College Exhibition: IED Fiat/Chrysler project

Second year students at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Turin, Italy, recently completed a Fiat/Chrysler sponsored project, which began in February 2009. Conceived as a didactic exercise to think about the recent alliance between Fiat and Chrysler, 37 students were asked to design a vehicle capable of combining the technical know-how, platforms and values of both brands in order to generate interesting and competitive new products for the European and the American markets. In creating their concepts, students were asked to take into account the style, economic accessibility and the low environmental impact of Fiat vehicles as well as the new platforms and major industrial and production capacity afforded by the Italian automaker's alliance with the Chrysler brand.

The Hidden Work of Design Consultancies

Most major car companies carry out most of their design work themselves, with dedicated design departments increasingly capable of handling every aspect of the design process. But few car companies do not use the services of external car design consultancies for some smaller projects, and many smaller car companies use such consultancies to supplement their more limited in-house design facilities on larger design projects. Throughout the world there are numerous companies offering these design services to car companies.

McLaren Automotive officially launches as the MP4-12C speeds toward production

McLaren Automotive laid out its ambitious plans to become a competitive player in the high-performance car market on Thursday and wants to build up to 4,000 top-shelf sports car annually by the middle of the decade. The company held a grand opening at its base in Woking, England, to celebrate the progress and officially unveil the MP4-12C as it moves toward production. The estimated 592-hp supercar is expected to be exceptionally light and aerodynamic as the company takes aim at the best of Ferrari and Lamborghini.