Evey year automakers spend considerable amounts of money creating the most extreme racing cars to edge out their competition on the track. Unfortunately, lust-worthy as they are, those competition machines are rarely available to the common consumer to buy. That’s where homologation regulations come into play.

The Maserati MC12 campaigns in the FIA GT Championship. In order to enter the championship, which the team took in 2005, Maserati fabricated and offered 50 vehicles to the public. But as devastatingly fast as the roadgoing MC12 was, some customers wanted more. So Modena rolled out 12 examples of the MC12 Corsa (a.k.a. Versione Corse) to satisfy the needs of its most loyal, track-obsessed clients. Based closely on the GT1 racing version, the MC12 Corsa packs a mammoth 6-liter V12 producing 744 horsepower – 121 more than the roadgoing supercar. The Versione Corse compared to the Ferrari FXX: both of them were based on the Ferrari Enzo, both were offered in limited numbers, both were maintained for their best clients by the factory, and most importantly, neither were certified for road use. However, one German customer managed to get his MC12 Corsa certified for street use, and that solitary example is now up for sale. Illustrating the point that depreciation does not apply to the top echelons of the supercar market, the minimum bid on this unique MC12 Corsa is 1.45 million euros – 45% higher than the original sale price from the factory, and it’s sure to sell for more than that when the hammer finally drops.

Our colleague Chris Tutor recently took the Porsche Boxster RS 60 Spyder for a few quick turns around Barber Motorsports. A tad more powerful than the Boxster S, and filled with red leather, he discovered it was plenty of car on the closed circuit. We recently had a chance to get the special edition RS 60 off the track and onto the back roads of Rhode Island and Connecticut, and got to see what the car could do on twisting country lanes – and unexpectedly, in the rain. The likewise unexpected result: damn near perfection. Follow the jump to find out how,and check out the gallery of hi-res and sometimes very damp images below.

Although we thoroughly enjoyed the fleeting time we spent with the Pontiac G8 GT, what whith its 361 horsepower and 385 pound-feet of torque and all, it’s the upcoming GXP model that truly looks to catapult the Australian-bred sedan back into musclecar territory. We, along with just about every other gearhead, are especially looking forward to the six-speed stick and clutch pedal with which the 6.2-liter LS3 V8 making 402 hp and 400 lb-ft of torque will be paired. Of course, the rest of the car needs to be up to snuff too, so we are happy to take a gander at these spy photos of a pre-production prototype in Australia that indicate the nineteen-inch GXP-specific wheels and big Brembo disc brakes are present and accounted for. A slightly revised front fascia with a lower splitter combine with the rear diffuser to further signify that this is the high-zoot version of Pontiac’s sport sedan.

You can bitch and moan about the X Games version of rally racing being less pure than what you see on WRC, and while there are no trees whizzing by or bottomless pits in which to careen, the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA offered many opportunities for competitors to crash their cars in spectacular fashion. This year’s event at X Games 14 was divided between driving on dirt within the stadium and pavement outside with a big jump smack dab in the center of the stadium giving fans the best view of the biggest car-nage.

The most spectacular example of mechanical mayhem from this past weekend’s two-hour competition was during the quarterfinals in which Andrew Comrie-Picard didn’t quite make the big jump and smacked his rear end on the lip of the receiving ramp, which flipped his car end over end (see above and more in gallery). His competitor at the time, Dave Mirra, who is an X Games alum competing for the first time in a car rather than on a bike, just had to finish to win. He tagged the wall halfway through the race, however, and was forced to finish without being able to turn left.

Find out what happened in the gold medal race, as well video of that race and the Mirra/Comrie-Picard duel after the jump, and view some photos of yesterday’s Rally X action in the gallery below.

It’s already on Wikipedia so it must be true. We’ve just received confirmation from Tesla Motors that the upstart electric car company has somehow managed to snag Mazda’s top designer to become its new Design Director and head up a team of in-house designers at a new studio. Franz von Holzhausen is the current rock star of the automobile design world, having been the creative force behind the last few year’s worth of Mazda concepts that include the Nagare and Furai, as well as overseeing the design of all Mazda production vehicles in North America since February 2005. von Holzhausen has also been a designer at both General Motors and Volkswagen.

This is a major coup for Tesla, as its current Roadster was designed entirely by Lotus. The company’s chairman, Elon Musk, reportedly hand-picked von Holzhausen to design the rest of Tesla’s electric car range that will include both a mainstream sedan and sport compact.

A press release is on its way from Tesla Motors and will be added to this post when it arrives. Thanks for the tip, Antontio and David!

