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News watch July 2012: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hour Tuesday 31 July 2012•Porsche SE recorded a first half profit of €1.15bn, in comparison with €149m for the same period in 2011. The enormous jump has come not from directly selling cars, but from the group's investments in Porsche Zwischenholding GmbH and Volkswagen AG (Porsche SE)•Reuters suggests Germany's car market is in recession, but few outside the industry would know it, thanks to a controversial sales practice that inflates official statistics and paints a flattering picture of demand.

Peter Stevens and Julian Thomson lead a discussion on the past, present and future of car design

As part of its sponsorship of London's Clerkenwell Design Week, Jaguar and the Royal College of Art brought together three generations of the design school to discuss the past, present and possible future of car design. Held in a suitably grimy warehouse in east London – with the sculpture by RCA students Ewan Gallimore and Claire Mille's we showed you earlier this week sat outside – Professor Dale Harrow, dean of the School of Design and head of its Vehicle Design program introduced Professor Peter Stevens, Julian Thomson, Jaguar's advanced design director and Alexandra Palmowski project designer advanced colour and material at Jaguar took the audience through their careers. Charismatic as ever, Peter Stevens kicked off proceedings that moved chronologically through the decades by explaining how he first became interested in "the art if car design, allied to the science of how they work" through his artistic parents and uncle – journalist and motoring adventurer – Denis Jenkinson during the 1950s and 60s.

Peugeot RCZ Red Carbon Limited Edition launches – price from £26,000

Peugeot RCZ Red Carbon Limited Edition (pictured) All the column inches (or whatever the digital equivalent is) for Peugeot’s RCZ since last year have been about the more powerful RCZ R. But that’s no surprise when it comes with a very agreeable 270bhp to play with – enough to push the RCZ R to 62mph in 5.9 seconds – good looks and decent economy. But Peugeot has a whole selection of RCZs lurking below the R, so as it’s obviously time to garner some attention for the R’s lesser siblings we get a limited edition RCZ to bump up sales and footfall in Peugeot showrooms – the Peugeot RCZ Red Carbon Limited Edition.