Downsizing, Ferrari-style, is going to be different.

The new twin-turbo 3.9-litre V8 of the California T revealed at Geneva might use 15 percent less fuel, but it isn’t an engine with a fat torque curve and a lazy rev limit. Instead, the new engine wails to 7500rpm to deliver its 412kW maximum, while the 755Nm high point arrives at 4750rpm.

The new engine’s vital stats overwhelm the current naturally aspirated 4.3-litre V8’s 360kW and 505Nm. No wonder, then, that the California T is quicker 0-100km/h (3.6sec v 3.8sec, says Ferrari) and has a higher top speed (316km/h v 312km/h). But, with the smaller twin-turbo’s power and torque peaks delivered a scant 250rpm lower than the atmo V8, the essential driving character of the front-engined four-seat Ferrari with folding hardtop won’t change dramatically.

In terms of looks, though, the T – created by the Ferrari Styling Centre in collaboration with Pininfarina – brings an update to the California’s 2009 design, changing everything except the roof and windscreen. And for the better, too.

Most obvious feature of the interior upgrade is the addition of a circular touchscreen display between the centre air vents, providing info on the new engine up front.

Let’s address the elephant in the room – this funky-looking SUV concept from Hyundai won’t make it into production. Boo. But we can reveal that its nose will. Sources have told Wheels the Intrado’s grille and headlight treatment will feature on the next ix35.

The first car penned by Hyundai’s new design chief, Peter Schreyer, the Intrado shows the next step in Hyundai’s fluidic sculpture styling language. But don’t dismiss it simply as a design exercise.

Built using high-tech lightweight steel, the Intrado also debuts a new patent-pending carbon-fibre chassis the company says is twice as rigid as steel and, thanks to innovative joining techniques, also gives designers great flexibility (meaning sexier cars) while shortening repair times.

It’s green, too, with the front wheels powered by an updated version of Hyundai’s hydrogen fuel cell with a 36kWh battery, meaning it spits out water, not CO2. Charge times are said to take a matter of minutes, while the range is an impressive 600km.

In order to protect its status as the world’s best-selling car, Ford has gone to town with the mid-life facelift of its third-generation Focus, due to launch in Europe in the second half of 2014.

Behind the aggressive new corporate front, different wheel designs and sleeker taillights glitter an extensively updated interior and a pair of brand new 1.5-litre EcoBoost fours – a turbo-petrol in 110kW and 132kW tunes, and a turbo-diesel with either 70kW or 88kW.

Both the new engines are tied to six-speed manual gearboxes, but two-pedal versions are on the way. The 1.5 turbo-petrol four and Ford’s brilliant 1.0-litre turbo-petrol triple will each score six-speed torque-converter automatics in 2015, while the 1.5 turbo-diesel will get the same ‘PowerShift’ six-speed dual-clutch ’box as the existing 2.0-litre TDCi.

There’s a strong chance the 1.5-litre turbo-petrol will replace the torque-deprived 2.0-litre naturally aspirated four in our Thai-built Focus, though sadly the 1.0-litre turbo-triple isn’t expected to replace our entry-level 92kW 1.6.

What we will gain is a bunch of chassis improvements. The current Focus already rates well dynamically, but Ford has stiffened the front-end, revised geometry, retuned the dampers, bushes and steering assistance, and enhanced the ESC for “real improvements in ride, handling and steering”.

The biggest change, however, comes to the interior. An all-new centre stack with next-gen ‘SYNC2’ connectivity featuring an 8.0-inch, high-res colour touchscreen, a redesigned steering wheel (with optional paddle shifters), classier instrument graphics, higher-quality trim and a Golf-inspired sliding centre armrest all lift Focus’s cabin significantly. Other new tech includes perpendicular (as well as parallel) park-assist and active emergency braking that now works at speeds up to 50km/h.

We just hope our Thai-built version retains all that’s impressive in the German-built car. Unfortunately, we won’t find out until 2015.

BMW’s famed 50/50 weight distribution isn’t restricted to its front engine/rear drive cars. Siegfried Muller, project leader for BMW’s first front drive model, the strangely named 2-Series Active Tourer, says the 218d version achieves a staggering (for a front-drive car) 50.5/49.5 font to rear distribution that he says means: “You can feel BMW’s expected driving character, though pure fun is not the aim.”

A massive 110mm higher than the rear drive 1-Series, the Active Tourer is 20mm higher than the X1, with a seating position that’s 30mm higher. A sliding rear seat moves through a range of 130mm to deliver 7-Series rear-seat legroom and the boot capacity is a huge 468 litres.

