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Autoweek's top-12 most read stories of 2012

From an infamous Texas house fire, to the death of one of the greats, autoweek.com's top-12 most read stories of 2012 offer a look back at a wild year. This year while we tested some of the best enthusiast vehicles, ran around auto shows and spoke with automotive movers and shakers, we kept track of what piqued your interests. What, you thought we weren't paying attention?

Is this a Fiat 500T for the US? (video)

It’s rumoured a Fiat 500T is about to launch in the USA, and we perhaps have the first look in a new Fiat 500 commercial. Even though we’re living in a car world that’s more global in its offerings than ever before, there are still significant differences between offerings in different markets. The Fiat 500 in the US offers an Abarth in its range, but just so the colonials don’t get confused it’s badged as the Fiat 500 Abarth rather than Abarth 500.

Peter Schreyer introduces Kia's new Sportage

It's a sign of just how significant the new Sportage is for Kia that rather than flying UK journalists to an international launch location the company instead rented a boutique hotel in London's Notting Hill, created a sketch gallery in the basement and flew in key members of the car's development team to meet the press — who were then lent some the first new Sportage's in the UK to test for a month. One executive present at the event was Kia's Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Design Officer, Peter Schreyer. Car Design News was invited to meet with Peter to talk about his role at Kia and for him to talk us through a vehicle Kia is billing as the first to be designed entirely under his tenure.