Dashing through the snow is all well and good, but you could be leaping through it in Subaru Brat. That’s what Travis Pastrana has proven in his latest video.

Nissan wants to help us all hang on to the final remaining shreds of our sanity with a series of new activities to keep us distracted entertained as the winter once again steals our sunshine.

The Tokyo Auto Salon kicks off next month and Nissan has announced plans to showcase an assortment of different concepts.

An American, Bob Hall, is credited as the man who took the idea of a British-style two-seat roadster to Mazda and worked on the project for years in order to convince Mazda to follow through and put the car into production. Japanese designer Shunji Tanaka (far left, above) is credited as leading the exterior and interior design of the NA Mazda MX-5 Miata that has launched car lovers' dreams and racing careers for the past 33 years. Tanaka died earlier this month, a Facebook post by a close friend saying, "I'm so sorry to announce that Mr. Tanaka, the Chief Designer of NA MX-5 has passed away on Dec. 12th at the age of 75." The post says Tanaka's last words were, "I have no regret in my life." If that last part is true, it is justified. After doing work on Mazdas like the Miata and Mazda 929, Kawasaki poached Tanaka to design motorcycles. There, he added two-wheelers like the Z1000, ZX6R, ZX10R, and Z750 to his resume.

It might not be service to mankind, but his service to enthusiasts is unquestioned. The Miata not only initiated a roadster rebirth and Mazda's adoption of the Jinba Ittai philosophy, it has outlasted almost all of its roadster disciples, and outsold every single one, with more than a million leaving dealer lots since the first gen debuted. Frankly, Jinbai Ittai is a better tagline than "Swinging Time Machine," which was Tanaka's phrase to describe "a symbol of freedom achieved through a connection between the driver and the environment." Engineers Toshihiko Hirai and Takao Kijima must be noted here as giving the Miata the dynamic, gymnastic handling and balance that put real substance behind the droptop's absurdly cute looks. But 17 years before twin Miatas Mia and Tia hit the big screen in the first Cars movie, here were the real-life looks that art would later imitate.

Mitsubishi Electric is showing the latest version of its EMirai concept vehicles. The EMirai series has made recurring appearances at CES, showing off the company's — which is a separate entity from Mitsubishi Motors — latest driving technologies. The newest iteration, whose complete name is the EMirai xS Drive Concept, is scheduled for debut at CES 2022.

Past EMirai concepts ("Mirai", like the Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, means "future" in Japanese) have focused on technologies such as driver biometrics and augmented reality to make help alleviate the task of driving. The EMirai xS Drive continues on this theme with two primary advancements.

China’s FAW Group is planning to start selling its vehicles in Japan next year and is looking to establish itself as a key EV player in the local market.

Last year, the Subaru Crosstrek was the brand's third-best seller, just behind the Forester and Outback. It also sold more than twice as many units than the Impreza it's based on. So it's no surprise that the next-generation model (or at least a heavily revamped one) shown in these spy photos barely looks any different. Or at least that's the case at first glance. Looking closer, there are many little updates.

Up front, the most obvious update is to the grille. It's larger in size, and the mesh is thicker with bigger openings that seem inspired by the Wilderness trims of the Forester and Outback. The cladding on the corners of the bumper appears to be reshaped. They seem to rise up more under the headlights and have a bit more sculpting.

Rumors have been circulating that Mitsubishi will be doing some interesting things with its performance-oriented Ralliart brand. And it has launched some special variants in some overseas markets with the name, but that doesn't seem to be the end of it. Next month at the Tokyo Auto Salon, Mitsubishi will show a Ralliart concept car.

The company released a single teaser image of the concept, and it has us feeling optimistic. It shows a huge rear diffuser with a simple and stylish Ralliart badge attached. Unfortunately, that's about all we can see. So there's no way of knowing what kind of vehicle is attached to it. Could it be a fancy show car we've never seen before, or a way sportier version of a current model?

Kei car fans rejoice, Daihatsu presented the eleventh generation of the Hijet in both Cargo (van) and Truck (pickup) variants alongside the sixth generation of the Altrai (passenger van) sibling in Japan.

Like the original model, the current-generation Alpine A110 has enlisted in the French Gendarmerie. France's military police ordered 26 examples of the small, lightweight coupe that will be modified to help law enforcement officers catch motorists with a serious need for speed.

Government officials explained that they selected the retro-styled coupe because it's quick and agile to drive, though the fact that the Gendarmerie has historically used Renault-badged cars for its high-speed operations certainly didn't hurt Alpine's chances. Alpine will build the cop cars on the same Dieppe, France, assembly line that manufactures the civilian variant of the A110 (and that made the original model between 1963 and 1977). However, the 26 units will stop by a French outfitter called Durisotti before being deployed on French roads.

French police have taken delivery of the first two of 26 Alpine A110s models it will receive over the next four years to use as "rapid intervention" vehicles.

Mitsubishi has published a teaser of a mysterious Ralliart Concept car that will premiere at the Tokyo Auto Salon 2022 on January 14. While the automaker didn’t reveal which model is serving as a base for the concept, they stated that its styling will express “the company's vision for the new Ralliart.”

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After Toyota stunned the automotive world with the Lexus LS 400 in 1989, offering a majestically engineered luxury sedan with an all-new DOHC V8 at less than half the cost of its Mercedes-Benz 560 SEL rival, what could be done to follow that (other than a money-printing Lexus-badged Camry, that is)? Clearly, the missing piece of the Lexus branding puzzle at the time was a sports coupe, something to extract the money of car shoppers considering, say, a new Mercedes-Benz 300 CE or Acura Legend coupe. That car turned out to be the Lexus SC, styled in California and known as the third-generation Toyota Soarer in Japan. Here's one of the very first SCs sold in the United States, found in a Denver-area self-service yard last month.