Auto Design

The 100th anniversary year of the Audi brand is set to culminate with a very special occasion. November 30 sees the world premiere of the new Audi A8 – in the extraordinary setting of Miami. Here, the brand’s new flagship will be presented in a truly innovative way in the Audi Pavilion, a temporary museum structure.

The purpose built Audi Pavilion is to be the focal point of the vernissage of “The Art of Progress”.

This is an exhibition of cultural and technological progress designed to establish a link between the works of arts on display and the values of the new A8 claims, Vorsprung durch Technik (progress through technique) as usual and design expertise that stirs the emotions.

Audi will present its brand flagship at Design Miami 2009 to an audience of design experts from all over the world, only one day after the world premiere of the new Audi A8 on November 30 to international media representatives, flown in on chartered airplanes from all corners of the globe.

Both the premiere as part of the exhibition “The Art of Progress” in the Audi Pavilion and the premiere for the general public with the stand at Design Miami illustrate how Audi, in line with the brand motto “Vorsprung durch Technik”, is going down a new, innovative path with the new Audi A8.

Commenting on the ultimate Audi flagship, Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, said that: “The Audi A8 is the flagship of our brand. It stands for everything we are capable of at Audi. Our aim was to get as close as possible to the perfect automobile.”

With its design the A8 represents a new step on Audi’s route towards being an unmistakable signature brand. A particular feature of the Audi A8 are the LED headlights, which not only increase efficiency and safety, but also give the sedan a one-of-a-kind appearance. Furthermore, the lightweight expertise in the brand’s new top-of-the-range model was consistently advanced and raised to cutting-edge technological standards in order to counter the weight spiral.

As we wait for the cars, let’s have a look at the works of art selected to reflect Audi’s Art of Progress.

From Brazil, talented illustrator Flavio Adriani has sent me this set of images he has created for his own pleasure as homage to the Lamborghini Countach. “This Lamborghini designed by the great Marcello Gandini always fascinated me since I was a child”.

Flavio stresses that he “an architectural illustrator and am not car designer”.

This does not mean he Is not entitled to image how the Lamborghini could look like if it had to be designed today as an Electric Vehicle and share his works with out community.

Would his Countach 3D be labelled retro-design? May be. So what?

With its new 5 Series Sedan, in Munich, BMW also presentation some of the equipment and process it applies through the development of the entire project and, primarily of the new car design.

The presentation was hosted by Dr. Klaus Draeger who introduced a number of top members of his very large team. Each of them had a chances to explain how they work and how the fantastic world of digital design and virtual reality allow them to work.

Computer do not replace the creativity and judgement of the designers and engineers but greatly help them to communicate among themselves and to jointly check out every single detail and thus improve quality.

In addition BMW displaied what they call the “feas cub” the master mode that serves as a reference for the tooling and quality check of the new model. Unlike at all other car companies, BMW build a single model that integrated both the exterior and interior model, thus actually reproduce with the utmost precision the future car as well as the feelings and perceptions of the real car.

Here and in our gallery a large series of images from the unique presentation of the 2010 BMW 5 Series Sedan.

our gallery

BMW has proudly unveiled its all-new 5 series sedan at the company’s “Project Haus” next its FIZ (the Innovation and research centre). The new sedan is positively the most dynamic and sporty evolution of the upper middle class BMW series now at its 6^th generation since 1972 and after mote than 5.555.555 units sold. At the same time, it is the most elegant, although not as modern in its design as its forward looking predecessor.

Banking on the “master plan” that concern the 5, 6 and 7 series model ranges, the new sedan, introduce a series of technical innovations and features offered so far in the new 7 series and the 5 series GT. Its architecture take advantage of the family progress and gets longer, wider but lower with a drag coefficient and frontal area that maintains the aerodynamic of its predecessor while making significant advances in dynamic efficiency.

The wheelbase is as much as 80 mm. longer, with some 60 mm. resulting from moving the front axles forward, and 20 mm. going to the rear seats.

The new BMW 5 series Sedan will go on sale in Germany on March 20 and is due to reach the U.S.A. market by June 2010.

More news on the design of the BMW 5 Series in a couple of days.

see all images

The first application of the innovative BMW Active Hybrid technology is being introduced first in the luxury BMW X6. The integration of electric drive and energy recuperation and storage system adds some € 26,500 to the list price and, although the system does actually save fuel, it is not for economy reasons that buyers will choose the high performance BMW Active Hybrid X6. Read the rest of this entry »

Stilo, the successful Italian specialist of racing helmet, is celebrating their 10^th anniversary with a series of innovative helmets that meets F1 safety standards to offer the most comprehensive range world-wide for rally and track tracing drivers. The range will also been extended to Kart racing driver soon.

Among the new arrivals is the world-first Open-Face  F1  (FIA 8869-2004) standards helmet that many professional and amateur drivers racing closed cars, have been waiting for.

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