Table of contents for No. 205 in AUTO & DESIGN

The US auto industry is on the rebound, with a rise in sales and a record number of visitors at the 2014 NAIAS. This is the first time in more than a decade that attendance figures have topped 800,000. For those in a city that’s recently been declared bankrupt, it’s a good sign. Another good sign was the quality of the products on show. Some of the trends we witnessed last year are continuing into 2014, with a higher level of detailing and elegant surface treatments. Largely due to available technologies, vehicle lighting is the jewel in the box, a sophisticated signature to communicate brand identity. Surfacing is also becoming more voluptuous and emotional – sculpture has become de rigeur – and while grilles have gotten larger, they’re also more…

Eliminating the superfluous to add value, avoiding standardisation to offer more simplicity, comfort and efficiency. But above all, having the courage to be innovative. The C4 Cactus project is brim full of concept and content, and to understand it in greater detail we went to the PSA Centre de Création in Vélizy to meet Alexandre Malval, head of design at Citroën, and Mark Lloyd, design manager. The car has only just been officially unveiled, maintaining the promises made by the concept version seen last September in Frankfurt: there are very few changes, but they include the very elements that seemed more typical of a show car, like the Airbump (the soft insert that protects and decorates the sides), the passenger airbag in the roof and the two front seats joined…

Karim Habib explains that the new Series 2 Coupé has its roots not only in the Series 1 Coupé (“but it is sportier, larger, broader and longer”), but above all in BMW tradition: “We were inspired by the history of our brand, giving fans not only the form but also the driving sensation of certain cars of the past: the Series 2 Coupé is a light sporty compact, with an unmistakable silhouette, the three-box design typical of our rear-wheel drive models, all elements that recall icons of the past like the 1600-2 and particularly the 2002 of 1968.” Habib is the Head of design for BMW cars and he responds directly to Adrian van Hooydonk, the Head of design for the entire group. He points out that the new car…

Essential, light and powerful with plenty of personality. This basically sums up the “café racer” motorcycles, the special sporty bikes that were produced in Britain in the Fifties and Sixties, during the Rocker movement. Their main meeting places was the legendary Ace Cafe in London, where beer flowed in rivers and young bikers in their jeans and black leather jackets organised dangerous road challenges. This all comes back when we observe the new BMW R NINE T, a model that pays tribute to the brand’s ninetieth anniversary, combining tradition and a true philosophical evolution. It is not only the first time BMW has proposed this type of motorcycle, but also the first BMW born with extreme customisation in mind, achieved using official and after-market parts. It is almost the European…

It is easy to make promises, the problem is delivering on them. And it is precisely this that sets Qoros apart from other ambitious mainstream automotive players. Qoros, which was founded in 2007 as an independent car manufacturing company with no legacy of technologies or distribution practices, kicked off at last year’s Geneva Motor Show with the Qoros 3 Sedan. Now, one year on, the first customer car has been collected from one of the brand’s new Shanghai dealerships. It was a year of carefully planned, sure-footed steps towards building a brand whose products are born and bred in China. “It is not a Chinese but an international brand,” Qoros deputy CEO, Volker Steinwascher, makes clear. “We develop and produce cars to international safety and quality standards, with global expertise.…

The innovative modular compact platform that was first employed for the Qoros 3 Sedan presented last year is also used for the Qoros 3 Hatch, with which Qoros is making its second appearance at the Geneva Motor Show. The platform has so far been used for two compact (C-segment) vehicles and others will follow; but it could also be adapted for subcompact (B-segment) and mid-size (D-segment) models as well. Its strength lies in its mathematical forms and in the structure. The graph on this page clearly illustrates Qoros’ strategy as regards its unique modular platform which, Gert Hildebrand states, “could allow us to produce between 15 and 20 different models.” In the centre, framed, is the socalled “elegant core” represented by the Qoros 3 Sedan introduced last year. From that…

The spirit of a motor car is reflected in the brand’s styling cues and in its design details. The Qoros 3 Hatch is no exception. The Qoros’s new somatic lines, inspired by the two key concepts of dynamism and youthfulness, can also be seen in parts such as the light clusters. The Hatch’s front lights are highlighted clearly by a sharp, straight LED “eyebrow”, as shown in the exploded drawing on this page. And the fog-lights, which in the Sedan are trapezoidal, are a more sporty round shape on the Hatch. Hildebrand is also very proud of the rear lights, and he lists them among the most significant parts of the Hatch’s exterior design: a LED-look tail light in a one-piece cluster (the Sedan’s rear clusters are in two pieces)…

