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Mini launches its second convertible, this one more Mini on the inside.

Earlier this year, Mini unveiled the Cooper Coupe, basically a Mini Cooper with two fewer seats, a separate trunk, and a chopped roof. Now, Mini has officially introduced the Coupe’s partner in crime, the Cooper Roadster, which features all of the above, but adds a drop-able roof.

Keep Reading: 2012 Mini Cooper / Cooper S / John Cooper Works Roadster – Official Photos and Info

PHOTOGRAPHY BY: CHRIS DOANE AUTOMOTIVE

Additional camouflage has dropped from prototypes of Ford’s upcoming 2013 Escape, revealing more than ever just ahead of the crossover’s L.A. auto show debut next month. What has emerged, it seems, is an evolutionary design of the outgoing European Ford Kuga, which itself looks like the lovechild of the new Focus and a Toyota RAV4. We had kind of hoped that Ford’s first “world” crossover would retain more of the character of the Vertrek concept—which previewed this model—than apparently it will.

An interior shot provides a glimpse of tunneled gauges and a center stack arrangement much like that of other recent new Fords. A screen appears tucked deep inside a binnacle at the top-dead center of the dash. Don’t look for the capacitive touch controls like those found on the Explorer/Edge inside this particular Escape; this prototype features buttons all the way, and lots of them. That said, we expect that a (hopefully much-improved) version of MyFord Touch will be offered. As we previously reported, Ford has confirmed that the Escape will be powered solely by four-cylinder engines and will offer no hybrid option.

Given that the only Escape Americans know is a squared-off box on wheels that dates back to 2001, this new one will probably be well-received. Anyone who’s been to Europe and seen a Kuga, however, may be less surprised that Ford can pump out a cute ute that’s handsome and decent to drive. We’ll have the full details and an undisguised look at the 2013 Escape in the coming days.

Suzuki may not be selling a whole lot of cars these days, but we think this roofless Grand Vitara Marine concept the automaker is bringing to SEMA contains some winning elements. The Marine concept began life as a 2012 Grand Vitara SUV—which has a fair bit of off-road chops—but was completely redone with a nautical theme by students at Ohio Technical College for the SEMA show.

To beef up the Grand Vitara for marine duty, OTC students jacked the suspension skyward with a lift kit and fitted upsized chrome wheels wrapped in meaty off-road tires. There’s a tough-looking front Bull bar bumper and winch, tubular side steps, a hood scoop, and the door handles were shaved. The biggest modification to the Grand Vitara was the removal of its roof; it’s replaced by a speedboat-style basket handle over the rear, to which a pair of spotlights and two fishing poles were mounted. The front doors are pillarless, and the side glass was cut to resemble the tapering style of a speedboat’s wraparound windshield. Other nautical touches include a surfboard-shaped rearview mirror and wave graphics behind the front wheels. The Marine concept’s rear-mounted Suzuki outboard motor does go, ahem, overboard with the boat theme a bit.

The Grand Vitara Marine concept looks a bit like a remastered Isuzu Amigo convertible, which we dig. Spare us the apparently pointless outboard motor, cheesy body-side graphics, and the fishing poles, and we’d happily hit the trails in this one.

We embark on a mileage marathon of over 40 mpg to see if old tech can be massaged to hang with the car of tomorrow.

Like some pro party animal tripping across the 40-year threshold into middle age, today’s car world is fraught with 40-mpg angst. Even Ferraris and F-150s are heading toward the big Four-Oh by gummint decree. The good news: We get to curb Middle Eastern oil-freighter traffic while enjoying new strides in efficiency. Major mpg has escaped the lab and infiltrated our new-car fleet, and everybody feels like a winner.

Keep Reading: 2011 Chevrolet Volt vs. Chevrolet Cruze Eco – Comparison Tests

Chevrolet is marking its 100th anniversary this week. To celebrate, we’re republishing two posts per day from our blog archives, each one plucked from a different decade of the marque’s long existence.

There is such a thing as desperation, friends, but that is not something we’re going to talk about today. Today we’re going to discuss the new 1927 Chevrolets. First things first: They are cars, see, not beer. (We know a few dolls who don’t believe that liquor is illegal in this town, but they’re daddied-up dames that live off the clams of some other fool egg.) The ’27 Chevrolets are the kind of nifty, class-high rigs you won’t see parked outside a juice joint. This keen range is called the Chevrolet Capitol Series AA, something the ad boys in Detroit have billed as “The Most Beautiful Chevrolet Ever.” Maybe. Maybe if the car came with a foamy head and a swell hoppy aftertaste, we’d have a little more tolerance for Madison Avenue–style applesauce.

Let’s take stock here: Eight body styles, a pretty new radiator shell, and bullet-style headlights. Bodywork is close kin to last year’s Chevrolet Superior Series V and 1925′s Superior Series K, but this is no long-in-the-tooth Ford Flivver. Fact is, old Henry Ford killed off the Tin Lizzie this year, making way for the upcoming Model A; the Chevy Capitol should help unseat Ford’s dominance in the market. If all goes to plan in Detroit, the three-millionth Chevy will roll off the line some time in 1927.

