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2013 SEAT Leon leaks out

The 2013 SEAT Leon – SEAT’s take on the new VW Golf and Audi A3 – has leaked out ahead of the official reveal. As has become the norm, we have photos of the 2013 SEAT Leon leaked out well ahead of its public debut at the Paris Motor Show in September and before SEAT has had a chance to delight us all directly. A very toned down version of the SEAT IBE Concept we saw at Geneva in 2010 and based on the VW group MQB platform that underpins the new VW Golf and Audi A3, the new SEAT Leon is the third generation of SEAT’s take on the Golf.

2013 Nissan LEAF updated

Nissan has updated the LEAF EV in Japan for 2013 with better range, less weight and a new LEAF S entry-level model. Revealed in Japan – but likely to come to the UK from 2013 when the LEAF starts rolling out of Nissan’s Sunderland factory – there are significant upgrades to the powertrain which result in both less weight and better range. Nissan has had a play with the electric powertrain and made it both smaller and lighter with a new motor that uses 40 per cent less dysprosium (a rare earth metal) than before, and comes in 30 per cent smaller and 10 per cent lighter, and a new streamline battery case and a few other tweaks drops the LEAF’s weight by 80kg.

Porsche 959 prototype to cross the block at Barrett-Jackson

When Professor Helmuth Bott arrived at the fledgling Porsche sports-car company in 1952, he was in his late 20s. The young engineer's first assignment was setting up a gearbox test stand for the company's new all-syncromesh Type 519 transaxle. Thirty-one years later, he gave the go-ahead for the development of a car that was to be the ultimate bleeding edge of what Porsche knew about building a rear-engined sports car.