Hyundai Elantra Left Side Grey Sunvisor on 2040-parts.com

Volkswagen chief: No. 1 in the world by 2018

Volkswagen chairman Martin Winterkorn reaffirmed his company's ambitious and audacious goals on Wednesday night on the eve of the Paris motor show: pass Toyota and General Motors for the title of world's largest automaker in 2018. Winterkorn was the final speaker after an event that featured unveilings from each of the German conglomerate's brands. He said his company wants to record total sales of 10 million in eight years, which would vault it pass the current levels of global leaders Toyota and GM.

Driving the Chevy Volt isn't special, and that's good

We've had our first taste of the drive system under development for General Motors' pioneering Chevrolet Volt, piloting a test mule based on the Chevrolet Cruze at the company's Warren (Mich.) Technical Center, and it left us hungering for more. Yes, it's an electric car, but mostly, it's a car--one you could imagine driving every day without feeling as if you were engaged in a lab experiment. Frank Weber, vehicle line executive for the Volt, gets his nose out of joint if you call the drive system a hybrid.

One Lap of the Web: Scary Almost-Halloween Edition

-- Just in time for Halloween, here's project car as scary as it is inexplicable. A 1988 Lamborghini Countach, actually made by Lamborghini of Italy in 1988 (at the Lamborghini factory) has been neglected like the Trans Am that's been sitting in your uncle's shed since the Carter administration. We're pretty sure there's a scary story about how this Countach ended up this way, but we're not sure we want to hear it -- it'll be too depressing.