A new, limited edition Honda Civic Type R is to be rolled out in April. Though it seems that the body design will be fairly traditional for the range, the Mugen 200 will feature sleek, narrower lights, Mugen parts and a Championship White paint job with black gloss door mirrors.
The Mugen 200 will also feature 19 inch ‘Lightning’ alloys, Mugen badges and a unique Mugen number plate, as well as Honda’s latest 201PS i-VTEC engine, which means it’ll have quite a lot of kick for a small car.
As MINI bombards the market with new launches we’re being encouraged to think for ourselves. It’s not enough to buy a new model. We can now choose from a choice of MINI parts to make our cars as unique as were are.
Thanks to the new MINI website you can navigate around a fun interactive application that allows you to tailor the look of your new car both inside and out. On the roof you can have a choice of lettering, stripes, a chequered flag and the good old Union Jack.
A new Lexus is on the way and its got the Golf firmly in its sight. Preparing for a grand launch at the Geneva motorshow the new LF-Ch premium compact hatchback is set to be on sale towards the end of 2010.
Details, at the moment, are sketchy, but early indications suggest it’s likely to be much along the same lines as the concept hybrid which went on display at the Frankfurt Motor Show last year.
Heads are turning at the prospect of a new Honda in the SUV market. The revised CR-V is here, and courtesy of a quick nip and tuck, is looking fighting fit.
Owners of small SUVs had reason to feel smug this winter. As Britain shivered beneath a blanket of snow, suddenly they had a good reason for using a 4×4 for the school run. True the school in question was normally closed, but they could certainly get there.
It’s a busy time for BMW with new updates across its range. But how will these cars look in five years time? Will that bright sparkling Beamer be as attractive after a few visits to your local garage?
The German manufacturer is extremely eager for people to keep using BMW servicing rather than independents. To help its cause it is actively pushing its inclusive servicing offers with all of the new models.
In short this allows you to make a single advance payment which covers you for the first five years or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. It might seem like a big expense in the short term, but you will at least know the servicing costs in advance.
It seems that not a day goes by without a new MINI model being announced. From the Beachcomber to the Roadster, it seems new MINI’s are everywhere, but the new 4×4 crossover the Countryman certainly took us by surprise.
Sitting a fair bit higher than many would expect from a MINI and for the first time boasting five doors, the new Countryman is certainly a different design from the trusty MINI we all know and love and swears blind that it offers a genuine carrying capacity of four adults, but it’s still the good old MINI at heart.
Japanese manufacturers Honda are set to unveil the concept for their new small city car at next month’s Delhi Motor Show. The cleverly named “New Car Concept” (we’re assuming it’s Honda’s working title) will be manufactured in India and Thailand and is aimed at emerging markets, though there is the suggestion that it could also be sold in the West.
Honda aren’t the only manufacturer to be entering this particular part of the market. Nissan are also targeting the global small car platform with the new model of their Micra; it seems that cars which are cheap enough to manufacture and sell to emerging markets but are also sophisticated enough for Western markets are the new target for many manufacturers in the small car market.
The Green Machine trend is continuing with Japanese manufacturers Lexus entering the fray with their new hybrid, the HS 250h in the New Year. Sporting a compact frame and a resolutely hybrid design – there’s no petrol-only option – the HS 250h looks to bring hybrid emissions and fuel economy to a luxury brand, but at an affordable price.
Offering a design and build quality which will remind owners of the higher end of the Lexus brand, but at a price more fitting an entry level car, the HS 250h is a high quality machine, blending economy on the price and economy on the fuel usage with the quality and prestige that drivers have come to expect from the Lexus brand.
The new MINI Beachcomber is set to be unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show next month. This Moke-inspired number has certainly divided the MINI community like few other developments have, but it seems that all questions will be answered when it finally rolls out.
MINI aficionados are notoriously difficult to please when it comes to alterations to the classic design and the Beachcomber is the biggest modification in recent memory. With both soft and hard top options due to be made available, this new MINI will be suitable even if it’s not beach weather which, let’s be honest, it rarely is here in the UK.
Never ones to shy away from a fight, it seems that BMW are wading into the electric vehicle battlefield. The German giants are heading into next month’s Detroit Auto Show with the impossibly posy-looking Concept ActiveE, with strong hints that it may actually see production.
The Concept ActiveE is the latest piece to roll out of BMW’s Project i campaign, which is dedicated to creating low-emission city cars and follows the MINI electric car out of the door and promises “CO2-free Mobility”.
BMW and Mini are on a collision course after it was announced that the German manufacturer are looking to introduce a new series called the 0-Series. As it suggests the new mini car will be designed to be smaller than the current 1-Series which means that it is likely that it will go into direct competition with the current Mini, which strangely is also owner by BMW.
It really does seem that the company is almost shooting itself in the foot with this latest move, admittedly having two cars competing in the market should mean that the company will grab large shares of the market, however it could of course backfire and the companies could end up taking sales off of each other.
Honda is looking to use India as its springboard to launch a new series of small cars before bringing then to the European market. The new breed of Honda cars are set to be launched to compete directly with their Japanese counterparts, Suzuki, who currently occupy over 50% of the current car sales within the country with their highly successful Suzuki Swift and Suzuki Alto.
This is a bold strategy for the Japanese manufacturer to take at such a delicate time in the economy, but it is clearly something that they feel will benefit them in the long run. India has a love affair with the car and Honda is very keen to capitalise on a slice of this market.
BMW have just released a new car that is set to take the performance car world by storm. The new BMW M3 GTS is a hardcore version of the BMW M3.
The German manufacturer has decided to follow in the footsteps of Lamborghini, Porsche and Aston Martin in making an extreme race version of their supercar. This new M3 has been stripped of any weight and tips the scales at just 3300lb including the internal roll-cage and six-point race harness.
Lexus Dealerships around the world will be holding their breath this week as the new GX460 SUV is about to be unveiled at the China motor show. The car/van has been produced to replace the GX470 and from browsing the spy shots of the car online one thing is very apparent and that is that this car hasn’t been built with style in mind.
It is quite possibly one of the ugliest looking SUV’s I’ve seen and that is bearing in mind that there are a number of appalling SUV’s out there at present. The Lexus GX460 seems very square and boxy and appears to lack any sense of sporty qualifications, with the Porsche Cayenne leaving it for dust in the looks stakes.
BMW fended off the competition, including Honda, to take their place at the top of the Fleet News reliability survey as the most reliable company car manufacturer.
Fleet News is a sister publication of the well respected car guide, Parker’s, and the annual survey covers 840,000 cars from 50 of the biggest UK contract hire companies.
Manufacturers were graded by counting the number of vehicles on a fleet per 1,000 that broke down.
BMW received the same points as Honda yet more companies voted for BMW as first placed manufacturer.
