Automakers often tease their Super Bowl ads ahead of the game as a way to squeeze a little more publicity out them. But this year, Mercedes-Benz decided to take the tease to a new level.

The company on Monday released a video showing its new model -- the sleek CLA sedan -- flanked by another model: Kate Upton.

The 90-second, slow-motion ad is perfectly PG, so feel free to watch it at work. It features the 20-year-old Upton in shorts and a tank top supervising a trio of young football players washing a CLA.

Video: Kate Upton and Mercedes tease the new CLA

There are a few closeups of the car's front end and interior, yet they're nothing that wasn't shown when the car was recently revealed at the Detroit Auto Show.

The real focus is clearly Upton, who spends much of the ad involved in gratuitous hair-tousling while flirting with the camera and the young gentlemen distractedly soaping her Benz.

Upton's appearance foretells of the actual Super Bowl ad, which will feature her and...

Toyota's Prius has toppled the Honda Civic from its two-year reign as the bestselling vehicle in California.

It was a thin margin. Toyota sold 60,688 of the hybrid last year, almost 26% of the Prius cars sold by Toyota in the U.S. last year. Honda sold 57,124 Civics.

The Toyota Camry was third with sales of 50,250. The sales data are from the California New Car Dealers Assn. and tracked retail auto registrations, which do not include sales to rental car companies, government and other fleet customers.

A hybrid capturing the sales crown in the state and passenger cars making up the bulk of the top 10 places demonstrate just how different the California car market is from the rest of the nation, analysts said.

Ford’s F-Series pick-up truck, perennially the bestselling nationally, placed seventh in California with sales of 25,434. The Chevrolet Silverado truck, the second bestseller nationally last year, didn’t come close to even cracking the top 10 in California.  It had...

General Motors introduced the seventh generation of its Chevrolet Corvette at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit in January.  The 2014 Corvette, with its distinctive styling and an engine that can take the vehicle from zero to 60 mph in less than four seconds, was the most anticipated new model launch of the year.  Figure out what you know about this iconic sports car.

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NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick spent $1.1 million on the first production 2014 Corvette Stingray -- and didn't even get to drive the car home. 

Hendrick bought the world's first production version of the newly redesigned Corvette on Saturday at the Barrett-Jackson classic car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz. But he'll have to wait to take delivery on the car -- with the coveted vehicle identification number ending in 0001 -- until the redesigned Corvette starts production in late summer.

That means, unlike other buyers, Hendrick gets to fully customize the vehicle, selecting the interior and exterior colors, the performance packages and options. A bright red pre-production Corvette was a placeholder during the auction, which was shown live on the Speed channel.

Photos: Seven generations of Corvettes

The 2014 Corvette is the seventh generation of the iconic sports car, and it made its world debut at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show on Jan. 13. It's powered by a 450-horsepower V-8 and will come...

Five days, $223.8 million. That's the final tally from the classic and collector car auctions that concluded Sunday night in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The annual event draws hundreds of thousands of car fans who buy, sell and watch the auctions held by firms such as Barrett-Jackson, Gooding & Co. and RM Auctions. This year, the sales reflect a 21.7% increase from the $183.9 million in vehicles sold in 2012.

Notable sales include $4.6 million for the original George Barris Batmobile from the 1960s ABC TV series, and $1.1 million for the first production 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.

Photos: Top sellers from the 2013 Arizona car auctions

But it was European makes that dominated the top 10 sales from the auctions, with only a single American Duesenberg joining the Batmobile on the list of most expensive vehicles sold. Here's the list:

1. $8,250,000 for a 1958 Ferrari 250 GT California LWB Spider

2. $8,140,000 for a 1960 Ferrari GT SWB Competizione Berlinetta

3. $4,620,000 for the George...

Usually, BMW doesn’t want its vehicles to slide freely on ice. But that’s exactly the goal of its latest project – developing a two-man bobsled for the U.S. men’s bobsled team.

