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Six stunning debuts from the 2011 New York International Auto Show

This year’s New York International Auto Show had more than a few exciting launches. While not all of these will go into production, the following are the six cars on show for their first time that we want to drive. Stay tuned for auto news of the more conceptual and unusual variety tomorrow.

The design of VW’s new Beetle pays homage to the earliest beetle profile. The choice is somewhat of a departure from 1998’s New Beetle, drawing deeper on the brand’s past but with plenty of details looking toward the future. We particularly love the turbo version, the new led lighting and the Gibson sound system.

As the most powerful Jaguar road car ever released it’s no surprise that the updated XKR-S wows with 550 HP and a top speed of 186mph. Plus, it’s gorgeous.

The new Audi A7 drew our eye right away, but really shines on close inspection. With the functionality of a sedan and the feel of a coupe it has all with the impeccable craftsmanship for which Audi is known.

Mercedes-Benz‘s C63 AMG Coupe sports sophisticated bodylines and an aggressive stance that gets it just right. 0-60 in 4.3 seconds and a top speed of 174 mph seal the deal.

How do you make the world’s most luxurious SUV even more over-the-top? Range Rover’s Autobiography Ultimate Edition ups the ante with two custom colors, ultra-premium leather, wood veneers, metal fittings and a rear seat that would make any baller smirk every time they got in the car. It has the customary “executive” climate and entertainment controls, the chilled bottle holder and champagne flute stands and the veneered desk tray as well as two seat-back iPads and a wireless keyboard which disappear when not in use. Topping it off is the super swank teak paneling in the rear, which features rubber inserts to keep items from moving around. The edition is limited to 500 vehicles, with 50 slated for the U.S. Sitting in the rear and taking it all in somehow makes the $170,000 price tag seem all too reasonable.

The Porsche Semper Vivus was the world’s first functioning hybrid car 111 years ago. A product of collaboration between Porsche engineering and the famed German coachbuilding company Karosseriebau Drescher, this stunning replica was built by a very dedicated Porsche engineer and is just as elegant as the original.

The latest video up on Dezeen Screen is this interview we filmed with car designer Nader Faghihzadeh of car brand BMW at the launch of the new 6 Series Convertible in Spain last month. Faghihzadeh, who created the vehicle’s exterior, explains the design concept and talks about the process of designing a car. Watch the movie »

The world’s 16 most famous art cars come together in one exhibit

Honoring the 35th anniversary of the project,
an exhibit at the BMW Museum in Munich brings together the complete set of 17 BMW Art Cars (with the exception of Olafur Eliasson’s ice sculpture) for the first time. Seeing them in one place makes for a study of the car as canvas, highlighting both similarities in the artist’s approaches (the majority are splashed with bright colors) as well as each distinct style.

While assembling all the cars is an impressive single-subject show, and many of the big names—Calder, Hockney, Lichtenstein—are familiar, there’s plenty of opportunity for discovery with some of the lesser-known works, like the shimmering surface of Matazo Kayama’s 1990 535i that welcomes visitors to the exhibit.

On a recent visit there as a guest of BMW, I also picked up a few insights that speak to the rich history of the brand initiative. As a whole, the show speaks to the savvy pairing of culture and sport, supporting the automaker’s values of performance and the joy of driving as they introduce fine art to race car driving.

A classic Warhol story, that he took all of 23 minutes to paint his 1979 M1 because he said the design of the car is so great, underlines his accompanying statement that he “tried to portray a sense of speed. When a car is going really fast all the lines and colours become a blur.” The short film on the making of this car and its race is worth checking out on the BMW Art Car microsite.

Similarly, Kayama said of his car (pictured above), “it was the attractive basic shape of the car which made my work at all possible in the first place.”

The show runs through 30 September 2011 at the BMW Museum in Munich. See more art cars—from Rauschenberg to Stella to Holzer and more—in the gallery below.

The British luxury sportscar maker’s “power suit” answer to the muscle car

by Ryan McManus

Recently announced at Geneva, the Aston Martin Vantage S is the newest incarnation of the luxury automaker’s smaller, welterweight sports car, falling in between the base V8 and the V12. With the letter “S” indicating everything from a totally reworked, sublime driving experience to a couple bits of carbon and an oversized spoiler, we were curious to find out how Aston defined this upgrade. We had the opportunity to find out when invited to the “Two Hearts, One Soul” launch, where Aston unveiled the Vantage S and the new Virage in Ronda, Spain.

