When the Corvette and its buyers start getting bored, Chevrolet has the answer: Let’s do a special-edition Corvette! This has been going on for a half-century, with varying degrees of success. Some models or option packages are modern classics, like the original Z06 from 1963: This was a race-ready Corvette with a massive 36.5-gallon fuel tank, created by 'Vette godfather Zora Arkus-Duntov to sneak around GM’s self-imposed ban on factory racing. Only racers and other in-the-know buyers knew to check off the Z06 option box, which added a hefty $1,818 to the Sting Ray’s $4,252 base price -- and since only 199 were ever built, a primo Z06 can fetch a cool $1 million today.

 

The downside has been a welter of self-serving commemorative or “anniversary” Corvettes, including several Indy Pace Car models. These tend to add little or nothing to stock 'Vette performance while slapping on lurid paint schemes and decals so tacky that the cars appear to have been conceived by a 14-year-old NASCAR fan who may have found his way into daddy’s Wild Turkey.

 

So it’s always reason to cheer when Chevy gets it right, as it has with the reborn Z06 and ZR1 models. Yet those cars -- especially the 638-horsepower ZR1, which runs $110,000 -- are out of reach for many of the Corvette faithful. Well, allow me to tout the new Grand Sport coupe and convertible, themselves named for the Corvette prototype racers of a bygone age, along with limited-edition models from ’63 and ’96.

 

So you want to build your dream Rolls? Now you can.

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars said its first app for the iPhone and iPod touch is now available at the App Store. The app allows you to configure your own Ghost, Rolls' newest model.

The Ghost app allows you to choose from the thousands of design combinations available at Rolls-Royce dealerships. There are 12 paint finishes, three wheel styles, visible exhaust tips and a Silver Satin hood.

 

Wow. How very, very awesome.

Shell Helix Ultra and the creative team at JWT have made a damn cool car commercial. In order to show how their particular oil works in an engine, they created a completely clear (and oversized) engine, housed in a glass car. No computers, no CGI -- nothing but a whole bunch of research, plenty of man-hours, incredible amounts of labor, add some cameras and ... action.

The best part of this video, after the jump, is the behind-the-scenes details showing how the 30-second spot was made.

Really, it doesn't need much more introduction than that. Enjoy. 

Rally and gymkhana driver Ken Block is torturing tires with a Ford Fiesta these days. So our Microsoft friends at Turn 10 Studios, makers of Forza Motorsport 3, have their version of Block and his rally Fiesta sliding their way around some open space and through the warehouse available for viewing. So here you go. And keep an eye out for the subliminal advertising of your favorite car-enthusiast magazine.

 

We've covered vehicles that run on compressed natural gas (CNG) before, though mostly in their use as fleet vehicles. Despite the efforts of enormously wealthy former oilman-turned-environmental-crusader T. Boone Pickens to make CNG vehicles a reality, in terms of consumer vehicles they exist in far fewer numbers than hybrids and, if we had to guess, probably even pure electrics at this point.

Despite the fact that compressed natural gas burns far more cleanly than gasoline and is also far less expensive, in the U.S. the only commercially available CNG-powered car is the Honda Civic GX NGV, and up until recently it was available only in California, New York and Utah, where CNG refueling stations are (relatively) available. Oklahoma has just been added to that list, as well, boosting the number of major markets to just four. 

When you see the smooth, flowing lines of the redesigned Buick LaCrosse, the extended wheelbase of the Rolls-Royce Phantom and Mazda's Mazda2 compact sedan, you're seeing three examples of the same thing: how China is shaping the look and feel of automobiles destined for every part of the globe.

China is now the world's largest market for automobiles, and as this article over at CNet points out, size matters.

Everything from extended wheelbases to extra-roomy back seats to high-tech features to fuel-efficient 3-cylinder engines are incorporated with at least a partial eye to China's incredible demand for cars. GM, whose Buick vehicles have been far more popular in China than the U.S. of late, even has a word for the design language: the C-factor. 

There's an interesting article in Gizmag today about the new world record for most expensive speeding ticket.

As with any law, the particulars vary from country to country. In some places, like Switzerland and Finland -- previous countries of origin for world's most expensive speeding fines -- speeding tickets are calculated based on a combination of the severity of offense and the offender's net worth to discourage the ultrawealthy from flaunting the law, which led to the aforementioned fines of about $290,000 and $200,000, respectively. Those records have not only been broken, but shattered.

In the Netherlands, egregious speeding can be punished, in the most severe cases, by the forfeiture of the vehicle being driven, which recently led to the seizure of a Bugatti Veyron priced at about $2.35 million. And get this: The Veyron's owner wasn't even driving the car. 

Add the mighty Chevrolet Corvette to the list of recalled cars.

General Motors is recalling some 2005 and 2006 models for a steering-column problem. About 40,000 cars produced between March 2004 and January 2006 could be affected.

The problem is that repeated movement of the tilt-and-telescoping steering column could cause a signal interruption, resulting in a warning message appearing and the brakes coming on.