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One Lap of the Web: Packards -- Ask the man who knows way too much about one

-- For some light Wednesday reading, here's more information than you ever wanted to know about Packard. It includes the horrible neoclassics that plagued the 1970s, and the 1995 revival of the Packard name that attempted to stick a shortened rendition of the famous Packard grille in front of a 440-hp V12, all wrapped in a shape that looked like a melted Twix, as shown above. Our august associate editor Graham Kozak owns a Packard, so he could have filled us in on the details.

Arsenal stars team up to test new Citroen

THE CITROEN C4 Grand Picasso has been run through its paces in a new video featuring some of the stars from Arsenal Football Club. Striker Olivier Giroud, midfield man Santi Cazorla, defensive supremo Per Mertesacker and the safe hands of Wojciech Szczęsny teamed up to headline a football-themed test of the car’s new features. They highlight the wide door and boot openings with a spot of free-kick and goalkeeping practice, before 1.98-metre Mertesacker lies along the length of the available load space with all six passenger seats folded down.

VW will build small run of XL1 plug-in hybrid

Volkswagen will begin production of its XL1 plug-in hybrid in two years. "We want to go into series production with this car starting in 2013," VW chairman Ferdinand Piech told Automotive News Europe on Tuesday at an event in Doha, Qatar, ahead of the 2011 Qatar auto show where VW unveiled an XL1 prototype. (a href="http://www.autoweek.com/article/20130221/GENEVA/130229972">Read the latest update here announcing the XL1 hybrid's Geneva Auto Show debut).