I get a lot of sculpture portfolio submissions filled with gorgeous renders. When i ask to see the model unrendered and in wire frame the truth comes out. Its usually ****.
So, back to the Ridler for a mo.........I understand somebody had to win the award, but I didn't see anything different on that car from similar '50 Mercs from 10 years ago.....and maybe not even better realized in the metal.... I almost wish I could have been there to see if I found some other car/truck that I thought was more 'original' in concept (realizing of course that 'original' is only (apparently) a small part of the overall judging criteria)..... (Is this beginning to sound a bit like "....get off my lawn....." ) If so, just wait till my following post.........
I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve long maintained that the judging should also include design, taste, creativity rather than just build perfection and the amount of chrome. A good friend of mine, who is a retired designer, is one of the Ridler judges. Over the years I’ve brought up my concerns, but can’t seem to get any traction about including design in the criteria. I’ve been informed that the look and stance are certainly part of the decision process, but I wonder. Yes, I’m old school, so get off my lawn.
So, moving on from bashing the Ridler, to a more important question: where are the custom coach builders today? I refer to the likes of Le Baron, Mulliner, Chapron, Bohman & Schwartz.......not to mention Figoni et Falaschi, Boano, et al...... Im sure we each have a lengthy list of respected designer/builders....... where are their current counterparts? I suspect a major part of the answer is "where are the clients"? I don't see any of the big name collectors stepping up....... too easy to just stroke a check for the current social media 'exotic' darling I guess.... I can't even think of any recent/former mainstream studio designers turning out any 'one-offs'...... hmmpf...... Hellzfire: where is George Barris when you need him???
This is a hot topic. Several yrs ago when electrification and the 'skateboard' chassis concept became a reality, the thinking was why not utilize a skateboard and put a bespoke body on one. This can certainly be an opportunity with the right principals and funding. However, like most things, money rears its ugly head. The costs associated with doing a complete bespoke exterior/interior are astronomical. So along comes Cadillac, and they introduce the Celestiq. Bespoke interior, but not so much for the exterior. So after you've spent $300-400 K on your new Celestiq, do you want to spend an additional 500K on an all new exterior? Ferrari are doing this for some exclusive customers, but as you might imagine, it ain't cheap. No one else has stepped up to the level of complete bespoke exterior. Interiors can be achieved, as Rolls/Bentley have proven. But the exterior is another matter. Now if those guys & gals that spent allot on their Ridler entries had wanted to do a whole new exterior design, they probably could have accomplished that. They opted for the hot rod/custom car route. Which brings us back to the original premise. Is there a need for a coach building niche? Hard to say. The expense is enormous but it's doable. The skateboard chassis makes it easier to achieve w/o all the related engineering issues. Any takers?
From Car Design News Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Opinion: Bring colour back to car interiors By Jens Meiners27 February 2023 Be it vibrant or muted, colour can inject personality and warmth into the car interior so let’s bring it back, says Jens Meiners Around 20 to 30 years ago, colours in automotive interiors went out of fashion. It was a slow, step-by-step disappearance. Well into the 1980s, you could anything from an Audi 80 to a Buick Le Sabre or a Mercedes-Benz S-Class with interiors that were not just clad in a dull black, grey and beige, but could also be clad in red, brown, blue or green fabrics and leather. And back then, the door panels and dashboard typically matched the seats. Driver and passengers were immersed in colour, in contrast or total harmony with the exterior colour. I feel nostalgic about colourful interiors, and I believe many heritage cars need specific colours to look and feel just right. Such as a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster, most impressive with a silver exterior and red interior, a classic Maserati with an exterior in blue chiaro and a cream interior – or, my personal favourite, pre-facelift Lancia Gamma Coupé with blue velours and cream-colored seatbacks (coincidentally, I want velours to make a comeback). For a future classic, haven’t you admired the Lexus LC 500 with the three-tone interior in blue, white and orange? The 1970s were probably the peak of colourful exteriors and interiors, but – while not exactly trending – they were present well into the 1990s. And in the 1990s and early 200s, even grey seats were often adorned with more or less sophisticated, post-modern colour patterns. Whereas today, the colours in most automotive interiors provide next to zero excitement and stimulation. There are legitimate reasons for this loss. A lot of challenges simply weren’t there a few decades ago – such as stringent durability requirements (that often exceed the lifetime of a car), evaporation and emissions from colours and the recyclability issues. All of this needs to be taken into account, tested and certified. