car design thread

again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder
who says Macho & Beauty are mutually exclusive?
they don't have to be, but it's your frame of reference
thought the original Honda PU's were slick, but many buyers said they weren't 'tough' enough
the new Honda PU is supposed to address this


Pick Ups are supposed to be a tool, part of someone's toolbox, their origins are with contractor's/workmen/trades people, however they have evolved into a fashion statement/design statement about 'who I am' and what my ride says about me for a large number of buyers
rugged, workman like designs were the design d'jour now......it's all about image & what do I look like when i drive my PU?
Do I look bad a..? Do I look like I can survive the apocalypse with my pick-up? Etc.
the majority of PU truck buyers don't really need those vehicles, yet they still sell in record numbers & generate the majority of profits for the car companies.
The fact that Mercedes is planning a PU stretches my credibility to it's limits, yet you know they can smell the $$ to be made
I'm sure they'll be popular with the 'hip' MB crowd.

 

my guess it's the 'statement' the car is making for them rather than the actual design execution..
I'm thinking they're pleased with themselves at how 'intelligent' they must appear in their shiny/eco/save the planet cars to the unwashed masses riding around them
ask the owner of any car, and they will ALWAYS justify their purchase within their mind which includes some logic/reason for the purchase
it's a very rare occasion where someone will say "I was stupid for buying X instead of Y"
we're humans, and we want to feel smart/secure in our purchases
we don't want others looking at us a snickering behind our backs on what poor judgement we used to purchase that new 'Belchfire 6'
some will say they don't care what others may think.....fine, but I'm skeptical at times when I hear this
just read the comments here on Ferrarichat by owners regarding why they bought what they did.
the endless discussions regarding the 'sound', I don't need a radio', I like black wheels, I like 2 tones, why aren't there manuals anymore, etc. etc.
we all want/need to be perceived as intelligent/savvy car owners
which leads to: " My ass may be dumb, but I ain't no dumb-ass"
no one wants to be that 'dumb-ass'

 

just sayin'




http://www.autonews.com/article/20161010/OEM03/310109977/weird-wild-ludicrous:-the-lexus-ux
It seems the most amusing concept at the Paris auto show was Lexus' UX, a subcompact dreamed up by the brand's studio in southern France. Weird as it is, the Ucks is not just a design exercise. It probably previews a sub-NX entry-level crossover. We expect the production version to be toned down significantly, but we loved the reaction to the concept. Here are a few examples, including a couple of our own.

"With exaggeratedly massive wheels made of knives, front fenders from a cubist reimagining of a Porsche 911 and an interior that's barely rooted in reality, it's a proper concept car in that it's properly ludicrous."

-- CNET

"It's really weird. The UX is a concept in its truest form, from the bizarre wheel/tire combo to the "inside-out' design concept, the latter which reminds of Wonko the Sane from So Long and Thanks for All the Fish."

-- Autoblog

"An equally wild [interior] design that could easily be mistaken for an art show exhibit, sculpted, woven and colored for maximum shock value."

-- Newatlas.com

"A medieval weaponlike front grille and Mad Max wheels. ... It's a little scary."

-- Lindsay Chappell, Automotive News

"This might be the foie gras talking, but wow, is this thing funky."

-- David Undercoffler, Automotive News

"It's a bit bonkers isn't it?"

-- BBC Top Gear
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

nothing one can say.......other than 'it is what it is'
that's reality, not what you & I might think

 

I'd like to see them as well.
Car Styling, the Japanese magazine will probably do a feature on the cars in an upcoming issue.
I'll be looking for it

 

The new 5 Series BMW gets shown prior to it's intro in Detroit this coming January:

NOTICE the Bangle decklid is no more
good riddance? or not?

http://static.cardesignnews.com/media/13680582/bmw-5-series-13.jpg

New Car: BMW 5 Series (2017)
13 October 2016 | by Tom Phillips
New Car: BMW 5 Series (2017)
Amid an announcement of record sales across all of its brands, BMW has unveiled its latest 5 Series, ahead of its public debut at the Detroit show next year. The new car is the seventh generation of one of the firm’s best-selling and most lucrative model lines.

