1949 Plymouth Back Uplight, Working Bulb on 2040-parts.com

Who's Where: Martin Uhlarik appointed SAIC UK Design Director

SAIC Motor has announced the appointment of Martin Uhlarik as its new UK Design Director amidst plans to significantly expand its European Design Center at Longbridge, UK. Canadian-born Uhlarik has been appointed by Tony Williams-Kenny, who takes over as Global Design Director at SAIC's Shanghai design base. Uhlarik comes in with experience as Senior Interior Designer for Skoda's Prague studio, Project Design Leader for Nissan Design Europe in London.

Car makers to be forced to disclaim ‘Official’ economy figures

We’ve banged on for a long time about the futility of official economy figures, especially as car makers get better and better at ‘gaming’ the official economy tests to produce the results they want. Much of the impetus to create the best headline economy figure for a car is driven by taxation, with car makers well aware that the better the official economy results are, the lower their CO2 will be (CO2 isn’t tested for – it’s just extrapolated from the official mpg) and the more appealing the car will be to buyers, particularly fleet buyers. But a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) against Audi could at least see car makers having to admit in their adverts that the ‘official’ economy figure bears no relation to what owners can expect to achieve in the real world.

Rolls Royce Wraith returns

The coupe version of the RR Ghost is to be the Rolls Royce Wraith, with the first tease of the most sporty Rolls Royce ever. There was never any doubt that Rolls Royce would build a range of cars round the Ghost, with a coupe and convertible on the cards ever since the Rolls Royce Ghost arrived more than three years ago. In fact, just over a year after the Ghost launched, we reported that RR were planning an extended wheelbase version of the Gost and a coupe and convertible, just as expected.