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Spy photog Brenda Priddy gets a turn in front of the camera lens

Why would anyone be willing to spend more than two months every summer crisscrossing the desert in the Southwest? Well, if you're spy photographer Brenda Priddy, it's because you're hunting Rabbits, and sports cars, and SUVs and occassionally minivans. Priddy, whose work appears here at autoweek.com and in AutoWeek magazine as well as in our sister publication Automotive News and other outlets, took a turn in front of the lens recently.

New 2013 Nissan Note gets more appealing

The new Nissan Note has turned in to a Ford Fiesta basher as Nissan turn the Note from a boring little MPV in to a convincing small hatch. We did think the Invitation would be watered down to produce a slightly titivated new Note for production, but much of the style has found its way through in to the new Note – which we first saw in the JDM Nissan Note last summer – and the Note now looks set to take on proper compact hatches like the Ford Fiesta. The nose of the new Note is now more convincing – with new headlights and grill – and the doors get a great big feature crease that looks like a giant smoothing iron has stamped its mark, although Nissan say it’s a ‘Squash Line’  whose ‘angles were inspired by the flight of a fast moving squash ball travelling around a court’.

AutoWeek's Keith Crain receives Mercedes Star Driver award

AutoWeek editor-in-chief Keith Crain recently received the Star Driver award from Mercedes-Benz, an honor that recognizes an individual who has made great contributions to motorsports and the automobile industry. Crain, shown at left with Geoff Day, director of communications at Mercedes-Benz USA, is the sixth recipient of the Star Driver honor. He joins the ranks of Sir Stirling Moss, John Fitch, Jochen Mass, Jesse Alexander and AutoWeek senior contributing editor Denise McCluggage.