#JapaneseCar

Ah, the Mazda RX-8. Given that it shares many underpinnings with the NC Miata, has a high-reving, silky smooth powerplant, 4 doors and a useable backseat, it should be a shoo-in for my next car, right? Not at all.

The Infiniti JX marks the fourth SUV or crossover for the brand, slotting between the FX sporty crossover and the gargantuan QX56. According to Infiniti, the brand had nothing to stem the flow of customers who were dabbling outside the brand when it came time for a three-row luxury crossover. Instead of letting their clients go off and get an Acura MDX or Audi Q7, Infiniti took the underpinnings of the 2013 Nissan Pathfinder and co-opted them for a luxury vehicle.

In a very small way, my family was involved in bringing the Honda CR-V to North America. As Honda hemmed and hawed about bringing their first in-house SUV to the continent, they quietly shipped over a few right-hand drive examples in late 1995 for employees to evaluate. As a car guy with two kids, my father, who was Honda’s in-house attorney at the time, was a perfect candidate, and got the bright blue CR-V for a few days. Festooned with chrome accents, graffiti-like graphics, a JDM fender mirror and brush bars, the right-hand drive CR-V got lots of attention. The CR-V finally came to North America two years later, without all the awful acoutrements that Japanese versions had in spades.

North America won’t get a “tuner special” Scion FR-S like the Japanese Toyota 86 will. Such a policy apparently contradicts Scion’s policy of offering one trim level, and the American FR-S will apparently come pretty well equipped. But that doesn’t mean we won’t see it later.

Now, this isn’t something I picked out of my nose. This is Suzuki’s new A-segment concept, a car that weighs a mere 1600 lbs.

Rotating alone on a turntable: the Subaru BRZ. Looks good, if you ask me. Unfortunately we couldn’t touch the dashboard for all of you dash-touchers out there… more shots after the jump.

“You know,” Mark Templin of Lexus told the press, “the first time I saw this car, I was speechless.” I know I have that quote correct, because it was in the copy of the speech handed out after the press event.

Speeches about speechlessness aside, however, this is the new styling direction of Lexus. That much is obvious from the pinched grille. What else can we learn about it?

Bucking the wisdom of nearly every automotive journalist alive, Canadians opted for the much-maligned 2012 Honda Civic in 2012. 55,090 Civics were purchased by Canadians, making it the best selling passenger car for the 14th straight year.

According to our most recent data from Automotive News, as well as Honda Canada itself (with Automotive News tracking sales through November, 2011), the top 10 vehicles were all compacts, with the exception of the Toyota Camry. As of this writing, the Hyundai Elantra finished in second place, despite leading briefly earlier in the year. The prospect of a revised Civic for the 2013 model year wasn’t enough to put a damper on sales – or maybe people just weren’t interested.