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Renault Sand'up concept

This is Renault's new Sand'up concept, developed by Renault Brazil and unveiled today at the 25th Salão Internacional do Automóvel in São Paolo. The modular 2+2 coupé can not only transform into a cabriolet, but it can also be used as a pickup by lowering the rear bench seat. As most pickups in Brazil are bought for their sporty image and not used for heavy workloads, but rather as an adventurous and fun vehicle, the car makes use of the rear passenger compartment by incorporating a mechanism that lengthens the cargo bed by up to 40cm to accommodate a range of objects.

First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.

Is Chrysler still American? Yes, it is

Last week, we mentioned that the Secret Service was soliciting bids for a new presidential limousine. Among the criteria for a replacement for "The Beast" was the following: "This solicitation is restricted to Major Domestic U.S Automobile Manufacturers, who have their primary headquarters located in the United States of America." Well, with that came the suggestion that Chrysler -- now entirely underneath the banner of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles -- reports to somewhere far, far away from its nominal H.Q. in Auburn Hills, Mich.