car design thread

While you are absolutely correct, unfortunately, there is a contingent of buyers that just wouldn't be seen in a, heaven forbid, Ford, no matter how good.
I can certainly see some affluent buyers considering a Benz PU no matter how good/bad the execution.

 

There will be buyers for anything with a 3-pointed star on the hood. MB does not need, probably could not accommodate the volume, sales level of an F-150. But they could do well financially at some incremental level. Not saying that I agree of them doing this but since MB seems to want to find every real or imagined niche in the automotive world why not this too. Also, their market is the entire world not just the US and Canada. Then if this is some co-development with Nissan then the financial risk is even lower.

People thought MB doing an SUV was sacrilege but it sure seems to be selling well enough.

 

Very true, but most working class owners would not buy a Mercedes pickup either. FORD/Chevy(GM) and maybe Dodge pickup owners are in that segment. The rest buy pickup trucks that are more car like from Toyota/Honda/Nissan ect. Now they can have a high end version of that from Mercedes.

 

A very nice shot of the Astro Corvette taken at the Paris Auto Show in 1968. Looking a lot like a street 1966 Chaparral 2D with a different windshield and side windows. If Chevy/GM has followed the aerodynamic studies they had done the Corvette would have looked like this 1967 Chaparral 2F with out the wing. Notice how much the 2F looks like the Ford J Car from April 1966 Lemans test days with a wing.
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Style Auto, the long gone Italian publication on car design, did a multi-part series on the Ford GT development process. Not sure that I would say that the J Car and the Chaparral were copying each other as much as they were both using wind tunnels and seeing all the same influences.

 

I believe what Jeff is saying is true.
I spoke with one of the designers of the Ford GT many yrs ago, and he was saying the engineers & the wind tunnel pretty much dictated the Ford GT shape.
With the Astro Vette, Mitchell dictated style over Aero with that car whereas the Chaparrals were all about function, lift, down force & aero.

 

John,

You have those Style Auto issues? I am not at home and my issues are on long term loan anyway.

There was a lot of aero work. I remember that there was good documentation in the issues on that.

This was all occurring in the transition period of pretty and sleek to downforce.

 

I am sure Chaparral saw and tested the shape Ford had come up with in the winter of 1965/1966 and liked it. They added a wing and a few other changes. Chaparral pretty much kept that basic rear profile until the 1970 2J. The 1969 2H carried aero to the limits. If not for poor visibility and a very narrow track along with a de dion rear suspension it might have been more successful.


The original Chaparral 2A did have a lot of aerodynamic testing that resulted in large tabs, bigger rear duck tail, and vents above the front wheels. They added a flipper wing on the late 2A and 2C.

Photos: 2J at Riverside in 1970 and the 2H at Mid Ohio in 1969.

A have those Style Auto issues.
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yes I do, i'll look them up later

 

those Chaparrals were awesome cars

 

Here is the missing link between the 2F and the 1966 test days J car, the 2E. It raced in late 1966 with the first really big wing. Seeing this thing in 1966 must have been quite a sight!!!

Photo: Nassau 1966
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found the issues!
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Nice story about Jim Hall from Dean's Garage:
Dean?s Garage | The Way It Is?Appreciating Jim Hall and his Chaparrals

 

Is it time to revisit standardized headlight "modules"?

Please set your modelling knives down...

For quite awhile now I have been sceptical of current design trends in this area as I have watched manufacturers employ more and more elaborate headlights as a way of distinguishing the "face" of their products. Of course the downside to this "creativity" is we now see some truly outrageous prices for replacement units; often north of $2K per side.

Now I accept that this might be acceptable to a buyer as a "personal choice" decision.
However, now we find out that many of the lights aren't really very good as lights, at least according to the recent IIHS study (and also my personal experience).

Perhaps its time we went back to giving designer a more restricted palette of lighting options to work with in the interest of actually being able to see stuff.
We don't need to go back to the old-style sealed beam lights which had pretty dreadful performance, but a similar concept of an available variety of standardized units might be worth a look.

Designers will moan (sorry John, Jeff, et al) but I don't remember a lack of diversity in design language in the 60s. In fact, I would argue that we now see less differentiation among manufacturers than we did then; think Fusion, Malibu, Sonata, etc.
As designers, we are always faced with limitations, and working around them often provides us with more rewarding solutions.

thoughts gentlemen? (flame suit has been donned)

 

No way,Jose!!!
It took too long to get to composite lamps as it is. Why go backward?
Wayyy too many regulations as it is, let's not add more.
If you're looking for performance, tighten up the existing rules for how much light is enough/too much
We used to jump through hoops to meet the Federal Lighting requirements. Much was dictated by how much light & the lighting pattern down the road.
I was shocked when I heard how many cars don't meet the requirements.
Don't take that opportunity to design specific lamps away, please
If you're worried about replacement costs, maybe inexpensive cars could use cheaper alternatives.

