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The 500-hp club: The room is getting crowded

At a time when fuel economy counts for just about everything, there's still a horsepower war raging in the United States. The number of fire-breathing wedge-shaped supercars and hot sedans and coupes that can pump out 500 hp or better has nearly doubled in the past five years to more than 70. A decade ago there were just two members of the 500 hp club in the United States: the Ferrari 575M and Lamborghini Murcielago.

Aston Martin drops Cygnet city car

Autocar is reporting that the diminutive Aston Martin Cygnet has been dropped from the company’s portfolio. The automaker, now owned by Prodrive and private equity firm Invenstindustrial, will focus on its “core product range,” also known as “good cars.” Autocar posits that the justification for the Cygnet was to continue producing V8 and V12 cars, while keeping its average CO2 emissions down. The Cygnet shared bones with the Toyota iQ city car and used a 97-hp, 1.3-liter engine and got 58.9 mpg using the U.S.

Changes Coming to the Petersen?

If the idea was to get everyone talking about it, then the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles has succeeded. The Petersen, one of the greatest automotive institutions in the country, is anonymously selling 64 of its cars at a relatively low-key auction, leaving 300 behind in its Wilshire Blvd. home.