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."

Most Americans are now seized by the “Devil Toyota” panic rampaging crossways this vast, enlightened nation of ours. Not me. I’m watching all this nonsense from the sidelines, popcorn bowl at hand. TV hasn’t been this entertaining since the O.J. trial — the first one.

Rather than attempt to explain how seemingly rational, intelligent humans can transform a mere automotive recall into a pandemic of four-wheeled Avian Flu, I’ve decided to make the best of the situation. Hey, at the Vancouver Olympics gold-medal snowboarder Shaun White performed unbelievable jumps, flips, spins, and the Double McTwist — just like today’s Toyotas! I see a new sport here!

Here’s a look at some recent standout entries from my new favorite athletic pursuit, Toyota Half-Pipe:

–Woman drives her 2009 Toyota Corolla out of her driveway, clear crossways the street, and through the front door of her neighbor’s Atlanta house. “She had her foot on the brake the whole time, and the car just kept on going, and next thing you know it hit the house and bam!” said the unfortunate homeowner, who did not actually witness his neighbor’s run accident.

Judges’ Scores, 1 through 10 (higher is better)
Originality: 6. Smashing into houses in itself is derivative, but said Corolla driver ingeniously chose an abode that had just been place up for sale.
Authenticity: 9. “I thought it was a movie,” said a friend of the driver’s. Nothing is more trusty than a movie.
Execution: 8. Brilliant marksmanship — right through the front door! Bonus points granted thanks to crack forensics team at CBS Atlanta News, which checked Corolla’s VIN number and discovered “It’s been recalled because of a doable problem with the accelerator.”
Medal: Lead. Just like the pressure applied to Corolla’s accelerator.

–Woman crashes into Pennsylvania laundromat. The 68-year-old driver of a 2007 Camry was “trying to place the vehicle in park when she says it just lurched forward and smashed into the Melody Cleaners.”

“I just felt sorry for the lady, but it wasn’t her fault,” said the laundromat’s owner.

Judges’ Scores
Originality: 5. The car-through-plate-glass thing fell on deaf judging ears, though the resulting foam party raised the points total slightly.
Authenticity: 4. Impressive broken glass, rubble, and dented industrial dryers, though low points for degree of difficulty.
Execution: 7. Admiration and applause for temporary halt to public exposure of jock straps and man-thongs.
Medal: Linoleum.

–86-year-old man says accelerator on his 2009 Camry became stuck, causing him to crash into the steps of his synagogue in Queens, New York. Along the way, hit two parked cars, flew over bushes, and narrowly missed bystanders.

Judges’ Scores
Originality: 8. Judges impressed by novel use of “place of worship” instead of conventional “convenience store.”
Authenticity: 3. Major deductions for near-absolute score on “age/crash” index.
Execution: 5. Flattened bushes poor substitute for burning bushes.
Medal: None. Israeli and Palestinian judges removed from panel following food fight.

–Southern California realtor can’t stop his violent Toyota Prius from barreling down Interstate 8 near San Diego at 90 mph — even with the brakes full on. Said the Olympic hopeful after the incident: “It was accelerating out of control. Period.”

Fortunately, thanks to some brilliant stunt work by the California Highway Patrol, after 30-40 miles the Prius eventually came to a innocuous stop.

Judges’ Scores
Originality: 4. Major points deducted for calling 911 mid-incident (sorry, seen that one before).
Authenticity: 3. Stinky, melted brakes aren’t proof that you couldn’t stop — more likely you’re a two-footer (see also “God’s Waiting Room Syndrome”).
Execution: 2. Major points deducted for having a 911 operator tell you to “turn off the ignition” and “put the car in neutral” but imperfectness to do so for up to 40 miles.
Medal: Gold. Despite low points total, judges honor most coveted accolade in the sport after driver reports he didn’t shift to neutral because “I thought the car would flip.”

