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Who's Where: Kevin Rice becomes Mazda Europe’s design director as Peter Birtwhistle retires

Mazda Europe has a new design director. Effective 1 September, Kevin Rice will succeed Peter Birtwhistle, who retires from the post of chief designer, bringing to an end a 26-year career with Mazda. Following graduation from Coventry University's transport design course, Rice, 50, began his professional career at Opel in 1986.

Skoda CitiJet Concept revealed – heading for Worthersee

Skoda CitiJet Concept – created by students What you see in the Skoda CitiJet Concept (above) is what you get if you let 16 Skoda design students loose and tell them to take the CitiGo and turn it in to their ideal concept car. The Skoda CitiJet – which will be joining the SEAT Ibiza Cupster and Audi A3 Clubsport at Worthersee – took six months to create and gets its roof removed as well as its back seats – where there are roll-over bars instead – a rear wing twin exhausts and 16″ alloys with red brake calipers lurking beneath. Under the bonnet sits the regular 1.0 litre 3-cylinder petrol engine with 74 bhp you’ll find in the normal CitiGo, and the interior is lifter straight out of the CitiGo Sport so there’s red stitching to make everything look a bit more ‘sporty’, a leather steering wheel and Sport seats.

Who's Where: Fabio Filippini appointed Design Director at Pininfarina

Famed Italian coachbuilder Pininfarina will soon welcome a new Design Director into the fold. Fabio Filippini, an Italian who has worked in France, Japan and Spain, will join the design house from April 1 2011, filling the roll previously vacated by Lowie Vermeersch late last year. Fabio Filippini joins Pininfarina from his previous role as Vice President of Interiors at Renault Design.