2016 Ford F-150 Oem Grille (shadow Black) on 2040-parts.com

Try a prestige car from Europcar before you buy. Or you could just go to a dealer.

You can hire a BMW 5-Series (pictured) from Europcar before you buy It’s always good to have a promotion to get punters through the door, but the latest PR promo from Hertz does seem to have a very visible flaw in its logic. According to Europcar – the leading car hire company in Europe, don’t you know – the best route for trying out a new prestige car before you buy is to give them a call and book a day or three in the cars of your choice. Europcar say you can have anything from a 4×4 to a luxury saloon and performance cars, with the suggestion you can pit a Mercedes SLK against an Audi TTS or check out the differences between a new E-Class or new 5-Series.

Mazda wins 2008 LA Design Challenge

The Mazda Kaan concept has won the fifth annual LA Design Challenge competition, part of the Design Los Angeles automobile designer's conference. The award was presented during the second press day of the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show, following a designers' luncheon and keynote speech by Daniel Simon, visionary futurist and author of Cosmic Motors. As we reported last month, nine local Southern California design studios entered the competition to envisage how motor sport vehicles might be in the year 2025, answering the theme ‘Motorsports 2025'.

Video: Buick Invicta

General Motor's Buick brand is blossoming in China, so the automaker chose the largest Chinese Auto Show this year to unveil its latest concept: the Invicta. Unlike the Riviera concept shown in Shanghai last year, the Invicta is slated for production soon given the level of refinement we saw when we viewed the car in Beijing. And unlike some market-specific new cars unveiled at the show, the Invicta will make its way to other markets across the globe. Click on the image on the left to see a video of the development and the designers who worked on the Invicta concept car.