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First Sight: Skoda Octavia

The new Skoda Octavia was unveiled earlier this week in the Czech brand's museum at its home in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic. Car Design News was in attendance to check out the third generation of what the company calls ‘the heart of Skoda'. The new Octavia is the fourth model in the Volkswagen Group to be built on the new MQB (Modularer Querbaukasten) platform.

Mercedes F1 at Edinburgh’s Race the Runway

The 2012 Mercedes F1 car will be at Edinburgh’s Race the Runway 2014 event In 2013, Mercedes decided to cough up sponsorship to help the Race the Runway event at Edinburgh Airport, and it must have been a success as Mercedes are back again as event sponsors. The Race the Runway event is an opportunity for car owners to blat their cars down the runway at Edinburgh Airport and generate cash for a worthy cause – the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow. Participants have to cough up a £300 donation to the charity to get the chance to see what their car can do, for which they get a free lunch as well as the thrill of flat-out driving on the runway, and can even bring a passenger along.

Geely to buy bankrupt London Taxis

The Chinese press are reporting that Geely are to buy London Taxi maker Manganese Bronze, which went in to liquidation in October. Back in October we reported that Manganese Bronze – makers of the iconic London Taxi – had gone in to administration, finally tipped over the edge by  steering box failures in the TX4. After years of under-investment – and a product that has been usurped by both the Mercedes Vito Taxi and the new Nissan NV200 Taxi – it looked like Manganese Bronze had no way back.