The interior of the Qoros 3 Hatch reflects similarities to that of the Qoros 3 Sedan. But it also reflects a key moment in the reorganisation of Qoros design. Begun by Christian Krug, who has now returned to Magna, designs were completed by the Shanghai interiors team led by Tim Pilsbury. “It goes without saying that the most substantial changes,” explains Gert Hildebrand, “concern the rear. The seats, for example, fold forward as anyone would expect in a hatchback”. The ergonomics, finish and equipment – and therefore quality, too – are completed to the same high standards as in the Sedan. But, the upholstery comes in new combinations of colours and materials to give the cabin a distinctive fresh and modern ambience. As in the Sedan, the dash appears to…

This is perhaps the most mysterious – and also the most secretive – aspect surrounding the birth of a motor car. But it is also the area where craft, or if you will, artistic skills, play the greatest part. It’s all well and good sitting in front of a computer working out the forms and the styling of a new car, but if you don’t know how to give three-dimensional form to your findings you run the risk of failing to spot errors, large and small, in the play of proportions, curves, light and shade. It is at the modelling stage that the initial sketches of a car and its computer development become a tangible reality. It is the moment when a team of true artists – Qoros has twenty…

The Munich design team is less than a year old. At present it is 35-strong and, as we write, they are moving from temporary premises to new Qoros Design offices in the heart of the industrial centre opposite the Olympic district. The team includes designers, 3D modellers, visualisers, design engineers, graphic designers plus class-A surface specialists, a branch of design that originated in the marine industry and is concerned with surfaces that cannot be defined with mathematical formulae, such as those on boats, and more and more frequently, cars. Philipp Eberl, head of the Munich studio, comments: “It’s a veritable Tower of Babel. There are Germans, Austrians, Italians, Croats, Spaniards: design internationalisation in spades.” How has he solved the problem? “Using English as a common language, even though we work…

An electric bicycle that performs like a motorbike when its rider needs it to. The eBIQE concept presented by Qoros at Geneva is a leading-edge product that aims to entertain and is designed to meet the needs of the environmentally aware metropolitan citizen who loves to spend his life in the open air, particularly his leisure time. The project is based on the Greyp G-12 e-bike’s mechanicals and package, an interesting product – also presented at the last edition of the EICMA in Milan – developed by the young Croatian manufacturer that specialises in the design and engineering of latest generation electric bicycles. “Our biggest challenge was how to inject Qoros DNA into the product. With this in mind we chose a horizontally oriented body – which is made up…

“It was the beginning of a story; our story.” Gert Hildebrand speaks almost nostalgically of Geneva 2013, the motor show a year ago that saw Qoros’s debut in automotive high society. You might say he has it in his heart. “It was the première, something unrepeatable, a uniquely magical moment, although our second appearance at Geneva this year is another step for us along a road of constant growth.” The most exciting moment? Perhaps when, immortalised by hundreds of cameras, the cloth over the Sedan was pulled away in the centre of a stand design expressing western taste but so strongly inspired by Chinese tradition, and which “from that moment on has influenced the design and layout of all later stands.” Last year there were four cars, this year five…

Another exciting creative licence involved designers from the Shanghai studio and students working there on placement. As life-long fans of science fiction movies and super-heroes, the young designers were invited to imagine the Qoros 3 Sedan as transformable into an anthropomorphic robot endowed with super-powers. The students approached the challenge with great relish because they had collected robots and transformable cars in their childhood, and today, just a bit older, they continue to follow them at the cinema with undiminished passion. Observing the robotic look-alike renderings of the cars and their transformations, the typical lines of Qoros styling emerge clearly in their visual identity, expressed strongly by the grille, lights and wheels. These designs are so well executed that we can easily imagine ourselves being suddenly catapulted into a science…

