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Chevrolet has purchased seven spots.

It's the two-minute warning in terms of Super Bowl advertising and Chevrolet still has some ground to cover. General Motors' largest brand is still mulling its advertising lineup with less than two weeks remaining until the New York Giants and New England Patriots meet in the big game.

Chevrolet has purchased seven spots. Exactly which vehicles will be featured and at what times is still stirring healthy debate at GM headquarters.

"Every day, we're changing the spots of what's running where," said Chris Perry, Chevrolet's vice president of global marketing and strategy. "We're probably going to push it to the end."

That comes Tuesday, Jan. 31 when NBC wants final decisions. Click past the jump to continue reading.

The automotive industry tends to work by certain norms and patterns. For example, by the time one model is ready to be phased out, we usually have a pretty good idea of how its replacement is shaping up and when it will appear. But Bugatti, of course, is no typical automaker.

The House that Ettore Built has, for the past seven years, subsisted on the Veyron alone. Don't get us wrong, it's one heck of an automobile around which to build a brand, but it won't be around forever. In fact, Bugatti announced a while ago that Veyron production was running its course and nearing its end. The open topped Grand Sport, as it turns out, was outside that original allotment, but even that is nearing the end of its road.

So you can imagine our surprise when Ricardo, the company that makes the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission for the Veyron, announced today that it had extended its contract with Bugatti for another two years. Which would be straightforward enough if there were cars in which Bugatti would be installing said transmissions, but as we already established, the marque's sole product is nearing the end of its life-cycle, with no replacement in sight.

So where are these transmissions going? There can only be a few explanations. One is that Bugatti is planning to extend Veyron production with another derivative – likely the Super Grand Sport that is expected to combine the removable roof panel on the Grand Sport with the more powerful engine and bodywork of the Super Sport. Another is that the Galibier – a four-door super-sedan in the pipeline at Bugatti's Molsheim, France HQ – is closer than previously expected, but that model is expected to shift to a different type of transmission altogether.

One possibility we can't quite accept is that Bugatti is stockpiling components as substantial as a gearbox without having a model in which to install them, so watch this space for more news. In the meantime, scope out the press release after the jump to inspect for yourself.

Mini has officially announced pricing for the company's new Cooper Roadster. The tiny droptop will carry a base MSRP of $24,350 in the U.S., while the Cooper S Roadster will set you back $27,350. The top-of-the-line John Cooper Works Roadster, meanwhile, will command a sticker of $34,500 (*pricing exclude a $700 destination and handling fee). Should buyers wish to drop an automatic transmission into their Cooper Roadster or Cooper S Roadster, the two-pedal option will cost an additional $1,250, but the John Cooper Works Roadster is only available with a manual gearbox. Mini says 16-inch alloy wheels are standard on the base roadster and its S counterpart, while the topped-out JCW Roadster will roll on flashier 17-inch wheels.

That means the Cooper Roadster requires a $3,450 premium over the base hardtop Coupe, but curiously, it's cheaper than the Cooper Convertible by $600. While the latter doesn't exactly offer palatial amounts of space for rear passengers, it is still considerably more functional than its Cooper Roadster equivalent. We have to wonder if there's enough of a price differential between the two models to keep buyers from skipping the more rakish Roadster for its four-seat counterpart, but either way, we're just pleased it doesn't share the Coupe's awkward backwards-ballcap roofline. Hit the jump for the lengthy press release.

At the Washington Auto Show today, Chevrolet introduced a sticker.

Okay, the new Ecologic environmental labels that will be coming to all new Chevy vehicles – starting with the 2013 Sonic – is a lot more than just an adhesive piece of paper. Last year, the EPA revamped its mileage stickers, and GM has realized that many people like more information about the environmental impact of the vehicle they may be buying. GM North America President Mark Reuss said at the show that, "Customers want companies to be honest and transparent about their environmental efforts and sustainability goals, and rightly so." This is why the information on the labels will be verified by the independent organization Two Tomorrows. The label campaign will be backed up with a website that includes "more information on the audit process and environmental features for each vehicle with an Ecologic label."

What's on the labels? Information about the car from its time "before," "on" and "after" the road. This means that environmentally friendly steps that GM uses in the manufacturing process (before), steps taken to improve fuel economy (on) and information on how much of the vehicle can be recycled at the end of its life (after). You can see a detailed example of the Sonic sticker by clicking on the picture above. Since Ecologic is going to be on all Chevy models, we'll admit we're interested to see how GM finds the eco side of the Camaro ZL1.

