Does this count as lipstick on a pig, although this time it's the 1990's version with a Renault F1 motor AI would make it more generic with modern details. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Unlike most, I never liked the 328. In one AI revision, I've learned why...it's the air scoop. IMO, it's rather clumsy on the original.
Can’t remember if I told this true story before so bear with me. Early1950’s, Harley Earl, VP GM Design in the Buick Studio: Turns to the Buick designers gathered around : Mr. Earl says, “how many times does it say One on the dollar bill?” Dead silence. Mr. Earl says: “That’s how many times I want it to say Buick on this design.” lt’s a great deal more than you might think. Go ahead, count them! Sad thing was, he was serious.
Today's AI design entry by Bill Chidley Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
To relieve your Monday morning blah's- a Hot Rodded Hudson- https://www.hemmings.com/stories/hot-rod-hudson-restomod/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=EDaily&utm_campaign=2023-11-13 Image Unavailable, Please Login
Maybe, just maybe, Lexus May start ‘cleaning them up’. From Cardesignnews.com Exclusive: Lexus design boss shuns over-styling for ‘the basics’ In this exclusive interview, Toyota and Lexus head of design Simon Humphries tells Car Design News about an active decision to go “back to basics” with the design process In the last decade, Toyota and particularly Lexus designers, have been accused by many of ‘overdoing it’ on exterior design. But according to Simon Humphries, head of design at Toyota and Lexus since 2018, that is now changing. In charge of the look, feel and function of 10.1 million new vehicles sold in 2022 – the Toyota Group is the biggest carmaker in the world by some margin ahead of VW Group’s 7.85 million – Humphries has a very big job indeed. As the order books open, from £29,995 in the UK, for Lexus’s European-focused 4190mm-long LBX small premium crossover, Car Design News can share an exclusive chat with the affable but focused 56-year old Brit about the decidedly calmer design from Toyota’s prestige marque. Read on to hear more on his new, more restrained design philosophy, the importance of discussing tough decisions with Toyota senior management in Japanese, swearing in English and avoiding ‘Pink Floyd’ grilles. Car Design News: The LBX is the most pared-back Lexus design for years. Did you explore anything more extreme during its design development? Simon Humphries: I’m trying to get away from over-styling, get back to basics and ask what’s fundamentally necessary. A great stance, nice width, assume it’s going to be good-handling, because it is, so it looks like it’s safe, all those type of things. And a design that five-to-ten years later you don’t think ‘Oh god, I wish I hadn’t done that’. In a lot of ways, we held back and concentrated on the fundamentals, even on the interior. Screens are getting bigger, but on this one we wanted to keep the instrument panel low and clean. When you drive it, [we wanted to take care of] the space between the rear-view mirror and the monitor, which in some other cars can make the cabin claustrophobic. Image Unavailable, Please Login Lexus LBX interior, note the gap between the screen and rearview mirror CDN: As this car is aiming to be a relatively large seller, was it important not to scare consumers with its design? SH: The first version we did was about 20-30mm narrower on each side than this one and we just said, ‘that’s not going to work’. We needed not to cram everything in, as you usually have to do with small cars. For example, if we’d pushed the cabin out further on the inside [to make the car’s sides more upright] we would have lost those rear haunches that we wanted to prioritise. So when we got the extra dimensions [in width], we didn’t use any of it in the [upper] cabin, we put it all into the underbody. That was our goal. CDN: So the angle of the side windows to the belt line is still there? SH: Yes, but obviously when you decide to do something like that, there will be a lot of people who question it. Image Unavailable, Please Login The LBX is designed to be small, but avoid looking ‘cheap’ CDN: Was the Toyota Yaris Cross developed alongside the LBX? SH: The platform is the same, but only to a very limited extent. With the LBX we were trying to make a small car, not a cheap car. We needed more width and bigger tyres. If you put an 18” tyre on a Yaris Cross it would bump into the door, so we shifted the LBX’s wheel forward, which was a big undertaking. CDN: So you’re getting to affect the hard points more than you used to? SH: Oh yeah, good design can’t just be done by designers by themselves. Image Unavailable, Please Login Rear end of the LBX CDN: But hasn’t that approach been taken by Toyota engineers for years? SH: Yes, it changed with Akio Toyoda [Toyota’s president from 2009 and chairman of the board since April 2023]. Honestly speaking if you go to any company, regardless of what they tell you, they’ll have the same situation to lesser or greater degrees. If you leave it to designers for everything, you could end up having 100 platforms. We want to solve our problems and on the LBX bumping the wheel forward was great for design, but also helped driving dynamics. There was give and take. CDN: There must have been a significant cost implication to that move? SH: Of course, but that 20mm move forward was judged to be worth it. You get a better stance and a bit more distance from the A-pillar. Image Unavailable, Please Login A trio of LBX models at the launch in Milan CDN: In what language do you have these tough conversations? SH: Japanese. CDN: But do you reserve English for the ‘sweary moments’? SH: Yeah, because you know what? The Japanese don’t have many swear words. Really. You’re English, so you understand that we live on that stuff [chuckles]. Half of a designer’s job is drawing pictures, the other half is explaining what they