Henrik Fisker launches new luxury sports car company

Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler have announced the opening of a new luxury car company, Fisker Coachbuild, based in Southern California to appeal to the global market. The focus of the company will be on designing and manufacturing exclusive high-end sports cars, which will be limited to 150 units per design and sold under the Fisker brand name, with world-wide distribution. The first public unveiling of the new designs will be scheduled towards the end of 2005, with production to commence during the second quarter 2006.

One Lap of the Web: Peking to Paris Rally, classic car inspection guide and pointless cars

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- Join the Hooniverse debate as they ask: What's the dumbest car sold on the market today?

Watch the sad, final moments of a crusher-bound heap

Automotive wrecking yards are good places to reflect on the real-world values of heavily depreciated vehicles versus global current scrap-metal prices, and to see which cars have suddenly had the fix-it-versus-total-it line moved by insurance companies (the early-21st-century Subaru Legacy Outback, for example, appeared in large numbers in high-turnover wrecking yards just during the last year, as fairly minor collision damage on these cars is no longer worth fixing). You'll see the things that a car's last owner does in a desperate attempt to sell (or at least live with) an increasingly decrepit heap (as we learned in "Repo Man," you really will find a Little Tree in every car). During a recent trip to a San Jose, Calif., yard, I encountered this sad yet strangely compelling scene.