Remember when the dot-com ads started to flood the airwaves during the Super Bowl? The ads were almost always wacky, and half the time, we didn't even know what was being sold. Well, it's been a long time since the 1990s, and very few Internet-based companies are still hocking services during The Big Game.

Cars.com is one of the WiFi warriors that is still swinging for the fences, and some of their past work has been reasonably funny. Their 2012 ad is all about using Cars.com to gain confidence at the dealership, but we're not sure what to think about it. There is something about a man with a freaky second head that doesn't sit well with us, and we like it even less when noggin part deux is intentionally obnoxious. Seriously, we could do without the gyrating, it's creeping us out. Hit the jump to preview the 30-second ad for yourself.

Most everyone at Ford is grinning from ear-to-ear these days, as the company is enjoying profits as well as a vastly improved product portfolio and public image. Sales are up, the product pipeline is full, and market share grew last year. You can almost imagine Ford CEO Alan Mulally saying, "What, me worry?"

But that's exactly what he should be doing, according to Forbes, which suggests Ford is growing arrogant and its numbers aren't nearly as solid as they appear. For instance, Forbes says Ford was also right up there with Toyota and Honda when it came to recalls last year, far outpacing crosstown rivals General Motors and Chrysler. Ford recalled some 3.3 million vehicles in 2011, compared with 773,000 for Chrysler and just 500,000 for GM.

But the real shocker is that Forbes says Ford tops all automakers when it comes to fleet sales. Not only are fleet sales usually less profitable, but they also tend to hurt resale values, meaning that selling 32 percent of its vehicles into fleets last year does not bode well for the Blue Oval or the residual values of its owners. According to the report, the model with the most fleet sales was the new-for-2012 Focus. A staggering 45 percent of Focus models sold last year were to fleets, which isn't good for anyone, save the guy standing in line at the Hertz counter.

Editor's note: Ford contacted us to clarify a few things about its 2011 fleet sales. The first is that rental fleet sales as a percent of total volume was 12 percent, which it claims is a smaller percentage than GM and Chrysler's rental fleet sales. Fleet sales of commercial vehicles, meanwhile, were 14 percent of total sales volume, while government sales were six percent.

The Swiss know a thing or two about skiing. Our neutral friends go downhill, cross-country and even joring. Yeah, we've never heard of "joring" before either, but it apparently involves slapping on a pair of skis and getting towed around by a horse or dog.

That doesn't sound like all that much fun to us, but if you replace the four-legged hauler with a Bentley Continental GT, we're inclined to change our tune. The good folks at Auto Express headed out to a joring track in Rougemont, Switzerland to try their skill with a 570 horsepower, four-wheel drive Continental GT, and they have video to prove it.

Hit the jump to watch exotic joring at 40 miles per hour.

As far as the Mini lineup goes, the John Cooper Works models sit at the very top of the performance spectrum. But that's not enough for Mini's (relatively) new chief Kay Segler. The German auto exec came to the post from the M division of parent company BMW, and that's what Segler wants for the Mini brand as well.

So what does a further differentiated JCW line mean for the Mini? That's hard to say at this point, beyond marketing, but we could be looking at even more powerful versions than the 208-horsepower, 1.6-liter turbo four currently employed. With the arrival of the JCW Countryman, Mini will have created Works versions of every bodystyle in its considerable portfolio – and it will have a more powerful 223hp mill on its hands, which could find its way into the rumored upcoming Mini GP edition as well.

More exciting JCW models aren't all that Segler has planned for Mini, however. According to Car and Driver, as U.S. demand is growing for for Mini's diesel-powered models already offered in Europe and other markets. While we wouldn't expect an oil-burning Mini to find its way across the Atlantic in this generation of models, once the next series comes along in the next couple of years, a diesel-powered Mini could wind up in American showrooms.

Think the "standard" Rolls-Royce Phantom is expensive at $380,000? Try $1.2 million on for size. That's how much the latest special-edition Phantom was going for, but the astronomic price tag hasn't prevented the (*ahem*) Rolls-Royce of automakers from selling every last one.

The model in question is the Year of the Dragon edition, which was first released just this past August. It features a range of special touches – from a gold-colored "coach line" (that being a pinstripe down the flank) to dragons inlaid in the wood and embroidered into the leather – all aimed at marking the new year on the Chinese calendar.

Rolls-Royce isn't saying exactly how many it sold, but apparently the entire allotment was spoken for within two months of the vehicle's launch. The sales are expected to boost the skyrocketing figures Rolls-Royce posts in China, whose number of millionaires has now risen to third worldwide behind the United States and Japan. As a result, Rolls-Royce reportedly plans to add another ten dealerships to its current network of 14 in China by the end of 2011.

