About five years ago, in an effort to create a new market segment, auto manufacturers began to blur the lines between coupes and sedans. Mercedes-Benz’s CLS led a pack of cars that claimed to deliver coupe-like performance while providing the comfort, luxury and cargo capacity of a sedan. The somewhat deceptive marketing campaign on which these cars crested, however, could never change the fact that they were actually still sedans by the traditional definition.

What sports acres of chrome, gallons of custom-finished paint and enough trick details to make SEMA look like an Amish convention? Step to the front of the class if you guessed the 2009 Harley-Davidson Custom Vehicles Operations lineup: four limited edition 2009 CVOs models that are available in 12 dizzying color schemes, each variant offering an edgy twist on iconic Harley-Davidson bikes.

Ten years ago, Hyundai used to be associated with mediocre, cheap cars that were good enough for rental car lots, but not exactly suitable for many American driveways. Times have changed, as the South Korean automaker is now trying to step up their game with its 2009 Hyundai Genesis that is said to hold its own with the likes of Mercedes-Benz and Lexus.

Likes: Lighter-than-aero exterior design
Art gallery-quality interior styling
Recaro sport front seats

Dislikes: Rear seat head room -- not gonna happen
Some dubious interior color combinations

Competes With: BMW 3 Series, Lexus ES, Infiniti G37, Cadillac CTS

At first glance, the 2009 LSE Coupe partly resembles a Range Rover Sport, but if you take a closer look, you’ll notice that instead of four doors, there’s only two—that’s exactly what LSE Design UK CEO Andrew Green wanted you to think. “We designed the car to look like it just rolled out of the manufacturer’s factory; not as if a tuning firm got their hands on it,” he describes. “We wanted it to look natural, so that when people look at it, they wouldn’t be able to see the differences compared to a regular Range Rover Sport.”

The Bentley Brooklands is not for everyone—and that’s exactly how the British automaker wants it. Bentley is only making 550 Brooklands, and most of those will be safely stored in private collections as immobilized prized possessions. Really, that’s what Bentleys are—works of art. They’re made entirely by hand according to the individual’s taste. The Brooklands embodies the fine art of the car manufacturing process from start to the finish, which I discovered on a European excavation of Bentley’s latest marquee.

Opting for a hybrid car usually meant having to choose between saving the Earth or driving in style. Soon, you can do both with Cadillac’s Provoq Fuel Cell Concept—a hydrogen fuel cell crossover vehicle that continues GM’s commitment to lessen the need for petroleum through advanced technology.

Forget having to sacrifice luxury for driving an environmentally friendly vehicle now that Cadillac is offering its 2009 Escalade Hybrid, which delivers a 50-percent fuel economy improvement in city driving. As the world’s first hybrid applied to a large, luxury SUV, the new model features the same luxurious components as one would expect to find in a standard Escalade, but now adds a patented two-mode hybrid technology (also seen in the Yukon and Tahoe hybrids), which allows it to return exceptional fuel economy in both city and highway driving.

Mercedes-Benz has finally released its highly anticipated 2009 SL 65 AMG Black Series. This new ride will be the best of the German automakers high-performance vehicles, at least until they release their new SLC model. The "Black Series" is a spin-off of the SL 65 AMG and its 6.0L twin-turbo v12.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t open up a perfectly good supercar on the 270-mile stretch of asphalt that links Los Angeles to Las Vegas, but that was our fate as we piloted a 2008 Audi R8 one cool, January night.