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New 2013 Nissan Note gets more appealing

The new Nissan Note has turned in to a Ford Fiesta basher as Nissan turn the Note from a boring little MPV in to a convincing small hatch. We did think the Invitation would be watered down to produce a slightly titivated new Note for production, but much of the style has found its way through in to the new Note – which we first saw in the JDM Nissan Note last summer – and the Note now looks set to take on proper compact hatches like the Ford Fiesta. The nose of the new Note is now more convincing – with new headlights and grill – and the doors get a great big feature crease that looks like a giant smoothing iron has stamped its mark, although Nissan say it’s a ‘Squash Line’  whose ‘angles were inspired by the flight of a fast moving squash ball travelling around a court’.

The Viper Lives!

The Dodge Viper has been saved by Fiat and will continue in production. The real problems for GM and Chrysler were their appalling high-volume cars, stuck at least a decade behind Europe in both styling and efficiency, they were an accident waiting to happen. And the meltdown in car sales worldwide, coupled with the jump in gas prices in the US (which has now gone), signalled the end of the old ways.

Top Gear tonight: The Sweeney, Corsa VXR Nurburgring, Fiat Panda & Ryan Reynolds SIARPC

Hammond directs Ray Winstone's car chase in The Sweeney Top Gear Series 18 Episode 3 with The Sweeney car chase, the Vauxhall Corsa VXR Nurburgring, 2012 Fiat Panda and Ryan Reynolds is SIARPC. We’re already nearly halfway through Series 18 of Top Gear, with episode 3 on tonight. And so far, so good; the daftness is still there, but a lot less puerile than other recent Top Gear stuff, and some properly good car stuff too.