Truckers are like motorcycle riders in the way that they invariably customize their rides. It’s probably just as challenging to find a bone stock tractor as it is an unembellished Fat Boy. When you’re plying the roads as much as the big rigs do, why not have some fun and stand apart from the rest of the crowd and their mudflaps decorated with conformist chrome silhouettes of questionable taste. International’s new LoneStar truck will be factory trickable with a new line of Navistar accessories called DoubleSix Customs. While the Autoblog Garage isn’t quite big enough to hold an 18-wheeler, we did dedicate the better part of an hour to International’s website designing the perfect vehicle for hauling our tricked out fleet of Zastavas.

With International’s online configurator, you can start with a basic truck and add a splash of color, a dollop of flames, lots of chrome, and nearly as many lights as Vegas. The DoubleSix name takes its inspiration from the mother road, Route 66, which International is hoping still resonates with those who keep our economy rolling. Our only problem? Lack of the proper license. Try it yourself, you can even upload logos and graphics to design your perfect LoneStar. Press release after the jump.

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In 92 years of business, the creators of “The Ultimate Driving Machine” have produced only one mid-engined supercar. That was the M1, designed by the legendary Giorgetto Giugiaro and developed together with Lamborghini. This year, BMW celebrates the 30^th anniversary of the M1, and to that end is planning a number of events to be held throughout the year to commemorate the occasion. Among them will be a special exhibition organized for this year’s Concorso d’Eleganza at Villa d’Este on the shores of ’s Lake Como, where BMW will showcase a collection of both roadgoing and racing M1s, of which a little over 450 were made. Retrospectives are fun, but we’re looking forward to the M1’s successor even more.

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Could the protracted sale of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford to Tata finally be coming to an end? After learning last week that Tata has secured the financing required to make the deal possible, reports are coming from London’s Financial Times suggesting that the official announcement of the sale, reportedly worth $2 billion, could come as soon as on Wednesday, when Jaguar workers return to work after enjoying their Easter holiday. This sale, of course, follows up Ford’s sale of Aston Martin, leaving a lonely Volvo as the only company left of Ford’s Premium Automotive Group.

Details of the deal include Tata’s assurance that they will continue to buy engines from Ford for Jaguar and Land Rover and Ford’s continuing to contribute to the pension fund of both marques.

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Remember that Sirius and XM merger that was announced well over a year ago? Well, it FINALLY was approved by the Department of Justice. Basically this means everything went through and all that is left is the papers to be signed. This was the biggest hurdle of the entire ordeal and I am happy to see it finally take a giant step forward. The next step is to get the papers signed and begin the merge process that will put the goods from XM like MLB baseball with the goods from Sirius like NFL, Howard Stern and more…

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The 2008 New York Auto Show isn’t like other auto shows. Only New York’s show could attract 1.2 million people — more than the attendance of any other auto show in the country — and yet take place in a neighborhood where almost no one drives cars. And only New York’s show could feature a world-class automotive event with sponsorship by Lamborghini, a brand of car that you would never see on the streets of Manhattan.

The 2008 New York Auto Show takes place March 21-30 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in midtown Manhattan overlooking the Hudson River. It’s the final big-time car show until everyone meets in Paris this summer. We’ve looked at every car, and we’re prepared to give you all the important news.

As always, there’s an end-of-term feel to the New York show, as all the secret concepts have been uncovered, all the news has percolated to the surface, and there’s more talk about next year than this. Even so, this is an opportunity to see all the important showcar of the season, and there are more than 1,000 vehicles of all persuasions within Javits Center’s 846,000 square feet of displaced space.

As always, the public days for the show are a free-for-all of both hype and glamour, as with the “Match It!” game show contest that will test your car knowledge and pop culture instincts every day. Also, Toyota has a talk show and Volvo is giving away a car.

The Javits Center puts the displays on different floors, and if you know where to look, you’ll find some pretty cool stuff. Down on Level 1, you’ll discover Milner Motors’ flying car (!), plus the Speed Racer from the forthcoming movie. We love the Scion display area in the Crystal Palace with real cars stacked on shelves three high, as if you were looking at Hot Wheels at Toys “R” Us. State Farm Insurance has turned a Chevrolet Monte Carlo into a racing simulator for you to drive. (It was a drunk driving simulator at the Chicago auto show.)

Level 3 has the real car stuff. Ford has staged a display of a crashed Taurus sedan, just to help you appreciate the modern automobile’s ability to let you walk away from disaster. Visit the new Sirius Travel Link at Ford’s Sync display, where you can try out a new integrated navigation/weather/traffic system. Toyota has a Highlander fuel-cell vehicle cut in half, and Audi has specially painted a car to increase awareness of breast cancer. Lexus will let you make a dyno run in the new high-performance Lexus IS-F.

Way up on Level 4 there’s the Flintstones’ car from the mercifully forgotten movie of the same name. It’s not too far from the 1961 Chrysler Thunderbolt concept car, a classic vision of the future from what was then Detroit’s leader in engineering.

