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Toyota to close Australian design studio

Toyota designers at its Technical Center Asia Pacific Australia (TTCAP-AU) are to lose their jobs as part of Toyota's decision to scale back the facility's activities as well as halting all manufacturing within the country by 2017. The TTCAP-AU, which carries out all its Australian design and evaluation operations, employs 150 designers and modelers and it's possible that its activities with the Camry, Camry Hybrid and Aurion models could be scrapped, raising doubts over its future. Around 2,500 employees at Toyota's Altona manufacturing plant are expected to lose their jobs, although the effects are likely to be wider ranging.

Turning Honda CAD data into art with Ryoji Ikeda

The language of installations is close to design – it is about placing objects in space, and working with balance and atmosphere while interscting with people. Of course with art there is no function, solely feelings. Yet one of the latest art/car collaborations, data.anatomy[civic], adds just this.

Bentley Hunaudières: The Bentley that became a Bugatti

Bentley Hunaudieres Now seemingly forgotten, the Bentley Hunaudières Concept car from the 1999 Geneva Motor Show was the forerunner to the Bugatti Veyron. At the end of the 1990s Volkswagen embarked on a buying frenzy that would see them become makers of some of the world’s most desirable cars, acquiring Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini in the space of a few months in 1998. But even though VW had bought Bentley and Bugatti it seems they weren’t entirely sure at first where they would take their new marques, and at the 1999 Geneva Motor Show they revealed a W16 hypercar.