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Car and Driver lists 10Best for 2013, same as it ever was

Forgive us for having the distinct feeling of déjà vu, but it certainly feels like we've been here before. By that we are referring Car and Driver and the announcement of its annual 10Best vehicles for 2013. To be sure, it's an impressive selection of cars that combine heart-pounding performance and frugal sensibilities, but it also represents something of a broken record on the part of C/D. We're not so sure that's a flaw, though, as the resulting list is tough to argue with.
Vehicles like the Ford Mustang, Porsche Boxster, and BMW 3 Series have maintained their high-horsepower spots on this list for several years now. Even on the more practical and nimble end, the Honda Accord, Honda Fit and Mazda Miata have not budged. These continued spots are even in light of redesigns for some vehicles such as the Accord, Boxster and 3 Series.
In fact, the only newcomer to the 10Best list this year are the Scion FR-S/Subaru BRZ twins, which knocked out the Cadillac CTS-V. We think it would have been a huge misstep to have excluded the FR-S/BRZ, even in light of the supercharged Caddy's lamentable departure from 10Best.

2013 BMW X1

A Tasty Bit Of Old School For The New School
Against the backdrop of fervent hand-wringing from brand purists, BMW is on the cusp of finally offering front-wheel-drive vehicles. While that's a shock to the constitution, many are pointing to the company's fine-handling Mini offerings as an article of faith that it can get this drivetrain paradigm shift right. That may be true, but there's an even more important lesson that Mini has taught the decision-makers in Munich: how to make real money on small cars.
Before Mini came along, BMW - along with seemingly every other premium European automaker - never really figured out how to coax big dollars out of American wallets without developing cars that had large footprints, at least those other than sports cars. While the automaker really got rolling in America on the strength of little bantamweights like the 2002, it veered away from small cars sometime in the '80s. BMW subsequently crashed and burned with the cut-and-shut 318ti built off its E36 3 Series and, good as it is, the 1 Series hasn't given the company meaty volume or profits, either. Among other brands, the Audi A3 has never rung up big numbers, and the less said about the painful sales figures of the Volvo C30, the better. But Mini has beat the odds, blazing a more affordable and evidently compelling trail. As of late, the company's Countryman softroader has been a massive hit worldwide. No surprise then that BMW has reconsidered bringing over its smallest softroader, the X1, to the US.

The 2014 Alpina B4 Bi-Turbo Cabrio powers up luxury and speed

The BMW specialists at Alpina know how to exploit a niche when they see one. With the BMW M4 still not technically official, it saw the need for a higher performance four-seat convertible than the 435i 'vert. Enter the new B4 Bi-Turbo Cabrio that is debuting at the Geneva Motor Show.
The European-exclusive model takes BMW's 3.0-liter, twin-turbocharged inline-6 and massages it up to 410 horsepower and 442 pound-feet of torque, which is less power but more twist than the M4 would give buyers. Alpina's tend to be built more as quick, luxurious grand tourers, and the B4 Bi-Turbo gets is no different with an adaptive sport suspension and an eight-speed automatic. Plus it wears the classic pinstripes and 21-spoke wheels that are the brand's design hallmarks.
While the added weight for the convertible means that the Cabrio takes 4.5 seconds to reach 62 miles per hour, about a half-second slower than the coupe, at the moment it is the only way to get this kind of performance in a BMW convertible. Orders for the convertible open in March in Europe and prices in Germany start at 74,800 euros ($102,878 at today's conversion rates).