Buick Excelle is the Best Selling Car in China for 2011, GM and VW Take 7 of the Top 10 Spots

In Europe, the most popular model in terms of sales in 2011 was the aging Volkswagen Golf with 485,547 units followed by the VW Polo and the Ford Fiesta, while in the United States, Ford's F-Series took first place with 584,917 units and was trailed by the Chevy Silverado and the Toyota Camry.

In China, while the overall top sellers continue to be commercial microvans, the bestselling passenger model for 2011 was the Buick Excelle with 254,000 units, according to data provided by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

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Hyundai Elantra and Range Rover Evoque Snag 2012 North American Car and Truck Titles of the Year

And the winning entries for the 2012 North American Car and Truck of the Year are the Hyundai Elantra and the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque respectively. The announcement was made today on the sidelines of the 2012 Detroit Motor Show.

The winners for each category were chosen by a jury of 50 automotive journalists from the United States and Canada.

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U SPY in California: Meet the New 2013 Hyundai Elantra Hatchback

We knew Hyundai was preparing a successor to its North American Elantra Touring based on the freshly revealed in Europe i30 series, but we weren't entirely sure if the Korean company would go down the same path offering an estate version or if it would opt for the hatchback model.

To explain, in Europe, the current generation of the Elantra Touring is sold as the i30 CW (or Estate in the UK), which is the station wagon version of the outgoing i30 series.

Our California scoopster, Alfred Hong, caught up with the replacement of the Elantra Touring, and as you can clearly see from these pictures, it is based on the five-door hatchback model and not the future estate.

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And the North American Car and Truck of the Year Finalists are…

For the past 18 years, a committee of journalists from U.S. and Canadian magazines, radio and TV stations, websites and newspapers meet once a year and vote for the North American Car and Truck of the Year [NACTOY].

You'll have to wait until January to find the winners for the 2012 edition of the North American Car and Truck of the Year, but the three finalists for each category were announced on Thursday in Detroit.

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New Hyundai Elantra Sales Soar to 216,331 Units in the U.S. and Canada in 2011

While the economic climate may not be ideal, Hyundai is enjoying a success this year in North America as it has eclipsed the 600,000 annual sales mark for the first time in its 25-year U.S. history.

Leading the way in both Canada and the USA, is the redesigned Elantra that saw its sales increase by 43 percent, from 151,735 deliveries in 2010 to 216,331 this year, setting an all-time record for the model series.

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Mid-Size Cars Sales Fall as U.S. Buyers Downsize to Smaller Cars

For decades, mid-size sedans like the Toyota Camry, Honda Accord and Ford Taurus have been best-sellers and the most common sight on American roads.

But the trend is starting to change. According to J.D Power and associates, an increasingly large number of buyers are downsizing and choose small cars such as the Chevrolet Cruze or even the Honda Fit.

In fact, J.D. Power forecasts that, for the first time in two decades, compact cars will outsell mid-size models by the end of the year. Moreover, it projects that by 2015, compact and sub-compact cars will have a 20% share in the U.S. market, while mid-size models’ share will shrink down to 14%.

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U SPY: 2013 Hyundai Elantra Coupe Shows up in California

One of our eagle-eyed readers snapped these exclusive photos of a not-so-heavily camouflaged compact coupe model in California.

Alfred Hong tells Carscoop: "Snapped these pictures in Fullerton, California over the weekend. I believe it to be the 2012 Hyundai Elantra Coupe! I know this car will debut at the LA Auto Show later this month, but I have yet to see some good spy shots on the web."

Well Alfred, you're spot on: indeed, what we see here is the much anticipated, 2012 (or 2013MY) Hyundai Elantra Coupe. However, we're not 100 percent sure that it will make its world premiere at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show.

In an earlier posting today, Autoblog's head honcho John Neff said that the South Korean automaker would wait until next February for the Chicago Auto Show to unveil the coupe to the public.

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Report: Honda Threatened by the Rise of the Koreans

If there is one Japanese company that can lay claim to having a reputation for innovation and advanced engineering, it is Honda.

It is a reputation built over more than 30 years, starting from the first generation of the Civic in the ‘70s and continuing throughout the years with novelties such as VTEC, the futuristic first generation Insight hybrid back in 1999, the S2000's high-revving 120HP-per-liter engine, the first practical supercar, the NSX – and the list goes on.

However, something seems to have changed, and not for the better.

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Video: Australian “Shell” Ad for the 2011 Hyundai Elantra

From Sydney ad firm Innocean Worldwide comes this neat little TV commercial for the 2011 Hyundai Elantra four-door sedan.

The ad features Hyundai’s C-segment offering sitting inside a non-descript brick building. Then, in a way that reminds the machine that Tony Stark uses to suit in and out of his Iron Man costume, a multitude of robot appendages unfold from the ceiling and begin removing pieces of the Elantra’s body to reveal a smaller car inside.

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Hyundai Rumored to Debut New Elantra Coupe at 2011 LA Auto Show

We are a long way from the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show and many things may change in the meantime, but for now, the word from the team over at Insideline is that Hyundai will head to California this fall to unveil a new coupe version of its freshly launched Elantra model. The two-door model will offer Hyundai a direct rival to the 2012 Honda Civic Coupe in the U.S. market. Read more »

More than 280,000 Hyundai Elantras Recalled Over Air-Bag Problems

Hyundai has issued two separate recalls for its Elantra sedans over air-bag related problems. The first action covers approximately 95,783 Elantras from the 2007-2008MY manufactured from July 14, 2006, through August 29, 2007. In this case, the air bag control module may receive an unstable electrical signal from the seat track position sensor and cause the driver's airbag to deploy at a higher pressure than intended. To fix the problem, the South Korean firm’s dealers will reprogram the air bag control module free of charge.

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Hyundai’s Model Naming Conventions: From 0 to Fubar in Just 4 Years

Hyundai is one of the world’s biggest automakers, and the most visible of South Korea’s business and industrial acumen. So you would think a company that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Toyota and pre-bailout GM would be pretty consistent with its model naming conventions, right?

Well, not exactly. When Hyundai first launched the i30 hatchback in Europe, Australia and other markets, it seemed that familiar nameplates such as Elantra and Sonata would soon be dead and buried. Not so. In fact, the i30 CW (basically, the station wagon version of the i30), is still sold in the U.S. as the Elantra Touring.

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