Auto Design

A commentary.

In the mid-sixties, the Milanese Inter foot-club was dominating the scene in Europe, under the leadership of coach Helenio Herrera and the ownership of Angelo Moratti. Herrera had a lot of talent and a simple, pragmatic strategy: buy all the best players, even if he could not use all of them. Read the rest of this entry »

by Enrico Leonardo Fagone.

“The automobile today is an individual means of transport within a complex system of collective transport. The relations within such a system can­not be ignored. The individual means of transport has to submit to the constraints imposed by the system. This implies a form of transport that fulfils certain fun­ctions: hence a functional vehicle. The designers of car bodies are clearly faced with new structures, new tasks: scienti­fic and technological evolution is a stimu­lus but at the same time a warning not to remain anchored to the positions of the past and present.” (Pio Manzù)

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Auto(r) 2010 automotive design conference

20-21March, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb.

This is the report that Daniel Tomicic, promoter and organiser of the Conference, has been so kind to write for our blog. I hope the speakers and attendees will submit their manuscripts and comments to continue the stimulating dialogues sparked by the Conference. All photograph are from Laurent Nivalle.

Auto(r) is new automotive design conference that started last year in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the biggest event of its kind in Europe 2009 and 2010. Idea behind Auto(r) is to popularise automotive design to wide audience and not automotive professionals only. That is done by promotion of automotive designers as creative individuals equal to other product designers. Event name is a play of words auto and author in Croatian. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

At this time it is interesting to take a good look to the design and the making of the SVS Codatronca by Ercole and Paolo Spada. This spectacular supercar – built on the chassis – and with the powertrain – of one of the most powerful Chevrolet Corvette might well serve as a benchmark for the evalutation of the Supercar soon to be unveiled in mock-up form at the Shanghai Motor Show and as a running prototype at the Concorso d’Eleganza di Villa D’Este, later this month.

The two cars share a lot in addition to their mission and ambitions: attract car collectors with a passion for high performance speed and clear cut, very distinctive design.

The SVS Codatronca TS comes with a Chevrolet Corvette ZR 1 V8 engine tuned up to deliver 630 HP at 7000 rpm and 668 Nm of torque at 4800 rpm. This is said to be good enough for acceleration time of just 3.4 second from 0 to 100 kph and a top speed of 340 kph in 6^th gear, at 7000 rpm.

Unlike the Stile Bertone supercar, which aims at setting a new record at the Nuerburgring, the SVS Codatronca has been designed and tuned to enhance “the pleasure of driving instead of speed record, in the perfect style of the gentleman driver.”

The other remarkable difference between the two is that whereas Stile Bertone and Jason Castriota made extensive use of carbon fibre for their bodywork, the Spada (Father & Son) elected the traditional aluminium body panels technique for the construction of their Codatronca. Here, a review of the making of the SVS Codatronca TS and few images of the actual car.

Click on image for complete photo gallery:    

It looks funny and you are right in asking yourself how such a small car can pull such a big Trailer with the iconic look and brand such as Airstream. You need not to worry though. On one side the Mini Cooper S Clubman is small but has muscles enough to deliver 172 HP, the Airstream trailer is not that big, and it is all-aluminium, lighter than you may think of. Read the rest of this entry »

In recent years, Mitsubishi has been dominating the World Rally Championship series and subsequently worldwide Rally Raids the most famous of which is the Paris-Dakar. The continued success of the Mitsubishi Pajero (replaced this year by the Lancer Sport) have inspired the company designers and actually stimulated their imagination. Here comes their view for 2025: the Mitsubishi MMR 25, a vehicle that clearly breaks from convention.That is not just for its shocking look but also for its concept of a multi-terrain, omnidirectional vehicles. To this aim the MMR 25 wheels comes with eight independently-controlled motors each, allowing for “8 x 4” wheel drive so that the car can be driven forward while pointing in any direction. The MMR25 drives sideways into a corner and points the nose of the car outwards before even reaching the apex of the curve while driving sideways or backwards. The MMR25 also uses special Oblique Aerodynamics to give the vehicle aero advantages. The centre wing acts as a spoiler, actuated by pneumatic and fabricated from Memory Metal Alloy while the front and rear spoilers double as suspension blades that are able to control stiffness and ride height.Designer:Jon Hull – Design, surfacing, rendering and animation.

