Autoblog

The buzz surrounding the 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe doesn't seem to be waning. We gave you video B-roll, a paper cut-out, and New York Auto Show coverage. Now, we are bringing you unofficial "photochopped" coverage as enthusiasts take the press images and have some fun customizing them.

Take a look at the four nicely done images in the gallery (flat black with light window tint really looks stealth!), and see if you can come up with your own version to add to the mix (we'll upload the stand-outs to our gallery). Realizing the 2.0-liter turbocharged four is begging for mods, what else are you planning to do to your Genesis? Engine tuning, suspension, electronics? We're betting the aftermarket is gearing up already for this all-new rear-wheel-drive coupe. Thanks for the tip, Dave!

[Source: 4G63HP]

Bored? Have an unhealthy Dodge Challenger fetish? The same Photoshop fiend that brought us a colored guide to the 2009 Chevy Camaro also created a very cool Challenger paint customizer web tool. Our guy Mike (Rampant on the CamaroZ28 forums) developed the Flash program with options for base color, two-tone, and stripes. There are 13 rich base color choices and millions of resultant combinations from which to choose. You can even change the background from blue skies to a white or black backdrop.

There are expectedly signs of a chop, yet the finished results are much better than even the aforementioned Camaro pics. We took a stab at the tool ourselves, and found it a lot of fun to mess around and create the ugliest Challenger we possibly could. Try it out and let us know what you think after the jump.

click here for high-res version

It's already been made known that Cerberus Capital Management CEO Stephen Feinberg has already made public that he regrets naming his private equity firm after the mythological three-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades. We say, why? Embrace your name and figure out how to use it to your advantage. One Autoblog reader agrees with us, and has created this photoshopped homage to Chrysler Corp.'s new owner called the 300 Cerberus Edition.

The Chrysler 300 has already earned an itimidating reputation, being used as transportation for the Mafia and Secret Service alike in the movies and on television. What could make Chrysler's baby Bentley more terrifying than a proper Cerberus hood ornament in shiny chrome? We think it suits the car and would demand the horn's single pitch be replaced with dog barking sounds.

F, now there's a letter that says high performance, don't it? Lexus must have figured that all the good ones were taken, so why not just go with the first letter of FAST. No doubt, the GS-F will be a rocket. It better be, if it wants to try kicking sand in the face of the M5. The artist's rendering gives a credible estimation of what kind of styling *ahem* enhancements might accompany the increased athleticism in the GS's chassis, and the increased power under the hood. We guess that the GS-F will need to call some attention to itself to help build street cred, but if the actual car looks anything like the rendering, there'll be no stealth bombing for you.

[Source: Paultan.org]

We've now received our May issue of Motor Trend in the mail and can verify that the 2008 Subaru Impreza does appear on the cover and inside the mag. We can't show you those pictures of the car since they were taken by one of Motor Trend's photographers and are owned by the magazine (though you can view them here). The cover car is a blue model in the new four-door hatchback body style. Yesterday we reported about new pics surfacing over at Inside Line featuring a version of the car in red. While the IL article did provide us with some solid details about the car, the pics that were shown on the site and labeled "Original photo source unknown" have been exposed as photoshopped versions of the images taken by Motor Trend. Go ahead and grab your issue and compare. It's clear that the magazine was scanned, the car selected out, given a new color and pasted on a new background. Looking closely at the IL pics, we're a bit disappointed in ourselves that we didn't catch it sooner.

We're actually pleased at this little turn of events, because it means that there does not yet exist official pics of the 2008 Subaru Impreza in the wild. We've harshed on the styling of the new Impreza a lot here, but are still willing to give it a chance. Perhaps the forgiving eye of Subaru's own in-house photographer can convince us it's not that bad. We'll find out when we arrive in New York next week and pick up our press kit, as well as take our own shots of the new car in person.

Thanks for the tip, Chris!

click on image above to view the high-resolution gallery with 61 pics

What started off as a suggestion turned into something much bigger when we politely prodded our readers to submit their own Pixar creations to us using the CARS Photochop guide we posted on January 2nd. In less than 10 days we've received 61 submissions, which is incredible. We were doing well at updating the gallery with your submissions in real time, though that exercise took a back seat this week to our Detroit Auto Show coverage. Today, however, we finally got around to uploading the last batch of pics to complete the gallery.

