Kelley Blue Book’s 2010 Brand Image Awards rated vehicles based on some 12,000 voter’s responses. The Brand Watch Study ranked consumer’s perception data to show which brands best communicate certain features of their vehicles over the past year and highlight factors that influence purchase decisions.

“If you believe the marketing credo ‘perception is reality,’ then you cannot help but be encouraged about the prospects of the winners of Kelley Blue Book’s 2010 Brand Image Awards,” said Jack R. Nerad, executive editorial director, Kelley Blue Book and kbb.com. “The brands included on this elite list have convinced the car-buying public at large of the considerable virtues of their vehicles, and that correlates well with success in the crowded automotive marketplace.”

Exactly 20 years after the original CTR, German tuning house RUF has announced the introduction of its third generation CTR3 coinciding with the launch of its new plant in Bahrain. The latest version’s bodywork is a RUF creation in aluminum and carbon-fiber and like the original, the CTR3 will be one of the fastest Porsches on offer when it’s released. RUF has utilized racing technologies first seen on its 911-based RT12 offering. Powering the CTR3 is a twin-turbo 3.8-liter flat six engine pumping out 700 bhp at 7,000 rpm with torque topping out at 657 lb-ft. To save weight its developers added several unique body panels made from lightweight aluminum and carbon-fiber as well as a new lattice tubing spaceframe. Drive is sent to the wheels via a six-speed sequential manual gearbox that allows the CTR3 to reach a top speed of 235 mph. When the original CTR was released in 1987, it out-performed many of the supercars of its era including cars like the Ferrari F40, Lamborghini Countach and even Porsche’s own 959.

Other features optical SportDesign front spoiler with a lead apron, black, special sideskirts painted, as well as black and Carrera GTS logo on the door and the rear lid, black or silver depending on body color covers. Between two tailpipes at the rear is finished in black. Standard internal “black Alcantara» Center departments include driver and passenger sport seats with color black Alcantara. Sporty interior is dominated by dark colors, this high quality material is used where the car driver and passengers in direct contact with, as the new three-spoke steering wheel and handbrake levers SportDesign surrounded and transfer.

If we are to believe a report from the Dutch car site ‘Autoweek’, these are the first official photos of the facelifted Porsche Boxster and Cayman models, both of which are due to be unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November according to Carscoop’s sources. The site claims that these pictures were sent to them by an anonymous reader who accidentally happened to stumbled upon them on Porsche’s online car configurator.

The second generation Porsche Boxster that’s due sometime in 2011 will feature a new base model equipped with a fuel efficient four-cylinder engine according to a report from UK’s Autocar magazine citing company insiders. The last 4-cylinder Porsche was the 1990s 968 which was the final model in an evolving line that started in the mid-1970s with the introduction of the 924 and continued with the 944. But unlike the 968 that was equipped with one of the largest four bangers ever to be offered in a production car with a displacement of 3.0-liters, the next-generation Boxster’s straight-four is expected to be quite smaller, featuring a displacement of 2.0 to 2.4-liters.