoblog readers (you know who you are), we did our best to capture everything we saw in the gallery here.

With some variation, the museum's two floors are separated by vintage: older models downstairs and newer up. When you walk through the front door, you're flanked by two of the coolest Lamborghinis in the marque's impressive history: a 350 GT to the left and a perfectly green Countach LP 400 on the right. Perhaps our favorite car in the whole joint, the Countach's Bertone body is still almost impossible to believe. Up close, we're reminded how design-driven this car is; the seats are so far inboard from the scissor doors that it's difficult to imagine that engineers ever agreed that the shape was a feasible one for production or actual driving.

To say the 2014 Geneva Motor Show was packed full of news is an understatement as big as the show's home at the Palexpo convention center. Despite everything that we were able to cover during this year's show, there's still more coming out of Switzerland, including the announcement of the finalists for the 2014 World Car of the Year Awards.

We reported on the original list of finalists over three weeks ago, and now, that initial list has been pared down to three finalists for each of the five awards. The finalists were announced at a press conference by frequent Autoblog contributor and co-chair of the awards, Matt Davis (above).

The finalists for the overall title of 2014 World Car of the Year are the Audi A3, the BMW 4 Series and the Mazda3. The World Luxury Car of the Year will be either the Bentley Flying Spur, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class or the Land Rover Range Rover Sport, while the Performance Car of the Year will be awarded to the Chevrolet Corvette Stingray, the Ferrari 458 Speciale or the Porsche 911 GT3 (which, um, yeah...).

Rounding out the trophy contenders are the finalists for World Green Car of the Year, which include the Audi A3 Sportback G-Tron and Audi E-Gas, the BMW i3 and the Volkswagen XL1. Finally, World Car Design of the Year will be contested by the BMW i3, Mazda3 and Mercedes-Benz C-Class.

The winners will be announced in April, at the 2014 New York International Auto Show. Scroll down for the official press release from the World Car of the Year committee.

A few years back, Volkswagen made some waves when it announced the Golf GTD - a diesel-powered car that, aside from its ultra-efficient, ultra-torquey engine, was identical to the gas-powered GTI. That meant cosseting sport seats, larger wheels, sportier suspension, larger brakes and a body kit that made the GTD indistinguishable from the GTI, except for the three little letters on the back and in the grille.

Now, Ford is looking to replicate VW's success, with a diesel version of the Focus ST. According to Motor Trend, the diesel-powered ST will use a 2.0-liter, 182-horsepower four-cylinder. With an unspecified amount of torque on offer (we'd guess around 280 pound-feet), the diesel hot hatch should hit 62 miles per hour in about eight seconds.

The report, which originally comes from Auto Express, claims the ST Diesel was confirmed by Ford Chief Marketing Officer Mark Fields during this week's Geneva Motor Show. Not surprisingly, it doesn't appear there are any plans to bring a diesel-powered Focus of any kind to the US, let alone one that uses the suspension, steering and other items from the ST. Of course, if there's an official confirmation from Ford, we'll be sure to report on it.

Back in December, Mercedes-Benz announced a four-wheel-drive version of its endlessly charming Sprinter van (the European model is pictured above), but didn't make a mention of any plans for US market sales. Now, that's all changed, as the German automaker has confirmed that its Sprinter 4x4 will be available for US consumption, with the 2015 model hitting dealerships in the first quarter of next year. This means Mercedes will offer the only four-wheel-drive work van in the US.

Unlike the rest of the refreshed Sprinters, which can be had with a new 2.1-liter inline-four-cylinder turbodiesel engine, the US-spec 4x4 can only be had with the larger, 3.0-liter Bluetec V6, good for 188 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque. While the Sprinter 4x4 does not feature full-time four-wheel drive, the system can be activated at the push of a button, at which point, there's a 35/65 front/rear torque split.

Mercedes-Benz points out that, obviously, the Sprinter 4x4 is not an off-road machine, but the body has been lifted by 4.3 inches in the front and 3.1 in the rear. There's even an optional low-range gear which, at the push of a button, shortens the transmission's gearing by 42 percent. Sounds pretty darn capable, to us.

The Sprinter 4x4 will be offered in both 144- and 170-inch wheelbases, with low and high roof options, and will come in Passenger, Crew and Cargo van specifications. (And here we thought the current model was already capable of anything.) Pricing should be announced closer to the van's on-sale date early next year. For now, have a look below for Mercedes' official press release.