Jaguar's sporting chance

Jaguar's new F-Type two-seater sports car due for launch next spring could be the key to unlocking the brand's return to motorsport.

Brand boss Adrian Hallmark said: "In terms of a return to racing we have made no commitment but we absolutely want to - but not in F1 or Le Mans. Those are too expensive. Motorsport is all about customer engagement and the F-type is clearly a sports car. There are all sorts of moves in terms of regulation changes going on at the moment in motorsport and this all starts to make things more attractive to us in terms of cost."

The F-Type, he said, is on track for launch in late April - just the right time of year to be launching a cabrio but the weather was obviously not the main consideration for developing a topless model first.

Hallmark said: "The sports car market is 50-50 cabrio coupe so it really makes no difference as to which one you start with, but the cabrio is more complicated to engineer so we are taking route one to the summit. The coupe should be easier to develop from there."

Not to mention the fact that profit margins on the cabrio are potentially greater.

The F-Type and XK will also be at the forefront in the emergence of a high performance sub-brand, a ball which has already started rolling with Jaguar's R and RS models. Hallmark said there is a good business case for a sub brand given the success of the XKRS - the brand's first £100,000+ model: "and we are selling all that we can build", said Hallmark.

He added: "R can stand for real performance and RS will be an extension of that. This will also allow us to expand in terms of merchandising and accessories much in the same way as M Sport does for BMW or AMG for Mercedes."

Business re-think helps Toyota through

Toyota is riding out the economic downturn in Europe by reforming the way it does business.

This has included the decision to concentrate production of all its Auris C segment models in the UK, rather than splitting assembly with its factory in Turkey.

Didier Leroy, head of Toyota Motor Europe, said: "This allows us to maximise efficiencies as the UK is where the majority of Auris suppliers are. Our Burnaston plant is also very productive and efficient and we get a lot of backing from the British government."

Toyota, he added, has 70 tier one suppliers in the UK which now supply 25 percent of all components to the company's European plants. While Burnaston will be the sole producer of Auris and Avensis models for Europe, Toyota's Valenciennes factory in France will continue to produce only Yaris while a year from now the Turkish plant will start assembling the Corolla saloon mainly for markets in Eastern Europe.

Leroy said:" The Market in Europe continues to be a challenge but we took these decisions two years ago so that we could maximise our strengths. While other companies worry about overcapacity, our main concern is whether we can make enough cars."

The introduction of the Auris has seen 800 new temporary jobs at Burnaston - some 150 of which have already been made permanent  - while production line speed has been increased to produce one car every 66 seconds, down from 89 seconds.

Leroy does not see any upturn in European car sales until at least 2014, however. He added: "I think next year will be down by around 5 percent with increased sales in Eastern Europe but markets in Western Europe will be down. Despite this we are expecting our sales to increase."

Škoda cuts the bling-bling

Four years ago Skoda decided to "change its cars completely" in terms of design and technology...

Two years later, it produced the Vision D concept at the Geneva motor show which was "a bible of Skoda design," said Peter Olah, the company's design co-ordinator.

Vision D demonstrated where all new Skodas would go, embracing "clever engineering with a human touch," he explained at the launch of the Rapid, a new model that sits below the Octavia and is designed in particular to take on Kia cee'd and Hyundai i30, said Skoda UK product marketing manager Chris Horrell.

Olah said that Skoda's slogan of ‘simply clever' is not just a marketing claim, it means trying to bring clever solutions and understandable technology to Skoda's cars.

"One of the best examples of this is the little hook in the trunk to hold your shopping - it costs almost nothing but really changes your life. This is what we call the human touch."

This ‘human touch' continues with the Rapid which includes a combined ice scraper and magnifier concealed inside the fuel filler cap. It means you can remove snow and ice from the windows and around the door before getting into the car. And that means you won't get snow falling onto the seats when you open the door.

The first clues to Skoda's new look arrived with the Citigo in the summer with the new, bolder Skoda logo.Rapid continues the theme. "We want to make our cars as clean as possible and get rid of unnecessary lines. Customers have had enough of shiny, bling bling stuff," he said.

The Rapid is on sale now, priced from £12,900 for the 1.2-litre S model.