Chrysler has announced that its senior vice president of design, Trevor M. Creed, is set to retire at the end of the month after spending 23 years with the company. Creed is credited with being involved with the design of some of the carmaker’s most memorable concept and production cars since the late 1980s including the PT Cruiser, Dodge Viper (pictured) and Ram pickup.

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General Motors will offer employee discounts to everyone for all its brands starting this Wednesday and is expected to run the promotion until September 2. The information was first revealed in a memo to Buick, Pontiac and GMC dealers, which revealed that the discount would be applied to all 2008 models plus the 2009 Ponitac Vibe.

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Taking inspiration from an old design and applying it to a new chassis is nothing new in the automotive world - one need only look to the new Camaro, Challenger and even the Mustang for prime examples. But the combination of C2 corvette body and C6 Corvette chassis envisioned by a company called Blue Fusion has the potential to create a car several orders of magnitude more impressive than any of the mass-produced examples mentioned above. Provided it ever gets built, that is.

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We got our first sneak peek at the production Chevy Volt last week, but a recent presentation by Bob Boniface, director of design for the Volt, has revealed a bit more. We've pasted a video of the presentation and slide show after the break, and in it Boniface notes how the concept's straight lines and tight corners have been smoothed over and rounded out in an effort to reduce turbulence. This streamlining improves the Volt's fuel mileage, range on electricity and the amount of regenerative braking that can be captured.

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The Moscow International Auto Show is shaping up to be a serious event. Audi is showing off the RS6 sedan, Mazda is bringing a new crossover concept, Mitsubishi will debut the redesigned Pajero Sport and plan on plenty of Lada love to spread around. Lexus is joining the ranks of other top-tier automakers showing their wares in Moscow with the unveiling of an all-wheel-drive version of its LS460 flagship.

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Safer vehicles and increased law enforcement has resulted in the lowest driving fatality rate ever last year. There were 41,059 traffic deaths in 2007, down 1,600 from 2006. Fatalities are now at 1.37 per 100 million miles traveled, which is the lowest number since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started keeping track

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The 250 GT California Spyder is one of Ferrari's most celebrated (and valuable) models, most often remembered by the general public for its starring role in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. This year marked the Spyder's 50th anniversary, and the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance celebrated the occasion by giving the car its very own class.

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Ever since the Datsun nameplate gave way to Nissan, some fans have wanted it back. The "Nissan 510" just doesn't have the same ring. Design student Benjamin Nawka agrees, and as his thesis project at Pforzheim University in Germany, he created the Datsun XLink as a way to fulfill unrequited Datsun-lover dreams.

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The Civic Hybrid hasn’t been the runaway success that Honda might have hoped, in part because it doesn’t have that instant recognizability as a hybrid that the Toyota Prius does. The next hybrid from Honda will be a dedicated model, and according to executive vice president Koichi Kondo, the hybrid unit inside it will cost about half as much to make as the current Civic system.

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Progressive has announced a more fine-grained approach to use-based insurance pricing. Cars can be fitted with a ‘black box’-type device that records acceleration patterns, brake usage and other important data the insurance company believes contributes to a driver’s risk profile. Progressive is also quick to point out it does not record the car’s actual path, however, so Orwellian nightmares are at least somewhat allayed.

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Chase Auto Finance announced today that it will no longer offer leases for Chrysler vehicles, following a similar announcement made on Friday by Chrysler Financial to stop its own leases on August 1. The reason behind the latest decision according to a Chase spokeswoman is because of fears of declining vehicle values.

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The boss of BMW’s M division, Ludwig Willisch, has confirmed that performance variants of both the X5 and X6 SUVs are in development, and earlier today we saw a rendering of the X6 version along with several spy shots of prototypes at the Nurburging. Now we have a rendering of the X5 version, which is set to join the X6 M next year as a 2010 model.

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We've only had a few months to get to know the new BMW M3, but the 2009 model has already gone under the knife. For 2009, the M3 sedan gets the revised taillights that originally debuted on the 328i and 335i, but the nip and tuck up front won't carry over as the M3's fascia different from its lesser siblings.

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If you're an American buyer exasperated at trying to actually secure yourself a new Corvette ZR1 at its $105k sticker price without mark-up and dealer speculation, be glad you live on this side of the pond and not the other. Corvette sales in Europe are not handled in-house by GM, but by Kroymans, a Dutch importer, which has revealed its price for the new uber-Vette: a whopping 136,000 euros, equivalent to over $214,000 USD at the moment.

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Eyebrows were raised when a photograph from the Rockies began circulating the interwebs. The rare shot shows a pair of delectable supercar test mules – the next-generation Pagani Zonda and the new Mercedes SL65 AMG Black Series – undergoing testing side-by-side on public roads. Aside the from the rare occurrence of a non-homologated Zonda on American tarmac, speculation began to ramp up as to what the two were doing together. Conclusion: they must be sharing the same engine.

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