1971 & 72 Cadillac Coupe Deville & Fleetwood Hubcaps (4) on 2040-parts.com

Umea Institute of Design degree show 2010

Earlier this month, Car Design News attended Umea University's annual degree show. Covering student work from the MA Interaction Design, Advanced Product Design and Transport Design programs and the BA Industrial Design program, it was the first exhibition overseen by Umea's new Rector, Anna Valtonen, formerly head of Design Research & Foresight at Nokia. In a departure from the show's traditional format, this year saw keynotes and workshops spread over two days.

New Land Rover Discovery Sport to get 7 seats – and they’re (almost) revealed

The Land Rover Discovery Sport shows it 7-seat layout We already know that the Land Rover Discovery Sport will be replacing the Freelander in Land Rover’s range next year as the first in a family of Discovery models from Land Rover. It seemed likely that the new Discovery Sport would come with five seats as standard but with as even seat option to add another dimension, but Land Rover has decided it is going to offer 7 seats as standard, setting it apart from the competition in the ‘Premium’ sector. Land Rover are busy running prototypes of the new Discovery Sport, and to ram home the point that the new Discovery Sport is more flexible than its competition they’ve covered it in camouflage that looks like the skin of the car has been peeled back to show the 7-seat (well, 5+2) arrangement inside.

News watch August 2010: today's 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-hourTuesday 31 August 2010• HSBC has sold its US car loan business to Spanish bank Santander, for an estimated £2.6bn in cash and assumed debt. The move sees the bank further distance itself from the collapsed US sub-prime market (Financial Times, subsription required) • Toll roads do not improve congestion, according to the Campaign For Better Transport. Its claims M6 toll road operator Midland Expressway Ltd is losing ‘tens of millions of pounds’ each year, while conditions on the original M6 have failed to improve (Campaign for Better Transport) Friday 27 August 2010• Spyker, which bought Saab earlier this year, has posted a €139m loss after tax in the first half of 2010 it announced today (Financial Times)• Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne says the business is performing strongly in the third quarter – and has ruled out selling Alfa Romeo.