ALL TOO OFTEN I am asked what a good car is, and invariably the answers depends directly on who wants to know. Family man? Then you want something roomy, safe and economical. Car for the wife?

I DON’T know about you, but when I first heard  about the 1Malaysia F1 team project I immediately tidied up my resume and sent it to Datuk Tony Fernandes.

After all this isn’t a  Mickey Mouse effort. By all accounts Team Lotus F1, as the outfit will be known, has huge aspirations.

The first of these is just making it onto the grid by next March. That’s just six months to design, build and test a working, competitive F1 car.

HAVE you seen the new Hyundai Tucson? It's called the Tucson ix back home where it's just been launched, and it's a stunning piece of machinery. It's not gorgeous in a classically Sophia Loren sort of way, but it's adorned with muscular  bulges and creases, just like an SUV should be.

DON’T let your eyes fool you. Though the new E-Class Coupe wears the same angular face with four trapezoidal headlights as the sedan, and has similar styling features like the bulging haunches over the rear wheels, the two cars are very different beasts.

For one thing, the E-Class Coupe actually shares much of its mechanical make-up with the C-Class and not

THANKS to Mr Al Gore, we all feel lousy about driving cars now. If he’s to be believed, the very existence of Ferrari and Lamborghini are enough to turn the Earth into some fiery Hell on, well, Earth.

Let’s get one thing straight, though. The planet itself isn’t in any real trouble. When we humans talk about the dangers that the environment is facing, we’re really concerned about our own pink asses.

WHAT is the car of the future going to be like? Is it going to be a variation of the Toyota Prius, with its petrol-electric hybrid drivetrain? It certainly is an elegant piece of engineering. In the Prius (say ‘Pree us' and not ‘Pry us') there's a frugal 1.8-litre engine and an 82bhp electric motor on board. Either one can drive the car independantly, or both of them do at once when you want to accelerate hard.

That gives rise to all sorts of clever functions.

REMEMBER Volkswagen, the German giant that was in a sort of courtship dance with Proton a couple of years ago? Well, nothing became of the whole affair, and after several rounds of optimistic talks suddenly Dear John letters were flying all over the place.

IF YOU'VE VENTURED onto the E2 section of the North-South Highway lately, you might have noticed an increased number of usually new, usually shiny cars whose number plates start with the letter ‘S'.

That's because our cousins to the south are into their mid-year school holidays, an event that tends to disgorge thousands of Singaporeans onto our streets where they can enjoy freer air, gaze at the horizon and see mountains instead of buildings, and cheep like birds

Authorised Porsche distributors Auto Eurokars Sdn Bhd, finally unveiled the new Boxster and Cayman models in the Malaysian market last week. Being launched by Dato‘ Mokhzani Mahathir, chairman of Jaseri Automotive Group, the new models came with the theme called ‘Power Play'.

LX Mode will be having their GP Sales in conjunction with the launching of the new LXMode Automart from
tomorrow till the end of the month in Damansara Uptown.

With models ranging from Japanese manufacturers such as Honda and Toyota to European manufacturers
like Mercedes-Benz and BMW, there will be a discount frenzy of up to RM20,000 throughout the GP Sales.

LOOKING around the global car industry today, I see a booming business on the horizon, but mostly for wedding planners.

Volkswagen and Porsche are trading engagement rings, after the families that run them (respectively, the Piech and Porsche clans) have made up after decades of bickering.

Fiat is asking Obama for Chrysler's hand in marriage. There's no dowry; Obama just wants to know if Fiat has a stable job and comes from the right background.

I SOMETIMES feel like I’m making a shameful confession about this, but I have a fetish for hybrid cars. Road testers are supposed to be all agog about Ferraris and Maseratis, and anything with eight cylinders or more is meant to stir the same bits of me that come alive when a race queen strolls past.