Although enthusiasts don't seem to pay much attention to the Nissan Altima, buyers in the fiercely competitive mid-size segment certainly do: the five-year-old sedan emerged as last year's second-best-selling car in America. But before you attribute the Altima's big sales numbers to Toyota's post-tsunami supply problems or to the Camry's model changeover, know that the Camry retained its best-seller crown.

Three-row crossovers present a dicey challenge for luxury brands, particularly those that have built their name on sporty sedans. Should they prioritize comfort over cachet, or do they stay true to their mission at the expense of practicality? BMW does the best job of any automaker offering crossover practicality while still meeting the brand's promise. The X5 may not be the most powerful or the quickest crossover you can by, but it does have the best powertrain. That's thanks to skillful calibration of the best hardware in the business: a responsive, energetic, turbocharged in-line six-cylinder and a snappy eight-speed automatic transmission. BMW's expertise in suspension tuning is obvious as well. The BMW's ride is comfortable and the handling is impressive even without air springs or adaptive dampers.

I grew up reading about Japan's microscopic Kei-class cars, but never did I think an automaker would actually bring one to our shores. Lo and behold, Mitsubishi has: its gasoline-powered, jellybean-shaped i may not be sold here, but the electric-powered version -- the i MiEV, or i Powered by MiEV as it's formally known here -- has officially joined Mitsubishi's shrinking North American portfolio.

The Mercedes-Benz GLK first went on sale at the beginning of 2009 as a 2010 model, which means Mercedes' baby G just celebrated its third birthday. So the corporate parent is lavishing some attention on its littlest SUV. Outside, there's more chrome, LED lighting front and rear, and a slightly redone front end. Inside, the driver is presented with a new dashboard with a sportier, richer-looking instrument cluster, and bisected by a large trim piece featuring prominent, round air vents.

Let's get the obvious out of the way: 200 mph is an absurd number. Jet airliners take off and land at slower speeds. 200 mph is twice as fast as most Americans will ever drive, and it requires twenty-five times the power needed to go 60 mph. The staff of this magazine has driven some of the fastest, most exotic cars in the world, and yet only two of us -- European bureau chief Georg Kacher and contributor Ezra Dyer-- have driven 200 mph.

Open the doors and the rear liftgate and you immediately see evidence of the old Ford D3 platform that underpins this vehicle: the protruding lips that preclude a smooth floor transition at the rocker panels; the huge depth for liftover at the liftgate. That said, Ford has done a superb job of packaging seating into the interior space, and the third-row seats fold cleverly and neatly into the cargo cavity to create a flat load floor that's even with the bumper height. Love the electric operation.

The Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance has blossomed over seventeen years to the unimaginable point where its growth must be managed to protect its standing as our favorite place to bask in the aura of automotive love. The ambience, bonhomie, full access to cars and stars, preponderance of racing cars and drivers, and good-natured inclusion of oddballs (motorcycles, dragsters, coal-fired cars, and Wienermobiles) place it first among car shows.

What to make of the fact that the Mercedes-Benz Galendewagen has seen a nearly fifty percent increase in sales from 2009 to 2011? The fact that this vehicle, which was originally designed for military, not civilian, use, is now more than thirty years old (it dates from 1979) apparently does little to deter its well-heeled buyers. Nor does the ancient SUV's appalling gas mileage (13 mpg combined city/highway, in the case of the G550). The fact that a GL, or an ML, is far roomier inside also appears to be irrelevant.

The 500 Abarth has 58 percent more power and 73 percent more torque than the 500 on which it's based, but halfway through my evening with the Abarth, I was not thinking that the car was 58 percent better than the base model. I was wondering if Fiat had made the car better at all.

I remember too well my first winter driving disaster, sliding the nearly new parental Saab 99LE sideways through a stop sign at the bottom of our hill and across a major truck thoroughfare. My life flashed before my eyes as I prepared to meet the fate of the Cassidy kid up the street, who died at this intersection when he failed to stop his wooden sled in time. Years later, his name was still being reverently invoked for the benefit of the youthful sledding community.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't pay nearly enough attention to Class 6 medium-duty electric trucks. And I think my colleagues around here would have to shamefully concur that we've had a coverage deficiency regarding that particular segment. But your thirst for news about Class 6 medium-duty electric trucks is about to be slaked in a major way. Prepare to have your mind exploded by this, the world-exclusive first test-drive of the Balqon Mule M150.

The outgoing Chevy Malibu -- not quite gone, really, as 2012 models are still available -- was one of Bob Lutz's notable achievements at GM. It pulled Chevy's midsize nameplate out of the rental-car ooze and became a handsome, competent entry in the very tough mid-size sedan segment. The 2013 model builds on some of those achievements, but it might have made a better first impression with its full range of powertrain offerings.

This summer, the women of the auto industry will strut their stuff and show off their skills to raise money for the SEMA Memorial Scholarship Fund with the first-ever SEMA Mustang Build Powered by Women.

The Gran Sport name has had plenty of peaks and valleys since it first appeared on a Buick back in the mid Sixties. The most recent offerings were nothing special, and the moniker was retired for a while. Now, the slimmed-down General Motors has fewer brands to feed, giving it more leeway to resurrect the idea of a sporting Buick, in the hope of giving the division the cache enjoyed by premium European (and Japanese) brands. With the Regal GS, it is doing so with an actual European car, as the underlying architecture is primarily that of the Opel Insignia (and, also, the Chevrolet Malibu). And although the idea is laudable, the execution is wanting, chiefly in some of the subjective areas that the old pros in the sports sedan game usually get right.

