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Interior Motives China Conference to explore new design directions

Chinese consumers are driving new design directions, and CDN's Interior Motives China Conference in Beijing next week is set to explore how. Titled ‘New brands and the search for a design identity', the conference features an impressive speaker line-up that blends the international (Chris Bangle and VW's Wolfgang Muller Pietralla) with the regional (GM PATAC's Friedhelm Engler, Ford China's Chelsia Lau and PSA-Peugeot/Citroën China's Robert Walker), with the domestic (Shan Wei of the Beijing Automotive Technical Center (BATC), and Ken Ma of SAIC). The annual conference is the third in China to be hosted by CDN's magazine Interior Motives, and will be held on Wednesday 21 April, and Thursday 22 April, just in advance of the opening of Auto China 2010 in Beijing on Friday (23 April).

Mercedes brings virtual reality to life

MERCEDES-BENZ has created a real-life version of the racing car it designed for the Playstation 3 racing game Gran Turismo 6. Called the Mercedes-benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo, the full-size concept car previews the one that will appear in the computer game. The real-life racer takes its inspiration from Mercedes’ 1950’s racing cars, except the Vision Grand Turismo has LED lights where the classic racers had louvres.

LA Motor Show: Jaguar F-Type coupe to cost £7,000 less than convertible

JAGUAR’S stunning new F-Type coupe will cost from £51,235 when it goes on sale in the UK in the spring. The hard-top version of a car that has already taken the motoring world by storm will add a second model variant to the line-up, aimed not just at owners of the Porsche Cayman and even the 911, but also at previous owners of Jaguar’s own XK. Jaguar has used its media event at the Tokyo motor show to announce full pricing structures, with the entry-level F-Type coupe costing more than £7,000 less than the equivalent convertible.