The Russians have always had their own unique design aesthetic. Hard to top this one. NVC ZIM Hyperliner, 2018: The GAZ-12 ZIM was a car used by the party elite. Sergei Barinov, with his company NVC, which means New Vintage Cars, wanted to show what the legendary car could look like today, with modern design and equipment. There was a first attempt at reincarnation of the GAS 12 ZIM, but the controversial drawing decided Sergei to revisit his copy. The new Hyperliner project is then presented in 2018. It features: a transparent roof, closed rear wheel passages and a panoramic windshield. On the back, triangular exhaust exits and a retractable cap glued to the trunk lid, give the design a sporty side. The living room is equipped with several multimedia screens and a digital dashboard. The gear lever is placed on the steering column, (wink to his grandparent). Passengers have access to a multimedia system placed in the back of the front seats, as well as zone air conditioning. Sergey Barinov designed the car so that it can be equipped with any internal or electric combustion engine. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
It looks like someone tried to breed a stretched Lincoln Continental with an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 and this was the unfortunate result. All the best, Andrew.
I like it!! And I especially like the description translations: "retractable cap glued to the trunklid......living room.......internal or electric combustion engine......" I do want to see an L5 Armored version tho.......... The grille/intakes puts me in mind a bit of Darth Vader's helmet..... A very 'iron curtain' showroom too....... All in all brings the '50's right up to the........'80's?
From my quest to acquire Art Deco aero cars for my Christmas Village, I have come across several Russian cars similar to the GAZ-12-ZIM. The first is the 1934 GAZ-A Image Unavailable, Please Login Then there is the Pobeda-Sport. Image Unavailable, Please Login Then there is the ZIS-112 Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login By the early 1960s, the Soviets were essentially copying American Cars. To me, this ZIL-111 looks like a 1964 Chevy. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Slightly odd 'event sequencing' period going on for me at the moment...I post something here and a day or two later a related item crosses my path. eg. Pete Brocks P70; and this arrived this morning to my inbox from BRE https://bre2.net/why-this-photo-of-the-bre-hino-samurai-brings-back-memories-of-one-of-my-favorite-race-stories-peter-brock/ Image Unavailable, Please Login
My friend Dave Rand talks about the new Hyundai Ionic 6 and Streamline design. https://www.autoweek.com/opinion/a41690828/design-commentary-hyundai-ioniq-6-dave-rand/
And how about Subaru Design? Or is that an oxymoron? https://www.autoweek.com/opinion/a42007387/subaru-forester-design-critique/
Here you go, randomly available photos showing some of the vehicles. Also have a red Texaco Doodlebug that is stuck in the camera of oilfield shots outside of town. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
If nobody else is going to be responding to the Banana Car theme, I will. Also, the closely related Weiner genre. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Gotta love French design. Image Unavailable, Please Login In 1995, Jacques Cheinisse resigned. The man at the head of the product management at Renault confided to me last summer that there was no longer any desire within the management to create vehicles with a strong concept and that he therefore felt he no longer had a place in the company. Between his replacement Rémi Deconinck and Patrick le Quément at the head of Design, a real tug of war is going to start around the definition of the Safrane successor, coded X73. The author of LIGNES/auto reveals its full story, an excerpt from his book "Concept-cars and prototypes Renault". Image Unavailable, Please Login
10 minute video from 1958 of the design of the '59 Chevys. Lots of white shirts/ties and even a pipe or two.
Although the exterior isn't particularly appealing or offensive, I think they did a really good job of the interior on the 2023 Forester. The seats look decent, the doors are trimmed nicely, the cargo area looks particularly spacious, and they've integrated the screens with the dashboard instead of going for the permanently mounted tablet solution. One of my wife's complaints about my Ford Edge is that she's only 5 foot tall and the A pillars are thicker near the bottom (right at her eye level), so she struggles with forward blind spots on my car that I don't notice from a higher eye level. The Subarus seem to take issues like that into account and maintain slimmer A-pillars even nearer their base, so the visibility is a lot better for shorter drivers. Making something practical is still good design. Despite not being exciting, it's appreciably helpful. Actually, the only reason my wife and I didn't buy a Subaru as her primary car a couple of years ago was because her knee couldn't cope with the weight of the clutch on the manual transmission car in start-stop traffic, and we both hated the CVT automatic option with a burning passion. CVT was a deal killer - if they'd had a traditional automatic transmission, we'd have bought one. She loved the design, but hated the engineering. Instead, she bought an Acura TSX from @JoeTSI's wife and has been very happy with it. I suspect Joe planned several years ahead and told the engineers at Subaru that CVT was the way forward. All the best, Andrew.
