Subaru has announced pricing and specification levels for its new All-Wheel Drive crossover vehicle, the XV. Priced from £21,295 for entry level 1.6i S models, the latest addition to the Japanese brand’s stable is set to firmly establish itself as one of the most capable and best-value-for-money compact crossovers currently available.

The five-star Euro NCAP-rated Subaru XV – officially certified as the safest vehicle in its class and which scores particularly highly for child occupant safety – combines style and functionality with generous levels of standard-fit equipment, making it more than a match for many of its established compact crossover rivals.

Every XV is equipped with two core Subaru technologies – Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive and a Boxer engine – ensuring that this new vehicle feels both engaging and incredibly safe to drive, in all conditions. Subaru is confident that the XV will thoroughly satisfy the needs of existing customers, while also attracting new consumers to the brand.

Three Euro V-compliant Boxer engines are offered with the new XV: 1.6 and 2.0-litre petrol, and 2.0-litre diesel. The 1.6-litre and 2.0-litre petrol engines develop 114ps and 150ps respectively, while the 2.0-litre diesel produces 147ps and 350Nm. The go-anywhere XV is available with a choice of either a five and six-speed manual or a six-speed CVT automatic (petrol only).

Reaching 60mph in 9.3 seconds, the 2.0 diesel XV – likely to be the best-selling variant in the UK – offers class-leading fuel economy of 50.4mpg on the combined cycle, while emitting 146g/km of CO2. Subaru’s XV also features the highest ground clearance and lowest centre of gravity in class, making it a highly capable performer both on and off road.

Even entry-level S models feature a standard kit list to make many models from premium compact SUV manufacturers blush. Buyers can expect to find ABS, traction control, Subaru Vehicle Dynamics Control (SVDC), front, side, curtain and knee airbags, 17-inch alloy wheels, daytime LED running lights and automatic air conditioning as standard.

SE models add cruise control, rear-view camera, Bluetooth functionality and USB/iPod connectivity. Meanwhile, top-of-the-range SE Lux Premium models also come with a sunroof, Keyless Smart Entry, push-button start, leather seats and satellite navigation. All 2.0-litre models are fitted with roof rails.

Petrol-powered XV models benefit from Subaru’s new fuel-saving Auto Start Stop System as standard, boosting fuel savings in congested traffic. It was the aim of Subaru engineers to make the engine cut-out virtually unnoticeable to the driver, and they achieved this with a time lapse between stop and start of approximately 0.2 seconds, one of the fastest currently available.

Pricing for the new XV range starts at £21,295 for the 1.6i S models, and rises to £29,995 for the range-topping 2.0D SE Lux Premium. For more information about the XV or the rest of the Subaru line-up, visit www.subaru.co.uk.

Hyundai is currently offering money saving discounts on their popular i10 and i20 models when purchased with a PCP agreement.

Tony Whitehorn, President and CEO Hyundai Motor UK, says: “Today, Hyundai has the best product line-up in its history, sold through over 150 dealerships nationwide. Attractive on-the-road prices and excellent PCP packages such as these will make it more affordable to own a new car this year.”

The offers continue on selected i20 models too with the 1.2 Classic 3dr available from just £8,295 or £129/month*. The i20 offers exceptional value for money and each model is generously equipped with air conditioning, electric front windows and ESP as standard. In addition, Hyundai’s industry leading Five Year Triple Care warranty package ensures peace of mind motoring.

Following on from the government’s scrappage scheme, customers can also still take advantage of savings on a brand new Hyundai i10, i20 or i30 with Trade and Upgrade. Customers can trade in their 7-10 year old vehicle** and receive a minimum part exchange allowance to be used against any qualifying new Hyundai with savings on offer of up to £3,000.

Here’s the latest from Motorpoint on some cars that will keep you safe without breaking the bank!

Choosing a car to help keep your family as safe as possible is crucial, especially when it is icy outside! Luckily, Motorpoint enables customers to buy a car without compromising on safety with some of Euro NCAP’s top five-star rated models available now with great savings!

Euro NCAP, which provides motorists with an independent assessment of the safety performance of some of Europe’s best-selling models, has just announced its top five-star rated achievers in 2011 for each category, and Motorpoint has some of these cars in stock now!

The best achiever in the ‘Small Family’ category was the Ford Focus. Motorpoint has a choice in stock, including the five-star safety rated new model ’11 plate 1.6 Zetec 125 which is priced at just £12,999 offering a customer saving of £4,791 and including metallic paint worth £413. With mileages of around 6k and under, this makes the price a real bargain, ensuring your family’s safety needn’t cost you an arm or a leg.

If you have a bigger family then the Volvo V60 is the car for you, topping Euro NCAP’s ‘Large Family’ category in 2011. Motorpoint has a variety of Volvo cars in stock including the new model ’11 plate V60 D3 R-Design five-star rated car, priced at just £19,999 offering a customer saving of £7,411. Coming in white or silver, with mileages of under 20k and offering an impressive 51.4 MPG, these great value buys won’t stick around for long!

