Top Gear puts Peugeot 207 rally car up against downhill skier in Italy

Leave it up to the Top Gear crew to put this one together. No, not the famous British crew of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May; the staff behind this video of a Peugeot 207 rally car going up against a downhill skier hails from Italy and represents Top Gear Magazine.

Of course, before any downhill festivities can properly commence, the car needs to make its way up the mountain course... and that's when the magic starts to happen, making use of the most serious set of spiked tires we've ever seen.

What goes up, must come down, right? And so down it goes, chasing the Pug's co-pilot, Anna Andreussi, right back down from whence it came. It's all in good fun, with plenty of aerial acrobatics to go along with the expected snow drifting shenanigans. See it all go down yourself in the video below. 

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European Carmakers Must Deal with the Crisis Fast or Face the Consequences

A number of European carmakers are facing the same problem: they have more facilities and employees churning out more cars than they can sell.
Automotive CEOs acknowledge the fact and understand that something needs to be done about it. Fiat’s Sergio Marchionne has often said that European carmakers must consolidate or risk going down and he is constantly trying to tie-up the Fiat-Chrysler group with another carmaker.
GM’s Dan Akerson has stated that he's fed up with losing money with Opel and Vauxhall. However, the recently formed alliance with PSA Peugeot Citroen could provide a solution to this problem.
Renault, on the other hand, has halved its UK line-up due to poor sales. It's CEO Carlos Ghosn is betting heavily on the French carmaker’s new range of electric vehicles, like the ZOE compact car unveiled in Geneva, to turn things around.
The situation looks a lot like the one faced by the U.S. automotive industry in 2008. The difference is that the federal government intervened providing GM and Chrysler with much-needed loans and helped them restructure by getting rid of their “bad” assets.
European governments are not inclined to follow the U.S. lead, as Swedish carmaker Saab found out the hard way.
Daniel Howes from the Detroit News sees it like this: "They all see the problem, but no one wants to be the poor fool to go first because they all know what would come next — and it wouldn't be pleasant. Like the guy who says he needs to lose 50 pounds, they'll get started later."
What “would come next” is a painful restructuring process that would necessitate closing down plants and firing employees. Marchionne has already said that two of Fiat’s Italian factories are facing the axe if sales of the models that will be manufactured don't take off in the U.S.
It's not pretty, and European labor unions are not going down without a fight, even though Marchionne has warned them that "The world doesn't care. The capital markets and the people that fund what we do look for the least amount of risk exposure."
Howes says that stalling is only going to make things worse: “We've seen this movie before in Detroit, folks, and we know how it ends. The only question is whether the remake will be dubbed in French, Italian or German.”
Story References: Detnews

Peugeot SR1 Concept Car

Peugeot SR1 Concept Car - Showcasing the cool Peugeot SR1 concept car with pictures and video. This cool looking Peugeot will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show this March, a new concept car which will be the first to bare the redesigned lion logo. 

This cool Peugeot SR1 Concept Car is an all-wheel-drive turbo hybrid that has a mean 313 horsepower whilst delivering great fuel consumption of 48 mpg. The Peugeot SR1 will be powered by Peugeot’s HYbrid4 Technology, a combination of a 1.6L turbo diesel engine for the front axle and a 95 hp electric motor on the rear end.

Video of Peugeot SR1 Concept Car: