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Well folks, I’d like to say that this is one of the signs of the impending apocalypse—a Lamborghini SUV—but believe it or not, there is a precedent here.

See, in the midst of the Italian supercar maker’s 30-year (1970-2000) period of financial distress, they did create a limited run high-end SUV called the LM002. Made to the tune of 328 copies from 1986 to 1993, it seemed just as out of character for Lamborghini then as the Urus does now—perhaps more so, given that the SUV craze of the early ’90s hadn’t yet taken place.

Whatever the quality of its reception, the LM002 did pave the way at least somewhat for the latest Lambo. Not completely, mind you; they’re still very different cars in concept—the LM002 being more of a rugged, Hummer-like vehicle and the Urus existing more in the vein of a polished Land Rover or BMW X5M.

The Urus’ powerplant looks to be a bit less exotic than its forebear’s as well. In contrast to the LM002’s 5.2l V12 (a massive 7.2l marine V12 was even available by special order), the Urus will sport a more “mundane” 5.2l V10 routing 584 hp through all four wheels.

So while the idea of a Lamborghini SUV may still be jarring, it’s a concept with history, and given that Porsche has been cranking out Cayennes for the past ten years, we might well wonder what took Lambo so long?

What’s going on with Formula 1 this year? Rather than the typical domination by one or two teams, almost every team and driver on the grid seems to be in contention for a top grid or podium spot on any given weekend. At least, judging by the first three races.

The 2012 Chinese Grand Prix continued the trend, and this weekend, it was the Nico Rosberg and Mercedes F1 show. Both Rosberg and his teammate, 7-time World Champion Michael Schumacher, qualified extremely well (Rosberg on pole), and would have both proceeded to own the race if it weren’t for an unfortunate pit incident that sidelined Schumacher. Rosberg, for his part, soldiered on, maintaining a solid 20-second lead on the rest of the pack to clinch the win.

Speaking of the rest the pack, I can recall entire F1 seasons that didn’t contain the amount of overtaking present in this one race. Drivers were passed only to retake their lost position in the following corner or two; some drivers surged and gained 3 or 4 places in the span of one lap, while others (Kimi Räikkönen namely, on account of over-worn tires) fell 10 positions in the span of 2 laps. Apart from Rosberg, securely ensconced in 1st, it’s like the deck was shuffled every five minutes. At the finish line, 2nd and 13th places were separated by a paltry 30 seconds. It made for some exciting racing, and the drivers’ skill and gusto came to the fore. Fun to watch.

My driver, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, didn’t fare as well, being one of those who fell more than a few places in 2-3 laps, but eked out a 9th place finish, and held on to third place in the 2012 driver’s standings. Ah well. Bahrain next week!

Forget the joke car that is the Aston Martin Cygnet; this is the real “economy Aston.”

An alternate subtitle for this post could be, “If you’re going to crib styling details from another brand, pick the automaker known for making arguably the best-looking cars in the world.” Ford’s 2013 Fusion is a masterstroke, really, and a key it’s-so-obvious-why-didn’t-we-do-that moment for Ford’s rivals. The challenge for the Detroit giant, perhaps, was to design a car that hewed closely enough to the sultry Aston look without being an outright photocopy of the big British GTs, and I think they’ve pulled it off. Out of necessity, the Fusion’s proportions diverge from those of their vastly more expensive inspiration, and the grille shape, while familiar, isn’t pinched in the corners in the classic Aston tradition, so it’s different enough to be distinct.

Even the rest of the car’s styling has Aston overtones, from the chrome strip surrounding the window area to the cohesive shape to the high-mounted, monoblock taillights. It’s a design that will still look fresh in 20 years time, which is more than can be said for most luxury cars, let alone econoboxes, which usually age very rapidly.

Unfortunately for we enthusiasts, the good news—and Aston similarities—mostly end with the styling. The engines offered will be a triplet of 4-bangers, the lowliest one naturally-aspirated and the other two turbo’d, with power outputs from the mid-100s to the mid-200s. A manual transmission won’t be mated to the top-shelf engine (it will be available for the other two), although AWD will be an option. A couple of hybrids (one closer to a pure electric) round out the powerplant choices. All that is fine and good, and no doubt covers the waterfront of popular demand, but the absence of a sport package or stickshift option with the hot engine means, at the very least, that the Fusion won’t initially cater to the enthusiast crowd. We can hope, then, that Ford chooses to offer a Fusion SHO or SVT or some such a year or two out—a number of spicier packages would nicely complement the wide range that’s available for the Mustang. At least the car is built on the European Ford Mondeo plaform and has that Euro “tautness” built in. That’s something.

For all you rotorheads, this has the potential to be very big news.

Left Lane reports:

According to Mitsuo Hitomi, the general manager of Mazda’s powertrain development department, the company is about to put the final touches on an entirely new rotary engine that will easily comply with upcoming fuel economy and emissions standards.

