In a shed in Worcestershire lies a workshop. Compared to the faceless multinational corporate giants of the autoproducing world, Morgan appears to be a speck of an establishment, like a solitary brick in a skyscraper. But it is really a diamond in the rough. I mean, just look at these raw and unfinished sirens, beckoning you to come hither.

It is in this quaint central part of Britain wherein metal alloys are superformed into exotic, radical shapes. Sandwiched between the superformed exterior and the advanced bonded aluminum chassis is the most peculiar of building materials: ash hardwood. A material that is utilized for its properties of strength, durability, and light weight. And you thought titanium and carbon fibre were unconventional.

Complete with taillights reminiscent of the Bentley GTZ Zagato, the latest creations to spring forth from the fertile minds of H.F.S. Morgan’s successors are the Aeromax, as seen above, and its convertible stablemate, the Aero Supersports. The £125,000 coupe and £130,000 roadster hearken to an integral part of the history of modern Britain, a period during the blastocytic transformation of the automobile where the country boasted hundreds, if not thousands, of idiosyncratic establishments devoted to the construction and development of four-wheeled transport. Today, Morgan lies on the periphery, on a peninsula of ingenuity unto itself.

The Aeromax was designed by Matt Humphries, who was a design student at Coventry when he penned its Coleopteric rear and retro-modern front. Mr. Humphries has since graduated and taken on the role of head of design for Morgan. There is no doubt in this author’s mind that the man has an uncanny talent, the likes of which wouldn’t have left him out of place in the decadent Art Deco period of the 1920’s. This having been said, one of his more unusual design flourishes on the Aeromax is attributable to the Jaguar E-Type, not Matt Humphries. Of course, I’m referring to the triple wiperblades on the front windscreen. But if two is good, three is better, no?

Then there are the trunk openings. Yes, plural, as in multiple openings. Whereas most trunks have a single opening, and some strange vehicles like the BMW 5GT has a smaller one and a larger one, the Aeromax has two symmetrical glass trunk covers that open towards the spine of the car. Perfect for quickly tossing in your handbag or briefcase, but less than ideal for anything larger. I guess that means runs to the airport are out of the question.

When you think about it, the previous siren analogy was particularly apt, the Aeromax is actually very much like the dangerous bird-women of Greek mythology. The workmanship of the exterior and chassis are flawless, the engine is a rock-solid BMW V8, and yet you cannot shake the notion that the electronics and the interior may not be up to snuff. Yet it calls you with its songs of seduction and lures you to your demise. Except demise with a Morgan is not like crashing your ship onto a rocky coast, it’s heaven.

[Photo credits: Flikr]

[Video credit: YouTube]

The dryness of the humour is almost too much. It’s absolutely brilliant that Kroft can keep up with someone as sharp as Coco, the latter of which has grown on me since his departure from The Tonight Show and the subsequent creation of a Twitter account (@ConanOBrien).

The banter needs to be good because all the good automotive whirs, whooshes, and rumbles have been edited out. The shots of Conan working the well-used 5-speed are an unexpected surprise though. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The Ferrari 458 Italia is the company’s latest V8 marvel. While the rest of the F-car line-up plod along with weightier 12-cylinder engines, the mid-engined Italia remains the paring knife in a family of bayonets. But unlike its predecessor, the F430, the 458 works harder than ever before to differentiate it from the increasingly crowded $2-300,000 supercar bracket that now includes the LP560, SLS, and MP4-12C. As you may be aware, the Italia places its turn signal and windshield wiper buttons on the steering wheel, so you never have to move your hands from 9 and 3. But it is he aerodynamic engineers in Maranello who deserve particular notoriety for their development of the 458’s aero-elastic winglets, the black pieces of rubberized plastic seen on either side of the Prancing Horse above. These winglets deform at high speeds to generate downforce by reducing the section of the radiator inlets and cutting drag. Nifty.

But what would the company’s now-deceased founder think of the aerodynamic trickery were he still alive today?

“Aerodynamics are for people who can’t build engines.” -Enzo Ferrari

Oh, ok then. I guess that pretty much sums it up. Good thing the 458 “Giant Boot” has 562 hp coming from its 4.5L motor. Or else a certain someone would be turning over in their graves.

