Miss any photo galleries from this week? Worry not because we always compile a list of photo galleries we’ve posted throughout the week at the end of every week. Check out pictures of the new Bugatti Veyron Sang Noir, AC Schnitzer’s BMW 1-Series Convertible, Mercedes-Benz SL 63 AMG Edition IWC, BRABUS R230 - 2009 Mercedes-Benz SL and spy shots of the Ferrari F149 and the Fisker Karma Hybrid Prototype.

Click through for a full week’s worth of galleries.

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As gas prices hit an all time high with oil now hitting $126 a barrel, automakers are having a hard time moving cars out of the showrooms. With sales down 2.5% last year to 16.1 million cars sold, automakers are now offering incentives that have never been seen before by the industry.

Chrysler recently announced that it will offer buyers of new Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge customers a gas card to immediately lower their gas price to $2.99 a gallon.

To keep from sales to go down further and to save new vehicles from premature death, automakers are offering incentives on cars considered by auto experts as reliable and of good quality.

So if you’re one of the few in the market for a new car, be sure to check out Forbes list of Top 11 America’s Best New Car Incentives.

Click through for the list.

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Yesterday we brought you new info on the upcoming Fisker Karma hybrid. Fisker has now released some new images of a prototype they recently tested at an airport strip in California.

Fisker said that it has already sold 99 units out of the 15,000 production run planned for 2009. The Fisker Karma hybrid will arrive in the fourth-quarter of next year with pricing to start at $80,000.

Click through for more pictures.

Fisker Karma Hybrid Prototype:

   

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With all these three high-performance sedans arriving in dealerships within the next couple of months, we’ve seen many car magazines running a comparison test of the 2008 Mercedes-Benz C 63 AMG, Lexus IS-F and the 2008 BMW M3 Sedan. This time our friends at CAR give us their take on the three hotties.

Hmm, we wonder why they don’t pay much attention to the Lexus IS-F in this video?

Refresher:

2008 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG: 6.3 liter V8 engine producing 451 horsepower. 0-60 in 4.3 seconds
2008 Lexus IS-F: 5.0L direct-injection V8 engine producing 416 horsepower. 0-60 comes in 4.9 seconds
2008 BMW M3 Sedan: 4.0 liter V8 engine producing 414 horsepower. 0-60 in 4.9 seconds.

Click through for the video.

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With all the recent hype and spy shots popping up on the much anticipated Ferrari F149 2+2 GT, Ferrari today launched a web site with sounds of the car and a countdown to its world debut.

Power for the Ferrari F149 is expected to come from the same 4.3 liter V8 from the F430.

As we write this, the countdown is currently at 10 Days and 19 Hours. Check out the site for yourself at www.ferrarigtcountdown.com.

Click through for more pictures of the recent spy shots.

Spy Shots: Ferrari F149 without weird rear camo:

   

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Things are shaping out pretty well for Korean automaker Hyundai. After introducing its first engine about seventeen years ago, Hyundai now makes a variety of 4-clyinders, 6-cylinders, all the up to the Tau V8 that it will offer as an option on new Hyundai Genesis sedan.

Until 1991, Hyundai relied on Mitsubishi for engine technology, now, according to Dr. Hyun-Soon Lee, President of the R&D and Corporate Product Planning of Hyundai-Kia Motors, the automaker can build anything it wants.

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So while everyone is applauding the GT-R for lapping the Nurburgring in 7:29 flat, GM is at the Nurburgring with its 638-hp Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 trying to put Nissan in its place. Another GM car, the 2009 Cadillac CTS-V, is also quietly doing laps around the Nordschleife.

The 2009 Cadillac CTS-V shares major components with the ZR-1 such as the supercharged 6.3 liter small-block V8, except with a smaller Eaton compressor. The CTS-V is even called the baby ZR1 sedan.

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You would think with all the hype surrounded around the Dodge Challenger, Chrysler has no intentions of going green. However, if you remember Jim Press recently said that Chrysler will offer a hybrid variant of every model in its lineup. We have no idea if that’s every going to become reality, but the auto maker is now quickly looking to add small and mid-sized cars to its lineup.

“The bottom line is to shift the portfolio into mid- and small cars as fast as we can and balance the portfolio and the technology,” said Tom LaSorda.

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Fisker says that it has already sold 99 units of its upcoming Fisker Karma hybrid, deliveries of which will begin in the fourth-quarter of 2009. Fisker will only produce 15,000 units of the Karma with pricing to start at $80,000.

When Fisker unveiled the Karma at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show, it never said anything about the powertrain. All we were told is that the Q-Drive plug-in hybrid technology allows the Fisker Karma to drive the first 50 miles on battery alone. We were also told that the car does 0-60 in 5.8 seconds.

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Being under pressure to produce more fuel-efficient models, GM may be forced to change the way it’s been building SUVs for the past seven-decades. The General is now looking for ways to design a lighter replacement for its biggest SUVs without relying on a heavier pickup-truck frame.

While nothing is certain as of yet, engineers are looking to shift to a car-like construction in 2012 for successors to the Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade.

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While Ford and GM are drifting away from the minivan market, Hyundai is introducing a minivan for big families, small businesses and ‘anyone with lots of friends,’ for under £20,000 (around $39,000). Meet the Hyundai i800 which unlike most MPVs that only have room for seven-passengers, can comfortable fit eight.

Power comes from a 2.5 liter turbodiesel that produces 170-hp. The rear-wheel-drive minivan averages a fuel-economy of 28mpg and can do a range of 560 miles between fill-ups.

As with all Hyundai cars, the i800 will be covered by a five year, manufacturer backed, unlimited mileage warranty. Uh huh, can we get one here on the stateside as well?

Click through for more images and the press release.

Hyundai i800:

   

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We really have to say that 9ff is really slow in their process to take on the world record for the world’s fastest production car. We reported back in July of 2007 that the 9ff engineers were putting the finishing touches on their GT9 supercar, a 987+ horsepower Porsche 911.

Almost 9 months after it reported it was putting on the finishing touches, 9ff finally found time to hit up a track in Papenburg on April 10. 9ff engineers are claiming that the GT9 hit a top speed of 254mph beating the Bugatti Veyron.

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Chrysler today is celebrating the production launch of its most anticipated model for this year, the 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8. Production will kick off of roughly 7,000 units at its Brampton Assembly Plant which also builds Dodge Charger and the Chrysler 300.

The 2008 year model run will be produced before production kicks off for the 2009 model year in August. For the 2009 model year Chrysler will offer three models including the base Dodge Challenger SE, Dodge Challenger R/T and the Dodge Challenger SRT8.

Dodge has already sold out its allocation for the 2008 model year of the SRT8 which was priced at $37,995.

Click through for more images and the press release.

2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8:

   

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