The sled raced for the first time at the FIBT World Cup in Igls, Austria, on Saturday but didn’t put the U.S. on the winner’s podium. The Swiss won. The U.S. teams running the BMW sled finished 14th out of 30 entrants.

Another U.S. team running a different sled came close to a podium finish in fifth place.

Still, the USA Bobsled & Skeleton Federation wasn’t disappointed with how the sled – which was designed at a BMW design studio in Newbury Park – performed.

“Our top driver raced in this sled without making any training runs,” Darrin Steele, chief executive of the federation, told The Times’ Highway 1 blog.

The team wanted to get the new sled on the ice as soon as it arrived in Europe so that it can start gathering data and making tweaks in...

The iconic Batmobile from the 1960s television show sold for $4.62 million at the Barrett-Jackson classic car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz. 

The Saturday night sale thrilled famed car customizer George Barris, who first bought the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car for $1 from Ford. He then transformed it into the Batmobile in 15 days with a budget of $15,000, according to auction notes from Barrett-Jackson. 

The car's buyer was Rick Champagne, a Phoenix-area logistics company executive. Asked by television interviewers what motivated him to pay such a princely sum, he pointed to the woman accompanying him and said: "Her." 

He then explained that he'd had his eye on the Batmobile “ever since I was a kid. I had a toy model of it,” according to SPEED TV. Asked whether he'd keep the car in his garage, he said he'd put it in his living room. 

PHOTOS: Making the Batmobile

Before the auction, Barris never said what price he would take for the midnight-black and fluorescent-red-...

McLaren's forthcoming million-dollar P1 supercar made its Los Angeles debut Thursday night. It was every bit the premiere you'd expect in Hollywood.

A crane dropped the P1 into place at the SLS Hotel. Jay Leno got an exclusive look at the interior. There was an open bar; there were cupcakes with the McLaren logo on them; and the crowd was dotted with statuesque women grasping the arms of shorter, older men.

But the real eye candy was in the center of the room, on a well-lit stage, wearing a brilliant shade of metallic orange.

Photos: McLaren's P1 supercar makes its L.A. debut

For those unfamiliar with McLaren's P1, it's an ultra-high-performance car headed to market at the end of 2013. It applies to a road car the company's considerable Formula 1 racing experience. McLaren doesn't even like to call the P1 a supercar; this is a hypercar. Rather, the automaker prefers to keep the "supercar" moniker for its only other product, the lesser MP4-12C. Which sells for $250,000.

The P1 will...

Honda announced Friday it's recalling more than 748,843 Pilot and Odyssey vehicles to correct a problem with the driver's-side airbag.

The automaker says some of the vehicles may be missing a rivet that holds the airbag's plastic cover in place when it deploys. This could lead to the airbag inflating improperly and could cause the plastic cover to come loose and strike the driver or passengers.

The recall affects 276,153 Odyssey minivans made from 2011 to 2013 and 472,690 Pilot SUVs made from 2009 to 2013.

Owners affected will be notified by mail in February, according to Honda spokesman Chris Martin. The Odyssey and Pilots will be inspected by the dealer, and any vehicles found to be missing the rivets will have the entire airbag module replaced, Martin said.

The replacement process could take at least two days, as Honda dealers would have to order each new airbag individually.

Martin said there have been no incidents or injuries related to this recall. The problem came to Honda'...

The iconic Batmobile from the 1960s television show is set for the auction block this weekend.

The midnight-black and fluorescent-red-pinstriped car that Adam West's Batman used to battle villains in Gotham will be up for grabs Saturday at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Ariz.

There is a reserve price for the car, but neither the auction house nor the car owner, famed car customizer George Barris, would confirm the lowest dollar amount they would accept. But auction organizers have indicated it's in the multimillion-dollar range.

The heavily modified car, known around the world, was built at Barris Kustom Industries auto shop on Riverside Drive in North Hollywood. It has been on display there in a gallery since the television show ended in 1968.

PHOTOS: Making the Batmobile

See it leave the shop in December in the video above.

The one-of-a-kind 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car was originally created by a design team at Ford Motor Co.'s Lincoln styling department. The 19-foot-...