Justin Hyde

Managing Editor, Yahoo Autos
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2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1 Arrives To Take Porsche’s Lunch Money

Pity the poor supercar. Once upon a time, it was enough to stuff a 600-some-horsepower engine inside a chassis barely covered in fabric and call it a day; who cared if the radio didn’t work or the thing wouldn’t last 100,000 miles without a rebuild. Money bought power, and power brought prestige. 

Today, we have the 2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1, a 640-hp coupe wrapped with thoroughly modern amounts of track-tested technology. And while Chevy has chosen to play coy about speeds and stats for a bit, everything on paper says this Camaro will embarass many modern Porsche 911s for half the price. 

Much as the new Camaro benefitted from the switch to General Motors’ Alpha platform, the new ZL1 sheds 200 lbs. over its beefy predecessor. The front intake grows to handle airflow for the 6.4-liter supercharged V-8, and the carbon-fiber hood inset sets it apart visually.

At 640 hp and 640 lb-ft of torque, the ZL1 barely manages to avoid stepping on the toes of the Corvette Z06. Power flows through either a six-speed rev-matching manual or General Motors first 10-speed automatic transmission—a gearbox that will inevitably find its way into most rear-wheel-drive GM products—to an electronic limited-slip differential. That axle sends its orders to 20-inch wheels wearing Goodyear Eagle F1 rubber.

Inside, there’s the usual accoutrements of drive modes and Chevy’s Performance Data Recorder for analyzing your track skills or lack thereof. Unlike the stripped-down Z28, the ZL1 still offers the full range of driving comforts, although maybe I’m alone in wondering what you do with WiFi in a Camaro. The new ZL1 goes on sale later this year, at prices to be determined; given its history, it will likely be low enough to make a few European brands wonder who has the power now.

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2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1

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2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1

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2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1

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2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1

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2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1

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2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1

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2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1

2017 Chevy Camaro ZL1

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Protestor Jumps Into Volkswagen Auto Show Presentation With ‘Cheat Box’

Ever since the diesel cheating scandal broke, Volkswagen has made a public apology part of every public presentation and auto show unveiling. Unfortunately for VW, those events have also become the target of protestors, including today at the Geneva Motor Show when a fake mechanic tried to put a “cheat box” on a new model.

The mechanic, dressed in a faux VW jumpsuit, was later identified as British comedian Simon Brodkin, the same protestor who had showered corrupt FIFA administrator Sepp Blatter with money last year. As VW marketing chief Juergen Stackmann waxed on about the new Up! city car, Brodkin jumped onstage and crawled underneath with the cheat box, saying: “It’s OK if no one finds out.” The routine ended rather quickly; meanwhile, VW says it will take a little longer to agree with U.S. regulators on how to fix or buy back some 482,000 vehicles.

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With The $1.9 Million Lamborghini Centenario, Peak Supercar Arrives

Calling a peak in any market or trend can be a fool’s errand, but in the Lamborghini Centenario, I feel confident in saying that if we’re not at peak supercar, we’re darn close to it.

Sold out upon its introduction at the Geneva Motor Show, the Centenario isn’t so much a car as an exclusive club for 40 people with $1.9 million to spend on an entry fee, similar to the Veneno of a few years ago. That money buys them an all-carbon fiber supercar with 760 hp, the ability to rocket to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds and the ultimate bragging rights at any valet stand.

And the bragging rights matter as much, if not more, than the details of the Centenario’s engineering. Lamborghini made the car more than just a special Aventador SV, with a new four-wheel steering system, higher-revving V-12 powering all four wheels and bespoke touchscreen interior. The bodywork takes a few steps away from the Aventador, especially in the rear, where the diffusers look like an agricultural implement turned evil. In theory, the Centenario should be the fastest vehicle ever built by Sant’Agata, with a top speed in excess of 220 mph.

But most Centenarios, which will be split evenly between coupes and convertibles, will never approach such speeds. The price and rarity means the special Lambo carries too much risk to put on a racetrack or even an empty tarmac for a top-speed dash. Among this, the custom McLarens, Koenigsegg, the $1 million Aston Martins and a baker’s dozen of start-up supercar builders, you’re left wondering just how many such machines the world can absorb before there’s simply no more billionaires to sell to.

