Car shows

GM goes flex-crazy with the Flextreme concept, throwing around its new favorite marketing term like a flexy flexible flyer. This Opel-branded concept runs on GM's new E-Flex powertrain. It has FlexDoors for the passengers and a FlexLoad rear gate. But the only thing anyone will pay attention to are the two nonflex Segways stowed in the rear.

Click here for photos of the Opel Flextreme.

As we reported earlier, Mercedes-Benz promised 19 cars in 15 minutes at the 2007 Frankfurt auto show, and damn if they didn't deliver. The German automakers press conference resulted in a fleet of cars out on the show floor. As one might expect, Frankfurt is a huge auto show for Mercedes-Benz--the company gets a whole concert hall in the fair grounds to show off its cars. It filled the lower level of the hall with everything from the new F700 research vehicle to the Smart Micro-Hybrid. There were also quite a few variations on the hybrid theme, from regular … Read more

Volkswagen dropped a bomb at the 2007 Frankfurt auto show in the form of an unexpected little concept called Up. Actually, it's more of a grenade, as the Up is a city car--small but able to hold four people. What makes the Up interesting is that the engine is in the rear, a configuration Volkswagen used with the original beetle. And from its press materials, Volkswagen suggests that the Up could be as iconic. That remains to be seen. Although we like the clean look of the Up, it doesn't stray far from the Golf's design.

It … Read more

In Honda's exhibition area at the 2007 Frankfurt auto show, we were surprised to find a Civic all painted up in racing colors and promotions. Even stranger, it's a Civic Hybrid, not a car you see on the NASCAR circuit. This Civic Hybrid, the accompanying placard informed us, has been entered in the 2007 Nurburgring 24-hour race. That got our attention.

Honda considers its finish of 108th out of 220 teams starting a "sensational result." We will give them that. Twenty-four hours of laps around the Nurburgring, one of the world's most grueling courses, is … Read more

Last July we wrote about the new Fiat 500, a modern take on a classic small car. Walking around the 2007 Frankfurt auto show, we saw it live for the first time, and didn't expect it to be so big. The Fiat 500 towers over the Fiat floor area, and could easily squash a Hummer. We're pretty sure European roads haven't gotten substantially wider, so we don't know what Fiat's engineers were thinking.

Oh wait, our mistake--the actual Fiat 500 was sitting nearby. The giant Fiat 500 is just a bit of booth dressing, although … Read more

Or maybe BMW your Google? At BMW's ConnectedDrive exhibit at the 2007 Frankfurt auto show, the company showed off the first ever implementation of Google local search in a car. You can enter any search term in your BMW's navigation system, and it will find any Google matches for local businesses either within the vicinity of your car or another location you choose. It amounts to having a points-of-interest database searchable by keyword that always gets updated.

Or, if you're not the hands-on type, you can just use an entry in the navigation system to call BMW'… Read more

The car show season kicks off with the biannual Frankfurt auto show, a major venue for German automakers--and just about everyone else selling cars in the European market. For these preview photos, we've scoured the Web for any launch information we could find prior to the show. Check out this advance information on concepts, new models, and model upgrades to be unveiled at the Frankfurt auto show.

Click here to see the photos

Audi revealed photos of its zaftig RS 6 Avant to the press on Wednesday as a teaser to the official reveal at the Frankfurt auto show next week.

The car will have a 5.2 liter V10 engine with FSI direct injection and twin turbochargers capable of 580 horsepower. (That's a lot of power.) The car can go from 0-60 mph in 4.6 seconds.

"It is the most powerful model in the current Audi range...with the exception of pure racing cars like the Le Mans-winning Audi R10 TDI," Audi said in a statement.

It should … Read more

It's showtime again in the auto world--that time of the year when manufacturers trot out their latest fleets of new models and wacky concepts. In preparation for the forthcoming Frankfurt auto show, Nissan this week unveiled details of its Mixim electric concept car. According to Nissan, the Mixim (which is unlikely to make it to production) is aimed at young, Web-savvy, digital-age drivers with a penchant for gaming. Check out our photo gallery here.