1991 Lincoln Brochure-town Car-continental-mark Vii on 2040-parts.com

RCA students redesign classic cars for Salon Privé

Eleven postgraduates from the Royal College of Art's Vehicle Design program have redesigned and modernized past Concours-winning cars for the ‘Concours of the Future' design exhibition at this year's Salon Privé in London. Concours of the Future, a first for the Salon Privé, will be showcased on 4 July before being judged the next day by a panel chaired by automotive designer and RCA visiting professor Peter Stevens. The judging panel is made up of Dale Harrow, head of the RCA Vehicle Design program and some of the biggest names in car design: Giles Taylor, director of design at Rolls-Royce; Peter Schreyer, chief design officer at Hyundai and Kia and Peter Horbury, vice president – design at Geely.

Toyota and Mercedes-Benz are top global car brands

Toyota & Mercedes-Benz are the Top Global Automotive Brands 2011 Interbrand, a branding consultancy, delivers a report on the world’s brands every year, and in 2011, despite recall woes and the devastation of the Japanese Tsunami, Toyota leads the automotive brands, with luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz just behind. Interbrand uses three measures to gauge how effective a brand is – performance of branded product, the brands ability to secure earnings and the role of the brand in purchasing decisions – to come up with a chart of the top 100 world brands. At the top of the tree are companies like Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft and Google, but car brands do well with Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Honda, VW, and Ford all making it in to the top 50.

Viper sports car division no longer for sale

By Ben Whitworth Motor Industry 13 July 2009 14:08 Viper’s yo-yoing lifeline looks to be finally secured after ailing parent company Chrysler said the sports car maker was no longer for sale. Rather than killing off its muscle-bound brand, last summer Cerberus-run Chrysler considered selling off the rights to the Viper, hoping to achieve around $10m for the Detroit assembly plant and brand equity to bolster its dwindling cash reserves and stave off imminent bankruptcy. After an initial surge of interest from similar-minded companies like Roush and Saleen, curiosity nosedived along with the global economy.