AutoWeek Daily Drive — Monday, November 22, 2010

HOME   |   CAR NEWS   |   CAR REVIEWS   |   RACING   |   AUTOSHOWS   |   SUBSCRIBE   |   MARKETPLACE Monday, November 22, 2010                  Jimmie Johnson has won the NASCAR championship for the past five years.... Jimmie Johnson--The Best Ever? I don't care who you are, that right there--Jimmie Johnson scoring a fifth-consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship--is some mighty impressive driving. It ranks as one of the single greatest feats in all of sports. Can't you hear the bellyaching and ballyhoo right now? The first carping will come from stick-and-ball sniffers on drive-time radio who don't consider racing a sport. Then the...   Audi RS3 is revealed, packs 340 hp WITH VIDEO -- Audi has finally come clean on its RS3 Sportback, revealing photos and information about the four-door hatchback planned for European sale next March. The RS3 uses a turbocharged 2.5-liter inline five-cylinder direct-injection gasoline engine borrowed from the TT RS. The RS3...   2011 Cadillac CTS-V Wagon, an AW Flash Drive What is it? As the name implies, the CTS-V wagon is the limited-production V version of Cadillac's excellent CTS wagon. That means the car gets the V's supercharged 6.2-liter V8 cranking out a stout 556 hp and 551 lb-ft of torque. Power is delivered to the rear wheels through either a...   Nov. 22: Plug-in Toyota Prius leaves the garage I have been driving a prototype of a Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid for seven weeks, a period which ends today. This car has done a lot in the previous two weeks, the last of my stewardship of it. The first week, Nov. 8-12, it did more of the highly efficient commuter slogging for which it was ...   2010 Jeep Liberty Renegade, an AW Drivers Log NEWS EDITOR GREG MIGLIORE: The Jeep Liberty Renegade was a nice weekend traveler for me, and I enjoyed motoring around town in this off-roader. The Liberty has been toughened up a bit in appearance compared with the last generation, and it looks more like a rugged Jeep than its predecessor....   Lotus positions itself for the future Last week was a heck of a week for Lotus in America. The iconic sports-car maker and championship-winning racing team detailed its plans to conquer both the supercar and racing worlds. The question now is, will they do everything they say they're going to do? Some background. Before last week,...   Toyota eyes turbos, direct injection Toyota Motor Corp. plans to introduce 11 new or redesigned hybrid vehicles by 2012, but the carmaker is hardly neglecting the humble internal combustion engine. Takeshi Uchiyamada, executive vice president in charge of r&d, also wants to increase the fleet's fuel efficiency by putting...   Mitsubishi will offer plug-in hybrid in 2013 Mitsubishi will launch a plug-in hybrid SUV in 2013, the head of the company's electric vehicle business unit said. The SUV will be similar to the Px-MiEV concept car shown at the 2009 Tokyo auto show, said Yoshikazu Nakamura, senior executive officer of Mitsubishi Motors Corp.'s global...   After a miss with the Sebring, Chrysler resets its upscale mission With the 2011 200 sedan, due in December, the Chrysler brand is taking another shot at the vast mid-sized sedan market, a target it missed badly with the Sebring. The 200, derived from the Sebring, resets the brand mission: refined design, luxury touches inside, a quiet ride and responsive... You May Have Missed...   NASCAR: Jimmie Johnson makes it 5 championships in a row UPDATED -- Carl Edwards dominated Sunday afternoon's NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida, but Jimmie Johnson led a lap and finished second to claim his record-setting fifth-consecutive Sprint Cup championship.Edwards led 10 times for 190 of the 267 laps,...   NASCAR: Reaction to Jimmie Johnson's fifth-straight title NASCAR has never seen a driver win five straight Cup titles--until now. After Jimmie Johnson's second-place finish at Homestead-Miami clinched the 2010 championship, reaction poured in from around the racing world. Here's a recap of the highlights.Jimmie Johnson, on his car's radio immediately...   NASCAR: Hamlin frustrated with his finish Toyota driver Denny Hamlin met with the media after the NASCAR finale at Homestead. Here are some of his notable comments.On finishing second to Jimmie Johnson in the final standings:“Obviously I'm disappointed. Our car just wasn't the same. Our car was lightning-fast up until that wreck....   NASCAR: Harvick calls race a solid run Kevin Harvick finished third in the race and in the final standings. Here is a sampling of his comments afterwards.On his day:“Well, we just had a good car today and we did almost everything that we needed to do. We put ourselves in position to run up front, and we ran up front and you know,...   Mexican team wins Baja 1000 for first time in event's history For the first time in the race's 43-year history, a Mexican team took top honors at the Tecate Score Baja 1000 on Nov. 20 after the father-son duo of Gus Vildosola Sr. and Gus Vildosola Jr. drove their Ford F-150 Trophy Truck into La Paz, Mexico. Twenty-eight-year-old Vildosola Jr. started and... CLICK HERE TO UNSUBSCRIBE from the AutoWeek Daily Drive E-mail or to sign up for other AutoWeek e-mail products. 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