And for all of its engineering qualifications, the rare Lamborghini lacks many of the software innovations prevalent in everyday vehicles, let alone the self-driving tricks filtering through more common luxury cars. (It does sport Apple CarPlay, just like your new Accord.) Those kind of features are far harder for a small builder to pull off, even one like Lamborghini that’s backed by the Volkswagen conglomerate. Instead, the Centenario plays by the same strategy Lamborghini has followed since the Countach arrived four decades ago: a raucous V-12 with a radical exterior design, although there are far fewer places to push such a car to its limits. Maybe there’s more electric-powered, higher-tech performance yet to be had in the supercar world—but as wild as the Centenario looks, it seems as much from the past as it does the future, and that’s one way to define a peak.

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Lamborghini Centenario

Lamborghini Centenario

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Lamborghini Centenario

Lamborghini Centenario

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Lamborghini Centenario

Lamborghini Centenario

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Lamborghini Centenario

Lamborghini Centenario

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Lamborghini Centenario

Lamborghini Centenario

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Lamborghini Centenario

Lamborghini Centenario

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Lamborghini Centenario

Lamborghini Centenario

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Lamborghini Centenario

Lamborghini Centenario

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Volkswagen Goes Whimsical With T-Cross Breeze SUV

By Justin Hyde

For a company still grappling with a scandal over diesel emissions, Volkswagen has chosen a strangely happy concept car to reveal at the Geneva Motor Show. Meet the T-Cross Breeze, a beach buggy that previews a new line of small SUVs, and perhaps, VW’s comeback.

Convertible SUVs haven’t been much of a hit in recent years, between the design crime that was the Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet and the inherent contradiction in such a machine. SUVs sell in large part for their sense of safety and cold-weather performance; chopping off their roofs often creates the automotive equivalent of a houseboat—not a good house, not a good boat.

If the T-Cross Breeze avoids that trap, it does so because of its size. It’s the precursor to a subcompact line of SUVs that VW will launch around the world in coming years, and by making it a convertible, VW aims to call upon a long tradition of roofless small SUVs, from the Fiat Jolly to the Suzuki Samurai. The focus lies entirely on style; a high beltline, chunky angles and a roofline that wouldn’t decapitate rear-seat passengers. The concept’s power—a 1-liter, 3-cylinder turbo gas engine good for 108 hp—turns a 7-speed automatic that makes a 10-second run to 60 mph possible.

Inside, the T-Cross pulls the touchscreen-only interior from the Budd-E concept shown earlier this year; only the windows and turn signals use physical buttons or switches. VW has laid a bet that car buyers will warm to gesture-controlled dashboards, a wager that will take years to sort out.

That VW unveiled the T-Cross Breeze with a reference to it being a “people’s car” for the 21st century shows how much it wants to rekindle the warm feelings vehicles like the original Beetle once generated. I would be surprised to see the T-Cross Breeze ever reach production, if for no other reason than the general bias against the whimsical in today’s automotive business. From where VW stands today, it’s a long trip to having fun on the beach again.

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Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

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Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

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Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

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Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

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Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

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Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

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Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

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Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

Volkswagen T-Cross Breeze Concept

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Is The New Bentley Mulsanne The World’s Most Luxurious Car?

You may never see a 2016 Bentley Mulsanne in real life. Bentley can only build about 1,000 copies of its flagship sedan a year, and at prices starting at $300,000, seeing one on American roads outside of the largest cities would almost count as a UFO sighting. And yet, what Bentley has done to remake the car as the most luxurious ride in the world speaks to some deeper truths about the cars we drive everyday.

Take the door handles. Car door handles today have to be plastic so that the signal from a key fob can penetrate and allow a smooth keyless entry. Bentley doesn’t really do plastic. Every piece that looks like wood and leather and crystal is just that in a Bentley, and so the door handles on the $300,000-plus Mulsanne are smooth ingots of chromed, signal-blocking steel.

