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CES: GM to open the dashboard to developers

At last year's Autoweek Design Forum, father of the iPod and Nest Labs co-founder Tony Fadell suggested that automakers concentrate on designing and building cars, leaving handset makers to handle infotainment. The latest announcements from Ford and GM -- in conjunction with the International CES -- suggest that automakers would rather treat the dashboard space as a handset. Yesterday, Dearborn, Mich., announced the Ford Developer Program, which opens up Sync to outside application development; now General Motors has announced a similar initiative.

Audi A1 quattro prototype

The Audi A1 quattro snow testing in Canada It did seem a strange omission by Audi not to have a quattro drivetrain for the ‘Only Premium Brand in its Sector’ Audi A1. And it was that lack of a quattro system for the A1 which apparently stopped the car that ended up being the Audi A1 1.4 TFSI from being launched as the Audi S1 at Paris last year. All of which has no doubt spurred Audi on to see development of a quattro platform for the A1.

£2m McLaren P1 GTR for Pebble Beach

McLaren McLaren will show its new P1 GTR – pictured here for the first time in an official teaser shot above – at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance car show next month. The P1 GTR will feature a number of circuit-biased modifications – including a 1,000hp engine – and will cost £1.98 million. McLaren P1 GTR: track-focused modifications The GTR is based on McLaren’s P1 hybrid hypercar, itself designed not to be the fastest, but the most focused, involving and advanced driver’s car there is.