Yesterday, the VW Fox proved to be less than sly, going down in Crack Pipe flames with a decisive 77% vote. That left a bad taste in our mouths for Brazilian fare so we're bidding adieu to that South American nation for a Mediterranean clime and a car befitting such clement weather.

Mid-engined two plus twos were nothing new to Ferrari when the Mondial first debuted in 1980. The Bertone-styled Dino 308GT4 had been dressing up driveways with its angular shape and roarty V8 since 1973. The company also had experience with throwing espresso-sized seats in the backs of their V12 engined GT cars for decades prior. However, like the 2+2 Dino, the Mondial was not a handsome car. This was especially evident when compared to the two-seat 308 with which it shared its major mechanicals. That car, in either GTS Spyder, or GTB coupe form, was perfection incarnate, as imagined by Pininfarina. The 2+2, however, looked like an amalgamation of 30 or more designers, with cheese grater scoops, black rubber moldings and Alfa Spider door handles placed like so much shabby chic glitter.

By the time this '89 Mondial 3.2 was built, much of the egregious styling faux pas had been exorcised from the car and, especially in black, this edition looks almost sexy- sort of how your dad sees your mom. The 270-bhp 3.2-litre V8 is still transversely mounted, and backed by a racing-pattern 5-speed gearbox. The entire drivetrain is on a separate subframe, a first for Ferrari, and a design that makes major engine or transmission work slightly less astronomical in cost. The folding fabric roof checks another box on the pros list for the Mondial, and maintains the flying butress styling of the coupe while erect.

This generation was the culmination of development for the 308/328-based cars and was superseded by the longitudinal-engined 3.4-litre Mondial t the same year this 3.2 slipped out of Modena. With fewer than 3,300 total Mondials built, it remains one of the more rare mainstream Ferraris.

A major maintenance issue with the Ferrari V8s of this era is timing belt replacements, which should be undertaken every five years. Failure to do so can end tragically in a very pretty, but impotent paperweight, as it is an interference engine. This car has 44,000 on the clock, and the seller says that he has all the paperwork for the maintenance, making this a car you don't need to automatically walk away from.

The seller's also a little phobic about the selling price, asking $30,500 and stating flat out that he won't take a penny less, not a penny more! Hopefully he doesn't show up to the test drive wearing kleenex boxes for shoes and carrying bottles of his own urine.

So how's about $30,500 for a 2+2 V8 with a prancing horse on the nose? Is that too much to Mondial with? Or does that price make you want to hike up your mom jeans and buy it?

You decide!

Ventura Craigslist or go here if the ad disappears.

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After bowing out of the entire 2009 show season, Nissan will indeed return to the floor at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, at least in some capacity. They'll at least be showing the Nissan Leaf in the dank basement which, for the second year, will be utilized as the Electric Avenue exhibit, a place for hybrids and EV's to show off their stuff with low-speed public ride and drives. The show is claiming a return to strength this year, with a roster of 54 manufacturers signed on the dotted line. That's all well and good, but there's some interesting show dynamics afoot, take for instance this passage from the Free Press:

...(Senior co-chair of the Detroit Auto Show, Doug) Fox is including several luxury automakers — including Aston Martin, Ferrari, Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce, in his total.

Those manufacturers will only be showing their cars at an exclusive event, the Gallery. Sponsored by American Express, the invitation-only event will be held Jan. 10 at MGM Grand Detroit for holders of the credit card company's exclusive Centurion card.

Considering this block of high-end automakers has taken up a primo real-estate right in the middle of the Detroit Auto Show floor for as long as memory serves, this seems like face-saving to us. Amex doesn't exactly hand out Centurion cards to the riff-raff. We're wondering if Jalopnik's motley crew will even be allowed in. [Detroit Free Press]

[Flickr via SaveTheEnzos]

(Hat tip to Dustin!)

