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Elegant 1933 one-offs take top honors at the Concours d'Elegance of America

Two elegant cars from 1933 were named Best in Show at the 2012 Concours d'Elegance of America at St. John's on Sunday. Jim Patterson's 1933 Delage D8S was crowned best European car, while Joseph Cassini's 1933 Chrysler Imperial Phaeton with body by LeBaron took the top honors for American-made cars.

First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.

Meet the new Goodyear blimp -- er, airship

A new blimp comes around only once in a while, and Goodyear slowly replacing its fleet is cause for fanfare. These new airships, as yet unnamed, will fly farther, go faster and carry more people than ever before -- and none of it would be possible without help from the Germans. This newest airship is a collaboration between Goodyear and ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik -- yes, of that Zeppelin fame -- and the partnership has historical precedent.