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Venet-designed Bugatti Grand Sport at Miami's Art Basel

We like to poke a little fun here at Autoweek when a “new” Bugatti Veyron model comes out. First we took the top off, then we added power, then we took the top off that, then we added a dragon, now we're painting it light blue, and so on. This one, though, is actually pretty cool.

November a strong month for car sales

U.S. auto sales--led by BMW, American Honda and Volkswagen Group--rose 15 percent to 1.14 million in November, exceeding analysts' forecasts and setting the stage for the industry to finish 2012 on a high note heading into the new year. The annualized industry sales rate, adjusted for seasonal trends, accelerated to 15.56 million--the highest rate since 15.59 million in January 2008.

Porsche 928 to be reborn as Porsche Panamera Coupe

Porsche boss Matthias Mueller has revealed plans for new variants on the Porsche Panamera – including a Panamera Coupe – and more new models. Porsche boss, Matthias Mueller, has confirmed that Porsche are planning to extend the Panamera offerings with a coupe and probably a production version of the very convincing  Panamera Sport Turismo Concept we saw at Geneva in the spring, although nothing has been signed off yet. The most likely time for the Panamera Coupe and Shooting Brake to arrive is after Porsche refresh the Panamera next year, so we should expect a ‘new 928′ to arrive some time in 2014.

2013 Ford Kuga goes in to production

The new (2013) Ford Kuga crossover – which debuted at Geneva in the Spring – has now gone in to production in Spain ahead of first customer car deliveries. Ford has announced it’s finally started to churn out the new Kuga at its plant in Valencia, and that the Kuga will be heading to Ford’s UK showrooms to get customer cars out in the new year. Despite starting production of the new Kuga, Ford still hasn’t come up with prices for its compact crossover, but says they will be available before the end of the year. On offer in the new Kuga is a range of new technology including the kick-to-open tailgate, Active Park Assist, Blind Spot Monitoring Torque Vectoring Control, SYNC and the first use of Ford’s EcoBoost engines in the Kuga (although no sign yet that the 1.0 litre EcoBoost will be added to the Kuga).

Dacia Sandero Stepway: Price from £7,995

The third Dacia model for the UK – the Dacia Sandero Stepway – a rugged compact crossover based on the Sandero will cost from £7,995. The Sandero Stepway is a rugged compact crossover – with a higher ride height and bolted on chunky bits - based on the very inexpensive Sandero, so you won’t be shocked to learn that the Sandero Stepway is as inexpensive as its hatch sibling – from only £600 more than the equivalent trim Sandero. Dacia has decided that the Sandero Stepway won’t come in completely stripped-out Access trim – unlike the Sandero and Duster SUV – but the entry level will be the Sandero Stepway Ambience, with a better equipped Stepway Lauréate for those who want a few more home comforts.

Ferrari F70: First Photo

We have what appears to be the first photo of the Enzo replacement - the Ferrari F70 – taken at a private viewing for Ferrari clients in China. Despite expectations that the new Ferrari F70 would be revealed before the end of 2012 – which is what Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo told us – we still haven’t had the reveal of the F70 in any form, and certainly not at the Los Angeles Auto show, where we expected Ferrari to debut their new hypercar as it’s the last motor show of note for 2012. It now looks like – short of a non-motor show reveal – that the new F70 will bow in at Detroit in January, but ahead of that it seems Ferrari are already showing the F70 to select clients.

Bugatti Grand Sport Venet edition (2012): a 253mph art car

This is the latest one-off Bugatti Veyron supercar: the Bernar Venet editon. Partly inspired by the 1970s BMW art cars of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, French artist Bernar Venet's creation pays tribute to the eggheads responsible for the Veyron's conception, by covering the front panels in mathematical equations relating to the output of the car's enormous engine. It's certainly different to the sort of motoring artist's impressions we usually bring you on CAR Online...

Kia Proceed GT (2013) first specs of Kia's warm hatch

Here are the first official specifications of Kia's warm hatch, plus a new sketch: the Proceed GT. Following on from last week's sketch, Kia has confirmed the car will get over 200bhp, and boast a 7.9sec 0-62mph time. Kia Proceed GT: the new details With 201bhp, the Proceed GT sits a rung below the Focus ST and Vauxhall Astra VXR on the hot hatch ladder.

Buy John Cleese’s Bentley & he’ll take you to lunch

John Cleese is selling his Bentley Eight and throwing in some memorabilia and a lunch on him to the winning bidder. It probably won’t make much of a dent in the reported $1 million a year he has to pay his ex-wife number three, but for John Cleese, every little helps. So with wife number four now signed up for a duration yet to be known, John is flogging off his Bentley Eight to try and raise a few bob.

