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The rumormill is a funny thing, and sometimes it can run amok. This appears to be one of those times. The DigitalCorvettes.com forum posted a note earlier this evening saying that Corvette ZR1 production has been halted (Bowling Green is shut down this week, so no Vettes are being built at the moment) and suggesting that the ZR1 may be cancelled. A post on dealer Rick “Corvette” Conti’s blog, linked in the referenced DigitalCorvettes thread, added to the intrigue.

Autoblog has contacted GM’s Terry Rhadigan, who handles global communications for the Chevrolet brand. We presented the DigitalCorvettes link and asked for an official response. His was very clear:

“Not true.”

The GT-R/911 schoolyard scuffuffle continues, with Nissan looking at Porsche’s test and basically saying “yer doin it wrong” to the German automaker. Chief engineer Kazutoshi Mizuno has graciously offered remedial driving classes to the driver for Porsche’s lapping session where a GT-R was reportedly 25 seconds off Nissan’s torrid time of 7 minutes, 29 seconds. Porsche had concluded that special tires must have been quietly fitted in a quest for ‘Ring primacy. Porsche has yet to say anything other than “Ve don’t sink zee car can do it in schtock form.”

Not so, says Nissan. While a claim to the fastest production car on the Nürburgring might help prospective customers froth up some money, and owners are unlikely to try verifying the claim, Nissan is not interested in wasting time on one-offs, according to Mizuno. “For us, testing the car in standard production specification is far more relevant”, says the engineer. The very tires that carried driver Toshio Suzuki on the 7:29 run are in the hands of Sumitomo, and Nissan would encourage interested parties to STFU and go look at the rolling stock. It seems Nissan thinks Porsche needs a little help figuring out the GT-R, to which the company will be happy to help. “We are aware that several automakers have purchased the GT-R for their own testing and evaluation,” Nissan says in its most recent rebuttal, “we would welcome the opportunity to help any auto manufacturer with understanding the full capabilities of the GT-R.”

At this point, we’ve seen nearly every possible angle of Lamborghini’s latest raging bull, the Estoque, with one rather large exception: the interior. As a four-door sedan, the compromises one naturally expects from the Italian motor company’s supercars are wholly unacceptable in this application, so there is naturally a sense of luxury inside the Estoque that’s missing from the Gallardo and Murcielago. We can also see large paddle shifters for the e-gear transmission that are yanked straight from the Gallardo and plenty of two-tone grey and creamy white leather covering most every surface. Plus, there’s a whole lot more space now for such pleasure-inducers as a Blu-ray player, in-cabin television and, um, legroom. Still, it’s clear that this is a concept cockpit that was likely rushed to deadline for the Paris Motor Show. The buttons in the cockpit are all hard black plastic, which is not exactly fitting for a sister brand of Audi, an automaker that arguably sets the gold standard for interiors by which others are judged.

Since everyone else is getting in on the four-door supercar game, Ferrari might as well give one of its cars the taffy pull treatment. Rather than wait for one of the design houses classically associated with the Prancing Horse to apply masterstrokes of design, Russian enthusiast Krasnov Igor came up with his own quad portal thoroughbred. We’re not thrilled with the results, but we’ll bestow an A for effort. Looking like a Scaglietti that got tossed in the blender with an Elise’s roof and a Lamborghini tail, the wheelbase and proportions just don’t look quite right. Perhaps the Lambo tail is a nod to the car’s intended role as a competitor to the Lamborghini Urus/Estoque/whatevertheywannacallit, but we’re thinking that car’s styling will be far more cohesive.

Ever wonder what an Audi R8 would look like if it were to transform into a speedboat? Neither had we, but maybe it would look a bit like this machine, developed by a Swedish company named Vizualtech. The most notable styling element of the R8 are its contrasting blades of color just aft of the doors, and these make the transition to Vizualtech’s catamaran along with the integrated fuel-filler. At the rear are large openings with strakes that mimic the look of the R8’s hind-end nicely. One thing that the Audi doesn’t have are this catamaran’s gull-wing doors. We expect Audi to drop a V10 engine in the R8’s engine bay soon enough, and this sea worthy ship will feature one of its own, though powered by biodiesel and making about 320-horsepower. Top speed falls a bit behind the vehicle that inspired its design at 110 miles per hour, but that’s supercar speed on the water.