But Mulsanne owners should be able to keylessly open their doors just as any Corolla owner can. To solve this, Bentley also put a chrome layer on the door’s scallop, and a knurled plastic window in the back of the pull. That scallop serves as a mirror for the signal from the key fob, bouncing it through the window to unlock the door. No other automaker goes to such trouble to make sure it’s owners never touch something fake.

The Mulsanne’s redesign successfully fixes the old’s model’s big flaw—that odd headlamp placement—while giving the car more of a commanding road presence. At the front, the new grille looks of a piece with the body rather than a Photoshopped addition; out back the new “B” shaped taillights could have been pure Velveeta, but have enough detail to look tasteful. There are now three distinct sub-models; the Signature and Speed editions will differ in some coloring and wheel choices, while the long-wheelbase model gets a more expressive rear door that adds to its luxury. Power as always comes from the 6.75-liter V-12, making 505 horsepower and 752 lb-ft of torque in the regular models and 530 hp/811 lb-ft of torque in the Mulsanne Speed, enough to toss two and a half tons of British land dreadnaught to 60 mph in 4.9 seconds.

(And there’s one more new model: a six-passenger Mulliner edition that’s a full three feet longer than a regular Mulsanne. Clearly aimed to fight for hauling the world’s billionaires and potentates with the Mercedes Pullman, Bentley already has an order for 12 copies of the stretched Mulsanne—from the same buyer.)

The challenge for a car like the Mulsanne comes from trying to maintain its classical pose while remaining modern enough to satisfy a 21st-century lord. The dash now has a touchscreen. Rear passengers get their own detachable 10-inch Android-powered Bentley tablets, which can be rested, sort of, on a chrome-and-wood fold-out table made of some 600 parts. Of course there’s 4G WiFi, and the Naim stereo now has 2,200 watts filling 20 speakers, enough to bleed the tannins from the 17 leather hides used inside the car.

All this said, Bentley still struggles with technology. The new Mulsanne has automatic braking and cruise control, but so does the new Chevy Malibu. Unlike the Mulsanne, the Malibu and other midsize sedans can park themselves both parallel and perpendicularly, a trick not possible with the older electronics in a low-volume Mulsanne. And while the self-driving epoch has begun to seep into mid-tier luxury cars, no such time seems evident for the Mulsanne.

Bentley execs have two responses to this paradox. One is to jest that Bentleys have long been self-driven, not by software chauffeurs but by human ones. The other is to admit that making the modern digital world seem as luxurious as the ancient British carmaking one is just not possible as of yet. Nothing in the car looks less opulent than the 8-inch touchscreen, a necessity for owners who need Apple CarPlay or Android Auto, even though it looks as out of place in the Bentley’s dash as a Little Trees air freshener.

So instead of playing to tech, Bentley plans to stand athwart history with its scores of British woodworkers and leathersmiths and play to its handmade history. The cross-stiching on the seats is perfectly matched because instead of relying on a machine, a leather worker spent 30-odd hours spacing them by hand. Same for the burled walnut inlays, pattern-matched so that the trim mirrors itself on either side of the interior by eyes trained for decades in Crewe, England. Inside that factory, 3,400 workers toil in a setting that’s modern but far less automated than any other in the world of its size. A typical single task in a modern car factory has an average time measured in seconds; at Crewe, the average task takes 123 minutes. Each Mulsanne will be the product of 400 hours of labor, a total that would bring shame upon the household of a Toyota factory manager.

And that may be Bentley’s path to survival. The company under CEO Wolfgang Durheimer has boomed; the new Bentayga SUV now leaving the factory will push production past 12,000 cars a year, a massive number for something that requires quite so much labor. We don’t like to think about the thousands of anonymous hands that make our digital products, and the relentless march of tech means their half-life can be measured in months. As cars become more digital and roboticized, both in driving and production, they too seem more disposable and anonymous. The very word “digital” comes from how we once counted on our fingers, and with the Mulsanne, Bentley wants to demonstrate how the most opulent car in the world can stand for a different, and ancient, idea of digital luxury.

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

The extended-wheelbase edition of the 2016 Mulsanne.

