Auto Design

By Giancarlo Perini ©

The 2011 Auto Shanghai motor show, opening in a week time, will not be business as usual. Indeed it will mark a new era of the entire world car industry, the one steered by the Chinese market and industry. China is the biggest car market, and the one that is growing faster worldwide. The leading premium brands are betting on for most of their growth in the decade. Read the rest of this entry »

by Giancarlo Perini

Peugeot has been very quick at reconsidering the design direction it took few years ago and just three years after the launch of its first generation 308 is introducing a radically redesigned generation that will soon make its predecessor a mistake to forget overnight. Read the rest of this entry »

by Giancarlo Perini (c)

You can look back at the Paris Motor Show, the latest top-ranking of the season from many different perspectives: business as usual or new perspective, sexy style or strict functionality, economic status or talks between car-makers to discuss new alliance and even a show within the show. Indeed this is what tiny British carmaker Lotus has done in Paris. By presenting as many as 5 new concept-cars and mock-ups (Elise, Elan and Esprit, Elite and Eterne) the company has attracted a lot of attention from the media and caused a series of serious of questions now waiting for an answer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you who read Car Styling magazine might have been puzzled by my report on the Geneva motor show published in the latest (and last?) issue of the magazine.
For some mysterious accident that are more common in the printed press than you can image my text was cut and mixed up. For a more accurate reading and for the records I am publishing here the original text. Just as a sign of respect for my readers.

Official statistics show that the latest and 80th Geneva Motor Show set a new record for “premieres”, with as many as eighty “new cars”, or so, unveiled for the first time there. Now, considering the space in the magazine is not growing with the number of new cars at motor shows, let’s go straight to the point and answer the usual questions: how was the show this year. What was relevant and worth recording for the years to come?

First I would say that I saw more irrelevant, disappointing or irritating cars (read designs) than interesting and attractive ones: be for their design or their lack of innovative ideas/concepts. A short list includes the Aston Martin Cygnet,  Renault Megane CC, Renault Wind and Toyota Auris.

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 »

Going to an international motor show is like going to the annual market. You meet a lot of friends and people, see many things and you come back home with the head full of information, impressions, news, comments and opinions. So much so that indeed you need a few days to arrange everything in some sort of order so that you get to the essence of the experience. This is all the same and yet all different every time. And I am not just talking of the cars.

As for cars, new cars I mean, I have come home with an incredible load of pictures and information.

I would have to share them all with you the very moment I sat back to my PC last Saturday but this is simply impossible. It takes a lot of time to put a label and classify more than 2000 images.

Now, having done just that I can start sharing with you some of the most significant. Or at least some that I image you want to see as soon as possible.

This is why, at this time I am offering you a series of photo galleries to look at. What you see is a combination of images shot at the Paris “Mondial de l’Automobile” and images provided by the press offices and design studio of the car makers.

I am giving priority to the latter ones, as the most attractive and unique.

Related information and comments will be posted shortly. Click on images below to access their photo gallery.

 Jerome Gallix resign from Peugeot.

According to an official press release, Jerome Gallix has resigned from his position as head of design of Peugeot Automobiles. He was appointed to the top of Peugeot’s design organisation one year ago, when Gerard Welter who has led the department since the late 70ies retired.  Reportedly Jerome Gallix is leaving the group “to pursue a personal project”, today, September 30 2008.

Actually the PSA Peugeot Citroën Group press-release has been issued to inform that « Jean-Pierre Ploué, Citroën Styling Director since 2000, has been appointed Director of Styling for the entire PSA Peugeot Citroën Group effective October 1. In this capacity, he will lead all of the Peugeot and Citroën styling teams, which have been consolidated at the Group’s Automotive Design Network facility in Vélizy since 2004.»

Ploué, who has successfully led the Citroën styling renaissance over the past eight years, will manage the ADN, a center of automotive creativity with two dedicated Peugeot and Citroën styling teams. This combined Peugeot and Citroën design center provides effective support for the Group’s commitment to strengthening and differentiating the two brands’ styling universes, a process that was initiated by Chairman Christian Streiff as part of the dynamic of the CAP 2010 program.

In his new position, Ploué will report to Grégoire Olivier, Member of theManaging Board and Executive Vice President, Programs.

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.