Bmw 5 Series 2
As such, although we haven’t seen the car in the metal for ourselves yet, the new car evolves the outgoing model’s forms with an extremely light touch – BMW shifted 2.1-million units of the last car, so maintaining the status quo seems (sadly) to be the order of the day.

Bmw 5 Series 6
The proportions of the new car are similar to its predecessor. At 4935mm, the new car is 36 millimetres longer, six millimetres wider, at 1868mm, and, at 1466mm, it’s a whole two millimetres taller than the old car. The wheelbase also grows by 7mm, to 2975mm.

Bmw 5 Series 5
While the overall form has evolved slightly, so too have the details. The nose gets an enlarged take on the familiar kidney grille and LED lamps are fitted right across the range, referencing the latest 7 Series.

Bmw 5 Series 7
The bodyside surfacing has also been subtly changed. The obligatory hofmeister kink in the C-pillar is present and correct, but it’s now emphasised by an additional characterline that rises up the door skins above the more horizontal line that indexes with the rear lamps.

Bmw 5 Series 10
The inside is a similar story, with a gauge pack that adds technological complexity to the established design of the outgoing car. Likewise the centre stack and console are extremely familiar – if you’ve driven the current car, you’ll be right at home in the new one, which we guess is the point.

Bmw 5 Series 13
With the success of the current car, we understand the direction that has been taken with the new 5 Series. From a design point of view, we’ll wait to see the car for ourselves before giving a definitive verdict.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

they released the sketches, but I'm always a bit leery as often times these are done 'after the fact'
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

to Jeff's point, I think they did a good job preserving the 'look' of a BMW 5 Series
did they go far enough? maybe not, but at least they avoided 'goofy' which today is saying something

 

Clay is still considered THE medium by many design studios.


Why Clay-Modeling Car Designers Love Getting Their Hands Dirty

Model-making has been a tool for designers for thousands of years. You try something out, tweak it, scrap it, and try again. It turns the imagined into the real, and lets the idea speak for itself.

Computers haven’t changed this. No desktop design simulation, VR goggles, or even lush artistic rendering can change the value of having an actual thing in front of you to look at and touch. So it should come as no surprise that physical modeling still thrives in design studios around the world — particularly in the automotive industry. It’s the primary tool that designers use to craft their vision, and by far the easiest way for production teams and execs to fully grasp and evaluate the work, both aesthetically and practically.

“What is good about clay modeling is that it enables us to intuitively create a form that appeals to people’s hearts.”
It also has a way of breathing life into a design. “What is good about clay modeling is that it enables us to intuitively create a form that appeals to people’s hearts,” says Norio Terauchi, chief clay modeler at Mazda. “While making repeated slight changes, a perfect line gradually emerges. I think this is a sensuous beauty that is difficult to reproduce through digital technology.”

Clay — or, more specifically, industrial plasticine — is the favored medium for design modeling because it’s easy to build with and easy to manipulate as the work evolves. Teams spend hours working with dozens of tool types (including metal rakes, loops, texture tools, wrinkle tools, and steel blades) to craft the perfect lines. The clay is usually built up from a smaller-scale foam structure supported by steel or wood. It’s thick enough to allow for removal and shaping of the clay, but not so thick that the model ends up weighing thousands of pounds. (A cubic foot of standard industrial plasticine weighs 90 pounds.) The clays come in an assortment of consistencies, colors, and textures to suit multiple applications; the same material also is employed by artists, special-effects crews, and sculptors.

Critically, though, it’s not merely shape and design study that benefits from clay modeling. Terauchi notes that clay modeling also is important for evaluating how light interacts with the design. “As a modeler, I care particularly about [making] reflected light look beautiful,” he says. “If something is wrong with the surface, light doesn’t reflect back smoothly. I fine-tune the surface finish with aluminum film over and over again.”

Cars represent perhaps the upper limits of the practicality of 1:1 modeling. So, in the automotive world, companies tend to take it pretty seriously.
The film that Terauchi uses — whether working on Mazda production models or heavily stylized concept cars, such as the groundbreaking RX-VISION unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show last fall — is specially designed to be applied to clay models. It can give the final products a startlingly finished quality — so much so that observers may not even realize they’re looking at a model. The surfaces can be polished to a gloss and painted for a variety of finish options. Generally, cars represent perhaps the upper limits of the practicality of 1:1 modeling, and trying to model anything larger represents another tier of effort and space requirements. So, in the automotive world, companies tend to take it pretty seriously.

Indeed, the big brown models sitting statically in design studios represent just a slice of the medium’s overall usefulness to car designers. The material holds fine details without cracking or drooping, so precision molds can be made from the model. It’s also surprising to see the extent to which the physical world of clay modeling and the digital design universe co-mingle: Clay can be CNC-milled (allowing for a degree of quick and repetitive precision manufacturing as the designers progress with their work) and it can be digitally scanned, allowing the changes brought on by the model to be re-integrated into the virtual design workflow.

“Mazda consumes more clay than any other manufacturer, even though it’s a relatively small company.”
For its part, Mazda is uniquely drawn to the use of clay modeling in its design work: Despite its relatively small size, “Mazda consumes more clay than any other manufacturer,” according to MX-5 Miata Chief Designer Masashi Nakayama. From the company’s earliest models like the beautiful, rotary-engined Cosmo Sport of the 1960s to the current MX-5 roadster and CX-5 crossover — among many others — all have benefited from the meticulous construction of clay models. Mazda’s design teams feel that the process results in higher-quality design, as adjustments can be made to both interiors and exteriors to attain degrees of design unity that can’t easily be duplicated by working just with digital models. The process at the carmaker is uniquely collaborative, with the clay modelers often using their expertise with physical realities to help influence a design’s direction.

“Sometimes, the form envisioned by the designer can’t be created in the real world,” Terauchi says. “In such cases, I make an alternative proposal from my point of view as a clay modeler. That’s not at all unusual at Mazda. I can make those kinds of proposals because I am always thinking about what the design is intended to express.”

At this heavily design-driven Japanese manufacturer, getting your hands dirty has many benefits.

This post is a sponsored collaboration between Mazda and Studio@Gawker.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

can't remember hearing this, but yes that's an old concept.

While a student many, many yrs ago , our instructors told us to hand wash some of the cars we were evaluating in our design classes. It gives a sense of tactile awareness of subtle surfaces that just looking at a car sometimes are overlooked.
There's nothing quite like running your hands over the surface of a vehicle when it's in the clay 'design' phase. And as an owner, you discover subtle surface changes that you might otherwise 'miss'.
This is one of the reasons virtual reality is good, but not the final answer.........you just can't walk up to the vehicle and run your hands over the surface in VR.

 

and now 'for something completely different':


Concept Car of the Week: Stout Scarab (1936) - Car Design News
ARTICLESCONCEPT CAR OF THE WEEKCONCEPT CAR OF THE WEEK: STOUT SCARAB (1936)
Concept Car of the Week: Stout Scarab (1936)
14 October 2016 | by Karl Smith
Concept Car of the Week: Stout Scarab (1936)
William Bushnell Stout was an engineering pioneer and Renaissance Man of the 1920s and 1930s, an Elon Musk or Steve Jobs-type figure who worked to advance the automobile and the aeroplane, and learned from each how to improve the other.

