Fiat 500L five-door spotted

Autoweek spotted this manufacturer-plated Fiat 500L earlier this week on the streets of suburban Detroit. With its round headlights and cheerful grille, the five-door hatchback's resemblance to its three-door cousin is apparent even under its coat of liberally applied camouflage. While the 500L and the smaller 500 models share similar styling cues, the subcompact hatch is not just a slightly stretched 500 with two extra doors.

Jaguar Land Rover SVO Pebble Beach debuts – Range Rover Sport SVR, Jaguar F-Type Project 7 & ‘new’ Lightweight E-Type

Jaguar Land Rover SVO Pebble Beach debuts include the Jaguar F-Type Project 7 Jaguar Land Rover’s new Special Operations Division may only just have come in to being, but that’s not stopping them delivering three cars for their North American debut at the Pebble Beach Event later this month. First of the SVO cars on show will be the new Range Rover Sport SVR, Land Rover’s most extreme performance car to date, which has just run the Nurburgring in a record time for an SUV (although we’re not sure many buyers will really care) and which should find a ready market in the US. Second of the SVO cars is the new Jaguar F-Type Project 7, which with its open-topped default mode will doubtless have American buyers from the sunny states opening their cheque books on sight.

Mercury gets a small car in 2011

Ford Motor Co. executives confirmed that Mercury will get a new car on the same platform as the Ford Focus. Ford executives told dealers Sunday at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Orlando, Fla., that the small Mercury is coming in 2011, the same year the Focus arrives.