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IIHS says these are the safest cars of 2013

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has revealed its annual list of Top Safety Picks, an award that highlights automobiles it says offer "superior crash protection." A new and still more significant award, the Top Safety Pick+ honor, is given to those vehicles that earn good ratings for occupant protection in four out of five areas of measure. And while some 117 vehicles were given the TSP seal of approval for 2013, just 13 passed muster for TSP+.
To be fair, IIHS only evaluated 29 vehicles with its new testing procedures for TSP+ (we'd expect that the number of qualified cars will rise substantially for 2014). Luxury and Near Luxury midsize cars were the first groups evaluated, followed by midsizers in the Moderately Priced Cars category - unsurprisingly, it's only midsize cars that you'll find among the class this year.
Only two luxury sedans made the list of 13 for 2013: the Acura TL and Volvo S60. The other 11 cars on the list included entries from domestic, Japanese and German car makers: Dodge Avenger, Chrysler 200, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord (sedan and coupe), Kia Optima (but not its close kin, the Hyundai Sonata, strangely), Nissan Altima, Subaru Legacy and Outback, Suzuki Kizashi and the Volkswagen Passat all made the grade.

Junkyard Gem: 1997 Geo Metro LSi

General Motors created the Geo brand in order to sell cars built in partnership with Suzuki, Isuzu and Toyota in the United States, and Geo-badged machinery was sold from the 1989 through 1997 model years. Today's Junkyard Gem, found in a New Orleans self-service boneyard recently, is one of the very last Geos ever built. There was always a close relationship between Geo and Chevrolet, which GM demonstrated by sneaking the Chevrolet bowtie into the Geo logo. The first three Geo-branded models began their careers with Chevrolet badging before getting Geo-ized for 1989. The Spectrum, twin to the Isuzu I-Mark, was a Chevrolet from 1985 through 1988. The 1985-1988 Chevrolet Sprint was a badge-engineered first-generation Suzuki Cultus, with its second-generation successor becoming the Geo Metro. The Prizm was a NUMMI-built Toyota Corolla Sprinter, which replaced the Sprinter-based 1985-1987 Chevrolet Nova. The Daewoo-built Pontiac LeMans never became a Geo, presumably because its ancestry was South Korean rather than Japanese. In 1989, Geo added the Storm (Isuzu Impulse), followed by the Tracker (Suzuki Sidekick) as a 1990 model. In December 1996, GM announced that the Geo brand would get the axe in the fall of 1997, with the Prizm, Tracker and Metro becoming Chevrolets. This car was built at CAMI Automotive in Canada in May 1997, making it one of the final handful of Geos assembled. The Chevrolet Metro stuck around through 2001. For its final model year, the Geo Metro was available with one of two trim levels: base and LSi. This car is an LSi three-door hatchback, which had an MSRP of $9,180 ($17,906 in 2024 dollars). The base three-door hatchback for 1997 listed at $8,580, or $16,735 after inflation. The most important difference between the base and LSi versions was found under the hood. The base Metro got a 1.0-liter three-cylinder engine rated at 55 horsepower and 58 pound-feet, while the LSi got the 1.3-liter "big-block" four-cylinder with 70 horses and 74 pound-feet. I owned a '96 Metro with the four-banger for a brief period, and it wasn't quite intolerably slow. This car has the optional three-speed automatic, which added $595 ($1,161 today) to the price. It also has air conditioning and a Delco AM/FM radio, which were included as part of the $1,346 1SE option package ($2,625 in today's money). It was thus a boring but serviceable commuter car that sipped gas and got its job done for 27 years and 113,610 miles.

Suzuki sallies forth with new C-segment crossover with fishy S-Cross Concept

It's not what we'd call attractive, really, but at least the new S-Cross Concept is something fresh from Suzuki. Introduced to the world at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, Suzuki says the pale green machine previews its upcoming production C-segment crossover.
We hope some of its fishier elements - according to Suzie, the specially created Crystal Green Metallic body color evokes "nature in the city and the city in nature", whatever that means - remain in the conceptual pond, but either way, it's good to see that the Japanese automaker hasn't lost its will to compete in a heated segment of the market. In fact, Suzuki promises that the S-Cross "will be the first in an ambitious program of annual European model launches which Suzuki will be starting in 2013. "
What are the chances we'll see a production version of this crossover concept in the U.S.? Your Magic 8 Ball is as good as ours... In any case, feel free to peruse the press release below.