Used Seat Polaris 600 Switchback Adventure on 2040-parts.com

Driven: BMW 6 Series convertible

Every large BMW coupe – from the E9 3.0 CS, through the shark-nosed E24 6 Series, Claus Luthe's beautiful E31 8 Series, right up to the outgoing, Bangle-era E63 6er – has had an exoticism beyond every other car in the brand's range. We drove the latest from the most southern point of Europe back to our London office to find out if it too is a truly Grand Tourer. Stepping off the 'plane in Gibraltar, greeted by a Deep Sea Blue 650i with Ivory White leather, 19-inch rims and Shadow Line exterior trim under the early summer Mediterranean sun, it's clear that the right colorway and a more appropriate setting certainly help the F12's cause after our disappointment with the car at its debut in Detroit earlier in the year.

Inside the 2012 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque

With many large and heavy luxury SUVs powered by 5.0-liter V8 engines in its lineup, Land Rover was likely to run headlong into stringent new carbon-reduction legislation around the globe. True, there are small utes, powered by V6 and four-cylinder turbodiesel engines, but these are entry-level models not completely representative of Land Rover's core image. The Range Rover Evoque changes all that.

Audi ascending

Ford has owned the International Consumer Electronics show the last few years, but now a host of other automakers are making their presence felt at the techno party. Case in point: Audi AG CEO Rupert Stadler's appearance as a keynote speaker Thursday morning at the Las Vegas Hilton. Actor James Cromwell, from I, Robot movie fame, introduced Stadler, who rolled onto stage in an e-tron Spyder concept car.