To see more deals from Motorpoint, visit the official website.

The new apprentice programme, which is seeking Advanced and Higher Apprentices, launches on Monday February 6th 2012 – coincident with National Apprenticeship week. This year, Jaguar Land Rover is seeking 133 apprentices to join the company which has a portfolio of hugely successful (and attractive) models in the range.

Commenting on the 2012 Apprentice programme, Des Thurlby, Human Resources Director, JLR, said: “Our Apprentice intake has more than doubled in the last 4 years and I am delighted that this year we are committing to take on a record number of apprentices. Apprenticeships provide a valuable and credible career path for the brightest and best and JLR is committed to providing the highest quality practical and academic training to develop the future generation of engineering talent needed to drive our business forward, indeed many of our senior leaders began their careers as apprentices.”

The JLR careers website opens for applications on 6th February 2012 and will close on 8th April 2012. Anyone interested in applying should visit: www.jaguarlandrovercareers.com.

This is the new Citroën DS3 Ultra Prestige Edition. Not content with the standard car, Citroen has added even more luxury into the mix. There is more extravagant leather and a watchstrap design upholstery. The front seats also feature a ‘crescendo’ colour effect which apparently has never been produced on in a vehicle before. What this means in reality is that the colour of the seats start as white at the top and graduate to a black on the base.

Two striking body colours are available – Polar White and Thorium Grey – and both feature a sports spoiler, dark-tinted side and rear windows and 17” charcoal-grey alloy wheels. The standard DS3 spec already includes automatic digital air conditioning and a Bluetooth® enabled Hi-Fi system, whilst the DS3 Ultra Prestige gains Citroën’s integrated MyWay colour satellite navigation system, rear parking sensors, automatic headlamps and windscreen wipers, electrically heated and folding door mirrors and an electrochrome rear view mirror.

Powered by a punchy THP 155 petrol engine or a fuel and CO2 efficient e-HDi 110 diesel with Stop & Start, prices start from £20,700.

Here’s the press release covering the Land Rover ‘Go Beyond’ bursary. If you love adventure, then I suggest you read on as you may just be able to fund the experience of a lifetime.

Calling all expedition enthusiasts! With only weeks to go before the Land Rover ‘Go Beyond’ Bursary 2012 application draws to a close, now is your chance to apply for funding and the loan of a Land Rover Defender 110 to do a journey of a lifetime.

For the fifth consecutive year, the Land Rover ‘Go Beyond’ Bursary, run by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) is one of Land Rover’s six Global Humanitarian & Conservation Partners.

The award is aimed at those who want to take a journey beyond their limits and boundaries, offering challenges for the team and using a Land Rover Defender 110 as an integral part of the expedition.

Mark Cameron, Global Brand Extension Director for Land Rover said; “It’s brilliant to see such a wide and exciting variety of expedition enthusiasts applying for the ‘Go Beyond’ Bursary 2012 this year.

And for the first time ever, we have also trebled the total amount of Land Rover funding to £30, 000, enabling the winning Bursary team to adventure further afield than ever before.”

Paul Rose, Vice President of Expeditions & Fieldwork, RGS-IBG added; “The Land Rover ‘Go Beyond’ Bursary offers recipients an amazing opportunity to take a journey to promote a wider understanding and enjoyment of people, places and environments.”

“With the use of a Land Rover Defender 110, you can really get off the beaten track and make the most of the vehicle’s capabilities in remote terrain and in demanding environments, helping to turn ideas for challenging and inspiring geographical journeys into a reality.”

The journey may connect the team with schools, local communities or projects but, whatever its aim, the team will be expected to inspire and engage others, both from the field and on return.

A bursary of £15,000 is available and in addition applicants can apply for a discretionary fund of up to £15,000 to support essential expedition-related costs. The application deadline is 3 February 2012 and interviews will take place in March 2012, in London. To apply, please visit; www.rgs.org/GoBeyond.

Additionally, the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) will also be exhibiting at the Telegraph Adventure Travel Show; Expedition planning zone. The show will provide a collection of extraordinary travel experiences under one roof, at London Olympia on the 28 – 29 January 2012.

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) is one of six Global Humanitarian & Conservation Partners with Land Rover which forms part of an integrated approach to sustainability and sits within Land Rovers’ Our Planet.

Every year we are faced with increasing prices. It seems that the UK just gets more and more expensive. Fuel is a cost which many of us simply have to pay – the government seemingly disregarding the fact that pennies very quickly add up to pounds when the cost of fuel is now at over 130 pence per litre.

So, as per the title – just how high do you think fuel prices will go? I am going to hedge my bets this year and say that we will see the introduction of the eye-wateringly high amount of 145 pence per litre; perhaps over 155 pence per litre in some areas. This is assuming that oil prices remain roughly as they are and there are no shortages any time soon.

Assuming this is true, will you manage to cope or will you have to look into other modes of transport? I for one am consciously willing the arrival of better weather in order that I can get the motorbike back out again. Simply anything to ease the burden that we all face when we visit those forecourts helps.