We were pretty excited when we saw the first shots of a transforming Nissan GT-R toy in 1:24 scale, but after seeing the final product, it looks as if the supercar makes a pretty poor Transformer. If only it morphed into Godzilla, maybe that would be an improvement. Take a look for yourself at the pictures in our gallery in both regular and transformed versions. While in its hidden alt-car-mode, the ‘bot has quite a few ill-placed seams, and when in native robot form the GT-R looks like it has insect wings. Still, it’s pretty cool to see a Transformer made from the R35, and we wish we could see it do its transforming in the upcoming movie, but not in this form. Convoy is what they call Optimus Prime in Japan, and to our eyes, Prime can only be a Big Rig.

In a move more “Um, yeah…” than “Oh yeah!”, Citroen has released the sixth teaser image of the car that will, one of these days, be revealed entirely to the world, all at once, front and back. We aren’t even sure if this qualifies as a tease, since getting a glimpse at a front end we’ve already seen doesn’t really ring the bell. What we can say is that one of our commenters appears to be right: the car does look like it’s only 10 inches high.

The ultimate Aston Martin is only a year old, but it’s already getting some updates including a new automatic transmission. The DBS will receive an optional automatic transmission dubbed the TouchTronic 2 for the 2009 model year, a re-engineered version of the ZF six-speed unit equipped in the DB9. Given the DBS’ more harder attitude over the DB9, the transmission has been tuned for faster, more aggressive shifts in order to maintain the same acceleration capabilities as the manual transmission version and giving drivers the choice of swapping their own cogs via steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters. When the situation is more relaxed the driver can enjoy some tunes over the new 1,000-watt Bang & Olufsen stereo system. For those inclined to occasionally punish a couple of friends, Aston is now offering a pair of +2 rear seats. The company claims this is at the request of customers, but frankly, customers who make such silly requests should probably be sent elsewhere anyway. The automatic DBS commands a $4,000 premium over the three pedal variant and starts at $273,000.

Sour grapes or legitimate complaint? That’s the question we’re left pondering after reading that Porsche believes Nissan must have cheated to record its 7:29:03 lap time of the famed Nürburgring race circuit. Porsche claims that it had been suspicious of the Nissan’s lap times, so it acquired a U.S.-spec GT-R for testing back-to-back with its own 911 Turbo and GT2. The result? The mighty Godzilla was toppled by the Teutonic German duo, with the GT-R posting times a good 25-seconds slower than Nissan’s claim.

How can Porsche explain the discrepancy? “This wonder car with 7:29 could not have been a regular series production car. For us, it’s not clear how this time is possible. What we can imagine with this Nissan is they used other tires,” says August Achleitner, the man in charge of the 911 program. There is footage of the GT-R lapping the ‘Ring at high speed, but it’s taken from inside the car where the tires cannot be seen.

Considering the fact that Nissan saw fit to issue a press release commemorating the car’s fast-lap, we doubt this is something that will be taken lightly. There’s a big can ‘o worms here, and Porsche’s in the corner holding the opener.

The trickle of images from Sant’Agata continues today as Lamborghini has shipped yet another teaser of the new car that it will show on Thursday at the Paris Motor Show. This time around we get a frontal image of the headlight area. Unlike the last two production models, the Gallardo and Murcielago, the orientation of the light cluster has been switched from vertical to horizontal. There is also a large vent visible implying that the engine is up front this time around. We only have one more day to wait for the full reveal, so it will be interesting to see what Lamborghini has wrought when it unveils the Urus or Estoque or whatever this concept turns out to be named.