James Sikes has become the grappling of Toyota's alleged runaway acceleration problem and Toyota can't figure out why.

According to report by the AP, Toyota says all Priuses are equipped with a computer system that cuts power to the wheels if the brake and gas pedals are depressed at the same time – something Sikes says he was doing.

"It's tough for us to say if we're skeptical. I'm mystified in how it could happen with the brake override system," Don Esmond, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales, said.

You're not alone Don.

AP

Thankfully, we have actual photos of SLS Roadster prototypes to remind that it will look just fine when it arrives later this year. As you can see, the signature gullwing doors are gone. No doubt there were some crafty engineers in Germany trying to figure out how to make gullwing doors out of a folding top, but common sense eventually prevailed.

This thing won't need fancy doors anyway. Just the sound of the engine is enough to make you want to place the top down and forget it goes back up.

Earlier this week, a company titled Aurica Motors presented a plan to build electric cars at the soon-to-be-vacated NUMMI plant in Northern California. All the company needs is, oh, a billion dollars or so from the federal government and it'll be up and running, saving jobs and building clean cars.

Sound a wee bit optimistic to you? Actually, it's a complete fantasy as Aurica Motors has eight employees, no experience building cars and virtually no chance of utilizing even a fraction of the giant plant's capacity. Not surprising though. Once the government starts handing out money it's only a matter of time before a line starts to form.

Green Car Advisor has the complete story on this ridiculous money grab.

Earlier this week we posted a highlights video from Ken Block's and Alex Gelsomino's 18th place finish at Rally Mexico, his first ever World Rally Championship race. Now the WRC has released this much longer 10-minute cut of on-board video from their Ford Focus WRC.

Nissan has promised all along that its GT-R would be a constant work in progress. No inactivity around for some mid-cycle refresh or complete redesign. Nope, they would tweak the thing year-by-year in an attempt to keep its supercar competitive.

Well, sometimes those tweaks are smaller than others and the upgrades for 2011 are evenhandedly minor. The base model has been eliminated, so it's Premium or nothing. All cars now get a double shot of clear coat on the front and rear fascias along with darker center caps on the wheels. Like I said, minor stuff.

In terms of actual functionality, Nissan engineers retuned the suspension and stiffened up some bushings in back for better overall ride quality. They also added an additional set of cooling ducts for the rear wheels.

All that for only $84,060.

The fact that Nick Cage is in serious financial trouble is not new. He's been selling stuff left and right for months now. What caught our eye this time around is the fact that two of his cars, including a 1964 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III, were leased.

Turns out a company called Premier Financial Services will lease you just about any car you can find. Vintage cars, classics, brand new exotics, whatever. Who knew?

In Cage's case, he was shelling out $7,663 a month for his classic Rolls and another $3,600 for an '02 Corniche. When the money ran out he tried to just turn them back in, but PFS wasn't having it. Now they're suing him for the cost of taking the cars back primeval and having to sell them cheap. Poor Nick, guy can't catch a break these days. Can't make a decent movie either.  

TMZ
 

The armor has now come off the 2012 Mercedes-Benz SLK and it doesn't look half bad. Actually it's starting to look even more like the big SL, at least from behind.

Up front, you can see that the grille will borrow a few design cues from the SLS supercar, or maybe it's Dodge their thieving from? In back, the lights are clearly LEDs, but it's hard to tell if they're going to be quite as swoopy as the ones on the upcoming CLS.

As finished as this SLK looks, we don't expect to see its official debut until sometime next year.

Jaguar isn't the first high-end manufacturer to offer driving school to owners of its highest-performance cars, but we're glad to see the company step up to the plate now that it sells two 510-horsepower cars.

If you buy a 2010 Jaguar XFR or XKR, you can sign up for a free, one-day performance driving course. Jaguar has hand-picked the team of instructors, and it includes the accomplished driver Davy Jones, 1996 24 Hours of Le Mans winner. The automaker has already set up camp for a week apiece at Homestead Speedway in Florida and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in Nevada.

Upcoming track dates include May 24-28 at Monticello Motor Club in Monticello, New York; August 3-7 at California Speedway in Fontana, California; and another round at Homestead December 6-10. If you own one of the cars, all you have to do is register and show up.

Jaguar says it has sold 825 model-year 2010 R cars, and so far 10 percent of owners have signed up for school.

"We're hoping for 25 percent of our customers to participate," says BJ Colaric, general manager of Jaguar income operations in the U.S. "The R Performance Academy turns our customers who are already passionate about our cars into advocates for them."

You don't get to drive your own car at the school, but then, why would you want to beat up on your own Jag anyway? There are plenty of well-prepped XFRs and XKRs inactivity to endure your ham-fisted inputs.

Or in this case, ours. Inside Line attended one of the day sessions in Vegas. We offer a few impressions about the school and the cars after the jump.

First off, Jaguar doesn't expect participants to have any track experience — a pretty clean guess given that none of its cars come with a manual gearbox. So the classroom talk (which covers basic concepts like brake/throttle use, weight transfer, where to look, etc.), and the morning autocross and "handling oval" sessions will be review if you've been to school before.

But beginners should learn a lot in this environment. The instructors are patient and enthusiastic (exactly what you'd expect but not always what you get at driving schools), and the exercises help get you used to what a car with a supercharged, 5.0-liter V8 and 461 pound-feet of torque feels like when you start to lean on its abilities. You also get practice at applying full braking power and looking ahead in a smaller, less overwhelming environment than a full road course.

Students are introduced to the road course just before lunch, and the lapping sessions are in the afternoon. It's not open-lapping, though. You're either in a lead-and-follow group with instructor doing the leading, or you have an instructor riding shotgun providing encouragement and corrections as needed. Like we said, this course is aimed at Jaguar owners who have never been on a track.

However, even with a few schools under our belt, we did not get bored on that afternoon in Vegas. The skies opened right before lunch, and by the time we were stuffing our helmeted head into a swoopy XKR, the Speedway's road course might as well have been a sheet of ice.

But there was no alarm among the instructors. Activities went on as planned. Pace was slowed up a bit, though, by the XKR's enthusiasm to swap ends every time we gave it throttle. It sounds a bit scary when you remember just how much power this car has. But it's cushy to tell when grip is about to go and then almost as cushy to gather it up. And then? Straighten 'er out, back on the throttle and gather it up again. Car Control 101.

Still, with the track as wet as it was, we preferred the heavier but more neutral-handling XFR. As we noted in our full test, throttle response is nice and linear in this car; the transmission is smart; the steering is sharp; and body motions are well controlled. As such, it's really not a stretch to be on a track in a 4,400-pound sedan.

At the end of the day, we chatted with an actual XFR owner who'd taken off a day from work to attend the school. He'd never done anything like this before. Both the car and the performance driving academy that came with it have changed his view of Jaguar, he said. "In the past, they were such an old person's car."

Well, here it is on a race track, that means it's sporty right? Ok, maybe not, but it's going way faster around Suzuka than a Prius ever could.