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The SEMA show, which ran Nov. 4-7, featured more than 2,200 exhibitors, showing off high-performance parts, pieces, machine tools, scantily-clad young models and who-knows-what-else. Most of all, though, SEMA features hundreds and hundreds of custom and concept cars, many from the world’s leading automakers, others from tuners.
There’s something for everyone at SEMA, from hot rods to racecars to supercars, and everything in between, along with the usual dramatic excesses that Las Vegas naturally serves up.

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Let’s be honest here: since its introduction in 1982, the Camry has been a consistent best-seller and an extremely functional sedan. In fact, it has been the best-selling car in the United States for the last 12 years. For 2015, Toyota has comprehensively redesigned the Camry, to have more of what shoppers have asked the company for, namely style and fun. “Expressive. Athletic. Exciting. Yes, It’s a Camry,” reads the company’s press release.

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There’s something to be said for the notion of “go big or go home,” or at least that seems to be a belief of German luxury automaker Daimler, which is the parent company of Mercedes-Benz. At the Los Angeles Auto Show (Nov. 21-30), Daimler will resurrect the uber-luxurious Maybach name to its top-of-the-line luxury sedan. The new chariot will be based on the 2015 Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan.

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And at the recent Paris Auto Show, Volkswagen rolled out what could be a true game changer on that front: its new XL Sport concept car. In a nutshell, the XL Sport weighs a featherweight 1,962 pounds and is powered by a two-cylinder, 197-horsepower Ducati Superleggera V-Twin motorcycle engine that propels it to 100 km-h (62 mph) in 5.7 seconds, with a top speed of 168 mph. The engine connects to a seven-speed “DSG” paddle-shift automated manual transmission.

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This year has seen the Big Three pony-car wars explode in a way that hasn’t happened since the 1960s. And this time around, on one front at least, there is a clear and absolute winner: the Dodge Challenger Hellcat.
The 707-horsepower Challenger Hellcat recently went head-to-head with the all-new 2015 Ford Mustang 50th Anniversary Limited Edition coupe and the autobahn-burning Chevrolet z/28 Camaro and crushed them both.

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For the last decade or so, Phoenix, Ariz.-area construction magnate Ron Pratte has been a fixture at the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Collector-Car Auction, where he has purchased some of the world’s most desirable cars and amassed a huge collection, along with an equally impressive assortment of automotive memorabilia.
Barrett-Jackson will sell Pratte’s entire collection at its 2015 Scottsdale, Ariz. auction in January: more than 100 cars and more than 1,400 pieces of automobilia. It is expected that the sale of Pratte’s cars and collectibles alone could fetch more than $50 million.

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Automobile Magazine noted that the 2015 edition of the Mustang is a better car, not just a better Mustang, saying, “Ford has reimagined its muscular, sporty car. To be sure, it still breathes fire, but now it can also express itself through technology, and the result is a car with far broader horizons than past models. In fact, the 2015 Ford Mustang is actually nice. (Imagine, ‘Mustang’ and ‘nice’ used together in the same sentence.)”

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While the original E-Type was best described as smooth, sophisticated and maybe even a trifle delicate, the F-Type is a brute, at least it is in the R Trim. Mash the accelerator and you’re instantly slammed back hard into your seat and you stayed pinned until you ease off the throttle.
In that respect, the F-Type feels much more like a Corvette or a modern high-end muscle car than it does an E-Type, but that’s not a bad thing. The E-Type was sexy and sophisticated, while the F-Type is all that plus a no-compromises high-performance sports car.

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The Barrett-Jackson Las Vegas Collector Auction takes place Sept. 25-27 at the Mandalay Bay Event Center. And as always, it will feature an interesting and eclectic selection of muscle cars, vintage trucks, modified vehicles, race cars and anything else that can be pushed or driven onto the auction stage. The Las Vegas extravaganza marks the final collaboration between Barrett-Jackson and TV network FOX, which has had the auction broadcast rights since 2001, when FOX’s now-defunct SPEED Channel aired all the Barrett-Jackson events.