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AW Design Forum: Ralph Gilles talks technology - with style

Chrysler Group is known for its rough and tough trucks and menacing muscle cars, but its design boss said technology is going to be the game-changer for car designers going forward. Ralph Gilles, who is also CEO of the Dodge brand, said cars must be able to adapt to evolving technologies while remaining striking and pleasing to the eye. Smartphones, touch screens and colorful interfaces are all becoming common inside cars.

VW XL1 SEV to take on the hillclimb at Goodwood Festival of Speed

The super frugal – and super slippery – VW XL1 (pictured) will take on the Goodwood hillclimb Visitors to the Goodwood Festival of Speed can spend endless hours watching a seemingly endless precession of supercars take on the hillclimb. But one supercar this year will be a bit different. Volkswagen are taking their super slippery, super frugal supercar – the VW XL1 SEV – to Goodwood next month and are planning on taking it up the hillclimb in the capable hands of former F1 champion Jacky Ickx.

Koenigsegg Agera & Agera R 2012 updates

The Agera & Agera R get a raft of tweaks for 2012 Koenigsegg has revealed improvements to the Agera and Agera R for 2012, which will debut at Geneva next week. We’re not sure just how many Koenigsegg Agera R models have actually been built and delivered (or the standard Agera R, for that matter), but however many it is it’s not more than a handful. Still, standing still means going backwards – whether you’ve built a single car or a million – so Christian von Koenigsegg and his men in the snow in a shed in Sweden have been busy putting the Agera and Agera R at the cutting edge for 2012 models.