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Hyundai beefs up its WRC team

Hyundai revealed last year that they’re preparing to take on the World Rally Championship (WRC) from 2014 when a rally car based on the i20 will take to the world rally stage to cast some sport fairy dust on Hyundai’s showroom cars. At that time we had little information about the team, but in January we learnt that Hyundai had appointed Michel Nandan to head up their WRC efforts, a good move as Nandon was the technical director for the Peugeot WRC team until 2005, so he knows his stuff. Now we learn that Hyundai is beefing up its WRC team as it prepares for a full season of WRC in 2014.

Peugeot 2008 Crossover: UK price from £12,995

That meant the Urban Crossover Concept from Geneva in 2012 turning in to the new Peugeot 2008 at the start of 2013 – before heading to Geneva 2013 for its public debut – and with that other French car maker, Renault, going a similar route with the Clio-based Captur, it’s clear the French see the future of compact cars moving away from hatchbacks to something more rugged. But unlike the Captur – which was a bit of a disappointing looking Clio on stilts – the Peugeot 2008 does look a more convincing offering, even if it’s a more generic-looking compact SUV than the Nissan Juke and would, for our money, be the pick over the Captur. Peugeot are targeting 8,000 sales a year in the UK for the 2008, and with prices starting at £12,995 and heading up to around £19,000 it seems, if anything, a quite modest target, especially as Peugeot reckons 65 per cent of 2008 customers will be new to the brand.

Saab 9-3 EV prototype revealed by NEVS

Saab 9-3 EV prototype revealed by NEVS When National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) bought what was left after the debacle of bankruptcy, the plan was to create a range of electric cars using the Saab brand. But that hasn’t gone to plan, even though the first electric Saab 9-3 Prototype has now been revealed. In fact, Saab under NEVS has also come close to bankruptcy recently as an unpaid supplier took court action (although NEVS say that little local difficulty has been solved) and NEVS had to resort to building ICE engined Saabs to keep a few bob coming in.