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Interior Motives China Conference to explore new design directions

Chinese consumers are driving new design directions, and CDN's Interior Motives China Conference in Beijing next week is set to explore how. Titled ‘New brands and the search for a design identity', the conference features an impressive speaker line-up that blends the international (Chris Bangle and VW's Wolfgang Muller Pietralla) with the regional (GM PATAC's Friedhelm Engler, Ford China's Chelsia Lau and PSA-Peugeot/Citroën China's Robert Walker), with the domestic (Shan Wei of the Beijing Automotive Technical Center (BATC), and Ken Ma of SAIC). The annual conference is the third in China to be hosted by CDN's magazine Interior Motives, and will be held on Wednesday 21 April, and Thursday 22 April, just in advance of the opening of Auto China 2010 in Beijing on Friday (23 April).

Concept Car of the Week: Bugatti 18/3 Chiron (1999)

In 1998, Volkswagen AG acquired the French company Bugatti with the intention of restoring it to its former glory. After the luxurious EB112 and EB118 concepts, Ferdinand Piech commissioned Italdesign to work on another prototype: a Bugatti flagship supercar – the Chiron. While its predecessor, the mighty EB110, was a fantastic and bold design, it lacked a real Bugatti character.

Video: Aston Martin design chief on new Rapide

CAR recently caught up with Aston Martin design chief Marek Reichman – on board one of the first Aston Rapides to be built. You can watch our video interview in the player below, as CAR contributor Guy Bird interviews Reichman. He talks about the new Rapide, and why it shouldn't be seen as a rival for a Merc S-class or even a Porsche Panamera, the crazy new Cygnet – a Toyota iQ by Aston Martin – and the new million-pound One-77 hypercar.