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Car Design of the Year 2009

Last chance to vote for your favorite concept and production design of 2009! While 2009 will most certainly be remembered as a gloom riddled year - with the automotive industry stricken by the economic downturn and a slew of cutbacks - we encourage you to remember the few gems that graced the auto show circuit. So what was your favorite car design from 2009?

Volkswagen GTI Roadster for Gran Turismo uncovered – gets 496 bhp

The Volkswagen GTI Roadster (pictured) is uncovered We revealed last week that VW were making their GTI Roadster from the Gran Turismo game in to a real car for the Worthersee show, and they have. Blurring the lines between the real and the virtual (which is the way all our lives are going) Volkswagen has taken the opportunity to build a real life GTI Roadster – without the constraints of a concept heading for production – and has come up with a tw-seater open roadster that has some design cues from the Golf but is shorter and a lot lower. Those deign cues extend to a a front end that looks like a squashed GTI with its headlights and grill on show with big air intakes, all of which conspires to make the GTI Roadster look even lower, emaner and wider than it is.

BMW i8 heading up the Goodwood Hillcimb in June

The BMW i8 is heading up the Goodwood Hillclimb The Honda NSX won’t be the only green supercar heading up the hillcimb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in June – the new BMW i8 hybrid supercar will be too. BMW has announced that the i8 will be seen in action in the UK for the first time at the end of June when it too takes on the 1.16 mile Goodwood Hillcimb during the 2014 Festival of Speed. It’ll be the first time we get to see just how capable the i8 is, and even with a paltry 1.5 litre 3-cylinder engine it promises impressive performance as that little 3-pot churns out 228bhp oin its own and 356bhp when its electric motor joins in.