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Nissan-designed Santa’s sleigh

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 17 December 2008 14:30 Canadian designer Martin Uhlarik penned Nissan’s sleigh, which dispenses with reindeer altogether and can be used instead in conjunction with a rather faster steed, a Nissan GT-R. It’s quickly apparent that Nissan’s SC01 sledge will have a much greater load capacity than rival designs – and we’d certainly pull over fast if we saw this in our rear-view mirrors. Uhlarik is project design leader at Nissan’s Paddington design centre in London and was senior exterior designer on the Qashqai+2 and NV200 concept.

Aston Martin Rapide at the Frankfurt motor show

Aston Martin Rapide (2009) first pictures By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 15 April 2009 00:01 Aston Martin is clearly wringing the launch of the new Rapide saloon for all its worth. This is the second batch of ‘first official photos’ of the new four-door from Gaydon – and it’s still only a tease of new information with a single image and a handful of nuggets of information. Today’s announcement does confirm a few new details about the Rapide, which was first shown in concept guise at the 2006 Detroit auto show.

Video: Yasushi Nakamuta on Mazda 3's 'unique' design process

It may be leaden with PR-talk but this short presentation by Yasushi Nakamuta, Mazda's director of advanced design studio at the press unveiling of the new Mazda 3 in Melbourne is still worth a couple of minutes of your time. But while the 3 is undeniably attractive we can't help but feel that the 'unique' design process Nakamuta describes (which appears wholly conventional to us) has resulted in little more than a thoroughly normal product. Take a look for yourself at the video to your left.