Autos

Whatever you do, do not call this car a family sedan.  The Brabus Rocket 800 is, well, a rocket ship with four wheels and four doors and is the world’s fastest street-legal sedan with a top speed of 230 miles per hour!  That’s over 370 km/h four our metric readers.

German car tuning company Brabus is known for creating some outrageously fast Mercedes-Benz luxury cars that are visually quite different from their stock counterparts.  The Brabus Rocket 800 is based on the Mercedes-Benz CLS sports sedan, the car that introduced us to the “four-door coupe” category.

The Brabus Rocket 800 is powered by an army of demons, well actually, a crazy V12 engine that gets a little help from a set of turbocharges and it has been machined to increase displacement from 5.3 liters to 6.3 liters.  The Biturbo V12 engine produces a demonic 800 horsepower at 5,500 rpm and 1,047 pound-feet (1,420 Nm) of torque which has been electronically limited to 811 lb-ft.  The added power helps the CLS reach 62 mph in a lightning quick 3.7 seconds and 186 mph in 23.8 seconds.

I have been complaining about the lack of a small hybrid car for the last decade.  Not that I’m into hybrid cars but to me it makes more sense to put a hybrid system in a small fuel efficient car and make it even more efficient instead of big heavy Escalade hybrids.  Toyota has just introduced such a vehicle and it’s called the Prius C or Aqua in the Japanese market.  Now we just need a small hybrid car like this but with a diesel engine.

The Toyota Prius C is just a bit bigger than the all-new Yaris and it does seem to borrow some design cues from its little brother.  The Prius C will be powered by a 1.5 liter gasoline engine and a lightweight compact hybrid system.  Toyota hasn’t released official power figures but according to leaked brochures, the Japanese version of the compact hybrid will extract 74 horsepower and 82 pound-feet of torque

Just yesterday, we showed you guys the all-electric Model S sedan from Tesla Motors. For those that are interested in purchasing an electric vehicle but want something larger, you might want to consider checking out Amp Electric Vehicles. They already offer the Mercedes ML350 which has been converted to all-electric platform but their newest addition will be showcased at the Detroit Auto Show next month. Their newest creation is the Jeep Grand Cherokee in an all-electric model.

Steve Burns, president of Amp, stated that the Jeep Grand Cherokee will be comparable to Tesla’s Model S (basic trim) in terms of pricing. Basic trim of Model S is $57,400 before the $7,500 federal tax credit. Jeep Grand Cherokee by Amp will be capable of traveling approximately 100 miles per charge.

On the face of it, it’s funny how many people give their car a name. A lump of smoky metal you drive hither and thither hardly seems worth investing with a soul and a title, no matter how smooth the ride is, how much power the engine produces, or how great the deal is on its car insurance.

But people do fall in love with their cars and end up giving them a personality – so it’s not just common a VW be dubbed or a Chrysler be christened,

Word on the street is that the all-new compact Nissan Sylphy that was revealed at the 2012 Beijing Auto will be introduced into the North American markets as the 2013 Nissan Sentra. I’m glad the car is coming here and not that silly name.

Nissan stated that the 2013 Sentra will be “based on the Sylphy” but we’re pretty sure that the difference between the two cars will be minimal and limited to trim accents and such. The pictures below show wood trim on the Sylphy which will likely be removed on the 2013 Sentra.  This new design appears to have borrowed design cues from the older sister, the new Nissan Altima which happens to be a beautiful car.