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Concorso Italiano car show at Monterey Historics week 2013: in pictures

Every year as part of the Monterey Historics week there’s an Italian car gathering that’s grown to the point where it’s an international – unmissable – event. For 2013 the venue was the Laguna Seca Golf Ranch, just next to the race circuit – and what an incredible line up of cars there was. Alongside the predictable was the completely unpredictable.

Toyota & Lexus news at 2009 Tokyo motor show

The vibe on the Toyota stand is subdued, yet upbeat at the same time. They're chuffed to bits with their new products on show, but we can't help remembering Japan's – and the world's – premier car maker's $4.9 billion loss last year. And it's forecast to lose a similar amount in 2009.

Video: Chris Bangle delivers “Empowerment: Design without Designers” talk at Creative Mornings/London

Chris Bangle – the undisputed front man of car design – needs little introduction, so the prospect of the former BMW Design Director and now founder of Chris Bangle Associates giving a talk in our home town of London was too good to pass up. His presentation (which you can watch in full in the video to the left) touched on his time at BMW, but was more focused on the idea of empowering others to create: "design without you in the middle", as Bangle says. From the story of the co-creation of the staircase in his Italian studio to the idea of encouraging people to think about their culture when designing, his philosophies transcend disciplines.