Color & trim focus: Six of Poltrona Frau’s auto collaborations

Collaborations between the car industry and the world of product design are fraught with difficulties, are usually fleeting and all too often end in (marketing department) tears. One of the few possible exceptions is Italian leather and furniture company Poltrona Frau. Its 102-year history includes the 904 ‘Vanity Fair' chair from 1930 and the more-recent 2009 Archibald chair by Jean-Marie Massaud.

Penalty points separate good girls and bad boys

MORE THAN 30,000 male drivers aged 17-20 have anything up to six penalty points on their driving licences. There is also a wide gulf between offending rates for young men and young women, with women drivers aged 20 or under only recording 9,758 instances of attracting three to six points. As many as 1,210 17-year-old males have accrued up to six points, with 358 currently having the maximum permissible six.

Porsche finally becomes a VW company

Volkswagen has announced it is to finalise its takeover of Porsche by buying the remaining 50.1 per cent of Porsche stock for €4.46 billion. The takeover of Porsche by VW has been a long and rocky road, but then family fallouts are always messy. It all started with Porsche attempting to consume VW, but some clever manoeuvring by Ferdinand Piech thwarted the efforts of his cousin, Wolfgang Porsche, to swallow up his business and the financial crisis saw Porsche rack up €10 billion in debt in the process.