Although its mainstream mission and conservative exterior styling have led some staff members to believe the 2012 Volkswagen Passat TDI is bland, so far, everyone who's driven the car during its first month in our Four Seasons test fleet has walked away impressed.

Sane little Mazda has quietly been producing one of the best sports cars of all time -- the Miata -- for more than two decades. Other than one bone-headed move to rename it (when some nitwit marketing exec decided to kill "Miata" in favor of "MX-5") and one half-hearted attempt to make it fast (the turbocharged Mazdaspeed MX-5 Miata), there has been no insanity. No Miata GT3. No Miata GT-RS. No Miata Superleggera. No Miata R.

It's not unusual for a Four Seasons vehicle to enjoy something of a honeymoon -- a blissful period before the daily grind exposes its every last design flaw. That said, the early praise for the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque has been particularly effusive.

That massive hunk of steel in your driveway is slowly corroding into obsolescence -- both figuratively and literally. About the time that rust finally eats through the floorboards of your shiny new 2012 model, you'll be able to purchase -- no, afford -- a plastic car.

It used to be the case that if a customer walked into a Subaru dealership hoping for an Outback or a Forester, but the customer's finances didn't quite stretch to allow the purchase of one of those perennially popular Subaru models, the salesperson would gently guide the customer to the back of the showroom and present to them the Impreza. The Impreza was the forgotten Subaru, the one no one cared about, the price leader. It was bland, it was boring, it wasn't remotely competitive with compacts like the Mazda 3 and the Honda Civic, and it didn't even offer very good fuel economy, but at least it was a Subaru, and it was one of the cheapest ways to get an all-wheel-drive car. So, even though it was the bastard stepchild of the Subaru lineup, it found a few takers, people who really, really wanted a Subaru and were willing to live with the Impreza's aesthetic, performance, and efficiency weaknesses. (The Impreza also formed the basis of the popular WRX sports car, but that's another story altogether.)

The Land Rover Discovery has made a very slow journey from its original incarnation in 1989 to today's 2012 model; over 23 years, with one major redesign and two minor ones, it feels like not all that much has changed. And that's for the better. We still have the very cool asymmetrical rear window, the go-anywhere ability, and the seven-seat passenger capability. Sadly, the rearmost seats have yet to change much, and still use an archaic and counter-intuitive operation to raise and lower. Despite the air suspension (added to the third-generation car), the Land Rover still feels very top-heavy and is susceptible to cross winds. What has changed include things like the U.S.-spec nomenclature (now LR4, after LR3 replaced Discovery), the heavily reworked interior that brings the LR4 well upscale with premium hides and soft-touch materials, and a powerful 5.0-liter V-8 engine. That V-8 sounds delicious - but it's the only engine option; combine the awkward third row and V-8-only powertrain and the Land Rover's mid-size offering becomes a hard sell against crossovers like the Audi Q7 and BMW X5 which offer multiple engine options.

Ford took a lot of flack for the 2010 Taurus SHO. A big car with a big engine, the SHO had straight-line speed in spades, but when it came to braking, Ford's full-size car couldn't handle the pressure. Plagued by awkward pedal modulation and serious brake fade, the Super High Output Taurus drove more like a nostalgic marketing exercise than a red-blooded engineering effort. Ford engineers rectified several shortcomings on all Taurus models with a 2013 update, but they're especially eager to win back respect for the SHO. To that end, they're making even loftier claims about the new, optional Performance Package: they say that this 4300-pound family car is track-ready.

The Evolution MR and I had only brief, late night and early morning encounters. For the first time, I was happy to find an automatic transmission in an Evo as I was in desperate need of minimum-effort transportation. Thus equipped, it actually proved to be a remarkably laid back chariot, with credit going to its light steering, surprisingly compliant ride, and supportive Recaro sport seats. My only complaint was that, as usual, I could have benefitted from a booster seat to better see over the hooded gauge surrounds.

In the january ipad issue, I wrote the following about the Frankfurt concept car used as a teaser for the critically important production Ford Fusion/Mondeo: "I harbor a hope that the production Ford to be shown in Detroit two months after this is written will be even better than the Evos--and a worry that it won't be as good. Whichever it is, we'll be stuck with it for a while, because once the presses start stamping, it'll be a long time until anything can change." The definitive Fusion is now here, and it does not enjoy better styling than the Evos, but it's as good, in a less spectacular way. I'm very happy to see an excellent mainstream Ford sedan, probably the best since the brilliant original Taurus a quarter century ago.

When the current-generation Jetta was launched, its big advance over the previous model was its much lower price. Unfortunately, that lower price was achieved with some severe cost cutting both in the car's mechanicals -- a cheaper rear suspension and a smaller, less-powerful engine -- and its interior. The arrival for 2012 of the top-spec GLI edition of the Jetta, goes a long way toward remedying those issues.

Given his long, storied involvement in motorsports and the performance automobile industry, any biography on Carroll Hall Shelby likely contains several dozen chapters. Sadly, the final chapter in his life has come to a close: Shelby died late Thursday night in Dallas, Texas. He was 89 years old.