We obsessively cover the auto industry…

The Gallardo was far and away Lamborghini's most successful model. Over the course of ten years, the Bolognese automaker sold some 14,000 of them. As the Gallardo has now reached the end of its production cycle, Lamborghini is hard at work developing its replacement, and these are the latest spy shots of the work in progress.

Now wearing swirly camouflage instead of the flat-black wrap spied on previous prototypes, this latest version is our best glimpse yet at the supercar expected to be called Cabrera. Despite the more disguising wrap, though, the contrast between bodywork and air vents is more evident – particularly between the side window and the rear wheel, where this prototype appears to be sporting a panel similar in appearance to the "side blade" on the Audi R8 (with whose replacement the Cabrera is expected to share much). However, this is more likely a bit of disguise to throw us off the scent. Don't be thrown by the headlamp treatment, either. It may look like a Photoshop product, but our photographers on the ground tell us these translucent screens are just another diversion – as if you couldn't tell this was a Lambo from a mile away.

As for technical details, we're still expecting a reworked version of the outgoing model's 5.2-liter V10 driving all four wheels, only retuned to the tune of 600 horsepower. A dual-clutch gearbox (similar to the excellent unit newly installed in the R8) is tipped to transmit the power instead of the six-speed manual or robotized gearboxes in the outgoing Gallardo or the rapid but unrefined ISR transmission in the Aventador. Expect weight to be trimmed thanks to Lamborghini's further experimentation with carbon fiber production techniques, helping the Cabrera do better than hold its own with newer, fresher competition like the Ferrari 458 Italia and McLaren 12C.

After setting a world land speed record in a 50,000-horsepower jet car, we're bringing The List hosts Jessi Combs and Patrick McIntyre back down to Earth with a to-do item more accessible for the common enthusiast: drive the Tail of the Dragon.

If you're not yet in the know, the Tail of the Dragon is an 11-mile stretch of US Route 129 that straddles Tennessee and North Carolina. This windy, forested route runs in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains and is known for one thing: curves, and lots of them.

The bulk of its estimated 318 turns are located in The Volunteer State, and the good ones are given names like Crud Corner, Hog Pen Bend and The Whip. Many a motorist and motorcyclist have overestimated their driving abilities here and paid a tax in body panels and pride, and the police now have such a presence that tickets are a rite of passage.

Still, the Dragon comes up in any conversation about the very best driving roads in the US (dozens of you have written in and suggested we tackle it), so it's off to Tennessee we go to cross another major item off The List.

• Have an RSS feed? Click here to add The List.
• Click here to subscribe to The List in iTunes.
• Click here to learn more about our hosts, Jessi and Patrick.

Where the current roadgoing Ferrari coupe with its rear-mounted V8 can go beyond this Speciale edition, I don't know. The 458 Italia and Spider already hold a very dear place in the hearts of anyone who has driven them on a sunny day over great roads or tracks, and I was pretty sure nothing could beat the heady sensory combo presented in the 458 Spider when I first drove it back in 2011. I may have to change my opinion now.

Companies like Ferrari are in the enviable position of sprinkling performance dust on their already-great base cars, all just to make them a skosh better and grab us again by the loins for one more model year. Some perspective: in 2002, the legendary Enzo set its personal best around Ferrari's 1.9-mile track at Fiorano, pulling a 1:24.9. This 458 Speciale with four fewer cylinders and more weight beats it with a time of 1:23.5, and not once during my laps did I feel as though I might die if my slightest judgment behind the wheel was less than on the money.

This is the new Audi R18. It looks like the Bond villain of race cars (it has red running lamps), and if Audi's past is any indication, it'll prove difficult to beat in the LMP1 class of the 2014 World Endurance Championship.

The car's full name is the Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro, just like last year's car. Also like last year's car, the new R18 draws its power from a V6 turbodiesel, which powers its rear wheels, and Audi's E-Tron hybrid system, which runs its front axle. Unlike last year's car, though, this R18 has a secondary hybrid system. Audi has fitted the V6 with an electric turbocharger and figured out how to capture waste heat generated when the engine reaches its boost limit. That power can then be stored and fed back into either the turbo or the front axle's hybrid system under acceleration.

