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Who ever thought we'd hear this said about a sports car: "If we made this a diesel hybrid it could be a hot-seller." Yeah. Never. Nevertheless, that's what Audi R&D chief Wolfgang Durheimer told Auto Express about a his idea for a supercar to sit above the R8 and bang carbon-fiber fenders with the McLaren P1, Ferrari F70 and Porsche 918.

Durheimer's quest, in his double life as not just R&D director but also Volkswagen's head of motorsport, is to create a more obvious and lucrative connection between an Audi road car and the automaker's 24 Hours of Le Mans victories with diesel-powered racers. It's pure speculation after that, but Auto Express distills particulars down to at least 700 horsepower and 737 foot-pounds of torque, terminal velocity beyond 200 mph, and construction using either a bespoke carbon fiber tub or the coming MSB platform planned for all mid- and rear-engined VW-Group models. Figure a 2017 due date at the earliest.

Durheimer said his team will soon to decide the top three priorities for the future. If this diesel hybrid supercar gets the nod, it would be the antipodean twin of another possible Audi that Durheimer spoke of to Autocar, a 235-mpg city car based on the A1.

EVO has come out with another gotta-watch-it video, throwing its 2012 Car of the Year contestants around the UK's 1.5-mile Blyton Park track. It's actually a 15-minute teaser for the full-length DVD detailing the magazine's Car of the Year selection, but the tease is worth every penny free second.

Tiff Needell and sports car racer Richard Meaden handle the wheel duties, the two driving five pairs of sports cars: Lotus Exige S vs. Porsche Boxster S, Morgan Three-Wheeler vs. Toyota GT86, BMW M135i vs. Porsche 911, Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Black Series vs. Alpina B3 GT3, the marquee event pits the McLaren MP4-12C vs. the Pagani Huayra. After a head-to-head lap with commentary during drifts, Meaden takes each car out to set a representative lap time.

You'll find the verdicts, lots of tire smoke, and lines like "Anything you can do sideways I can do sideways" in the video below.

We can't say we know you all that well, but if we had to guess, we'd say you haven't been good enough this year for Santa to come scrambling down your chimney with the Costco Ultimate Garage Package slung over his back. If you have $89,000 laying around, however, and feel like being particularly merry toward yourself, the big-box bargain mart will gladly serve up the gearhead dream package, which includes niceties like a NewAge six-piece cabinet system, 456 square feet of Motofloor garage tiles, a BigHorn Safe, a full storage system, and a 41-inch stainless steel tool box.

There's also a two-ton engine crane and 3.5-ton professional jack, but the cherry on the top has to be the Kirkham Motorsports 427 KM/SC. The hand-crafted aluminum Shelby Cobra replica is assembled in a Polish factory that used to build MiG fighter gets. But the car doesn't come with an engine or a transmission. You'll get to use all your new toys to put those in yourself. Head over to Costco for a look at the package for yourself. You can also check out the full component list below.

Volkswagen has its XL1, the aero coupe that promises 235 miles per gallon through the use of a two-cylinder TDI diesel, an electric motor with a lithium-ion battery pack, and a seven-speed DCT. Rumored to hit showrooms next year, it will be sold in limited markets and in limited numbers. Over the corporate fence, Autocar reports that Audi is also working on a 1.0-liter car, but theirs looks to have a very different brief.

The report says that it's known as the "1.0-liter car" internally, but it won't use the same engine as Volkswagen's entry and the displacement codename might or might not describe the car's actual engine size. There will definitely be an electric component involved, however. The tiny bit that is known comes courtesy of Wolfgang Durheimer, Audi's technology chief, who says the car will utilize a version of the steel platform the A1 is based on. He tells Autocar that it will "be an 'affordable' full four-seater" and it will provide "all the creature comforts of a normal car, including climate control."

Instead of an Audi version of the XL1, this sounds like Ingolstadt's take on the BMW i3, but with better mileage. The Autocar piece says it's at least three years away from showrooms, but the Audi future product plan changes so frequently, so the timeline is hardly set in stone. The concepts, if and when they do arrive, should be very interesting, at least.

Nissan has revealed prices for three of its 2013 offerings: the Versa, Cube and Armada. There are no exterior revisions for any beyond paint choices, but all get new combinations in packaging and tech along with minor price increases.

The Versa goes up in price by $1,000. The base, five-speed manual Versa S rings up at $11,990 before the $790 destination and handling charge. Even at that price, the Versa remains the least expensive new car in America to buy. A 1.6 S AT with a four-speed automatic joins the lineup on top of the five-speed and the Xtronic CVT, bringing 26 mpg city and 35 mpg highway to the mix. A new S Plus trim gets cruise control and two more rear speakers.

