First Ride: 2009 Harley-Davidson CVO models

Click above for high-res image of the Harely-Davidson CVO models

There is no doubting that Harley-Davidson motorcycles have stood the test of time. Though sales of both mainstream and higher-end models from The Motor Company are down, Harley-Davidson has seen fit to continue its line of factory custom models. Custom Vehicle Operations offers complete models featuring Screaming Eagle parts.

HD has no problems selling its entire allotment of CVO SE bikes each year despite their high cost of entry, so we surmise that folks looking for full custom bikes complete with Harley-Davidson warranties must have fairly deep pockets. Surely then, these machines had better be quite different from their more standard countarparts. Let's take a closer look.

Autoblog gets schooled by Alfa Romeo in Italy

Click above for a high-res gallery of our time in the Alfa Romeo driving school.

Let's take a quick vote here. We won't be tabulating the totals, so we'll keep this unofficial, but we want you to be honest. How many of you, deep inside, wonder if you couldn't have made it as a professional racing driver? Maybe not the next Michael Schumacher, but at least a promising prospect. If only you had started out in karting at a young enough age, kept yourself in shape and found the sponsorship to fund what could have been a budding career. You look at the racing line around the corners of city streets on your commute, view a twisting mountain road as a challenge instead of an inconvenience, and offer friends unsolicited (and seldom appreciated) advice on their driving habits.

Starting to sound familiar? It did to us, but that was before Alfa Romeo invited us to take part in its Guida Sicura advanced driving program at the Varano circuit in northern Italy. While we may have gone in with delusions of tire-smoking grandeur before we arrived, they were all completely deflated after our first couple of laps around the track with a former rally champion or Ferrari factory driver riding shotgun helpfully putting us in our place. But by the end of the day those baseless fantasies were replaced by a marked improvement in our driving competence. Read on to see how the day unfolded.

British Motor Show: The Aspid. Ultra sports meets efficient.

Click for high-resolution gallery

Spanish company IFR Automotive has unveiled the Aspid at the British Motor Show. The Aspid is a new ultra-lightweight sports car. The Aspid (Spanish for viper, ahem) features a 2-liter I4 engine in two versions able to produce 270 and 400hp, the latter thanks to supercharging. This powerful engine, mated to a 700 kg (1,543 pounds) weight provides spectacular performance. The 270hp version runs from 0 to 100 km/h (62mph) in 3.7 seconds, and 2.8 for the most powerful version. IFR also announced the estimated consumption figures, that would be vaild only if owners keep the Aspid at speeds roughly around the EU mixed cycle. In that case drivers might manage 4.8 and 5.5 l/100 km, which translates into 49 and 43mpg (US) respectively.

According to the manufacturer, the Aspid is not a simple toy to take for a drive out for track days, but it's a capable road vehicle, something hard to tell from its design. It's almost completely made from aluminum and carbon fiber. It also sports plenty of gadgetry: GPS, GPRS, a complete HiFi system, USB, Bluetooth, Wi-fi, and Ethernet connection, because the Aspid gathers data you can download regarding the car's performance. And all this gadgetry, as well as most of the electric systems have been simplified to a maximum level to reduce weight. Impressed? They're taking orders already.

Lexus shows the LF-A's heart in London

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Lexus LF-A concept.

and has been The Lexus LF-A has taken the crown from the Chevy Camaro as the perpetual show queen that we're tired of seeing in concept form. Granted, it's already run the Nurburging 24 Hour endurospied enough times that we've almost stopped caring, but aside from an astronomical price, details are still scarce on Lexus' first attempt at joining the hyper car fray.

Thankfully, the automaker brought sometime else to the London Motor Show to compliment the two LF-A concepts on stage. Enclosed in a Plexiglas case is the 5.0-liter V10 that's slated to power the coupe, and although there's no accompanying spec sheet to give exact horsepower and torque figures (expect around 500 hp and 400 lb.-ft.), CAR shot a brief video showing some beautifully crafted exhaust manifolds and a gorgeous set of ITB trumpets. It's not much, but its small size is telling, providing further proof that the bent-ten will be mounted close to the firewall for a front-midship placement.

