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Secret Service issues call for next presidential limousine

The Secret Service is mulling a replacement for Barack Obama's presidential limousine, the Cadillac-styled vehicle lovingly nicknamed "The Beast." News of the new limousine first reached the Internet via FedBizOpps.gov, the official site for Federal Business Opportunities, which provides listings and contracts for various government projects. (Some other listings included cleaning the kitchens at Okinawa, Coast Guard ship repair, and "Phacoemulsification Surgical Equipment.") It calls for a four-phase development program, which is seemingly straightforward. Phase 1 is armor development -- which is currently underway.

Lorenzo Ramaciotti visits RCA for 'Two of a Kind' project

Lorenzo Ramaciotti, Fiat-Chrysler's head of global design, has visited the Royal College of Art as part of the Fiat ‘Two of a Kind' project explaining how Italian design has become world-famous in all fields in a talk themed ‘The Roots of Italian Car Design'. The ‘Two of a Kind' project asks four teams of four Vehicle Design students to design innovative exterior and interior proposals for how the Fiat 500 and the Panda might look in 2020, taking interactivity, digital interface, sustainability and global appeal into account. Maserati brought along a Quattroporte, a GranTurismo Sport as well as an Alfa Giulietta Sportiva to complement his talk in the hope it would encourage students to consider what the carmaker believes are the three concepts of the legacy of Italian car design: sportiness-dynamism; elegance-balance; and character-personality.

The Great Date Car Debate: Top 10 date cars from his perspective--and hers

Here at AutoWeek, we've seen plenty of top 10 lists for date cars over the past few years. They all seem to have one thing in common: They're written by male bloggers whose most recent date was with a two-liter of Mountain Dew and a PlayStation 3. Since we have both men and women on our editorial staff, we decided to get a read on the subject of date cars from an actual representative sample of the dating pool.