I and my family do need it.

Cranky Brit auto-journalist extraordinaire Jeremy Clarkson has, shockingly, named the 2009 Corvette ZR1 the best car of this past year. Of course, he also selected an American car as one of the worst.
When Jeremy Clarkson first reviewed the ZR1 he claimed love for the American-made supercar despite the propensity for it to disintegrate. In his year-end retrospective for the Sunday Times he essentially repeats this claim but says, despite this, it was the best car of the year.
And then out of nowhere came the ZR1, which has a supercharged V8 that manages to be both docile and extraordinarily savage all at the same time. I’ve been trying to think of a dog that pulls off a similar trick, but there isn’t one. And anyway, this car is not a dog.
Oh, it’s not built very well. After just three days in my care, the boot lock disintegrated and the keyless go system refused to acknowledge the keys were in the car, but I didn’t mind because there is simply no other car that looks this good, goes this fast – in a straight line and around corners – and that most of the time bumbles about like a forgetful uncle. And when you throw in the price tag of just £106,690 – lots for a Corvette but modest next to a similarly powerful Ferrari – the case for the defence can sit down and put up its feet knowing that the prosecutor simply has nowhere to go.

The R8 V10 is the result of cumulative know

The R8 V10 is the result of cumulative know-how from Audi's string of Le Mans victories. Its naturally aspirated engine combines racing technology such as dry sump lubrication with FSI gasoline direct injection. The ten-cylinder design is the perfect synthesis for impressive top performance, mighty pulling power, and low weight. Starting in 2009, this engine will also prove its potential on the world's racetracks—in the new R8 racing car Audi is developing for customer teams in conformance with the GT3 rules.
The V10 engine in the production sports car will be almost identical in construction to the one in the racing version. Its displacement is 5,204 cc, at 6,500 rpm it delivers 530 Nm (390.91 lb-ft) of torque, at 8,000 rpm its power tops out at 386 kW (525 hp).
The specific power output is 100.9 hp per liter of displacement—and each hp has to propel only 3.09 kilograms (6.91 lb) of weight, because the Audi R8 V10 in the version with the six-speed manual gearshift weighs only 1,620 kilograms (3571 lb). The engine accounts for 258 of these kilograms (569 lb)—that's only 31 kilos (68 lb) more than the V8.

The Best Car

The Best Car at the Detroit Auto Show?

"The Audi R8 5.2 FSI quattro was my pick of the first day at Detroit," writes Noel McKeegan from the North American International Auto Show which opened today. "It was the most aesthetically striking car that wasn't a concept, and with the 525 hp 5.2 liter V10 engine replacing the 420 bhp 4.2 V8, performance has gone another level. With the quattro all-wheel drive, LED-headlights and aluminum body with a very curvaceous rear end treatment, it really is a knockout."
"The key figures are that the V10 makes 105 more horses than the 4.2-liter V8 R8, 78 more foot pounds of torque, gets to 100 kmh in 3.9 seconds and has a top speed of 316 km/h."