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Bertone ordered to auction six cars from museum collection

A selection of six cars forming part of the official museum collection of Carrozzeria Bertone will be auctioned off at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. Following the turbulence within the struggling design house in 2009 – including selling its manufacturing arm to the Fiat Group – the disbandment of the museum collection has been ordered by a bankruptcy court. The auction is also a symbolic action: it marks the first time that any Bertone vehicles have been offered for sale to the public.

2012 Mazda CX-5 at Frankfurt

2012 Mazda CX-5 - Frankfurt Debut Mazda has been touting its SKYACTIV Technologies for some time now, and the new 2012 Mazda CX-5 – which Mazda will debut at Frankfurt next month – is the first Mazda to come endowed with a complete raft of SKYACTIV stuff. The clever stuff includes Mazda’s new modular platform that can be used for everything from the Mazda3 upwards, and which is said to give the CX-5 not just car-like handling but proper sporty and stable driving dynamics too. The SKYACTIV technology comes in to play with the engines too on the CX-5, with the new 2.2 litre diesel delivering 173bhp and a remarkably low 120g/km in standard guise.

Chinese brands are narrowing the quality gap with foreign automakers

When it comes to vehicle quality, domestic Chinese brands are catching up to their global peers, according to the 2010 China Initial Quality Study published by J.D. Power and Associates. The consultancy found that the quality gap between domestic and foreign brands has reached its narrowest margin in the survey's 11-year history.