CARNIVAL OF CARS: A Drive Around the Auto Blogs Block for the Week Ending 3/9/13

It's been an odd kind of week, friends and neighbors, so how about we fire this thing up and head on down the auto blogs road, shall we?

Odd as in, well, let me ask you this: Does "LaFerrari" sound like a four-wheel beast of a race car or the name of Lightning McQueen's latest love interest in "Cars, (Yes, it's yet another Sequel)"? Total Car Score's Matt Landish says it is Maranello's "newest supercar ... a 949-horsepower V12-powered hybrid stunner that promises zero-to-sixty acceleration in 2.9 seconds on to a top speed of 219 miles per hour." Obviously, Lightning has forgotten that Sally Carrera is an attorney.

Then there is the Qoros, which Auto Trends' Matt Keegan thinks likely to become the debut vehicle unveiled in Switzerland whose "impact will likely reach farther and perhaps deeper than any other model on display in Geneva."

And what about Chevy's "all-new" redesigned 2013 Captiva? Sound like something on the headache pills shelf at the grocery store, doesn't it? I mean, come on, GM, it's bad enough that it's based on a discontinued Saturn platform, but why give it a name that is utterly forgettable? Why not something memorable like th Pro_ceed or Viziv, to which CarGurus Blog's HSpitzer gave grades of D+ and B, respectively.

OK, enough about names, let's move along, shall we?

What "looks like a car of the future, but it sounds like a car from the past"? According to Edmunds.com's Richard Bremner, it's none other than the VW XL1, which the German automaker claims as the world's most efficient motorcar. He drove it and he was impressed.

You know, sometimes I wish Peter M. DeLorenzo would stop beating around the bush and just tell us what the heck he really thinks about something! I mean, how non-committal can the AUTOEXTREMIST be on what the Hulman and George clans should do to save Indy car racing?

Now it can be revealed: The most popular auto blog among guys still displaying Mullets? Must be Kicking Tires because its most popular video this week was the one of Joe Wisenfelder burning rubber around the Roebling Road asphalt in a 2013 Camaro 1LE.

Everybody who owns a supercar like a Ferrari 458 knows you don't get hard on the throttle on a wet public road, right? Car Throttle offers proof that until recently there was still at least one rich guy who didn't get the memo. It's all in Italian but, roughly translated, I think the narrator on the video says "OMG, did you see what that idiot just did?"

If you are a gearhead of the male variety, a blog called Auto Goddess might get your attention, right? There is such a blog and its proprietor is Diana Merrill Clausen. She just spent some time in a Chevy Traverse and notes it has the industry's first center air bag.

It's SXSW weekend in Austin, so naturally GM Fastlane is there. Don't know what SXSW is all about? Don't ask because then everybody will know you're not cool, OK? Harsh, yes, but trust me, you'll thank me someday.

They say "misery loves company," so the place to look for the automotive version thereof must be Good Car Bad Car, where Timothy Cain compiled the data for the 10 worst sellers North of the Border. What the heck is going on with Seven-series Bimmer sales up there?

Over at Car Guys Chronicles, Ben Barry got behind the wheel of the latest and baddest from Mercedes, the AMG SLS Black Series. One question, though: Why is the Black Series yellow on the outside? Does that query just scream for a smart-ass rejoinder or what?

And finally, we come to this week's last stop, where we find The Truth About Cars' Vellum Venom Vignette in which Sajeev Mehta analyzes the all-important automotive design maxim that change for the sake of change is just pure bunk.

And on that educational note, we have come to the end of this week's Carnival of Cars. Have a great weekend, find an entertaining road and be - what else? - Allegro Con Brio!