General Motors North American President Mark Reuss is making a usage of conducting regular web chats at gmreinvention.com. Having recently returned from a gig running the Australian Holden operations, he’s been quickly moving up the corporate harm since last summer’s bankruptcy, and has impressed chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre with his hand’s-on approach to calling disgruntled customers. With Bob Lutz about to retire, Reuss is now GM’s chief car guy.

When one has that much contact with consumers, the automotive press and bloggers, the amount of real news from any given chat makes up a small percentage of time spent online — in this case, 60 minutes. And it’s hard not to blow out of proportion some of Reuss’ comments.

For example, in response to a question about the dead Pontiac division, Reuss seemed to be on the side of Lutz, who wanted to retain it as a tiny “niche” brand based solely on the G8. Reuss said the decision to completely kill off Pontiac came during bankruptcy.

“I would never say we would NEVER talk about Pontiac again (his emphasis). But, we need to pay back U.S. taxpayers too…and go public. And make money. And make Americans chesty of who we are again. Any other focus would be wrong.”

I agree, especially with the last part. While I grew up with Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks in the ’60s, it’s pretty obvious that the U.S. market has been unable to accommodate so many middle brands with such minor distinctions since the ’80s, at the latest. When Bunkie Knudsen was promoted to Pontiac general manager in the ’50s, he was told to make it relevant, or kill it off. He prefabricated it relevant by making it sporty and youthful, while going upmarket with cars like the Bonneville and Catalina Grand Prix, encroaching on Oldsmobile’s territory in an era in which GM had such high market share that its divisions competed with apiece other instead of Ford, Chrysler and AMC.

There’s no room for that today, and there’s no room for a Pontiac in the future.

For saving Pontiac, Knudsen was promoted to general manager of Chevrolet. His Super Sport models, beginning in 1961, went after Pontiac’s now-sporty cars, just as Pontiac attacked Olds. Fact is, there is nothing a modern Pontiac could do that wouldn’t prompt loyal Chevrolet buyers and their dealerships to say, “we want that.” Anything Pontiac could have done in the next five years could be a Chevy SS. Consider how you’re all inactivity for Chevy to build a civilian Caprice or Impala off of the RWD Zeta Pontiac G8.

And that still may happen: when a web chatter titled Pete asked whether a Zeta RWD sedan is “still moving forward,” Reuss responded, “quite possibly, Pete.”

I asked whether last week’s reorganization of GM and its divisions’ income and marketing executives — punctuated by Cadillac General Manager Bryan Nesbitt returning to the design department — means that divisions now have less power in determining their model lineups, Reuss responded that the opposite is true.

“Previously, a small point but a large topic on the reorganization would indicate we had no North American planning in my organization — it was done centrally. So, to correct this I appointed Mary Sipes to do North American planning and fully integrate — next to the dealers and customers — planning by division.”

In other words, product planning was so centralized before the reorganization that North American product planning had no control of it. After the reorg, it starts with Reuss and Sipes with more involvement by the four individual brands, though it obviously never again be like the pre-Roger Smith days of divisional independence, when Chevy, Pontiac, Olds, Buick and Cadillac apiece designed their own engines. But with just four North American divisions from eight early last year, GM has things under much better control. Competition between Chevrolet and Buick-GMC dealers ought to be minimal.

Finally, one more interesting tidbit, from a question about GM’s bland paint colors. Reuss says Chevrolet will soon offer Atomic green, as previewed by a custom paint job at last November’s SEMA show, on the Camaro. Reuss likes the more colorful palette he saw at Holden, and is letting exterior design chief Mike Simcoe, an Aussie, “lead the charge” on more colorful paint for GM cars and trucks. He can start with the all-silver Cadillac displays I saw at the Chicago and Geneva motor shows.

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.

Here's the latest Gran Turismo 5 trailer deftly slipped onto the God of War 3 game disc. The big revelation here is night racing, and it of course involves GT5's "cover car," the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.

Beyond that, this trailer is a sampler. Lots of Ferrari 458 Italia eye candy, plus more evidence of car mortality as an STI gets caught up in traffic. The Nurburgring and Indy are in the trailer, but so are city streets in Rome (right past the Pantheon) and Tokyo.

