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Five reasons to celebrate the end of the paper UK driving licence

From January 2015 Britain’s much-derided paper counterpart driving licence is being phased out. This is A Good Thing, ending an annoying bi-partite arrangement that’s blighted drivers’ pockets for 16 years. Driving licences have been with us since 1903, when they were first mandated – but the current, annoyingly two-part licences have been in use since 1998, with a bank card-sized photocard accompanied by a printed sheet of A4.

Crunch watch Dec 08: the auto industry in crisis

By Tim Pollard and Simon Stiel Motor Industry 31 December 2008 14:05 Wednesday 31 December 2008• GMAC, GM's finance arm, said it would immediately revise its criteria for providing loans, after the US government bail-out of the General's credit arm. It will now supply credit for anyone with a score of 621 or more on the Fico scale, the scale used to assess Amercian customers' creditworthiness (Financial Times)• The news means that 80% of US consumers would now qualify for a loan from GMAC – which should improve sales in the depressed US market (Detroit News)• Chrysler is being lambasted for taking out full-page adverts in the American national press thanking the nation for supporting its auto industry. But critics point out this is a fresh waste of bail-out resources, as pages in the Wall Street Journal – one of the titles in which the ad ran – reportedly cost up to $264,000.

Porsche Museum opens 911 Identity exhibition

As the seventh-generation Porsche 911 hits the market, the Porsche Museum is honoring its brand-defining model with a new exhibition called 911 Identity. The display in the company's Stuttgart museum highlights each generation of 911, from the 1963 original through to the 2012 991, offering facts, figures and artifacts from their year of launch. As well as road going variants of the 911, motor sport versions are on show, from the 911 Carrera RS 2.7 Safari, through to the current 911 GT3R Hybrid, via the fearsome 935s of the 1970s and '80s.