We obsessively cover the auto industry…

According to General Motors, the Lone Star State is responsible for one sixth of all truck sales in the United States, and to draw even more buyers to its showrooms, the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado is being offered in a special Texas Edition package. For buyers not in Texas, though, a similar package called Custom Sport will be offered at the same price premium – $2,165 for LT and $1,895 for LTZ models.

Both packages add 20-inch wheels, a locking rear differential and the Trailering Equipment package, and while the LT trim levels will get body colored mirrors and door handles, the LTZ models will get a whole smattering of chrome, along with a Bose audio system. The Texas Edition will get unique badges to differentiate it from the Custom Sport models. Scroll down for more information on these new packages, and check out our galleries of the 2014 Silverado and the more luxurious Silverado High Country.

Volkswagen has announced another vehicle that will be delighting the brand's fans at this week's Wörthersee festival in Austria. The Amarok R-Style is a performance version of the pickup that VW seemingly sells all over the world... except the US and Canada, of course.

The truck is powered by a 3.0-liter TDI V6 making 272 horsepower and a stout 442 pound-feet of torque. That engine is mated to an eight-speed automatic, and the pair are reportedly good for helping the truck reach 62 miles per hour in 7.9 seconds. While a 20-year-old GMC Cyclone pickup would laugh that figure off as cute, the Amarok R-Style at least looks the part of a performance truck with 22-inch wheels bursting out of fenders widened by 2.36 inches on either side. There's also a carbon fiber diffuser out back, side sill extensions and bigger air intakes up front. Oh, and two chromed tailpipes for good measure.

Inside, the Amarok R-Style apes the GTI with a black, white and red color scheme on its surfaces and deeply bolstered sport seats. A new steering wheel, eight-inch touchscreen, subwoofer and carbon fiber dashboard round out the other extra upgrades.

Is This A Great Idea For An M Model?



The BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe is already an issue of large debate. The essential business case for the car is that it's more distinctive than a straight 5 or 6 Series, and has much of the sense of space and luxury of a 7 Series. It has the wheelbase of a 5 Series, the relative width of a 6 Series, and an exterior length close to the standard wheelbase 7 Series. And, as we reported in our drive of the 640i Gran Coupe in May 2012, the 6 Series Gran Coupe costs pretty much the same as the 7 Series, engine trim for engine trim. The sedan (coupe?) is therefore a proposal clearly meant for an extremely particular clientele. There's no news yet on how well exactly the 6 Series Gran Coupe is selling in its chief markets, but we are curious. The Germans frequently tend not to break out their sales figures that way, mixing sales of the Gran Coupe in with the two-door 6 Series.

And, so, we have now arrived at the inevitable point where the M version must be introduced. Say howdy to the $113,000 2014 BMW M6 Gran Coupe (actually $115,195 for starters with all of the taxes added). That's $4,650 more than the also highly priced M6 coupe. Let the vehement debates begin. The upcoming 2014 Audi RS7 should be priced right at this level as well, and the Mercedes-Benz CLS63 AMG (perhaps with an S iteration in the next allotment we get Stateside) should go for roughly the same.

Our friend Theophilus Chin has a thing for creating Tesla vehicles that we can't have. Earlier this year, he made a digital Model ST wagon appear and he's now back with a sleek Tesla Model S Coupe. The rendered results, which you can see in the gallery, are an elegant, smaller take on the nearly universally praised Model S design from Franz von Holzhausen. Chin writes, "There's a huge market for an electric 2+2 GT. And I feel Tesla has the right product for that niche."

As he did with the ST, the front end is left intact, with all of the changes happening in the rear. At its core, this is just a Model S with the second set of doors removed and Chin has so smoothly meshed the lines so that you almost don't notice anything's missing at first glance. We can only speculate what the smaller size would mean for reduced battery pack capacity, and if the new style would make up for the expected range loss. Which leads us to this important question: does the Model S coupe still have a frunk? Also, does the car appeal to you?

In terms of exterior appearance, not much has changed from the last time we spotted the next-generation Mazda3 out testing. Oh, sure – we can see plenty of details that clearly show the new Kodo design influence (that front end reminds us a whole lot of the sleek new Mazda6), but these latest round of spy shots don't really show us anything we haven't seen before. Oh, wait, yes they do – the interior.

Feast your eyes on the Mazda3's insides, showing a vastly reworked interior that also takes cues from the automaker's most recently refreshed products. We can see that there's a simple, clean center stack with a slim row of heating and cooling functions, and up top there's a large, presumably touchscreen display, with redundant controls found just aft of the shifter.

We expect that the 2015 Mazda3 will debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show this September, packing both petrol and diesel engines. A sedan variant is also in the works, and should debut shortly after the hatchback.

