Deliveries of the  2012 Fisker began late in 2011 after many delays. The car wins praise for its looks and pioneering technology, though there’s no directly comparable model offered by any other maker. It competes both with similarly sized German prestige sedans—like the BMW 5 SERIES and the Audi A6 (and their upcoming hybrid variants)—but also with the 2012 Tesla Model S, if that all-electric sedan arrives in the summer of 2012 as planned.

The Fisker Karma sedan is priced at $106,000, with most buyers eligible for a $7,500 credit on their Federal income tax returns. Additional body styles using the Karma platform, including a “shooting brake” sports wagon model called the Surf and a two-door model with a retractable hardtop, the Karma S or Sunset, are planned as follow-on models

Drivers can select one of two modes: “Stealth” is the all-electric mode, up to the capacity of the battery pack, while “Sport” switches on the engine to deliver more power and better performance. A pair of “Hill” modes increases the regenerative braking, allowing the Karma to be driven “on one pedal” more often, similar to the pioneering  TESIA ROADSTER, the first modern electric-drive car.

To mark the 75th anniversary of the BMW 328’s debut, the Bavarian automaker introduced the BMW 328 Hommage concept car at the Villa d’Este Concours d’Elegance. BMW has used the concours at Lake Como to introduce similar retro-themed show cars before, and this year’s effort is clearly aimed at the recapturing the racing heritage of the 328 2-seater that bowed in the 1930s.

Beneath the long hood is a 3.0-liter inline-6, mated to a sequential-shift gearbox that has a lever located high on the center console close to the steering wheel. 

The car is sleek, with classic long hood, short rear deck proportions. The traditional twin kidney grille is made of aluminum and is flanked by single headlamps. The door cutouts are reminiscent of the BMW Z1 sports car, which had doors that would drop into the sills—in this case, there are no doors, just the low openings. The rear of the car features fairings that extend rearward from the seat-mounted roll hoops. 

The 328 Hommage is a tidy 2-place roadster that features a cut-down asymmetric windshield, cutouts instead of doors, leather hood straps and black accents on the headlamps to mimic the x-pattern of tape that was often sported by competition machines back then. The large wheels are also equipped with knock-off hubs.