MINI Countryman – Official

It's the MINI Countryman. And it's official. Well, we did say yesterday that now the first official pictures of the MINI Countryman have leaked out that BMW would have to get their act together and release proper information ahead of their scheduled reveal next month.

Lexus Hybrid sales top half a million

Lexus has revealed that they’ve sold more than 500,000 hybrid cars, with the Rx 450h the top seller and the CT 200h catching fast. Unsurprisingly, as it was the first Lexus hybrid to be introduced in 2005, the biggest seller - accounting for half of all Lexus hybrid sales to date (259,000) – has been the RX 400h / RX 450h, but the CT 200h, which was only introduced in 2011, is catching up fast with sales to date of 122,000 to date. During the last seven years Lexus hybrid sales have risen from 26,000 to 113,000 a year and 25 per cent of those Lexus hybrid sales now happen in Europe, even though we don’t get cars like the HS 250h (56,000 sales) and the ES 300h (8,000 sales).

Suzuki G70, Swift Range Extender at 2012 Geneva motor show

You will not find too many detractors when it comes to the Swift, particularly in its Sport guise, but its clean-living brother was one of the two highlights on the Suzuki stand. The rather convolutedly-named Range Extender was actually first shown at Geneva in 2010, but has since undergone further development. More interesting is the G70.