Italy is the wound that continues to drain blood from the body financial of Italian supercar and sports car makers. The wound was opened by the country's various financial police who decided to get serious about superyacht-owning and supercar-driving tax cheats a few years ago, by noting their registrations and checking their incomes. When it was found that a rather high percentage of exotic toy owners had claimed a rather low annual income - certain business owners were found to be declaring less income than their employees - the owners began dumping their cars and prospective buyers declined to buy.

Car and Driver has a piece on how the initiative is hitting the home market the hardest. Lamborghini sold 1,302 cars worldwide in 2010, 1,602 cars in 2011 and 2,083 cars in 2012 - an excellent surge in just two years. In Italy, however, it's all about the ebb: in 2010, the year that Italian police began scouring harbors, Lamborghini sold 96 cars in Italy, the next year it sold 72, last year it sold just 60. The declines for Maserati and Ferrari are even more pronounced.

Head over to CD for the full story and the numbers. What might be most incredible isn't the cause and effect, but where the blame is being placed. A year ago the chairman of Italy's Federauto accused the government of "terrorizing potential clients," this year Luca di Montezemolo says what's happening has created "a hostile environment for ­luxury goods." Life at the top, it ain't easy.

Vehicle customization has played a huge role in car culture in the US, and Dean Jeffries was perhaps one of the most well-known builders, painters and customizers of his time.

Hemmings is reporting that Jeffries died on Sunday at the age of 80. He leaves behind a legacy in the automotive world that includes a paint job on the very first Shelby Cobra ever made, the Ford used on the cover of the 1963 Beach Boys Little Deuce Coupe album, a custom GTO for The Monkees called The Monkeemobile and even some paint work on James Dean's Porsche 550 Spyder. A signature Jeffries' custom car called the Mantaray was on display at the Peterson Automotive Museum in LA for a time.

Outside of customization, Jeffries also worked as a stunt driver in films like The Blues Brothers, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Die Hard With a Vengeance. Scroll down for a couple videos showing some of the cars that will ensure that Jeffries' name will forever be enshrined in the automotive community.

Racing gamers with Microsoft proclivities will no doubt remember the name Project Gotham Racing – a four-title-long series for Xbox and Xbox 360. The first couple of PGR games held sway over Xbox users though seemed to be outshone by the Forza Motorsport series on the 360 platform.

Now the Xbox is set to undergo yet another generational change and rumors are swirling that Lucid Games – an independent studio formed by former members of Bizzare Creations, which produced the original PGR games – has a new Project Gotham up its sleeve.

Lucid posted a status update on its Facebook page that reads as follows: "So yeah, Mid-May will be interesting for the studio. We have some exciting updates coming. Stay tuned!" Along with the update is the image you see above, which broadly hints at a racing game based in London. Connecting the dots on all of this are the gaming experts at Joystiq, who believe that these tea leaves all point to a new PGR upcoming for the next-gen Xbox.

It's hard to forget a company like Terrafugia – mostly because it won't let us. Every six months or so, the Massachusetts-based self-proclaimed aerospace company makes headlines with a flying car concept. It's first attempt, called the Transition, was a folding low-wing propeller-driven pusher aircraft with a water-cooled combustion engine. Despite its ungainliness, it has flown, but only in prototype form, and despite its long gestation period and a reported 100 reservations on the books, certification and production is moving at a snail's pace.

Yet push those negative thoughts aside and make room in your fantasy warehouse for Terrafugia's followup act, a vertical-takeoff (VTOL) plug-in hybrid-electric flying car. Promised to be much more advanced than its predecessor, the all-new TF-X would be fitted with modern state-of-the-art intelligent systems and fly-by-wire controls, says the company. Its design, with vertical take-off transitioning into horizontal flight, would provide safe, simple and convenient autonomous flight that would help alleviate today's congestion and other transportation challenges.

Rather than dwell on the implications of electric range-anxiety while cruising at 20,000 feet with your family on board, or how you will prevent your inattentive friends from walking into its low-slung whirling rotors, open your mind and watch the company's computer-generated video down below showing how a typical flight would theoretically unfold.

As is the case every year, Volkswagen engineers have built and brought a new toy to their fans at the annual Wörthersee festival in Reifnitz, Austria. Called the Design Vision GTI, this track toy is a Golf that's been widened, lowered and given an injection of twin-turbo V6 steroids.

The powerplant providing motivation is a 3.0-liter V6 paired with two turbochargers to produce 503 horsepower and up to 413 pound-feet of torque. With all-wheel drive and Volkswagen's famous DSG gearbox (the gear count is unknown), the Design Vision GTI can erase what's between you and 62 miles per hour in 3.9 seconds, as well as a reach a terminal velocity of 186 mph. Carbon ceramic brakes, 20-inch wheels and a specially tuned chassis round out the hardware upgrades, while engineers compressed the car's dimensions to be shorter, wider and lower than a stock GTI.