Photo Gallery:

From the designers of Alfa Romeo and the students of Espera Sbarro School of Automotive.

Among the too many show-cars unveiled at the past Geneva Motor Show there was this “Alfa Romeo Diva”. The running prototype has been conceived and developed by Elasis, a high-ranking research and development centre based in Italy and owned by Fiat. (Elsais is the company that first developed and engineered the Common Rail fuel injection technology. The managing director of the company is Ing. Nevio di Giusto who has been Director of Design for the Fiat Auto group and subsequently was in charge of Engineering at Fiat Auto.)Diva was first exhibited on the Sbarro area, among several other cars built by the Italian genius and his teams.  Indeed the Alfa Romeo Diva has been built by the international team of students attending Franco Sbarro’s Espera school of automotive design and construction located at Yverdon, Switzerland. The design came from the Centro Stile Alfa Romeo. Read the rest of this entry »

Some 2500 participants from all over the world have entered the 5th Peugeot Design Contest, launched on the occasion of the Beijing Motor Show last April. Design enthusiasts, students and professional were challenged with the theme: “Imagine the Peugeot of the metropolises of tomorrow!”.

The briefing was: Create a Concept Car which is designed to evolve within the cities of the future, whilst retaining the key values of the 21^st century. The projects should bear Peugeot’s stylistic codes and must contain the following four aspects included in this design competition: environmental awareness, social harmony, interactive mobility and economic efficiency.”

They were given a relatively short three-months time to submit their ideas and yet hundreds and hundreds of them submitted, via internet only, ideas of all sorts in two dimensional format. The rules called for still renderings (up to 5) a verbal description of the concept and a video animation.

The competition has entered into its second phase, following the selection by Peugeot experts of the top 30 projects now published at www.peugeot.com. The public at large (that is you!), and a selected panel of motoring writers, is now called to vote for the best 10 finalists within the deadline of September 15. Well, this is not perfectly clear.

Indeed the rules say: “Following an analysis of the votes, the PEUGEOT judging panel, consisting of PEUGEOT members of staff who are experienced in the domain of automobile design, a representative from MICROSOFT and chaired by Jean Philippe Collin, Managing Director of Peugeot, will make a list of the 10 selected designs..”

This means that your vote will be considered, but the Panel is the one that indeed make the choice, so that entrants with most friends on internet get an unfair advantage.

Between 16 September and 30 September 2008, the 10 finalist projects selected by the Peugeot judging panel will be posted online between 16 September and 30 September 2008 and again the panel will select the winner of the gold medal as well as those deserving the silver and bronze medals.

According to Peugeot the theme of this fifth edition has inspired the entrants to envisage a form of urban mobility that’s more versatile, more practical, more economic, but also more fun and more individual. There should have been 30 of such projects to choose form but only 29 could be published as one entrant has reportedly failed to grant the organisers the required copyright.

The projects published reflect the different cultural inputs from the global society that internet is contributing to form. From the simplicity of the Indian “Globe” project to the complexity and sophistication of the German “Rugir” project.

Vote.

The rendering released by Peugeot to tease the public looking for the opening of the Paris Motor Show on October 4^th is attractive but does not show much of the forthcoming concept car, neither for its architecture neither for its powertrain. The company wants to keep our interest alive and for the time being only says what it is.

First: it will be called RC something, much like its recent predecessors, the RC ♠ et ♦ concept cars revealed in 2002, and the 908 RC (2006 Paris Show). Perhaps RC § “fleurs” (flowers), for its eco-friendly nature? Peugeot says their latest Research Concept is a show-case of future ideas, combining many design, engineering and technology ideas in a single vehicle.

Even more relevant is the fact that the new show-car aims at anticipating a feasible, affordable and versatile car, “with four doors, four seater and a highly innovative hybrid architecture” that aims at a very high level of efficiency both in terms of performance (with its potential 230 kW/313 HP) and minimal impact on the environment (CO2 emissions of 109 g/km in the combined cycle or ZERO in electric mode). Clearly a high performance and emotional car that match with the spirit of the time and capable of combining environment friendliness with driving pleasure.