[Timothy Raines]

[Timothy Raines]

[Timothy Raines]

[Timothy Raines]

[Timothy Raines]

[Timothy Raines]

[Timothy Raines]

[Timothy Raines]

These patents, sketched on an Aston Martin DB7 to throw people off, were uncovered by Autocar and reveal a system that, to us, appears to hinge at the base of the windscreen, allowing almost the entire side of the car to hinge upwards for unprecedentedly good access. While the system will work on cars with any engine configuration it looks like it'd be best located on a mid-engined car, curing the difficulty typically involved with entering and exiting one. The patents say such a system will be "easy and cost-effective to make" compared to competitor's fancy doors. [via Autocar]

The Ferrari 250 GTO is revered amongst the Maranello faithful, meaning any 599 carrying the name needs power, style, and at least the illusion of exclusivity. Power should come in the form of the stock V12, which puts out a raucous 611 HP already, tuned to 700 HP. Style is said to be inspired by the wild 599xx Concept. And exclusivity? The GTO will probably be limited to just 500 units approaching $400K a piece.

Of course, all this is based on a report from autogespot saying Ferrari is taking pre-orders for a car named "Ferrari 599 GTO Limited Edition."

Considering mint GTOs go for over $5 million at auction, this is as close as your average millionaire may get.

[Autogespot via World Car Fans]

The rebirth of N.A.R.T. is a big undertaking, especially if you're going to create your own racer. Fortunately, big projects are Glick's forte. His post on FerrariChat below:

No Longer Red but a Flashing Green...
Things are starting to come together. It will take time but there is excitement and real interest.

Thanks to my Partners in this adventure!

This will be some trip and it has begun.

P 4/5 took on a life of her own.

May P 4/5 Competizione follow her example.

The laconic Finn’s premature exit was the talk of the sport for most of the year, especially after Ferrari’s 2009 car turned out to be quite a dud. Nowhere was Räikkönen’s indifference more stark than at the Malaysian Grand Prix, where during a break forced by torrential rain, he wandered about the pits with a bar of ice cream instead of remaining by his racing car:

Räikkönen was forced to leave Ferrari at the end of the season to make way for Fernando Alonso. There were talks with Toyota, hampered by Räikkönen’s high price and ultimately by Toyota’s exit from Formula One, then there were talks with his former team McLaren, which fell through. One has to wonder whether Räikkönen’s exorbitant salary demands—rumored to be close to $50 million, very much not in synch with his performance over the last two seasons—were a deliberate move on his part to ease his exit from the sport.

Going where many Finn have gone before, Räikkönen is set to continue his career in rallying. He has, in fact, already debuted in the World Rally Championship: Räikkönen drove a Super 2000 class Fiat Grande Punto Abarth for Tommi Mäkinen Racing at this year’s Rally Finland in August.

He leaves the sport after nine seasons, with occasional displays of devastating speed and a lucky world championship in 2007, when he exploited the rivalry between McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton and the hubris of the latter to beat both at the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix, claiming the title which had eluded him at McLaren.

Photo Credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images, Massimo Bettiol/Getty Images

As you can see in the videos below, Massa and Alonso try to help their boss out to no avail. What's a chairman to do? Just have the team send another Ferrari and let the track workers deal with it.

[GT Spirit]

Photo Credit: JOSE JORDAN/AFP/Getty Images

[GT Spirit]

First a Bugatti Veyron. Now a Ferrari California? Maybe we need to expand "Save The Enzos" to "Save The Super Cars." What say you all?

(Hat tip to erzhik!)

[via EVO]

(Thanks for the tip Dave) (TwitPic)

The event was held at the Red Gate Gallery in Beijing and was attended by Ferrari owners and collectors (already sounds pretty obnoxious). The 599 China, which was created by artist Lu Hao, was won by an anonymous bidder from Shanghai with the proceeds going to Tsinghua University's Department of Automotive Engineering school with the intent to sponsor student and professor studies in Italy's Politecnico di Milano University or allow internships at Ferrari. At least they didn't get NIGO to paint it.

Car: Tata Nano
Place on the list: 49
Reason it's BS: The Tata Nano isn't ugly, it's simply space efficient. Given the constraints of price, footprint and upright packaging, it pulls off the microcar shape rather well actually. There are certainly uglier cars on the market in India and China right now.

Car: Ferrari Enzo
Place on the list: 42
Reason it's BS: Save the Enzo's! The Ferrari Enzo wasn't built to win beauty contests, it was designed to showcase Ferrari's F1 racing pedigree and tie those techniques and technologies to their road cars. Form follows function and while it's not classically beautiful it's fast and unique. In any case compared to the Mondial, it's a supermodel.