There are a number of changes to the body on the new car, forced in large part by series regulation changes. The car is narrower, particularly at the front, but it's also taller. The front end is set off by a new wing, as part of a new WEC regulation. Audi seems quite pleased about this, citing an improvement in front-end downforce and a reduction in cost. Like Formula One, the WEC contenders now have to contend with a ban on the so-called blown diffuser, which forced exhaust gases over the diffuser, creating downforce. That's necessitated some changes from Audi, although as we have no rear shots of the car, we can't tell you what it looks like.

We've got a gallery of images of the new, menacing R18 E-Tron Quattro as well as a press release from Audi fully detailing the changes for this season. Take a look.

In a rather sudden move, Volkswagen has announced that, effective immediately, Michael Horn is replacing Jonathan Browning (shown above) as CEO of VW of America. Horn has been with VW since 1990, taking on various roles that include, most recently, the head of VW Aftersales worldwide.

As for Browning, VW says that his departure is due to personal reasons. Browning replaced Stefan Jacoby as VWoA CEO in October 2010, but Automotive News hints that VW's "disappointing US sales," may have been a factor in the executive shakeup, as VW was not on trend to reach its aggressive goal of selling 800,000 units in the US annually by 2018. Scroll down for VW's official announcement (translated from German) as well as some other resulting personnel changes.

With the Car and Driver Ten Best decided, the North American Car and Truck of the Year finalists announced and Cadillac, Ram and Subaru chalking up wins with Motor Trend, it's fair to say that the automotive awards season is in full swing. The next set of trophies to be handed out will be from Ward's Automotive, which has announced the winners of its 2014 10 Best Engines.

The latest contest was marked by the widespread emergence of diesel power and the continued success of turbocharged engines. There was even an electric motor on this year's list. In fact, only three of the ten winners were naturally aspirated and only two winners returned from last year.

"We weren't looking to throw the bums out, as they might say about an election. We were just really impressed with the flood of new powertrains," said Ward's Automotive Editor-in-Chief Drew Winter. Those new powertrains include the 83-kilowatt electric motor from the Fiat 500e, the 1.0-liter, EcoBoost three-cylinder from the Ford Fiesta and the 2.0-liter turbodiesel from the Chevrolet Cruze.

The carryovers from last year were Honda's 3.5-liter V6 from the Accord and Audi's excellent 3.0-liter, supercharged V6 from the S4 and S5. Other big names to make the list include the 3.0-liter, turbodiesel six-cylinders from the BMW 535d and Ram 1500 EcoDiesel, as well as the new 6.2-liter V8 from the seventh-generation Chevy Corvette Stingray. The Stingray and Cruze make Chevy the only brand to score two wins in this year's awards, although the Chrysler Group and Volkswagen Group had two awards among their sub-brands (Chrysler had Ram and Fiat, while VW Group had Audi and VW).

Scroll down for the entire press release from Ward's Automotive, which includes the complete list of winners as well as remarks on each engine.

Chrysler is recalling a small number cars over issues with their 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines. The recall, which affects 522 examples of its 2013 Dodge Avenger and Chrysler 200 models, as well as 2014 Jeep Compass and Patriot CUVs has to do with potential debris in the balance shaft bearings.

The abrasive stuff can cause the oil pressure to drop, which could lead to the engine stalling or outright failure. This situation could at best leave drivers stranded and at worst lead to a crash.

Chrysler will begin notifying owners, who will need to report in to have the balance shaft module replaced. All repairs are naturally free of charge. Scroll down for the bulletin from NHTSA.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) powered by hydrogen were taken more seriously at the LA Auto Show and Tokyo Motor Show last month than ever before, but their presence in the market is still shrouded in fog. Soichiro Okudaira, chief officer of research and development at Toyota, is confident fuel cell costs will come down enough to make FCEVs "just one alternative of the eco cars," but that probably won't happen for another 10-15 years.

