Who's Where: Kevin Rice becomes Mazda Europe’s design director as Peter Birtwhistle retires

Mazda Europe has a new design director. Effective 1 September, Kevin Rice will succeed Peter Birtwhistle, who retires from the post of chief designer, bringing to an end a 26-year career with Mazda. Following graduation from Coventry University's transport design course, Rice, 50, began his professional career at Opel in 1986.

Renaultsport Megane N4 rally car (2010) first pics

Renault's added the new Megane Renaultsport N4 to its current rally range. The N4 draws on a group of heritage Renaults stretching over a quarter of a century - including the 5 GT Turbo, R11 Turbo, R21 Turbo, R19 16V, Clio Williams and Clio Renaultsport. To cope with all sorts of terrain, the Megane uses three-way adjustable shock absorbers.

Mini Beachcomber Concept at Detroit motor show 2010

This funky beach-biased concept car has just appeared at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show in January. Called the Mini Beachcomber Concept, this flight-of-fancy Moke-inspired show car gives us our first glimpse of how Mini's production-spec 4x4 crossover will look at launch - we'll see the real car at the Geneva motor show in March 2010 ahead of an autumn UK launch. This four-seater, four-wheel-drive machine has been designed without doors or a conventional roof, so that its occupants are not cut off from the outside world.