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

The new face with adaptive LED headlamps.

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

The Mulsanne Speed in stretched form.

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

2016 Bentley Mulsanne

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne2016 Bentley Mulsanne

Note the new “B” tail lamps

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

Interior of the Mulsanne, which can be customized in 24 shades of leather.

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

The new touchscreen in the Mulsanne. 

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

In the extended-wheelbase version, the rear seats recline with a swing-out footrest.

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

Yes, you can order your Mulsanne with a champagne chiller between the seats. 

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

The Bentley touchpad, two of which come free with every Mulsanne.

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

Grille of the new Mulsanne

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2016 Bentley Mulsanne

Headlamps of the new Mulsanne

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Kia Niro Hybrid Wants To Kick Toyota Prius Butt, With Style

When it comes to hybrids, there’s the Toyota Prius and then everything else. The Prius commands roughly 45 percent of all hybrid sales in this country and a plurality worldwide. It’s so dominating few automakers have ever attempted to build unique hybrid-only models, and when they do, they usually aim for customers outside the Prius’ landing zone.

Today, Kia unveiled its new hybrid designed to hit the Prius where it hurts. Dubbed the Niro, the subcompact SUV offers seating for five in a stylish package that mimics the ride height of today’s most popular models. A new engine-electric motor combo should deliver 50 mpg. And Kia promises more actual driving enjoyment, although the new Prius does make some gains in that measure as well.

Hybrids live or die by not just how well they save fuel, but how smartly they manage all the technical steps of getting power to and from the wheels and at what price; more than most cars, it’s impossible to pass a verdict on the Niro from pictures alone. But so far, Kia appears to have made smart, and even lucky, choices. Take a closer look in the images above.

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2017 Kia Niro

The Niro rides on a new chassis designed for Kia and Hyundai’s efficient models.

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2017 Kia Niro

At 106.3 inches, the Niro has the exact same wheelbase as the Prius.

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2017 Kia Niro

The engine-electric-battery combo in the Niro churns out 146 hp and 195 lb-ft of torque, with 40 percent thermal efficiency—again, just like the Prius.

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2017 Kia Niro

The small 1.5-kWh lithium-ion battery does not cut into cargo space much.

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2017 Kia Niro

The Niro sports the routine set of safety features and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto.

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2017 Kia Niro

To get to 50 mpg in a larger vehicle, the Niro employs several tricks, such as cutting back on how much air it’s gulping for the HVAC system.

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2017 Kia Niro

Pricing wasn’t announced; the Niro should go on sale later this year.

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EPA Moves To Ban Race Cars Built From Road Vehicles; Fans Wave A Black Flag

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In a little-noticed proposal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will ban race cars built from road vehicles with changes to their emissions controls, a move enthusiasts say represents a radical swerve from current standards.

The change was buried in 629 pages of a July 2015 proposed rule setting fuel economy standard for commercial trucks; the agency didn’t flag the move in the document’s contents, nor say anything that would indicate it was changing rules that applied to passenger cars and trucks. A federal rule like this one made under the EPA’s authority granted by the Clean Air Act carries the weight of law; it’s how the agency sets pollution rules for automakers and other industries.  

As understood by enthusiasts today, EPA rules allow vehicles and engines built with EPA-certified emissions controls to be used for racing or other competition with those controls modified or removed, as long as those vehicles are no longer driven on public roads. While mass-market racing leagues like NASCAR and IndyCar use custom engines in their vehicles, many smaller competitions from drag racing to the junk-endurance 24 Hours of LeMons alter road cars for track driving.

Under the EPA proposal, racers could either leave the emissions controls untouched or face a federal penalty. The agency says in its rule that it is simply clarifying the law, which it says has always barred any kind of changes to an EPA-approved emissions system, no matter for what purpose.

“EPA is proposing…to clarify that the Clean Air Act does not allow any person to disable, remove or render inoperative (i.e., tamper with) emissions controls on a certified motor vehicle for purposes of competition,” the rule states.

