Fitness-focused autonomous vehicle pedals to victory in Interior Motives Design Awards

Earlier tonight, on the eve of the first Paris Motor Show press day, the world's top designers and automotive journalists assembled at L'Espace Clacquesin in Paris to witness sponsors Ford and Volkswagen announce the 2014 Interior Motives Student Design of the Year: ‘Life Cycle' by Jason Chen and Dirk Wan of the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, USA. Launched in January of this year and themed ‘Beyond Styling: a Design for Life', the competition asked students to create projects around three diverse but specific briefs: ‘Beyond Autonomous', which posed the question of what would happen if we were to combine the latest developments in computing and robotics with automobile design; ‘An Interior for Life', in which students were asked to focus on one feature or element of a car's interior and adapt it for dual use in a user's ordinary life; and ‘Pickup Truck of 2030', which challenged the young designers to extrapolate what the future might hold for this popular and versatile mode of transport. This year's contest attracted more than 200 entries from students based at 57 schools in 24 different countries.

Ford once planned to race fiberglass-bodied Mustang touring cars

Tucked away on page nine of the May 9, 1964 issue of Competition Press and Autoweek is an intriguing little story: “FIA Rejects Ford Bid for Homolgation [sic].” At the time, the Mustang had just made its world debut, but Ford was already scheming to fold the car into its “Total Performance” campaign. The automaker apparently proposed to do so with a fleet of crazy fiberglass-bodied touring cars. According to Competition Press, Ford tried to get the new Mustang classified as a touring car for international racing.

Jaguar C-X16 (Jaguar XE) Driving Video

Jaguar C-X16 Driving Video Jaguar is making the most of their new small sports car – the Jaguar C-X16 – as it builds onwards and upwards from the début of the C-X16 at Frankfurt last week to the launch of the production car – probably the Jaguar XE – late in 2012 or early 2013. We had rafts of information and photos – and a short video – when the C-X16 bowed in last week, but now we get a more revealing driving video showing the interior and exterior of the C-X16 in more detail, and some driving footage on incredible roads too. Yes, we were a little underwhelmed by the direction the design of the C-X16 has taken – more conservative than we would have liked to have seen – but we have no issues with the design per se – it’s a stunner.