Sebastian Vettel is about to commence his quest to maintain his world champion status in Formula 1 in the 2012 season, and as brand ambassador for Infiniti, he also has a special-edition FX50.

First unveiled last September in concept form, the special FX50 has been confirmed for production by Infiniti at this week’s 2012 Geneva Motor Show.

While the company didn’t make its self-imposed deadline for first customer deliveries in February, Coda Automotive has a different reason to celebrate today.

At 10:25 am Pacific time, the first production 2012 Coda Sedan electric car is set to drive off the assembly line at its plant in Benicia, California.

Consumer Reports regularly ranks cars on factors like reliability and bang for the buck. The company recently crunched all the data collected on 2012 models, and now it’s announced a list of ten Top Picks for the year.

In compiling its rankings, Consumer Reports looked at three factors: reliability, safety, and a road test. To keep things fair, each data set came from a different source. Reliability was based on surveys of over 1,000,000 vehicles, provided by the magazine’s subscribers. Safety data came from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and government sources. And of course, Consumer Reports conducted extensive studies of its own to determine road test scores. 

Whenever I land in a strange place for one of these first drives of a a new car, the first task at hand is to keep moving. Get off the plane, off the shuttle, and get out of the hotel room before jet lag lures me for “a short nap” and proceeds to take the rest of the day–the rest of the trip–hostage. I use my luggage as a human shield, dodging in quickly and walking right back out for at least an hour, to try to get some context, and some sunshine, because body clocks work better when they’re on local time.

When last we tried this, in stunning Croatia, where last we left Bentley’s GTC in the embrace of a late warm fall day, I didn’t evade the gravitational pull of the pillow quite as neatly. You’d be surprised how many Croatian TV stations stop broadcasting after 2 a.m.

After Pure Detroit opened its first of three stores on Thanksgiving Day in 1998, the company built momentum with a website (www.puredetroit.com) featuring branded clothing and merchandise; proceeds benefit Detroit-area charities.

After Chrysler introduced its “Imported from Detroit” tagline in a Super Bowl commercial in 2011, the automaker built on the ad’s momentum with a website (www.ifdstore.com) featuring branded clothing and merchandise; proceeds benefit Detroit-area charities.

Over a year after the television ad aired, the bickering between the two companies is heated enough to set River Rouge on fire again. Chrysler doesn’t like Pure Detroit selling things with “Imported from Detroit” on them, especially after denial of a preliminary injunction against Pure Detroit in U.S. District Court last June.

If the Chevy Volt is a sales failure, you’d never know it from the guy who runs General Motors.

At a meeting of Volt owners in San Francisco yesterday, GM’s CEO Dan Akerson said unequivocally that the company was standing behind its halo plug-in electric car.

“We are not backing away from this product,” he told the assembled Volt owners.

Retail car buyers have to juggle a lot of factors in choosing a car, including image, family approval, and maybe-one-day-I’ll-drive-across-the-country dreams.

That may preclude a battery electric vehicle like a Nissan Leaf, with its 73-mile range.

Extravagance and opulence and…mud plugging? That’s the message telegraphed by the Bentley EXP 9 F concept vehicle introduced at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show.

Meant to mingle in garages with Mulsannes and Continentals, the EXP’s billed as a “luxury performance SUV concept” that clearly has a future in the British brand’s lineup. Executives at Volkswagen Group indicate the Bentley, and a similarly sized Lamborghini SUV to be previewed next month at the Beijing auto show, are almost certain to be approved for production.

If you’re looking for a topless crossover, your current options are limited to just one vehicle: the Nissan Murano Cross-Cabriolet. We suppose you could include the Jeep Wrangler Unlimited in the mix, but it’s on-road ride quality isn’t something we’d want to endure on a daily basis.

That may soon change, as Land Rover is showing off its Evoque convertible concept at next month’s Geneva Motor Show. As Land Rover explains, the drop-top Evoque is meant to “explore the potential for the world’s first premium convertible SUV,” meaning that Land Rover will be extremely interested in hearing customer feedback on the concept.

The company adopted a similar strategy with the DC100 concepts, which will likely serve as the basis of the next-generation Land Rover Defender. An Evoque convertible fits in with the brand’s strategy of of expanding the Evoque product line beyond the existing range.

For anyone doubting Pagani’s ability to launch a world class supercar the second time round, Pagani’s founder and chief designer Horacio Pagani has now confirmed that his company’s latest car, the Huayra, already has 85 confirmed orders and that production is being ramped up.

Pagani also revealed that the changes required to make the Huayra pass U.S. certification are in progress and that the first U.S.-spec cars are on track to be delivered in 2013.

European and Asian customers won’t have to wait that long as the Huayra has already been certified in most other regions and is scheduled to be delivered to its first customers in April of this year.

In fact, no less than 25 Huayras will see the light of day this year, and a further 40 will be built in 2013.