Nothing can test a truck’s true mettle quite like thousands of miles of sand. For the 2012 Dakar Rally, the British Excite Rally Raid Team plans to enter the most brutal competition on Earth using three specially modified versions of Land Rover‘s new Evoque.

It’s that time of the year again as Car of the Year begins the laborious task of whittling down new Car of the Year contenders for 2012.

A total of 59 journalists, representing automotive authorities across 23 European countries, have been recruited for the task of choosing top car. The number of journalists to represent each country is based on the relative size of the said country’s car market. Countries like Spain, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain have a well established market, and each will be represented by six journalists.

As for cars, only completely redesigned new models that have launched within the twelve months before the contest are counted. Each car must be available in at least five European countries and must have an expected sales volume no less than 5,000.

Categories considered include design, safety, performance, and price. This year, says the judging committee, technical innovation and value will be especially influential. What also makes Car of the Year unique is the absence of separate genres for its candidates. Rather than selecting the best of the compacts or the best trucks, vehicles with all sorts of engine size and body types will be vying for the same allotment of points.

Comparison testing of the vehicles will be performed in Sweden.

The following 35 candidates selected for the 2012 Car of the Year award include:

Before he was able to act, Police in Toronto, Canada arrested a man who planned a daring heist straight from the plot of the “Gone in 60 Seconds” Hollywood blockbuster.

Despite rumors that Land Rover‘s iconic Defender might go the way of the dodo, increasingly there have been signs that the company is indeed committed to its hard-core offering, as two concepts revealed at this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show suggest.

Off-roaders may want to listen up, this is your lucky day. Land Rover has confirmed production for the next-gen Defender SUV. The British automaker intends to launch a new Defender in 2015, and the concept version (DC100) will be present at next month’s Frankfurt Auto Show.

Fans of the Land Rover Defender have long feared the vehicle’s demise amid intensifying regulations and waning interest in off-road vehicles, but Land Rover isn’t giving up on their iconic product.

Andy Goss, President of Jaguar Land Rover North America has bold plans for Land Rover to hit 50,000 U.S sales by 2012 and for Jaguar to reach the same goal within five years.

In order to meet upcoming US fuel efficiency targets, many of automobiles will have to go on serious diet plans.

Like any fringe product that eventually gains mass market acceptance, SUVs have steadily strayed from their origins as truck-based brutes into the kinder, gentler, soft-roaders we all know and love. The mid-size luxury SUV segment is a great example of this phenomenon – BMW’s X5 shares its underpinnings with the highly regarded BMW 5-Series sports sedan, and vehicles like the Audi Q7 provide unsurpassed levels of luxury and style.

The RAC Future Car Challenge is an annual event that showcases technology that we might see in production cars in years to come. Think of it as a motor show that doesn’t stand still.

The   Land Rover Defender concept is set to make its debut at the 2011 Franfurt auto show next month as Land Rover decides whether the vehicle will be produced or dropped. With ever tightening emission requirements and a need to broaden market appeal, it may be difficult to produce a new Defender.

Not yet, but it might be, says the company’s boss Colin Green, as he looks at possible future scenarios for the iconic off-roader. Although it hasn’t been sold here officially for many years, the Defender remains popular in other parts of the world, particularly with farmers, rescue workers and utilities, as well as the British military.

Today, a report was released regarding the possibility of Tata motors entering a joint engine-development program with Jaguar Land Rover. Tata is currently India’s leading automaker by sales, and presently obtains engines from Jaguar and Land Rover models from the brand’s previous owner, Ford Motor Co.

Score another one for the outside-the-box thinkers at Nissan. First there was the Juke, which everyone now wants to copy. And according to a new rumor, the Murano CrossCabriolet may just have started a new fad.

Land Rover will roll out yet another improvement to its Range Rover models next year, introducing an 8-speed automatic transmission as standard equipment in North America. Manufactured by ZF, this is the same unit currently being used by BMW and Audi and is set to be offered in several Chrysler products in the near future.

