Renault Brand New Grand Modus

Grand Modus is Renault’s answer to the versatile Nissan Note. It’s slightly longer than the new Modus and offers greater boot capacity, though both cabins are similar in size. Grand Modus caters well for family buyers – with some clever storage solutions and child-friendly features – though older drivers may appreciate its upright driving position, easy access and added practicality.

The super cute Fiat 500

Since 2004 Fiat has been doing what it does best: produce small cars whose appeal is in their character and value. Following the success of the Panda and Grande Punto, the 500 is another small car. However, this one unashamedly appeals to the emotions as a modern interpretation of a classic small Fiat from the past. The 500 echoes the design of the rear-engined original, although is built to modern standards, and is very safe. Fiat managed to create a great deal of momentum for the 500 in time for its UK launch in January 2008. Little changed from the concept car on which the 500 is based but that was first seen in 2004, and despite its unique appearance it was always designed to share engines and major components with the Panda in order to keep costs down.

Jeep Cherokee 4x4 piece of crap

Performance
There's just one engine available in the Cherokee nowadays. This 2.8-litre turbodiesel gives 161bhp and 295lb ft of pulling power. Performance is acceptable rather than astounding and the same goes for running costs. You can have either a six-speed manual gearbox or a five-speed automatic.

Ride & handling
There’s no doubting the Cherokee’s abilities off-road. On Tarmac, however, it is no match for likes of Honda’s CR-V and the Land Rover Freelander. The ride is jiggly and unsettled and, while the Jeep tackles corners well, it feels less agile than its best rivals.

Refinement
The diesel engine is fairly refined when cruising, but it’s vociferous when revved. It comes as no surprise that there is wind noise at speed. The Jeep is coarse and crude compared with the best rivals

E-Motion concept set to be unveiled in Geneva next month

With the exception of gigantic piles of Toblerone, the Swiss don't tend to bring much of note to their home motor show in Geneva.

But this year looks set to be a little different. We've already seen the tuxedo-ruining Rinspeed sQuba concept , and now Swiss firm Mindset has revealed this, the E-Motion concept set to be unveiled in Geneva next month.

Penned by former VW design chief Murat Guenak - the man responsible for the Mark V Golf and Peugeot 206 CC - the E-Motion is only a scale model at the moment. However, Mindset says it plans to market a production version as early as next year.

Under that long hood lurks, predictably, a hybrid drivetrain, with a small electric motor running off lithium-ion batteries. Mindset says this electric power alone will allow the E-Motion to cover some 70 miles on a single charge, but when the batteries run low a tiny petrol engine will kick in to replenish them.

This should give a combined economy figure of over 100mpg - a figure helped by the E-Motion's kerbweight of just 800kg. Such impressive lightness is thanks to the vehicle's aluminium spaceframe with plastic cladding, though we've got a feeling the E-Motion's gullwing doors are merely for show rather than function.

Mindset hopes to sell some 10,000 E-Motions annually at a cost of about £40,000. Ambitious? No question. Impossible? Almost certainly. Curiously endearing in a Jetsons-meets-breadvan way? We reckon so

Photos of the stunning new Abarth 500

Take a look at the first-ever photos of the stunning new Abarth 500, the hotted-up, scorpionified version of Fiat's brilliant Cinq.

Snapped in the new Abarth factory in Turin, our shots show the 500 to be even better-looking than we dreamed up when we put together our own, erm, fantasy Abarth in a moment of overexcitement last year.

Some stats to kick you off. The Abarth 500 gets a revised version of the 1.4-litre turbo engine in the Abarth Grande Punto, putting out 135bhp and an impressive 133lb ft of torque - which powers up to 152lb ft when you press the sports button. Even better, after launch we'll see an 'essesse' kit which will take the 500 up to 180bhp... with brakes to match.

There's no word on performance yet, but expect the Abarth 500 to keep pace with far more powerful rivals on twisty B-roads thanks to a clever traction-control diff called TTC (Torque Transfer Control) which improves the transfer of drive torque to the front wheels.

Transmission comes from a manual five-speed box - the mid-range torque of the turbo engine renders a six-speed box unnecessary - and though the Abarth 500 sits on lowered suspension, the engineers say that its ride will be more compliant than the filling-shaking Fiat Panda 100HP thanks to softer springs.

All good, but the 500 is a car that trades on its looks at much as its road manners. And the Abarth 500 looks, to hark back to the Abarth motto of the 1960s, small but wicked.

The most obvious modification is the fat bodykit, including a deeper front bumper that adds a couple of centimetres to the 500's length and houses a pair of intercoolers. Those wheels in the picture are 17-inchers optional extras, with 16s as standard.

Round the back there's a Clio 197-style rear diffuser and a high-mounted rear spoiler, while scorpion badges adorn just about every surface. Remember that the Abarth 500, like the Abarth Punto - won't be badged as a Fiat, but will instead reside under the Abarth marque.

Fine by us: we just want to drive it. Soon. Now

Porsche 911 Cabriolet

Performance
The standard 911 has a 321bhp 3.6-litre engine, while the S uses a 350bhp 3.8. Both are available with four-wheel drive and deliver explosive performance, with the slightly faster S blasting to 62mph in 4.9sec and topping out at 182mph. Still not fast enough? Then there's always the 473bhp Turbo, which hits 62mph in four seconds flat.

Ride & handling
The suspension settings are softer than those for the coupe, so the Cabrio isn't as precise to drive. The electronic suspension on the S and Turbo allows drivers to firm things up, but it's uncomfortable unless the road surface is as smooth as a billiard table. The steering is sharp, well weighted and full of feedback.

Refinement
Porsche has eschewed the folding steel roof approach adopted by some rivals, instead preferring to keep the car’s weight down with a fabric hood. Naturally, this allows more sound into the cabin when the roof is up, although it is not unacceptable. Roof down, there is some buffeting, but your expensive coiffeur will remain largely unmolested.

Ferrari 599 Coupe Yes Please

Until the mid 1990s, Ferraris all followed the Athena poster template: wedge-shaped supercar styling and race-inspired mid-engined layout. They looked sexy but were hopelessly impractical being hard to see out of and tricky to drive. The smaller sports cars continued with their engines mounted behind the driver but following a rethink the big V12 machines reverted to a front-engined format starting with the 550M which evolved into the 575M. That car's place in the range is now taken by the 599 GTB, a big GT that's as happy pounding motorways as lapping the Fiorano circuit where Ferrari hones both its road cars and F1 racers. For now there's just one model, a fixed roof coupé. While the front-engined layout makes the 599 far more practical, some of its rivals, including the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 a hugely exciting but hopelessly impractical old-school supercar made just a few miles away, have stuck firmly the classic mid-engined design