Four Seasons 78366 A/c Compressor on 2040-parts.com

September sales hint at improvement

A 10 percent increase in new-vehicle sales in September is sparking optimism that the year will have a strong finish. And analysts say that deals might get better over the next few months as Toyota and Honda finally recover from shortages caused by the earthquake that hit Japan in March. Those brands might increase spending on incentives to woo buyers back into their showrooms.

Porsche 918 Spyder: The first ride in the future game changer

Faster than the iconic Carrera GT yet more economical than parent company Volkswagen's frugal new Up supermini, Porsche's next supercar, the 762-hp gasoline-electric powered 918 Spyder, promises to offer the best of both worlds—scorching performance and ultralow consumption. Autoweek joins Porsche's engineering team for the very first test of the car that is already causing headaches in Maranello and Sant'Agata. For all of its intense promise and awesome potential, the very first running prototype of the upcoming Porsche 918 Spyder looks suspiciously like a refugee from a shadowy postapocalyptic movie set as it glides silently into view across the vast expanse of bitumen at the Nardo test track in southern Italy.

One Lap of the Web: A Tumbler for Gumball, smashing supercars in China and a pedigreed race car for sale

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. The Gumball 3000 starts May 18 in Copenhagen, Denmark, heading northeast toward Stockholm, Sweden.