The new engine is likely the long-awaited 16X. According to the report, Mazda engineers altered the shape of the rotor housing, and modified the intake manifold and ignition sequencing in order to dramatically improve the rotary’s efficiency, always and ever its Achilles heel, and more important than ever given the priority placed in recent years on mileage and frugality.

It’s interesting the revelation that a new rotary is so close to completion comes hard on the heels of another recent report of Mazda’s somewhat perilous financial condition. If nothing else, it’s a sign of the engine’s vital importance to Mazda’s brand identity that development continues, even at such a low level, given that there’s likely very little money in the automaker’s coffers for anything else. As enthusiasts, we can only be thankful for Mazda’s devotion to the design, and wait with bated breath to see what makes its way to the auto show circuit, or even better, the showroom floor.

A recent Left Lane report that Mazda will be cutting back its US workforce revived a question that’s been rolling around in my head for some time: Why is Mazda not more successful? Why can they not break into the “upper tier” of Japanese automakers, a plane occupied by companies like Toyota, Nissan and Honda?

Granted, all automakers have to lay off workers from time to time in order to adapt to changing demand, or an underperforming product, or increased competition. But Mazda seems to be a perpetual underachiever, almost always turning our cars that are among the best in their respective class, and well put-together at that, but unable to vault their manufacturer into the upper echelon of Japanese makes. As a result, they seem to experience crises every half dozen years or so where they’re compelled to pare down their workforce or seek a business alliance, never actually entering bankruptcy, but certainly experiencing hard times, with little surplus development money available for the projects they’d actually rather be working on, such a next-generation rotary engine, or putting together a factory race team and adding to their already-enviable racing pedigree.

A quick mental scan of Mazda’s product line over the past decade or so offers some insight into the company’s fortunes. As much as GM would like us to believe otherwise, an automaker’s success or failure is tied pretty directly to the quality of the cars they design, engineer and manufacture, and a glance at Mazda’s output—the 3, 6, RX-8, MX-5, CX-7, CX-9 and Tribute, among others—reveals vehicles that are almost always a joy to drive, but in terms of mass-market appeal, are a little out-of-step with mainstream tastes. They’re not boring transportation appliances, and as much as we enthusiasts would consider that a selling point, the hard truth is that much of the buying public is looking for the anonymous beige box to tote them around, never breaking down and getting 30 mpg and playing their MP3s via Bluetooth. That being the case, consideration of Mazda cars requires a bit more of a “leap of faith” from the consumer than say, an Accord or Camry, vehicles that all their friends have; known quantities. Success, no matter how it’s arrived at, begets success, and as such Toyota, Honda and Nissan occupy enviable positions atop the podium, leaving Mazda and other Japanese makes nibbling around the edges.

Is that the whole story, though? Interesting cars that are lovely to drive but are cursed by the fact that the words “Camry” or “Accord” aren’t affixed to their trunklids? Or is there more to it? Why do you think Mazda isn’t more successful?

Seriously. There’s no precedent here.

One of the stars of last month’s Detroit Auto Show is the car pictured above: The oddly-named Chevy Code 130R (code for what?). A lightweight front-engine rear-driver with punchy, masculine proportions, it reads like a stripped-down BMW 1 Series for the younger set.

Equipped with an optional 6-speed manual transmission and powered by a 150-hp 4-banger (with a hybrid “boost” system good for another dozen or so horsepower), the Code 130R won’t be buckling pavement anytime soon. That very fact, however, is what makes it so surprising this car has emerged from Chevy. Sure, their Corvette Z06 and ZR1 are track dominators, and the Camaro ZL1 acquits itself quite well in the twisties, so it’s fair to say the automaker can put together cars that can handle, but I can’t recall that they’ve ever developed a concept that adheres to the lower-power + lightweight + RWD formula. No, in every previous instance, good-handling Chevys—or GM cars in general—were invariably the ones given a massive engine, and didn’t necessarily prioritize low weight. But recently, Chevy, in an effort to plant their flag in the youthful sports coupe market segment, needed a response to the Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ twins, and serendipitously, Cadillac was in the midst of developing a brand new smaller RWD platform for their new BMW 3 Series fighter, the ATS. Chevy seized the day, truncating the platform to underpin the Code 130R. It’s fair to say, then, that in this case they were saved by Cadillac’s recent Great Awakening to the wonders of RWD + good handling, since otherwise Chevy probably would have just tarted up the Malibu with sporty-looking duds and tried to pass it off as a real threat to its Japanese competition.

The icing on the cake here is the styling. As bad as the Camaro’s is, the Code 130R’s styling is good. It’s just a delightful car to behold. It’s distinctive without being tacky, the lines are confident without being overdone, and best of all, the proportions are the real drivers of the car’s design, not ticky-tack decoration, as in years past. And the whole car carries uniquely Chevy overtones. I’m honestly so shocked that the Code 130R wears a bowtie that I’m tempted to ask which closet the Chevy designers and engineers were locked in during its development. The car hasn’t yet been green-lit for production, but there’s so much promise here. It’s a great place for Chevy to start—finally.