Cars are my passion, just as they are yours, but I also have more than a passing interest in architecture – a distinct product of growing up in the home of a successful architect. In fact, I was interested in the design of buildings before I was interested in the design of cars. This is clearly why my early interest in the automotive realm was purely visual aesthetics. Since those early days, I’ve come to appreciate the mechanicals, engineering, and motorsport aspects as well, but I haven’t lost my sense of the visual.

Architecture has long been the realm of expression for wealthy individuals, communities, and empires. Cities once competed with one another to design and build the most extravagant church or the largest town square, all so they could puff their chests with pride. Now, individuals can buy Rolls Royces and Aston Martins to exert the same effect. But long before there was the système Panhard, there was architecture. It was through architecture that peoples expressed themselves, albeit as a group and without the individuality that we now enjoy as owners of cars. We can still see remains of these bygone eras of large-scale expression in the Pantheon in Rome, the Great Wall of China, and the Pyramids at Giza.

Most recently, in the last century or so, cars have burst onto the design scene, thus providing a novel and more accessible form of self-expression. Cars and architecture now provide alternative and interacting routes of wordless communication; each lithely playing off the other to inspire thought, awe, and wonderment. The most recent period of significant architecture was the Art Deco period of the early 20th century. This period was characterized by lavish attention to detail, cutting-edge materials such as glass and stainless steel, and a distinctive sense of optimism – all of which was in direct contradiction to the bleak reality of the Great War that preceded. This optimism and the post-war pursuit of the American Dream spilled over into cars as well, although automotive design was, and still is, a few years the laggard of architecture. Still, with such Art Deco designs as the 1936-38 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic, the 1938-40 Cadillac Series 90 Sixteen (as in 16 cylinders!), the 1939-42 Nash Ambassador Eight, and the 1934-37 Chrysler/DeSoto Airflow cars made their enduring mark.

While in Chicago recently, surrounded by stunning architecture ranging from Frank Gehry’s Millenium Park outdoor theatre to Howells and Hood’s Tribune Tower, the one building that stood out like coal in a cloud was the Carbon and Carbide Building. Had I known that it currently housed the Hard Rock Cafe Hotel, I would have stayed there in a heartbeat. Oh well, there’s always a next time. Never have I seen such a building that incited lust so immediately. Its black and gold shone in the low February sun, making me wish that a Nissan 280ZX Black Gold would drive by for my camera to capture the coincidence.

Instead, it wasn’t until the next day that two seemingly unrelated puzzle pieces slotted together perfectly. The ying to the C&C Building’s yang was none other than the Lincoln MKT. Both designs were penned in the USA but the MKT differs in that it is built in Canada. I’ve never been much for Lincolns, and I can’t say that I’m particularly swayed by the waterfall grilles even now, but there was something about that moment. That moment where car and architecture made sense together. The MKT has Art Deco design cues to spare, but it isn’t evident in isolation, it needs a context. Unfortunately, there is no city in Canada that can provide the context that the MKT needs, which is probably why I’ve never been drawn to it before, but Chicago brought it all together and in doing so satiated the aesthete within me.

Like the Chrysler/DeSoto Airflow before it, the Lincoln MKT is rather misunderstood in its own time, smothered by competitors who are trendier, not better. Only in hindsight will the MKT leave that indelible mark. What a shame.

[Photo credit: author]

McLaren MP4-12c? Take away the McLaren name and you might be forgiven for thinking you were buying a Blu-Ray player, not the most important supercar of the new decade. The most important? Really, CarEnvy? Ya, really. Well, thus far at least. And we haven’t forgotten about the flamboyant Merc SLS, the fizzy Ferrari 458 Italia, and the slightly uncouth Lexus LFA either. Wait, what? Didn’t we just wax lyrical about the Lexus LFA and how it was soooo amazing (despite needing a few more horses under-hood)? Well, yes, but that was then, and this is now.

Now, a small company from smaller town in Britain has developed a lighter, more powerful, faster, less expensive, and (I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention) better fuel economy than the powerhouses of Stuttgart, Maranello, and Toyota City. How?

It probably has something to do with Macca’s Formula One operations residing in the same building as their road car operations as well as a guy named Ron Dennis.

