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NISSAN JUKE 2011 "CAR COM review"

 Nissan seems to be on a war path to fill every last ounce of white space in the automotive spectrum. The company has unleashed a barrage of vehicles that range from playful to downright confusing. At first blush, the 2011 Nissan Juke would seem to fit into the latter category. With styling that's two shakes away from robo-reptilian, the small crossover packs plenty of power, a tall ride height and a small footprint into one sub-$20,000 package. If you can avoid pigeonholing the Juke, you'll find that the engineers at Nissan secretly managed to bring their own interpretation of the hot hatch to market without raising the ire of the company's accountants.

We wouldn't blame you for thinking we're one stud short of a lug pattern on this one, but point your peepers to a few specs and you'll see what we mean. The Juke weighs in at less than 3,000 pounds in front-wheel-drive guise and packs a turbocharged, direct-injection 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine that's good for 188 horsepower. For reference, the company's own Sentra SE-R hits the scales with an extra 88 pounds on its waist and 11 fewer ponies at its command. Opt for the manual gearbox in the Juke, and things get even lighter. Intrigued? We were too.

 Perhaps the biggest compliment that we can pay the design of the 2011 Juke is to say there's nothing to compare it to in the automotive food chain. Sure, there are borrowed elements from the 370Z in the taillamps and there's more than a little Kia Soul in the roof line, but by and large, the Juke is its own machine. That's no small praise considering manufacturers have been cranking out vehicle designs for well over 100 years.

Up front, the Juke serves up something of a puzzle with its lighting array. Those stylized lenses up top don't tackle main illumination duty like you'd think. Instead, they prefer to take care of both marker and turning-indicator work, leaving headlight detail to the pie plate-sized lenses set low in the front fascia. If that's not confusing enough for you, higher trim levels also get fog lights placed even closer to the ground.

 From the side, the Juke boasts seriously bulging fenders front and rear as well as a short wheelbase of just 99.6 inches. In fact, from stem to stern, the crossover measures a mere 162.4 inches, or shorter than even the admittedly small Versa hatchback. Fortunately, the Juke comes from the factory wearing stylish 17-inch alloy wheels even in base configuration. Those sizeable rollers give the Juke a little extra attitude and serve to help avoid the pitfall of looking like an econobox... er, trapezoid. Throw in a set of rear door handles hidden in the C-pillar and the Juke comes off as a three-door hatchback from a distance.

The rear of the Juke shows more of a traditional CUV or crossover look with a rounded hatch, sculpted taillamps and a small roof spoiler. Despite its abbreviated package, it uses a fairly tall rear deck for loading groceries and the like, and we expect the painted bumper cover to suffer more than a little abuse at the hands of careless owners.

 Jump indoors and the Juke delivers an interior with a greater attention to detail than we're typically accustomed to from Nissan. The driver is treated to a sport steering wheel with contours in all the right places and quality texturing that feels a galaxy or two ahead of the tiller in the Rogue. Large, easy to use buttons make short work of cruise control, audio settings and handling calls from the Bluetooth system. Door panels are decorated with painted plastic bits color-matched to the unique "motorcycle tank" center console, and large, rounded chrome handles add a little bit of brightwork to an otherwise dark cockpit. Our tester came in S trim, which means that it sacrifices the trick I-CON center stack of the SV model for more pedestrian dials and buttons. Base guise does net buyers an iPod interface, though navigating the menu structure via the controls on the dash and steering wheel is nothing short of confounding.

 Otherwise, the Juke serves up a surprising amount of room given its tiny stature. There's enough space to comfortably ferry four adults around town without having to accordion anyone's knees, and there's a deceptively large area behind the rear seats for stacking up luggage or groceries. We have it on good authority that several propane tanks and multiple bags of groceries can fit back there at the same time, though a lack of tie downs or hooks makes for plenty of racket once the going gets twisty.

One of the best things about the trim structure with the Juke is that no matter what configuration you choose, you're guaranteed to find one very capable four-cylinder engine under hood. Our bare-bones tester made use of the same direct-injection, turbocharged 1.6-liter four-cylinder as the rest of the lineup. That means we had the good fortune of getting to play with a full 188 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torque. While we were itching to get a full week's worth of time with the six-speed manual transmission, our tester came lugging the Nissan CVT gearbox in front-wheel-drive configuration.

 But that's not as bad as you'd think. Nissan has cleverly graced the Juke with the same "shiftable" CVT programming as found in the likes of the Maxima. Nudge the gear lever up and the transmission will happily provide you with a quick jump in ratios that's good for darting along your favorite mountain road. Speaking of darting, front-wheel drive will net drivers a torsion-beam suspension out back, though like many inexpensive small cars these days, the rear bar doesn't seem to hold the Juke back when it comes time to tango.

Keep the tach pointed above 2,000 rpm and the Juke will gladly dispatch any amount of tarmac with little argument. The hatchback kicks out very little understeer if you manage to keep out of the throttle. Really mash the skinny pedal, though, and the sizable pack of horses will do their best to torque-steer you away from your intended path of flight. The result is a small car that begs you to keep hammering, despite its tall ride height. The brakes are properly firm and though the electric power steering is a characteristically light, it's not enough to dampen the giggle factor.

