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Car of the Year 2014 shortlist announced

By Ollie Kew First Official Pictures 16 December 2013 11:00 The seven-car shortlist for the 2014 Car of the Year [CotY] award has been announced. The jury is looking for ‘the most outstanding new car go on sale in the [last] 12 months.’ BMW i3 – the first branch of BMW’s family of electric ‘iCars’, to bear fruit, available in fully EV and range-extender form, and aiming to make electric cars desirable at a fraction the price of Tesla’s impressive Model S luxury saloon Citroen C4 Picasso – Citroen isn’t giving up on the good old MPV despite the onslaught of new crossovers – the new C4 Picasso boasts outlandish bug-eyed design and a fresh take on family-mover cabins, thanks to two enormous touchscreen interfaces to keep the kids – and parents occupied. Mazda 3 – the third-gen 3 family hatchback is lighter than before thanks to Mazda’s energy-saving ‘SkyActiv’ tech, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

GM returning to leasing with luxury vehicles

General Motors will return to the leasing business focusing on luxury vehicles, but not on a broader basis, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said. "We will get back into leasing, but we are not going to use massive subsidized leasing to drive volume because it's volume without profitability," Lutz said July 29 in an interview with Automotive News. "We'd rather sell less at higher profit than sell more at lower profit." Lutz said it still would make sense for GM to do more leasing on its luxury vehicles.

Spyker production starts at CPP

Councillor Ken Taylor (leader Coventry City Council), Brendan O’Toole and Victor Muller. Actually, even without the caption, we reckon you could have worked out who's who. A few months ago we reported that Spyker were moving production of their cars to the UK, in to the very capable hands of CPP Manufacturing, a Coventry-based specialist company already responsible for making most of what goes in to a Spyker.