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Vauxhall planning City Car

The 2004 Opel TRIXX Concept With the world and his dog seemingly trying to squeeze in to smaller and smaller cars, it should come as no surprise that Vauxhall/Opel’s new boss in Europe – Nick Reilly – says that the number one priority for GM in Europe is a new City Car. After all, what was once considered as small as you need to go – the Corsa or the Agila – seems something of a heffalump compared to many of the city cars flooding in to our cities. So how far down the line are Vauxhall with their City Car plans?

Michelin Challenge Design 2009 preview

Michelin is continuing to profile the work of some of the leading contenders for its annual Michelin Challenge Design competition, which asks the design community to come up with proposals for "America's Next Iconic Vehicle". All 11 of the scale models and 24 two-dimensional drawings in the running will be exhibited at the 2009 NAIAS in January. Earlier this month, we featured three of these scale models following their selection by a jury of top automotive designers.

Man-made Modern Luxury Materials in Cars

Luxury, within the context of a car interior, has been closely related to the use of wood and leather for over a century. These natural materials have a familiar organic, tactile quality that are intrinsically desirable attributes for most people and, in today's mass manufactured plastic world, they also assume a luxury or premium quality. Throughout the last century, metal, leather and wood have also been progressively supplanted by bakelite, vinyl and then polymer-based plastic materials in car interiors as well.