GT-RR.com: Bringing GT-R performance parts to the people

Nissan maintains that the GT-R is mechanized perfection that could never be improved upon (never mind that V-Spec over there), but that's not going to stop owners from attempting to extract every last bit of performance from Nissan's super coupe.

Enter GT-RR.com, an online distributor specializing in the importation of top shelf kit from Japan. Ben Schaffer, president of Bespoke Ventures, one of the men behind Bulletproof Automotive and blogger at The Real JDM, is behind the new site, bringing almost a decade of tuning experience and over 100 aftermarket components to GT-R owners here in the States. The site is currently in BETA testing, but that doesn't mean that GT-R drivers have to leave "good enough" alone.

GT-RR currently offers a nice assortment of parts – from seats to suspension components and exhausts to wheels – and while Schaffer and his team are currently farming out installation work to other reputable shops in the L.A. area, he's not ruling out a dedicated location for work on the GT-R. According to Schaffer, "Our sole focus is on what we do best. Fast and highly accurate logistics and distribution from Japan to both local tuning shops and directly to the end users." Although the aftermarket, along with the rest of the auto industry, is experiencing a downturn, there's little doubt that GT-R owners will be looking for something to turn up the wick on their rides. Thankfully, GT-RR will be there to answer the call.

London 2008: Mastretta MXT will be Mexico's first homegrown car

Click above for more high-res shots of the Mastretta MXT

It may have taken Mexico a while to produce its first car, but at least when it finally took place, it did so with style. When we originally heard of the Mastretta MXT, it was said to be powered by a stock Ford Duratec four-banger. Fortunately, the production machine will be blessed with a much more impressive version of the 2.0L mill, one tuned by the maestros at Cosworth, who have also bestowed the block with a turbocharger. Claimed output is 240 horses, which is plenty to move the MXT along at an impressive clip due to its light weight of just 900 kilograms -- just a bit shy of a ton. The run to sixty is dispatched in under five seconds and top speed is up around a buck-fifty.

The car will be available beginning next May in the U.K., with other European destinations to follow. Fitting, as the car, with its chassis a blend of aluminum bonded with composites and its body of fiberglass, will be compared most directly with Britain's own Lotus Elise and Exige.

First Drive: Maserati Quattroporte S in Europe

Click above for high-res gallery of the Maserati Quattropore S

Let's be honest: cars can be a mode of transportation, but you're not reading Walkoblog or Cycleblog, now are you? At the heart of matters, what we're really pursuing here is that unbridled enthusiasm we had for cars as children. With every comparison of engine output and Nurburgring lap times, we're reaching back to the schoolyard, childishly debating the superiority of one sportscar over another. And all these galleries of high resolution images we bring you are just our updated version of hanging posters of Ferraris and Lamborghinis on the walls of our childhood bedrooms. How disappointed our younger selves would be, however, at what we end up driving when we finally have the means: ho-hum family sedans, bloated SUVs and wobly mini-vans. If only someone made an exotic sedan – not a compromise between the two, but a genuine exotic with four doors. That's exactly what Maserati did in 2003 with the revival of the Quattroporte, with a little help from sister-brand Ferrari.

With the Quattroporte, Maserati has proven itself capable of satisfying both our inner child and the one sitting in the back. A tough act to follow, then, because a sequel is seldom as exciting the original. But after 15,000 units delivered, the Quattroporte was treated to a mid-cycle refresh, sharpening up its already luscious styling, throwing in a host of new features and, most tantalizingly, dropping a bigger, more powerful engine into the mix. With such promise in store, we headed out to Austria to see what the boys from Modena had cooked up... and to seek out that boyhood grin once again.