Times are tough, and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any major economic recovery in the near future. A lot of people, myself included, have cut way back on spending just to make ends meet. Still, you can only cut back so far: ours is a culture based around the automobile, and you need a reliable set of wheels to get to and from work, the grocery store, your therapist, etc.

RideLust

Cars in general have become more reliable over the years — and yet, there are always some models that outlast their peers. Pinpointing exactly how many miles, on average, a given model racked up collectively or individually is virtually impossible, but we’ve identified 10 cars we see as having exceptional — sometimes surprising — endurance and value. We bet you saw one of these still cruising the highway recently.

Kiplinger

Honda has started working on the real prototypes of their next-generation Civic (for the European market), and we caught the very first one testing close to their European development center in Germany.

LeftLaneNews

Like many guys, we work hard so we can play harder, and we often resort to paying others our hard-earned money to take care of simple, trivial things that we convince ourselves we just don’t have the time to do. Rather than brew a cup of joe at home, we spend hundreds of dollars a year for the privilege of drinking regular black coffee out of a fancy paper cup. We pay a man in a bathroom to squirt our hands with soap and hand us a paper towel. And what’s worse, we throw thousands of dollars at mechanics to tackle car repairs that are no more complex than loosening a couple of bolts.

AskMen

Alfa Romeo

If the car industry’s recent tumult has any upside, it’s that after years of crowding dealerships with some… less than inspired domestic designs, automakers are finally reaching across borders to stay afloat in a keen, competitive market: Ford is importing models from its excellent European division, and Fiat’s acquisition of Chrysler means we’ll be seeing the first Stateside examples of the brand in almost thirty years. Still, that doesn’t mean we’ll get everything we really want. Here, we break down the best examples of the foreign cars that won’t be arriving on our shores. Read it and weep

GQ

AUSTIN, Texas — University of Texas plant physiologist Jerry Brand has spent the past decade lovingly tending the world’s largest collection of pond scum.

Now the quest for renewable energy has made Mr. Brand and his algae hot commodities.

NYT

Crowds hostile about the state of America’s auto industry have made presenting at auto shows a much trickier job than it used to be, the New York Times reports. The eye-candy models at scaled-back exhibits from General Motors and Chrysler are fielding questions during the ongoing New York event about the bailout, bankruptcy, corporate governance, and even the role of gas-guzzlers in causing the Iraq war.

NYT

President Obama yesterday announced plans to buy 17,600 American-made, fuel-efficient cars and hybrids for the government fleet, the White House’s latest gambit to steer aid to the nation’s beleaguered automakers.

WashingtonPost

They’d better stay away from the New York auto show this week because there they will see car manufacturers showing off their latest off-road contenders, and the majority of the new models unveiled at the show’s press preview earlier this week were SUVs or crossovers. Why? Because while these vehicles may have been declared dead in Manhattan, the residents of the Fly-Over states have kept buying them (to the extent that anyone is buying anything more than food and water these days).

msnbc