My Highlander has a perfect door sill height for an armrest. I keep meaning to sell it, but I can't bring myself to do it yet. It's an '04, but only 51K miles.
I agree they will not walk away from it but just like their kidney grille, they're probably going to evolve it somehow.
I see that VW are further dragging the glorius name of ItalDesign through the mud with the (just) slightly less offensive open version of the Zerouno--the Zero, perhaps? Only slightly less offensive because less bodywork to cringe at than last year's version, though compensating with whitewalls tires, ha-ha. That car for me was the epitome of overwrought excess and lacking in subtlety, grace and proportion. It didn't even look like a mid-engined car, instead appearing to be a body-kitted Hyundai coupe slung over a mid-engined chassis: Image Unavailable, Please Login Luckily for "ItalDesign" the Senna will be there to distract with its even worse sense of proportions and design harmony and higher level of tackiness. ;-)
Took this out of the 4-door thread not to mix up discussions. Thanks for the insight, John and cool pics. Makes sense that the Incas was an attempt to get some work from Olds. Always looking to make more links, viewing the 98's again brought back memories of this car, which Giugiaro did do. Rear quarter has some resemblance to the 98, I think. Image Unavailable, Please Login More 98 sketches and clays here for those that are interested: http://autosofinterest.com/2012/06/22/design-notes-1991-oldsmobile-ninety-eight/3/
I saw a Bentley SUV today. Really nice for a SUV. No angry eyes, just straightforward. Image Unavailable, Please Login
OMG, what is that? Is that a Lancia badge on the grille? Looks like a Zagato Z on the fender, otherwise a Michelotti design or one of the non top three Italian firms of the time (?).
From today's Automotive News: Carmakers start taming their wild designs The redesigned fourth-generation Mercedes-Benz A-class hatchback that will debut this year will represent a new direction for the carmaker. Mercedes says it plans to ease off the flashiness of its recent designs. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche wants to take a step back with his luxury brand's European entry hatchback. Mercedes will drastically reduce overly expressive cues — not just on the A class but in all models as part of an evolution of its design philosophy. "The previous A-class design had to be edgy and loud for a reason: to attract attention, a concept that has been widely adopted by the competition, so it's time to move on," Zetsche said. "As our head of design, Gorden Wagener, puts it: 'If you like it, take a line off. If you still like it, take another line off.' " The small car remains striking. Contours help divide the body into light and dark surfaces, building tension and drawing attention to specific styling cues. Sometimes they go so far as to create the illusion that the car is moving even when standing still. To emphasize their importance, many lines come with colorful names. Mercedes, for example, calls them catwalk lines or balancing lines. At Audi, designers call the shoulder crease in the side of its cars the tornado line. Full of lines Lately, lines have proliferated at an alarming rate around the industry. Image Unavailable, Please Login REDESIGNING THE INDUSTRY: A SPECIAL AUTOMOTIVE NEWS SERIES Daimler: EVs in all shapes and sizes The new vision for Smart speaks to how much new demands of electrification and autonomy are revamping corporate strategies, even for a longtime technology leader such as Daimler. Read more > "If you look around at what others are doing," said Robert Lesnik, Mercedes' head of exterior design, "a lot are chocking their cars full of lines, trying to achieve the sharpest edge in the world with the smallest radius. It looks very aggressive — you don't want to touch it. You're afraid you could almost hurt yourself." Some vehicles that are defined by their sharp lines include the Infiniti Q30 compact hatchback and the Lexus NX compact SUV. By comparison, Hyundai has chosen more low-key looks in Europe, opting not to adopt the flashier styling of models such as the Sonata. With the quality, fit and finish of most passenger cars so polished, it's difficult for any automaker to differentiate itself from the masses. Developing a unique design has assumed an even more crucial role when it comes to defining brands in the eyes of consumers. The single biggest reason a customer purchases the A-class hatchback over a competitor model is its aesthetics, according to Mercedes. Zetsche: “Time to move on.” BMW, too Zetsche's brand is not the only one where the pendulum is swinging the other way. BMW is looking to clean up its sheet metal. Both German brands are instead focusing on other design aspects, including the shape of the grille, drawing inspiration from heritage cars such as the SL Panamericana from 1952, or reinterpreting them anew with concepts such as the BMW i Vision Dynamics. "There is more competition now. The world has changed," said BMW Group design boss Adrian van Hooydonk. "It's a faster pace, so our design needs to change faster as well." Exterior styling has gone through decades where a car's look has changed dramatically between classic tailfins of the 1950s and '60s to the wedge-shaped styling fashionable in the '70s and the econo-boxes prevalent in the '80s. Ultimately the task was the same — achieving the right proportions for a four-wheel vehicle equipped with a combustion engine under the hood. Advances in metalworking, such as hydroforming, in which water pressure is used to shape exterior sheet metal, gave designers at premium and volume brands freedom to become more expressive. Even the restrained Germans, guardians of the Bauhaus philosophy that form should follow function, have in recent years succumbed to the urge to overdraw their vehicles — especially those designed for a younger audience such as the Volkswagen T-Roc. Some see it as a way of demonstrating their technical prowess and precision. "It's a question of philosophy," said Mercedes' Lesnik. "Ultimately the laws of physics are the same no matter the manufacturer — that which they can press into metal, we can do likewise. The question is: Do we want to?" Van Hooydonk agrees less is more. "We're going to clean things up," the BMW design chief promised. "We're going to use fewer lines. The lines that we will have will be sharper and more precise." You can reach Christiaan Hetzner at [email protected] -- Follow Christiaan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/christiaanhtznr
"-sorry, but that is god awful." Well, that was just my first reaction - LOL To expand on that a bit, what I really dislike is basically everything in the middle! The "bubble top" seems to me a bit of a (somewhat lazy) cliché and is all out of proportion to the rear screen. I think the entire vehicle (car, SUV,??) is far too thick through the mid-section, even with the large scalloped rockers, and those scallops visually raise it to the point of caricature. Further I don't think the scallop works as a reaction to the major belt line crease, and the area from the centerline of the rear wheel arch back looks tacked on from another design and, for me at least, doesn't speak to the side elevation or the front end. In the past I've been very clear that I consider Giorgetto to be the preeminent automotive designer of the post war era, with probably half of my 10 favourite designs attributable to him, but he is much better than this. I am left wondering what part Fabrizio plays in the firm now?
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login VW Vizzion Concept
VW's Tesla? Complete with chrome, flush door handles. Too sterile, no? Face looks like Lightning McQueen, ha-ha.
It will probably look better in person; it looks like someone fell in love with their computer "sparkle key"...
here's the BMW Coupe Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login photos from BMW Design
