GMC, traditionally a home for rebadged Chevrolet trucks with more content, is preparing to jolt its lineup with a compact car aimed at young urban buyers.

General Motors Co. is expected to bring the GMC Granite to market in 2013. The Granite concept's front passenger seat pivots up and toward the console. With the seat up, a bicycle can be transported without removing its front tire.

GM gave the concept the turbocharged, 1.4-liter four-cylinder engine that's an upgrade on the Chevrolet Cruze.

Here are GMC's plans for the 2011-13 model years.

 

It's official: There's no mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette on the horizon. That's the word from General Motors' top global engineer.

As for a Corvette with a hybrid powertrain, that remains a possibility.

Karl-Friedrich Stracke, GM vice president of global vehicle engineering, on Tuesday discussed a wide range of topics--including the next-generation Corvette.

Over the past two years or so, countless Web and print stories have been written about the upcoming redesigned Corvette, and nearly all have speculated that GM was developing a mid-engine model. Speculation regarding the timing for the mid-engine car's debut was anywhere from the 2014 model year to several years later.

 

The sun is shining, the air is cool and some poor fools are wasting time out on the golf course at Pebble Beach.

Normally, of course, golf would be the thing to do at this California links mecca -- but for me, I'd rather ignore the "fore!" and focus on the four-wheeled wonders that are everywhere in the lead-up to the 60th Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Oh, and I happen to be riding around in quite the fine car myself, though one whose history lies ahead of it rather than behind: an all-new Saab 9-5 turbo, which won't hit dealer lots for another few weeks. 

BMW will build its Gran Coupe concept car, the company's development chief Klaus Draeger said.

The production Gran Coupe will rival luxury coupe-styled four-door cars such as the Mercedes CLS, Audi's upcoming A7 and the Porsche Panamera.

The concept was unveiled at the Beijing auto show in April. Draeger said the production version will be positioned close to the BMW 6-series.

 

It’s round three for the car that put Cadillac back in the luxury fight: a bold, brazen CTS coupe, a third body style to accompany the CTS sedan and sport wagon. And to send a 556-horsepower letter bomb to BMW and Mercedes, there’s naturally a high-performance  CTS-V version as well.

 

I drove that CTS-V coupe Tuesday at Monticello Motor Club, the rip-roaring private road course tucked below the Catskills of New York. Journalists in attendance also received a surprise visit from Mark Reuss, the new president of GM North America -- and the former head of GM’s Performance Division. Reuss had taken a break from the glare of his new position to drive his new baby and get his first taste of the technically challenging Monticello circuit.

 

Mercedes-Benz and Britain's Sky 3D channel teamed up to create what they're calling "the world's fastest 3-D movie." What does that mean, exactly? Frankly, not much. Semantics aside, what they're getting at is that they threw two race-car drivers -- rally driver Robbie Head and former F1 racer David Coulthard -- into a pair of 562-horsepower SLS AMG sports cars and let them tool around the Isle of Man TT track trailed by some pricey 3-D camera hardware and some helicopters.

Is it an expensive marketing ploy? Absolutely. Is this trailer in a mere 2-D? Indeed. Does it still manage to get your heart pumping hearing those gorgeous gull-wing Mercs tear up the pavement? You bet it does.

The movie premieres this weekend in England. Check out the trailer, via Jalopnik, after the jump. 

The Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance is upon us (I'm heading up for coverage tomorrow, so please forgive any hiccups in the posting schedule here), and to get us in the mood for completely over-the-top and ridiculous feats of automotive engineering that pretty much no one can afford, here's the Lotus T125 track car. Essentially, it's an F1-style race car sold to regular old drivers (well, those with a ton of money, anyway).

The T125 is about the size of a Porsche Panamera, but with even more oomph. Its 3.5-liter Cosworth V8 engine, essentially a detuned race engine, puts out a maximum of 640 horses (at 9800 rpm) and 332 lb-ft of torque. Here are some more specs for the race nerds, courtesy of Car and Driver: 

The Cadillac XTS Platinum concept may have screamed "flagship" at this year's Detroit auto show. But Cadillac already is looking at a more luxurious car--authorized by the boss himself.

This year General Motors Co. CEO Ed Whitacre authorized the brand to create a big, rear-wheel-drive flagship. The project still lacks a firm target date, sources say.

Here's what to expect in Cadillac's 2011-13 model years.