The Hottest Cars Of 2011

- Hannah Elliott

These stunners will turn heads and quicken heartbeats.

Car-lovers take heart: despite Canadian auto sales being essentially flat for 2010, some of the hottest cars to hit the scene in years will make their way to showrooms this spring.

 

 

Take the Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Super Sport. Not only is it the world's fastest production car (it hit 268 miles per hour last summer in Germany) but it is also one of the most refined -- with interior cues taken from its sister company, Bentley. Its cockpit is wrapped in hand-stitched soft-grain leather and trimmed to the hilt in carbon-fibre; the rear-view camera, Bluetooth capability and satellite radio make driving to the store a pleasant experience rather than the sweat- and stress-inducing jolt provided by other exotic autos.

The Super Sport's exterior is hot too, with bold lines that look modern but evoke Bugattis from the 1920s and '30s (a continuous crest line down the length of the car, a stirrup-shaped grill).

Sure, you'll pay for all that beauty -- at a retail price of US$2.5 million, only the world's wealthiest people can afford to put a Super Sport in their garages. But those lucky enough to do so will really get something special: A balance of 1,200 horsepower, three suspension settings and a world-renowned dual-clutch transmission.

"It's a real physical sensation," says Bugatti driver Pierre-Henri Raphanel. "The Bugatti is incredible because if I give you more performance, it will normally destroy and contort drivability and reliability, [but the Super Sport can be] controlled with only two fingers on the steering wheel."

Bugatti's not the only marque coming out with stunners. Ferrari's street-legal 599XX variant, the GTO, the elegant Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI Quattro and McLaren's first-ever solo production car, the MP4-12C, will quicken lots of heart rates when they hit the streets next year.

One common thread between some of the hottest new cars is an emphasis on weight control. Almost every car on our list, including the Range Rover Evoque, boasts a streamlined frame, light-as-air carbon fibre components or a super-efficient, whittled down engine.

Stephan Winkelmann, the CEO of Automobili Lamborghini, says the future of high-end motoring is about handling, not power. "If you can have a car that decreases in weight with the same power, you will have a much better feeling in the driving experience," he says.

Porsche's latest 911 variant, the lightening-quick GT2 RS, embraces that ethic. Dave Engelman, a spokesman for the Stuttgart, Germany-based company, says Porsche engineers got the GT2 RS to beat its predecessor 911 GT2 off the line by simple addition and subtraction: They upped the horsepower by 90 and pared down the weight by 154 pounds. That gave the coupe a power-to-weight ratio of 4.9 pounds per horsepower, by far the best in its class. They also managed to eke out a 5 per cent reduction in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.

via ca.autos.yahoo.com