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College Exhibition: IED Degree Show 2009

Graduating students from the three-year post-graduate Transportation Design course at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) in Turin, Italy presented a tribute to the Aston Martin brand for their graduate theses. Called "Aston Martin 2025", 17 students in the post-graduate course - led by Fulvio Fantolino, IED's Transportation Design Course Coordinator - employed exclusivity, elegance, sporting style and the idea of sharing and emotion as their design keywords, developing a theme which ultimately saw 13 projects created in Alias or in clay. Aston Martin Design Director Marek Reichman provided the students with useful indications for the final development and a further selection led to the short listing of eight projects that were then produced in 1:4 scale models thanks to collaboration with Cecomp.

Mercedes E Class gets AMG Pack

Mercedes quietly unveiled the 2009 Mercedes Benz E Class at Detroit. Quietly, because it wasn’t actually planned, but due to details leaking out ahead of the show, it seems Mercedes decided they may as well get the reveal over. Bigger than the last generation E Class, the new E Class gets a complete styling overhaul, with a new style in keeping with Mercedes more recent ‘Family’ looks.

Saab on brink of closing after GM rejects rescue plan

Saab Automobile filed for bankruptcy on Monday and is on the brink of shutting for good after former owner General Motors rejected a rescue plan. The move sets the scene for the end of Saab's struggle to survive after months of hastily drawn-up deals for a company that hasn't made a vehicle in months. The latest plan involved Chinese automaker Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile, but this was vetoed by GM, still a key Saab supplier, over the weekend "After having received the recent position of GM on the contemplated transaction with Saab Automobile, Youngman informed Saab Automobile that the funding to continue and complete the reorganization of Saab Automobile could not be concluded," Saab's Dutch owner, Swedish Automobile, said in a statement.