Auto Design

Life for the Volkswagen Polo has never been easy. It is an old story: when your big brother is a world-champion, nobody pays attention to you, even if you too are a champion. or almost. The story of the VW Polo is not written with bold letter in the motoring books, yet it has done pretty well, even when it was sold at too high price not to take away sales from his big brother, or is it a sister? its highness, the Golf.

I think it is time to give the new Polo the attention and the respect it deserves, and forget the Golf. Once and for ever. If one has to make reference to another car to put it in some perspective one has to consider the kings and the queens in its market segment: the B segment, in Europe. It rivals? The Fiat Grande Punto, the Ford Fiesta, the Opel Corsa, the Peugeot 207, the Renault Clio.

In the past, when compared to them the Polo looked different from them all. More than cool, it was frozen cold. Rational and efficient, well engineered and to the point it was ready to do its job but it was not emotional.

Not many people would want to buy simply because they liked its looks. Let  me be clear onthis point: not that its look was not good. It bodywork came with an excellent design but it was far from being emotional and, let’s face it, the VW brand has never been famous for emotional cars. Now this is changing, since Walter de Silva has been asked by Martin Winterkorn to make sure that the new VW comes with the best of Italian design flavour and German engineering precision, we have seen more character and a new personality in the latest Golf and Scirocco. This is even more obvious with the new Polo.

…. to be continued…

Photo Gallery >>>>>

Its mission is simply to be the most rational, functional, comfortable, luxurious and yet emotional, sexy and charismatic car of the next decade. To do so, the very best of BMW as experienced with  recent luxury and premium cars is combined in the all-new BMW 5 Series GT (famous acronym for Grand Turismo, as you well know) when its make its world-premiere at the IAA in Frankfurt next September.BMW is preparing the public for the acceptance of a radically new car, a car that has many technical innovations to offer but that will be more or less successful according to the acceptance of its body concept and architecture as well for its coupé-like styling. Most probably it will not be love at first sight, but give the new Gran Turismo version of the next 5 Series generation a year or two and it will be the car that everybody will want in his/her garage. Read the rest of this entry »

Different designers have different approach to communication, publicity and image.

Even before starting his new Corvette ZR1 Mantide, Jason Castriota, designed and organised a massive communication campaign banking on internet, video-clip and photo shooting. By the time the Mantide was ready for its unveling everyone knew about it.

On the contrary Ercole and Paolo Spada entirely focused on what they love most: car design. They did not care much about marketing, public relations, photo shooting et all. When it was first unveiled in Monte Carlo last year only those belonging to the inner circles of design had heard about it, via internet of course. Than came the printed press.

Through the months passed since that unveiling, it has emerged that the Spada Codatronca is not the easiest car to photograph and based on the pictures that have appeared so far it was easy to either love or hate the car.

Time had come for the Spada to realize that someone had to look at the Codatronca with the eyes of a photographer and they have organised a photo shooting (and many hours of photoshop, or a similar software) , to present their very special Corvette ZR1 in a different perspective. Obviously the growing rivality between the Codatronca and Mantide is playing a role. For the good of car designers and the public.

Here, I am glad to be the first to offer you a selection of “different perpectives” of the Spada Codatronca. Well I would b, if only we could manage to get Flickr work as it is intended to. Come back until the link to the photo gallery works all right. Thank you

Complete Photo Gallery:

According to some reports, Stile Bertone has stated that it plans to accept up to ten orders for their Corvette ZR1 Mantide “one off”, each carrying a price tage of 2 million dollars. That is some 1.6 million euros, just 0.1m euros higher than the price Jason Castriota mentioned when I talked to him at the Villa d’Este Concorso a couple of weeks ago. The add-on is probably the price of the full-optional ZR1 serving as the starting point for their job. Read the rest of this entry »

Within the frame of the Concorso d’Eleganza di Villa d’Este, the organisers arranged a very special exhibition at nearby Villa Erba dedicate to a special category of car design (and engineering).

With the simple title of “Streamlining” the exhibition presented by the Prototype Museum in Hamburg shows the development of car with extreme streamlined bodywork designed to minimize air resistance and maximize performance (and fuel consumption in relation to performance). Read the rest of this entry »

The Roadster 328 developed in 1935/36 is one of the legends of automobile history. Although it was developed with modest means, the visually attractive sports car quickly developed into a phenomenon that dominated the two-litre class across Europe. Modified motor sport versions won in the Le mans and the Mille Miglia Read the rest of this entry »

In autumn 1938, the plans for the high-speed Berlin-Rome road race announced by the National Socialist regime for 1939 were going full steam ahead. For this event, several automobile manufacturers designed special racing versions based on series cars and with streamlined bodies.

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After a degree in engineering followed by doctoral studies, Wunibald Kamm worked at Daimler – Motoren – Gesellschaft (1922-1925), Schwabische Huttenwerke (1925) and the German Aviation Test Centre (1926-1930). Read the rest of this entry »

In the period from 1946 to 1949, Petermax Müller constructed a total of six racing car by dint of admirable improvisation from the scrap of the nearby Volkswagen plant. He drove these cars to become German Champion in 1948 and 1949. The shape of these cars bore a striking resemblance to the Wanderer he drove in the Liege – Rome – Liege race before the war. The car shown here from 1948 is Müller’s former private racing car and one of two vehicles still preserved. Read the rest of this entry »