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Honda scores big in Automobile Advertising of the Year Awards [w/videos]

This year the Detroit Auto Show didn't just celebrate the automobile, it celebrated how we find out about the automobile, too. Partnering The One Club, this year introduced the 2014 One Show Automobile Advertising of the Year Award to Cobo Hall, celebrating winners in five different categories of advertising: broadcast television, online, interactive, experiential, and print/outdoor. Winners in those categories were judged by 50 creative directors and journalists, while a Public Choice category was chosen from among nearly 20,000 online votes.
Honda walked off with three of the six awards, its Hands spot taking Broadcast honors, its Sound of Honda getting the Online category and Illusions winning Public Choice. Hyundai made the grade in Interactive with Driveway Decision Maker, Fiat captured Print/Outdoor with its "Letters" ad, and Toyota's Tundra Endeavor Campaign spot and BMW's A Window into the Near Future were co-winners for Experiential.
You can watch all of the press release and winning videos below or check out all of the finalists, announced last month, for a refresher.

BMW heads for the waves with Path 22 concept bike

BMW has been reminding us in the grandest of style recently of the serious clout it has in the classic motorcycle field. Most important is the R NineT that it put into production, but it's also been giving us a steady stream of enticing concept bikes, like the Concept 90 retro racer and the more recent Concept 101 custom bagger. And now it's showcasing another. This time, BMW Motorrad has taken a page out of the scrambler playbook with the Concept Path 22. Based on the R NineT, this concept bike is designed for surfers in impressive 1950s style. It features a single-side swing arm rear suspension, a classic circular headlamp, reprofiled tank and seat, studded tires, an oversized front wheel, longer fork travel, and a raised exhaust. It also has a unique paint job by Ornamental Conifer, and a pair of surf boards designed by Dyer Brand and mounted to a collapsible bracket on the side. Meant to showcase just one possibility for customizing the R NineT, the concept bike is named (and numbered) after one of Europe's premier surfing spots. It is being unveiled – appropriately enough – at the Wheels & Waves Festival in Biarritz, France. BMW Concept Path 22 – The Expression of Freedom. Munich/Biarritz. From June 11th - 14th 2015, the Wheels & Waves Festival celebrates for the fourth time a unique meeting of custom bikes, surfing and art in Biarritz. The festival is a great event that provides a straightforward opportunity for people to get together in a unique atmosphere and express their lifestyle of freedom and individuality. In this special setting, BMW Motorrad presents the BMW interpretation of a scrambler for the first time: the BMW Concept Path 22. Expression of a Lifestyle. The first scramblers in the 1950s were modified road machines with deep-treaded tyres, somewhat increased spring travel and a raised exhaust for off-road riding. These features gave the bikes a characteristic appearance that came to symbolise an attitude. "A scrambler is the perfect match for Wheels & Waves. It's the epitome of a motorcycle beyond established standards and conventions. Performance specifications are not so much of interest - style and originality all the more so. Scramblers express passion and are as varied as their owners. The Concept Path 22 is our own interpretation based on the R nineT. The latter is the perfect basis for a scrambler conversion", explains Edgar Heinrich, Head of BMW Motorrad Design.

BMW's plans for next plug-in i model, due after 2020

BMW entered the fight in the green car ring with gusto thanks to the one-two punch of the i3 and the i8. However, it seems that there could be a wait ahead before the German's i sub-brand is ready to land another strike at the market. "We are still in the strategic research phase where we brainstorm," Klaus Frohlich, BMW Group development boss, said to Automotive News Europe about the future vehicle. He indicated the next new model to bear the i prefix wouldn't arrive until after 2020. Frohlich also underscored that the sub-brand's products wouldn't be based on a standard BMW product. The German brand was at one point rumored to have a model called either the i5 or i7 on the way that would have added a plug-in hybrid drivetrain to the 5 Series. Frohlich's statement would seem to invalidate that possibility. Although, there's nothing stopping the vehicle from carrying regular BMW branding in the vein of the X5 xDrive40e PHEV. The current i-badged models won't just stagnate on the market in the meantime, though. "We have a minimum 20 percent battery density improvement every three years, thus over the i3 and i8's life cycle, we will offer more performance, more range or a combination of the two," Frohlich said to Automotive News Europe. Sadly, current owners won't be able to upgrade to the improved parts, though. Rumors about a third i sub-brand model go back years with much of the talk swirling around the i5. In addition to the speculation about a 5-Series-based version, there was also supposed to be a stretched variant of the i3 with that name, possibly even with a hydrogen fuel cell version. Although, BMW claimed the vehicle was purely "hypothetical." Related Video: