An Inside View of Motor Trend’s Best Driver’s Car Competition

There are more automotive awards given each year than you can shake a stick at; there's the World Car of the Year, the American Car/Truck of the Year, the European Car of the Year, and so on and so forth.

Then there are individual publication and website awards. Luckily, most of them are driver oriented, thus their “COTY” announcements usually concern a driver’s car and not a people carrier or an underpowered eco-box.

The crew over at Motor Trend has published a behind-the-scenes video explaining its criteria in judging the best new driver’s car of 2011.

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Possibly the First 2012 Porsche 911 Crash

Unlike other more exotic and therefore rarer sports cars, due to the number of Porsche 911s sold around the world, there's not as much interest when one of them crashes. Unless of course, it's the first or one of the first of a new series like the 991.

The owner of this brand-new 2012 Porsche 911 coupe had the unfortunate experience of being the first we've heard of to be involved in an accident when he met a Volvo V50 in the Netherlands.

If you're interested, you'll find more pictures in the video that follows below the break.

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Umm…You Dropped Something on the Road - Like a Couple of Kids!

Driving a minivan with passengers stowed in the cargo area is a stupid move in itself but doing it with the tailgate open is just criminal as you're asking for trouble.

And trouble is what these feloniously mindless parents got when two of the kids in the boot area…fell out of the Citroen Berlingo! Luckily, the van wasn't speeding and there was no vehicle following on from behind, so the two youngsters got up by themselves. Evidently shaken but not seriously hurt.

Feel free to check out the video after the jump.

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Surprise! New Kia K9 RWD Flagship Sedan Filmed Completely Uncovered

The brass over at Kia Motors was only ready for us to see a handful of teaser sketches of its soon-to-be released, rear-wheel drive flagship sedan codenamed "KH", which most of you may know as the K9.

Of course, our spies were also able to snag some shots of a camouflaged prototype, but now, we have two videos of the actual production model without a hint of disguise, spotted on the road.

The two clips, which were probably filmed in South Korea (maybe our readers can help out here), reveal the K9 in all its glory - albeit in low-quality footage.

Kia hasn't published a lot of details yet, but it is reasonable to believe that the KH will share its platform architecture and mechanical hardware with the Hyundai Genesis. This means it could be offered with the same 3.8-liter V6, and 4.6-liter and 5.0-liter V8 engines as its Hyundai counterpart.

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New Volvo V40 Five-Door Hatch gets its Video Debut as Well

The news on Volvo's fresh entry in the premium compact hatchback segment just keeps dropping in.

After a boatload of photos were spilled onto the internet this weekend, we now have the first official promo video of the new V40, which will make its world premiere at next week's Geneva Motor Show.

You can watch the short clip in the video right after the break.

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Nissan to Tease Next Generation X-Trail with Hi-Cross Concept at the Geneva Motor Show

As the auto industry gears up for the rapidly approaching 82nd Geneva International Auto Show, Nissan released a single teaser photo and video footage of a new concept model called the Hi-Cross.

For now, the Japanese company is only willing to tell us that the Hi-Cross demonstrates how it is "exploring ideas to expand" its crossover lineup.

However, sources state that the Hi-Cross is a concept model for a new D-segment crossover that will replace the more rugged X-Trail SUV, following in the footsteps of the B-segment Juke and C-segment Qashqai, both of which have proved to be a success for Nissan.

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Watch More than 40 Nissan GT-Rs Roam the Streets of Singapore

If you like the hissing and grunting sounds of a Nissan GT-R's 3.8-liter twin-turbocharged V6, then we're pretty sure that you are going to love these two videos from Singapore showing a convoy consisting of more than 40 (!) Godzillas traveling together on the road.

The drivers are members of the Nissan GTR Owner's clubs in Singapore and Malaysia and they were heading up from the Pan Pacific Hotel Singapore to Dempsey Hill for a special meeting.

Drive through the break to watch both videos.

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Audi Quattro Action Team helps Bulgarian Drivers in the Snow

As we've seen in the past, there are many non-traditional ways to promote your brand or a product.

Audi Bulgaria and local advertising agency "Noble Graphics Creative Studio" came up with an idea to promote the brand's quattro all-wheel drive system by lending a helping hand to those in need during the heavy snowfalls experienced in the country this winter.

The company sent out the "Audi quattro Action" team comprising four men to assist any Bulgarian drivers that were stuck in the snow. You can watch the short clip in the video after the break.

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Porsche 911 GT3 RS Door Bursts Out Flying During Race

We're not saying it doesn't happen, but it's not that often you see a door coming off a car during a race without the vehicle coming in contact with another racer.

One such incident took place at last weekend's Losail International Race Days in Doha, which is Qatar's largest city, when race driver Rob Frijns bid farewell to the door of his Porsche 911 GT3 RS.

It looks amusing until the video switches to the dash-cam view of the driver following behind. As you can see, this could have easily turned very ugly…

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18-wheeler Flips Over and Squashes Chevy Cruze, Driver Makes it Out Injured but Alive

A male driver of a rental Chevrolet Cruze was involved in what can only be described as a nightmare scenario for any road user when an 18-wheeler truck loaded with cardboard boxes flipped on its side and landed on top of the compact sedan.

The accident took place in the northbound lanes of the Dallas North Tollway in Texas in the late morning hours of Thursday.

The large rig also knocked over the concrete center barrier and hit another vehicle, a black Volkswagen Touareg, hurling it over the median and onto the other side of the road.