Stout Scarab 2
Although primarily concerned with aviation, Stout served as the president of the Society of Automotive Engineers. As part of this role, he’d met Buckminster Fuller, and written an article about his aerodynamic Dymaxion Car for the society’s newsletter. This was part of what inspired Stout to create a new kind of car, influenced by the new science of aerodynamics, and his own advanced knowledge of automotive and aeronautical technologies.

Stout Scarab 3
The Stout Scarab was a streamlined, fenderless, monoform six-passenger sedan that can stake a claim as the world’s first minivan. With a stubby front end, a boxy middle and a gloriously curved rear, the car certainly resembled its beetle namesake, the scarab.

Stout Scarab 24
The packaging was probably the Scarab’s greatest contribution to the development of the modern car. The wheels were placed at the corners, not unusual for the time, but rather than following the convention of expressing the fenders and running boards as separate design elements, the car’s body stretched right over them in a single, sleek form.

Stout Scarab 25
The engine was located in the rear, and the hood and front-end assembly were minimised. This allowed the passenger cabin to be stretched out between the wheels, giving the volume of a small room and the appointments to match. The driver sat immediately behind the front wheel, creating the first cab-forward architecture.

Stout Scarab 10
Art Deco design details included the winged moustache sitting between the two eye-like headlights, and over a smiling hood shutline, chrome wraparound bumpers, and an epic waterfall grille that extended from the top of the rear window down across the engine to the bumper below.

Stout Scarab 23
The interior was accessed either through a driver’s door or a single door middle door on the passenger side. The driver’s seat and the rear bench seat were fixed, but other seats could be moved around to face each other, creating a travelling social space, complete with a small table.

Stout Scarab 15
The seats could be removed and the table folded out to allow space for a small portable office for the traveling businessman, complete with a bed. The seats were of leather and chrome, and the interior finishes were light wood panelling and a polished wicker headliner.

Stout Scarab 6
The creative engineering of the Scarab was equal to the packaging, employing one of the first examples of monocoque construction and four-wheel independent suspension.

Stout Scarab 7
The first running prototype Scarab was built in 1932 and subsequent cars were built over the rest of the decade. Stout had never intended to build more than 100 cars a year, at a price of $5000 (or around $89,000 today) and they were to be sold on an “invitation only-basis”. Records are missing and stories conflicting, but between six and nine Scarabs were built, each different according to the owner’s tastes.

Stout Scarab 17
Stout (left, above) abandoned his Scarab project as World War II intervened, and he sold his company and services to Consolidated Vultee Aviation Aircraft (Convair). However, after the war, he developed one more Scarab – the Experimental (below). Working with Owens-Corning, the car was the world’s first to feature either a fibreglass body or pneumatic suspension.

Stout Scarab 22
Today, miraculously, five Scarabs still exist, and two of these are in running condition. The Scarab and William Stout remain an inspiration to designers, especially now as we consider anew the interior space of the car without a driver. Will it have flexibility and functionality of the Scarab?

Stout Scarab 5
Also, Stout’s talents for transferring technology between one form of transport to another inspire us to look around for trends and inspiration in unlikely places. And lastly, Stout’s personal engineering and design motto, “Simplicate (as opposed to complicate) and add lightness” inspires us in an era of over-designed objects and environments.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I believe we're on the same page here. The process that took place with the Aztek was the result of a company trying too hard to do something 'different' after having been accused for yrs of conservatism.


From Wikipedia: The Aztek was styled under the direction of Tom Peters, who would later design the Chevrolet Corvette (C7).[1][2][3] According to an analysis in 2000, BusinessWeek said the Aztek was to signal a design renaissance for GM,[3] and to "make a statement about breaking from GM's instinct for caution."[3] One designer said that during the design process, the Aztek was made "aggressive for the sake of being aggressive."[3] Peters, the Chief Designer said "we wanted to do a bold, in-your-face vehicle that wasn't for everybody."[3] The 2000 Business Week study said the Aztek was "the first awkward step toward innovation by a company that has avoided that path," likening "the debacle to Ford's remodeling of its 1996 Taurus sedan."[3] The front of the vehicle seems to be an attempt at reviving an appearance Pontiac used in the 1970s with the Pontiac GTO, and was a shared appearance with the Grand Am.

