Google's Cookie Monster Ate our Poll

Some of you may have noticed that our poll on the three compact SUVs that Ford, Mazda and Honda introduced at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show last week is a little on the cuckoo side today in regards of the number of people that voted.

If our memory serves us right, there were about 2,800 votes last night with the Mazda CX-5 leading the pack, but dropped to around 1,690 in the morning and have being going up and down ever since.

Obviously, there's a bug somewhere, but being that the gadget used for the poll is an official Google widget, there's really nothing we can do about it from our side, so we've decided to remove it.

We hope you accept our apologies for the glitch and promise to head over to one of Google’s official forums to write a heated message to someone who may or may not escalate the problem to a Google employee and cross our fingers that he or she will read it in six business days and find the time to respond in a timely manner - if you've ever dealt with Google, you probably know what we mean…

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POLL: Which One of These Newly Introduced Compact SUVs is THE Looker?

The 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show has turned out to be THE place to be if you are looking for the latest crop of compact SUVs as no less than three significant debuts took place in the City of Angels including two world premieres, the 2012 Honda CR-V and the 2013 Ford Escape, and one North America presentation, the Mazda CX-5.

And since all three crossovers will compete against each other not only in North America, but around the world as well, we thought it would be good idea to run a poll to determine which is the best looking model. We'll brief you on all three before we give you the chance to cast your vote.

We'll start of alphabetically with the 2013 Ford Escape that will be marketed as the Kuga in other regions, including Europe and China. The 2013 Escape marks a radical departure from the outgoing model not only in looks, but under the hood as well with Ford offering two small displacement turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engines with up to 237HP, alongside a conventional, naturally aspirated 2.5L four-pot.

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What Lies Ahead in Saab’s Future?

Saab is in trouble. With mounting debts and limited capital investment, the Swedish company is a prime candidate to go the way of the dinosaurs. The troubled automaker has not built a single vehicle since the 1st of April, and a much touted deal with China’s Hawtai Motor Group has fallen through. They did however sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with another Chinese company called Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. Ltd, earlier this week, but we will have to wait and see if the deal goes through.

In light of this, I’ve thought up four plausible (though unlikely) scenarios for Saab. These range from the hugely cynical all the way to the brazenly optimistic. After all, isn’t it better than Saab has some future rather than no future at all? Without further ado, here are your options:

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KIA Contemplating Switch to Alphanumeric Names in the U.S. [with Poll]

Kia may soon follow the increasingly popular automotive trend that is alphanumeric naming and abandon product names in its U.S. lineup, according to a recent statement by Hyundai Motor Co. Vice Chairman, Chung Eui-sun.

The automaker is already using a mix of alphanumeric and product names in South Korea and some other markets. For example, the recently revealed 2011 Optima and Cadenza sedans are known as the K5 and K7 respectively in the company's home market, while the Forte is said to become the K3.

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Poll: Which is the Best Looking Generation of the Honda Accord?

Earlier today, Honda came out with official info and photos of the mildly refreshed for the 2011 model year [U.S.-market] Accord sedan and coupe. Given all the negative talk lately about the design direction Honda has taken as well as the not-so-positive comments on the facelifted Accord, we thought of a poll; which is the best looking generation of the North American Honda Accord to date? .

To help you out in your decision, we've added a comprehensive picture gallery of all eight generations of the Honda Accord. Check out the photos and vote for your pick after the jump.

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Welcome to Carscoop Version 4.3: What Do You Think About Our Redesign?

Like car manufactures, every once in a while we update the look and feel of our site. This time, over the weekend we refreshed our 4.0 version of Carscoop for the third time since we introduced the new layout in September 2009. The redesign includes new graphics and fonts as well as some other technical changes to help the site load faster.

We're still looking for ways to improve Carscoop and since we highly value your input as readers, let us know what you think of the current 'facelift' and what you would like to see added or changed to the site in the comments section after the jump.

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Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 with R35 Fascia: Stud or Dud?

Found over at our JDM-loving friends at 'Farm of Mind', is this cosmetically modified Nissan Skyline GT-R R34. As you can see in the pictures above and below, the owner of the Japanese sports coupe kitted out the R34 with the new GT-R R35's fascia.

Even though we don't have many photos to go by, at a first glance the conversion looks fairly decent from a technical point of view. However, we'll let you decide if it's a 'stud' or a 'dud'. Have your say in the comments section after the jump.

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We're Back Online, Google-Bots Defeated

After a three-day hiatus because some Autobot automated system over at Google took the decision to erroneously classify our site as a spam blog, Carscoop is back online.

Now to explain. Google's "robots", "automated systems", or whatever else you'd like to call these "tools", do make mistakes. For the non-believers, here's what Google has to say about the matter:

"The disabling [of a site] is a result of our automated classification system marking it as spam. Because this system is automated there will necessarily be some false positives, though we're continually working on improving our algorithms to avoid these. If your blog is not a spam blog, then it was one of the false positives, and we apologize."

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