La Dolce Veloce

Lotus unveiled its US-bound Exige at the recent Lotus Owners Gathering (LOG). Among the critical stats:

It’s pretty fairly priced, as it really IS nothing more than an Elise with the sport suspension and better downforce at high speeds. At lower speeds, the Elise’s lower weight will give it an advantage, though. If you look at the price of an Exige versus a comparably equipped Elise, you find that the Exige is demanding a $4070 premium, not bad considering you get different seats and more radical bodywork.

A ’240R’ supercharged version of the Exige will almost certainly be appearing as well. Most likely, the supercharger will be a dealer-installed accessory.

Though not due on the market for two years, two M Roadster development cars were spied in Germany recently. It’ll have numerous improvements, such as a 335hp straight six engine, wider rear track, stiffer suspension, and larger brakes. A hard top version will also be offered, though before all of this M-happiness occurs, look for a minor update to the look of the base Z4 (you’ll see that one at Frankfurt this fall).
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If you’re a regular reader of LaDolceVeloce, you’ve already seen pictures of the new XK coupe from Jaguar (see this earlier post). For the rest of you though, here’s the first official look at the new XK. This all aluminum coupe managed a 0-60 time of 5.9 seconds, not all that impressive considering its 300hp 4.2 liter V-8 engine. Just hold tight for the inevitable XKR (supercharged). One interesting feature is its ABS system. Instead of a digital approach, opening and closing a valve to modulate brake pressure under lockup conditions, this new Jag uses an analog approach, to modulate that valve and provide for smoother, more precise control. Read more about it over at PistonHeads, or click on the link below for more pictures.
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Formally debuting in September, you can get a sneak peak at the new Honda Civic over at this site. The site’s in Japanese, but if you run it through Google’s translator you can get a vague idea of what they’re saying. Nothing groundbreaking, just the usual – more power, better gas mileage, etc.

As reported in The Sunday Times, Scotland is looking to use wind power to create hydrogen, which could then be sold to the public to power hydrogen vehicles. It’s a neat solution to two problems. First, how to take a variable power source like wind power and find a way to store excess energy produced for use later when winds are less. The second problem this solves is how we can produce hydrogen economically without using fossil fuels. Nice approach…

While everyone at the Pebble Beach Concours got to see this stunning Alfa concept, only a select few were allowed inside a particular tent to get a sneak peak at a production version of a new convertible to be launched at Frankfurt this fall, based on the Brera show car (source: Italiaspeed). With four and six cylinder engines available, this seems to be more of a GT car than any serious performance machine. Still, it’s beautiful, and if this is a sign of things to come for Alfa Romeo, I eagerly await their return to the US.
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It’s no surprise really, but Autoblog reports that BMW WILL produce a coupe version of its Z4. Look for it to debut at the Frankfurt motor show this September.