Built on the mid-length wheelbase of BMW’s new UKL platform, the Active Tourer will be sold in a variety of models with lengths from 3.8 to 4.5 metres and include a seven-seat version.

“Customer preferences have changed the usage of cars,” says Muller, who previously led the new X5 development team. ”Three or four years ago we were not sure if the change to front-wheel drive made real sense. But customer’s ideas changed so fast that now we believe it’s the perfect car for 2014.”

Sitting behind the wheel, I’ll admit that it’s impossible to distinguish this front-drive BMW from a rear-drive model.

While Peugeot’s new 108 sub-compact is no certain starter for Australian release, the brand’s local distributor, Sime Darby, has at least indicated it is “under consideration” – unlike its tiny non-identical twins, the Toyota Aygo and Citroen C1, that have also been shown at Geneva in updated form.

The trio replace their ageing predecessors produced in the Czech Republic via a partnership between PSA, Peugeot and Citroen’s parent company, and Toyota, and given Europe’s burgeoning interest in smaller cars, the new versions have been given vastly different exterior characters to mask their virtually identical underpinnings.

The 108 comes in three and five-door body styles, including one with an open-topped, roll-back roof.

With kerb weights as low as 840kg, and measuring barely 3470mm long the Peugeot 108 is likely to do battle with the VW Up if it comes to Oz. Power comes from either a 1.0-litre triple or a larger 1.2-litre triple with a five-speed manual gearbox or automated single-clutch five-cogger.

Geneva was the first reveal of the 108’s interior, which in upmarket versions features leather trim and vastly more luxury than its bare-boned predecessor.

Whether we’ll get anything too up-spec (if at all) will be an interesting dilemma considering the slow-selling Up has indicated no matter what the badge, Australian buyers seem reluctant to spend big bucks on ultra-small European offerings.

Just months after Opel’s dramatic withdrawal from Australia comes the fastest, most over-the-top Astra ever conceived – the Astra OPC Extreme.

Based on the already impressive Astra OPC coupe, the Extreme is a design study intended to gauge demand for a purpose-built, track-focused Astra that Opel desperately wants to put into limited production.

Turning the OPC treatment up to about 15, the Extreme was born at the Nurburgring Nordschliefe and inherits much of its go-fast gear from the Astra OPC Cup racecar.

A crash diet has also helped the Extreme shed more than 100kg from the Astra coupe it is based on thanks to extensive use of carbon fibre.

The carbon wheels alone weigh 20kg less than the alloy versions they replace, while the front mudguards are made from aluminium and weigh just 800 grams each.

Under the Extreme’s carbon fibre bonnet gurgles the most powerful engine Opel has ever produced. The 2.0-litre turbocharged four punches out more than 300hp (221kW) and sends that thrust to the ground via a six-speed manual gearbox with limited-slip diff.

Then there are the brakes – whopping 370mm discs up front fitted with six-piston Brembo calipers, and joined by 245/35R19 semi-slicks specially developed for the Extreme.

The hot seat itself is a one-piece Recaro race bucket, just like the front passenger’s, and each with six-point harness belts. A roll cage fills the space where the back seat once was.

For Opel’s sake, though, here’s hoping enough punters fill their order books because a ‘mega hatch’ this cool deserves to become a production reality.

Remember when Citroen’s were so quirky, it hurt (in a good way)? Well, have a go at the C4 Cactus – the production version.

Concept car in design, but practical and clever just about everywhere else, the C4 Cactus shares part of its name and its 2608mm wheelbase with the humdrum C4 hatchback, though it’s otherwise entirely its own thing. The Cactus is 170mm shorter than a regular C4, but far more importantly, weighs a whopping 200kg less thanks to a swathe of light-weighting measures that extend to simple stuff such as fixed rear windows (dropping 11kg) and a single-piece folding rear seat (saving 6kg).

Adding to the Cactus’s utilitarian appeal are the customisable ‘Airbumps’ – body protection made into a design feature.

There’s much that is distinctly bespoke about this car. The dashboard is fully digital with a separate centre touchscreen that controls everything from the ventilation to satellite navigation, while the passenger’s airbag has migrated to the roof (a world-first) in order to liberate storage space in the dashboard.

There are some great touches inside. Door pulls are leather straps and the front ‘sofa-style’ seat joins in the centre, with a flip-down armrest like a split-bench Yank car from the ’60s. There’s ample rear-seat room, a deep 358-litre boot, and because the Cactus is so light, it gets PSA’s charming little 1.2-litre three-pot petrol, and a super-efficient turbo-diesel that emits a Toyota Prius-beating 82g/km of CO2 and sips just 3.1L/100km.