Aero enhancements like low-rolling resistance tires, an air intake guide, rear spoiler and rear wheel and underbody air deflectors mean that every CVT Versa gets 40 highway mpg, up from 38 mpg in 2012. The Versa line maxes out at $16,590 for the 1.6 SL CVT.

The 2013 Cube goes up by $180, now starting at $16,760 before $790 for destination and handling. For 2013, Nissan axes the base 1.8 model, leaving just S and SL trims. Transmission choices remain a six-speed manual or CVT.

The 2013 Armada's price rises by $840 to $40,710 before the $995 destination fee. A new Platinum Reserve Package makes the priciest Armada sticker at $56,180. It includes 20-inch dark chrome wheels, dark chrome grille and outside mirrors, two-tone Chocolate/Almond leather seating, and dark satin chrome interior accents. For the back-seaters, the single eight-inch screen for the DVD system becomes two seven-inch, headrest-mounted screens.

The press releases below have more details on each of the new offerings.

Automotive News Europe reports that Toyota is set to debut a pair of pre-crash safety systems. The company hopes the tech will help reduce the likelihood of high-speed crashes and accidents caused by pedal misapplication. One of the systems uses millimeter-wave radar to calculate the risk of a collision. Like the Volvo City Safety technology, when the vehicle senses an impending crash, it alerts the driver with both audio and visual cues. A new brake booster can then be activated to help deliver twice the braking force typically available.

Toyota also hopes to prevent parking collisions with an additional automatic braking system. Using sonar, the vehicle can detect whether the car is approaching a stationary obstacle too quickly and apply the brakes as necessary. It also features a fail-safe that will automatically slow the vehicle if the driver shifts gears while the accelerator is applied or "abnormal shifting" is detected.

Word has it the manufacturer will debut the tech on a "high-end Toyota-brand sedan," but specifics beyond that are not known.

The highway patrol in New South Wales, Australia has a new toy. As part of a community outreach program, it has added a Ford Falcon GT to its stable of pursuit vehicles. Though the car has been fitted with the lights, radio and speed-monitoring tech of its more common cruisers, officers intend use the car more to reach out to young motorsports fans than to run down baddies. So far, it seems to be working. Police took the sedan to the Sydney Dragway at Eastern Creek, and the supercharged Falcon GT had no problem drawing a crowd.

As you may recall, the Falcon GT is the most powerful vehicle to ever roll out of Ford Australia. The four-door boasts 450 horsepower from the factory, though the pursuit model makes closer to 536 hp thanks to tweaks like a new fuel map and free-flowing exhaust. Throw in all of the law-enforcement tech, and this car has a final price tag of over $105,000 at current conversion rates.

With a financial crisis ravaging the European automotive industry, many automakers have tightened budgets, and motorsports programs have, in many cases, been among the first things to go. That's the case at Ford and Mini, but it's the opposite at Opel, which announced its return to motorsports in the form of spec series for two very fun-looking hatchbacks.

The first racer is the Opel Adam Cup, which will participate in the ADAC Rally Masters competition for the Opel Rally Cup Trophy. The series will closely match FIA R2 specifications, and will offer special coaching for younger drivers that place well in the "junior rally" system. There will also be cash prizes.

If hosing the dirt off your car after every race isn't your thing, there's the Astra OPC Cup. Featuring Opel Astra OPC, the highlight of the season will be a 24-hour endurance race at the Nürburgring. As with the Adam Cup, there will be cash prizes.

There's plenty of history here. Opel's rally exploits included a European Championship title in 1974, and again in 1979. This success was followed by campaigns in DTM in the 1990's, culminating in a constructor championship in 1998. Opel also found overall victory in the 24-hour endurance race at the Nürburgring in 2003. To read up more on Opel's and its new racecars, check out the press release below.

Cadillac designed the compact ATS to compete with the BMW 3 Series, but GM says the new Caddy is also cutting into CTS sales. Edmunds.com backs that up with data showing potential buyers are cross-shopping the ATS with the CTS as well as the BMW.

Automotive News spoke to the head of Cadillac sales, Chase Hawkins, who admits The General expected the ATS to cannibalize sales of the CTS. But Hawkins says a plan is in place to deal with the drop in CTS sales: make fewer of them.

"We've planned for ATS to take some CTS customers out of the market who we otherwise would have seen," Hawkins tells AN. "We definitely are going to be producing fewer CTSes next year to create some of that space for ATS."

The next-generation CTS is expected to be larger and costlier, which should better separate the two stablemates in the marketplace. As the two models find their own niches, AN speculates a few more import buyers to come back to the iconic American brand.

The latest episode of "Head 2 Head" from Motor Trend is a battle of the little luxury sixes, looking to see which of these $50,000 sport sedans, all equipped with automatic transmissions, can lay the largest claim to your money: the 321-horsepower, six-speed Cadillac ATS 3.6, the 302-horsepower, seven-speed Mercedes-Benz C350 Sport or the 300-horsepower, eight-speed BMW 335i.

