Welcome Back! Alfa Romeo Returning to Canada

Alfa Romeo left our market back in 1995 and mostly every car obsessed Canadian has felt something lacking in their lives ever since.

Alfa’s are traditionally quirky cars that never start, always break down and make you want to bludgeon it with a bat by the end of the day. BUT, they are such amazing high spirited cars, that most are willing to put up with all the problems. Afterall, a true petrol head doesn’t let something silly like reliability affect their car buying decisions, that would be way too sensible.

On top of that, they are achingly pretty, with the prettiest being the 8C you see pictured above.

So, when will we be able to find ourselves at a local Alfa dealer? Find out after the jump.

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Oh Hi: 2011 Lotus Elise, Lowest CO2 Emitter For a High Performance Car

Congrats to the 2011 Lotus Elise where the big news is that it is the the best performance car for CO2 emissions.

It’s able to achieve this mostly by its light weight (just under 2,000 ounds) and it’s new small 1.6 litre efficient engine borrowed from Toyota. 134 horsepower is generated from this 4 cylinder and it cuts its emissions by 13% over the 1.8 litre engine, producing only 155 g ofC02 per kilometre.

The new Elise will now sport a toned down front end with design cues borrowed from the awesome Evora.

Now for the bad news. We won’t be getting this new environmentally friendly Elise in Canada due to it being an extremely low volume selling vehicle.

But the 1.8 litre version will still stick around and it can hold its own for efficiency with a 9L/100 kms rating.

The Face Only a Mother Could Love: 2011 Nissan Juke

Get used to that face because you will be seeing it around your local neighbourhood this fall.

Nissan has confirmed that it’s new crossover, the Juke, will be arriving in Canada this September. Apparently, Nissan just couldn’t stand all the attention that the Pontiac Aztec was getting for its ugliness, so they just had to show them up.

The crossover will feature both 1.6 and 1.8 engines and will slot below the Rogue.

After the jump is more pics if you can stomach them.

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BREAKING: Three Employees from Tesla Motors Die In Plane Crash *

Three executives employees from Tesla Motors are dead after a small Cessna airplane crashed into a power line in Palo Alto, California this morning.

It is reported that the plane split in half with one half crashing into a house, and the other into the road. The three executives employees were the only ones on board. No one on the ground was killed or injured in the accident.

We hate to quote Fox News, but given that it’s actually a bit of good news in this tragedy, we’ll add that Fox has reported that founder Elon Musk was not on board the plane.

Tesla Motors is best known for it’s electric vehicle technology and being the among the first to popularize electric vehicles such as the Tesla Roadster.

*UPDATE: It is now being reported that it was ‘mid-level engineers’ that were aboard the plane, not executives.

Oh Hi: 2011 Volkwagen Polo GTI

After all the success from the Golf GTI, including winning the 2010 Canadian Car of the Year, Volkswagen figured they could repeat the magic in the much smaller Polo.

The Polo GTI will share its engine with the Seat Ibiza Cupra which develops 178 horsepower and 184 pound foot of torque. The engine will feature a turbo 1.4 litre 4 cylinder. It’s expected to make the 0-100 sprint in 6.9 seconds and has a top speed of 262 kph. Not too bad at all. There is only a mention of a seven speed DSG which concerns us. A GTI with no manual option? Let’s hope that it was mistakenly omitted from the press release. That being said, VW’s DSG is probably the best shifting automatic in the business.
Right now VW is still on the fence on bringing the Polo to North America, but should they pull the trigger, expect the GTI version to make the cut.

More pics after the jump.

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Bentley Continental Supersports vs. Nissan GT-R

Motor Trend had the opportunity to put these two rare breeds of sports cars against each other. If this seems like an odd comparo, well, it is. The Nissan GT-R has a starting price of around $80,000, while the Bentley will set you back $323,000. Seriously.

The Bentley is a whopping 1,000 pounds heavier than the GT-R, but it also retains the horsepower advantage with 631 bhp. On paper, it seems like they could be comparable.

Find out who won after the jump

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Volvo Is Still In The Wagon Business: V60 Spied

After years and years of assuring us that they would never enter into the SUV segment (mostly around the time when most SUV’s Ford Explorers were flipping over right and left) for safety reasons, we now have two SUV’s offered from the Swedish brand. And what SUV’s they are too. The XC90 looks great and the most critical, brutal automotive journalist in the world, Jeremy Clarkson, is even quite fond of it. Of the XC90 he said, “It is by far the best of all the school-run-mobiles because there really is room for seven people, 14 legs and two dogs in the boot as well. No other car maker — and this is strange — has managed to pull off a similar trick without ending up with a bus…we should all have one immediately”.

Praise doesn’t get much higher than that. In fact, Jeremy has practiced what he preached and is currently on his third XC90.

Then you have the smaller XC60, which we can personally atest too, is at the top end of the segment. It can easily go head to head with BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz’s offerings.

So, why even bother with wagons when they can do SUV’s so well?

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How Are Car Makers Doing With CO2, Anyway?

Overall they’ve improved…slightly.

While most car companies have been focusing on fuel efficiency and pushing money savings as the main benefit to the public, the reality is they are all being forced to make better vehicles to cut back on Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions as well.

The overall improvement is 2.8% over the 2008-2009 year for the U.S. The study was performed by British Consulting Firm JATO Dynamics.

Any improvement is all well and good, but there needs to be significantly more change in this area.

Can you guess the car company that improved its CO2 the most? Find out which one after the jump.

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Lexus CT 200h Not Coming to U.S, But Will It Still See Canadian Shores?

It’s expected to make it’s debut at the 2010 Geneva Auto show in a about a month, and our Amurrican neighbours will not get a chance to have one in their driveways.

