MSN Cars is, like Top Gear, running a new Kia cee’d. Jeremy introduced the show’s cee’d last night; we introduced ours last month, and have already covered over 2,500 miles in it. And how’s it proving? Perfectly reasonable.

It’s not often we name-check an engineer during the first drive review of a new vehicle, but Mehmet Kiliç is a man worth knowing about – he could well save us all from a future filled with boring Toyotas.

With a certain amount of inevitability, Nissan made good use of the Juke Nismo launch earlier this week to remind the assembled motoring press about its GT Academy programme – which has been turning gamers into real racers with remarkable success since 2009.

This included an appearance from Lucas Ordoñez – the first GT Academy winner and graduate – co-opted into providing passenger laps in the rabid Juke R (though given how much he was giggling at the limit, this hardly seemed to be a chore). But have you ever wondered how Nissan turns sofa-dwelling joypad junkies into fully-fledged podium patrons?

Alistair Weaver writes

The world's toughest race: the Dakar Rally in pictures

Sunday, 20th January

After the tension and euphoria of yesterday, the celebratory parade through Santiago de Chile was a chance for the Race2Recovery team todrink in their Dakar success. Chile’s capital put on a great show with thousands of people turning out to cheer on a tired old Wildcat, driven by Matt O’Hare and Philip ‘Barney’ Gillespie. After a tour of the city centre, the whole team climbed the Dakar podium for a moment that marked the culmination of two years’ hard work. 

The Amarok might be a commercial vehicle, but it won’t spend all of its time off-road. That means the vehicle has to go well on it, too.

Fortunately, the second part of the VW Amarok Challenge set out to prove just that…

When the invite to the VW Amarok Challenge dropped into my inbox and the itinerary said – and I quote – “we suggest a change of footwear, a towel and a spare set of clothes to change into at the end of the day”, I could only leap at the chance to get stuck in.

The Amarok actually falls under the remit of VW Commercial Vehicles – it’s a workhorse. So what better way to test its robust off-road credentials and field crossing, fording and climbing capabilities than with a series of muddy challenges on the run-up to Christmas?

It’s that time of year again. The point at which Lego sends an email asking if we’d like to road test its latest wheeled wonder, and we – or rather I – scorch the keyboard sending back an overly enthusiastic yes. Meet the key Technic model for Christmas 2012: the Lego Technic 4x4 Crawler (9398).