2014 Audi A8: Price from £58,800

The 2014 Audi A8 (pictured) costs from £58,800 Audi revealed its facelift for the A8 and S8 back in August but now, with first new A8 deliveries due in the UK in January 2014, Audi has managed to come up with a price for almost the entire A8 range (and the S8). The starting price for the new A8 starts at £58,800 for the 3.0 TDI quattro (the FWD A8 has bitten the dust) rising to a substantial £79,900 for the 4.0 TFSI quattro S8. So far, they haven’t come up with a price for the range-topping 6.3 W12 LWB A8.

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.

Chrysler to close Pacifica Advanced Design Studios

The 20 designers at Chrysler's Pacifica Advanced Design Studios in Carlsbad, California will soon be finding themselves out of a job. The struggling North American automaker announced the closure of the facility on Friday, stating that the company is ‘leveraging resources worldwide, forming new joint ventures and alliances and consolidating operations in order to better achieve global balance.' Responsible for many of the more successful designs hailing from Chrysler in recent times, including the Chrysler 300 sedan and the new Dodge Challenger musclecar, the Pacifica Advanced Product Design Center also yielded the Nassau concept car and the Pacifica crossover – bearing the same name as the west coast studios in which it was created. The work done at the Pacifica Advanced Design Center will be consolidated into the Advance Design function in Auburn Hills and continue to be led by Senior Vice President of Design, Trevor Creed.