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

Hey kids! Have you always wanted to get behind the wheel of a car but your parents and the law won't let you? It seems like a long wait until your 17th birthday and playing racing games on your console just doesn't cut it, right? No longer will you have to wait until you're grown up, because there's a new scheme from MotorSport Vision out there, made just for you. It's called YoungDrive and if you're 11 years old plus and are taller than 4ft 8" then you can book your first driving lesson in a MINI One. The lessons are based at three locations; Brands Hatch, Oulton Park and the Bedford Autodrome. It gives you the opportunity to take a MINI and an instructor around a

Every car lover's calender starts with a new batch of machines on show in Motor City. I'm talking, of course, about the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan. The city is famous for being the beating heart of the American motor industry and at the start of every year all the world's manufacturers congregate and show off their new products to see what our stateside friends think of their latest offerings. Here's a half-time round-up of the motors on show for 2012 from each stand from the day so far. Bentley Two new Continentals broke free from the covers at the Bentley stand; the V8 coupe and V8 GTC Cabriolet. Little differences to tell these from the bigger W12 on the outside include a gloss black

In order to keep you, our reader, more abreast with current news without taking up an inordinate amount of your time, I'm introducing this column - "News Bites."  One paragraph and picture per topic of today's automotive news.  One article.  If we were a paper publication, we'd say we were going green.  Let us know what you think! Fiat has dropped a load of new photos of the 3rd-generation Panda supermini today.  This pint-sized product (which I still believe Fiat should be selling in the US pitched against the Fit, etc) debuted at the Frankfurt show in September, and is going on sale next year.  Engines are all tiny, ranging from an 800cc TwinAir 2cyl up to a 1.3L diesel.  Full high-res gallery here.

Love him or detest him, Flo Rida has been on the up ever since his floor-banger collaboration with T-Pain, "Low". The song which is still played to this day in many of London's best and worst clubs catapulted the tattoed American rapper into the limelight, and since, he's gone onto collaborate with David Guetta, Rihanna, and even our very own "OK.com" Alexandra Burke. It's no wonder then that Mini, who we've covered a lot already in the Car Cameo series, has jumped the hurdles necessary to associate themselves with the Flo Rida brand. In Flo's latest video "Good Feeling", the rapper is seen running around the streets, topless. The sight of this bulky (possibly slightly overweight) rapper isn't too appealing - in fact you might want to

Well, for one thing, it's a tongue twister.  Mini Cooper S Coupe.  Koop.  Sha-doop.  Not quite a Touareg-level mockery of the English language, sure, but still not something that rolls off the tongue.  But there's more to the odd case of the Cooper Coupe than just the name. If you can't readily tell, what we have here is a Cooper Hardtop with only two seats, a chopped-off windshield, a greenhouse shaped like a backwards baseball hat, a pair of spoilers (one fixed), and not a whole excess of headroom.  If you love Minis for their faux-British charm, you'll love the Coupe.  If you hate them for how purposefully "styled" they are, you'll probably have an aneurysm.  Then get back in your Grand National and mumble about "cars

For those who love the idea of the Mini Coupe but don't want a roof that looks like a baseball cap, I bring great news. Mini has released images of a new convertible version of the coupe called the Roadster. The new Roadster has a fabric roof, just like in the bigger Mini Convertible, but unlike it's bigger brother, the fabric roof folds away into its own storage compartment instead of lying on the back end. The roof is semi-automatic meaning that to put it down you would unlock a latch yourself and then the roof will fold away by itself. There are other differences with its bigger convertible sibling. The Roadster sits 20mm closer to the ground, the

On the back of Mini getting brand placement time in Taio Cruz' latest video "Hangover", the historic German company appear to be continuing to spread their seed all over the industry. Whether it's Jamaican reggae-inspired beats in Sean Paul or certain big-name American producers in Timbaland, the dynamic company is trying to gain mass market appeal and visibility-wise, the strategy certainly seems to be paying off. It's no wonder then that Mini felt the need to strike a deal with Sony Music and the mastermind himself, Simon Cowell, in getting a Cooper onto the set of Labrinth's latest video "Earthquake". Just in case you've been out of the loop, Labrinth recently got himself signed to SyCo and Cowell's notorious record label which also houses the

The brand new Mini Cooper Coupe certainly turned heads yesterday when it debuted at Frankfurt Motor Show 2011. An homage back to 1966's Mini Marcos coupe, this strictly two-seater model certainly has the flare and simplicity to welcome it into Mini's popular current range. The car actually comes in 4 trims which range from £16,640 right through to £23,795. These include the bottom of the range Cooper, Cooper S, Cooper SD and the high performance John Cooper Works vehicle akin to the variants found in the rest of Mini's vehicles. From the front on, the similarities between the Coupe and it's older brother Cooper are noticeable, namely the large rounded headlights and the open mouth grille. Around the back and things start to get a little

I always make it out to Raleigh's Cars & Coffee event the first Saturday of every month. It's always worth it, even though I abhor waking up early, because there's always awesome stuff to see.  A lot of the same cars show up, so I won't show pictures of stuff you've already seen - for those you can check previous Cars & Coffee coverage here, here, and here. For starters, here is one of 337 Porsche 959's ever built, which was Porsche's rolling technical showcase that blew everything else out of the water in the 1980's, and set the standard for supercar performance.  None were ever imported to the US; it's likely this one has been fitted with the Canepa Design engine