Auto For Speed

When it comes to Hondas, the highest compliment is that a Honda does what it is supposed to do. The Honda Pilot achieves just that. It isn’t flashy or ostentatious, but it does a lot of things quite well.

Visually, the 2011 Honda Pilot we recently tested manages to stand out from the crowd. It’s the winner of the Miss Isuzu Trooper contest in a sea of aerodynamic blobs that look as if they’ve melted a bit in the sun. In the crossover world, the Pilot is one of the few current offerings that still resembles a sport/utility vehicle. The styling advantage of flat sides: They improve interior volume for passengers and cargo, and can increase headroom at the outboard seats. The disadvantage: Air doesn’t flow over, under, and around the vehicle as well as with the aforementioned blobs, so it can take more work to get fuel economy comparable with its peers.

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Allow me to break down the intriguing mechanical cocktail you see here: Take one U.S.-spec Subaru Outback chassis, add a dash of JDM-inspired nose, an ounce of custom roof racks, two teaspoons of tinted taillights, and a measure of extended rear spoiler. Bolt in a single mildly tuned U.S.-market Legacy 2.5GT powertrain and a JDM Legacy tS suspension, shake vigorously for six months, and, VOILA!, you have yourself a bona fide Frankenwagon fit for SEMA’s Las Vegas Convention Center floor.

Easy enough, right? Maybe not…

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OMG! The winningest team in Formula 1 and the company that best translates that racing technology to its road cars has gone off the reservation and built an all-wheel-drive wagon with a suspension that goes up and down like a Range Rover’s. Not even Nostradamus saw this coming. The Mayans were right — the world is ending in 2012!

Have it your way: Ferrari offers 16 standard colors, 10 colors inspired by the 1960′s, 12 non-standard colors, and 3 three-layer colors. Pair them with polished, matte, or black rims, six caliper colors, and myriad combinations of interior monotone or multi-tone leathers and stitching. An online configurator makes them all available for internet dreamers.

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We’ve already seen and gone over all the juicy bits of the near-production Toyota FT-86 II sports coupe, but the Japanese automaker’s social media crew went over to the firm’s European headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, for a new photo shoot last week offering us a fresh batch of pictures as well as a behind-the-scenes video.

The second iteration of the FT-86 study made its first public outing at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this month. Its main purpose is to preview actual production model that will go on sale in late 2012. The well-received styling of the original concept model evolved gaining new front and rear ends, more pronounced surfaces and a host of other fresh details, with Toyota claiming that the design changes were made for safety regulations as well as for practical reasons.

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The world of hypercars is about to receive a new member, as Spada Vetture Sport recently announced that it will use the upcoming Top Marques Monaco (event kicks off on April 14) to introduce the Codatronca Monza.

The company hasn’t offered details about its new development, only mentioning that it will be quicker and lower than its Codatronica TS. This is a beast that relied on a 7.0-liter V8 to growl and deliver 630 hp & 668 Nm of torque (493 lb-ft). The aggressive four-wheeled creation also used a six-speed manual gearbox, which helped the powerplant propel it past the 62 mph mark in a brief 3.4 seconds and on to a top speed of 211 mph 340 km/h).

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