The C-X75 is both a celebration of Jaguar's 75-year history and a design showcase for the company's hybrid turbine technology. It would be easy, with a brief so charged with historical reference (the last British turbine car, the Rover Turbine screamed onto the scene in the ‘63 while the XJ-13, considered the watershed in terms of Jaguar's design history, appeared in ‘66) to resort to a lazy retro pastiche. No such luck here.

The powertrain – a pair of turbines spinning at 80,000 rpm – allowed the design team to create a proportionally simple and elegant form full of volume and suppleness. Along with the similarly fully-surfaced Renault DeZir concept, it suggests we're moving away from an era of line-based exterior design and towards an aesthetic built on surface.

The French connection doesn't stop there; the long tail, flat deck lid and thin wraparound taillamps are reminiscent of the GTbyCitroen concept from 2008. Indeed, on first acquaintance the C-X75 doesn't speak overtly of Jaguar, certainly not with the saccharine sweetness of yore, but nor does it eviscerate Jaguar heritage as comprehensively as the XJ. At last, heritage and the future have become happy bedfellows. The only weak element is the DRG, which has a pinched, somewhat derivative sports car look.

The interior is arguably more impressive. A spare material palette of chrome, aluminum, leather and textile combine with layered surfaces and fixed seat design to offer something unique; a delicate balance between luxury and sparseness.

The presence of vanes and air-ducting speaks of an attempt to build a language around the propulsion system. Other highlights include the unique HMI, the individual, blue-lit hexagonal speaker units inside the door and the roof-mounted starter console that reinforce the cocoon-like cockpit feel Jaguar's designers were so keen to create.

For a long time Jaguar has had the potential to deliver a convincing vision for its future, building on its storied history and the wealth of passion for the brand. So often it has flattered to deceive, but the C-X75 finally delivers on the promise and is a candidate for star of the show.

We talk, wistfully at times, about cars that capture the zeitgeist. This is what Kia has done in Paris. It's yet more evidence that, under Peter Schreyer's watch, Kia is a force to be reckoned with. One also suspects that some of the conceptual thinking evident here could only come from the young, tuned-in design team that has been nurtured in the Frankfurt studio this concept heralds from.

It's not completely original. We've seen electrically powered, sub-three meter city cars before. Yet ones whose development is design-led, successfully creating a 'lite' aesthetic of the brand's design language, junking big-car complexity and avoiding the realm of the toy-like, are rare.

The decisively none-automotive form language courts a generation of urban dwellers questioning the cars of today and the social baggage that goes with them. Instead of 'big-car' features, there's a strategy of clarity and simplicity. The lozenge theme of the DLO, windscreen (which flows back to form the roof) and door handles carries into the interior with a minimal IP featuring an advanced transparent-OLED display. Simple stop-go pedals underline the delivery of a simple "twist'n go" driving experience. This underlying simplicity of the interior highlights the flourishes – purple upholstery, asymmetric bench front seat inspired by 60s furniture design, etc.

After the resolutely symmetric aesthetic of the front and profile view, the asymmetric rear window (base tapering at an angle inverse to the top of the bench seat backrest) neatly indexes the offset number plate and is flanked by simple, pointillist arrays of LEDs which form the rear light graphic. They're not equal either – six LEDs deep one side, eight the other.

Finished in dark chrome, were it ever to see a city street, the Pop would acquire the kind of patina that would enhance, rather than detract from the car's character over time. All told, we observed not only a very appropriate car for today's city, but one that's a lot more relevant than what the French firms (long time bottler of the small car genie) are presenting at the show.

As the first concept under Laurens van den Acker's stewardship of Renault, the DeZir is the first of six 'stages' (read 'show cars') of reconnecting people with the brand. The DeZir, as the name suggests, is designed to make people 'fall in love'.

Van den Acker's brief to lead exterior designer Yann Jarsalle was simple: design a sensual car, based around the brand's new design language. In a rather obvious, but wholly understandable, move the result is a two-seat sports car with passionate lipstick red coachwork.

"To me, passion is the opposite of creating through lines," explains Jarsalle. "When I started sketching, I wasn't drawing lines, but merely reflections." Indeed, the DeZir, alongside the Jaguar C-X75 concept, marks a resurgence of design through volume. The result is a biomorphic, almost human quality to the voluptuousness of the DeZir's bodyside surfacing, where the search for seductiveness has been most successful.

The polished aluminum side blade (Audi R8 references are unavoidable) either precisely dissects or bludgeons its way through the leading rear fender surface depending on your perspective. Jarsalle sees it as offering a clear representation of the side surfacing, while its metallic finish is a clear visual identifier to its mechanical layout.

This panel's perforations are an unusual graphic treatment that, to some eyes, has the unfortunate appearance of a cheese grater. The recurrence of the perforated graphic in the car's DRG is more successful and offers a welcome derivation from more conventional LED use.

Its interior, accessed through asymmetrically-opening doors, continues the sensuous theme, with a stylized bench seat that appears to float above floor finished in a similar, quilted white (wipe-proof?!) material. The almost clinical aesthetic is literally blown apart by its IP, which splits open to reveal its driver interface and red lighting, which bubbles away beneath the surface of the driver's seat. With all the talk of sensuality, it's hard not to see the floating center console as a direct reference to the female form...

As a marker in the sand for Renault's new design direction, the DeZir offers a refreshingly unaggressive, very human take on the well-trodden sports car path. Its DRG is a direct indication of the next Clio's, while Jarsalle insists a Renault sports car is on the cards.