Newport Convertibles rolls out Subaru Impreza WRX STI drop-top

Just in time for summer, Newport Specialty Cars rolls out its latest dropped top, the Subaru Impreza WRX STI. You are guaranteed to be the hit of the local scene from Tacoma to Tallahassee when you roll up in one of these. With room for five, your popularity could potentially quadruple.

News watch June 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Friday 29 June 2012• As predicted, BMW and Toyota today announced the next stage of their cooperation to jointly develop powertrains, lightweight technologies, fuel-cells and future platforms (BMW and Toyota)• Today's announcement follows the initial agreement signed in December 2011; in March 2012, BMW and Toyota signed a binding agreement to work together on lithium-ion battery research and for Munich to supply Toyota with diesel engines from 2014 • Now Toyota and BMW have signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on the electrification of car powertrains, research into lightweight technologies, develop fuel-cells and to consider future vehicle architectures – 'for a sports car, for example'• Renault will cut 300 jobs at its Flins plant near Paris, it announced today. The factory builds the Clio and is preparing for the new Zoe ZE too (Automotive News Europe)• Ford has warned its pre-tax operating profit in the second quarter will be 'substantially lower' than before.

Sarah McLachlan teases upcoming Audi Super Bowl ad

For all the overt hyper-earnestness Sarah McLachlan ladled upon us during her 1990s heyday, we might not’ve noticed that the Canadian singer-songwriter has a sense of humor. A cameo a couple of years back in the excellent Aimee Mann-as-housekeeper episode of Portlandia suggested McLachlan’s lighter side and now this weirdly-captivating teaser for Audi's 2014 Super Bowl ad sees the Lilith Fair founder futzing around with her own image, imploring that the Doberhuahua is a misunderstood animal that deserves our attention. We assume that the morphologically-perverse Doberman/Chihuahua cross is supposed to suggest that the new A3 is both small and vicious.