Steve Davies

Next week's motor show at the Auto Shanghai 2011 will feature a new concept model from Peugeot, designed entirely in China and which looks likely to form part of a plan to launch at least one new model per year in the Chinese market.

It used to be so simple - 4x4's were big, clumsy goliaths, driven mostly by mums on the school run, with few redeeming qualities apart from their use as rescue vehicles during Britain’s recent mini Ice Age. Just a few years ago the Urban 4x4 (or SUV/SAV as car makers like to call them) were considered an endangered species as organisations sprung up - The Alliance Against Urban 4x4s - devoted to its demise.

Can I draw your attention to a new resource created by Volvo, called 'Cross Country Travels' or 'XC Travels', to use its more catchy name. It's an online guide to the 25 most spectacular Scandinavian winter adventures, with an accompanying iPhone App that enables you to check in at the places you visit, receive a digital tag to share with friends and directions to guide you straight to the ideal spots.

What a remarkable transformation from the upright and dowdy A-Class of today to this new Concept A-Class, which is making its world premiere at the Shanghai Auto Show on 21st April 2011.

The new Lexus LF-Gh hybrid concept will make its world debut on April 19th at the 2011 New York International Auto Show. Lexus has described the concept as "signalling Lexus’s redefinition of the luxury grand tourer”, so it would be a reasonable assumption to see the LF-Gh successor to today's Lexus GS 450h.

Following yesterday's leaked images of the M5 Concept, from the event held last Friday in Munich, BMW have now officially unveiled details of its newest M model leading up to the car's debut at the Shanghai Auto Show on 19th April.

In just a few hours we'll be able to pore over the details of BMW's new M5 Concept, prior to its debut at the Shanghai Auto Show on 19th April. Pictures leaked out over the weekend, showed the undisguised car in the traditional BMW M concept-car paint finish, “Chrome Shadow”, after the car was revealed to the press at a private gathering in Munich last Friday.

The more I see the XKR-S, the more I warm to its smack-you-in-the-face looks, which convey in a far from subtle manner that...er, the XKR-S is anything but subtle. Quite the opposite to the elegant style we've come to expect from Jaguar in recent years, and in stark contrast to the graceful beauty of the classic E-type.