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VW Polo GTI and harder Golf GTI Wörthersee 09

By Tim Pollard First Official Pictures 20 May 2009 16:34 Volkswagen today unveiled two hot hatch surprises at the 2009 Wörthersee hot hatch festival: a potential Polo GTI and a harder, faster Golf GTI, likely to give clues to the R model tipped by CAR for launch later this year. Both models pictured here are concepts at this stage. The Golf GTI Wörthersee 09 edition gains cosmetic and modest engineering mods.

Smart car inventor Nicolas Hayek dies

Nicolas Hayek, the engineer and industrialist who founded the Swiss watch company Swatch and brought the world the Smart car, died on June 28 of heart failure at his office in Switzerland. He was 82. Hayek saved the Swiss watch industry from lower-priced Asian competition in the early 1980s by offering colorful, inexpensive Swatch timepieces that he backed with equally colorful marketing.

BMW and Local Motors join forces for latest contest

BMW and Local Motors have come together to launch the Urban Driving Experience Challenge, which launches on 25 September. The contest challenges designers to create the premium vehicle features and functions that will shape the urban driving experience in 2025 and beyond. The Mega Cities of the future will offer a number a new challenges for the automotive industry, such as increasing urbanization, rapid population growth, changing infrastructures and environmental pollution.