Because the 4th of July is just another weekday in the British Empire, Land Rover employees were busy setting up the production line at the factory near Liverpool. The very first example will go towards the British Motor Industry Heritage Trust, and the next 18,000 examples have already been spoken for.

Those who have been waiting to park the stylish new Range Rover Evoque on their driveway would be pleased to know that they won’t have to wait too long now. The vehicle will go on sale in just a few months time, but Land Rover has just announced US-pricing for this model, which starts at $43,995 (not including destination charges). That’s for the four door model with the coupe priced from $44,995.

Although it started out as a three-door utilitarian style off-roader, complete with vinyl seats and a hoseable interior, the Range Rover became a de facto premium vehicle in North America (and other markets) due to its premium price and its status as an imported vehicle. Over the decades since its release in 1970, the Range Rover has moved steadily upmarket, surpassing the Land Rover LR4 (nee Discovery), Defender (no longer sold in North America) and the LR2 as the king of the British SUV heap.

Being referred to as the Grand Evoque at the moment, this model will be around 12-inches longer with half the space going towards extending the rear-seat legroom and half going towards a longer cargo bay. It will also gain about 4-inches in height over the standard Evoque.

Mercedes-Benz is planning to take on the BMW X6 with it’s own sporty SUV called the GLS. The GLS is scheduled for launch in 2014, and will be a new four-seater built around the same unibody platform that makes up the third-generation M-class (shown above) and the latest Jeep Grand Cherokee. The GLS will have less cargo room (compared to the M-class)thanks to a sporty roof line similar to the CLS sedan.  Audi and Range Rover are also launching new models to compete with the sporty X6 SUV.

Audi is planning to rival the Range Rover Evoque with it’s own fastback-styled, sporty version badged as the Q4. Audi will likely launch the Q4 in 2014/2015 and will cost around £30,000 ($47,500).

In a report released today by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, drivers of sport-utility vehicles, had the highest instances of death in crashes because of rollovers, however they are now those with the highest probability of survival.

Jaguar Land Rover has announced that it will be spending some £400 million (approximately $640 million) on developing a new engine plant in India.

Car owners are more satisfied with independent shops for maintenance, according to a latest Consumer Reports Annual Survey. The survey was based on more than 92,000 reports on service visits to independent mechanics and 230,000 service visits to new car dealerships.

Southern California tuner, RTW Motoring, is proud to announce their North American distributorship of Mansory products by presenting the wide body tuning package for the Range Rover Sport and BMW X6.

RTW Motoring is offering these conversions at their one-stop shop location and is providing delivery of vehicles anywhere in North America. Of course if you don’t have a Range Rover Sport or BMW X6 but want some Mansory goods for your luxury ride, RTW Motoring can also take care of you.

The complete tuning package for both vehicles include a wide body conversion and aero kit. RTW Motoring professionally installs and paints all aero kits in-house and will outfit your ride with a set of Mansory wheels, more specifically 23-inchers for the Range Rover Sport and 22-inch packages for BMW’s X6.

Those wondering just how wide the conversion is, the Range Rover Sport features a 2.36-inch wider front and 3.15-inch rider rear, while the BMW X6 is more aggressive in the front becoming 2.75-inch wider while the rear addition is similar to the Range Rover Sport at 3.15-inch.

No pricing was announced from RTW Motoring.

Parent company Tata is serious about their British crowns. Over the next 5 years, they will inject 8.2 billion dollars into making sure that Jaguar and Land Rover are not only afloat, but good enough to beat the Germans.

Land Rover South Africa has taken the brand’s iconic Defender off-roader and converted one to run on fully electric power, with an 80 horsepower motor good for 63 miles of silent, emissions free driving at speeds of up to 37 mph. The Defender EV also retains a full four-wheel drive system despite its electric drivetrain.

Jaguar has some ambitious plans to work alongside its sibling Land Rover brand. The two brands will be launching major production over the next five years with the goal of boosting Jaguar and Land Rover out of their markets and lifting them firmly into the luxury mainstream.

It’s been around in current form since 1983, but the rugged go-anywhere Land Rover Defender can trace its lineage directly back to the first one the company ever built  in 1948. Beloved of the British military, farmers, ranchers and explorers the world over, it’s a true icon.

