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Peugeot teases its 208 T16 Pikes Peak racer

Peugeot is returning to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb this year after a 14-year absence, and it has begun teasing the 208 T16 that Sébastien Loeb will be piloting up the mountain. Sporting a carbon fiber effects package that you won't find on the dealership floor nor at your local tuner, even the cockpit is a surprise since it features a central driving position.
Waging war in the Unlimited Class, it will have gobs of power underhood, the number 208 on its sides and two self-locking diffs to get power to the proper wheels. The entire route is paved this year, but Loeb has proved he knows how to handle tarmac in a variety of circumstances: after taking third in the French GT Championship last year, he entered the FIA GT series this year and won the opening race of the season earlier this month in a McLaren MP4-12C.
Click on the image above to see it in high resolution.

Almost 70 percent of FCA-PSA Groupe models to ride on two PSA platforms

With the merger between PSA Groupe and Fiat Chrysler having been officially announced this week, we still don't know where everything will settle once the process concludes. We covered the catalog of models herded by the combined company's 12 brands, all of which will remain for now. Profound changes must be afoot somewhere, though, else there'd be no reason for the tie-up. Automotive News has a report on one of the big moves, writing that "more than two-thirds of [PSA-FCA] production would be concentrated on just two platforms." Around 2.6 million cars built by the combined company would sit on PSA's Common Modular Platform, also known as the EMP1, for B-segment city cars, entry-level and mid-range C-segment sedans, and compact crossovers. Three million vehicles would ride on the EMP2 architecture intended for C- and D-segment cars and higher-end crossovers. Those figures account for around 5.6 of the 8.7 million vehicles the combined company expects to sell annually. AN didn't mention the Giorgio platform that's already spread throughout the FCA kingdom to support numerous current and future offerings like the next-gen Jeep Grand Cherokee, but did write that "larger Jeep models will continue to use FCA underpinnings." The body-on-frame chassis' under Ram trucks and the Jeep Wrangler and Gladiator should hold pat. We'll wait for word on the fate of the Compact U.S. Wide platform carrying the Chrysler Voyager and Pacifica and Jeep Cherokee. Dodge products with questionable futures are anyone's guess; we've heard the Dodge Durango, still built on a Mercedes-derived platform it shares with the current Grand Cherokee, could go body-on-frame for the next generation, or die and have the Giorgio-based, three-row Jeep Grand Cherokee take its place. More mystery comes with the long-lived LA and LD platforms in the big sedan and coupe trio Chrysler and Dodge still milk quite successfully. And if there were ever a time for the Dodge Journey – last reported as a Giorgio recipient – to modernize or die, we don't know when that time is. Although FCA platforms have been designed with alternative powertrains in mind, AN says the PSA Groupe architectures "are more modern than FCA's equivalent platforms." After PSA acquired GM's Opel/Vauxhall division, the French company didn't waste time moving the Anglo-German products to in-house platforms, helping to put the formerly money-losing operations into the black in just 18 months.

A first-person rally video is just as intense as it sounds

Yesterday, we told you about a pair of World Rally Championship drivers that used a giant bottle of Corona in place of coolant after their radiator developed a leak. We called it an example of the sense of ingenuity that all rally drivers seem to possess. In that same post, we also talked about the "lightning quick reflexes and the ability to turn off one's sense of self-preservation." Now, you get to see that in action.
This is Simon Pagenaud, and while he may best be known as an IndyCar and sports car driver, he's quite comfortable behind the wheel of a rally car, as he proves in this video. What makes this vid special, though, is the first-person view, thanks to the camera Pagenaud fitted to his visor.
The result is, in a word, awesome. If you thought rallying looked fast in flyby shots, it's got nothing on how it looks from the driver's perspective. Scenery passes at an absurd rate as Pagenaud pushes the Peugeot 207 rally car along the tarmac road. And unlike a lot of rally videos, we're sure you'll be happy to know that there's no soundtrack here - just engine noise.