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Driven: Range Rover Evoque

As Sam Livingstone opines in his review of the latest Porsche 911, we are in a period of car design consolidation, with the new 911 the ultimate expression of a slightly suffocating trend. Yet every so often, a vehicle appears that breaks these rules and – through a combination of factors that can be difficult to quantify – captures the imagination, becoming a symbol of the times and an overnight market success. Such vehicles tend to emerge once a decade or so, yet the late 90s and early noughties were extraordinary for giving birth to three – the Ford Ka of '96, Audi TT of '98 and Mini of '01.

Concept Car of the Week: BMW Turbo (1972)

Built by Michelotti in Turin and unveiled at the 1972 Paris motor show, the BMW Turbo was built both as a symbol of the carmaker's strength after its troubles in the ‘60s and as a celebration of that summer's Olympic Games in Munich. This two-door coupe, based on a modified 2002 chassis with a mid-mounted engine, was born when BMW's design director Paul Bracq convinced the board to let him design a concept that would be part design exercise, part technology testbed. Safety had become an increasingly important consideration following a number of design summits in the early ‘70s, and Bracq used the Turbo to test out a number of safety solutions.

Kia KV7 concept car (2011) at the Detroit auto show

Kia whisked the covers off the KV7 concept car at the 2011 Detroit auto show this afternoon. These are the first official pictures of the KV7, a spectacular gullwing people carrier that's as bamboozling to look at as an adventurous Korean lunch to a westerner. The Kia KV7 is an SUV-MPV crossover, designed at Kia's Californian styling studio.