VW Itaaly design Into the Future with the Brivido Concept

It's been close to two years since the Volkswagen Group took a 90.1 per cent stake in Italdesign Giugiaro and exactly one year after the Italian company celebrated the marriage with the VW-branded Tex Coupe and Go! MPV concepts at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show. The design house will return to Switzerland for this year's edition of the auto salon with a single concept model named the Brivido, which may not feature VW's logos on its hood, but its underpinnings and hybrid powertrain are sourced from within the German group.
"2012 will be an important year for us and for the Group, and with this car we want to continue to allow people to dream and to imagine the future," said Giorgetto Giugiaro. "This is an exercise to show a vehicle that delivers awesome sports car performance in an eco-friendly manner, to show great technological content, and above all to have superb comfort," he added.
The Brivido is a fully working concept model designed, engineered and manufactured in the Italdesign Giugiaro plant at Moncalieri.
It sports a hybrid powertrain comprising a 3.0-liter engine and presumably an electric motor (the company didn't elaborate) producing 360-horses, which allow the gullwing-door coupe to reach 100km/h (62mph) in 5.8 seconds and attain a top speed of 275km/h (171mph).
On the outside, the Brivido is defined by the use of aluminium, carbon fibre, and glass materials.
Inside, the four-seater prototype gets an impressive looking dashboard with interactive electronics and displays that were developed by Italdesign in cooperation with the Volkswagen Group Electronics Research Lab (ERL) in California.
Both the driver and passenger get their own instrument panels. On the driver's side, there are two LCD screens that display images from the side and rear cameras while the passenger side houses an integrated iPad system.

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Land Rover Asks if it Should Build the Range Rover Evoque Convertible

All the spotlights at Land Rover's Geneva Motor Show stand are pointing towards the Range Rover Evoque Convertible Concept, which made its official debut today. Based on the three-door version of the production Evoque, the study features a fully retractable soft-top with a roll-over protection system and seating for four passengers.
During the presentation of the prototype in Geneva, Land Rover Design Director, Gerry McGovern, said: "We believe that the Evoque lends itself beautifully to the idea of a convertible. From a pure design perspective, we have used Evoque's dramatic shape to create a distinctive and highly desirable proposition."
Land Rover admits that while there are no current plans to put the Evoque convertible into production, it will be gauging reaction to the concept and "listening carefully to feedback".
If it were to be built, it would be offered in both front- and all-wheel drive flavors and share the same range of gasoline and diesel engines with the rest of the Evoque family.
So what do you say; should Land Rover bring this concept to life or should it leave to rest in peace at its museum after it ends its motor show appearances? Have your say in the comments section below.

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Land Rover to Show Updated Version of DC100 Concept at LA Auto Show

[Early design rendering for DC100 pictured above]

Land Rover only recently showed its conceptual proposals for the 2015 Defender with the DC100 studies at the 2011 IAA in Frankfurt, but that's not stopping the British automaker from preparing an updated version that will make its world premiere at the Los Angeles Auto Show in a couple of weeks' time. The news comes courtesy of Edmund's Insideline, which had a brief encounter with Land Rover Global Brand Director, John Edwards.
The British firm's executive told the news outlet that Land Rover is testing the waters with the DC100 concepts and that it is a working project.
"I had predicted we'd get a lot of reaction and that some of it would be negative," said Edwards.
"I was involved in the development of the [2000] Mini and when I showed the R50 concept to the owner's clubs, some of them wanted to kill us. That is what you must expect. Overall, the reaction to DC100 reinforced what we wanted to do and told us that we're pretty much on the right track," he added.
If you scroll down to our gallery, you can see some of the proposed design sketches that are slightly different from the DC100s we saw in Frankfurt.
While Land Rover has not yet confirmed the North American availability of the next Defender, Edwards hinted at it: "sometimes we talk too much about the NAS [North American specification] 90 Defender and surfer dudes, and not enough about the Red Cross, Zambia or the Australian Outback. We want to get back to our roots, but it would be nice if in doing so, we can also sell it to the Californian surfer dude."

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