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Moreover, a greater palette of colours inserts complexity into the supply chain and production process. Additional colours run counter to the desired simplification of vehicle line-ups and the still-prevalent shift towards pre-packaged models as opposed to the custom-ordered automobile. And let’s not forget that cheaper materials don’t stand out quite as obnoxiously when they come in dark and dull colours. Nothing says “luxury” like a burgundy interior, nothing conveys classic car vibes like dark green or cognac seats The blame doesn’t lie solely with carmakers: Customers are more risk-averse than ever. An increasing number of buyers see their car as a soulless device that has to function, and they tend to play it safe with their colour choices in order to keep a high resale value down the road. Plus, dark and colourless interiors conform to the cliché of “sportiness”, and thus don’t require defending an extravagant choice to passengers. Yet not all is as gloomy as most contemporary colour and trim options. For one thing, colourful interiors never went out of fashion in upper luxury class brands such as Bentley, Ferrari or Rolls-Royce. Their customers always had the taste and self-confidence to choose unconventional colours. And for some time, we have seen a bit of trickling down – e.g. in the form of the Mercedes-Benz “maritime” interiors, the colourful accents in the BMW M3, or the remarkable colour and trim options in the Genesis GV60, which – in good 1970s and 80s fashion – extend to the entire interior beyond the seats and door panels. And there is a slow comeback of blue and light grey interiors on electric cars, sometimes combined with copper accents. They help achieve a “pure” look and feel, and a welcome differentiation from conventional cars. On many new cars, ambient lighting can be configured to shine in all colours of the rainbow, and that is a great development, too. There’s still a lot of potential in décor panels: It would be good to see naturally coloured wood make a comeback, hopefully at the expense of the cheaper varieties of “piano black” and “carbon fibre” décor. Let’s stop dismissing a beautiful differentiator that can underscore a vehicle’s personality and match it to its driver like few other features. Nothing says “luxury” like a burgundy interior, nothing conveys classic car vibes like dark green or cognac seats, nothing enhances the feeling of effortless wafting like an airy, light-coloured cabin. I think it’s time for an automotive colour revolution.
Think you all would like this, a fantastic personal 1 on 1 with Gordon Murray on 5 of his favorite cars. 22 Mins. Includes history of design, tech details, and what Italian cars he can fit his large frame into (or can't!)
I watched that video about a week ago, and thought that although it went into greater depth on those five cars, it didn't quite do justice to his remarkable taste in automobiles and the highly personal nature of its curation. So without further ado;
I'll put the Alexander Bros up against Barris any day. But Barris had way more notoriety. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Changes at Pininfarina. World-renowned automotive designer Felix Kilbertus is Pininfarina’s new Chief Creative Officer. He will be the creative and strategic guide at Group level on all aspects of Design (Mobility, Product & Experience Design and Architecture). Reporting directly to CEO Silvio Angori, Felix will supervise all the #Pininfarina design teams located in their geographical areas (Italy, China, United States). At Pininfarina, Felix will join a multicultural line-up of stylists and designers with rare and valuable skills. Together, they will consolidate the company’s global leadership position in design and focus on guiding clients towards the future of mobility, architecture and experience design. Pininfarina’s roadmap incorporates the future needs of society and its citizens and places the ongoing merger of physical and digital realities – the phygital nature of design development – at its heart. With a 20-year career in automotive design, Felix most recently held the role of Head of Exterior Design at Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, where he was responsible for the design development of the brand’s product range since 2017, leading a team of creatives in Munich, Germany and Goodwood, UK. Previously, Felix held senior design positions at Renault, Nissan, Fiat and also Pininfarina, where he was a lead designer from 2011 to 2014. Image Unavailable, Please Login
IMHO, Barris' earlier creations...before hollywood discovered him.... were way better as actual custom cars. For me he reigns as the king of customs for the early (1950's/'60's) work. The movie schitt was trash......including junk like the munster..... (apologies to @Edward 96GTS )
"......will be the creative and strategic guide at Group level on all aspects of Design (Mobility, Product & Experience Design and Architecture). Reporting directly to CEO Silvio Angori, Felix will supervise all the #Pininfarina design teams located in their geographical areas (Italy, China, United States).........will join a multicultural line-up of stylists and designers with rare and valuable skills. Together, they will consolidate the company’s global leadership position in design and focus on guiding clients towards the future of mobility, architecture and experience design. Pininfarina’s roadmap incorporates the future needs of society and its citizens and places the ongoing merger of physical and digital realities – the phygital nature of design development – at its heart...... phygital ? -sigh- We used to write the same information in about half the words.....but then we weren't phygital...... a LOL aside: my spellcheck can't deal with 'phygital', it insists on 'physical' ......must be as old as I am
Correct, as a kid growing up in the '50's-'60's, Barris was THE king along with Big Daddy Roth. Alexander Bros were late '50's & '60's. Then Customs as far as I was concerned, pretty much died. It's been mostly dead since then. New cars were finally coming out already looking good and performance/drag racing took over. The rest is history.
