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Paris motor show 2012: a video review by CAR

As usual, here's a quick video debrief from the CAR team in Paris. CAR's longest serving journalists, Georg Kacher and Gavin Green, are joined by Tim Pollard for a video review of the 2012 Paris motor show. Hear their thoughts and analysis of the trends of the Mondial de l'Automobile, find out why a small Audi was Georg's car of the show and hear why three-cylinder engines are the next big thing.

New Land Rover Freelander will actually be a Discovery

It seems – as we expected – that Land Rover are looking to make more sense of their range of off-roaders as new models are launched, and are going to concentrate on three core brands – Range Rover, Discovery and Defender – instead of the current mish-mash where many models really overlap with others (the top end Discoverys are really a cheaper Range Rover). So the next Freelander will become an entry-level Discovery with underpinnings borrowed from the Evoque (which is itself based on the current Freelander platform, a development of the Ford Galaxy’s platform), and arrive in both 5-seat and 7-seat guise, with the new Discovery ’5′ getting a platform based on the new Range Rover and perhaps spawning two models. The new Discovery range will be targeted as a ‘Lifestyle’ core range for Land Rover (much as the original Disco was) and the Range Rover range will be both sporty and luxurious, with a 7-seat Grand Evoque XL joining the current Evoque, Range Rover Sport and Range Rover.

Toyota NS4 Plug-in Hybrid Concept – better looking than a Prius

Toyota NS4 Plug-in Hybrid Concept The Toyota NS4 Hybrid plug-in has been revealed at the Detroit Auto Show, a glimpse at Toyota’s future design direction and full of concept gimmicks. When we had the teases for the Toyota NS4 plug-in Hybrid, Toyota made big claims about the NS4 being an ‘Advanced’ Plug-in Hybrid. But strip away the concept-only stuff like the camera door mirrors and trick doors and what we have left is a look at the next generation Toyota Prius – perhaps.