Peugeot Onyx Concept: Paris 2012

The Peugeot Onyx Supercar Concept is a concept that will never be built and based on the underpinnings of the Peugeot Le Mans car. So Paris 2012 gets treated to the appealing Peugeot Onyx – a Gallic Jaguar C-X75, if you like – looking sexy and sleek on the floor in Paris with its copper and carbon fibre body and use of unusual materials like crystal glass and compressed paper. But it seems, as if we didn’t already know, that Peugeot aren’t planning to build an Onyx supercar – or at least not in their current financial muddle - and have even nicked its underpinnings from their own Le Mans 24hr diesel engine car to give the Onyx some eco and supercar credibility.

Geneva motor show: Autoweek editors' picks

From the wildest, most absurd supercars only a few oligarch gazillionaires will ever own to dinky econohaulers giving mobility to whole populations, Geneva had it all. We ogled everything from McLarens and Maseratis to Twingos and Tatas. If in fact Europe is still struggling in some ways to recover from the recession, it sure didn't look that way at the Geneva motor show: The Swiss show was out of neutral and had the hammer down.

Lexus IS 300h promises unrivalled ownership costs

The new Lexus IS - launched at Detroit in January and costing from £26,495 for the IS 250 in the UK – actually offers ownership costs that eclipse diesel offerings from the likes of Jaguar, BMW, Audi and Mercedes, say Lexus. Despite the logical assumption that the complex hybrid powerplant in the IS 300h would cost more to maintain, Lexus say the opposite is true. Because it has no clutch and the starter motor and alternator are integrated they require no servicing or replacement and Lexus has fitted a timing chain instead of a timing belt, so it won’t need regular replacement either.