Host Jonny Lieberman doesn't just look at dynamics. He starts off with an assessment of each car's interior and its infotainment interface: CUE on the Cadillac, COMAND on the Mercedes and iDrive on the BMW. A bit of a spoiler, CUE doesn't fare any better here than it did with Consumer Reports, for essentially the same reasons. Thankfully, the ATS has tricks beyond its touchscreen.

The victor and the overall ranking might surprise you. One of the contestants "goes around corners better than it goes in a straight line," one of them would have won the comparo if it were held a year ago, and one earns more mention of the word "rubbery" than you'll hear outside of a Kumho factory. Enjoy the episode in the video below.

Summarizing the results of research carried out by Edmunds, Reuters reports that consumers' are less inclined to purchase cars from Hyundai and Kia due to the company's recent snafu over inflated mileage claims. The Edmunds metric of "purchase intent" declined by 1.9 percent for the Kia Soul (pictured), meaning that the largest drop in consideration coincided with the model that suffered the biggest drop in mileage ratings. Consideration dropped .4 percent for the Hyundai Elantra, and purchasing intent also fell for the Hyundai Accent and Veloster, as well as the Kia Rio.

An Edmunds analyst thinks the brouhaha could affect "future business as this development may have a direct impact on Hyundai's credibility with some U.S. buyers," and Moody's Investment Service figures compensating buyers might cost "$100 million a year until the cars are scrapped" – and that cost doesn't include potential damages from lawsuits. But in the "we all have opinions" column, other analysts don't believe there won't be any serious long-term fallout from the mileage mistatements. Remember, it was only two years ago that Toyota was being frogmarched across the nation to be pilloried in Washington, D.C. for what is arguably a much more grievous offense, and woe was all the rage when describing Toyota's plight. And now? It's ranked among the best global brands in 2012 and appears poised to retake the title of world's largest automaker.

What you're looking at here is a brand-new, small-displacement motorcycle from Janus, though you'd be forgiven for thinking the machine is some restored relic from the 1920s. Devin Biek and Richard Worsham got it into their heads to start building new bikes borrowing design references from their favorite antique two-wheelers, after noticing how many moped enthusiasts were working to convert their budget rides into more capable machines. The result is the Janus Halcyon 50, and the creation is powered by a liquid-cooled 50cc two-stroke engine.

A six-speed transmission puts power to the rear wheel via a chain drive, and the whole contraption is good for a top speed of 55 miles per hour. Biek and Worsham also say the Halcyon 50 can net you 60 miles per gallon, which means the bike has a range of 180 miles thanks to the 3-gallon polished aluminum fuel tank. What's more, we hear tell the engine can be easily upgraded to generate around twice the horsepower.

With its 18-inch wheels, leather saddle and hardtail configuration, the Halcyon 50 pulls at our heartstrings in a big way. Each bike is built in Goshen, Indiana, and Janus contracts local Amish workers to bend and weld the company's frames. Sinfully cool. If you want one, the company will politely ask for $3,900.

You can check the company out over at the Janus Motorcycles site.

In a move that welcomes former pieces of General Motors back into the fold, GM Financial has reached a deal with Ally Financial, formerly GMAC, to buy a piece of the company's international operations. The $4.2 billion deal is for Ally's Latin America, Europe and China operations.

"GM is entering the most aggressive rollout of new vehicles in its history, and this acquisition will make us an even more formidable competitor by ensuring that competitive financing is available to our customers and dealers around the world," says General Motors CFO Dan Ammann. The ability to finance from a captive unit will let General Motors extend better loan terms to potential customers, which the automaker sees as key to closing a sales gap that's between 10 and 15 percent versus automakers who already have their own financing divisions.

GM will be handing over more than $2 billion in cash to GM Financial, and the unit will more than double its liabilities from $12 billion to $27 billion while also doubling its assets to about $33 billion. GM Financial expects to bolster its yearly pre-tax earnings by $300-$400 million. It will take at least six months to wrap this deal up, provided it gets approvals from various oversight agencies. For more information on the deal, check out the official press release below.

Starting next year, General Motors engineers will work with researchers at the National Tire Research Center in an effort to create safer and more efficient tires. The automaker has invested $5 million in the facility in Halifax, Virginia, which uses cutting-edge tire performance machinery to recreate real-world driving events.

The $11.2 million test equipment can spin a tire to the equivalent of 200 mph while monitoring data on handling, ride, torque and braking forces and replicating various road conditions. GM says tire efficiency can theoretically be increased up to seven percent by varying attributes like tread design, construction and manufacturing techniques.

GM hopes its work at the National Tire Research Center will help the company advance the arrival of next-generation tire technology, thereby increasing vehicle efficiency and reducing fuel consumption at the same time. You can take a closer look at the full press release below for more information.