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Mercedes-Benz Concept Style Coupe revealed ahead of China auto show

Mercedes-Benz is previewing its eagerly anticipated CLA sedan at an event in Los Angeles this week before providing a more detailed look at the Beijing motor show with the unveiling of the latest in a long line of concept cars, the 2.0-liter, 208-hp, four-cylinder-powered Concept Style Coupe. Pictured here officially for the first time, the heavily sculptured four-door reveals the dramatic appearance that the next junior Mercedes-Benz sedan will carry into North American showrooms in 2013. Advancing the look first established on the F800 Style concept wheeled out at the 2010 Geneva motor show, the Concept Style Coupe is clothed in a four-door body that makes extensive use of concave and convex surfaces to provide its exterior with what Mercedes-Benz design boss Gorden Wagener describes as “an almost fluid appearance and constantly altering depth.” The car has a large gaping grille known to insiders as a soft-nose treatment, striking headlamps with LED graphics, a heavily curved roofline, a shallow glasshouse, a high waistline, frameless doors and a trio of sharply creased lines along its flanks.

Video: Jaguar's Julian Thomson on the importance of design values

Jaguar's Head of Advanced Design, Julian Thomson, appeared at this month's PSFK Conference in London giving a talk on design values. Thomson's talk, ‘Concepting Dreams, Making Reality Happen', dealt with questions of creating a design story as well as how Jaguar uses the value of its heritage while keeping things original and new. Thomson – the man behind the 2010 C-X75 and the recently revealed F-Type – said, "You can't get a good design story if you don't look at your heritage, where you came from, where your values came from." He went on to discuss the ‘sad years of Jaguar', from around 1968 to 2004 where Jaguar was too timid to develop and "essentially made the same-looking car." He put this down to a reluctance on Jaguar's part to move too far away from its successful models and, quite interestingly, because "not only did we start doing market research, we started asking Americans what they wanted." Watch the full video on the left.

Leaf Powers Ahead As Europe's Best-Selling Car Vehicle

THE NUMBERS are in and, while recent months have seen a flurry of new electric car launches, one car reigns supreme in this emerging sector. With a record-breaking 2013 behind it, Nissan’s Leaf topped the charts in Europe with 11,120 sales – a massive 204 percent rise compared to 2012. Furthermore Nissan is keen to point out that the Leaf is head and shoulders above its nearest rivals, achieving 25 percent more sales than its closest competitor.