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 »

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.

Far from Turin and Italy, someone else realized how favourable the Chevrolet Corvette chassis and performance package is good. That is the South African carmaker Perana Performance Group that made its first international appearance at the Geneva Motor Show on the Zagato exhibit. There, the world famous Italian designer presented their all-new Perana Z-One (read Piranha Zee-One) designed for the South African company in view of a “limited production” of 999 units per year and with a very strict selling price target, suggested at € 50,000 before taxes.

Here we are not talking of the top version with compressor and 620 HP but of the 6.2 litre V8 engine credited of 440 HP (328 kW) in its setting for Euro 4 emission standards.

The design had to meet the technical requirements of the planned production technology based on fibreglass bodywork, just as the original Chevrolet Corvette.

This high performance two-seater coupé marries a traditional steel-frame chassis, with front engine and rear wheel drive, with the sensual, fluid and yet powerful surfaces tailored to express a sense of commitment to high speed, designed by the talented Nori Harada in the typical Zagato style.

The proportions and volume of Z-One are even tighter, accentuated by a couple of long and dynamic curves with sharp edges which visually integrate strong design features such as the engine bay air outlets on both sides. Surfaces defined by those cutting edges are even more sculptured maintaining the modern Zagato style developed through the past decade.

Whereas the power is a little more than two-thirds of the Spada and Stile Bertone Corvettes, the performance and driving pleasure are only 15% inferior but the selling price is a fifth of the Codatronca and I am very curious to learn the selling price of the Mantide to check out at which fraction the Perana Z-One will sell for.

All right, the Perana Z-One is much less sophisticated and precious as a car but when it comes to design the emotion-for-price rating is easy to evaluate.

It is unfair to compare now the Codatronca with the Perana Z-One. The quality of their pictures is so different. This should be fixed shortly after the Concorso D’Eleganza when I expect to be able to photograph the Perana Z-One in daylight. In the meantime, I can offer you these images shot at the Geneva Motor Show last month.

Zagato is celebrating its 90^th anniversary, under the leadership of founder grandson Andrea Zagato.

There is no doubt that the most provocative, outrageous and controversial “concept” car presented at this year Geneva Motor Show is the Lagonda. It was on display only on the second and final press day at Aston Martin. Day one was focuses on the showing of the full scale mock-up and the 200,000 English pounds carbon fibre rolling chassis of the One-77. Read the rest of this entry »

Leonardo Fioravanti latest design will not go unnoticed at the Geneva Motor Show. He is not showing the car the market (and the car industry) will ever need. This year on one side he is reproposing a low-cost car he designed almost a decade ago and that goes by the same name of This. And a very provocative and apparently useless prject of a F1 racing car that answer questions nobody has asked so far, not even the ruling FIA association. Never mind though the full scale mock-up of Fioravanti’s idea a of a F1 which, he tells the Italian motoring magazine Quattroruote, has been patented. This is how Fioravanti introduce his LF 1.  In contrast with the wide and long LF1 is the TRIS described as “a new way of low cost vehicle design, based on patented solutions, for the maximum reduction of body components in order to simplify as much as possible the whole project chain: from the feasibility through engineering, tooling, production, assembly and logistic.

A relatively compact 5-seater SUV with a CO2 emission rate of just 149 g/km is what Hyundai is showing at the Geneva Motor Show with the name of HED ix-onic (pronounced “ik-sonnik”). The latest show car from the successful Korean carmaker has been created by the company’s design studio based in Rüsselsheim (Germany) and directed by Thomas Bürkle. The new concept has been developed by a team that included Eduardo Ramirez (project leader), Thomas Sälzle (exterior) and Jörg Maluschka (interior). Read the rest of this entry »

Geneva will offer a preview of the powerplants that Fiat would share with Chrysler in the USA, as early as next year, if the alliance currently under scrutiny will get the green light. Read the rest of this entry »

In the cat-and-mouse game, it is just too easy to guess who are the cat and the mouse when it comes to car drivers and oil companies. The price of gasoline goes up and down on Russian Mountains according to rules that even powerful nations seems to be in control of. Thus, as soon as car drivers moved towards smaller and more fuel-efficient car, to keep their own budget under control and fuel consumption was quickly cut by several percentage points, the gas price at fuel station went down again and again. Now gasoline is again affordable and the mood is switching again to SUV and bigger cars. The come back would be a lot swifter without the world financial disaster that is freezing economies and shopping decisions.

Nevertheless, the business show must go on and the Geneva Motor Show will be sending many messages or just signal about the way the world car industry is going to react and redesign its future through new strategies. The Geneva Show itself is sending its own message. At a time when an increasing number of carmakers are cancelling their exhibitions at major motor show and quite a number of motor-show are cancelling themselves (even the Tokyo Motor Show is reportedly under question), the Geneva Show is going to be as good and as interesting as ever, filled with attractive new ideas, propositions and announcement, even though its overall surface will not be expanded once more but somewhat reduced. This is in itself good news. It will prove that growth is not the only way to go and that smaller (if not small) can be beautiful.

Back to the cat-and-mouse, oil-companies-and-car-drivers, game it will be interesting to see how many smaller cars (and SUV) will be unveiled at the show and compare their number with extreme cars, going in the two opposite directions: small and very fuel efficient versus supercars that fly over the financial crises and the fuel price.

The series of first announcements and teasers is very promising (to be update, on regular base).

DR the youngest and most dynamic Italian car manufacturer, after attending the “home” motor show here in Italy, is moving outside the national boundary to exhibit its latest model. This is simply called DR2 and joins a range that already includes the DR 5 SUV, the DR1 city car. The DR2 is a 3.7 metres long “B” segment all-round family car. Read the rest of this entry »

After the news, that we brought to you long time ago (previous post), here comes the car.

The Rinspeed iChange all-new electric car, designed to minimize energy consumption by optimising its aerodynamics. Indeed, in addition to a powerful electric motor with a Subaru gearbox and Lithio Ion batteries (of two different sizes) iChange displays and demonstrates a complete catalogue of energy saving solutions, as well as energy enrichment and conservation: from solar cell to low-consumtion entertainment centre. The details will soon be available, as we approach the opening of the Geneva Motor Show.

For the time being we let the images speak for the car itself. Only a couple of notes: the transparent roof is electrically opened to grant access  to driver and passengers and where the driver takes a passenger or two with him the roof is lifted in the back to grant convenient head clearance to the rear passengers.

Click on Image below for complete photo gallery: