Updated 3/17/17:

Via Autonews: TOKYO -- Infiniti, Nissan Motor's premium brand, named Karim Habib, former global design chief for BMW, as the brand's new chief designer, effective July 1.

Habib will replace Alfonso Albaisa, who will be promoted to lead Nissan's global design. Habib will report to Albaisa.

Habib, a Lebanese-Canadian, studied engineering in Canada's McGill University before attending the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California prior to joining BMW as an interior designer. In 2012, he was promoted to head of design at the brand.

The executive will be based in Nissan's technical center in Atsugi, Japan, and lead Infiniti's design teams in Japan, Beijing, San Diego and London.


Original story 1/18/17:

No official announcement has yet been made by BMW, but Auto Motor Und Sport reports that Karim Habib, Head of BMW Design, has left the company.

Habib got his first break in BMW in 1998 working in designing the exterior of the BMW 7 Series. He left the company in 2009 to join Mercedes until he returned to BMW in 2011 as Head of Exterior Design. In January 2012 he succeeded Adrian von Hooydonk as Head of BMW Design and has been serving in this role until his departure.

No replacement has yet been named.

Yep, so hardcore they had to sub out its own name. The track-only FXXK uses the same V12-plus-electric drivetrain as the road-going LaFerrari on which it’s based, but here it makes 1036bhp – that’s 86bhp more than the LaFerrari.
Combined torque stands at over 664lb ft, and it comes packing more aero than you could possibly need in this or any other plane of existence. As Chris Harris found out.

The Vulcan, for the uninitiated, is Aston Martin’s ode to track-based excellence. On board sits a naturally-aspirated 7.0-litre V12 pumping out 820bhp, while the whole thing weighs in at just 1350kg, does 0-60mph in the blink of an eye and, at 190mph, could theoretically glue itself to the ceiling. Just look at the size of the magnificent rear wing. Big Wings just make everything better, don’t they?
Only 24 Vulcans will be built, at £1.8m each, and you’ll only be able to drive it on track (unless you get it converted to road use, but that’s another story). So it joins a fine, long list of hypercars built specifically for the track, while not being actual racing cars – there’s a fine line.

“How has McLaren managed to make a 986bhp car this approachable, this drivable? The set-up is astonishing. There’s so much feel through the chassis, the steering is so beautiful to use, you always know precisely where you are with it.
“You can take it to the limit – how ridiculous is that in a car with a Ariel Nomad’s worth of downforce working on it? The speeds are outrageous, just bananas, but the GTR is so talkative and engaging you can use everything it’s got, rely on the whiff of understeer to let you know the car is working hard…”
Yep, we’ve driven the P1 GTR on track. Find out how we fared here.

No list compiling the ultimate track-day monsters would be complete without Pagani’s insane Zonda R. In fact, the Zonda R should be on every list about every thing, ever.
It’s got a Mercedes-AMG 6.0-litre V12 on board – bolted directly to the chassis –matched up to a Xtrac gearbox sending 750bhp to the rear wheels. It weighs just 1070kg dry. It has adjustable suspension. It has a rear wing you can see from Mars. It’s also ludicrously, wonderfully loud.

Based on the Ferrari Enzo, the ‘regular’ MC12 was created so Maserati could go racing. They built 50. After that, they built a further 12 designed purely for track use, and it came with the ‘Corse’ badge.
It was developed directly from the MC12 GT1 car, featured more power than the road car – 750bhp – a shortened nose and of course, the all-important rear wing.
Yes.

OK, so this one’s a little outside of the box compared to previous efforts, but its not a racing car and can’t be driven on the road, so fits our criteria of track-only monsters.
Unveiled a few years ago, this Lotus was designed to give the full F1 experience to those with £650k to spare. It was powered by a mighty Cosworth 3.5-litre V8, pushed out a proper 630bhp, and revved to an eye-watering 10,800rpm.
Oh, and you’d have to keep on your toes, because it only weighed in at 650kg. No breakfast for you, then…

Hands up who remembers the astonishing Sesto Elemento? Named after the sixth element on the periodic table – carbon – the 999kg Gallardo-based SE was built for the track. And for proving that outright punching power isn’t the be-all and end-all of a supercar.
No, this car was all about power-to-weight, though it could still fire off a haymaker or two: 0-62mph took just 2.5secs. Only 20 would be built, and they could only ever be driven on circuit. Lest you annoy all your neighbours with that shrieking V10…

The predecessor to the FXXK, this Enzo-derived circuit racer uses a 6.2-litre V12 – naturally aspirated, um, naturally – to deliver some 809bhp and the mother of all soundtracks.
There’s much F1-derived trickery on board too, with an ultra-fast gearbox, fancy brakes, and much, much more.

One of the finest machines to have never actually hit the road. The 599XX is, apparently, capable of lapping Fiorano a full ten seconds quicker than an Enzo, itself no slouch.
For that you can thank a 720bhp V12, a lower weight, electronic driver aids, and more aero than you can shake a carbonfibre stick at. Doesn’t look half bad either, does it?

Designed in tandem with F1 champion (and all-round champ) Emerson Fittipaldi, the EF7 boasts a naturally aspirated V8 that revs to 9000rpm and makes 592hbp in the process.
The premise behind the EF7 is that it should “go fast, not need weeks of set-up, and not scare the wealthy owner.” We approve.

Using the expertise of some of the best in the business – Cosworth and Adrian Newey, for instance – the Valkyrie is going to be Aston’s ultimate road car.
“I thought this was about track-only cars,” you might think. Well, it is – there’s a special run of 25 track-only Valkyries en route. And, like us, that concept might leave you scratching your head, wondering how the Valkyrie could be made any more extreme. Watch this space, we guess.

The Vantage AMR Pro represents something altogether more serious – a non-road-legal track toy powered by a 500bhp version of Aston’s GT4 racing engine, making it the most powerful, and almost certainly the loudest V8 Vantage ever.”
Need we say any more?

In recent years, premium automakers have run out of niches to expand into and have turned instead to what should be regarded as microscopic sub-niches. (How else to explain the BMW 4-series Gran Coupe, the Mercedes-Benz GLC coupe, or the Range Rover Evoque convertible?) But now both BMW and Mercedes-Benz have admitted that they are planning a cull of variant numbers in coming years. We're sad to report that it's traditional coupes and convertibles that are most likely to face the ax.

"The checkerboard of body styles and segments is rather full, although there are still a few to be finished," Ian Robertson, BMW's head of sales and marketing, told Car and Driver at the Geneva auto show. "We've got an X2 and an X7 coming, and there are a few others, but I also know because we've taken decisions that some body styles will be removed in the future."

Dieter Zetsche (whom Americans will remember as Dr. Z), now overall head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, agrees. "The specialty cars, these coupes and convertibles, were always niche cars," he told journalists at Geneva. "The expansion into China and other emerging markets [has given] huge opportunities for sedans, but they did not take up these specialty cars. Which makes the business case for these vehicles less easy"

Although Zetsche insisted that Mercedes will continue to offer two-door models, he admitted they will not come "in the variety we are having them right now." With both coupe and cabriolet versions of the C-class, E-class, and S-class currently being offered alongside the SLK and SL roadsters and the AMG GT coupe and convertible, there's obvious potential to simplify the range.

BMW's Robertson said that the current 4-series coupe and convertible have been a success, but he admitted the company has struggled with open sports cars. The segment that is not really progressing is the roadster segment, he said. "It never really recovered after 2008, and it never picked up in Asia. Therefore we're working with Toyota on a platform to try to gain some economies of scale."

While the Toyota joint venture will give both companies new sports cars - we're anticipating a Z5 badge on the BMW - Robertson suggests that larger two-doors are also at risk.

"There's definitely more of a move toward four-door coupes", he said. "We've done the Gran Coupes; they've really worked. People like the lower seating position and the sporty dynamics but also the fact there's a door in the back. It's fair to say that when we look at the checkerboard, because of the new things we're putting in, there are some things we can take out."

So if you're coveting a current BMW or Mercedes two-door coupe or convertible, the time to act might be now. Don't count on being able to get a next-generation one.

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