Regardless of how it happened, the supercar market will soon have an entry that won’t bow to Nissan GT-R and its (soulless?) perversion of the fast-car market. Easier said than done, no doubt, especially when the MP4-12C doesn’t have the tour de force AWD system that the GT-R does. But there are similarities between the two. Take turbocharging, for example. Both cars have twin-turbocharged 3.8L engines – the Nissan making do with 6 cylinders and the Macca boasting 8. The McLaren has an appetite for revs though, buzzing all the way to 8,500 rpm to satiate customers (like us) who feed on revs. Magically, the revs aren’t at the expense of low-end torque, as in the Civic Si and BMW M3, as the newest McLaren makes 354 lb-ft at just 2,000 revs, with a max torque output of 442 lb-ft. A nice complement to the 600 hp at 8,500 rpm, I’m sure you’ll agree. This is made all the more amazing because McLaren developed and built the engine in house. Seriously, when a company of this size tries to make its own engines, they either make a tin can or the company goes bankrupt. Inexplicably, McLaren chose to make its own mill anyways, despite rumours that it would use the Mercedes AMG 6.2L or a BMW V10. Neither the GT-R nor the MP4-12C have manual transmissions though, even as an option. The 12C has a new 7-speed dual-cluth unit with the requisite flappy paddles behind the steering wheel. No PDK oddities here.

McLaren has just released performance figures for the Mp4-12C so make sure you’re sitting down and finish your drink before reading on. No one wants to splatter scotch all over their monitor. Ready? Top speed is north of 320 kph, 0-97 kph comes up in less than 3 seconds, and 0-200 is less than 10 seconds. Good lord that is fast. That is Bugatti Veyron/McLaren F1 territory from a car that’ll be about CDN$250,000 – a mere fraction of the Veyron/F1 power pair. There just aren’t words to describe how impressive performance like that is. But the reason for the speed isn’t just power, it’s weight. Ahh yes, weight: the arch-nemesis of performance and fuel economy. The MP4-12C weighs a scarcely-there 1,300 kg (2866 lbs). Think of the MP4-12C as Keira Knightly and the Bugatti Veyron as Serena Williams.

The weakness of the MP4-12C is undoubtedly the aesthetic of the design. Aside from the Lamborghini-style doors, the style could be denigrated as derivative. No one in the right mind would criticize the engineering prowess of McLaren, just as no one would call their designs jaw-dropping. McLaren, then, is a car company for drivers, not boulevard cruisers and aesthetic-fussed hipsters. And that’s just fine by us. Jenson and Lewis don’t seem to mind either.

[Photo credit: Axis of Oversteer/Flikr, McLaren]

[Video credit: YouTube]

USF1 are trading on just about the only credit anyone can give them these days: boundless, heedless optimism in the face of crushing reality.

ESPN (via Crash.net) is reporting that the team are apparently hopeful that they’ll be granted a place on the grid for the 2011 season.

More after the jump. Take all the time you need until you’re done crying with laughter.

USF1 failed to make the grid at the 2010 season opener at Sakhir in Bahrain. That is a cold, hard fact. They asked the FIA to delay their existing entry until 2011, a request that has been denied. That is another cold, hard fact. Team principals Peter Windsor and Ken Anderson are currently facing the prospect of wrist-slapping, fines, and untold sanctions from the FIA due to their failure to make good on the promise of providing two working race cars to fill out the grid for 2010.

No official word has yet been given for why, exactly, they pulled out of toaster-making. Rumours, of course, have run rampant. Whispers about how employees and creditors alike weren’t getting paid on time, about how delegation and organization were seriously lacking, and even how they allegedly only had a single mechanic on staff have flown all over every corner of the Intarwebs that gives a tiny rat’s behind about the subject. If and when we ever do know the true story in its entirety, I have the feeling it may be even stranger than the rumours we’ve heard.

What’s most frustrating about this is that I fear USF1′s failure will have, in large part, continued to reinforce the notions that the rest of the world has about the US not being a viable place for F1. Sure, F1 is seen as the world pinnacle of motorsport. And let’s face it, they’ve got more of a leg to stand on with regard to that “world” thing than, say, baseball’s “World Series” in North America. But USF1′s failure, particularly coming in the heart of NASCAR country as it did, has only served to make the situation for the sport in that country that much worse.

Remember how badly cheated you felt at Bernie’s announcement that the historic race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve was off the schedule? At least we could hold our heads high, secure in the knowledge that the world knew damned well we’d produced some of the best drivers in the world. Any glance over F1′s storied history will tell you that. As a concerned neighbour, it’s hard seeing the fallout of the USF1 debacle as anything other than a looming shadow that will linger over any serious prospects for the future of F1 in the US for decades to come, at the very least.

