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2014 Subaru XV – less choice, more refinement

The 2014 Subaru XV (pictured) gets a bit of a tweak The Subaru XV arrived in the UK in 2012, and it’s a perfectly able and reasonably-priced compact crossover from Subaru. But within a year of launching the XV Subaru decided to inject a bit more appeal in to the XV with a price cut of £2,300 across the range and now, not more than six months later, they’re fiddling with the XV range again. The 2.0 litre petrol XV gets new valve-train components to cut engine noise and revised suspension, with extra soundproofing improving NVH levels across the range, a revised power steering system for added stability and feel  and thicker and reshaped suspension lower arm and extra reinforcement around the base of the A-Pillar for better crash performance.

Volvo XC60 R-design – more detail

Volvo has released more details of the XC60 R-Design Although the XC60 R-Design doesn’t get any sort of power boost, it does get some tweaks to the setup to provide a more sporty drive. Volvo has stiffened up the chassis and added more damping, and tweaked the steering ratios to give a quicker response.  But Volvo reckons this has virtually  no impact on ride quality (which begs the question ‘Why didn’t they do it to start with if there’s no trade-off’) and sensibly they have not gone down the lowered suspension route, so the XC60 still has good ground clearance. Volvo has added a rear seat entertainment package option to the XC60 On the cosmetic front, the R-Design gets body coloured lower section, matt silk metallic finish for the trim and chrome tailpipes.

VW Taigun Compact SUV heading for production

It was a good-looking and appealing effort from VW to tap in to the very compact SUV market, with a real family look (a Tiguan on a boil wash), peppy little 3-cylinder 1.0 litre engine delivering 108bhp and a 0-62mph of 9.2 seconds (with 60mpg economy) and enough room to carry stuff and people thanks to an extra 50mm in the wheelbase compared to the Up! Now it looks like the Taigun is heading for production after VW’s Chief designer, Klaus Bishoff, told Autoexpress that he deeply believed the Taigun would be heading for VW showrooms very soon, and could be sold in the UK and Europe as well as in emerging markets. So you can add the Taigun to the list of VW’s SUV offerings, and with new versions of the Tiguan and Touareg (perhaps based on the CrossBlue Concept) and a Polo based SUV on the way too, it looks like VW are covering all the bases.