Toyota thinks FCEVs will be price competitive against other zero-emission vehicles some time after 2020 and before 2030, Okudaira told Automotive News Europe. Interestingly, the Japanese automaker is confident that cost reductions will come through soon enough to help it sell between 5,000 and 10,000 units a year once the production version of the FCV Concept goes on sale in the first part of 2015.

Toyota is now saying the hydrogen powertrain for 2015 could cost about $50,000 to build.

Retail pricing on the fuel cell car has yet to be announced, but production costs have been coming down. The fuel cell powertrain that Toyota built for a demonstration vehicle in 2007 cost nearly 750,000 euros (over $1 million). A production vehicle is nothing like a concept, and Toyota is now saying a hydrogen powertrain for the 2015 vehicle could cost about 35,900 euros ($50,000) to build, about half the car's expected 72,000-euro ($100,000) price tag. Costs have been coming down in the fuel cell stack by reducing the amount of platinum in the catalyst and making the stack smaller so that it can fit under the front seats. Sharing a motor and other electronic components with the Toyota hybrid lineup is helping lower costs, too.

You can see in the FCV Concept photo gallery how much it looks like the Prius but Toyota has now clarified that the new Prius platform will not be used for the fuel cell car, in part because the FCEV is heavier and has a different underbody structure and layout. What's not yet clear is if the upcoming production fuel-cell vehicle will wear a Prius badge. Readers are split on that.

Selling 5,000 to 10,000 hydrogen-powered units a year after 2015 is more than other automakers are willing to say publicly. Hyundai is previewing a fuel-cell crossover concept and expects to sell about 1,000 fuel cell Tucson SUVs next year. Honda will sell a five-seat fuel cell vehicle in 2015, and Daimler will roll out a fuel cell variant of its B-Class compact car starting in 2017.

​Chevrolet has already confirmed that it will debut the 2015 Corvette Z06 at the Detroit Auto Show next month, and now its motorsports division has announced that the Corvette C7.R racecar will also be on display in Detroit. The new C7.R will then make its racing debut in the Tudor United SportsCar Championship (USCC) racing series at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, on January 25.

Few details are known about the new Corvette racecar, but we did see it testing in prototype form at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca during the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion in August. Chevy Racing is giving the Corvette race team's "Jake" mascot (shown inset) a slight makeover, but it will continue to be a skull with the Corvette's crossed flag logo as eyes.

In addition to the news about the C7.R, Chevy Racing is also celebrating a strong year in motorsports with a total of 12 championships across various racing series like NASCAR, Grand-Am, IndyCar and American Le Mans Series. Scroll down for the full press release.

Several years ago, we posted a video on a dumpy, all-wheel-drive, turbocharged Honda Civic Wagon that starred in a film called Wagon Attack II. The video showed the rusty, red five-door tackling terrain that no Civic has any business driving on, and doing it with flair and style.

Now, the team that produced the original video are back, with Wagon Attack III. The latest video is packed full of goodness for wagon lovers of any stripe. Where the last video saw the turbocharged wagon in Michigan, though, this time it's been shipped to Iceland, where it's flung about on the beaches and dirt roads of the volcanic island.

The video has a bit of a sad ending, though. You'll need to watch it and see what we mean. We've got the entire video down below. Take a look.

A rather clever mass-transit concept with a silly sounding name, the "Willie" bus by designer Tad Orlowski is intended to "transform city landscapes."

With nothing displayed on the side-elevation transparent LCD screens, there's not much differentiating the Willie from a traditional bus - except for its "organic" frame. Said frame is contorted into all sorts of shapes, and is meant to create "an impression of restless energy attempting to cut through the unblemished surface of the glass [screen]." But if the Willie bus makes it into production, chances are the screens will be switched on most of the time, displaying advertisements on the road and useful information for passengers at bus stops.

We like the bus-as-television idea, but we can't help but wonder if it will create yet another distraction for drivers, and why there don't seem to be windows that open for passengers? Head below to watch a demonstration of the Willie bus concept in action.