Even though Barack Obama said “Yes We Can” Toyota is saying “No You Can’t”. A Toyota Spokesperson confirmed to Edmunds.com that it will not be for sale.

This does not necessarily mean the same fate for the better country at hockey, however. In Canada we get many cars that the Amurricans don’t get such as the BMW 323i, and the Mercedes-Benz B-Class. Also, we Canadians love our small hatchbacks way more than our neighbours down south. On top of that, we’re very much into fuel efficient vehicles, so it would actually make sense for Lexus to bring out the CT 200h for Canadians only. Right now the Mercedes-Benz B-Class, Audi A3 and Volvo C30 are the only premium cheap hatches to choose from, so Lexus would be smart to enter that segment as well.

There are few details released about the CT 200h, other than it will be a compact hybrid hatchback that is expected to take the cheapest Lexus title away from the IS 250. The teaser picture above would seem to suggest LED tail lights as well.

BMW M3 vs. Lexus IS-F

After just writing the post below, we thought we would share this with you…. in case there was ever any doubt in your mind as to who is still king.

(Oh, and Jeremy Clarkson for President of the World)

BMW Adds Competition Package To 2011 M3

We’re going to pull a Kanye West and go on record as saying “The BMW M3 is one of the best cars of all time. OF ALL TIME”. There is just really nothing quite like it. Sure, the competition can offer up some great copies, but they’re still copies nonetheless.

And now comes word that those performance & handling obsessed Germans over at BMW have given the 2011 M3 the ‘Competition Package’ treatment.

How do you make an M3 even better, you say? Well with this package the suspension gets lowered by 10mm, a revised sport traction setting, 19×9 inch light alloy wheels, and a carbon fiber spoiler. It doesn’t seem like much, but every little bit counts.

Check out more pics here.

Alright, This Is Becoming Exhausting: Toyota Tacoma Recalled

We sincerely hope that this is the last recall from Toyota that we will be reporting on for a while.

Here’s the tally of recalled ‘Yotas so far (all 2009-2010 models):

• Corolla
• Camry
• Matrix
• Highlander
• RAV4
• Avalon
• Tundra
• Sequoia
• Prius
• Lexus HS250h

And now comes word that the Tacoma will now get a recall. At least this recall has nothing to do with sticking gas pedals, faulty brakes or ridiculous floormat issues. The front propeller shaft has been deemed to be defective for 8,000 of 2010 Tacomas. Apparently a crack can form causing the drive shaft to come loose from the truck.

Obviously this would only affect all-wheel drive versions, so if you have a rare two wheel drive version, you’re good.

Yaris, Sienna, Venza, 4Runner and FJ Cruiser: You are the only ones now left standing. We don’t want to write a blog post about how you’ve been recalled too – so please – keep it together.

[pickuptrucks.com]

Test Drive: 2010 Hyundai Genesis Coupe 2.0T 6-Speed Manual

By Kevin Harrison

Korea is an interesting place. On the one hand you have the North, which from all indications, tends to be like the fillet-o-fish at McDonalds. No one ever buys it, you don’t know what’s in it, and as a result you are sketched out by it. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-Il is like Grimace. No one knows anything about him either, and he was originally created to be evil. He even used to carry the name “Evil Grimace”. The creativeness obviously knows no bounds in the marketing department at McDonalds. Anyway, when was the last time you actually saw Grimace? Exactly. Like Kim Jong-Il, no one really knows where Grimace is or what he’s up to. This creates the same creepiness that you feel on the odd occasion that Kim Jong-Il actually shows his face to the world.

Then there’s the South which I’ve learned, thanks to a good friend moving there, has lots of ridiculously cheap alcohol, incredibly spicy food (also cheap), amazing architecture and apparently a talent for speed skating. Therefore, South Korea is kind of like a McFlurry. It’s pretty good, comes in a variety of agreeable flavours and is cheap.

Then there’s Korea’s place in the car world. As little as ten years ago, Hyundai was pretty much like North Korea. You never considered one when buying, you didn’t know anything about it and the mere thought of owning one gave you the creeps. You knew it was going to be trouble. So, you stayed away.

But then something happened at Hyundai. They started to realize that being like North Korea is about as appealing as going on a date with Miley Cyrus, so they quickly tried to change their image and product. The revolution began, and suddenly Hyundai became more like South Korea. Their products started to rival the heavyweights from Toyota and Honda and now their image is also taking a positive turn.

Case in point, the Genesis Coupe.

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This is More Like It, Chrysler

Instead of pushing pink Challengers, this is the type of product you should be investing your time in if you really want to get your brand out of the gutter.

The adorable little Fiat 500 is reported to be coming to Canadian shores at the end of this year as a 2011 model, though it could be badged as a Chrysler, or more likely as a Dodge. That’s okay though, whatever it takes to get it here.

This car is immensely popular in Europe as it is fun to drive, cheap to own and buy and great on gas. With Ford’s Fiesta, the Mazda2 and King of the Hill Honda Fit, Chrysler is going to need a product like the 500 to truly be competitive in one of the fastest growing segments in our market.

It’s unlikely that the Abarth version (pictured above) will make it to our shores, sadly enough. But again, we’ll take whatever iteration of the 500 we can get at this point.

Hit the jump to watch the 500 Abarth SS review by our idol Jeremy Clarkson

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Canadian Car & Utility of the Year Announced

Great minds think alike. We chose the 2010 Subaru Outback as our pick for the Canadian Utility of the Year, and AJAC agreed. You might as well give us our membership now, AJAC.

Volkswagen took Car of the Year honours and even though our pick was the BMW 335d, there is absolutely no disagreement from us that the GTI is just as deserving.

Congrats to the VW and Subaru!

To find out the winners in each individual category, hit the jump.

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