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NHTSA unveils new safety ratings; BMW and Hyundai first to get five stars

The 2011 BMW 5-series and the Hyundai Sonata were the first two cars to achieve five-star ratings under NHTSA's revised safety ratings announced on Tuesday. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will rate a total of 24 cars, 20 SUVs, nine pickups and two vans for the 2011 model year. The federal agency has significantly modified its rating process and will now grade side-pole testing and crash-prevention technologies such as lane-departure warning and electronic stability control.

Lotus Exige LF1 Limited Edition – one for every Lotus F1 victory

Lotus Exige LF1 Limited Edition – one for every Lotus F1 victory It’s a nice idea to build a limited edition car – the Lotus Exige LF1 – to celebrate very one of the 81 victories Lotus has enjoyed in F1, but it does make you wonder if Lotus has done it because they’re never likely to win again (and if they do, do they produce another LF1?). Still, Lotus has pulled out the icon JPS livery for the Lotus Exige S (from the days cigarettes could be advertised) to give the LF1 a pretty paint job of black and gold (with added red bits) including a black and gold Lotus badge up front and a contrast stitched interior with F1 logos on the seats. Also interesting is that each car will receive a plaque commemorating each individual victory, from the 1960 win at Monaco with Stirling Moss behind the wheel to the last in Australia in 2013 with Kimi Raikkonen.

Forecasters see slow auto-sales recovery through 2011

U.S. auto sales in 2010 and 2011 will continue to crawl -- not walk or run -- out of last year's recession, according to forecasters at the Auto Industry Hot Topics Conference here. “It's going to be a long crawl out of this, but we're crawling in the right direction,” said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's, which co-sponsored the conference along with J.D.