Car Throttle

Even though the recent recession fatally wounded parts of the industry and fossil fuels running dry will threaten its future, the world of cars is still very much alive and kicking. There is such a variety of new products coming out this year ranging from affordable city cars you'll actually want to own, to ridiculously expensive supercars you'll lust after, old school coupes to revolutionary family cars, petrol engines to plug-in electric motors. The list is almost endless. So to help fellow car lovers and "new kids on the block" out, here's a round-up of 33 cars we can't wait to see in 2012 in order of release date. January 2012 Kia Optima It's been available around the world for a while but the Kia Optima

FINALLY.  The friggin' Buick Encore is here.  All my dreams and prayers have been answered, I'm so excited I can hardly...

...oh, sorry, got caught up in Auto Show mode there.  I'm just glad we don't have to deal with teaser images of a small SUV any more.  Look, I love auto show season.  Even after years of this, it still gets my blood going - who doesn't like seeing new stuff for the first time?  But not everything that comes out at the auto shows are worth an entire article.  Thus, Car Throttle News Bites: Detroit Auto Show Edition.  If you missed the earlier coverage, you can find it under the Detroit 2012 Category.

Speaking of that

Take a bite... outta news!  I'm back again with today's News Bites, where I hand-feed you today's automotive this-and-that with a humorous spoon.  So what's news today? Cadillac's ATS has been circulating the rumor mill for a while now.  This small, rear-wheel-drive sedan is pitched directly against BMW's all-conquering 3-series and Audi's A4.  We've known a bit about it's underpinnings for a while now - it will sit on GM's new Alpha RWD chassis, which fits below the Zeta RWD chassis - G8, Camaro, CTS, etc.  GM announced what you'll find under the hood, and there's reason to get excited.  Not about the base model, which will be powered by a 2.5L I4 (likely the same one in the new Malibu, with 190bhp/180lb-ft).  No, the mid-level

Hyundai's Genesis Coupe took everyone by surprise when it came out in 2009.  A brand previously known for building cheap, boring transportation appliances had given us a shapely rear-wheel-drive sports coupe with great weight balance, and a choice of two engines: a tuner-friendly 2.0L Turbo base model, and a 3.8L V6, both available with 6 speed manual or automatic transmissions. In doing so, they pitched the GenCoupe directly against established musclecars like the Mustang, Camaro and Challenger - as well as against some import sports coupes like the Eclipse, Infiniti G35/G37, Nissan 350/370Z, and the BMW 1-Series.  It's a tough crowd.  And while the Genesis still shines as a driver's car, it doesn't shine as brightly in comparison any more.  Almost all it's competitors have gained

A phrase I'm sure you're tired of hearing: "Hyundai's on a roll!"  Of course they are.  Sales are up.  Residuals are up.  They're making cars that people want because they're nice, not because they're 10% cheaper and 50% better warrantied.  And now that Hyundai's gone past cheap, they're going for exciting.  Sort of.

The big thing for Hyundai is the Veloster.  So big in fact, they brought six of them.  But more interesting to me than the front-drive, Accent-based Veloster is the Genesis Coupe Hurricane SC concept.

The big news is the supercharger, if you missed it.  The Magnuson blower sits to the side of Hyundai's 3.8L 24v V8, breathing 6-7psi of boost through an air-to-water intercooler on

Finally.  This was bound to happen.  Hyundai sells two cars called Genesis - the sedan and the coupe.  And while they're somewhat related, they're more different than similar under the skin.  So while the sedate (albeit good-looking, well-equipped, and well-priced) Genesis sedan and the related Equus uberlux liner enjoy the silent thunder of Hyundai's 4.6L and 5.0L 32v Tau V8, the company line is that all that quad-cam V8 goodness just doesn't fit under the hood of the smaller coupe.

This is a bummer.  The Genesis goes up against cars like the Mustang, Camaro and Challenger - all of which offer gigantic V8's with north of 400bhp - and some north of 500bhp - as upper level options.  The Hyundai Genesis

The yearly SEMA (Special Equipment Manufacturers Association) show happens in Las Vegas.  That's enough reason to want to go to it.  But more than the exotic locale (way better than, err, Detroit), SEMA is a hotbed of aftermarket parts.  If you're inclined to think this is a no-big-deal sort of affair, that's not the case.  The SEMA show attracts so much attention that manufacturers themselves have been getting into the SEMA game for a few years now, whether directly or through various 3rd party companies.

There are so many "new car" debuts prior to SEMA that I would literally flood your RSS feed with them.  I don't want to do that.  Plus, I can't write an entire article about a Chevy Sonic

The Hyundai Veloster is a unique creation if there ever was one. It is remarkably adventurous endeavor for a mainstream company like Hyundai. We can admit to not being fans of it at first (to put it mildly). But, as is the case with a lot of things the Veloster's looks have grown on us over time. We still aren't completely sold on it yet though; we'll have to wait until we see one in person. The latest news from Hyundai Like Sunday, a company blog, indicates that we won't have to wait too long to do that. The Veloster is arriving at Hyundai dealerships around the country, and the first one has been delivered to customer Daniel Jenkins. Based on the Elantra and powered

Hyundai followed an interesting strategy with the previous-generation compact Elantra. The United States demands that manufacturers offer traditional four-door sedan iterations. In Europe though, Hyundai's offering in the segment is hatchback-only and known as the i30. In order to offer a hatchback Elantra here in the U.S, Hyundai imported the i30 from Europe and called it the Elantra Touring. That gave the Touring model a much different feel than the standard Elantra model. This time around, Hyundai says it plans to offer a Touring model yet again. Until now we haven't seen what it looked like however. Hyundai has released a few images of the i30 ahead of a debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show. This time around, the Elantra and i30 don't look

Hyundai's Genesis Sedan was a complete surprise when it debuted in 2008. No one was really expecting Hyundai, of all brands, to come out with a full-size, rear-wheel drive pseudo-luxury sedan.  Even fewer people were expecting it to be as good as it was, either - it was more than a match for luxury-biased mid-sizers like the Lexus GS, Acura TL, Chrysler 300C, etc. But even with a really good product, it's basically market suicide to leave it untouched on the market for a few years as the competition gets better.  So Hyundai has made some changes and updates to their now 2nd-tier luxury sedan (since they started selling the LS460-sized Equus in the US.) The biggest changes occur under the skin.  All the Genesis sedan