#CadillacAts

Kicking off the Detroit Auto Show, the Cadillac ATS was just named the 2013 North American Car of the Year.

Auto journalists, like all journalists, shouldn’t be biased. And yet before we test a brand new car it’s hard not to have a good idea of what it will be like already.

Hosting its annual week-long Test Fest, the Automotive Journalists Association of Canada has announced its picks for Car of the Year in 11 categories with the Cadillac ATS and Ford Focus ST, among others, taking awards.

Back in July, when AutoGuide.com reviewed the 2013 Cadillac ATS, Editor-in-Chief Colum Wood extolled the virtues of its handling, but also commented on the shortcomings of the car’s manual transmission. It appears AutoGuide wasn’t the only one that felt the manual transmission could be better.

The Cadillac ATS is the American brand’s answer to the BMW 3 Series and it has now received an official EPA fuel rating of 21 mpg city and 31 mpg highway when equipped with the 2.0-liter four-cylinder turbo engine.

The first Cadillac ATS that rolled off the line in Lansing, Mich. earlier this year was held onto by the company, and is now being sold at a Barrett-Jackson auction with all proceeds going to support Team Joseph, a non-profit organization that funds Duchenne muscular dystrophy research.

Due to a glitch with its OnStar system, General Motors has been forced to stop the sale of several models as the American automaker moves quickly to resolve the issue.

Designed as a rival to the BMW 3 Series, the Cadillac ATS has received plenty of praise, especially for its new 272-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine.

Called the ‘glamour’ concept, Cadillac teased us with photos today of the new concept that they say will debut at an undisclosed autoshow sometime in 2013. 

The Cadillac lineup has just been bolstered thanks to the recent introduction of the ATS and XTS, but the real product boost will come in 2013, when the CTS and Escalade get redesigned, and the all new ELR sports coupe debuts.

The first entry into the compact luxury segment from Cadillac comes in the form of the ATS, which entered production today at the Lansing Grand River assembly plant in Michigan.

Cadillac released its new ATS at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show, and now the first official fuel mileage ratings are in for the non-turbo 2.5-liter four cylinder, coming in at 22 mpg city and 33 mpg highway.

Ever see the cars in our spy photos page and wonder why they look like that? New paint job trends emerge all the time, like gloss-less matte paint finishes, which are becoming more and more popular in recent years. Some companies like to dial it up to 11 with chrome finishes on their entire cars. But there is one look that is always intriguing: car camouflage. No, not the desert or arctic warfare kind, we’re talking about camera-camo. 

If you’ve spent even a smidgen of time on our Auto News page then you’ve probably seen one of our spy photo stories. A recurring trend in these stories is the bizarre magic-eye look on the prototype vehicles that our spies track down.

The truth is that car companies deliberately make their cars look that way so that when and if these prototype cars get snapped by a photographer, certain incriminating details are not visible.

SEE ALSO: Check out the latest spy photos

Also, it’s worth noting that the look isn’t even a paintjob at all, but a vinyl application. The pattern on the application is perfect at tricking even the most advanced auto focus system on a camera. That’s because a camera’s auto focus system uses a subject’s colors to figure out its focus.

Dan Suszko from Graphik Concepts sells these vinyl wraps and confirms that it really works wonders to hide body work in photographs. “Car companies want to put an end to one person exposing their product to the world” Suszko said. “It really hides the way things look in low-res images,” he added.

Diesel engines offer unique advantages, with plenty of torque making tiny power plants more useable in small cars, while making modest size engines a functional alternative to much larger gasoline ones in SUVs. Towing, after all, is not something hybrids are known for. Additionally, diesel engines can provide fuel economy closer to that of a hybrid, without any of the worries surrounding new technology; plus, there’s no battery pack compromising passenger or storage space.

With those advantages, not to mention a push by automakers to meet increasingly strict corporate average fuel economy standards, a slew of diesel models are set to arrive on our shores in the near future. If you’re considering the switch to diesel power, here are a few options you’ll soon be able to consider.

Cadillac has released a dozen or so new photos of its upcoming 2013 ATS sedan along with a new video showing off its lightweight chassis, further teasing us about the new model that hasn’t even had its pricing announced yet.