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12th Apr 2015

New Wheels on The Block: 5 new cars you need to know about

Mercedes enters the pick-up market and Subaru teases a monster

Oisin Collins

This week we take a look at three highly tuned motoring masterpieces and two slightly bigger busses.

Subaru BRZ STI Concept

We’re massive fans of the Toyota GT86 Subaru BRZ here in JOE Towers, so you can imagine our excitement when we heard Subaru were working on a BRZ STI Concept.

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The car was unveiled at the New York Auto Show this week and we have to say, it looks mean as hell. The BRZ STI Concept features redesigned front and rear ends, wider side skirts and one mahoosive rear spoiler.

It’s almost a bigger spoiler than Snape killing Dumbledore.

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Unfortunately, the BRZ STI Concept shall remain a ‘concept’, for now, but we’ll be hoping to see a full production version in the not too distant future. Fingers crossed.

Skoda Octavia RS230

Unveiled at the Geneva Motor show in early March the new Octavia RS230 is the latest addition to the ŠKODA range from the Czech car manufacturer. It’s also one very sexy looking motor.

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The car’s top speed stands at 250 km/h and can reach 0 to 100 km/h in just 6.7 seconds via its new 230bhp two-litre petrol engine.

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Prices for Ireland have yet to be confirmed but are estimated to start from €36,500 for the Octavia 2.0 TSI 230bhp.

Mercedes-Benz pick-up truck

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You may think that a pick-up truck wouldn’t exactly fit in with the rest of Mercedes-Benz’s fleet of cars and vehicles, but the German automaker has teamed up Renault-Nissan to make midsize pick-up truck.

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The Mercedes pick-up will share some of the architecture with the all-new Nissan NP300 Navara (pictured above), but we’ve been assured that it will ultimately be designed to meet the needs and specifications of Mercedes Benz buyers.

Citroen Aircross

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Meet the friendly, bubbly, tech-savvy Citroen Aircross Concept that will be unveiled by the French car company at the upcoming Shanghai Motor Show.

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Motoring fans will have probably guessed that the Aircorss takes its design cues from the smaller, but massively popular Citroen C4 Cactus, and it also features some novel tech and safety features.

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The Aircross Concept gives us a good indication of what Citroen’s mid-sized SUV will look like when it goes on sale next year. No word of a price, but judging by the successes of the Cactus, we’ll be seeing a lot of the Aircross when/if it eventually goes on sale.

New McLaren 570S Coupé

British supercar makers, McLaren, have completed their three-tier model strategy with the global reveal of the first in its Sports Series family: the McLaren 570S Coupé, aka. The Baby McLaren.

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The 570S Coupé features a power output of 570PS (562bhp), 0 to 100km/h (62 mph) in 3.2 seconds, while 200 km/h (124 mph) is reached in just 9.5 seconds with the pace not letting up till the car reaches a top speed of 328 km/h (204mph).

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No price on a word just yet, but we can safely assume that we’ll only be able to afford one in Forza or Gran Turismo.