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Ford Kuga launched in Australia – but it’s the old Kuga

The old Ford Kuga is the new Ford Kuga in Australia In what seems an odd move, the current Ford Kuga has been launched in Australia, just weeks from the debut of the 2012 Kuga in Geneva. You can’t have failed to notice that the 2012 Ford Kuga is just round the corner – and due to debut at Geneva in March – and we’ve already seen most of what the new Kuga has to offer with the debut of the new Ford Escape at Los Angeles last November. But despite the world readying itself to put in an order for a new Kuga, our Antipodean cousins are only now getting the chance to buy a Kuga, but its not the all new Ford Kuga, rather the Kuga we’ve had for the last four years.

Fuel magazine films Ford designer Craig Metros in his Melbourne workshop

Australian auto culture magazine, Fuel, has created this beautiful short film, Factory 6, featuring an interview with Melbourne-based, Detroit-raised Ford Chief Designer, Craig Metros. The film explores the shared Melbourne workshop space in which Metros and five other designers work on a number of automotive and art projects in their spare time. It offers a great insight into his inspirations, his feelings on making the jump from Detroit to Melbourne and how it feels to have fulfilled a childhood dream.

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.