want to do CDN: You’re fluent in Japanese and your wife is Japanese, but when did you develop good enough language skills to have those important cut-through business conversations in Japanese? SH: As someone who only got a CSE in French [a now defunct, low-level exam taken by 16-year olds in the UK] I’m not the best linguist in the world. I’ve been in Japan 34 years and it took about seven years before I could roughly express myself. I’ve never had lessons, I just learnt it on the fly, out of necessity. I don’t write Japanese, it’s just spoken. Image Unavailable, Please Login LBX carries Humphries’ more restrained design language CDN: It’s an interesting topic, because it seems that the reason why some products turn out well (or not) is because of these conversations being successful or losing something in translation. You can see it visually in the final product sometimes… SH: Half of a designer’s job is drawing pictures, the other half is explaining what they want to do. CDN: …And persuading in the company’s mother tongue helps, right? SH: It’s essential. I think there are a lot of designers out there who don’t get as far as they could because they can’t explain what they want to do at the earliest stages. You’re explaining the desire of what you want and if you can’t express that, you’re dead in the water. CDN: Especially if the management don’t have a designer’s eye? SH: That’s right, but the benefit of working with people like Akio Toyoda – and I’m not just paying lip service to him – is that he understands the narrative, like, ‘I want a casual, premium car that’s fun to drive at the weekend’. That’s all the explanation you need. Then you can go from there. That’s what happened with all these cars, from the Crown to the Prius, all of them were ‘one-liners’. It’s not about where the hip-point is compared to whatever else. CDN: Like a Hollywood film pitch? SH: Yes, and if you can get that across, you can move. Image Unavailable, Please Login “We concentrated on the fundamentals” says design boss Humphries CDN: How long are your car design development cycles these days? SH: It depends on the car, what it is, or how much it has to change. CDN: So does that mean at Toyota once upon a time, design wasn’t involved at the start of the process? SH: Once upon a time [that was the case] everywhere. There’s a logic to these things, like ‘this is the target user, this is what we’re trying to achieve, blah, blah, blah’. That way of thinking worked when you had a linear type of approach, looking at what you did last time and extrapolating. But that doesn’t cut it anymore. You need to jump a few steps or come up with something completely new in terms of experience, so naturally that sort of stuff comes back to designers. We do that best. We can listen to the atmosphere and then create something. The [latest] Prius is a case in point. CDN: I like the LBX a lot, but wonder whether the colour and trim could have had more premium options, like a Fiat 500 x Gucci? Will more luxury LBX versions and fashion collaborations come in time? SH: Wait and see… Image Unavailable, Please Login Lexus LBX interior door and ‘e-latch’ CDN: As to me, the LBX doesn’t scream ‘luxury’, despite some neat details? SH: This is the first step. I’m not going to tell you what the second step is, but on this car the critical thing was how to be inclusive to as many people as possible. And the other thing was giving the customer a chance to build it [via customisation options]. The decision was nothing to do with marketing, pressure-wise anyway. Everybody was onboard. Regarding how we grow this car in the upcoming years, there’s more stuff to come. The e-latch allowed us to carve out the interior of the door more CDN: There’s no panoramic sunroof on the LBX and I can’t imagine you didn’t want one, so why didn’t it happen? SH: It’s something that can happen… Image Unavailable, Please Login Room in the rear could be better, but there are always compromises CDN: At 6ft tall I’m probably not your typical small crossover rear-seat passenger, but it still felt a bit pokey back there and a panoramic roof would help to create a feeling of space at least? SH: We anticipated a lot of people would say that, but I think you just have to compromise in some areas if you want to keep a car small. We think the vast majority of customers are going to be more concerned about the front seats, and the luggage space is reasonable [if you choose front-wheel drive]. If you let it get bigger then all of a sudden you’re building a different type of car. CDN: Did the new ‘e-latch’ electric interior door button open up other design opportunities too? SH: It’s great because it allowed us to carve out the interior of the door more [as there are less mechanical parts behind it to package]. It’s always really difficult with side impact and a window to slide down into the door. Image Unavailable, Please Login Careful stitching on the seats CDN: Was there much discussion about the LBX’s high belt line and motion sickness for shorter occupants due to a lack of glass and outward vision? Was the higher rear-seat H-point the compromise? SH: The H-point is about 20mm higher in the back [than the front]. The biggest issue is ‘look back’ for the driver. The rest is mainly psychological. CDN: My favourite part of the LBX is this subtle merging of the spindle grille and body work, but it looks like it was a massive pain to do? SH: Yeah [he chuckles again]. From an engineering production point of view, it’s hard to manage two different pieces of material that expand at different rates, so there was a lot of discussion about that. This is the step towards the next step. We’re going to make the body equal the spindle. That’s the answer. So even if that graphic is lost, in terms of holes, you still feel it. We’re talking about a ‘spindle body’ rather than a ‘spindle grille’. You need something there, otherwise you end up [visually] like that Pink Floyd film poster The Wall.