2013 VW Beetle Convertible: Price from £18,150

After a reveal in October, the New Volkswagen Beetle Convertible has debuted at the Los Angeles Auto Show and will cost from £18,150 in the UK. In fact, not only does the Beetle refuse to go away, it’s selling better than the ‘old’ Beetle ever did, with 230,000 Beetles built since the Beetle was revived eight years ago, only 100,000 fewer than the old Beetle sold in its 31 year history. And the new VW Beetle promises to be more appealing than the first iterations of VW’s revival of the Beetle, with their strapline for the latest model setting out its intentions clearly: ‘Less Flower – More Power’.

Lotus sues Dany Bahar for £2.5 million

Lotus are suing ousted CEO Dany Bahar for £2.5 million to recover the cost of his expensive lifestyle billed to Lotus. It seems DBR-HiCom, new owners of Proton (which own Lotus), took one look at the mess in Hethel and dumped Bahar, replacing him with engineer Aslam Farikullah to try and re-focus Lotus on its core products and engineering instead of pursuing Bahar’s fantasy of churning out the biggest range of luxury supercars of any car maker on the planet. That ousting led to Bahar issuing proceedings against Lotus for £6.7 million in August for wrongful dismissal (which gives you some idea of Bahar’s estimate of his own worth).

McLaren P1 caught on video

We have video of the new McLaren P1 – suitably camouflaged – out testing in Spain as McLaren fettles its Ferrari F70 basher. That was borne out when we had photos of the McLaren P1 shot in Norfolk a week or two ago as the P1 visited one of McLaren’s suppliers on an industrial estate in Diss. Now we get the P1 on the move on video.

Video: Chevrolet C7 Corvette digital gauges teased

Chevrolet has released a new teaser video of its new C7 Corvette revealing more interior details and its new digital gauge cluster. With the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette's debut at the Detroit auto show rapidly approaching, the carmaker's latest teaser shows a new 200-mph speedometer and an all-digital screen featuring a large, centralized tachometer and information display. The latest teaser comes two weeks after another video showed the new Corvette testing in the wind tunnel, giving us minor glimpses of the C7. Within the first five seconds you can see a profile shot of the covered-up C7 before some flashes of design sketches.

Concept Car of the Week: BMW Z13 (1993)

Rear-mounted engine, three seats, central driving position, 830 kg. What might sound like the ingredients for a fantastic little sports car apply in fact to the exceptionally compact and exciting BMW Z13 concept presented in 1993 at the Geneva motor show. BMW engineers and designers developed a car that combined practicality, innovation, safety, economy and, more importantly, it looks like a lot of fun.

Dok-ing Automotive contest calls for fresh interior designs

Dok-ing Automotive has launched a global sketch contest calling for interior designs for its XD concept.  Launched in collaboration with the Automotive Design Conference, the Croatian carmaker wants to see new, fresh and luxurious interior designs that embody its company slogan – ‘Driving First Class'. The XD's high-quality materials, colors, shapes along with the doors and seating layout offers a lot of scope for personalization through the use of color and material and so the design needs to be easy to alter in production. Your submission has to include three seats, three touchscreens on the dashboard (a 12″ central screen and two 17″ screens on each side) as well as the Dok-ing Automotive logo.

Tis the season

It's time to once again show the world your giving spirit. The annual Championship Auto Racing Auxiliary (CARA) auction of racing items—cool stuff gathered during the 2012 racing season—is underway. The CARA auction is run in association with Autoweek and can be found here, at autoweek.com.

2012 Ford Focus ST gets 297bhp

Those clever chaps at SuperChips have given the 2012 Ford Focus ST a bit of an ECU tweak to deliver 297bhp and an extra 85lb/ft of torque. When we reported last week that WTC outfit Arena had in roped Ford’s tuner of choice, Mountune, to give the new Ford Focus a makeover, we were a tad disappointed to discover that they were tweaking the rather journeyman Focus Zetec S. That meant the Zetec S got 200bhp – a handy jump – but we bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t fiddled with the Focus ST to give us a car to fill the void left by the absence of a Focus RS in the current iteration of the Focus.

First Dacia Duster SUVs leave India bound for the UK

The first Dacia Duster SUVs built in RHD for the UK market left India this morning to help satisfy Renault’s growing order book for the Duster. With the sort of response the Duster has received in the UK – with prices for the entry-level Duster starting at just £9k – Renault are no doubt wishing they’d brought the Duster to the UK sooner. But such was the demand for the Duster in mainland Europe and emerging markets that they just couldn’t get production of RHD Dusters organised for the UK until now, when Renault’s plant at Oragadam, near Chennai in India, finally managed to satisfy its home market demand sufficiently to leave enough capacity for RHD cars bound for the UK and Ireland to roll off the production line.