The exterior of the Design Vision GTI is meant to evoke the future of GTI styling, which is fine by us as we especially like how the car's iconic C-pillar is pulled away from the body and flows into the significantly flared rear fenders. It looks like the reflection of a GTI in a circus mirror with menace-making bends. The interior, meanwhile, is an exercise in editing, with switches, knobs and all manner of unnecessary controls removed, and the center console more severely oriented towards the driver. The rear seats have been replaced by an X-shaped crossbar, and red straps appear where door handles used to be (à la Porsche). There's even a camera embedded in the A-pillar that can shoot either the track ahead or the driver at work.

While not as stout in the power or performance departments as the 2007 GTI W12 Concept, the Design Vision GTI looks even more the business than that King of Golfs. For now we only have renderings, but we'll update this post with live images of the Design Vision GTI as soon as they're available.

There are very few vehicles available today that compare directly with the Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ twins. A case could be made for the Mazda MX-5 Miata, and possibly even six-cylinder versions of American coupes like the Ford Mustang. Pretty much everything else is either too expensive or is powered by the wrong set of wheels.

The boys from EverydayDriver on YouTube decided the only fair way to judge the inherent qualities of the Toyobaru twins was to pit them against two standard-bearers of years past: The Honda S2000 and Mazda RX-8. Neither of these cars is an exact matchup, with the Honda boasting a convertible top and the RX-8 offering more practicality via a rear seat and two reverse-opening doors for easier access. What they do offer, however, are similar performance stats and proven reputations for excellent handling.

None of this talk answers the real question, though: Which one wins the comparison test? Scroll down to watch the video, and be prepared for something of a surprise conclusion.

Two years after the Range_E concept debuted at the Geneva Motor Show, thus previewing the coming Range Rover hybrid drivetrain and beginning the succeeding speculation, a company executive has confirmed the arrival of a hybrid Range Rover and Range Rover Sport later this year. The first time we'll see them is at the Frankfurt Motor Show, but Stuart Frith, chief program engineer for Range Rover Sport told Australian site Car Sales that the vehicles will be in showrooms before the year is over, as well.

As we wrote in our deep dive previewing the 2013 Range Rover, the diesel hybrid system uses a 3.0-liter V6 engine mated to a ZF eight-speed transmission with an integrated electric motor. The 1.7-kWh battery pack sits in the chassis floor, protected by a boron steel cradle, so cabin space is not compromised. The numbers we were given at the time were 333 horsepower, a sub-seven second run to 60 miles per hour in the big Range Rover and 45 imperial miles per gallon. The 2014 Range Rover Sport is expected to post the same horsepower number and battery placement. Neither of these models will be coming to the US.

The Range Rover Sport will also get a traditional diesel, the SDV8 being slotted into the engine bay, bringing 516 pound-feet of torque with it when it goes on sale later this year. Eventually, Frith said it will also get Land Rover's version of the 2.0-liter, 240-hp EcoBoost engine that propels the Evoque and the LR2 – the weight savings of the new model has made the four-cylinder a viable option.

For the first time ever, the Crown Range, New Zealand's highest paved road, was closed off for the drifting pleasure of one man. That man is Mad Mike Whiddett, and the machine he's piloting is a heavily modified Mazda RX-7 sponsored by the energy-rich crew from Red Bull and powered by a 750-horsepower quad-rotor engine. There will be smoke. Lots and lots of smoke.

Mad Mike hits speeds in excess of 140 miles per hour over the course of the road's six and a half miles, which boasts 47 individual corners at over 3,500 feet of elevation. Scroll down for all kinds of fire-belching, tire-squealing and smoke-inducing action. Or, as Mad Mike himself puts it, "A dream turned into reality."

As BMW prepares to introduce the all-new 2 Series coupe and convertible, the 1 Series name definitely won't be going away. We know new sedan and hatchback models are in the works; including the GT shown above. According to Car and Driver, though, the future of the 1 Series nameplate in the US could be dependent on rival premium small cars like the Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class and Audi A3.

In an interview with C/D, BMW's North American head of product planning and strategy, Paul Ferraiolo, said that pricing might be the biggest deterrent to offering the third-gen 1 Series in the US. As he points out, BMW currently prices the 1 not too far from the 3 Series, but Mercedes-Benz and Audi will have their new small cars priced well below the $30,000 mark. BMW's Mini brand will also factor into the consideration since the 1 GT will share its underpinnings with the next-gen Cooper lineup.