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Aston to build cars abroad

By Ben Oliver Motor Industry 03 March 2008 23:05 Aston Martin is to manufacture a major model outside the UK for the first time, CAR Online can exclusively reveal. The iconic British car maker will use the Geneva Motor Show to announce that its new Rapide four-door coupe will be built in Austria by Magna Steyr.The firm’s Graz factory is expected to build up to 3000 Rapides each year, with deliveries starting in early 2010. As with all Aston Martin engines, the £200,000 Rapide’s 6.0-litre V12 will be built in Cologne.

VW Taigun Compact SUV heading for production

It was a good-looking and appealing effort from VW to tap in to the very compact SUV market, with a real family look (a Tiguan on a boil wash), peppy little 3-cylinder 1.0 litre engine delivering 108bhp and a 0-62mph of 9.2 seconds (with 60mpg economy) and enough room to carry stuff and people thanks to an extra 50mm in the wheelbase compared to the Up! Now it looks like the Taigun is heading for production after VW’s Chief designer, Klaus Bishoff, told Autoexpress that he deeply believed the Taigun would be heading for VW showrooms very soon, and could be sold in the UK and Europe as well as in emerging markets. So you can add the Taigun to the list of VW’s SUV offerings, and with new versions of the Tiguan and Touareg (perhaps based on the CrossBlue Concept) and a Polo based SUV on the way too, it looks like VW are covering all the bases.

Studio Focus: SAIC European Design Centre

SAIC European Design Centre Brands MG and Roewe Established 2010 (in current guise) Location Longbridge, UK Staff 35 Studio leader Martin Uhlarik SAIC's presence in Europe is limited at best through its MG brand, but if its sales are almost exclusively concentrated in its home Chinese market currently, MG's design roots are firmly planted in its spiritual British soil. All current Morris Garages cars – the MG6, 3 and 5 (in chronological order) as well as the CS concept shown at the Shanghai motor show in April – are products of SAIC's European Design Centre in Longbridge, near Birmingham in the English midlands, albeit finalized in Shanghai. The studio was opened in 2010 after a £5million investment in SAIC's UK Technical Centre but such are the ambitions of the company that it has already received a further £1.5million investment to almost double its size.