The Specialty Equipment Market Association, which represents parts builders, only discovered the change late last year, after the comment period for the new rule had closed. In a December filing, SEMA called the move “arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion,” saying EPA failed to follow federal rules that would have alerted the motorsports world about the change. 

“This proposed regulation represents overreaching by the agency, runs contrary to the law and defies decades of racing activity where EPA has acknowledged and allowed conversion of vehicles,“ said SEMA President and CEO Chris Kersting. "Congress did not intend the original Clean Air Act to extend to vehicles modified for racing and has re-enforced that intent on more than one occasion.”

In response to SEMA, EPA spokeswoman Laura Allen said the move by the agency does not alter either the Clean Air Act nor “long-standing” agency policies, but simply makes clear the difference between “non-road” vehicles like dirt bikes and snowmobiles that can be modified for competition, and those that can’t.

“People may use EPA-certified motor vehicles for competition, but to protect public health from air pollution, the Clean Air Act has—since its inception—specifically prohibited tampering with or defeating the emission control systems on those vehicles,” Allen said. 

SEMA says the agency plans to finalize the rules by July; if the agency keeps its current proposal intact, it would take a federal lawsuit to alter it.

Top photo: Xavier J. Peg via Motoramic/Flickr

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Why The Best Lamborghini Huracan Is The One Without A Top

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Miami’s South Beach was an inspired choice to drive a Skittles-colored coterie of Lamborghini’s newest supercar, the LP610-4 Huracan Spyder. At least, it was on the day I left, all vivid and warm under the Florida sun.

The day I actually spent in the car began with pouring rain that took several hours to taper into somber clouds. On a track, the all-wheel-drive Huracan Spyder can hit 62 mph in 3.4 seconds and top out at 201 mph, roof up or down. On the wet streets of Miami, I can faithfully report that the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission will seamlessly hit top gear at about 40 mph for fuel saving, and that in a light sprinkle it’s easy enough to blow water away from the cockpit. (On the freeway, the 602-hp V-10 will shut off an entire bank for cruising. Wasting your drink is a crime, even in South Beach.)

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Yet saying the $267,500 Huracan Spyder can perform misses the point, in much the same way that saying the silver ice buckets at the South Beach bottle-service bar keep the Tito’s chilled with superb thermal efficiency. They’re both there for looks, in service toward, let’s be honest, sex. If topless supercars don’t encourage copycat behavior from their passengers, what good is life? 

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And by fashion standards, the Huracan Spyder performs ably. Cruising the Wynwood district, among the graffiti and art-covered warehouse blocks, the Lambos looked as native as a nose ring. It’s hexagon-themed outerwear looks bold but not dated, and the 20-inch wheels in 30-aspect ratio Pirelli PZero rubber come off as the automotive world’s stilettos. Many engineering man-hours were spent quieting the interior while uncovered, through aerodynamic black magic like a pair of wind screens that reside just behind your head. When the rains come, the top can latch into place in 17 seconds, even when driving up to 31 mph.

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Lamborghini’s stylists pulled many tricks to ensure the fairly large fabric top of the Huracan Spyder retained the “Egyptian eye” silhouette of the car’s side openings. And it does look like an integral part of the vehicle when up, rather than the unkempt tailoring of many previous supercar tops, while adding less weight than the aluminum folding roofs off the Ferrari 488 GTB and McLaren 650S droptops. (Lamborghini sells the tops in shades of black, tan and red, which on a white Huracan Spyder turned a comely burgundy in the rain.)

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Lamborghini has thrived under chief Stephan Winkelmann because it has embraced the modern ideal of a supercar company, a blend of Italian style and German task-keeping. Lamborghinis no longer rattle in odd places or look cheap in their details; the Huracan Spyder’s interior has the same quality assembly as a top-line Audi. That buttoned-down nature carries over to the driving performance. The recklessness that used to course through every trip in a Lambo no longer exists; the stability control not only rewards basic drivers with ample speed and g-force, but protects them from errors that would have turned Gallardos into roadside origami. 

