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Design Services: Car Menu launched

Within almost every automotive design department throughout the world, their comes a time when a junior designer is dispatched to find a picture of some new model's tail lamp, the side view of a particular class leading competitor or examples of several new cars' colour and trim packages. Whilst looking at the competition is not necessarily a healthy way of finding ideas, it is often essential to demonstrate what is feasible, check in-house proposals are not too derivative, or show how advanced a design theme is relative to the same type of cars on the market. But even if the particular aspect of a car can be found, press packs and magazines typically show cars in the flattering light of an exotic location or being drifted around a corner on opposite lock; rarely are these images particularly useful.

Range Rover Hybrid completes Silk Trail Expedition to India (video)

Range Rover Hybrid completes Silk Trail Expedition to India Land Rover has been busy for the last 53 days taking a trio of Range Rover Hybrids down the Silk Trail from Land Rover’s home in the Midlands to Tata’s home in India. In the process, the three Range Rover Hybrids, and their Land Rover support vehicles, have covered 10,472 miles in 53 days covering every terrain imaginable – and averaged 36mpg in the process. The whole point of the outing was to give the hybrid Range Rover a proper workout ahead of its customer launch, and the trek to India certainly provided that with everything from sea level to 5500 metres and temperatures from -10 to 43C along the way, not to mention the vast array of terrain from tarmac to non-existent byways.

Audi A7 breaks cover

This is Audi's new A7--the sleek, upmarket liftback previewed by the Sportback concept at the 2009 Detroit auto show. The A7 aims to provide the company with a stylish but practical rival to contemporary four-door luxury cars such as the Jaguar XF and the second-generation Mercedes-Benz CLS. Revealed at a gala presentation in Munich on Monday, the A7 is the second liftback model launched by Audi recently, following the smaller A5.