SEAT is starting 2012 as it means to go on: with a range of exceptional new offers that makes its stylish, sporty new models genuinely irresistible this January.

A comprehensive array of attractive deals extends across the entire SEAT range with, as always, the Spanish brand’s Ibiza supermini series and svelte Leon hatchback line-up leading the way.

A generous discount of £2,310 off the RRP of the best-selling Ibiza SC 1.4 16V SE Copa, for instance, brings its asking price down to just £9,995, while similar discounts off the corresponding Ibiza 5dr and Ibiza ST models see their prices slashed to just £10,495 and £11,205 respectively.

The now-familiar SE Copa trim level brings luxurious levels of standard equipment to all three Ibiza bodystyles – sporty 3dr SC, practical 5dr and capacious ST.

It builds on the already generous S Copa spec by adding the following:

• 16” ‘Fabula’ alloy wheels (1.4 only)
• Climate control, including refrigerated glovebox
• Rain and light sensors for automatic wipers and lights
• Dark tinted rear windows
• Leather steering wheel and gearknob
• Auto-dimming rear view mirror

These features come in addition to the Ibiza S Copa’s medley of equipment which features the likes of cruise control, four-speaker MP3 compatible radio/CD with AUX-in and steering column-mounted controls, alarm, immobiliser and electric windows all round.

The offer price means, for instance, that the Ibiza SC 1.4 SE Copa is now available for just £199 per month as part of a 42-month Solutions Personal Contract Plan agreement (deposit of £199, terms and conditions apply, 8.9% APR representative).

Move up the SEAT range to the sleek Leon five-door family hatch line-up and the new year deals are just as compelling. Savings of up to £3,085 are available on the Leon S Copa 1.6 TDI CR 105 PS which brings its price down to a remarkable £14,795. This is nothing short of the best ever RRP for the hyper economical Leon E Ecomotive.

And with a Solutions finance offer of £199 per month on the Leon S Copa 1.6 TDI CR 105 PS deposit of £3,751.59, 42-month agreement, terms and conditions apply, 8.9% APR representative) the Leon is now as affordable as it is frugal.

If you’re after a Leon with a little more ‘oomph’ then the current suite of deals includes three-year 0% finance and up to three years’ free servicing on all Leon FR, FR+ and Cupra R models (35% deposit, maximum 36-month term, free servicing only available with SEAT Finance offer, terms and conditions apply, 0% APR representative).

So, a Leon 1.4 TSI FR is currently available for just £329 per month over 36 months with a customer deposit of £6,671.

Tempting offers apply right across the SEAT range, with significant RRP savings available on Altea, Altea XL and Exeo family vehicles, plus a free servicing deal on the multi award-winning SEAT Alhambra (subject to conditions, SEAT Finance deals only).

The new offers represent some of SEAT’s most generous deals to date, as the Spanish car maker looks to consolidate its exceptional 2011 sales performance.

SEAT UK Head of Marketing Chris Stevens said: “After what I’m confident will prove to have been a record year for SEAT in 2011, I know our dealers are looking forward to an even more successful year ahead. I’m sure that these new deals, including our most tempting offers ever on popular models like the Ibiza SC SE Copa, will ensure SEAT showrooms nationwide are busier than ever throughout January and beyond.”

As James May said during a particularly good episode of Top Gear, a small engined Italian car should be driven like the valves are about to pop out of the bonnet. I recently had the good fortune to drive a smaller engined car, a 1.2 litre Vauxhall Corsa in fact.

Granted, in terms of raw figures, it’s not a powerplant that is going to set the world on fire. However, what’s more important, what is written in the brochure or how it actually feels? I decided to drive the car how I felt it should be driven, namely using the full rev range to keep the car in the power band. The result? A whole lot of fun.

Driven in an economical fashion the car will do reasonably well in terms of miles per gallon. But keep it up there close to the top of the revs and you’ll have much more fun. The car handled nimbly, the engine was eager and pulled well even with four people on board.

Overall? It’s almost enough to have one fall in love with driving all over again. Though it still wasn’t quite enough to make me take the plunge to a smaller engine just yet (the cost of buying a car is prohibitive to me at this time). In time though when fuel prices go up even further? Who knows. At least I do know that I don’t have to completely forgo the fun factor just yet. In many ways, it confirms what I’ve been saying very recently. Manufacturers have got it spot on with this trend of a smaller engine, especially when mated to a good turbo, leading to wonderful things…

Honda has confirmed a new diesel engine for Europe designed to be frugal yet powerful. Under the guise of the (slightly oddly) named ‘Earth Dreams Technology’, a new 1.6 litre diesel will be launched across a range of models in 2012. It is lighter than any other diesel engine of its size and has CO2 emissions below 100g/km and 120ps (at 4000rpm).

Most impressive is the 300 Nm torque figure which should mean that despite a diminutive size the engine should still have plenty of pulling power. Fuel economy will of course be dependent on the model this powerplant is fitted to but rumours abound of in excess of 65 MPG realistically.