Ultimately, the Aztek was criticized for its styling. Mickey Kaus described the Aztek as having "awkwardly empty and square front wheel wells" and a "gratuitous, fierce animalistic snout, which may have been what prompted incoming GM executive Bob Lutz to famously say that many of the company's products looked like 'angry kitchen appliances.'"[8] James Hall, vice-president at AutoPacific Inc [3] ranked the Aztek as one of the ten ugliest cars of all time, Karl Brauer, CEO and editor-in-chief of TotalCarScore.com said the Aztek featured "atrocious proportions wrapped in plastic body cladding," and "looked like a station wagon stretched out by a car bomb."[9]

A poll in The Daily Telegraph in August 2008 placed the Aztek at number one of the "100 ugliest cars" of all time.[10] An article by Edmunds.com placed the car fifth of the "100 Worst Cars of All Time" not only because of its styling, but also because it "destroyed an 84-year-old automaker."[11] Time magazine in 2007 named the Aztek one of the 50 worst cars of all time (adding that underneath "was a useful, competent crossover"),[12] and again in 2010 as one of the 50 worst inventions of all time.[13]

The sad thing about the Aztek was the powerhouse of talent working on that vehicle. But by the time the design was forced over the architecture that had been decided, the design was DOA, and most of us could see that. Senior management decided that the program would move forward in spite of a compromised architecture, because of the need to 'innovate'.


I have to believe Toyota is/was under the same pressure to break out of the 'conservative' design mode, and the result is the Prius/Lexus/Fuel cell vehicles.

"Do you agree/disagree that not being conservative with the design MUST push a direction that is obviously odd? Can "not conservative" be ultimately within the love at first sight camp? "
But we can't assume a design that will stretch the boundaries has to necessarily be 'odd'. While at first it may take the public time to warm up to a given design, sometimes not being conservative can pay great dividends. When the first Ford Taurus came out, it met with criticism & derision as a Bar of Soap, Jelly Bean design. The public embraced the design as it was controversial, yet different from all the anonymous/lookalike designs at the time. Where Ford came off the rails was when they did the 'facelift' on that car and wound up wth a questionable execution.

I don't believe conservative design in and of itself is a bad thing. My personal faves are the last iterations of Audis lineup. Very tastefully done, well executed designs. No controversy there.

The whole debate of physical attractiveness is a never ending conversation that for this discussion is probably better left for another time. But I will add that it's the frame of reference that one has going into deciding 'attractiveness' that is a factor. If you were to ask different cultures what they considered was attractive, you would be surprised how different it would be from our traditional Western idea of what beauty is. To your point, our culture has had norms over the centuries as to what was attractive & beautiful. That's what most of us bring to the party. Read any discussion regarding any latest Ferrari design, and you will read page after page of people weighing in with their opinions as to which design is 'better'........the 458 or the 488, the FF or the Lusso, the California or the Cal T, etc. Right & wrong answers? I don't think so. What ever makes YOU happy is the right answer, because at the end of the conversation, it ain't a science. It's all opinion. His vs. hers.

Everyone doesn't see the world through your eyes. We each have preconceived ideas of appropriateness & beauty. The consensus as a car mfg of course is to appeal to as many people as possible. Therein lies the difficulty, and that's why they spend so much $$ doing 'focus groups'. No one can afford to risk the billions it takes to pay for a car program by doing another Aztek. Jobs are at stake. When General Motors restyled the Chevrolet Caprice, the design was so polarizing, buyers stayed away. As a result they had to close production facilities to compensate. People lost their jobs because of a 'bad design'.
Image Unavailable, Please Login
Image Unavailable, Please Login