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HKS Dyno-Tests Toyota 86 Drift Racer, Prepares New Tuning Lineup that Includes a Supercharger

Famed aftermarket and motorsport specialist HKS has released a new video of the Toyota 86 race car it is working on to participate in the 2012 season of Japan's D1 Grand Prix production car drifting competition. The new clip shows the 86 being tested on the dyno.

As well as the motorsports version of the 86, which you should know by now is a sister model to the Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ rear-wheel drive coupes, the Japanese company is also preparing a raft of tuning parts for the production model.

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How to Turn a Beaten up Chevrolet Chevelle into a Respectable Ride in Less than Six Hours

Granted, no one is expecting miracles in less than six hours when you're working on a beater 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle you just picked up from Craigslist, but Doug Glad and the Car Craft crew proved that that it is possible to turn it into what they describe as a "respectable street machine" in this new episode of Hot Road Unlimited.

You can watch the video for yourself right after the break.

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Tango for Two on Ice with Miss Subaru Impreza and Mr. UAZ Patriot

Classy but at the same time dramatic and seductive, the tango is an impressive dance that was born in the 19th century along the shores of the Rio de la Plata in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay, but has since spread throughout the world.

Nice, but what has the tango got to do with the automotive world, we hear you ask?

Well, not much, unless you have an extremely talented pair of drivers that can successfully recreate the dance steps using an older generation Subaru Impreza hatchback and a UAZ Patriot SUV as their partners. See how it turned in the video that follows.

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Man Drives on the Wrong Side of a Scottish Highway for Miles on End [NSFW]

After watching this video of a man in a Renault Clio driving for miles on end on the wrong way of a highway in Scotland, we can say that without any doubt, the person behind the steering wheel of the French supermini has some loose nuts in his head.

Given the speed he is traveling at, it's actually a miracle that he wasn't involved in a very serious accident. The video footage adorned with some NSFW commentary from the blokes filming the Renault driver follows after the break.

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Audi's New U.S. Market Promo for the 2013 RS5 Coupe Facelift

The revised RS5 Coupe is the subject of Audi of America's newest promotional video that depicts the crown jewel of the firm's extended A5 lineup deep in the desert.

The RS5 is motivated by a 4.2-liter V8 that delivers 450 horsepower and is matched to seven-speed S tronic transmission with launch control program that transmits power to all four wheels through Audi's quattro system.

Ingolstadt's answer to the BMW M3 Coupe will launch in the U.S. this year.

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Tosh Meets up with Teen that Crashed his Dad's Brand New $60,000 Ford Mustang GT [NSFW]

The teenage boy that wrecked his father's brand-new $60,000 Ford Mustang GT (equipped with an Eleanor Package) in 2006 by driving it through a garage only minutes after a salesperson brought the car to his house, has received his so-called "Web Redemption" on Daniel Tosh's show on Comedy Central.

If for whatever reason you missed the said episode but want to know the backstory of Joey's highly publicized crash some six years after it happened, all you need to do is follow the break and watch the extended version in the video.

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Oops...Tour Bus Driver Ready for a Fight Forgets to Pull Handbrake

A driver of a tourist bus wanted to play hardball with a rider of a small scooter during a road-rage incident, which presumably took place somewhere in Asia, but in the end, he only managed to make a fool of himself as he forgot to pull the handbrake on his vehicle!

Watch the incident from a dashboard camera of a nearby passenger car in the video that follows after the jump.

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Obama Campaign Airs 'Made in America' Ad Touting Auto Bailout

If you have been following the news in the U.S. these past few weeks, you will have no doubt noticed that all Republican presidential candidates have attacked the Obama administration for the way it handled the auto industry bailout.

Now it's time for President Obama's campaign to fight back through a new ad that will air on television this Friday but only in Michigan, ahead of the State's Republican presidential primary next week.

The ad is named "Made in America" and touts Obama's stance on the auto bailout bill while at the same time taking a jab at the GOP and especially Mitt Romney, showing the title of his November 2008 New York Times op-ed piece, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt".

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Ferrari Drops Another Meaningless Teaser Video of its 599 GTB Successor

The new Italian supercar that will replace the 599 GTB Fiorano in Ferrari's lineup and which may or may not be named the F620 GT has been video teased for the second time this week.

Sadly, Ferrari's video teasers are of little worth, as we don’t get to see anything substantial about its new supercar model.

What Ferrari has told us is that the 599 GTB's replacement is that it will be the most powerful production model in its history and that it will be fully revealed on February 29, about a week ahead of its first public appearance at the 2012 Geneva Auto Salon.

If you still want to watch the video, you'll find it below the break.

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Ram Joins Chevy in Smacking Around the Ford F-150 with a New Commercial

You'll most likely remember Chevrolet's recent Super Bowl XLVI ad on the Silverado where it made fun of "Dave" who didn't make it to the rendezvous point with his friends after a post-apocalyptic catastrophe because he was driving a Ford F-150.

General Motors' move to take a swipe at the F-150 has found a follower as the Chrysler Group's Ram Trucks division has launched its own commercial poking some fun at the Ford pickup truck.

The ad starts by showing the Ram truck with a deep voice (doesn't it remind you of the garbled voices shouting "they took our jobs" in South Park?) in the background asking this question:

"What would happen if you were to take away 30-horsepower from a Ram 1500, remove 27 foot pounds of torque and subtract 40,000 miles from its powertrain limited warranty?" The same voice answers: "Well, you'd end up with a Ford F-150."

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