Sebastian Vettel, after the 2010 Bahrain GP.

I’ll be honest. I’ve been a bit skeptical about the 2010 Formula One season. While the driver points changes seemed as though they had the potential to make things more interesting, I don’t think the refuelling ban betters anything for anyone. I’m also in the camp of “Michael Schumacher has everything to lose and nothing to gain by coming back, so…why is he doing it, exactly?” Obviously the man loves the sport, money and fame aside. That much is wonderful. But still. Have I been convinced this will be an incredibly exciting season? Not really. I do, however, hope to be proved wrong.

More after the jump.

The 2010 Gulf Air Grand Prix of Bahrain started out somewhat promisingly. Bahrain has been, since its introduction, one of those sort of unobtrusively bland sort of modern circuits. The track changes this year (which resemble nothing so much as an upside down bunny in a bucket, if using the Ben Spies method of track analysis) made it somewhat more interesting, however. Mid-pack and back-of-pack teams such as Force India and Sauber promising to bring the fight forward and refusing to be relegated to backmarker status are always my favourite sorts of things to watch. And, of course, Red Bull Racing. Who, if Adrian Newey had his way, would have spent every waking moment in the wind tunnel sorting out aerodynamics rather than doing track testing (oops). When Vettel started having engine problems in the last quarter of Bahrain, after a particularly dominant start from pole, you could practically hear the sound of hearts breaking.

Cameras showed it live for the world to see. The entire Red Bull garage slumped in defeat, eyes downcast, refusing to look up at the cameras. We couldn’t see Vettel’s face, as he was busy trying to salvage what he could out of the day. Some points, after all, are better than no points. I can’t imagine how he must have felt afterward, though—especially since it seemed the team had done EVERYTHING right up to that point, including one of the most blindingly fast pit stops I believe I’ve ever seen. While it was thought that perhaps an exhaust header failure had done poor old Sebastian Vettel in, it was in fact a spark plug issue. Even if RBR had managed the 2-second pit stop they’d promised pre-race, it wouldn’t have mattered.

Which brings me to my second point. LG is doing official timing and scoring for the F1 world feed this year, and it sucks. At least, compared to Siemens and Tag Heuer in past years. Thanks to the new timing graphics, it’s impossible for viewers at home to clearly see whether that pit stop took two seconds, or four seconds, or 23.3 seconds. If anyone associated with the department that handles F1 timing and scoring at LG reads this, what have you done with the graphics along the side that told us exactly how far each driver was off the pace of whomever was running fastest at that moment? Even more frustratingly, what have you done with showing us actual times elapsed during pit stops? I’ve never before wanted to have a stopwatch in hand whilst watching an F1 race until 2010 Bahrain.

On the other hand, seeing Felipe Massa back on track was almost as heartening as seeing Red Bull’s instant deflation was the opposite. You could see it in his dad’s face, too, as he watched anxiously from the pits. How fantastic, too, that Massa drove masterfully to a second-place finish. While I’m far more inclined to root for the underdog, watching the team dynamics between Alonso and Massa this year is indeed something I look forward to.

Finally, as some of you may or may not be aware, in addition to Formula One, I also love cooking. In fact, I went to school for one of those two things (guess which one), and allegedly am some sort of professional. What does one have to do with the other? I’m proud to introduce Cooking with F1, my soon-to-be regular series on my cooking blog that will run whenever there’s a race. I’ll be showcasing a menu featuring foods from whichever country the F1 circus has landed in for that weekend. You can check out Bahrain, here.

Today, Subaru is the only company in the world to use boxer engines and Porsche is the only other company to use flat engines. These engines feature cylinders that are neither inline nor banked at an angle to form a V-shape. Instead, the cylinders lay flat along a horizontal plane. But not all flats are boxers, even if all boxers are flats.

Ok, so that’s mildly confusing, but what are the advantages of this arrangement? And why do only two manufacturers employ the flat engine design? 

The advantage of having cylinders that are flat, or horizontally-opposed, is that cooling is ameliorated due to increased surface exposure between the cool air and the warm pistons. This was of particular advantage when engines were still cooled by air, instead of the liquid water that now cools everything every motor from that of a Lancia to a Lamborghini. Having a flat engine also lends itself to a lower centre of gravity because the engine occupies less vertical height. This lower centre of gravity in the engine as well as its lower height allow the engine to be placed lower in the engine bay. These advantages were clearly of great interest to Subaru when they chose to identify their company with flat engines and symmetrical all-wheel-drive. But considering that Porsche positions their engines behind the rear axle, in the trunk essentially, Ferdinand God only knows why they chose a flat engine. Oh, that’s right, Porsche does it because Hans Ledwinka did it first.

