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Porsche 911 cabriolet: First official photographs

Porsche has developed an innovative fabric and composite-plastic folding roof for the 911 cabriolet as part of a push to give it a cleaner appearance, improved aerodynamic efficiency and greater levels of refinement than its strong-selling predecessor. Pictured here officially for the first time ahead of its world premiere in January at the Detroit auto show, the new open-top 911 is planned to go on sale in North America in 2012 in Carrera cabriolet and Carrera S models. Eschewing the traditional multilayered fabric structure of the 997 series 911 cabriolet, the next model (991 series) adopts a specially developed lightweight roof that uses two fabric-skinned composite plastic panels for the upper and rear part of the structure, giving it a more uniform shape together with a tauter fit that is claimed to make it more resistant than before to buffeting at high speeds.

Nissan GT-R 2010 UK updates

Nissan has revealed the changes to the 2010 GT-R At the Tokyo Motor Show Nissan brought along the 2010 Nissan GT-R with a raft of minor tweaks and adjustments for their supercar killing four seat coupe. We thought that they’d probably be available just in Japan to kick off with (the 2010 GT-R launches there in December) but Nissan has sent us the 2010 updates for the GT-R for the UK and Europe this afternoon, so it looks like it’s updates round the world. Just about all the changes are under the skin for the GT-R.

‘Crash avoidance’ systems rated for safety

The European car safety body Euro NCAP has confirmed it is currently testing a number of cars fitted with crash avoidance technology in an effort to judge the systems’ effectiveness. This news coincides with an announcement from the American Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which has published the first results of its own version of the scheme. Euro NCAP and IIHS are cooperating to establish a standardised test formula.