The quality of submissions is incredible and it looks like everyone had fun anthropomorphizing their daily drivers. What amazed us, however, were the submissions that actually seemed to express the personality of the subject car. The little white Honda S2000 on the track with a giddy grin, the HUMMER H1 with a snorting sneer, and the Gemballa Mirage GT that looks frighteningly overconfident and cocky. In truth, they were all really good, and a special shoutout goes to Mike Warren who submitted four quality designs – the Hugger, C. Exef, General HUMMER and Mater II.

How sweet is that?!?!?! His name's Hugger, created by Michael W.

We love our readers, especially when they send us things that make us happy like the Pixar Cars photochops we've been receiving. For those of you who may have missed it, John posted about to a NASIOC forum thread that laid out the steps necessary to turn a photo of your car 9or any car, for that matter) into a character right out of this past Summer's animated blockbuster, Cars.

John's "Ernie Intercepter" and "Ned Nassau" kicked things off, but it's you guys who've carried the torch from there. We love the creations you're sending, so please send more, and we'll add them to the gallery for the whole world to see. For instructions on how to make your own personal Lightning McQueen, check out the original post here.

Now go have fun and show us what you've got! Email the fruits of your labors to abresearch at gmail dot com to get added to the gallery.

UPDATE: Tons more have been added.

click on image above for gallery of high-res images

Every car has a personality, and most of us take that next step and christen our cars with names like Roger, the Powder Blue Thunder Wagon, the Scalded Chicken, and the Jetta Knight (all names of past cars I've owned). After watching Pixar's computer animated opus to the automobile, CARS, we know have demonstrable proof that cars can smile, wink and express all the emotions on their front fascias that their owners do. But until now, coaxing the personality out of your car in a visible way hasn't really been an option. Thanks to psychochild on the North American Subaru Imrpeza Owners Club forum, we now can all infuse our daily drivers with the personality of Lightning McQueen and Sally Carrera. The only tools you'll need are Photoshop and the courage to use it. psychochild's instructions are straightforward and can be followed by even the newest of noobs. Even we could do it, as is evident by Ernie Intercepter and Ned Nassau (check the gallery).

If you take the challenge to Pixar your own car, send the results to abresearch at gmail dot com and we'll publish them in our gallery.

[Source: NASIOC.com]

click on image to enlarge

Autoblog reader Michael C. swears that someone besides himself must've come up with this bright idea before, but we can say as a matter of fact this is the first one we've seen. Michael took the teaser image General Motors released this month of Bob Lutz and Ed Welburn pulling the covers back every so slightly on the yet-to-be-released 2008 Cadillac CTS. Lutz yanked the sheet back just enough, however, to give us all a clear view of half of the car's front end. Since vehicles are generally symmetrical, Michael had the bright idea of squaring up the shot and flipping the one side over to reveal the full face of the 2008 Cadillac CTS in all its glory, and without breaking any embargoes. Well done, Michael.

click on image to enlarge

This nicely done Photochop of a Mercury-badged Ford Mondeo was sent in to us by Autoblog reader Galvin, which is funny because it's the second Photochop of a Mercury-badged Ford Mondeo we've received from readers this week. The quality of Galvin's pixel painting got us thinking about amending our comments in the past about what Ford should do with Mercury, which you can read here. Seeing this makes you wonder whether such a vehicle could actually do anything to not just stop Mercury's slide, but bring back the brand we'd all like to succeed but just don't expect to. It's a nice thought, and frankly we'd entertain a lot of crazy notions that would result in Ford's new Mondeo being sold in the U.S., but then reality kicks in and we remember the Mercury Milan, which shares its platform and a lot of other stuff with the Ford Fusion and Lincoln Zephyr. The Mondeo would likely never become a rebadged Mercury because the Fusion triplets are actually selling well as a whole. Also, such a vehicle would likely cannibalize sales from the Fusion and MKZ were all three to be sold in the same market.

Nevertheless, something has to be done about Mercury and its overreliance on poorly-rebadged Ford products. With General Motors officially announcing the Saturn Astra yesterday and completing that brand's transformation into an almost all-Opel lineup, we wonder whether or not the same thing couldn't be done with Mercury, at least in the case of the Mondeo. Bringing over your best cars from Europe to save that slipping brand in the homeland seems to be working for GM, perhaps Ford should follow suit.