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Almost 1 million cars made in UK this year

CAR MANUFACTURING accelerated ahead last month, according to official figures. A total of 132,570 cars were made in the UK in July 2014 - a 2.8% rise on the figure for July 2013, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said. Last month's total took the year-to-date figure to 923,884 - a 3.4% increase on the total for the first seven months of last year.

One Lap of the Web: BMW M3 gets color-corrected, a gentleman's GT-R and the Porsche 959

We spend a lot of time on the Internet -- pretty much whenever we're not driving, writing about or working on cars. Since there's more out there than we'd ever be able to cover, here's our daily digest of car stuff on the Web you may not otherwise have heard about. -- Oh dear, BMW: Perhaps you shouldn't have made two M3 color selections sound so similar?

Mazda outlines weight-loss program

Mazda Motor Corp. will reduce its vehicle weights by at least 220 pounds beginning in 2011, with a combination of lighter-weight materials, smaller vehicle footprints and new engineering processes, a top executive says. The typical Mazda vehicle has gained 80 pounds with each successive redesign, “mostly in larger tires and wheels, and safety equipment,” said Robert Davis, senior vice president of product development and quality for Mazda North American Operations.