Umea Olme Spyder project

While Swedish automaker Saab was going through tumultuous times and Geely was in the process of buying Volvo from Ford, first year MA students in Transportation Design at Sweden's Umea Institute of Design were busy creating a one-off roadster for an independent car maker: the Olme Spyder. Created in collaboration with Ove Bengtsson, an engineer with a personal passion for building his own vehicles, the students were asked to design their own interpretation of a progressive and innovative roadster, developing the concept from a sketch into a full-scale model. Based on an Opel Agila donor car, the concept's 650kg steel monocoque chassis was created by Bengtsson himself to accommodate a mid-mounted engine.

New Fiat Uno launches – in Brazil

The new Fiat Uno Way - from Fiat in Brazil The Fiat Uno was a mainstay of the Fiat range for most of the ’80s and ’90s. It offered cheap and cheerful – but not exactly reliable – motoring for a whole generation. It finally ended production after 6 million were produced and it was replaced in the Fiat line-up by the Punto.

'Talking cars' in US safety drive

NEW CARS and light trucks may be fitted with technology that lets vehicles communicate with each other in a bid to avoid deadly crashes. A radio beacon would continually transmit a vehicle's position, heading, speed and other information. Cars would receive the same information back from other vehicles, and a vehicle's computer would alert the driver to an impending collision.