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Ford completes $14 million overhaul at its German design studio

Ford has opened a $14.5 million expansion of its design studios at Merkenich-Cologne in Germany. Global design work for Ford's subcompact and compact vehicles, including the Fiesta and the Focus, is done at the center, which is close to the automaker's Cologne factory where the Fiesta is built. The expansion is the largest since the studios were constructed in 1968 and increases the size by about 32,300 square feet to about 172,000 square feet.

Bentley future design competition held at Hongik University, South Korea

Bentley has held its first design competition in collaboration with a university outside the UK. Director of design, Luc Donckerwolke, and head of exterior and advanced design, Sangyup Lee, tasked students at Hongik University in Seoul with designing a Bentley that would be released in 2040. In addition to looking to the future, students were asked to take the Bentley 'Blue Train' as inspiration: the car driven by three-time Le Mans-winner, Woolf Barnato, who, in March 1930, bet £100 that he could drive his Bentley from Cannes in the south of France to The Conservative Club in London in the time it took the luxurious Blue Train to travel from Cannes to Calais on the English Channel.

BMW 4 Series Coupe: Video

The new 2014 BMW 4 Series (pictured) on video It seems to have taken a while for the BMW 4 Series – the replacement for the old 3 Series Coupe – to arrive – but now it’s here. Revealed last week, the 5 Series is a convincing take on a coupe version of the 3 Series, so convincing – and with more room in the back than before – that its seems likely it will take a bigger share of ’3 Series’ sales than the previous generation coupe. Not only is the overall package of the new 4 Series more convincing, so is the spec level.