BMW isn’t known for making small vehicles. The x5 isn’t exactly a space saver and the 7-series was based off of original blueprints for Noah’s Ark. But with Audi’s recently unveiled pocket-sized and incredibly attractive A1, BMW has officially announced to Autocar magazine that they too plan to enter the small car segment.

What does this mean?

Just like Audi and their A1, BMW will most likely offer a premium B-segment hatchback with front-wheel-drive and a typical German price tag. However, unlike the Audi the BMW will probably look better (even though the A1 is mmm mmm good) and forgo the electrical problems that come standard with every Vdub and their premium counterparts. And because of their ownership of Mini, BMW already has the hardware to jump straight into the B-segment end of the pool.

Now take a seat because here comes the buzzkill. We won’t see these cars till mid-2013 at the very soonest, and that’s if everything goes according to plan…which it won’t. But hey, that just means two years of spy shots and BMW teaser commercials that we get to report to you!

[AutoCar, Chad Waite]

It’s back! A few days ago we saw the first spy shots of the new Ferrari 599 GTO, a car that should be nothing short of spectacular and damn pricey. Now new pictures of the Italian thoroughbred at its home stomping ground in Maranello have surfaced all over the intertubes. The pictures don’t reveal any major new visual changes but still leave us as excited as a sugar eating kid on Christmas morning.

With the pictures have come rumored details on the 599 GTO itself and it seems things are business as usual at Ferrari. Horsepower should hit around 700 from a big, loud Ferrari V12 with a redline of 9000rpm (tunnel driving anyone?). And that type of power means 0-60 is dealt with in a tidy 3.5 seconds (is it bad we wished it was quicker though?) and a top speed of over 210+ mph. It’s speculated that only 500 will be produced and to get one you’ve got to shell out a mind-blowing $410,000. Business as usual indeed.

[CarMagazine.co.uk, Chad Waite]

Once again the South Town Expo Center in Sandy, Utah played host to a medley of cars and exotic vehicles at the Utah Autorama Car Show. Custom restorations of cars older than the state of Hawaii were the show’s bread and butter, however, amidst all of the 1930 roadsters and hordes of Mustangs were exotic head turners, custom bike displays, automotive vendors, BMX stunt rider shows, and celebrity appearances and autographs.

Our highlights started with a quite modern and very out of place Noble M400, surprisingly the second Noble we’ve seen in Utah in a year. A handful of other supercars were scattered about the showroom floor including a Lamborghini Gallardo and Mucielago, a 2008 Dodge Viper SRT-10, and an absolutely stunning red 1973 DeTomaso Pantera (or a Ford GT according to the brilliant 15-year-old kid behind me).

But our “holy crap!” moment came when we stumbled across a  1972 Fiat 500 in perfect condition and decorated with Ferrari symbols and a Scuderia racing stripe. It’s the Fiat that wants to be a Ferrari– how cliche yet absolutely wonderful! This small Fiat is, without a shadow of a doubt, the coolest car in the history of the world.

Moral of the story? We went to Autorama expecting to get another informative Utah Auto Expo. Instead we stepped into an entertaining time warp to a generation where ‘MPG’ didn’t mean a thing and Plymouth cars were ‘just swell.’

[Chad Waite]

A few years ago, a good friend of mine and his dad decided they wanted to fulfill a dream of theirs and restore a 1974 Dino GTS.  They found a proper chassis to start with, and together began a 2 year journey of show winning restoration.  Luckily for us, they created a website dedicated to their project.

Some of you who aren’t in the know might ask, why the Dino? What makes it so special?  Simple answer: Just look at it.  Seriously, is there anything more gorgeous?  But, apart from the heavenly good looks, there is the performance and legacy that can only come from a car linked to Ferrari.

Enzo Ferrari wanted to create a lower priced, more “affordable” sports car for the public; something to compete against the Porsche 911.  At the time, all Ferraris were screaming V-12’s and Enzo wanted to keep it that way.

To help differentiate the cars, the “Dino” brand was created.  The name “Dino” comes from Enzo’s late son, Alfredo Ferrari, who died after a battle with muscular dystrophy.   The car, named in his honor, began life in 1968 as the Dino 206 GT. It had a mid mounted 2 liter V6 engine creating about 160 horsepower.

With a greater demand for power, the 246 GT and GTS evolved.  The “S”, of course, stands for “Spyder” or as I like to say, hot automotive “Sex”.  Both models came with a larger and more powerful 2.4 liter V6 that made between 175hp (U.S.) and 190hp (Europe).   In a chassis that weighed only 2400lbs, the Dino was able to outperform its Porsche rivals across the board with a higher top speed and a faster 0-60 time of about 6 seconds.

Approximately 1200 Dino GTS’s were made between 1972 and 1974. Only the lucky few, like my friend and his father, are able to call one their own.

The 2010 Geneva Motor Show has given us our fair share of exotic and very expensive supercars including the new Gumpert Apollo S and the Lamborghini and Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera. Koenigsegg even wow’d visitors with their new 910 horsepower Agera.

But wait- why stop at a car that doesn’t even develop horsepower in four-digits?

For a second time at Geneva, Koenigsegg dropped some jaws after they introduced the one-of-a-kind CCXR Platinuss- a car that can only be described as an expensive tire shredder. Why? The CCXR Platinuss was specially developed for a Brazilian dealership to run on Bio-ethanol E100, a tweak that results in an absolutely incomprehensible 1100 brake horsepower!

