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Official: Aston Martin gets its hands on Mercedes AMG engines & Electronic Architecture

Aston Martin & AMG confirm they’re getting in bed together Back in December we reported that Aston Martin had new investment from Investindustrial and wondered if that would mean – thanks to an existing relationship between Investindustrial and AMG – if we’d see Aston Martin finally getting access to AMG’s engines and platforms. By May, things had moved on and it was clear that Aston Martin and AMG were in talks for Aston Martin to get access to their engines for the next generation of AML’s cars. Now those talks have borne fruit and AMG and AML have signed a letter of intent for Aston Martin to “access significant Mercedes-AMG GmbH and Mercedes-Benz Cars’ resources, allowing the development of bespoke V8 powertrains and the use of certain components of electric/electronic (e/e) architecture.” Interestingly, there’s no talk of V12 engines – which could mean Aston Martin are going to move from the current Ford V12 for the DB9 and Vanquish to a powerful V8 from AMG – and nor is there talk of sharing platforms.

Brief 1 – Buick: CDN–GM Interactive Design Competition

This year's Car Design News and General Motors Interactive Design Competition is now up and running. Simply choose one of the five briefs set by GM's designers and submit your entry on the competition website, http://www.cardesigncontest.com/ If you think you could design a 6-8-seat vehicle that promotes togetherness, then the brief set by Buick could be the one for you. It asks you to come up with a cutting edge, unique and innovative vehicle that embodies your vision of a modern Buick.

700 medics call for car smoking ban

AROUND 700 medics and health experts are calling on the Government to ban smoking in cars carrying children ahead of a Commons vote on Monday. In a letter to the British Medical Journal (BMJ), respiratory experts said secondhand smoke was a "major cause of ill health in children", damaging the developing lungs, causing sudden infant death and leading to thousands of hospital trips every year. Signatories to the letter are being co-ordinated by Dr Nicholas Hopkinson from Imperial College London and chairman of the British Thoracic Society's chronic obstructive pulmonary disease specialist advisory group.