Aiming for a total production volume of 4,500 units, McLaren will introduce one new model (or a version of an existing model) per year for the next five years. McLaren North American chief Tony Joseph laid out the British automaker’s plans at a sit down lunch in Toronto, Canada – the first stop of a 10 city dealer tour in North America and the only one in Canada.

Joseph joined McLaren in early 2009, at which point we were surprise to learn that McLaren already had a prototype vehicle built. In fact, Joseph says the MP4-12C is part of a careful plan to take the racing company into the street car business; a plan that has been culminating for six years.

The connection to racing is extremely important for McLaren, helping it build a strong reputation. Stating that McLaren is “The most successful racing team in history,” Joseph continually came back to two key philosophies for both the brand and the car, namely, “substance over flash,” and “lower volume, higher standards.”

McLaren’s current plan is to sell just 1,000 units of the MP4-12C in its first year of production and so far that number seems easily attainable. Before the dealer network was announced several weeks ago and before the high-profile unveiling in front of one of the world’s wealthiest crowds at Pebble Beach, McLaren had already racked up 2,700 names of interested buyers. While Joseph did caution that “interested” doesn’t necessarily equate to a sale, McLaren would need just over a third of those potential clients to make its sales target. According to Joseph, the majority of those names weren’t Mercedes owners or Ferrari owners, but Porsche owners, a group that Joseph hints is familiar with the “substance over style” approach.

GALLERY: McLaren MP4-12C Launch in Toronto, Canada

As though the twin-turbocharged 592-hp carbon-chassis MP4-12C couldn’t get any cooler, McLaren has revealed that it will offer an optional Hero Cam setup in its new exotic.

It’s not clear if the option is included with or in addition to the Navigation system and 80 gig hard drive, but it will be available and if you’ve got the $225,000-plus to throw down on this high-tech exotic, then you certainly won’t be hard-pressed to shell out the extra cash for a fully loaded model.

There’s one video camera out the back, one recording the road ahead, plus, there’s even one located just over the driver’s right shoulder to get that perfect F1-style shot showing the driver’s head bobbing around under the incredible acceleration, braking and lateral g-forces.

Peter Freiberger, McLaren’s sales manager, informed us that owners will be able to download the videos via a USB key. We wonder how longer it will take before the first shots show up on YouTube – and then how long before the first bit of incriminating video is recorded.

Car trips with the kids can be painful – especially the long ones. So we guess that the Replacement Headrest DVD Player and NES/SNES Emulator system was invented by parents who had just had enough (or by this guy here).

This cool in-car AV entertainment system trades out the headrests on the front seats for a pair of DVD-player-equipped replacements. Complete with an LCD display, an FM transmitter and an NES/SNES emulator, it may not be as technologically advanced as their fancy-schmancy game systems at home, but when they’re forced to choose between sing-a-longs with the parents or this, we’re going to place our bets on the fact that they’re going to choose the latter.

Both of these units can be hooked up together, so they can watch the same movie across both screens, and it also has a built-in FM transmitter that works with your car’s speaker system. This system even pulls double duty as a NES/SNES emulator when you plug in a set of generic gamepads, and it even comes with a CD full of 550+ classic ROMS.

Other features that come with this sanity-saving device include DIVX compatibility, headphone jacks, a wireless remote, composite AV inputs, SD card reader and even a USB port for accessing multimedia content. You can buy it for $175.

[Source: Coolest Gadgets]

Mazda is betting that their new lineup of SKY direct injection gasoline and diesel engines will help raise the company’s fleet fuel economy by 30% by 2015.

Mazda, which has long refrained from hybrid cars, claims that the next generation 2015 Mazda3 with a SKY-G gasoline engine and a Sky-Drive 6-speed automatic will get 40 mpg on the highway, up from 33 mpg. The Mazda6 will get a SKY-D diesel engine that will get 43 mpg on the highway, a bump from 30 mpg on the current car.

While Mazda said that the first SKY-G powered car will arrive in 2011, they were tight-lipped about what car would receive it. Signs point to the next generation MX-5 as the most likely candidate.

Despite the investment in the SKY powertrains, Mazda said it would introduce a hybrid in the near future, with technology licensed from Toyota. “We have a plan to introduce [the technology] gradually, starting from simple devices,” Seita Kanai, director of r&d for Mazda Motor Corp. told Automotive News. ”The more complex a device is, the more costly it becomes.”

