VW Touareg R-Line arrives & Volkswagen cut price of VW CC

Volkswagen has launched the Touareg R-Line in the UK with sporty looks and extra equipment,  and cut the price of the VW CC. A lot of VW’s SUVs – big and small – do conspire to look a bit bland in standard guise, so to give sales a bit of a boost VW is busy rolling out the R-Line option to tart up their cars a bit. Latest to arrive is the VW Touareg R-Line – Volkswagen’s biggest SUV – which gets the full R-Line makeover with a sporty take on the Touareg’s look by adding new butch bumpers and side skirts, the addition of a set of 20″ Tarragona alloys, R-Line badges – inside and out – and panoramic roof.

Mercedes CLA Shooting Brake on the way

Mercedes’ design boss Gordon Wagener has revealed to WhatCar that they are planning to go exactly the same route with the CLA as they did with the CLS, and create a coupe estate. The CLS Shooting Brake (pictured below) has been very well received, and with much of the world downsizing its cars a CLA Estate is a very sensible way to go, offering all the good design elements of the CLA – which already looks like a CLS on a boil wash – in a car that has more practicality. Wagener gave no idea of time scale for the CLA Shooting Brake, but with the first CLAs expected to hit customers in June it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a concept CLA Shooting Brake arrive by the time of the Frankfurt Motor Show in September before going on sale in 2014.

Ford Focus goes SEMA mad

A total of seven Ford Focus at the 2011 SEMA Show There’s nothing American petrolheads (perhaps we should say gearheads) like more than tarting up a car. Which explains why the relatively sensible Ford Focus is being pimped to within an inch of its life for this year’s SEMA show. The SEMA Motor Show is a trade-only gathering – despite which it gets around 50k visitors – which the organisers call the “premier automotive specialty products trade event – in the world.” It attracts trade visitors from across the globe to see parts, tools and components and the ‘SEMA’ special cars brought along by car makers and car modifiers.