Friday roundup: Highlights from the week in autos

What a week in autos. There was some good news: Fans of the upcoming seventh-generation Corvette learned just how quick the car will be, Aston Martin is making a drop-top version of its Vanquish supercar and GM’s initial quality rankings jumped.

There also was bad news: Chrysler had the worst week after agreeing to a massive recall of Jeeps (though still refusing to admit there’s a problem), Tesla saw a recall of its popular Model S sedan and the feds have opened a preliminary investigation into more than 200,000 Suzuki SUVs and hatchbacks.

Highway 1 also logged some seat time in a few noteworthy vehicles. Check out our review of the all-new 2013 Range Rover Supercharged, yours for a princely $114,000. We also took a quick look at GMC’s all-new Sierra 1500 V-6 truck. Check out our thoughts to see if it was able to rise to the high standard Ram’s 1500 V-6 set back in May.

Here’s what else you may have missed and what car fans have to look forward to for the upcoming weekend.

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This weekend marks the 90th anniversary of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s most prestigious endurance car race. Four different classes of cars will lap the roughly 8.5-mile course at the same time. The cars with the most laps after 24 hours of continuous racing win.

Audi is fielding a trio of cars that will be looking to grab the automaker its fourth consecutive overall win, though a pair of Toyotas will look to prevent that from happening. This year also marks the last time open-cockpit cars will be allowed to compete.

In the GT class, SRT’s Viper is making a return to Le Mans racing, where it will face entrants from Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin and Corvette. The racing action starts around 3 p.m. local time (6 a.m. Pacific), and you can watch a bulk of it on Speed.

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For a more local car event, consider heading down to Dana Point for the 31st annual Dana Point Concours d’Elegance, which is now part of the Orange County Collector Car Week. The event runs Friday through Sunday, with Friday kicking off an inaugural (and rare) tour of Camp Pendleton.

The Camp Pendleton event, dubbed the Rallye Basilone Historic Tour, will raise money for a trio of charities with military ties. Saturday features a hot rod and custom car festival that’s free and open to the public.

On Sunday, the Concours contest itself takes place, with winners being announced around 12:30 p.m. For full details on the event as well as tickets, click here.

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There’s a new Mustang headed our way sometime in 2014 (evidence points to a Detroit Auto Show debut in January) and Mustang fan site Mustang6G has video of a heavily camouflaged example out testing.

Ford has been resolutely mum about any details of the next Mustang, which will be sold as a 2015 model. What is expected is styling that is quite a departure from the current retro-themed look.

Much like Chevrolet and its 2014 Corvette, Ford is looking to create a sports car with a more global and youthful appeal than previous versions.

From the video, it’s difficult to see any details of the new look, other than traditional coupe proportions with a long hood and a short trunk lid. A V-8 or a V-6 is likely to be found under the hood, though don’t be surprised if turbocharging also becomes part of the equation. A turbocharged four-cylinder could even be featured, especially for European markets.

ALSO:

BMW officially launches all-new 4 Series Coupe

Ford announces robotic program to test future vehicles

Chevrolet announces 0-60 acceleration time for all-new 2014 Corvette Stingray