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Euro NCAP: iQ, Avensis, Impreza, C3 Picasso, Lancer, 6

By Alex Michaelides Motor Industry 19 February 2009 12:40 It’s a good day for the safety of new Japanese cars as the first round of 2009-style Euro NCAP safety ratings are released. Of the six cars tested, full five-star marks were dished out to the Toyota Avensis and Toyota iQ, as well as the Mitsubishi Lancer and Mazda 6. Meanwhile, the Citroen C3 Picasso and Subaru Impreza were awarded four stars.

Hyundai Elantra

Hyundai is set to add another vehicle to its list of successes: the new Elantra, which was revealed at the LA auto show this year. Created by principal designer Cedric d'Andre, the Elantra was the last car conceived under the direction of Hyundai's former design boss, Joel Piaskowski. The new car shares the 'fluidic sculpture' design theme of its larger sibling, the Sonata and has an impressively low 0.28Cd.

First Sight: Holden VE Commodore and Statesman

GM Holden last week launched its biggest program ever, the $1 billion all-new Holden VE Commodore range. Designed at Holden's Port Melbourne design center, the 4th generation Commodore is the first all-new model of the series to be fully designed and engineered in Australia. Previous generations of Commodore since 1978 have always been based on lengthened and widened Opel large car platforms of the day but since the demise of the European Omega in 2003, GM lacked a suitable rear-wheel-drive donor platform for a new Commodore, hence the clean sheet approach for the latest VE model.