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Umea Olme Spyder project

While Swedish automaker Saab was going through tumultuous times and Geely was in the process of buying Volvo from Ford, first year MA students in Transportation Design at Sweden's Umea Institute of Design were busy creating a one-off roadster for an independent car maker: the Olme Spyder. Created in collaboration with Ove Bengtsson, an engineer with a personal passion for building his own vehicles, the students were asked to design their own interpretation of a progressive and innovative roadster, developing the concept from a sketch into a full-scale model. Based on an Opel Agila donor car, the concept's 650kg steel monocoque chassis was created by Bengtsson himself to accommodate a mid-mounted engine.

News watch October 2011: today's auto industry news

Welcome to CAR Magazine's news aggregator as we round up the daily stories in the auto industry. Top tip: news summaries are added from the top hour-by-hourMonday 31 October 2011• The two companies planning to buy Saab - China's Youngman and Pang Da - have agreed to pay a €50 million bridging loan, court documents show. And they are pledging €610m in long-term funding from 2012, according to ANE (Automotive News Europe)  • Martin Winterkorn, the CEO of the Volkswagen group, says he is pleased with the performance of Seat and Skoda.

70ft tall car juggling robot planned

BugJuggler When it comes to things we would like to see in our lifetime, a 70ft-tall robot juggling cars is most definitely one of them. So let’s all give this crazy group of ex-NASA and James Bond stunt engineers a big round of applause, because that’s exactly what they are trying to achieve. The robot is called the BugJuggler, and as yet it’s just a figment of some very over-active imaginations.