AutoBlog: Dodge celebrates 40 years of performance with Furious Fuchsia Challengers

2010 Dodge Challenger R/T and SRT8 in Furious FuchsiaFor the record, the Dodge Challengers you see above are not pink. Despite a Pepto-ish hue, they're actually Furious Fuchsia. It would seem that Chrysler is choosing not to remember that it offered a similar shade back in 1970 and 1971 known as Panther Pink. This despite the fact that Dodge president and CEO Ralph Gilles tells us in the press release after the break that the R/T Classic and SRT8 Furious Fuchsia editions "[commemorate] four decades of Challenger performance" and "modernize one of the most memorable hues from 1970."

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AutoBlog: Report: Award-winning garage may lose its driveway

Holger Schubert's award-winning garageLast summer, Maserati held a competition to identify the best garages in the world. There were two categories: Concept and Existing. While the concept winner was pretty spectacular, the existing garage was breathtaking. Remember the glass-walled garage in Ferris Bueller's Day Off? The one that Cameron launched his father's vintage Ferrari California Spider through? That was a pretty amazing garage and similar to Holger Schubert's Maserati competition winner. The difference is that Schubert took that concept one step further and simply built a 10-foot concrete bridge to his glass-walled living room.

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AutoBlog: Porsche 911 Turbo S unveiled with 530 HP of goodness

2011 Porsche 911 Turbo SThe wunderkinds in Wiessach have wrought a new head of the family in the form of the 2011 911 Turbo S, the first 911 S model in five years and the first for the 997. In Porsche parlance, the S suffix generally means more power and better handling, and this car appears ready to live up to the badge.

As we surmised last August, the twin-turbo flat-six is boosted to 530 horsepower, though it sips fuel at the same rate as the "base" Turbo's with its 500-horsepower engine. All that power and 516 pound-feet of torque are transferred to all four wheels – now 19 inches in diameter with center locking nuts – through Porsche's seven-speed PDK dual clutch gearbox, and a torque vectoring system helps point the car directly where the driver wants it. Press release after the jump..

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AutoBlog: SPOILER ALERT: Danica Patrick impresses in stock car debut, confirms NASCAR debut in Daytona

Danica qualified 12th for her first NASCAR race, the ARCA Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200 held at Daytona Raceway. After a lot of bumping, a few runs through the infield, a skid or two, a race stoppage, a lot of time in the pits and a lot of running on the outside line, she finished the race in sixth.

Ironically her biggest off came courtesy of the also-new-to-NASCAR Nelson Piquet, Jr.. He qualified seventh and climbed up to sixth at one point, but bumped Danica and sent her down to 24th when she rejoined after having her car repaired. Piquet would find more ways to get in trouble before the chequered flag and finish in 27th.

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AutoBlog: Geneva Preview: Europe gets its own 40th anniversary Nissan 370Z Black Edition

2010 Nissan 370Z Black EditionIt's been a couple of months since Nissan first announced a special 40th anniversary model of its svelte 370Z, and, following a batch of spy shots confirming the car's arrival, we're about to get our first up-close-and-personal look at the upcoming Chicago Auto Show. But Nissan isn't about to let American customers have all the fun, so it's releasing a similar special edition for the European market.

Like its American counterpart, the Europe's 370Z Black Edition celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Nissan Z, and packs most of the same features that distinguish its Yankee brother. That means darkened 19-inch Rays wheels, red brake calipers, red leather interior with a red-stitched steering wheel, special badges and the like. Full details in the press release after the jump..

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AutoBlog: Ford Suisse rolls out special edition Focus RS WRC

Ford Focus RS WRC special edition for SwitzerlandWhile the rest of us think "rallying", the Swiss look at their snow-capped mountains and think "skiing". That's largely because the Swiss are not known to be car people. But for every rule there's an exception.

In Switzerland those exceptions include the efforts of notable speed-freaks like Peter Sauber (of F1 fame), Frank Rinderknecht (Rinspeed) and Franco Sbarro (the flamboyant coachbuilder – not the food-court pizza guy). And we can now add Ford to that list, as the Detroit automaker's Swiss subsidiary is rolling out a special edition Focus RS to pay tribute to the 40th anniversary of the company's iconic RS division, exclusively for the Swiss market.

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AutoBlog: Baby, Let's Cruze: Chevy reportedly weighing four-door coupe, SS variants

2011 Chevrolet Cruze General Motors has been looking for ways to capitalize on the investments made in its platforms by increasing the number (and retail price) of the vehicles sharing them. Hence, reports of the next-gen Camaro sharing its platform with the upcoming Cadillac ATS and CTS successor.

Now reports suggest that the General is hoping to capitalize on the Delta platform by creating more aggressive, sportily-minded variants of the Chevrolet Cruze.

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AutoBlog: 2011 Chevy Volt appears in order schedule, Job 1 set for November 1

2011 Chevrolet VoltUp until now, General Motors has remained deliberately vague in public about the scheduled Job 1 date for Chevrolet Volt production. Given the complexity and new technology involved in the program, the automaker's reluctance is understandable. After all when you don't know what the future holds or what problems will crop up, you don't want to put a misleading date out there, years in advance.

Internal schedules, on the other hand, are something else altogether. Every program needs to have deadlines so that people know how much time and resources to allot for a given task. Those internal gantt charts have undoubtedly had the magic Volt Job 1 date on them for several years.

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AutoBlog: Mercedes-Benz museum showcases 120 years of automotive history

Mercedes-Benz MuseumLocated in Stuttgart, Germany, the new Mercedes-Benz museum houses more than 160 vehicles and 1,500 exhibits ranging from the company's first cars, dating back to 1886, to the SLS AMG supercar of today. Built in 2006, the facility has accommodated no fewer than 2.8 million visitors who have had the option of taking a guided tour or browsing the car collection on their own. Unfortunately, haven't gotten the opportunity to be included in that list of visitors yet.

Thankfully, Mercedes-Benz has unloaded nearly 100 new photos of the 16,500-square-meter facility. You can see everything from the legendary Silver Arrows, to Formula 1 racers, to beautiful pre-war cars. All are included in the gallery below, or you can even take a virtual tour of the building at the museum's official web site.

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Autoblog: Report: Transportation Secretary LaHood concerned with influx of in-car technologies

Concerned that "gadgets and bells and whistles" are distracting drivers, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is reportedly pushing to keep the technologies out of driver's hands – without going so far as to say he'll try to restrict them.

LaHood, who has already campaigned for a ban on hand-held texting and cell phone use while operating a moving vehicle, says he is "going to talk to the car manufacturers and see where this leads."

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2009 nearly 6,000 people were killed in crashes involving a distracted or inattentive driver - and more than 800,000 vehicles are driven by someone using a hand-held cell phone each day. While the Department of Transportation intends to issue regulations in 2010 to discourage driving while distracted by technology, LaHood has gone several steps further by saying he is on a "rampage" against the behavior.

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