Ford’s 33.9-percent stake in Mazda, enough to give the Blue Oval control of the Japanese automaker, could come up for grabs if Ford is not able to turn its dire financial position around in short order, according to BusinessWeek. Such a move would likely cause major headaches at both automakers, as the two jointly develop many of their products and combine research and development costs between themselves. In fact, many of Ford’s best and most important cars in the U.S. are built atop Mazda’s midsize sedan platform. What’s more, the cash infusion of Mazda’s sale would only net Ford around $2.5 billion, barely more than what the automaker received for its stake in Jaguar and Land Rover. That amount would only allow Ford to stretch a little while longer without returning to profitability. In other words, it would hardly be worth the trouble and is therefore, we’re hoping, rather unlikely.

You have to sit back and applaud a car like the Audi RS6 Avant. As we’ve noted with amazement countless times, it’s a station wagon capable of outgunning supercars. In Europe that sort of thing flies, and while it still won’t be making the transatlantic voyage (even though we’re sure that, with a set of wings attached, it could get here on its own), even back in the old world not everyone is keen on the estate body-style. Which is why Audi is preparing a conventional four-door sedan version of the RS6, which our photographers spied all but completely undisguised out on the street a little over a month ago. Reports now indicate that the twin-turbo V10 super-sedan will be unveiled at the upcoming Paris Motor Show this coming October. We can expect the sedan version to carry the same mechanicals as its wagon counterpart, however certain visual updates are expected to be shown on the top-of-the-line RS6 sedan before they trickle down to the entire A6 range.

Only months ago Bertone, one of the most famous design houses in Europe, looked like it was about to go under. The company had lost all its contracts, had a big operation to sustain, and went into bankruptcy protection. But like a phoenix from the ashes, Bertone is re-emerging, more streamlined and ready to get back to business. The manufacturing division, heavy with overhead, was stripped away from the styling studio, which is still owned by the Bertone family but operated independently. And its new business development director is keen to get the design house back on track.

Among the steps Bertone is considering is to open up additional field offices away from Italy to get in on the local action. The company is in the process of setting up shop in China, and has its eyes set on India and Detroit next. To mark its resurgence, Bertone is also considering putting the BAT 11 into limited production. The Alfa 8C-based concept car was shown near the Geneva show last March after conflicting reports of its cancellation, and is now headlining the Meadow Brook Concours d’Eleance. The vehicle was originally built as a one-off for our friend Gary Kaberle, but if Bertone can get enough orders in place beforehand, the company would consider a small run of 25-50 examples. In the meantime, it’s going to focus on rebuilding its reputation and on the 20 design projects it currently has under way for automakers in Europe and China, as well as shipyards and aerospace companies.

Resurrecting the cars that put automakers on the map seems to be all the rage in the industry these days. Volkswagen brought back the Beetle a few years back and, more recently, Fiat resurrected the 500. Porsche… well, the 911 never really went away. But you get the idea. One iconic turning-point of an automobile that has yet to be awakened is the Citroen 2CV.

Launched after the end of WWII in 1949, the Citroen 2CV (so named because of its two-steam-horsepower equivalent rating) grew extremely popular due to its low cost and versatility. It could go anywhere, consumed little gas, and was extremely simple both to build and to maintain. By the time the last one rolled off the production line in 1990 – now that’s one heck of a run – over 3.8 million units were built, and the 2CV gained iconic status and a cult following. Next year Citroen will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the 2CV. Given the momentous occasion, the coincidence of the show’s alternate location in Paris this year and how poised the current economic climate would be for such a vehicle, it would seem an ideal time for PSA to give us a new 2CV that could put the French automaker back on the map with a low-cost vehicle to rival the Tata Nano, only with more character. Whether Citroen actually has any such plans is of course pure speculation at this point, so we’ll just have to sit back and wait until October to find out.

My older brother Brian drives a Scion xD. He’s 39 years old, and probably considered anything but cool by 18-24 year-old standards. He bought his little xD because he was tired of filling up his AWD 2001 Chevy Astro conversion van, and he’s gone from getting 12 mpg to about 30. While that’s a big-time win for Scion sales, the brand’s marketing arm has to cringe. Scion was built to be Toyota’s youth-oriented brand, with cars that would finally bring younger buyers into the Toyota showroom. The early days of Scion were a boon, with 80% of Scion buyers having never shopped Toyota before. Young people were clamoring for the xB and tC, and 100-200k online shoppers flocked to the Scion site each month.

Only a year after the redesign of the xB and xD, the Scion site is seeing less than half the traffic. Overall, year over year sales fell for 17 strait months until March, when gas prices skyrocketed. Even then, sales were back down by June, which was the peak of high fuel prices. The problems began to surface when the redesigned Scions were little more than larger versions of their former selves. A larger xB became more attractive to the mother of two, while losing some of the edginess that made it a smash hit with teens and early-20-somethings.

Scion’s leadership would like to turn the tide by creating a fourth member of the Scion family that exudes cool for under $20k. It could be an SUV or a hybrid, but Scion execs want it to be free from the grasps of the parent company. The current models also have to be refocused to once again attract the coveted 18-30 crowd. That’s a tall order, and a lot of work for a brand that’s only five years old.

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