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Design Sevices: MCE Design Workshops

Independent design studio Motorcity Europe (MCE) is launching another series of two- and five-day design workshops aimed at broadening the skills, experience and job prospects of anyone working - or looking to work - within the field of automotive design. Based on the massive success of the MCE Summer Seminars, these follow up workshops in February 2010 will be an intensely improved version, open to all skill levels of design. Top sponsors including Autodesk, Wacom and RLE Int'l will also be supporting this event.

Book Review: Cosmic Motors

It is the year 8966-B in Galaxion, a distant galaxy where Daniel Simon has spent the past two years creating visions for the Cosmic Motors brand. Beginning with the Camarudo ‘one-person motion device', the former VW designer puts aside gravity to find unique forms for future vehicles, accompanied by excellent narration that develops the CoMo story and describes the techniques he used. All the vehicles in this stellar catalogue have been made into digital models with Autodesk AliasStudio - and the results are simply stunning.

VW Scirocco and Passat CC (2011): low CO2 tech

Volkswagen has launched the cleanest and most efficient Scirocco yet. Bluemotion tech is now fitted to the base 2.0-litre turbodiesel and includes stop/start and battery regeneration systems to cut CO2 beneath 120g/km. The six-speed manual Scirocco 138bhp 2.0 TDI now averages 62.8mpg (down from 55.4mpg) while emissions have tumbled to an impressive 118g/km (down from 134g/km).