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Local Motors 'Design Our Car' competition opens

Local Motors has opened its first-ever ‘Design Our Car' competition, which encourages collaboration within the manufacturing community. The open-source automaker is providing two of its Rally Fighter cars, one of which will be built at the company's micro-factory in Arizona while the other will be built live in the Emerging Technology Center at September's International Manufacturing Technology Show (IMTS) in Chicago. Ideas from the design and engineering community are being sought to help design and select a skin for the Rally Fighter that will be built by the Local Motors team this spring.

Ferrari looks at layoffs, cuts back production

We guess it's not all GTOs and 458 Italias. The word out of Italy is that Ferrari is looking at cutting production and eliminating 9 percent of its workers after sister company Maserati cut engine orders. Ferrari made only about 4,500 engines for Maserati last year, compared with nearly 9,000 in 2008.

Renault Twin'Run concept

The Renault Twin'Run concept, unveiled during the weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, is the sibling of the Twin'Z collaboration with Ross Lovegrove. Together they fulfill the ‘Play' stage of Renault's ongoing concept car lifecycle. While its overall form is very similar to the Twin'Z's (apologies for awkward punctuation on Renault's behalf), previewing the next-generation, rear-engined Twingo, the ‘Run is altogether racier than the more pragmatic – if no less flamboyant – ‘Z.