What you see above is the carbon fiber frame that underpins the BMW i3. This lightweight material will allow the plug-in vehicle to set itself apart from the competition in a lot of ways (weight, most importantly, but also space and rigidity), but what we didn't expect was that the newfangled bits will help keep repair and insurance costs down. It may sound counterintuitive, but that's what Manuel Sattig, the communications manager for BMW i, told AutoblogGreen recently. It does make sense but, like so much else in this new, plug-in vehicle universe, it requires a new way of thinking.

There is a plan to bring carbon fiber to the rest of the BMW fleet.

When BMW started Project i in 2007, the company began with a figurative plain sheet of paper. There were some rules, of course. "Every idea, every technology, every revolution or new material that we came up with for BMW i eventually had to enable the rest of the BMW Group," Sattig said. "Which means, yes, there is a plan to bring carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) to the rest of our fleet." The extent to which BMW will integrate carbon fiber into other model ranges is still being evaluated, and Sattig said BMW is first and foremost focused on launching the i3 and i8 and figuring out how, exactly, carbon fiber works in a series production vehicle. Still, dreams are big, and Sattig called CFRP, "the lightweight material of the future for the entire company."

The new 3.0-liter inline-six makes 425 turbocharged horsepower from 5500 rpm all the way up to 7300 rpm.

BMW has announced the 2015 M3 Sedan and M4 Coupe, high-performance versions of the new 3 Series and 4 Series that launched this year. The new Ms have stirred controversy in a variety of ways, but one must remember that the M cars traditionally don't follow a specific mold.

Back in 1988, BMW launched the M3 with a high-revving four-cylinder engine even though the top non-M 3 Series model was equipped with an inline-six. The reason: the little four-banger weighed less. The power-dense 2.3-liter four produced 197 horsepower, which was enough to make the original M3 one of the most sought after performance BMWs of all time. Two successive generations of M3 stepped up the cylinder count to six and provided a nice bump in power, and the M3 that came after them was equipped with a screaming V8. The M3's history dictates that M cars aren't about staying the same - they're meant to push limits - and M Motorsport engineers decided that the new M3 Sedan and M4 Coupe would push limits best with a twin-turbocharged inline-six.

For those of you worried that the new mill will underwhelm, on paper it outperforms the last M3's 4.0-liter V8 in a number of areas, including weighing 22 pounds less. The new 3.0-liter inline-six makes 425 turbocharged horsepower from 5,500 rpm all the way up to 7,300 rpm – just 300 rpm before the redline is reached. That's five more horsepower than the V8, but more importantly, the 1800-rpm powerband is very broad. Torque from the turbo six is even more impressive: peak torque of 406 pound-feet starts at 1850 rpm and doesn't start falling off until 5,500 rpm, right when the engine starts to make peak horsepower. That compares very favorably to the V8's oft-bemoaned max torque of just 295 lb-ft.

Score one for the turbo M.

With the Formula One season – and indeed his entire F1 career – now behind him, Mark Webber took advantage of his early release from Red Bull Racing to try out the new LMP1 which Porsche is developing, undertaking the final test session of 2013 before Porsche throws it head first into the FIA World Endurance Championship next April. The session – which followed previous tests at Magny-Cours, Monza, Paul Ricard and the Eurospeedway at Lausitz – was held at the Algarve circuit in Portimão, Portgual, in collaboration with Michelin, which is developing the tires for the car. But that's hardly the news here.

No, the news is the first confirmation we've seen on the type of powertrain Porsche has developed for its new Le Mans prototype: a gasoline-burning four-cylinder engine with direct injection and two energy recovery systems. This contrasts sharply with the V6 turbodiesel and single electric motor used by Audi in the R18 e-tron Quattro (or at least the outgoing version) or the naturally-aspirated V8 and single electric motor found in the Toyota TS030. Flexibility in the rules set down by the FIA and ACO give the manufacturers that kind of latitude, prompting F1 teams like Ferrari and Renault to consider developing their new engines for Le Mans prototypes as well.

At this point Porsche isn't saying how large its four-cylinder engine is or how much power it will produce. But it'll be interesting, to say the least, to see how it fares against the Audi and Toyota in next year's championship and at Le Mans when it'll be piloted by Webber, former Lola LMP1 driver Neel Jani and Audi's own 2011 Le Mans-winning pair of Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard.