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Kia Picanto wins design award

Kia's growing design prowess isn't going unnoticed. The firm's latest prize comes from the iF design awards, for the three-door Picanto. The award recognizes design quality alongside a number of other criteria, including workmanship, innovation and eco-friendliness.

Volkswagen XL Sport Concept gets Ducati power: Paris 2014

The Volkswagen XL Sport Concept (pictured) gets Ducati power The Volkswagen XL 1 may well be an impressive ‘Supercar’ (that’s super-economical, rather than plain ‘super’), but it’s a daft amount of money and, unless you’re trying to make a ‘Green’ statement, not for everyone. But this Volkswagen XL Sport Concept is a more appealing car – both visually and mechanically – as VW take the XL 1 and rework it in to a sports car with a little help from Ducati. Because under the skin of the XL Sport lies a 197bhp V2 that’s come from Ducati (just as we reported a year ago) and delivers 197bhp through a seven-speed dual-clutch ‘box, with a reduction gear between engine and gearbox to boost torque, revs to 1,000 rpm and can get to 62mph in 5.7 seconds on its way to a top speed of 157mph.

Frankfurt 2011 - Best in Show

Given the array of new cars at motor shows, it's often difficult to pick one as the overall star of the show. While, in theory, there appears to have been a glut of new concept and production cars to choose from in Frankfurt, in reality there were less than a handful of marked standout designs. Here are our picks.