Concept Car of the Week: IAD Alien (1986)

Established in 1976 as a railway and aeronautical engineering company, Britain's IAD (International Automotive Design) rapidly oriented its expertise towards the automotive industry providing services from design to chassis engineering and even small-scale production. By the mid-80s two concepts had been presented – the TRX and the Arrival – that showed innovative thinking and tastefulness but a little innocuous styling. In an attempt to attract both attention and more clients, IAD CEO John Shute asked his team to design a futuristic concept that was both innovative and different.

New car sales accelerate again

NEW CAR SALES could be back to pre-recession levels by the end of this year after a good start to 2014. Latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) show there were 176,820 new vehicles registered in April - an 8.2% rise on the same month last year. Last month's figure took the total for the year so far to 864,942 - a 12.5% increase on the first four months of 2013.

Citroen Tubik concept car (2011) first pictures

The Citroen Tubik may have overtones of a guppy fish, but this new nine-seat MPV concept car shows how the French envisage a people carrier of tomorrow. It draws inspiration from the Type H or TUB (French slang for a front-wheel drive commercial vehicle) van from Citroen's history books. So it's a spacious monobox and aims to solve the usual MPV dilemma or seats or baggage, by being simply massive.