Car: Plymouth Prowler
Place on the list: 31
Reason it's BS: When the Prowler was introduced in 1997, it was the coolest car on the planet, bar none. Unfortunately it was packed with an engine from an Intrepid, and suspension tuning best described as one-of-a-kind. Despite its glaring flaws and how you might feel about the retro-mod style, it was certainly a car that got people looking. When you spot them today, you turn and look longer than you should, admit it.

Car: Lamborghini LM002
Place on the list: 25
Reason it's BS: BusnessWeek complains about "geometric doors, angular fenders, and a busy hood." Perhaps they forgot it was introduced in 1986 when everything cool was geometric, angular and busy. They don't even mention the fire-breathing (for the 80's) 5.0 liter V12 from the Countach under the hood and the take-no-prisoners attitude. You don't get a moniker like "Rambo Lambo" by being lame.

Car: DeLorean DMC-12
Place on the list: 20
Reason it's BS: Are they joking? The DMC-12? Of any car from the 80's this one still plays well on public streets. The stainless steel body is unique, the ridiculously heavy gullwing doors draw crowds and the fastback style screams 80's coke dealer, and nobody was more up on all things stylish in the 80's than coke dealers.

Car:Subaru Brat
Place on the list: 18
Reason it's BS: Apparently BusinessWeek's too busy adjusting its top hat and monocle to enjoy the finer things in life, like riding in the jump seats in the Subaru Brat's cargo bed. It's even got decent capability for an early soft-roader.

Car: Aston Martin Lagonda
Place on the list: 16
Reason it's BS: Oh come on? Really? The Lagonda? It pushed the limit of longer, lower, wider to absurdity and mixed in out of control braggadocio. By all account it was admittedly every bit British reliable, but who cares? Hire a team of mules to pull it around town as you look out upon the unwashed masses from your obnoxious 80's chariot.

Car:Volvo 240
Place on the list: 13
Reason it's BS: Don't you go messing with the 240 BusinessWeek. You have no idea the depths of Volvo love out there, especially by the boxy-but-trusty 240. We dare you, dare you to find a more dedicated owner base. Fine, it's a bit boring, but so is the Camry and that's not on the list. We actually find it handsome, especially with the quad headlight design. You best watch your back BusinessWeek.

Car: Bricklin SV1
Place on the list: 11
Reason it's BS: Okay, this one's a bit on the ugly side, if you look only at the outside, but it was one of the first cars to push the idea of safety in a sports car, even though because of its heavy construction it wasn't particularly sporty. It's got a logical shape, and the nose is designed to prevent expensive damage repairs. Sure it's a bit cluttered in places, but come on, gull-wing doors.

Car:Chevy El Camino
Place on the list: 1
Reason it's BS: Number one. They've got to be kidding. Two words on this one: Screw. Off. First of all, lumping the entire series into one big pile is just plain ignorant. Secondly, it's rude. The El Camino from the outset was a looker and stayed a dynamite design all the way until the fall in the 70s. But then again, everything was pretty fug in the 70s. If they even try to say the 1960 and 1972 were ugly, they might get a Jalopnik-shaped shoe to the butt.

Photo credit: SuperChevy

The conflagration which enveloped Ferrari’s Ice Cream Man was fuelled by racing fuel from his fellow Finn Heikki Kovalainen’s McLaren.

Kovalainen left the pits prematurely, dragging a piece of refuelling hose behind his car, which sprayed fuel as he made his way down the pitlane. The spray flashed up for an instant when it touched Räikkönen’s hot Ferrari. With his characteristic cool, he drove on immediately after the flames had died down.

After the race, McLaren was fined $50,000 for dangerous conduct, while Kovalainen received a 25-second penatly, which dropped him from 9th to 12th position in the final classification (both outside the points).

Speaking of weird Fiats, there's nothing wrong with an X1/9 that a supercharger can't fix!

And just to show that the 24 Hours Of LeMons is taking over the universe (or at least the portion of the universe comprised of Northern California car shows), here's a shot of the Italian Stallions X1/9 LeMons car. We'll be seeing this quad-carbed monster at the Arse Freeze-a-Palooza next month!

What could be better than a Maserati straight six engine? A Maserati straight six engine with Lucas fuel injection, of course! I can't see a single weak point in that plan! OK, here's a gallery for you. We'll be seeing more of that orange Fiat 128 Sport a little later; very interesting story there.