Hyundai U.S. fuel economy mess cleverly sorted

Hyundai and Kia’s misstated fuel economy figures in the U.S. could have been a PR disaster, but it looks like prompt action has limited any real damage. We moan constantly about ‘Official’ fuel economy figures (yes, we moan a lot).

Desperately seeking Toyota Carina E

It’s 20 years next month since Toyota opened its Burnaston Plant in the UK, and they’re desperately seeking the earliest Carina E built in 1992. Twenty years ago next month, in December 1992, Toyota started producing cars in the UK in a new plant at Burnaston in Derbyshire. And with such a milestone looming, Toyota are keen to celebrate.

Tesla Model S goes up in price

The electric Tesla Model S – which won’t arrive in the UK until at least late in 2013 – is going up in price in the US and gets a spec change. The Tesla Model S is perhaps, just perhaps, the only really credible electric car so far; a luxury ‘Sports’ saloon car that offers range almost comparable to an ICE car and, it seems, prices that aren’t an awful lot different. That makes it a far more appealing prospect as a replacement for an ICE car than anything we’ve previously seen.

News watch November 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 30 November 2012• Europe's trade ministers are looking at a free-trade pact with Japan, despite resistance from EU car manufacturers. Currently Japanese cars attract a 10% tariff upon import to Europe.

Ford to upgrade, extend warranty on MyFord touchscreen system

Ford Motor Co. will upgrade and extend the warranty by two years on its MyFord Touch system following a series of consumer complaints and poor reviews of the automaker's touchscreen entertainment and navigation system. Ford has improved the voice recognition capability and navigation in what it calls "version 3.5" of the software, Mark Fields, Ford's head of the Americas, said on Wednesday.

Why the 2014 Mazda 6 diesel matters

It's official: The new 2014 Mazda 6 sedan is getting a diesel engine for the U.S. market. Finally coming clean on one of the worst-kept secrets of the year, Mazda officially announced the Skyactiv-D version of the Mazda 6 at the Los Angeles Auto Show yesterday.

Porsche exhibit coming to NC

“If you didn't go to Rennsport, you have to go to this,” said curator (and Autoweek contributor) Ken Gross. “Even if you did go to Rennsport you have to go to this.” “This” is a great collection of fantastic Porsches, brought together at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh Oct. 13, 2013 through January 20, 2014.

Jaguar XFR-S: The Video

With the Jaguar XFR-S now on the show floor in Los Angeles, we have the first video of Jaguar’s quickest saloon car. Pretty (although quite un-Jaguar like) though the XFR-S is to look at, nothing gives you a feel for a car – apart from driving it – quite as well as a decent video with great sounds. And that’s exactly what Jaguar has on offer with their launch video for the XFR-S.

Aston Martin sale imminent

Despite denying they were in talks to sell a stake, Aston Martin has confirmed it is in talks for a ‘Capital Increase’ with a deal announcement seemingly imminent. We’ve been banging on for more than a year that Aston Martin needs a new investor if it has any chance of remaining credible and viable. And now it looks like that ‘Big Brother’ for Aston Martin is imminent.

Jaguar F-Type with Black Pack is Firesand Orange: LA Auto Show

The Jaguar F-Type has had its North American debut at the Los Angles Auto Show complete with Black Pack and Design Pack and Firesand paintwork. But rather than roll out the standard models we’ve seen so far – the V6, V6 S and V8 S – Jaguar decided it ought to gild the lily a bit by rolling out an F-Type with a chunk of options bolted in so the Americans could see just how they could customise their own F-Type. Perhaps the most striking part of the F-Type in L.A.

2013 Porsche Cayman: LA Auto Show (video)

The 2013 Porsche Cayman has arrived at the Los Angeles Auto Show with more power, less weight, better economy and is lower and longer than the old Cayman. The new Cayman gets a redesigned platform that manages to improve weight distribution and drops weight too. It also means that the Cayman changes shape too (well, as much as a Porsche ever does) and grows by 35mm in length and sits 10mm lower too for an even more Boxster-like look.

Toyota RAV4 (2013) first official pictures

This is the new Toyota RAV4, one of the original soft-roaders. The 2013 RAV4 was unveiled overnight at the Los Angeles auto show - this is a global car and will head over to the UK in 2013. It's the fourth-generation RAV4 since 1994 and is an all-new model with the latest Toyota styling flourishes.