The difference between a flat boxer engine and a flat non-boxer engine is all in the crankpins. Whereas the boxer engines found in Subarus have individual crankpins controlling each cylinder, the non-boxers engines found in Porsches have opposing pistons sharing a crankpin on the crankshaft and therefore reach top dead centre a half crankshaft revolution apart. If that doesn’t mean much to you, watch the videos below to help you visualize the difference.

The flat engine design also boasts perfect natural balance and therefore does not require extra balancing weights the way other engine configurations do. Aside from the flat engine, only the inline-six and V12 are similarly balanced. The equipoise of the flat engine is achieved because the opposing pistons reach top dead centre simultaneously, thereby balancing each others momentum, as demonstrated below by Subaru’s elegant four-cylinder.

Beautiful, no? Well, it is doubly beautiful when compared to the chaotic clusterfuck seen in a Porsche’s flat engine.

The downside of boxer engines, and flat engines in general, is their affinity for yielding noise. Considered another way, flat engines have a distinctive guttural bellow that seems to appeal to enthusiasts, likely because this unique sound is associated with a car of potent performance (i.e. the Porsche 911 and Subaru STI) and is not associated with, say, a Prius, which is miserable and makes no sound at all. This is the main reason that more manufacturers don’t use flat engines – noise is the enemy in an automotive culture that reads “NVH” the same way followers of the Bible read “666”.

The design of the flat engine was originally patented by none other than Karl Benz, the man mistakenly credited with the invention of the automobile. This popular misconception can be attributed to the commercial pride of Daimler-Benz and as LJK Setright remarked succinctly “the furor Teutonicus of the Nazi party after coming to power in Germany in 1933”. The first man to manufacture a gasoline-powered internal combustion vehicle was actually an Austrian man of Jewish descent, Siegfried Markus. Markus built no less than four such inventions but unfortunately they were all for his own pleasure. Thus, Markus did not patent the motor vehicle despite holding 131 other patents, leaving the distinction of patenting the first automobile to Herr Benz. Wikipedia words it less poetically, although no less accurately, in saying “Markus was removed from German Encyclopedias as the inventor of the modern car, under a directive from the German Ministry for Propaganda during the Second World War. His name was replaced with the names of Daimler and Benz.”

Today, Markus is remembered by this statue in Vienna, Austria. Had I known about it this past summer, I might have visited the small monument to motoring (and Jewish) history. Instead, I saw a BMW 5-series GT, in a museum of all places. Oh, and a lovely Lancia too.

Despite the name of Benz being immortalized in popular culture and that of Markus being relegated to the cerebral cortexes of automotive historians, all on account of an anti-semitic smear campaign, Benz can be given credit where credit is due for the invention of the flat engine. Subaru and Porsche can at least thank Benz for that.

[Photo credit: Ricardipus/Flikr, deplaqer/Flikr]

[Video credit: author, YouTube]

Twelve years is a long time for people, but for cars it’s a coon’s age. In other words, it’s about two car-lifetimes. Just for some perspective, 12 years ago, there was no Google, no Facebook, YouTube, iPod, nor iPhone. The .com bubble had peaked but most people didn’t know it yet and many were buying basement-fulls of Spam and mobile generators in preparation of the impending Y2K crisis. In the automotive world, 12 years ago, “hybrid” wasn’t in our vocabulary, the Diablo was littering magazine covers, the Ferrari 360 Modena was just peeking its nose out of the Maranellan womb, the McLaren F1 had stopped production despite building only a third of the 300 projected cars, and Audi released a premium compact car built largely of aluminum. Now of all those cars I just mentioned, I want to focus on that last one. This aluminum-framed and bodied car was designed by Luc Donckerwolke and it was called the A2, slotting beneath the A3 in the Audi range. Which Luc Donckerwolke? Ah, that would be the Belgian one who also picked up a pen and paper for Lamborghini. The Luc I’m talking about designed the aforementioned Diablo, the Murcielago, and the Gallardo. So while the A2 might seem like a plain-Jane runabout or even a dilution of four-ringed brand equity, in reality, it was anything but. Unfortunately, the market couldn’t get past the steep price tag directly resulting from all that innovative (and expensive) aluminum. As a result, sales were weak. Which is odd because even at, say, CDN$35,000, the Audi A2 was a tenth the cost of Donckerwolke’s other works of art – and that made it a bargain.