Then again, maybe you’d like to look at something you can think about driving one day:

BMW CS Concept: The idea of a four-door sedan with a low, coupe-style roof is gaining traction at a lot of car companies, and this concept introduced in China suggests that BMW is thinking this is a new prestige category.

2009 BMW M3 Convertible: More evidence that the M3 is its own brand name, as the M3 has assumed coupe, sedan and convertible shape all within a year. Also this car introduces BMW’s new dual-clutch seven-speed automated sequential manual transmission.

2009 Dodge Challenger R/T: It’s here at last, and now we know more about the forthcoming V6 version. But will muscle cars like this save the Detroit car companies?

2009 Honda Fit: Now that gasoline has reached $4 per gallon, the sales of small cars are surging. The current Honda Fit has been a notable success in this regard, and it’ll get even more clever and refined next year.

2008 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4: Newly revised with a new V10 engine, the Gallardo has become everyone’s favorite supercar, and Ferrari has good reason to be worried.

2008 Mini Clubman JCW: The stretched Clubman has renewed interest in the Mini, and the addition of the high-performance John Cooper Works package gives it performance credentials.

2010 Mitsubishi iMIEV: Small hybrids like this will be coming to the U.S., and since Mitsubishi has to be daring to keep its place in the American market, this one could be here soon.

2009 Pontiac G8 GXP: For all the significance of Pontiac’s new rear-wheel-drive sedan built in Australia, the G8 hasn’t been getting the attention it deserves. Maybe the GXP will turn the trick.

Saleen S5S Raptor: The evolution of the Saleen S7 — the supercar that time has overlooked — shows that the little company deserves respect for its race-proven engineering.

Scion Hako Concept: This Scion concept appears to be channeling a hot-rod version of a ‘32 Ford Victoria, as if it wants to be Scion’s answer to the Chevy HHR.

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Asian automakers probably got a bigger sales boost than their U.S. rivals from vehicles introduced at the annual New York auto show.
New models from Asia included Nissan’s latest Maxima, and the Fit small car and Acura TSX sports sedan from Honda. South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. showed a two-door version of its Genesis premium car, while Toyota Motor Corp. had a coupe that may be added to its youth-oriented Scion brand.
Models from Kia Motors, Mazda and Subaru also drew raves.
The new-model count at the show mirrors the rising fortunes of the Asians in the Northeast, as well as the total U.S. market. Asian companies accounted for 10 of the 20 vehicles making their global or North American debuts, compared with two from U.S. automakers, according to the show’s organizers. Eight of the new models were European makes.
”The New York show has lost some of the allure for U.S. brands that it once had,” said George Magliano, a New York-based analyst for research firm Global Insight Inc. ”It’s still the media capital, but the biggest introductions for them are in Detroit, Los Angeles and Geneva.”
The New York show was staged against the backdrop of an unsettled U.S. economy, in which consumers are spending less as prices for just about everything soar, including gasoline.

yen makes its vehicles less competitive. The world’s second largest automaker plans to boost sales in emerging markets such as China to offset slowing demand in the U.S. and Japan, said Vice President Tokuichi Uranishi.
”New York is still important,” said Mark Fields, a Ford Motor Co. executive vice president.
U.S. automakers highlighted a handful of niche vehicles at the event, formally known as the New York International Auto Show. Ford displayed a prototype taxi version of a European commercial van that’s scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. in 2009. New York generates about 2,000 new cab sales annually.
”This year, we wanted to show something local more than anything else,” Fields said.
Chrysler LLC showed off its full line of Dodge Challenger sports cars, while General Motors, the world’s biggest automaker, introduced the Buick Riviera concept car, Pontiac’s G8 coupe-pickup combo and Solstice Coupe, and the Chevy Volt. The vehicle is initially expected to be more of a showroom lure than a sales draw, said GM’s Mark LaNeve.
Honda, by comparison, expects to sell at least 70,000 Fits this year, up from 56,432 in 2007. Next year ”we think with this new car we can do better,” said Dick Colliver, of Honda, which expects as much as a 3 percent U.S. sales gain this year.
With consumer confidence shaky as oil hovers around $100 a barrel, ”our products are right in the sweet spot of the market, given the demand for better fuel efficiency, value and reliability,” Colliver said.

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Apparently all is not kosher in corn country. BMW of Lincoln, Nebraska posted an auction on eBay for a brand new M3 Sedan for $60,000. Perhaps they were hoping for the kind of eBay madness that would push the price to six figures (something other dealers are doing right on the show floor). If that’s what they were after, well, they didn’t get it. The car was won by a gentleman in California for the listed price: $60,000.

The problem is that the dealer doesn’t want to give him the car. Not long after the auction ended, the winning bidder got a call from BMW of Nebraska telling him the auction was “a mistake,” and that he couldn’t have the car. In spite of the fact that the dealership changed the Buy It Now price twice — and so was paying attention to the auction — and eBay rules that make it clear that if someone wins the auction then you must complete the transaction, the buyer is still trying to get someone to give him the car he won at the winning bid price.

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