We've yet to see exterior shots of the vehicle – limited as we were previously to some close-ups of the unique touches applied to it – but with news that the special edition is completely sold out, we've added a few more photos to our high-res image gallery.

Hyundai's Elantra has been on fire, with sales up 41 percent last year. The compact sedan won North American Car of the Year in January, and the icing on the cake will be a new coupe bodystyle that will soon be landing at dealers. But all is not completely well, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Hyundai expects Elantra sales to run into a brick wall of limited production capacity, as the company's Montgomery, Alabama plant is already operating at 110 percent. The plant, which builds the Elantra and its big brother, the midsize Sonata, churned out 338,000 units in 2011. Hyundai sold over 186,000 Elantra models in the U.S. last year.

With Hyundai posting 20 percent overall sales growth in the U.S. in 2011, it clearly needs to address its capacity bottleneck. Speculation is building that the company will soon announce plans to build another North American assembly plant.

To the millions of Gen Xers sitting in cubicles listening to New Wave bands on Spotify, wondering how they ever got to be so out of shape, so gray, so middle-aged and so much like their parents, this little 10-second clip that showed up on YouTube yesterday promised something great – the return of a hero, a new chapter in the generational totem that is Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Alas, amidst all the speculation that Matthew Broderick would be reprising his role in a belated sequel, comes this revelation: It's just a teaser for a Super Bowl ad.

According to Jalopnik, the ad is for Honda, and it will rehash all the best scenes in the original film. It's a big enough deal that Honda has drafted Todd Phillips, he of The Hangover fame, to direct (John Hughes, director of FBDO, passed away in 2009). Of course, this means the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider will not be appearing, replaced, according to the report, by a 2012 Honda CR-V.

Not to sound too Cameron-like, but if that's true, it is depressing. Click past the jump to see the quick teaser video.

Updated Droptop Doesn't Compromise Driving Dynamics For Fresh Air And Sunshine



Few experiences equal the feeling of driving a new 2012 Bentley Continental GTC down a crowded Los Angeles highway – especially when the droptop is prismatic magenta with highly polished 21-inch wheels.

Some stare. Others glare. But most simply sneer.

The response should be expected. After all, a vehicle of this caliber is designed to broadcast to others that you have succeeded. Unfortunately, this specific boisterously purple quarter-million dollar convertible with flashy wheels takes things a bit too far: it also seems to remind passers-by that they have failed.

But let's not blame Bentley for someone's misguided selection on the color wheel. A mere 30 microns of pigment over perfectly primed aluminum, whether or not it appears related to Barney the dinosaur, isn't reason to dismiss this magnificent open-top GT.

Or is it?

General Motors has launched an advertising campaign touting the safety of the Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in electric vehicle, just as its CEO testified to Congress that a recent Volt fire that took place after a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash test would never occur under real-world circumstances, Bloomberg has reported.

GM CEO Dan Akerson (pictured) said in the campaign that he "couldn't be prouder" of the technology the company uses to produce the Volt, the wire service noted. The campaign includes full-page ads in 19 U.S. daily newspapers, including the The New York Times, as well as a television ad that will debut on News Corp's Fox News channel. GM has also released a new "normal" ad that calls the Volt "the car America had to build." You can watch the 30-second clip, which may appear in or around the Super Bowl, after the jump.

Akerson spoke Wednesday in a hearing with the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs, Stimulus Oversight and Government Spending. Both he and NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said the car was safe and defended NHTSA's handling of the situation against accusations from some Republican members of Congress who've been critical of the Obama Administration and its relationship with GM.

NHTSA said late last week that it finished its two-month investigation into the crash test that resulted in a fire three weeks after the fact last summer, and concluded that neither the Volt nor other electric vehicles pose more of a fire risk than conventional vehicles.

Ford has announced the company's single largest profit since 1998, thanks in part to a one-time tax gain. The company drew in a net income of $13.6 billion last quarter and the news marked the automaker's 11th consecutive profitable quarter. For perspective, Ford made $190 million in 2010. The company's net income was bolstered by the fact that Ford eliminated a valuation allowance against deferred tax benefits. The company created the valuation allowance in 2006 when it began reporting operating losses. Analysts reportedly see the elimination as a sign that the manufacturer expects to be profitable in coming years.

The company made $8.8 billion in profit in 2011, or $1.51 a share. That's an increase of $463 million over 2010. Even so, the company's net income missed analysts' estimates thanks in part to higher commodity costs, currency fluctuations and flooding in Thailand. The automaker spent $100 million more in commodities like steel than it projected. Those facts, combined with a deteriorating European market, helped Ford miss analyst estimates by 5 cents per share.