Lesabre Ltd Instrument Cluster 2001 2000 Buick Speedometer Digital on 2040-parts.com

CDN and GM launch new interactive competition for students in North America

Multiple internships on offer with CDN-GM Interactive Competition Car Design News is pleased to announce the launch of the Car Design News-GM interactive design competition, a collaboration with GM and our partners, Dassault Systèmes and Faurecia. Eight student winners will be awarded internships at GM's design studios in North America in 2012 as the principal prizes, whilst our partner, Faurecia, will be choosing its own additional winner and offering this student an internship at its studios in either the US, Europe or Asia.  The competition is open to students studying at college/university level in the USA and Canada, on any design course, and to former students who graduated from these courses within the period April 2010 to March 2011. Students display and update their ideas and work-in-progress on the competition's website, where the interactivity comes from the ability of observers to comment and suggest specific amendments, and from GM mentors who will publicly guide and support the students.

Future products: Toyota lineup gets an 18-month makeover

Toyota plans to move into new product segments over the next 18 months, as well as redesign several mainstream models. By the spring of 2012, Toyota will launch all-new versions of the Camry, Yaris, Tacoma and RAV4. Also, the new FT-86 sport coupe, developed with Subaru, should arrive on these shores by that time.

Honda cutting production in Swindon again – 500 jobs at risk

Honda is cutting another 500 jobs in Swindon It’s only a year since Honda announced 800 job cuts at Swindon (which eventually was 550) and now they’re about to cut a further 500 as weak demand – particularly in Europe – sees the Swindon plant producing just half the cars it could. The plan is to cut shifts from 3 to 2 a day, which will result in the loss of 340 permanent jobs and 160 temporary ones, and production will be centred on just one production line to increase efficiency and flexibility. The Swindon Plant – which builds the Civic, Civic Tourer, CR-V and Jazz (and the Civic Type-R from next year) – has been hard hit by the slump in European sales in the last five years and, despite still strong UK sales, production levels of 120,000 cars a year – just half of the Swindon capacity – are not enough to sustain the current staffing levels.