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Lotus to invest £500 million to build Esprit, Eterne, Elite & Elan. 1900 new jobs

The new Lotus Esprit Dany Bahar – Lotus boss – revealed plans at last year’s Paris Motor Show to turn Lotus in to an East Anglian Aston Martin. Those plans included one car we knew about – the new Lotus Esprit – and a number we didn’t – the Lotus Eterne, Lotus Elite, Lotus Elan and a new Lotus Elite. But the plans seemed to be nothing more than a wish list, and although it was intimated that Lotus owners Proton were going to provide a war chest of £770 million to fund the development, that later appeared to be an intent to provide Lotus with funds to develop a new range of cars, rather than an actual commitment.

Manzoni, Ingenlath and Hildebrand to speak at Auto Design Prague

The fourth annual Auto Design Prague conference will take place on 18 September at the National Technical Library in Prague-Dejvice. The event is open to professionals and the wider public, and will include a program of 10 presentations by designers including vice president of Ferrari design, Flavio Manzoni; Volvo design director Thomas Ingenlath; Jaguar's advanced design director, Julian Thompson, and Qoros head of design, Gert Hildebrand. Flavio Manzoni, Ferrari In addition to the talks, visitors will also be able to sample the wares of conference partners that supply a host of design tools and services, including virtual prototyping software, 3D printers, and prototype construction.

Mercedes G-Class getting major technology overhaul and facelift

The Mercedes G-Class is getting a major overhaul – but not until 2017 The Mercedes G-wagon has been with us for 35 years, and despite its rather dated underpinnings and looks it sells well enough for Mercedes to keep on churning out the G-Class for those with ‘military’ wants – and the posers. But even the G-Class is not immune from the massive changes that have taken place in cars in recent years, so Mercedes is planning a major overhaul of the G-Wagon for 2017 – just after Land Rover arrive with a new Defender. The 2017 G-Class is going to be wider – by around 100mm – to make it more stable, allow a more sophisticated front suspension and make more room in the cabin.