1978-1981 Pontiac Trans Am Rear Center Spoiler on 2040-parts.com

Interior Motives China Conference to explore new design directions

Chinese consumers are driving new design directions, and CDN's Interior Motives China Conference in Beijing next week is set to explore how. Titled ‘New brands and the search for a design identity', the conference features an impressive speaker line-up that blends the international (Chris Bangle and VW's Wolfgang Muller Pietralla) with the regional (GM PATAC's Friedhelm Engler, Ford China's Chelsia Lau and PSA-Peugeot/Citroën China's Robert Walker), with the domestic (Shan Wei of the Beijing Automotive Technical Center (BATC), and Ken Ma of SAIC). The annual conference is the third in China to be hosted by CDN's magazine Interior Motives, and will be held on Wednesday 21 April, and Thursday 22 April, just in advance of the opening of Auto China 2010 in Beijing on Friday (23 April).

New Saab 9-3 leaks – Saab’s future?

New Saab 9-3 leaks It makes a change to have a Saab story that isn’t more doom and gloom and financial meltdown, but it does seem a bit of a coincidence that an image of the new Saab 9-3 should surface on the day Saab reveals the Chinese investment plans to put Saab back on its feet. Still, casting our cynicism aside, the new Saab 9-3 will be a key part of the plans to revive Saab – but this leaked photo isn’t the first news we’ve had of the new 9-3. Apart from Victor Muller’s musings about Saab’s future, we saw a proper concept of the new 9-3 back at Geneva in the Spring when Saab called the Saab PhoeniX (the 9-3 Concept) an ‘Aeromotional Design’ and managed to allude to Saab’s background in fighter planes by saying the PhoeniX  ‘liquid metal’ forms and a dramatic jet canopy-inspired glasshouse’.

Nissan designs A Class catamaran

Nissan has today announced that it has designed and built a catamaran as the latest part of its non-automotive design and development program. Matt Struble, who led the design and modeling team at Nissan Design America (NDA) in San Diego, will be racing the Class A Catamaran in the 2011 World Championship from August 13 through 20 in Skødstrup, Denmark. The team sought to improve and smooth all aspects of aero- and hydro-dynamics of the vessel, with the boat's composite structure designed and built in-house.