The Vantage S is like a Vantage V12 but with a V8 engine, impressively adding 10 brake horsepower more than the base model. The result is a lighter car that’s more balanced, but benefits from all of the Vantage V12’s good looks, tighter steering and throttle progression. Upgraded from an oil-cooled six-speed gearbox, the air-cooled seven-speed by Graziano translates into weight savings, a livelier gear ratio and more usable torque through the range. Carbon fiber is applied in places that makes sense, like lightweight bucket seats that were stiff but comfortable (and unfortunately not available in the States).

Driving the Vantage S Volanté convertible around southern Spain, the car was relaxed and poised—as easy to pilot through tight streets in town as it is on long curving country roads. Simply pressing the “sport” button, holding down the DSC button for four seconds and engaging the paddles transforms this car from a laid-back GT into a growling rocket. The luxuriously comfortable interior (though taller drivers will find the headroom snug) had an optional 1000W Bang and Olufsen stereo with iPod integration that provided an impressive soundtrack—when we didn’t have the volume down to hear the throaty V8.

The Vantage S is brash, addictive fun and you find yourself wanting to push the throttle open just to hear the exhaust reverberate through the countryside. A stripped-down sports car, the model is a near perfectly weight balance with a mid-mounted V8 up front driving the rear wheels.

After a quick lesson from Simon Dickinson, lead Performance Driving Instructor at Aston Martin, we took the Vantage S Coupé on the track and through the paces at Ascari. Braking hard into a corner and turning the Alcantara-wrapped steering wheel, you feel the bespoke Bridgestone tires bite in. Down-shifting into second using the column-mounted shift paddles, when you hit the gas the car hurtles down a straight, leaving you smiling like a total maniac.

The unmistakably gorgeous car combines the original Vantage’s classic beauty with the V12’s aggressive curves. This is not a flashy machine (at least not when compared to its Italian counterparts) but it is brawny. At some angles, it even recalls the golden era of American Muscle fastbacks like the Mustang Mach 1. If the original Vantage was a charcoal gray suit, the Vantage S is a double-breasted pinstripe—it’s extravagant, but pulls it off nicely—and more like our current 007 than the Bond of yore.

There are faster, more capable cars for the money, like a Porsche 911 Turbo or an Audi R8, and the Vantage S will likely never top this category on numbers alone. The GPS unit is a 2010 model, not the Garmin-designed one available in the Virage, and it’s sub-par by even the most generous standards. The interior can go from subtle to boy racer really quickly if you choose the wrong color combinations, and it unfortunately doesn’t have a manual transmission as an option. The seven-speed auto-box is fine, quick enough for most people, but it doesn’t replace the driver interaction of manipulating a stick.

These flaws are part of the point of owning an Aston Martin, however, and what makes the Vantage S such a rewarding car. It’s not the perfect machine or the popular choice, but it is a supremely rewarding alternative, a statement that one’s interests lie not in pure performance numbers or pure status, but in a mix of history, style, design and performance. The Vantage S is—in a single word—gratifying.

The Aston Martin Vantage S Coupé will retail at $132,000, or $151,000 for the convertible Volanté. Contact Aston Martin for purchasing details.

Alfa Romeo’s supercar concept hints at re-entry into the U.S. market

Drawing steady crowds when it debuted at the Geneva International Motor Show last week,
Alfa Romeo’s new 4C concept was on the tip of nearly every editor’s tongue as a show favorite. While the allure of the two-door’s matte red finish and seductively crisp design flourishes turned heads, the marriage of supercar inspiration with a compact body will go into production in 2012 and suggests a bold future—perhaps even a hotly-anticipated return to the U.S. market—for the brand.

Based on the success of their flagship, limited-edition
8C Competizione, introduced in 2007, as well as the 8C Spider, the rear wheel-drive 4C shares a look “shaped by the wind.” Designed by the Alfa Romeo Style Center, the body doesn’t just borrow lines from vintage Alfa Romeo’s, like the famed 6C 1500 and 6C 2500, but uses the same weight and power distribution ratio that made those cars so fast.

What the 4C lacks in power (four-cylinders compared to the brawny eight of its forerunners), it makes up with clever suspension layout and a lighter-weight frame, comprised mostly of carbon and an aluminum rear, to ensure maximum agility—which isn’t to say that the engine doesn’t pack a punch. At 200+ horsepower with a top speed of 250 km/hr, a new “twin dry clutch” transmission, going from zero to 100km in under five seconds) and a system that eliminates turbo lag, you can already find this gasoline engine in current production models like the Giulietta, a compact Alfa that has fans salivating for it to come stateside.

If parent brand Fiat coming to the U.S. is any indication, the company will likely use its Chrysler platform for the 4C, which would make it the first model to hit these shores since Alfa Spiders ceased production in the mid-’90s. While there’s no word on price yet, (though it will hit somewhere below the Competizione’s $100,000 tag), here’s hoping a suitable repair network comes with it.