Remember the Bugatti that sold a few months ago for somewhere between $30 million and $40 million? It is still the world's most expensive car. And now you can have a look at it at the fabulous Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, Calif.

The 1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic was one of only three ever built, and it is regarded as one of the all-time great classic cars. This Atlantic won Best in Show at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in 2003.

Like its two siblings, the Mullin Bugatti was derived from Bugatti's prototype “Aerolithe Electron Coupe” unveiled at the 1935 Paris Auto Salon. Jean Bugatti produced the Atlantic's spectacular sculpted appearance using riveted aluminum panels that he mounted on Bugatti's most sophisticated, powerful and revolutionary Type 57S chassis.

 

General Motors skeptics have been loudly asking: Why would anyone want to pay $41,000 for the Chevy Volt? Fortunately, for fans of plug-in cars there’s a more pertinent question: Why wouldn’t you want to lease it?

 

Faced with its $41,000 base price, people had two natural reactions to Chevy’s plug-in hybrid. (Sorry, GM, but “extended-range electric vehicle” is confusing marketing jargon.) First, that the Volt is too expensive for mainstream buyers. And second, that it costs nearly $8,000 more than its Asian rival, the all-electric Nissan Leaf. But GM’s strategy is clear: The company doesn’t really expect people to shell out 41 grand, or even $33,500, which is the price after a $7,500 federal green-car tax credit. Instead, Chevy is luring shoppers, including people who would otherwise never touch its newfangled electric technology, with a sweetheart lease deal.

 

Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends for TrueCar.com, said that while the Volt’s purchase price is indeed out of reach for many middle-class consumers, the lease payments are not. At $350 a month for three years, with $2,500 down, the lease “takes the argument away that this is only a car for the elite and early adopters.”

 

As the race to ban distracted driving heats up -- 27 states have banned texting while driving, three others are poised to do the same and pressure is mounting on the remaining states without a ban -- the public campaign to discourage the practice has similarly intensified. Case in point: the following public-service announcement, which is about as graphic as any we've seen. The images are disturbing, and viewer discretion is advised. However, given the sustained campaigns by the likes of Oprah Winfrey and various private and government agencies to raise awareness of the dangers of distracted driving, it's likely we'll see similarly graphic ads aimed at hammering home the real-world consequences, which can include injury, jail time and even death.

Once again this "Drive Safely" video, which we found at Consumer Reports, is disturbing. 

General Motors Co. is enlisting its dealers as it fires back in a horsepower battle between diesel-powered heavy-duty pickups.

Ford will begin production this week of the most powerful diesel engine ever installed in a heavy-duty pickup, Barb Samardzich, vice president of powertrain engineering, said today in a statement released here at the CAR Management Briefing Seminars.

Dealers will make sure pickup buyers who purchased Ford's brawniest truck over the last four months get the power boost, too.

The 6.7-liter Power Stroke V-8 turbocharged diesel powering the 2011 Ford F-Series Super Duty, introduced in April, will be upgraded to 800 lbs.-ft. of torque and 400 horsepower, an increase of 65 lbs.-ft. of torque and 10 horsepower.

 

Jaguar's annual report for the year ending in March 2010 was recently published on the company's website, and according to the Detroit Free Press, it lays out plans for new models, including a roadster and a station wagon. (Maybe it's not just us -- maybe wagon fever really is taking over.)

Ratan Tata, chairman of India's Tata Motor Group, which owns Jaguar after taking the British luxury brand and the Land Rover badge off Ford's hands in 2008, also said that the company is considering an entry-level Jaguar model. Details, aside from the announcement, are still pretty much nonexistent at this point. 

Chevrolet fans, start scratching off lottery tickets: A Detroit-area customizer has devised a creation based on the Camaro SS dubbed “FireBreather.” And, it has a bit of star power.

The FireBreather is a movie prop made for an upcoming Michigan-produced film, Jinn. But Classic Design Concepts will craft 50 copies of this cruiser for sale to the public.

 

The Internet has a way of breeding, then amplifying, rumors. Think of it as one big high-school cafeteria. That’s especially true for the handful of sites that devote themselves to covering the automotive realm, where one misplaced word from a company representative winds up as the insinuation of an all-new model to come or, in this case, the death of two products from Ford. Recently, Automotive News reported that both the Ford Flex and its sister, the Lincoln MKT, weren’t long for this world. The story centered on Ford’s desire to separate Lincoln further from its more common sibling, but according to Ford, the report is flat-out wrong.

Ford representative Said Deep said the company has no intention of putting either the Flex or the MKT out to pasture after 2013, as the Automotive News article suggests.

“Speculative reports are incorrect,” Deep said. “These full size crossovers are vital to each brand. The MKT is one of the newest vehicles in the showroom and one of the most differentiated crossovers on the road today. Flex is one of Ford's highest-scoring vehicles in customer satisfaction, and continues to build a strong following." 

It seems car thieves haven’t caught up with the times yet. While law-abiding Americans are beginning to transition away from mammoth, gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles in favor of smaller, more fuel-efficient coupes, sedans, crossovers and hybrids, scofflaws are still drawn to the bling of luxury SUVs, according to a newly released study by the Highway Loss Data Institute, an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

 

For the sixth time in seven years, the Cadillac Escalade, a luxury sport-utility vehicle priced between $60,000 and $190,000, tops the institute's list as the vehicle most likely to be stolen here in the U.S. The report says that for every 1,000 insured Cadillac Escalades, during the 2007 through 2009 model years, an average of 10.8 were reported stolen. And the average claim for an Escalade is seven times the average for all passenger vehicles -- $11,934, which is a fraction of its sticker price.