Auto Design

Once upon a time, at the Geneva Motor Show there was the so called “Arab Quarter” where toner and luxury car-makers used to show shining cars that the rich Arab princes would buy without questioning the price.
That is past history today. The present looks much different and challenging, pointing to a time when car might also be built in the Arabic Peninsula rather than simply bought and driven. Read the rest of this entry »

At Pininfarina, in the late sixties there were quite a concentration of design talents that would become renowned world-wide in the following decades: Aldo Brovarone, Leonardo Fioravanti, Paolo Martin, Filippo Sapino, just to mention a few. Each of them delivered a number of masterpieces and a least a successful design for Ferrari.

It was an undeclared confrontation between Sapino and Martin that led to two outstanding Ferrari show cars: the 1969 Ferrari 512S Berlinetta Speciale and the 1970 Ferrari Modulo. Read the rest of this entry »

More news have come form Italdesign-Giugiaro on their presence at the Geneva Motor Show, with some detail concerning the powertrain developed with Proton and their own Lotus Engineering think thank in the U.K. Read the rest of this entry »

For many design enthusiasts the Geneva Motor Show has a major surprise in store. The top Italian design house Italdesign-Giugiaro will not present a somewhat spectacular Alfa Romeo dream-car as widely reported but a very rational and somewhat conventional “compact” car developed in association with the Malaysia manufacturer Proton (Perusahaan OTOmobil Nasional).

If its design is far from setting new trends, its package and architecture will certainly attract every design, engineer and market wiz visiting the show. Giugiaro, (who previewed the Minivan concept with its project for the New York Taxi in 1976 and the 1978 Lancia Megagmma and whose 1983 Fiat Uno revolutionised the “B” segment, made obsolete all its rivals overnight and set a new definition of the market segment) is now challenging the idea of market segmentation with a design that “goes beyond the traditional segmentation in the car market”, according to the designer himself.

The time is perfectly right for a revolution, as the Italian company calls the family of low emission cars based on a modern hybrid drive system engineered with the aim of optimising on‐board space and car access ergonomics in a all-round five-door, four seater, car that is just 3,550 millimetres long.

Listen to Georgette Giugiaro illustrating his vision of the rational car of the future and you clearly understand this is one of the many fruits blowing from a study of a rear-engined, A segment, small car developed few years ago by Italdesign-Giugiaro and proposed to a number of car manufacturers around the world. The same project that in more than a way relates to the early concept and design of the VW UP.

It is not clear yet whether the Geneva 2010 Proton Concept comes with its small engine at the front or rather (as I expert at the rear) but you can be sure that the interior roominess is outstanding in relation to the overall length of the car.

“This is the outcome of several years of study: the solution allows interior spaciousness on a par with that of a segment D saloon despite maintaining the exterior dimensions of a segment A car” explained Giorgetto Giugiaro, Chairman of Italdesign Giugiaro.

“You could say that it is a brand new type of car, a new automotive concept where looks are as important as function, ergonomics and comfort, not to mention environmental impact. It is higher than other compact cars to make the best use of interior space; the front seat H point is at the same height as the passengers’ hips: you do not get down into your car as in a coupé, you do not climb up as in an SUV but you enter in a natural way. Rear seat comfort when you enter and leave the car is absolutely unprecedented, the distance from the front seat is comparable to that of an SUV” added Giugiaro.

The platform, specially designed by Italdesign Giugiaro for this car family, includes a raised floorpan that    is able to accommodate the hybrid system’s batteries at the rear. The four seats are identical, independent and sliding, ensuring identical comfort to passengers and driver alike.

According to Italdesign-Giugiaro, this is just the first configuration of the family of compact car created by the Italian design company for Proton.

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 most new concept cars actually relying on hybrid technology or Electric drive only, there were three traditional concepts cars. The first was a dream car, the Mazda MX-5 (Miata) Super Light. The other two came both from Mini: the Mini Coupé and Roadster, both previewing the spirited design that will set the next Mini “Twin” models apart. Read the rest of this entry »

SOMETHING TO RUSH TO FRANKFURT FOR.

Shortly after I posted my early preview of the upcoming IAA in Frankfurt, the news of the spectacular and very promising VISION EFFICIENT DYNAMIC concept by BMW came in.

The news radically changed my perspective because everybody will now be willing to look deeply into the BMW show-car (an exciting catalogue of trend setting design ideas) and what is underneath. It clearly is a major development of the BMW M1 Hommage unveiled last year at the Villa D’Este Concorso d’Eleganza.

BMW is not being conservative in stating the potential of their ActiveHybrid technology and what sort of performance (in absolute terms, including use of energy) they are looking at for the near future. Read the rest of this entry »

PEUGEOT RCZ

Back from holidays, I am facing great difficulties sitting back to my desk and go through the news to report, possibly in a sensible order. The sun is hot, the wind is fresh,  the sky is blue, the air is clean. Outside. What am I doing in my hole with a keypad and a monitor challenging me?

In addition, there is too much to report but nothing new to make “the news”. It is business as usual. Read the rest of this entry »

Different.

Obviously the main feature of any Mini is to be different. An alternative to what the market has to offer. An alternative with a strong character and a personality of its own. These remains - or at least this is what appear - the first guidelines for the design of the Mini Coupé Concept being unveiled in a couple of weeks in Frankfurt and previewed on time by the carmaker. Read the rest of this entry »

The Concorso d’Eleganza di Villa d’Este this years has been as good as the weather. That is to say that half of it was very good, with peaks of excellence, and the remaining half was bad, raining and boring, with touches of ugliness.

 By the end of the elegant week-end on the Lake of Como, one would say it was not one the best edition ever but still offered enough interesting cars to look at, people to greet and talk to, and subjects to discuss.

As such it was one not to be missed. Those who did not attend it missed the extremely rare chance of hearing the sibilo and smelling the pollution of its turbine engine, not to mention seeing this extraordinary visualisation of the dreams about the cars of the future they were dreaming in the fifties and sixties.

  Read the rest of this entry »