Lexus must be doing a booming business in Philadelphia. The city's Wachovia Center, host to the 76ers basketball team and Flyers hockey team, already has a courtside VIP club sponsored by Lexus. Now, in an expanded sponsorship deal, the Center has set aside two special parking areas for Lexus owners. The Lexus sections will be in the Center's C-Lot and E-Lot, but there's no info on how close to the building those areas will be.

Add another model to the Limited Initial Availability pile: the MINI Clubman. It's being reported that BMW only plans to provide US dealers with four -- that's right, four -- MINI Clubman's "for the first few months of US production."

Ready for some more on the 1.1-liter Shuanghuan Bubble, the car also known as the Shuanghuan Noble (but everyone outside of China knows it as the Smart car clone)? Automotive News Europe's Luca Ciferri went to see the Bubble at the Bologna auto show and says (subs req'd) that even though Martin Motors violated a court injunction by showing the car there, they did the right thing. Now he's seen the differences between the two with his own eyes and believes that no one will easily mistake one f

If a G-Class Mercedes stirs dispassionate responses, there may still be a Mercedes for you. While the Gelandewagen is no joke in its own right, Daimler's own ultimate terra bully would roll right over it. Unimogs have been around for about fifty years, and were originally designed as go-anywhere, do-anything work trucks. The U500 Black Edition Unimog is still akin to a vehicular Chu

In September, GM announced their official MPG numbers for the new 2008 Chevy Tahoe and GMC Yukon hybrids. The EPA has now posted the official government verdict, and the numbers match what GM announced. The

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The New York Auto Show in March will provide the official venue to launch the Automotive X-Prize contest, but all 43 entrants will be making an advanced appearance next month in Detroit at the North American International Auto show. The teams vying for the Auto X-Prize have to bring a combination of functionality and fuel-efficiency in order to win the substantial chunk of change offered by the organizers.

Yesterday, I wrote about an article in the Economist that equated the amount of maize it takes to make a gallon of ethanol with a year's worth of food. Earlier today, we saw the latest bit of bad news from an ethanol producer (the suspension of construction of a large ethanol plant in

As reported earlier, both Ford and General Motors will be cutting back production during the first quarter of 2008 in an effort to stem the tide of excessive dealer inventory. GM already idled three pick up plants for two weeks and now Ford has temporarily shut down two of its own plants Mond