 It's worth noting that our particular tester was a pre-production unit with plenty of hard-won miles on the clock at the hands of sinister auto journos. That said, we did notice a fairly rough idle, especially when the engine wasn't up to operating temperature. At highway speeds, the cabin suffers from road and engine noise, though not enough to worry us. This is a vehicle with an MSRP lighter than its curb weight, after all.

The EPA says you should be able to net 27 mpg city and 32 mpg highway from a CVT-equipped, front-driver like our tester, though after a full week of darting around the countryside, we saw a measly 22 mpg combined. Just remember, kids: Small turbo engines drink fuel just like their larger, normally aspirated counterparts when you have your foot burried in the carpet. In this case, Nissan's little alien sucks down premium juice, so it would pay to go a little lighter on the fun pedal should you decide to park a 2011 Juke in your driveway.

And how much will Nissan ask for the pleasure of Juke ownership? Prices start with the S Trim at $18,960, and buyers can expect power doors, locks, iPod connectivity, a six-speaker sound system and Bluetooth hands-free calling for that stack of cash. That sticker price snugs the Juke smack dab between the Nissan Rogue at $20,810 and the Nissan Sentra at $15,520. With decent (if a bit theoretical) fuel economy and a fun factor that's well above either of those options, the Juke represents the perfect middle child in Nissan's lineup. While it may not be as functional as the Rogue, we'll take that sacrifice for the bump in power and the handling hijinks.

The Juke is as close to a modern hot hatch from Nissan as we're likely to get anytime soon, and were it ours, we'd immediately begin looking into ways to get the vehicle a little closer to the ground. If ever there were a car that begged for the aftermarket to right its wrongs, the Juke is it. The styling may not be for everyone, but after a week with the five-door, we grew warm to its funky face. Hey, if people can welcome pug dogs into their homes, they should have no problem opening up the garage door for the 2011 Juke.

audi rs6 avant "CARS COM MODIFICATION"

The Audi RS6 quattro, commonly referred to as the RS6, is the highest performing version, and top-of-the-line specification of the Audi A6, positioned above the Audi S6. It is a mid-size sports-focused executive car, produced by the high performance private subsidiary company quattro GmbH, for Audi AG, part of the Volkswagen Group.

Both versions of the RS6 are, or have been produced as, a five-door five-seat "Avant", Audi's name for an estate car–station wagon, along with a four-door five-seat saloon–sedan. Based on the A6 platform, the RS6's internal combustion engines are front-mounted and longitudinally oriented, while the transmission is mounted immediately at the rear of the engine in a longitudinal orientation, in the form of a transaxle. Unlike the A6 and S6, however, the RS6's engines have not been shared with any other vehicle in Audi's lineup.

The official details for the new Audi A6 aren’t even cold yet and already we are hearing ripples of rumors about different versions of the luxury sedan. It’s only natural that the company will follow the A6 with an S and RS (Renn Sport) version for it, so these rumors are more fact than fiction. However, while the RS version won’t be unveiled until about another two years, many people are too geeked up about it to wait that long, and this fresh rendering is proof of that.

Besides receiving an impressive exterior update inspired by the latest A7 Sportback and an even sportier interior with higher quality materials, the Audi RS6 sports sedan will also be built on the new MLP platform (structured to provide better weight distribution) that will help reduce the total weight by aprox. 220 lbs.

Also, the new RS6 will drop the current V10 engine in favor of a new twin turbo 4-liter V8 engine that will deliver the same performance numbers as the engine it replaces.

UPDATE 02/15/2011: Ask and you shall receive. Since people already began speculating about the RS6 anyway, an Audi spokesman has provided a couple of details for the vehicle. In an interview with Telegraaf.nl, the spokesman said that the United States is a typical sedan country for which the RS6 is intended, eliminating the question of whether or not the RS6 will make it to our side of the pond. The Audi spokesman also said that the RS6 will feature lots of carbon fiber components in order to reduce the car’s weight by as much as possible.

UPDATE 03/28/2011: Today’s rumors suggest that the Audi RS6 will go on sale one year earlier than expected. This decision has been made in an attempt to attack the future BMW M5 set to be released in just a few months time.

new MINI Coupe Concept 2011 "Car Com Collection"

The British firm which is owned by BMW releases images and a few details about the sportiest MINI ever designed.

The model has a distinctive “helmet roof” of the Coupé concept and a steeply raked rear screen, while it was lowered by 29mm, in comparison to the hatchback. Featuring two seats (with additional 8.8 cubic feet of cargo space in the back) and a pop-up spoiler that is automatically deployed at speeds over 50mph. MINI Coupe Concept’s weight balance has been slightly moved to the front, thus enabling the MINI to have a better traction off the line. The officials from MINI say that the Coupé will uphold the “brand’s hallmark go-kart feeling”, as we can see in the pictures.

Moreover, the new MINI Coupe Concept receives some of the most powerful petrol and diesel engines that are available. MINI Cooper Coupé gets a power output of 120bhp, the MINI Cooper SD Coupé powerplant produces 141bhp, MINI Cooper S Coupé pumps up 181bhp and the MINI John Cooper Works Coupé engine releases 208bhp.

MINI said the Coupe Concept would be released as a 2011 model year in Europe towards the end of 2010 and early 2011 in the US, but they are clearly behind schedule.