At the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show, Ford officially put all other muscle cars – and even some supercars – on notice. The 2013 Shelby GT500 made its public debut, and while it doesn’t look much different than the models that came before it, the huge change for 2013 lies under the hood: an all-new 5.8-liter supercharged V8 capable of sending 650 horsepower to the coupe’s rear wheels.

Since the modern GT500′s debut in 2007, Ford has always offered a convertible variant, and that isn’t expected to change with this new 2013 model, especially since the rival Camaro ZL1 will be offered in both hardtop and droptop forms. According to TopSpeed.com, the GT500 Convertible will debut at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show in just a few weeks, packing the same 650-hp powertrain and – at least, we hope – some added chassis tweaks for structural rigidity. We can’t even imagine trying to handle 650 supercharged horses through a willy-nilly rear end.

The only thing that isn’t expected to carry over from the coupe is the GT500′s 200-plus-mile-per-hour top speed. It may be possible to achieve this with the soft top in place, but we think the 200 Club will exclusively be reserved for the coupe and its sleeker shape.

Never before has such a little truck had to haul so much baggage. It’s been years that we’ve waited for Mahindra’s T20 and T40 pickups to finally make it to America, and with a dispute between Mahindra & Mahindra’s erstwhile U.S. Importer, GV USA, taking a long time to be settled by arbitrators in London, anddealers filing suits against both Mahindra and GV USA. With GV USA having gone out of business in September, it might be years before we ever see the T20 and T40.

Unless you believe the chaps at Mahindra Planet, “The Unofficial Mahindra U.S. News Source,” who seem certain that Mahindra will be manufacturing trucks in the U.S. as of 2012. That’s right, not just selling them here, but building them here. Their sources are unnamed, but the prediction relies on Mahindra’s connection to Navistar, the international truck and bus maker that recently leased a massive factory complex in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Mahindra and Navistar have a joint operation in India, and according to Mahindra Planet, they’ve worked together since 1963. Navistar has said it will have more than 2,000 people working at the Alabama complex by 2015, but hasn’t given any clue as to what it will be building there. Mahindra Planet thinks it will be the T20 and T40, and earlier this year Mahindra’s CEO did say that Navistar was a potential U.S. partner.

It would appear to be entirely speculation, but there is one aspect of a tie-up that seems to make “A-ha!” kind of sense: if Mahindra builds pickups at Navistar’s factory, it might also take advantage of Navistar’s already-established distribution channels. Nevertheless, even if all of this were true, you’ll probably have a lengthy wait: beyond the fact that Navistar’s complex was only recently set up to build a small number of rail cars, Mahindra hasn’t filed paperwork with the EPA for 2012-model-year trucks, so 2013 versions would be the first ones out. You might want to hold off on any wagers concerning that possibility…

The UK team behind the Juke R apparently didn’t seek approval from Nissan’s higher-ups before beginning the build, and the unholy GT-R/Juke hybrid concept was apparently born in secret before the unending teasers – see the latest one after the jump – began making their way online.

According to sources close to the company, the release was a complete surprise to many at the automaker and several Nissan executives at the company’s headquarters were put-off by the idea that a group of rag-tag engineers in the UK would take their ultimate driving machine – the flagship for everything Nissan is capable of – and toss it into an inexpensive compact crossover.

The motoring press hasn’t had the greatest of relationships with the2012 Volkswagen Jetta. When the sedan debuted, critics slammed the newest generation as a Walmart interpretation of a model many of us had grown up loving. The nicer-than-expected materials, playful handling and quiet cabin had all been scrapped in favor of a bargain basement price tag wrapped in styling as risky as sunblock in summer. The machine simply felt like the latest casualty of theVolkswagen campaign to become the world’s largest automaker. To make matters worse, buyers didn’t seem to care.

Despite a tide of vitriolic ink that’s risen around the 2012 Jetta, the model has seen an explosion of sales that’s left plenty of critics tapping their microphones and asking, “Is this thing on?” If anything, the exercise has proven that when it comes to moving vehicles in the now fiercely-competitive compact segment, price is still king no matter what the critics say. So, when Volkswagen promised to satiate the model’s longtime fans with a new GLI, the rank smell of skepticism came wafting through newsrooms across the country.

But with a stylish exterior, sporty indoor appointments and an upgraded suspension, the 2012 Volkswagen GLI seemingly makes up for the base model’s deficiencies, at least on paper.

The accusation began when the Audi A8 took on rather similar detailing as the smaller A4, and it was all but confirmed with the arrival of the latest A6: Audi was making the same car in different lengths. BMW, in fact, has been accused of the same thing with its sedans. Unlike BMW, though, Audi is apparently working to change that. It has begun a design overhaul called AQR that is claimed will “a set of individual themes for each of the three major model families.”

The acronym AQR stands for Audi sedans and hatches, Quattro SUVs, and R sports cars, and from the way it sounds, each group will get new detailing that sets it apart from the other group. According to Audi design honcho Stefan Sielaff, “the design details will be different.”

The initiative is occasioned by people saying Audi cars look alike, but based on the description of AQR, we can’t tell how that’s really going to change. Sielaff specifically said the project would address the proportions of the sedans in order to combat the ‘one sausage of different lengths’ perception, but we look forward to seeing if the sedans will really look less like one another, or whether it’s that the three groups of vehicles will look more dissimilar.