2013 Mini John Cooper Works GP drive review

Mark Vaughn threw the '13 John Cooper Works GP around Circuito Mallorca a few months back, and the quickest-ever production Mini proved itself to be an excellent track car. The questions one always asks about a car stuffed full of turbo boost and beefy suspension goodies, however, remained hanging before us: Will it be intolerable on the street? Will it ride like a steel-shod forklift on rough pavement and leap like a hornet-stung mule into the back of a porta-potty truck when the boost comes on?

Saab shutdown would doom new 9-5, 9-3 models

The new Saab 9-5 sedan and a proposed replacement for the 9-3 will be killed off if General Motors Co. winds down its Swedish subsidiary, AutoWeek has learned. The new 9-5, a longer-wheelbase version of the Opel Insignia and the Buick Regal, is poised to go down in the annals of automotive history as a major rarity--a design that was fully tooled for production yet never got built.

Winners announced in Factory Five design competition

Earlier this year, we brought you news of an open-sourced design competition from American kit car manufacturer, Factory Five. The brief called for a compact, two-seat roadster that shared a drivetrain with the Subaru Impreza. The car would feature a bespoke space-frame chassis, but the mechanicals would be lifted from the Impreza to allow the car to sell for under $15,000.