Detroit once led the world in automotive innovation: moving assembly lines, automatic transmissions, assisted steering, radios, air conditioning… the list goes on until it dead-ends sometime around forty years ago. This year, Detroit brought innovation back to the world industry. For decades the best-selling vehicle in America has been Ford’s F-150 pickup truck. Americans like their trucks to be almost the same from one year to another, explaining why all-new 2014 Chevrolet/GMC pickups are almost indistinguishable from previous models. Suddenly, in the single most important announcement from Detroit, Ford has embraced radical change: both cab and load platform of the F-150 are now aluminum, saving about 320 kg compared to traditional steel pickups. With down-sized four cylinder and V-6 EcoBoost turbocharged engines, these Fords make a big step toward much…

“The star of the show is an Audi concept car.” There’s nothing strange in this statement – until you discover that the show in question is not one of the world’s many motor shows, but an event dedicated to consumer electronics and the digital industry. And not just any event, but the most important hi-tech show of all: the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. At this year’s CES held at the beginning of January, among the plethora of curved screens, tablets, smartphones and countless wearable gadgets, instead of the usual bit part it has played in past editions, the automobile was a leading member of the cast. This is the dawn of the smartcar, in which technology moves on from an accessory to become a driving factor in automotive…

“With the C4 Cactus, and then the C1, we enter a new phase in our story”, Alexandre Malval announced at the preview of the C4 Cactus in Paris on 5 February, a date chosen because it is the anniversary of the birth of André Citroën. The division into two lines of products, with the DS (design head Thierry Metroz) more focused on “Luxury from Paris”, allows Citroën’s C products to make inroads into new areas, with less homologation and more innovation, as the brand spirit demands. So what will tomorrow’s Citroëns look like? “Pure forms, the expression of comfort and wellbeing”, explains Malval pointing to a seat by Arno Jacobsen, “formal simplicity to which the materials bring quality and warmth”. Andagain: “Functional aspects borrowed from non-automotive contexts. For example, a…

Craftsmanship. Or the art of doing things well, creating a product with the precision characteristic of luxury objects. This is the added value that Ralph Gilles, Senior Vice President for Product Design at Chrysler, considers the principal ingredient of the project for the new Chrysler 200. It is a car that only retains the name of the previous generation, because the model unveiled in Detroit at the start of the year is completely new and based on a new platform, the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles Compact U.S.-wide platform on which the Dodge Dart and the Alfa Romeo Giulietta are also based, albeit with different proportions, thanks to the flexibility of the architecture. “The 200’s role was to introduce a new brand identity,” continued Gilles. In addition to the silhouette with its…

The Lexus is twenty-five this year and its design is a constant work in progress. The first models launched a quarter of a century ago, the LS presented at Detroit in 1989 and the GS of 1993, really do look as though they come from another age. From a style that borrowed freely from its premium German competitors without applying too much imagination, to today’s image born out of a journey that has stretched the Toyota design structure (led by Tokuo Fukuichi and his network of consultants) to the limit. The front end was, of course, the focus of concentrated attention in a situation in which the brand image had to be defined from scratch and consolidated. In the end the face of the Lexus emerged clearly: logo-centric, resolute in…

At Momodesign you can almost breathe a tangible atmosphere of creativity, vision and strategy permeating through the Milanese headquarters of a design studio which, since 1981, has been the creative powerhouse of this company. This was the year in which Momo, which had been producing steering wheels and alloy wheels for Formula 1 since the 1960s, decided to tag the word ‘design’ to the end of its name, to describe the activities of a company which, from its automotive beginnings, had grown over the years to become an all-round industrial design concern. The studio is an open space with no dividing walls and offices filled with different materials, colours and instruments. This allows the designers, architects and stylists to interact, as teamwork is essential here. It is here that projects…

Right from its Geneva debut in March 2013, Qoros also had ready its new dealership concept. As promised by the drawings of the original project. The showroom’s aesthetic and formal look of Qoros’s dealership concept, outside and in, features contemporary architecture and design in a refined, minimalist, hi-tech style. “We started with the idea of being a retailer rather than a traditional car dealership,” explains Stefano Villanti, Executive Director of Sales and Marketing. Big asymmetrical windows give the idea of a trendy store and the cars are displayed on stands which transmit the message that we are dealing with objects of value. As for consumers, the buying experience itself is completely different from the conventoinal car showroom, much more like an Apple Store, to mention just one example, with multimedia…