 

Mr. Wagener is on a role transforming the Mercedes brand

BOARD OF MANAGEMENT OF DAIMLER AG APPOINTS GORDEN WAGENER AS CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER

The Daimler AG Board of Management has approved the creation of the position of Chief Design Officer with effect from 1 November 2016. At the same time the Board appointed the Head of Design, Gorden Wagener, as Chief Design Officer at Executive Vice President level. With this step the Board is strengthening the significance and the responsibility of the role of design for the company, its products and the global brands. Gorden Wagener has been at the helm of the globally operating Design unit of Daimler AG since mid-2008 and with his international team he is responsible for the design of all the company's brands and products. His team is not only based in Sindelfingen but also operates in Advanced Design Studios in California, Italy and China, and in five more of the Group's sites.
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Sounds like a designer got a seat at the real big boy table. EVP; even Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell never had that.

 

Like Jony Ives at Apple.
A company that realizes the importance of design.

 

Like Jon Ikeda at Acura.
A company that realizes...oh, never mind.

 

You mean they don't take design seriously?

 

I almost spit out my lunch

 

you guys are a lot closer to that one than I am, so I'll feign ignorance

 

For me, this thread is one of the most fascinating nooks anywhere on the internet, not least for the input of the automotive design professionals (I mean legends, of course) it attracts.

As a life-long gearhead and holder of a lowly graphic design MFA, I have always been a keen observer of car design and wonder about its principles and subtleties in my idler moments. Two puzzles in particular have intrigued me for some time:

First, I have observed over the last decade or so that cars now look better in the flesh than in photos and drawings, while it seems to me that a generation ago stylists' drawings and magazine images regularly looked better than the real-world finished object. Why would this be the case? Could it be some effect of the computerisation of rendering and design, even alongside traditional modelling techniques?

Second (and prompted by the headlamp discussion above), why do I find the old-school practice of designing lights, signals, vents, and trim using basic forms (circle, square, oval, line, etc) which are then placed upon the larger vehicle form so much more visually appealing than the modern emphasis on integrating these (ever more elaborate) elements into the overall form as much as possible? Does the latter approach actually work to obscure or distract from the overall form and make cars less distinctive?

I'd like to throw these topics open to all comers, not just the pros, if there's any interest...

 

Peter, glad you enjoy reading about design, and in particular car design. I can never get enough of it, but I tend to be OTT when the discussion turns to design.

Please don't refer to your Graphic Design education as 'lowly'. All design graduates are trained to perform in their chosen fields of expertise. I always wished I had a better handle on the graphics element of design, but we can only do so much.

Regarding your observation as to why cars look better in the 'tin' than in photographs, I would respectfully counter wit historically that has generally been the case. There was/is no substitute for taking a clay model outside to look at the efforts of the design team. In the design studio, the tendency is to be too close to the model, and we aren't able to make a good assessment of the design until you can back away from it. I believe that the true test of a given design is the ability to observe it outside, in real traffic, moving. Even at an auto show, on a turntable, it's not the same as seeing a car in it's 'natural environment'. In addition, photographs vary all over the map. Some companies rely too much on altering the photos in an effort to make them 'look better'. Are you listening Ferrari? The photos of many cars are not an enhancement of the design, but in many cases, a detriment. Too much computer enhancement, views that simply do not flatter a design, etc. Much like portraiture, the eye of the photographer is critical in shooting a car. Angle, lens opening, focal points, perspective, etc. all play a role in capturing a car's 'personality'. Having said all that , the design drawings are usually 'cheated' enough in an effort to make the design look good. Like most things, a little bit goes a long way. The sketches with 30" wheels wind up looking like cartoons to me.

Your second statement is a fascinating one that has been debated for many years. I respectfully have to disagree with your premise that using pure forms i.e. circles, squares, ovals are what make a design visually appealing. It took years for the industry/government to allow the use of non square/round headlamps as was discussed above. The reduction of that limitation allowed the designers to be as creative as possible in designing lamps that conformed to the overall design of the car rather than looking like an afterthought that looked like it literally 'came off the shelf'. The industry was able to achieve better aero #'s by integrating lamps into the front fascias.The integration of forms, shapes that 'fit'a design for me are better than being forced to use a common element, be it round or square. We can debate this ad nauseam, but I personally believe we get more diversity in design when the restrictions regarding lamps are not so tight. I like to approach a design as a big picture 1st, then add details. Other designers are smitten with doing the details 1st, and forcing them to integrate into the final design theme. Different strokes. No one method is right, just different.

But to your point, let's hear other viewpoints.
My opinions are just that............ my opinion.

 

I agree with John. On the second point, I will add this thought. People often try to blame regulations on why cars don't look good. The pedestrian requirements affecting hood heights is a recent excuse as to why cars don't look good. This is ridiculous. Every car design has underlying engineering requirements that the designer needs to deal with. Making things look awesome is the designers responsibility regardless of what those requirements are. There are still well designed front ends, and as always, there are still ugly front ends. So whether the designers are forced to use round headlights (perhaps that was a mandate on the New Beetle?) or have the freedom to make the headlight look however they want should not be an excuse or reason for good/bad design. Personally, I much prefer the lights that can be integrated into the designs and are part of the design concept as opposed to something that has to be designed around.