Frankfurt motor show 2011 photo gallery

The Volkswagen stand was absolutely rammed with metal. They've already shown the Polo R WRC car - but just look at it! Can't wait to see it on dirt from next year 

Volkswagen showed the Nils - a vision for a single-seater commuter EV for future cities

Inside the VW Nils

Land Rover showed two concept cars

 Upright, square, wheel on the back... could only be a Land Rover

Land Rover DC100: sounds like a plane, one of the hits of Frankfurt

Land Rover showed a brace of concepts, both looking to the new Defender due in 2015. Here's the sportier one

Land Rover DC100: a sportier future for the Defender

Supercar of tomorrow: the range-extended BMW i8

BMW i3: the future starts here

Ferrari 458 Spider: all the better to hear the V8

World F1 champ Seb Vettel chats with Infiniti styling chief Shiro Nakamura. 'I'd like purple Red Bull dispensers on my next car, ok?'

Shades of BMW Z3 bread van, Henrik?

Fisker showed off the Surf. It's a Karma shooting brake thang

Alpina up to their usual, let's improve on perfection thing

Volkswagen went to town showing us future derivatives of the Up. Some of them only for crazed designers' heads, but Up GTIs and the like are coming

A VW Up for poncing around on the beach

Flexible thing, the VW Up. Here's the Beach Buggy Up

The VW Nils. Car meets iPod

Ben Barry's kinda VW Up: the Cross Up

Renault take the concept car brave pills again

Pass the cheese wedge!

The new 21st century Stratos. Wedgy, stealthy, muscly

Lotus Exige rally racer for the gentleman, RWD rally hand. Game on!

Lotus showed off a refreshed Evora and Elise range

Lotus Evora GTE. Caused Ben Barry to have a few palpitations

Audi DTM car. Next year will be the first time since the 1990s that all three German players will compete head to head

Suzuki Swift won our CAR of the year in 2005. Now they've launched the new, sportier one

Suzuki Swift Sport: our favourite rollerskate for 2012?

Mazda CX-5: the world debut from Mazda

Alfa Romeo 4C. In new shade of grey! Still love it though...

This is the roadgoing Zagato V12 from Aston. We didn't think they could improve on the Vantage, but this...

Audi V12 Zagato - the road car. Drool!

The face of urban commuting? Audi says so

Narrow city car studies were everywhere this year. Here's the Audi Urban concept in open-top Spider trim

Audi Urban Concept Spider - check out the staggered seating

Audi R8 E-tron: this version will go on sale in winter 2012-2013. One of a dozen world premiers on the Audi stand!

Volkswagen Up: one of the stars of the show, shown here in three-door form

Seat showed a refreshed Exeo, alongside the rather more prominent IBL futuristic design study

Porsche 911 fresh from winning the 24 hours at the Nurburgring. Filthy racing goodness all round

Volkswagen surprised us by showing a Beetle R

And here's CAR's three-wise-men-in-a-car video report from the IAA

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