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Lamborghini unveils Egoista Concept for selfish supercar owners

Does the mere desire to own a ridiculously high-performance and stupendously expensive supercar automatically make its prospective owner a little selfish? Not necessarily, but if said supercar has just one seat, a case could certainly be made that its megalomaniacal owner simply doesn't want to share the experience with his friends...
For such an owner, Lamborghini has presented the Egoista Concept - perhaps fittingly, the car was unveiled at a private 50th birthday party that the automaker seems to have thrown for itself. From what we can glean without any official announcement from Lamborghini to go by, the Egoista Concept has room for a single occupant, is powered by a 5.2-liter V10 engine and boasts styling said to be inspired by an Apache helicopter.
While we eagerly await more details from Lamborghini, we suggest you click on the image above to view the Egoista in high resolution. With just one angle to go by, we can't really offer much commentary on its design, other than to say it joins the Veneno as one of the more memorable self-given birthday presents in recent memory.

Rare early Lamborghini Countach sells for record $1.2 million

Lamborghini may have made headlines with the highly exclusive, $4.5-million Veneno and the even more expensive Veneno Roadster that followed, but when it comes to classics sold at auction, their prices seldom approach the kind of figures attained by rare classics made by arch-rival Ferrari. Early 350 GTs and rare Miuras (like the SV prototype Gooding sold a few years ago for a record $1.7 million) have been known to breach the seven-figure mark, but now the Countach is making its way into the big leagues as well.
Pictured here is a rather exceptional early example sold by Bonhams in Connecticut last week. This 1975 Lamborghini Countach LP400 "Periscopica" - so dubbed for the unique rearview mirror fitted to the first 150 examples made - has just over 10,000 miles on the odometer. With flawlessly retouched Blu Tahiti (read: French racing blue) paint and an immaculate deep tan leather interior, the Periscopica was the subject of feverish bidding before selling for $1.2 million to a buyer present at the auction, beating out a dozen or so telephone bidders.
The record price for a Countach trumps the previous record, also set by Bonhams at the Quail Lodge last August, where another '75 Periscopica sold for $836,000. The rising prices surely reflect the coming of age for the Countach, now nearly 40 years since its introduction - particularly for the generation that grew up idolizing it as the prototypical supercar. Scope it out in the artful gallery of 76 high-resolution images above and the details of the auction below.

Volkswagen breaks 40-year-old sales record in 2012

The last time Volkswagen moved this many vehicles in America in one year, Richard Nixon was still a President in good standing, Let It Be was a radio hit and each car wearing the VW badge boasted an air-cooled engine. That's right, with a grand total of 580,286 vehicles sold in the US last year, the VW Group has broken its own four-decades-old sales record by 2,899 vehicles.
Of that 580k total sold, 438k were Volkswagens and 139k were Audi products - increases of 35.1 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively, in year-over-year sales. The ultra-premium members of the VW group also fared well; Bentley delivered 2,315 vehicles for a 23.3-precent increase, and Lamborghini delivered 520 units for a 52.9-percent jump. Bugatti, we're told is "right on track."
Jetta (pictured) sales paced the marque with 170k models sold, and Passat also finished very strong with sales of 117k total. Tiguan also racked up its best year on file, with 31,731 models shifted.