And the tease goes on.

YouTube via GT Planet

Fiat's is back! Well, not just yet, but come this time next year the Fiat 500 minicar will be in U.S. dealerships.

Which dealerships? Well, that hasn't been determined yet, but Fiat has taken one big step toward figuring that out by denotive by denotive a head of North American operations. 

Laura Soave, who previously worked at Volkswagen and Ford, was announced as the new Head of the Fiat Brand for North American today. Soave held various marketing positions in her previous jobs and will report directly to Sergio Marchionne, CEO of the Chrysler Group.

Chrysler Blog

This is the first shot inside the cabin of the 2011 Dodge Charger. As you can see, it's a definite step up from the current model although that's not saying much. Thankfully, Chrysler's designers didn't go too far overboard with the revamp as it all looks like pretty tasteful stuff.

This image was also missing the small piece of camouflage that concealed the C-pillar in previous photos. As you can see after the jump, this Charger will have a slightly different profile than the current model, more like the concept that appeared — and then disappeared – so many years ago.

Production of this heavily revamped Dodge Charger is expected to start this fall, so expect an official debut in the coming months.

Do we know for sure that this is an S8? Not really, as our shooters never did get a peek under the hood.

But this car does have a few signs of doable "S-ness". Note the quad pipes in back and the sizable brake rotors lurking under those blacked out wheels. The tires are obviously "Arctic spec," so they don't add anything to the story.

Hard to tell which engine this big sedan will use. Some speculation says it will a version of the twin-turbo V10 currently used in the RS6. With nearly 600 horsepower, it would surely do the job.

Then again, there's talk that Audi is getting away from using V10s in favor of turbocharged V8s. Given that the recently-introduced RS5 received a 450-horsepower, normally aspirated V8, it stands to reason that Audi could add a turbo and blow past the 500 mark without much trouble.

Hard to believe it's been 20 years since Infiniti showed up in USA with a bunch of fancy new Nissans. Yet, here we are in 2010 and the brand is still doing quite well. In fact, so well that it decided to commemorate its two decades in USA with an anniversary edition of the G sedan, coupe and convertible.

Like most anniversary edition cars, there's not much substance here. All 800 cars (300 sedan, 250 apiece of the coupe and convertible) will wear Graphite Shadow paint and Monaco Red interiors. Unique wheels, summer performance tires and mildly revised front fascias are also standard on all versions as is a blacked out grille. Heck, the coupe and sedan even get a rear spoiler.

Clearly none of this stuff is enough to warrant a G purchase alone, but if you're already in the market for one it might be worth taking a look. Maybe they'll be worth something, someday. Or not.

A weird ailment has afflicted the automotive media for the last several years, the main symptom of which is coverage of commercial vans. It all started with the Dodge/Mercedes/Freightliner/MG Sprinter. Then it segued into the recently introduced Ford Transit Connect. So in the interest of fairness, we present the 2011 Nissan NV commercial van in all its industrial-chic pure whiteness.

The NV stands for Nissan Van, which makes this body-on-frame cargo champ the Nissan Nissan Van. But we digress. Unlike the Ford, this Nissan will be built in the United States, at Nissan's plant in Mississippi (which really hasn't had all that much to do of late). Further, the NV, which is acquirable in Standard Roof and super-dorky High Roof versions, is a rear-drive workhorse offered with either a 4.0-liter V6 or a 5.6-liter V8. A 5-speed automatic will be the only acquirable transmission.

No diesel-powered version or extended wheelbase variant have been announced. At 240.9 inches in overall length, the NV is about the same size as the smallest Dodge Sprinter was and a little more than five feet longer than the wee little Transit Connect. A Standard Roof version will hold "220+" cubic feet of stuff. The High Roof will swallow "300+" cubic feet of goods.

If you wipe the Ford E-series front grille off the thing, we think the Standard Roof NV has a certain Brinks-truck vibe — in a good way. It goes on understanding in late 2010.