Interior Motives announces shortlist for Student Design Awards 2009

Interior Motives magazine, sister publication of Car Design News, has revealed its shortlist for the seventh annual Interior Motives Design Awards. Handed down by a ten-strong panel of industry experts, the shortlist will be further reviewed before three finalists and a winner for each of the eight categories - and the overall competition winner - is ultimately selected and awarded on the eve of the second press day of the Frankfurt auto show. This year's competition, which saw a record number of entries from 60 schools and 30 different countries, was judged by a panel of industry experts, including Flavio Manzoni, Creative Design Director at VW Group; Ralph Gilles, Vice President of Product Design at Chrysler; Frank Stephenson, Design Director at McLaren; Dr.

Lexus wants more hybrids and a better performance image

Lexus plans to introduce hybrid versions of existing vehicles with each full model change, the brand's r&d chief says. Leveraging the electric-gasoline drivetrain technology of Lexus' parent company, Toyota, will be key to differentiating the brand from European rivals, said Kiyotaka Ise, Toyota Motor Corp. managing officer in charge of Lexus development.

McLaren P13 set to arrive in 2014

The next new car from McLaren – codenamed P13 and set to take on the Porsche 911 and Audi R8 – now looks set to arrive in 2014. McLaren’s plans for a new range of road cars have been in play for a number of years, and we initially expected the 12C to arrive first to take on the Ferrari 458, which it did, followed by a cheaper McLaren set to take on cars like the Porsche 911 and Audi R8. We got the McLaren MP4-12C (which McLaren now like us to call the 12C) followed by the 12C Spider – just as we first thought - but it seems McLaren was under pressure from its new dealer network to get the replacement for the legendary F1 out next, so McLaren switched tack and delivered the new McLaren P1.