Frankfurt's auto show is big. Damn big. Ten halls big. Herewith, rumor, gossip, and big, pretentious thoughts from the widow-making show floor. Some random thoughts on Day 2 of the show...

Jaguar's XF was a stunner from almost any angle save the front 3/4. Just as the current-generation XJ did its best to impersonate a Buick Park Avenue, there is a bit of Lucerne creep in the front of this Jag. But the rest of it is a knockout. The rear-3/4 view, in my opinion, is spectacularly fluid.

The long roofline culminates in a strong, broad, and high rear deck with Aston-inflected taillights. Inside, the XF has one of the most elegant interiors of any European sedan currently on sale, with Phaeton-style doors for the air vents, a simplified instrument panel with a large metallic iDrive style knob, and gorgeous leather with contrasting stitching. This car probably the best in-metal argument Jag has made yet for its abandonment of retro styling, as it returns Jaguar to the kind of avant-garde design that made it great - C-/D-type, E-type, and yes, XKS (say what you want about that last one, I thought it was cool). I can't wait to see one of these things come up behind me on the road and blow past. There will be no R edition at launch, just normally aspirated and supercharged V8 versions for our market...The new Mazda6 sedan likely will be the only bodystyle we see in the U.S., which is a shame for us five-door and wagon lovers. While Mazda US PR man Jeremy Barnes said that wagons were only one percent of the mix, which makes the move understandable, he also said that five-door represented roughly 25 percent of sales, and that "dealers were able to move sedan intenders into the five-door, but never the five-door guys into sedans." That leaves exactly how many mid-size five-doors on the market?...Oh, you had to see this one in the flesh: The Citroën C-Cactus was perhaps the hardest thing to look at here aside from the breakfast blutwurst. An odd pastiche of Beetle, Fiat 500, and pre-op Carny Wilson parts,

the Cactus's front end seems two sizes too big for the rest of the car, and rises up into the air in spite of its visual weight. Well, at least the detailing is terrible. Nautical and nature themes vie for dominance here, with leaf stencils everywhere there wasn't some kind of porthole. Like Billy said in last week's Entourage, "Even Jerry Lewis can get laid [in France]." ...Nissan's Mixim concept, the tiny, slope-roofed, swan-doored three-seater, seemed to promise all the impracticality of a supercar with all the performance of an econobox. And that's just the girls standing next to it. Hey-yo! Is this thing on?...The Ferrari F430 Scuderia's principal stylistic innovation is the righting of its front end - now with suitably angular and aggressive struts

defining the radiator openings instead of nostrils. And Ferrari didn't skimp on the carbon fiber, either. The cabin and engine bay are festooned with the stuff, telegraphing the car's "added lightness." Appropriately, the wheels are anthracite-colored, which ties the whole thing together and gives it a purposefulness I never realized was missing from the regular F430.

Till then be sure to check out our complete DAY 2 PHOTO GALLERIES live from the show floor with more than 500 pics.