Drink it up, folks. After all, it’s not like you can buy anything stronger. (And if you’re looking for a gin mill, scram. We can’t help on the clock.)

–Shemp Smith, via transcontinental Western Union cable and telephone report.

This post was made possible by Shine-Gleem Hair Kreem—the hair tan for the dapper man. Available at better variety stores, including Woolworth’s and Neisner’s.

The foundation laying ceremony of Toyota’s R&D center, or Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing Center (China), was held in Changshu, Jiangsu province recently.

China’s authorities are not satisfied with Toyota’s development of new energy vehicles in China. Now Toyota has invested $689 million to open its fifth R&D center outside Japan, which is expected to complete construction in 2013. It’s also Toyota’s second overseas R&D center with a complete test track.

At the foundation laying ceremony, Toyota’s president Akio Toyoda announced that the center would focus on the technology development of new energy vehicles and the corresponding localization. The company also determined its development route for new energy vehicles in China for the first time: to improve internal combustion engine, develop hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, and fuel-cell vehicles.

An official with China’s National Development and Reform Commission thinks Toyota’s two joint ventures in China should catch up with its peers in the development of new energy vehicles. It should take the lead in terms of production and sales. The official also thinks plug-in hybrid vehicles are more easily received for their prices and utilization convenience compared with all-electric vehicles and fuel-cell electric vehicles.

It seems that Saab is now a Chinese company along with Volvo. Pangda and Youngman have taken over Saab in its entirety and it will become part of the Pangda-Youngman empire. The two companies are set to spend 100 million Euro on the company, which of course has to receive approval from the National Development and Reform Council (NDRC) before any more monies can be sent out of the country, this means Youngman-Pangda will have to be very quick about submitting a business plan and proposal to the Central Govt in China.

From Bloomberg:

Saab Automobile’s parent announced a deal to sell the Swedish carmaker to two Chinese companies in an effort to save the cash-strapped automaker from bankruptcy.

Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co. and Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. will purchase Saab for 100 million euros ($142 million), parent Swedish Automobile NV said in a statement today. The memorandum of understanding is valid until Nov. 15.

Saab, which has produced few cars since it first halted production in March because of a lack of money, avoided bankruptcy last month after a Swedish court granted the carmaker protection from creditors. Youngman and Pang Da had originally agreed to take a majority stake in Swedish Automobile before that agreement fell apart earlier this month.

“This is fantastic news,” Eric Geers, a Saab spokesman said in an interview. “Now we’re hoping for a stable period where we can start thinking about making cars again.”

Swedish Automobile surged as much as 36 cents, or 46 percent, to 1.14 euros and was up 33 percent as of 10:34 a.m. in Amsterdam trading. The stock has fallen 70 percent in 2011, valuing the Zeewolde, Netherlands-based company at 28.6 million euros.

Saab filed for protection from creditors in September, three months after Pang Da and Youngman agreed to buy a combined 53.9 percent stake in Swedish Automobile for 245 million euros.

Attorney Guy Lofalk, Saab’s court-appointed administrator, had applied to the Vaenersborg District Court in Sweden to terminate the restructuring of the carmaker. Lofalk has now withdrawn that request pending a final sale of the automaker, Saab said today.

Saab will discuss payment and delivery terms with suppliers with the aim to restart production “as soon as possible,” Geers said by phone.

The agreement must be approved by Chinese regulators, the Swedish government, the European Investment Bank and General Motors Co. (GM), Saab’s former owner.

Now how fast do Pangda-Youngman have to be to get that funding in place? Local.se gives us the picture:

After setting a price tag nearly five times higher, Saab’s charismatic chief executive Victor Muller told the TT news agency Friday he was “thrilled.”

“Now the company’s future is really secured. The future looks very bright now,” he said

“We have the deepest pockets onboard now ensuring that the company will blossom, so I’m thrilled,” he added.

Swan said Friday its memorandum of understanding with the two Chinese firms was now “valid until November 15 of this year, provided Saab Automobile stays in reorganisation.”

So they have 18 days to get money and approval in places, and if we count working days that’s only 15 or so days. Now Pangda-Youngman face some issues if they want to produce Saab’s in China, of course the architecture used underneath the 9-3 and 9-5 is used by SAIC in China for the Buick platforms and Beijing Auto are about to use the older versions of the 9-3 and 9-5 platforms for their own cars, so can the two successfully navigate the halls of politics in Beijing to bring this deal down to the ground?

Victor Muller maybe happy with this 100 million Euro sale, which is 300 million less than what Spyker cars paid for it over a year ago, but the final results of the sale reside in different hands. The Chinese government has made no secret about the fact that they want the market to consolidate and push more manufacturers together rather than introduce more manufacturers to the market, Youngman are considered rather small in the Chinese automotive industry and are a bus manufacturer by trade, will they have the necessary clout to pull off the political smooching to get this deal inked off and will GM even go for the idea? Reuters points to some issues:

The owner of Swedish car maker Saab will hold talks with U.S. auto maker General Motors (GM.N) to convince it of the merits of a sale of Saab to Chinese investors, it said on Friday.