[Source: Automotive News]

Chevrolet’s Volt plug-in hybrid isn’t the only vehicle that will get its own smartphone app. The Chevrolet Cruze compact will also join the bandwagon with an OnStar-supported program that gives owners new access to various functions of their vehicle via a smartphone.

Owners using the Chevy Connect feature on their phones will be able to monitor the fuel guage, door locks, tire pressures and activate the horns, lights and alarm system.

GM also announced that many of its 2011 vehicles from across the brand spectrum would be able to utilizie the Connect system, which could easily become an attractive selling feature to technology-savvy customers.

Get more Chevy Cruze news and info at CruzeTalk.com

[Source: Inside Line]

In advance of the Los Angeles Auto Show, where the U.S.-spec Fiat 500 will make its North American debut, the company held a dealer meeting for 400 of its franchise holders.

According to the AFP, Fiat told Chrysler dealers that it wants to open 165 showrooms in small car markets, with the goal of selling 50,000 Fiat 500′s. A statement released by the company stated that “”The new Fiat retail network will begin selling the US version of the Fiat 500 late this year, and the Fiat 500 Cabrio model in 2011.”

The 50,000 sales figure is similar to the total number of vehicles sold by MINI in the United States.

[Source: AFP]

The BMW M3 Tiger Edition, aka the M3 for people who like Mixed Martial Arts and t-shirts with rhinestones, is only going to be launched in China, but that hasn’t stopped BMW from releasing a photo gallery of the car.

The gallery shows a bunch of actors doing some “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”-style acrobatics, as well as a radioactive orange paint. Unfortunately, the Ed Hardy Tiger motif interior is not on display.

Hit the jump to see more of the BMW M3 Tiger Edition

[Source: BMW]

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General Motors is hoping to expand their Opel nameplate beyond its traditional European markets to places like China, Australia, South America and other unspecified Asian countries.

GM is hoping to leverage Opel’s premium brand image to expand its lineups in places where the General lacks a foothold in that market segment. Chevrolet (and Holden) are the sole brands operated by GM in these areas, with the exception of China.

China poses a particular conundrum, since Buick enjoys enormous social cachet in the 1 billion strong country, where the pre-Communist Emperors drove Buicks exclusively. Many Buicks are also derived from Opel products, which may pose a problem for GM, which now must position two premium brands head to head with one another.

General Motors sold 4,000 Opels in China last year as a trial run, and the company is optimistic about the brand’s fortunes. “We will market Opel as a European designed car in the premium segment,” an Opel official told Deutsche Welle. “There are a growing number of Chinese who like European cars and have the money to afford them.”

[Source: Left Lane News]

Diesel and performance don’t really go hand-in-hand – at least not on this side of the Atlantic. But over in Europe there’s a strong believe that you can have fuel economy and plenty of torque. With two diesel offerings in MINI‘s lineup since 2007 (the One D and Cooper D), we’ve heard several rumors of a Cooper S D model, mixing high-performance with diesel technology the way VW does with the GTD.

According to a new report by BigBlogg, the Cooper S D will get a BMW 2.0-liter turbodiesel, rather than the Peugeot engine that powers the other diesel MINIs. Similar to the engine found in the 1 Series and 3 Series, power will be rated at 141-hp, a jump of 31-hp over the Cooper D, wile torque will be an impressive 221 ft-lbs, a jump of 44 ft-lbs over the Cooper D.

The car is set to hit Europe next year with no plans to ever make it to the U.S.

[Source: BigBlogg via MotoringFile]

Suzuki‘s Swift compact car won near universal praise in Europe and Asia, winning Car of the Year awards in the UK and Japan, as well as seeing duty in international rally championships.

Suzuki was all set to bring the next generation Swift to North America, as a follow-up to their Kizashi sedan, but the project was canceled just before the car was slated to be approved by government regulators. According to two Suzuki spokesman, the desire to look for synergies with VW, as well as difficult exchange rates, made the Swift’s importation more difficult than the company would have liked. A reduction in the company’s marketing budget may have also played a part. If the Swift does make it to North America, expect it to be here this time next year.

[Source: Autoweek]