It’s sometimes hard to believe anything you hear in the news these days. With countries still looking for bailout money (Portugal being the latest) and others struggling to climb out of recession, it would appear that austerity measures are still the norm, rather than the exception.

Platinum Motorsports is known for bold luxury and exotic builds, and to really put the spotlight on what they’ve done over the recent years, they’ve put together a video of epic proportions. Taking some of their finest projects and hitting several Los Angeles landmarks while armed with a video camera, Platinum Motorsports has released this video that will make any luxury and exotic lover drool.

The video mainly highlights a Lamborghini LP640 with a matte Reventon Grey paint job, along with a Mercedes-Benz SL550 with a Black Series widebody treatment sporting the same shade. In addition, their Premier 4509 widebody Bentley GT Mulliner also steals the spotlight in matte white and we see glimpses of several Range Rovers.

Obviously the point of the video is to spotlight what Platinum Motorsports specializes in, but we can’t help but wonder how awesome Transformers would be if they had these cars in the movie; or what would happen if Fast and the Furious met Gone in 60 Seconds and had a bastard child.

Check out the video after the jump:

The hotly anticipated Range Rover Evoque has been priced in the United Kingdom and will start at £27,955, or about $45,000, for a front-drive, manual gearbox equipped 5-door model. At the other end of the spectrum, a fully loaded, AWD 3-door model with the 6-speed automatic, will cost an eye-watering £44,320 or about $71,000.

Although the destroyed Chinese Lamborghini will forever linger in the minds of car enthusiasts bemused by the antics of spoiled owners, a Range Rover driver decided to take a less apoplectic approach and simply returned his Range Rover by towing it to the dealership with two donkeys.

Debuting for the first time at the Geneva Auto Show, the Land Rover Range_e Range Rover is a plug-in hybrid concept based on the popular luxury SUV. Making use of both a hybrid powertrain and a 3.0-liter diesel V6, Land Rover Global Brand Director John Edwards has confirmed the Range_e will see production in the next two years.

Jaguar and Land Rover are in talks with Chinese carmaker Great Wall over a potential manufacturing partnership in China, according to two executives from Great Wall.

StarTech, a division of Brabus, is bringing performance and design options for Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles this side of the Atlantic. And if parent company Brabus is any indication, the results will be wild.

Land Rover will unveil the next step in its mission to become a ‘greener’ automaker at the Geneva Auto Show in just a few weeks time. Set to take the stand alongside the new 3-door and 5-door Evoque models is the Range_e Range Rover Sport.

The Evoque shown above is an attractive, compelling vehicle, designed to attract equally attractive and compelling owners. But its full name is the “Land Rover Range Rover Evoque,” a name straight out the Department Of Redundancy Department, and sure won’t help you attract Victoria Beckham, who helped unveil it back in July of 2010.

Five consecutive quarters of being “in the black” has paid off for  Jaguar Land Rover. The luxury automaker is set to make over a billion pounds in profit ($1.6 billion) after strong sales around the world, especially in Asia.

Now that the Range Rover has become the luxury SUV of choice for the merely rich, the Land Rover crew is forced to step up for their uber-wealthy client base and create something over the top. Enter the Range Rover Autobiography Ultimate Edition, a truly opulent SUV for the developing world plutocracy.

The biggest changes occur inside, where the rear bench is jettisoned in favor of 4 individual bucket seats. A center console made of aluminum hosts a cooler and drink tray with Apple iPads impregnated into the front seat headrests. The cargo area is fitted with a teak surface, while Kalahari wood veneers accent the highest grades of leather upholstery. Outside, new wheels, special badging and specific grille and door handle trims help set it apart from plebeian versions of the Range Rover.

Powertrain options include a 5.0L supercharged V8 or a 4.4L turbodiesel mill mated to an 8-speed ZF automatic. Pricing has yet to be announced but will be revealed at the Geneva Auto Show.

Hit the jump for the official press release

Gallery: Range Rover Autobiography Ultimate Edition