Buick Lacrosse Quality Jacket on 2040-parts.com

Celebrating the Spirit of Ecstasy's centenary

In a bumper year of anniversaries for automotive manufacturers, Rolls-Royce is celebrating the centenary of the Spirit of Ecstasy. Quite possibly the world’s most famous automotive icon, the flying lady will be honored by renowned photographer Rankin through 100 images inspired by the figurine. Just as Charles Robinson Sykes – the man behind the original figurine – turned to his wife for the form of the Ecstasy, Rankin is using wife and model Tuuli Shipster for his work.

Jaguar XE / Jaguar F-Type spied

Jaguar XE Spied - looking like a chopped XK To be honest, we don’t even know now whether Jaguar will call their new, smaller sports car the Jaguar XE or Jaguar F-Type, as there’s talk of them ditching the iconic Jaguar badging in favour of a Germanic numbers-based moniker across the range. But whatever Jaguar do finally decide to call their new small sports car, we know it’s officially in the planning and has been for more than a year. And now it’s out playing, albeit wrapped up in a chopped XK.

Best of the Best for 2012: Audi A7 and Land Rover Range Rover Evoque

Each year, hundreds of new cars and trucks pass through the Autoweek garage for evaluation by our editors. We bring our enthusiast eye to what we'll admit is a relatively enjoyable task of sorting through all of those test cars, looking for those few stellar models that deserve additional consideration for our top honors. For the second consecutive year, we've applied all of that accumulated knowledge and seat time to pick Autoweek's Best of the Best/Car and Best of the Best/Truck for 2012.