All aspects of Qoros product development are focused on complying with global engineering and production standards. For example, its engines are Euro 5 compliant and the new engines in development will be Euro 6 compliant. But it is what has already been achieved in terms of safety that is beyond belief. During the 2013 crash test programme undertaken by Euro NCAP (the intergovernmental and consumer car safety organisation), the Qoros 3 Sedan achieved the highest overall score of all cars tested. It is the first car developed in China to be awarded a five-star rating, with exceptional results across the adult occupant protection (95%), child occupant protection (87%), pedestrian protection (77%) and active safety systems (81%) categories. In a rare public comment on the organisation’s test result, Michiel van Ratingen,…

The alloy wheel designs of Qoros cars follow the rule of three. Every wheel contains something that appears in groups of three. For the “elegant” Qoros 3 Sedan, each spoke was made up of three elements presented in a conventional two-dimensional plane. For this year’s newcomer, the Hatch, a “dynamic” and three-dimensional interpretation is employed, with each spoke of the 18-inch design exhibiting three holes (red image). And, as the schematic shows, there are other possibilities for the future: rims could be designed on three surfaces, for example, or there could be “a mix”, say the designers. This is intriguing, but for the moment that’s all they’re saying. Per i cerchi delle sue vetture Qoros segue la “regola del 3”. In ogni ruota, infatti, c’è qualcosa che appare a gruppi…

Qoros’s achievements include producing the first always-connected “social car”, the first that makes avaiable a host of information at your fingertips even when you are not in the car. Credit for this goes to QorosQloud. “It is one of the most advanced automotive systems today for comprehensive integration with the digital world,” says Stefano Villanti, Executive Director of Sales and Marketing. “The whole experience has been engineered and defined not only for life on board, where information has to be simple and readily available, but for outside the car too through a website and smartphone app for complete monitoring of the car.” The advantages and possibilities offered by QorosQloud are both surprising and immediately appreciable. Actions that have become part of everyday life, like consulting a map online, shopping online…

In his long career as a car designer, Gert Hildebrand has developed a network of colleagues and friends with whom he has never lost touch and with whom his relationship is one of mutual esteem. “Many of them are real artistic talents in addition to being highly experienced designers,” comments Hildebrand, who asked four of them, out of friendship, to develop a work of art for the Geneva Show: an original take on the Qoros brand which confirms the company’s globally friendly approach. Nella sua lunga carriera di car designer Gert Hildebrand ha sviluppato una rete di colleghi amici con cui è in contatto da sempre, in un rapporto di stima reciproca. «Molti di loro sono dei veri talenti artistici, oltre che designer di grande esperienza», osserva Hildebrand, che ha…

Gert Hildebrand, Executive Director of Global Design for Qoros, is based in Shanghai even though he is often to be found in his Munich studio. Heading up the design team working in the Chinese city, however, is Tim Pilsbury who is also responsible for all Qoros interiors, although there is no precise exteriors-interiors distinction between Munich and Shanghai. “One of our designers was originally working in marketing before we arrived,” recalls Hildebrand. “But we later welcomed her into our design team. And she brought other people with her. Then Tim Pilsbury arrived, and two others with him. Now there’s no problem finding good designers: they know about us now, they know Qoros is expanding fast, and we receive a constant stream of job applications”. Just like Munich, the Shanghai design…

Who would ever have thought that one day ants and silk worms would be used to solve the problems of clogged city roads? Such a possibility emerges from the SRS (Silk Road System) project which Qoros presented in the tenth edition of the Los Angeles Auto Show Design Challenge. Imagining traffic saturation in a Shanghai which in 2025 will have 30 million inhabitants, the Chinese manufacturer’s designers conceived an ingenious little vehicle with the theme “Biomimicry & Mobility 2025”. As project leader, Tim Pilsbury, explains, the variable density structure of the vehicle, made of 3D printed modules connected to a stress-bearing framework, has been borrowed from the silk worm and its cocoons, as well as inevitably calling to mind the ancient Chinese Silk Road. It is a cocoon which, in…

After its world premiere at the Geneva International Motor Show in 2013, Qoros’s debut in China came a month later at the Shanghai Auto Show. Then in November 2013, Qoros also set out its stall at the Guangzhou Auto Show, where vehicles from the assembly line were displayed for the first time, on a stand that was three times larger than its stand at Geneva. It provided an opportunity to celebrate the maximum five star rating obtained by the Qoros 3 Sedan in the Euro NCAP test – and in doing so became the first car to have acheved such an accolade. Says Gert Hildebrand with some pride: “Many of our competitors were really surprised.” Dopo il lancio mondiale al salone internazionale di Ginevra, l’esordio di Qoros in Cina è…

