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Brian Wilson on the Beach Boys' car songs

Brian Wilson, the musical giant behind so much of the Beach Boys great music, sang at the Petersen gala in Los Angeles last week, and there were plenty of songs about cars and drag racing in the mix. "We're going to do a series of car songs because this place has a lot of cars," Wilson announced before leading his 10-piece band into "Little Deuce Coupe," "409," "All Summer Long" and "Shut Down." The band played to a packed house at the museum's annual fundraiser. Wilson's set was surely the most entertaining in the Petersen's 15 years of fundraising galas.

How Lexus execs rescued the GS sedan

Eighteen months ago, Toyota had all but scrapped its plans for the redesigned Lexus GS 350 sedan that was unveiled in Monterey, Calif., last week. At the time, the company was pouring engineering resources into resolving its unintended acceleration crisis and was busy changing quality and safety procedures. Plus, the GS' underwhelming sales in the United States and Europe made for a weak business case against the Mercedes E-class and BMW 5-series.

Subaru launches production of BRZ, Scion FR-S coupes in Japan

Subaru on Friday officially launched production of the rear-drive BRZ sports coupe in its Gunma Main Plant factory in Japan. The plant also builds the Toyota version--which will be sold as the Scion FR-S in the United States--as the Toyota 86 in Japan and as the Toyota GT-86 in Europe. We expect the Subaru BRZ and the Scion FR-S to be in U.S.