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Motorcity Europe launches design seminars

UK-based independent design studio Motorcity Europe (MCE) has launched a series of two- and five-day training seminars aimed at broadening the skills, experience and job prospects of anyone working - or looking to work - within the field of automotive design. Held at Motorcity Europe’s design studio in Cologne, Germany, the seminars will see well-known design professionals instruct on a range of design techniques, including sketching and visualizing, clay and digital modelling, portfolio improvement, presentation skills, creative thinking, and automotive and product design business strategies. These seminars are open to students, graduates, design professionals and even non-designers seeking to gain experience in the field.

Skoda Yeti rolls out

The first Skoda Yeti has rolled of the production line in the Czech Republic - Delivery in the UK starts in September The Skoda Yeti is a promising, rufty-tufty ‘SmallRoader’, based on parent company VW’s Tiguan. But the Skoda holds the promise of more for less, a trick Skoda has managed to pull off with a number of VW products. Skoda has also been out playing with the Yeti in Norway, exposing it to a wide variety of off and on-road surfaces to shake it down properly before the first customer cars are ready for delivery.

Watch the sad, final moments of a crusher-bound heap

Automotive wrecking yards are good places to reflect on the real-world values of heavily depreciated vehicles versus global current scrap-metal prices, and to see which cars have suddenly had the fix-it-versus-total-it line moved by insurance companies (the early-21st-century Subaru Legacy Outback, for example, appeared in large numbers in high-turnover wrecking yards just during the last year, as fairly minor collision damage on these cars is no longer worth fixing). You'll see the things that a car's last owner does in a desperate attempt to sell (or at least live with) an increasingly decrepit heap (as we learned in "Repo Man," you really will find a Little Tree in every car). During a recent trip to a San Jose, Calif., yard, I encountered this sad yet strangely compelling scene.