My sister once worked at a museum that displayed both the Munster Koach and Dragula, as well as a Barris Batmobile in "protective Bat Fuzz", a coating similar to the thin velvet found on a variant of Hurst T-Handle, you may recall ... Image Unavailable, Please Login They also exhibited Barris' chopped Banacek AMX ... Image Unavailable, Please Login
Although specifically about my primary area of design interest; there is more than a touch of this applying to auto design as well...from Dezeen "A civilizational revolution that puts humans first". "An unprecedented urban living experience". "A model for nature preservation and enhanced human livability". "A place for people from across the globe to make their mark on the world in creative and innovative ways, created by a team of world-class architects and engineers". These are all phrases taken from a press release for The Line, Saudi Arabia's sci-fi megastructure. The language to promote architecture has become universal. Be it The Line, King Charles' Poundbury or, more recently, the idea to create a School of Place to "revitalize Britain's built environment", backed by UK housing secretary Michael Gove, anything to do with architecture is invariably marketed with the same buzzwords. Anything to do with architecture is invariably marketed with the same buzzwords New projects are either "world-class", "award-winning", "creative", "innovative", "sustainable", "livable", "beautiful" or all those combined, and more than seldom foster "a sense of place and wellbeing". These have become the obvious terms of choice, embraced by the Left and the Right, by democracies and dictatorships, in the West as much as in the rest of the world – applied in perfect alignment, and always without a shred of irony. What is the significance of such buzzwords? When does a building warrant the label "world-class"? What makes one city more "livable" than the next, one building more "beautiful" than the other? What is the meaning of "creativity" or "innovation" in architecture? What building can credibly claim to improve anyone's "wellbeing"? The urge to claim such attributes hides a grim reality: Vancouver, ranked among the world's most livable cities for 10 consecutive years, has been forced to introduce a vacancy tax; the zero-carbon, zero-waste city of Masdar is about to turn into the world's first green ghost town; Pittsburgh, a city undergoing multiple creative-industry-driven revivals, only did so to end up where it started; and Heatherwick Studio's placemaking icon Vessel remains shut after a spate of suicides. What are we to conclude when livable cities are too expensive to be lived in, eco ambitions prove unsustainable, creativity equals stagnation, innovation implies regress, and larger-than-life landmarks end up being a springboard to death? The more architecture is explained, the more architects seem to owe the world an explanation. All too often, our craft ends up being on the wrong side of history: complicit in escalating house prices, an integral part of the largest CO2-emitting industry, oblivious to the political machinations it helps perpetuate. Idolized for much of the 20th century, architecture today mostly registers as a cause for concern – a discipline to be scrutinized and kept in check. The incorporation of extraneous terms such as "livability", "innovation" or "wellbeing" into the glossary of architecture is far from coincidental; it is part of an ongoing trend, in which the language to debate architecture is less and less architects' own, and more and more that of outside forces imposing outside expectations. The architecture profession has become moot Once a discipline of foresight – a domain that created standards – architecture is progressively expected to comply to standards set by others. From architects trying to explain to the world what they are doing, we increasingly witness a world in which architects are told what they ought to be doing, forced to adopt ever-more extreme postures of virtue, held to account by the world of finance, the social sciences and even the medical sector, each with less disputable evidence at their disposal. Confronted with ever-growing armies of "thought leaders", "strategy consultants", "content specialists", advocates of "best practice" and "subject-matter experts", the architecture profession has become moot, left with no other option than to mimic the language of those who have co-opted its intellectual domain. Listening to any contemporary conversation on architecture is like being indulged in a form of Orwellian Newspeak, which, in the name of "the good", has banned all antonyms. The discourse that ensues is as uncontestable as it is uncomfortable. What architect, in their right mind, would wish for people to be unhealthy, want to design unlivable buildings, or put humans last? And yet, I wonder: what becomes of architecture if the sole ambition of architects is to live up to expectations? What remains of our work once it becomes an echo-chamber of universally applied buzzwords? Not much, probably. In echoing the words of others, architects will most likely find themselves driven further into a corner, unable to make any meaningful difference, at the mercy of extraneous quests which they are neither able to resist nor capable of fulfilling. In a world facing the imminent consequences of climate change, pervasive economic inequality, and a resurgence of authoritarian rule, much of the prevailing rhetoric will prove all but a lofty waste of time. If architects really wish to engage with the issues of our time on their own terms, they best start by addressing these issues in their own terms. Reinier de Graaf is a Dutch architect and writer. He is a partner in the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and co-founder of its think-tank AMO. He is the author of Four Walls and a Roof: The Complex Nature of a Simple Profession, the novel The Masterplan, and the forthcoming Architect, verb: The New Language of Building.
