Peugeot's New 108 Comes With Added Sophistication

How do you make a small car look premium?

That was the challenge facing Ivo Groen, project design director at Peugeot Design, and his team as they collaborated with Citroen and Toyota to develop the 108/C1/Aygo replacement.

Volvo Sales On The Up

Despite the run out of a number of models, Volvo's order book is growing significantly thanks to a change in the way the company talks to its customers in the UK.

Sales director Jon Wakefield said that the order take for the first month of this year is already running 58 per cent ahead of January last year and comes off the back of 3 per cent growth in 2013.

Greater European Input For Future Hondas

Honda's new European developed and UK-built Civic Tourer, on sale from mid-February, is expected to herald a new era of greater European input into Honda's vehicles, including the next generation Civic, due in 2017.

Volkswagen Confirm Large SUV For Production

The biggest news from Volkswagen at Detroit concerned a car that isn't there.

The CrossBlue concept, a large SUV which VW North America regards as vital if it is to hit its 2018 target of 800,000 sales a year, has been confirmed for production.

The CrossBlue was unveiled at the same venue 12 months ago, and VW's American sales people could barely contain their excitement at the possibility of adding it to their line-up. It is a car which would primarily be for the US market, although China and Russia are two other countries which could be interested.

It is still to be decided where the production version will be made, but it will be in one of VW's North American plants - Chattanooga, Tennessee or Puebla, Mexico. Unlike Chattanooga, Puebla is already equipped to use the platform which will underpin it, but the plant is currently working to capacity.

VW sold only 476,000 cars in the US last year, hampered mainly by an ageing Jetta and Passat and the absence of the latest Golf. The new Golf arrives this year but is a relatively small volume car in the US. The CrossBlue, a seven-seat family SUV larger than the Touareg, would make a major contribution towards VW hitting its 800,000 sales target.

The new cars on display at Detroit include a Passat BlueMotion powered not by a diesel engine but by a variant of the 1.4 TFSI unit, and the Beetle Dune concept, a raised and more rugged version of the latest VW Bug. VW says it is production-ready, but its prospects will depend on whether it could pay for itself.

All photographs and text are the exclusive property of Rob McSorley (except where stated otherwise). They are made available for your personal viewing enjoyment only. No images are within the Public Domain. The photographs may not be copied, reproduced, redistributed, manipulated, projected, used or altered in any way without the prior permission of Rob McSorley (info@DriverVIBE.com).

Volvo XC Coupe Shows Face Of The Brand

Volvo is showing the face of the 2015 XC90 on its XC Coupe concept at Detroit.

The lights, grille and front-end styling are what will be seen on the large SUV replacement, while the rear lights are also close to those that will appear on the XC90.

The XC Coupe is the second of three concept cars Volvo has developed to illustrate the flexibility of its new product architecture, which will underpin an entire range of 60, 70, 80 and 90 series models. It follows the Concept Coupe unveiled at Frankfurt last September. The last of the trio will appear at Geneva in a couple of months.

Although none of them is planned for production, Volvo says they are important in getting people used to how its design language will change with the new XC90, and the versatility of its new SPA (Scaleable Product Architecture) platform.

There will also be a set of advanced safety features, including the world's first animal detection and crash prevention system. As he introduced the car at Detroit, Thomas Ingenlath, Senior Vice President Design at Volvo Cars, highlighted Volvo's key focus on saftey: "Enjoying a car with great power and capabilities, at the same time as you are safe and protected, gives a great feeling of joy and freedom".

The current XC90 has been around for 13 years, but will go out of production this summer and the new model goes into production next year.

Along with the new architecture, Volvo is developing a new family of powertrains which will make it independent of former owner Ford within four years. They will include a development of the company's current diesel plug-in hybrid drive system.

All photographs and text are the exclusive property of Rob McSorley (except where stated otherwise). They are made available for your personal viewing enjoyment only. No images are within the Public Domain. The photographs may not be copied, reproduced, redistributed, manipulated, projected, used or altered in any way without the prior permission of Rob McSorley (info@DriverVIBE.com).

New Ranger Rover Sport a Hit Even Before Going on Sale

Land Rover already has 15,000 orders for the new Range Rover Sport, even though it is not yet available anywhere in the world.

It will be in showrooms in Europe this autumn and in other markets soon afterwards, with other models that will further broaden its appeal scheduled to be la
unched in 2014.

In the UK it will initially be available with 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel and 5.0-litre V8 supercharged petrol engines, priced from £51,550. A less-powerful V6 diesel and a 4.4-litre V8 diesel will be added around the turn of the year, and Land Rover has a diesel hybrid with CO2 emissions of only 169g/km under development.

Land Rover has also confirmed that in time there will also be a model with a four-cylinder engine. This is likely to be seen in 2015.

While a four-cylinder power unit might outwardly be seen as feeble for a large sports-luxury SUV, the new Sport's all-aluminium monocoque construction - in place of the steel body on frame of the previous model - makes it viable. The new Sport is up to 420kg lighter than its predecessor, and a four-cylinder engine will take this to more than half a tonne.

Land Rover has not confirmed whether the four-cylinder engine will be a petrol or a diesel - it has both in its armoury and available in the Freelander and Range Rover Evoque - but the favourite would be the 2.0-litre petrol unit. This would significantly lower the price of the car by making the most of the taxation structure in the all-important Chinese
market. 

Although the Sport is based on the new body architecture of the regal Range Rover, there are significant differences between the two beyond their styling. The Sport, which is the better-selling and more family-oriented of the two, now offers five-plus-two seating, with a pair of electrically movable flat-folding child seats. It also has a one-piece tailgate in place of the split affair on the Range Rover, and a lower ride height - although improved on that of the previous car.

The suspension has also been significantly retuned and offers a Dynamic mode in the Sport, and there are two all-wheel-drive systems tailored to the degree of off-road challenge owners are likely to subject the car to.

Land Rover is also hinting that there will be additional versions of the Range Rover and Sport, including a long-wheelbase version of one or both of them targeted at the chauffeur-drive Chinese market. Although not confirmed, Land Rover admits there are "always customers who want even more space".

All photographs and text are the exclusive property of Rob McSorley (except where stated otherwise). They are made available for your personal viewing enjoyment only. No images are within the Public Domain. The photographs may not be copied, reproduced, redistributed, manipulated, projected, used or altered in any way without the prior permission of Rob McSorley (info@DriverVIBE.co.uk).