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MINI Paceman Coooper S hits the Nurburgring (video)

The next MINI to hit showrooms – the MINI Paceman – has been caught testing at the Nurburgring ahead of a Paris Motor Show. We did think that the MINI Paceman – which arrived at the Detroit Auto Show last year as a concept – would make it to market as a Countryman Coupe. But just last month MINI let it be known that they’re actually going with the funkier Paceman rather than the descriptive, though predictable, MINI Countryman Coupe for the production version of the Paceman which will debut in production guise at the Paris Motor Show in September.

Lotus sues Dany Bahar for £2.5 million

Lotus are suing ousted CEO Dany Bahar for £2.5 million to recover the cost of his expensive lifestyle billed to Lotus. It seems DBR-HiCom, new owners of Proton (which own Lotus), took one look at the mess in Hethel and dumped Bahar, replacing him with engineer Aslam Farikullah to try and re-focus Lotus on its core products and engineering instead of pursuing Bahar’s fantasy of churning out the biggest range of luxury supercars of any car maker on the planet. That ousting led to Bahar issuing proceedings against Lotus for £6.7 million in August for wrongful dismissal (which gives you some idea of Bahar’s estimate of his own worth).

Last call for entries: IM Design Awards

As the deadline for entries to the 2010 Interior Motives Design Awards approaches – all designs must be received by 10 July – details of the judging panel and the upcoming awards ceremony in Paris are firming up. Judging the hundreds of student designs this year will be a panel of industry experts that includes such influential figures as Amko Leenarts, Interior Design Director, Peugeot; Robin Page, Interior Design Director, Bentley; Wolfgang Müller-Pietralla, Leader VW Future Research; Michael Robinson, Design Director, Stile Bertone; Andreas Stump, Head of Advanced Interior Design, Citroën; Romulus Rost, Chief Interior Designer, Volkswagen Advanced Design, Potsdam; and Euan Sey, Editor of Interior Motives magazine. The competition is open to students enrolled at any accredited undergraduate or graduate design degree programme, both in automotive and non-automotive disciplines – those studying fashion design, industrial design, architecture and other similar fields are also eligible.