General Motors has preference shares in Saab, supplies it with parts and is a creditor. Its permission for the planned sale of Saab to China’s Pang Da Automobile Trade Co (601258.SS) and Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co for 100 million euros is needed, along with that of the Chinese authorities and the European Investment Bank, which has lent money to Saab.

Swedish Automobile chief executive Victor Muller, whose company is selling Saab, said he had so far only had a “brief dialogue” with GM about the planned sale, but hoped to convince them of the benefits of it.

“It is way too early to make a statement about whether this is going to be easy or not,” he added.

Will GM risk its relationship with SAIC to let Youngman-Pangda play car maker with technology related to the Buick line up in China? It seems like Victor, Pang Qing Nian and Pang Qing Hua are going to have to come up with a stellar PPT when they meet with GM and the Chinese government.

Business Week are reporting that Audi is loosing its sex appeal to its rivals BMW and Mercedes, but is that really the case? The A6L is the cornerstone of the Chinese governments automotive fleet, but the last generation A4 was certainly a ‘personal use’ vehicle and the new A4L seems to span the lines of personal use and business use where as the 3-Series from BMW and C-Class from Mercedes are too small for business users that prefer to be chauffeured during the week and drive themselves at the weekend.

Audi AG’s status as the carmaker of choice for Chinese bureaucrats has emerged as an obstacle in the world’s biggest automobile market as BMW and Mercedes-Benz gain traction with a generation of rich young buyers.

Audi’s share of China’s luxury-car sales has tumbled by 25 percent in less than two years as state agencies and executives tighten budgets and younger buyers seek alternatives to sedans traditionally used by the government. The German automaker supplied an estimated 70 percent of cars used by the government and state-held enterprises during the 1980s.

“Audi is seen as being a bit old-fashioned because of its association as being a government car,” said Shaun Rein, Shanghai-based managing director of China Market Research Group. “Wealthy consumers today want something sexier, more indulgent, which is why BMW and Mercedes have done well.”

Audi are obviously aiming to capture more of the personal use market with the introduction of the A1 in to China as a premium small car to rival the Fiat 500 and the MINI range, but in the next few months they are going to introduce the A3 hatchback and sedan, and also A5 in to China as locally made markets which should bring back the sex appeal to the four rings.

Update: I miscounted the Audi rings. Shame on me. I was thinking of buying an A3 too. Thanks to those that noticed.

The Chery G6 was born with government ministers in mind, the government have been told to put down their Audi’s and pick up Chinese branded cars as part of a cost cutting exercise that also benefits the local car industry and also boost the Civil Service in terms of PR. Chery have decided that their already plentiful long G6 is not long enough, so they created a limousine version for VIP’s.

The Chinese press are reporting that this limo is carrying the same 2.0T from the standard sized G6, but as the limo stretches for some 7.2 meters we think that this 160bhp engine is not exactly up to the task of hauling all that metal. On the inside, it seems that Chery have finally got the hand of luxury.

Updated front grill for 2012

BYD’s e6 personal edition hit the market in Shenzhen on 26 October after a 17-month stint in the Shenzhen taxi fleet. If everything goes well, the e6 will become a milestone of electric cars the world over, because of its range of 300km, and BYD will successfully build our dream – BYD is short for Build Your Dream. But can everything go well?

BYD is (at least, was) famous for its cheap cloned cars. For instance, a Corolla-based F3 only costs 50,000 RMB (€5.6k), but this time, the e6 is priced extremely high – 369,800 RMB (€41.3k, $57.9k, £36.2k). With 370,000 RMB in China, you can buy an Audi A6 2.0 TFSI, or a Chevy Volt AND a Dodge Caliber in the US, or a Nissan Leaf AND a Nissan Juke in UK. Considering the poorer brand image, few people will choose this car, even if in some big cities, the buyers can obtain up to 120,000 RMB (€13.4k) subsidies from central government and local government.

Does BYD really want to compete against Audi and other luxury brands? Of course no, but consumers have to pay the price for the 300-km range. Although the unsearchable carmaker did not disclose the specific capacity of the battery, it is unlikely less than 45 kWh, which means the battery may costs about 150,000 RMB (€16.7k) alone. This is why all electric cars refused large battery and reasonable range, except some luxury sports cars, like Mercedes SLS E-Cell and Tesla Roadster.

BYD provides e6 with many leading intelligent equipments to increase e6’s whole value so that it also reduce the percentage of battery price, even remote control and telematics are included in the configuration table. BMW also provide i3 with carbon fiber cabin to increase the whole value, but BYD’s brand image should be improved first.

In a word, BYD e6 builds a good dream for us, but it is too expensive. It may be a milestone of electric cars, but cannot be a best seller like the F3 and S6.

More significantly, when can we buy a real e6? BYD F3DM was launched 3 years ago as world’s 1^stextended range electric car (with a 1.0L engine), earlier than the Chevy Volt, but we still cannot buy one in most cities of China. The e6 has launched for the city of Shenzhen now, we hope it will be sold in more cities as soon as possible as there is a potential demand for electric cars all over China.