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BMW i3 EV revealed. It’s clever, but it’s not exactly pretty

The BMW i3 electric city car (pictured) has been officially revealed The BMW i3 – the first of BMW’s production ‘i’ electric cars – has finally been revealed at events in London, New York and Beijing as BMW plots its course to bring a premium electric city car to the world. Looking much like the original Mega City Concept, the i3 debuts a number of innovations from BMW – which are very clever – but it also debuts perhaps the worst looking BMW we’ve ever seen, with its incongruous lines, bulging bonnet, odd shapes on the flanks and slab-backed rear view. But what underpins the i3 is clever indeed, with a lightweight inner body made from carbon fibre and carbon fibre reinforced body panels providing the skin, all conspiring to make the i3 light – 1195kg, despite 25 per cent or so of that being batteries – and very rigid.

Bentley Continental GT – Pop Art

The Bentley Pop Art - created by Pop Artist Romero Britto So it’s quite startling to see a Bentley Continental GT with a paint job by renowned ‘Pop Artist to the Stars’ Romero Britto, who has created this one-off Continental GT – donated by Bentley Motors – for an exhibition in Germany at Automobil Forum Unter den Linden, which runs from 10th July until 6th September. But as I’m sure you’ll have guessed, this is not just a Pop Art paint job for the sake of it. The Pop Art Bentley will be auctioned off at the end of the exhibition in aid of the Nathalie Todenhöfer Foundation for multiple sclerosis and Best Buddies, a charity for the mentally challenged – which is all very noble – and good on Bentley for donating the Continental GT.

Kia GT4 Stinger concept headed to Detroit auto show

The Detroit auto show is just a few days away, and Kia has shown us a glimpse of the concept car that it will be unveiling at the show on January 13th. Dubbed the GT4 Stinger, the concept is a low and wide 2+2 sports car, featuring an expansive grille framed by vertical LED headlights. Like the Kia GT concept we saw in Frankfurt in 2011, the GT4 stinger is supposedly rear-wheel drive.