It’s like what Pontiac did to the GTO, only worse.

Motor Authority reports that tuner SLP plans to revive Buick’s legendary GNX designation, applying it to a breathed-upon variant of the automaker’s current Regal GS. Mercifully, they’ve only planned to build around 500 of them, close to the painfully low number of the original that were produced.

To understand why this is such a travesty, consider a couple of things:

1. The original GNX was the ultimate rip-snorting, ground-pounding, take-no-prisoners incarnation of the already-fearsome Grand National. It was, first and foremost, a muscle car. It may not have been V8-powered in the classic tradition, but its turbocharged V6 radiated torque in its own right. And it was RWD, sported a live rear axle, dripped with testosterone and was singularly intimidating to line up next to at a stoplight or drag strip.
2. Back in ’04, Pontiac attempted to revive their legendary GTO badge by slapping it on a car called the Monaro, imported from their Australian subsidiary Holden. While the new GTO possessed good credentials on paper—a small-block V8 lifted from the outgoing Camaro and RWD—it utterly failed to catch on. Its timing was off by several years, for one; the new generation of muscle cars wouldn’t crop up until the emergence of the Dodge Challenger and especially the new Ford Mustang. But more significantly, although the mechanicals were on point, the sheetmetal was jellybean-like and inert, with absolutely none of the swagger befitting a proper muscle car.

And with the new GNX, history threatens to repeat itself as SLP prepares to water down yet another revered nameplate by affixing it to a very un-muscle-y sports sedan built on a FWD platform. A little nostalgia mining I can handle, but the new car must faithful if not to the original’s concept, at least to its general attitude. I really can’t see any possible way for SLP to re-cast the Regal GS in the mold of the ’80s GNX. It’s just not going to work.

Well, at the risk of OD’ing on Ferrari this week, here it is, officially: The new F12 Berlinetta.

It seems the actual car matches pretty closely with the spy shot leaked a few days ago, complete with an aggressive, FF-like grille, dramatic BMW Z4-ish “flame surfacing” adorning its flanks, and amped-up rear haunches lifted from an Aston Martin. The technical specs are awesome—in both the classical and vernacular sense of the word—a 6.3l V12 delivers 730 hp through a 7-speed dual-clutch transaxle, enabling the 3363-lb F12B to inhale 60 mph from a standstill in 3.1 seconds on the way to a claimed top speed of 211 mph. Hugely impressive, but strangely numbing, given the number of exotics on the market capable of matching, if not the horsepower number, then certainly the performance figures. Above a certain level, the cars’ capabilities are so far removed from our frame of reference that we might as well be discussing fighter jets. Yes, that kind of “above the fray,” higher-plane prowess is partially what supercars are all about, but when the new “supercar fray” is as saturated as it is, the numbers lose some of their impact. But again, that’s a post for another day.

Another part of the supercar equation is visual impact, and the F12B has it in spades. I can’t think of another car that would be so readily identifiable at a distance; you’d know it was a Ferrari, and specifically an F12B, half a mile away. But is the new exotic beautiful, or even attractive? The Spannerhead verdict: No. As alluded to above, the styling amounts to a 3-D crib sheet of other cars’ distinctive features draped over classic front-engined GT proportions. Is Pininfarina running out of ideas? Have they painted themselves into a corner, styling-wise, unable to create a shape at once new and fresh and plainly beautiful? Who knows. As it is, the F12B definitely inspires awe, and engenders respect, but desire… The jury’s still out.

Hot off the presses (h/t Jalopnik and GTSpirit), here’s the first photo of the new front-engined V12 flagship from Ferrari, to be named the F620 GT.

The replacement for the outgoing 599 Fiorano will be the most powerful road-going Ferrari ever made, with a staggering output of 740 hp from its 6.3l mill. A RWD car, one can’t help but wonder how just the rear tires will manage to put all that power to the ground effectively. We’ve long reached the point where AWD is practically a necessity for any self-respecting supercar with an engine output north of 600 hp or so, but… That’s a post for another day.

Back to the F620. Design-wise, the car looks like an unfortunate pastiche of styling cues from past and current Ferraris, including the FF’s gaping maw, the 458 Italia’s vertical headlight lenses and even the long-dead 550 Maranello’s bulging rear fenders. Perhaps stung by criticism of the 599 as too avant-garde—specifically with respect to the jerky grille and “flying buttress” C-pillar treatment—Ferrari seems to have penned a very conservative-looking replacement.

Every new Ferrari has a chance to be a design trendsetter, perhaps none more so than their classic front-engine V12 model, and it’s a shame when Ferrari doesn’t seize the opportunity to push the envelope stylistically. Not only that, but if the car looks dated before it’s even rolled out at the Geneva Motor Show in a few weeks, the fact that Ferrari dialed down the design’s edginess doesn’t bode well for its long-term viability in a market so driven by looks and visual impact. With any luck, as with the reveal of the F-117 Nighthawk, the car will look much better in subsequent photos than it does in the initial first grainy snapshot.