This arena of horsepower is so seriously beyond comprehension that the only way to remotely understand what 1100bhp means is a simple comparison. Lets look a new 2010 Toyota Corolla. At 2811 lbs, the Corolla sports an average 132 horsepower from its inline-four cylinder engine. Now take the CCXR Platinuss. At a curb weight of 2822lbs- just eleven pounds more than the Corolla- this Koenigsegg is eight and half times more powerful on paper than your average, everyday car. Eight and a half!

But we’re sure it feels like a hell of a lot more off paper and behind the seat.

[GTSpirit, Chad Waite]

First VW introduced the Scirocco and gave us here in America the proverbial “naa, naa, na-na, naaa” by saying “no soup for you!” and not releasing it on our shores.  Even though all of us here at DailyDerbi agree it is truly a hot hatch, VW has no plans to bring it here.  Well, VW is at their teasing ways again with the new Polo GTI recently debuted at the Geneva Auto Show as covered by the blokes over at Autoblog.

The Polo GTI is the original MK1 Golf GTI reincarnated providing the same lightweight, peppy fun of the original but for the modern age.  The peppiness comes thanks to a twin-charged, meaning both a super AND turbo charged 1.4 liter 4 cylinder that cranks out 178 hp and an impressive 184 lbs/ft of torque.   Lighter than its bigger brother, the Golf GTI, but with similar power numbers means the little Polo should be good times on both road and track. The Polo GTI also benefits from the excellent interior fit and finish that VW has become famous for with modern displays and nicely appointed throw-back plaid seating.

There may be a light at the end of this tunnel as VW execs are considering bringing the Polo, and possibly it’s pepped up GTI version, to the U.S.  Let’s hope they do, fingers crossed!

Readers- if up to till this very moment you’ve been unable to figure out the point of a BMW X6 let me make one thing clear: you are not alone. For the most part the entire motoring world cannot see rhyme or reason in this large, powerful and surprisingly incapable SAC (yes, that’s BMW’s own acronym for Sports Activity Coupe). Oh ya- and its expensive. Like $60,000 expensive.

So it was an understandable moment when our jaws hit the floor after seeing the Hamann Tycoon EVO M for the first time at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show. Its outlandish, carbon fiber draped looks beg for attention but the real story lies under the hood (carbon fiber) where 670 furious aftermarket horses wait. 670 horsepower!

As the always sharp guys at AutoBlog pointed out, this is the exact same horsepower as the most powerful Lamborghini ever made, the Murcielago LP670-4 SuperVeloce. And that got its 670hp from a huge 6.5L V12. This X6 (if you can even call it that anymore) is “only” packing a 4.4L twin-turbo V8.

You know, we could go into specs, details, pricing- the lot, but instead I am just going to leave it at this: the Hamann Tycoon EVO M is just like a Las Vegas prostitute. It may be interesting to look at from 50 feet away but if you take it for a spin you’ll probably end up dead.

[Autoblog, Chad Waite]

While the Geneva Auto Show may be stealing the world’s attention with exotic supercars and crazy concepts, another, perhaps more important, automotive story developed on Monday in South Africa. During a brief meeting regarding the upcoming series of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May were thought to be English astronauts by South African president Nelson Mandela.

Needless to say, when Clarkson revealed that the closest he had been to space was a brief brush with a homemade Reliant Robin space shuttle, there was a bit of confusion.

“This was tricky. I couldn’t say that we made a pokey television program about cars because then he might wonder what on earth we were doing wasting his valuable time,” Clarkson said.

We just hope that the awkward moment that had to have followed was documented by Top Gear cameras…

[One India, Chad Waite]

It’s powerful, it’s beautiful and it’s very, very green (but not in the way you’d expect). It’s name is also hard to say completely in just one breath. Yes, we must be talking about the ‘hot off the Geneva presses’ 2011 Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera.

With just one glance you note that this Lambo isn’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill supercar. Notice the huge spoiler, Reventon styled front fascia, and the huge, huge rear diffuser (not unlike the one on the new 2011 Gumpert Apollo S).

But there is more than meets the eye than just aesthetic trinkets.

The name Superleggera translates to, quite literally, super light and it tips the scales at shockingly low 2,954 lbs! Ok, numbers are just numbers though- how light is that really? Lets get a comparison here. A standard Chevy Cobalt with a 4-cylinder motor weighs in at predictable 2,681 lbs- just 273 lbs less than the LP570-4 Superleggera.

For a measly 273 extra pounds the Gallardo gets the trademark Lamborghini 5.2L V10 that churns out a massive 561 horsepower. It gets a complete carbon fiber body. It even gets gorgeous lightweight aluminum wheels (the best looking stock wheels we’ve ever seen on a Lambo). What an amazing car.

The only non-amazing part is bound to be the price tag for the 2011 Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera, a secret that not even the Geneva Auto Show can steal from Lamborghini’s lips just yet.

[Lamborghini, Chad Waite]

Just pictures- that’s all we have right now of the new Gumpert Apollo S that is scheduled to be “officially” revealed at the Geneva Auto Show tomorrow. No details on new specs or pricing yet, but these pre-show pictures are more than enough to get us super excited for this 200+ mph demigod.

Probably the most notable change is the completely redesigned backside, including four huge exhausts, a large wing, and a massive rear diffuser. Of course, the Gumpert’s ‘not good at any angle’ looks are still included and are sure to keep turning heads.

Notice the difference between a new Gumpert backside (above) and the old Apollo S (below).[TeamSpeed, Chad Waite]