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Peter Schreyer introduces Kia's new Sportage

It's a sign of just how significant the new Sportage is for Kia that rather than flying UK journalists to an international launch location the company instead rented a boutique hotel in London's Notting Hill, created a sketch gallery in the basement and flew in key members of the car's development team to meet the press — who were then lent some the first new Sportage's in the UK to test for a month. One executive present at the event was Kia's Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Design Officer, Peter Schreyer. Car Design News was invited to meet with Peter to talk about his role at Kia and for him to talk us through a vehicle Kia is billing as the first to be designed entirely under his tenure.

BMW X6 Facelift & X6 xDrive50d tri-turbo coming

The 2012 X6 facelift will get a tri-turbo diesel First the facelift. BMW are planning to give the X6 a bit of a titivate next year. The X5 Coupe that no one – not even BMW – thought would sell particularly well has been selling at more than twice the rate BMW had hoped.

Big Three Truck Premieres

Once just a local agricultural fair, the State Fair of Texas, Dallas, has now become the launch platform of choice for automobile manufacturers to present new trucks. Texas is an immense market for pickup trucks and this year, the Detroit Three were there, along with Toyota, to present world premieres. And for the auto executives that make the trip down, the Texas Fair is surely the easiest assignment they will get each year: people in Texas like full size trucks and buy them as personal vehicles not because they need their capacity but rather because "it's Texas here, y'know".