Now, 12 years after launching the Audi A2, the company that lit the unintended acceleration torch that Toyota now carries is launching another premium compact for the European market: the Audi A1. The A1 could make it to our frosty shores if there were enough interest, but really, you don’t want one. If you can wait until 2014, I think I can convince you that what you really want is a then-to-be-15-year-old Audi A2. What makes me so bullish and sanguine? It’s all in the details.

If you’re accustomed to Audi’s naming system, you’ll know that the larger the integer following the “A”, the larger the vehicle. So let’s start with some dimensions: the Audi A1 is 3.95m in length, the Audi A2 is 3.82m. Ok, that’s kind of weird. What about width? 1.74m for the A1 and 1.67m for the A2. So far, the more “compact” A1 is longer and wider than the A2. So much for Audi’s nomenclature. Height for the A1 is 1.42m and the A2 is 1.55m tall. So the A1 wins the height, right? Wrong. We’re not talking about supercars, where it’s more aerodynamically efficient to be lower to the ground, we’re talking about city runabouts that will hit 100 kph if they’re lucky. With the A2’s taller height, it boasts greater storage space in the trunk with the seats up or down (A1: 267L/920L, A2: 390L/1085L). With city cars, it’s all about packaging. Chalk one up for the A2.

Also, despite the increased height of the A2 versus the A1, the A2 was actually the slipperier (if that’s a word) of the two, with a drag coefficient of 0.28 against 0.32 for the A1. Chalk another up for the A2. The A2’s aerodynamic efficiency and weight of only 895kg (1975lbs), meant that it could achieve 4.2L/100km on the highway from its 75hp 3-pot diesel engine. That made the A2 one of the most fuel efficient cars on that road in the late 20th century, and would still be considered a miser in today’s ecofanatical social climate. With the A1, I will concede that Audi has moved the game on with its engine technology, mainly because the most fuel-efficient engine, a 1.6L TDI, makes 90hp and gets 3.8L/100km. I suppose Audi had to be researching and developing something for the last 12 years.

The Audi A2 was a daring foray into the premium compact class, years ahead of anything else even half as revolutionary. The A2 never gained mainstream acceptance due to its ill-timed and premature focus on fuel-efficiency over sports car pretensions. In a way, Toyota is currently carrying another of Audi’s torches with their Prius, for a grand total of two torches from Audi. Who knew that the Japanese were so interested in following the lead of the Germans?

The diminutive A2 is therefore relegated to the history books as an innovative, if misunderstood and overly expensive, experiment from a company that is currently “innovating” by creating fictional market niches (the A5 Sportback being the worst offender) and installing LED lights onto every car coming off its assembly lines. The Audi A1 offers nothing particularly innovative or special, just a premium badge on a poorly-packaged and mundane appliance. Come 2014, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be importing a left-hand-drive 1999 A2 from continental Europe. My most difficult choice won’t be between the A1 and the A2, it will be whether to get my A2 with a gas engine or a diesel.

[Photo credits: author (1, 3), Audi]

I use the term “invades” rather loosely; “goes to” would probably be more appropriate. No matter.

The 2010 Chicago Auto Show starts today and our very own Janaki will be at the CAS tomorrow to cover the media events and yours truly, your fearless Editor Peter Dushenski, will be there next Tuesday, January 21. Janaki will no doubt cover the meat and potatoes, I’ll just be there to highlight anything that might fall through the cracks. Together, Janaki and I will be focusing on some of the more strange and wonderful motor cars from the show, leaving the mainstream stuff to the big guys. Realistically, we would be foolish to try to out-Autoblog Autoblog, so we won’t even try.

You will be able to follow all the happenings on Twitter. Our handle is @carenvy. Janaki will be tweeting in haiku. Since I don’t know what that is, I’ll just be spewing social media diarrhea in 140 characters or less.

If you don’t have Twitter, or don’t care to find out, just keep coming back here to CarEnvy.ca for your maple-syrup-tinted view of the 2010 Chicago Auto Show.