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Peugeot tease new sports saloon concept for Beijing Motor Show

Lurking under this cover is a new Peugeot Concept for the 2014 Beijing Motor Show Peugeot do good concepts, even if many don’t actually make it in to production. A case in point is the stunning Peugeot Onyx Concept we saw at the Paris Motor Show in 2012, which came with great styling, copper and carbon fibre bodywork, the use of unusual materials like crystal glass and compressed paper and a powertrain that used a 3.7 litre V8 at the back with an electric motor for added green credentials. Peugeot say their latest concept – which will debut at the Beijing Motor Show in April and is teased by the photo above – will use the same sort of innovative materials as the Onyx (which probably means it too will never see production) and preview the future of Peugeot’s styling.

Middlecott Sketchbattle Experiment crowns first Sketchmaster

College for Creative Studies (CCS) student Graham Wright has fought off competition from artists, illustrators, industrial, product and car designers to be declared the Sketchmaster of the Middlecott Sketchbattle Experiment 2014. Held at Detroit's Kunsthalle Museum of Contemporary Art, the contest – a self-styled fight club of design – carried the theme of lighting because of the museum's many neon and lighting installations. Before the event, design students from the area – mostly from the CCS and Lawrence Technological University (LTU) – were invited to submit early sketches before a shortlist was drawn up for the main event.

General Motors will prep plants in 2012 for next-generation pickups

General Motors will begin retooling assembly plants next year to build the next generation of its full-sized pickups, GM's U.S. sales chief Don Johnson said. "We have some scheduled plant downtime in 2012 as we convert to the next generation of our pickups," he said.