Not surprisingly, Citroen Oz has put its hand up for the C4 Cactus like an excited kid trying to get teacher’s attention. But we won’t see it before 2015, and at a price likely to be northwards of Peugeot’s $21,990-plus 2008.

Although it was primarily created to celebrate Maserati’s 100-year heritage, there is a chance the beautiful Alfieri concept will make it into production.

Named for the most prominent of the Maserati brothers who launched the fabled brand in Bologna, Italy, in 1914, this V8-powered, rear-drive, 2+2, hatchback coupe’s most direct inspiration was the Pininfarina-designed A6 GCS-53 of 1954.

Work on the project started in mid-2013, by a team working in the Maserati Centro Stile in Turin under the direction of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles design chief Lorenzo Ramaciotti.

The Alfieri concept is built on the platform of an old-school Maserati, the GranTuriso MC Stradale, shortened by 240mm. It uses the MC Stradale’s non-turbo 4.7-litre V8 and six-speed transaxle gearbox.

“We are evaluating now whether this concept could go into production,” Maserati chief executive Harald Wester told the crowd gathered for the Alfieri’s Geneva reveal.

A Maserati source told Wheels a production version would have to utilise the totally different architecture of the new Ghibli and Quattroporte, their twin-turbocharged V6 and V8 engines, and an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission.

What are the chances Maserati will put the Alfieri into production? “Around 50/50,” according to a high-ranking FCA source.

It may not out-cute the Fiat 500, but Renault’s new micro-car out-clevers the Polish-made Italian by a massive margin.

Renault has already whipped the wrapper off the new Twingo’s exterior, but Geneva was the first time its insides were on display.

The carefully choreographed presentation at the Swiss show highlighted the Renault’s amazingly tight 8.7-metre turning circle, one of the obvious advantages of the rear-engined, rear-drive platform co-developed with Daimler, which will utilise it for the next-generation Smart ForFour.

But the manoeuvrability of the 3.6-metre-long Twingo was overshadowed by the brilliance of its pragmatic, yet playful, interior.

Renault’s designers deliberately created opportunities to introduce colour, most strikingly in the instrument cluster surround and around the dash-mounted infotainment system.

Renault small car design director Kenneth Melville says this snaking swathe of colour is known inside the French car-maker as “the racetrack” – it is easy to see why.

Yet the Twingo also succeeds in being seriously useful. There’s room for four adults inside, and the 50/50 split-fold rear seatback flips to create a perfectly flat cargo area.

The boot floor is high, a consequence of the 51kW naturally aspirated 1.0-litre or 66kW turbo 0.9-litre three-cylinder engines installed between the Twingo’s rear wheels.

The engines are tilted rearwards 49 degrees from vertical for obvious reasons.

Despite its rear-engine layout, there’s not cargo compartment up front under the Twingo’s plastic bonnet. Once unlatched, the bonnet slides forward, providing access to the car’s fluid reservoirs.

Stylishly reminding the world of the almost forgotten potential of the rear-engine, rear-drive layout for small cars, the Twingo deserves to succeed everywhere.

Only an importer lacking imagination or courage – or both – could fail to be excited by it. Are you listening, Renault Australia?

Volkswagen’s T-ROC concept is set to form the basis for the launch of a Golf-based, small SUV due to appear in 2016 or 2017.

Heinz-Jakob Neusser, VW’s chief of research and development, told Wheels in Geneva that the German premium car-maker would like to build the T-ROC.

“It would be the logical consequence of the Golf concept,” Mr Neusser said. “We’ve shown many SUV concepts in the past 24 months – many of them very close to being ready for production.”

T-ROC is a two-door, 4Motion (all-wheel-drive) coupe crossover powered by VW’s 2.0-litre turbo diesel, but sources within the car-maker say it can easily be stretched to accommodate the planned four-door style.

The new, shallower wrap-around front end previews VW’s next design evolution for a new range of SUVs.

T-ROC follows the larger CrossBlue, CrossBlue Coupe and Taigun concepts to give a clear indicator that VW is anxiously speeding up development of a compact and high-volume SUV that will fit below the current Tiguan. By 2017, VW expects to offer five completely different SUVs.

At 4179mm in length, 1831mm wide and 1501mm high, the two-door T-ROC is 246mm shorter, 23mm wider and a significant 199mm lower than the five-door Tiguan. At 2595mm, the wheelbase is 10mm shorter.

Volkswagen suggests a kerb weight of 1420kg for the production version.