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And like many European mashups, Lambo’s greatest audience lives in the United States. Last year, fully one-third of its production—1,009 cars—were sold to U.S. buyers, while its home country of Italy bought just 65. Ferrari still carries the gold standard among supercars, but Lamborghinis have become just as powerful symbols in American culture for full-out performance and wealth. The trouble for American drivers with the Huracan Spyder lies not with the strength of the encounter but its brevity; by “three Mississippi” you’re at 70 mph, and holding on for a couple more Mississippis can put you up the river for real.

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Not every challenge could be solved by the wizards of Sant’Agata. At six-foot-one, my clearance with the folding roof was measurable in sheets of paper. Legroom for the driver is slightly better than legroom for the passenger, where the compartment tries to bind your feet like a papoose. Rearward visibility can be best managed by the accelerator; the faster you go, the less you need worry about not seeing what’s behind you.

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But those are livable flaws; what stuck with me was just how well this car fits into the Lamborghini universe. When you’re willing to spend a small fortune for a true supercar, then a closed-roof Ferrari or McLaren make for strong competitors to the regular Huracan. When you’re willing to spend a slightly larger fortune for something a little flashier, hardtop McLaren and Ferrari owners will always grumble about how a roofless car is a bad compromise in performance. Lamborghini owners tend not to have as much aspiration for track stardom as their supercar peers, and putting a folding roof on a Huracan only intensifies its sex appeal. In a world where fashion matters more than speed, the Huracan Spyder makes for one powerful come on. 

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Rare Ferrari Sets New Record For Most Expensive Car Ever Auctioned

While the demand for classic cars has dipped a bit so far this year, the clamor among collectors for vehicles with a pedigree has not. And for a car like this Ferrari, built by Enzo Ferrari to take on the world on the track, record prices were born to be broken.

Ahead of today’s auction in Paris, auctioneer Artcurial had estimated the 1957 Ferrari 335 S Scaglietti  might fetch between $30 million and $35 million. That would have left it just shy of the previous record of $38.1 million, set two years ago by another race-bred Ferrari.

What made this car special was that specific mix of ingredients which tend to pull the big money out of hiding. Unlike most race cars of the ‘50s, this one has mostly original parts. Enzo Ferrari himself oversaw its construction, and the body by Scaglietti has proven timeless. It also had a successful racing career—running in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Mille Miglia, with several famous drivers including Stirling Moss—before being carefully preserved over several decades.

The bidding at Artcurial started at 20 million euros; by the time the auctioneers had wrung the fight to its conclusion, the price had settled at 32.1 million euros. Including Artcurial’s fees, the final sale hit 35.7 million euros, or $39.8 million, proving again it’s hard to bet against a Ferrari in any kind of race.

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American Road Deaths Spiked In 2015, And No One Knows Why

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In the past decade, American roads have grown marginally safer to motorists and pedestrians, with the lowest annual death toll ever in 2014—a still gruesome 32,675. Today, traffic safety officials warned that those trends reversed in 2015 with a vengeance, and no one yet knows why.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says its estimates of all traffic deaths in the first nine months of 2015, including crashes, motorcyclists and pedestrians, shows a 9.7 percent increase over the same period a year earlier, for a total of roughly 26,000 lives lost. If the trend holds for the entire year, 2015 would have been the most deadly time on American roads since 2008, when 37,423 lives were lost.

The first thing experts ask in response to statistics like these is whether simply driving more miles triggered more crashes; vehicle miles traveled hit an all-time high last year of 3.1 trillion miles. But even adjusting for more driving, the rate of fatalities per miles driven also spiked, to 1.1 deaths per 100 million miles driven, up from 1.05 a year earlier.

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As the map shows, the increases were not spread evenly across the country; the northwest mountain states and the southeast Gulf states saw the highest increases, although fatalities climbed in every region. In response to the numbers, NHTSA officials vowed to intensify efforts against drunk driving, not wearing seat belts and “behavioral issues” (i.e., distraction) while looking for new solutions.

But the data isn’t clear enough yet to pinpoint exactly why more Americans are dying on the roads. NHTSA plans to have a fuller analysis with totals for 2015 in a few months—and even if it solves the mystery of why people are dying, the more complex question of what can be done about it will remain.