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Lexus Design Awards open for entries under the theme 'Senses'

When we visited Milan Design Week earlier this year, the winners of the Lexus Design Award were a particular highlight – refreshingly free from automotive references, the work was in the true spirit of the city's celebrated annual festival. The theme of the 2015 competition is Senses, which opens up the opportunity for designers to explore sight, sound, smell, taste and/or touch. Entrants will be judged by a panel including architect Toyo Ito, curators Paolo Antonelli and Aric Chen, and Lexus president and former head of Toyota design Tokuo Fukuichi.

BMW Roadster Concept: BMW Vision ConnectedDrive Geneva debut

BMW Vision ConnectedDrive We reported the other day that BMW were taking a roadster concept to the Geneva Motor Show, a car we expected to point the way to a new, smaller roadster – the BMW Z2. But it seems to be much more than just that. The BMW Vision ConnectedDrive – for that is the catchy little moniker BMW has attached to this concept – is a showcase for BMW technology and the layered styling language we’ve already seen in the Vision EfficientDynamics concept (can’t we have some snappy little monikers instead of Anglicising the German practice of just joining words together in a line to make a new word?).

What you missed at the Detroit auto show

Press days for the 2014 Detroit auto show wrapped up on Tuesday, and the sum total was more big reveals than we can shake a stick shift at. Production cars included the Ford F-150, Corvette Z06, BMW M3 and M4, Subaru WRX STI and the Porsche 911 Targa, while on the concept front we saw the Toyota FT-1, Nissan Sport Sedan and Kia GT4 Stinger just to name a few. Here are some of our favorites, in no particular order.