C'è stata un'epoca in cui Detroit era sinonimo di innovazione nel settore automobilistico: catene di montaggio mobili, trasmissioni automatiche, servosterzo, autoradio, aria condizionata…l'elenco prosegue interminabile fino a interrompersi, qualcosa come quarant'anni fa. Quest'anno Detroit ha riportato l'innovazione nell'industria mondiale. Per decenni, il veicolo più venduto in America è stato il pick-up F-150 Ford. Agli americani piace che i loro pickup abbiano linee simili anno dopo anno, ed ecco perché i nuovissimi pick-up Chevrolet/GMC 2014 sono pressoché indistinguibili dai precedenti. All'improvviso, nell'annuncio in assoluto più importante pronunciato a Detroit, Ford ha dato corso a un cambiamento radicale: sia la cabina che la piattaforma di carico dell'F-150 sono ora in alluminio, con una riduzione di peso di circa 320 kg rispetto ai pickup tradizionali in acciaio. Questi veicoli Ford, grazie al motore…

Not every car can be deemed an automotive icon. Fewer still ever make it to see their 50th anniversary. The Ford Mustang is one of those rare vehicles that achieved both of those milestones, and its now entering its sixth generation. “The challenging part was to attract a new younger generation of Mustang customers to carry the brand forward without forgetting today’s diehard enthusiasts,” says Joel Piaskowski, Ford’s North American director of exterior design at the start of the project. Before the design work began, customers were asked how they perceived the Mustang over its then 47-year history. This yielded three images that provided the basis for the exterior theme: a fist punching through glass called ‘breaking out’; an image of a black panther coined ‘power and control’; and one…

With the new C-Class, Mercedes adds another significant piece to its well established design philosophy founded on concepts such as “sensual purity” and “modern luxury”. The most striking thing about the new arrival from Sindelfingen is how it introduces solutions to the mid-sized class which, until now, had been the exclusive preserve of the full-sized luxury sedan. “We have invented the upper class, bringing the S-Class segment quality into the C-Class segment – agrees Mercedes design chief Gorden Wagener – by following the rules of our design language: above all, the concept of sensual purity, which defines modern luxury. After the S and the E, the C – which contributes to re-establishing Mercedes identity in this segment, as Bruno Sacco first did in the 1980s – also participates in redefining…

Looking at this bike takes you back to the years between the 1980s and ‘90s, when the sports 125 segment offered a choice of bikes that were good-looking, well put together and boasted performance to match. The KTM RC 125 bears the traits of the bold personality of its full grown sibling, the RC8 R 1190. Developed in collaboration with Kiska Design, an independent studio which, over the past decade, has become the de facto style centre of KTM (for the past few years, the studio has also been responsible for product launches, public relations and producing press material for the brand), the bike has personal and boldly courageous looks. “The La RC 125”, explains Sébastien Stassin, Managing Partner and head of Transportation Design, “was conceived specifically for sixteen year…

‘Design and Sustainability’ is the title of the degree thesis that fifth semester students at the Fh-Joanneum University of Applied Science in Graz were asked to develop for the “Volkswagen E-Luxury” project as part of the course in Industrial Design. Their objective was to design a luxury car for Volkswagen as it might be in 2030, driven by an engine running on alternative energy. Starting from an analysis of the luxury sector and of mobility using the car, a number of future scenarios were defined, a point of departure to develop the various proposals prepared by the students, working in teams or individually. The heart of the project was the creation of the interior architecture, making innovative use of materials and new ways of interfacing and interacting with the car.…

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One year after its Geneva debut, Qoros’s design strategy has not changed. “It couldn’t be simpler,” insists design chief Gert Hildebrand. “It is elegant and pure.” And he adds: “Then again it wouldn’t be too professional if a new motor manufacturer were to change its styling strategy after barely a year.” No change, then, but if anything: evolution. It’s an evolution in which unifying elements can be found, such as the split-frame grille, applied to a hatchback and to more models in the future. To those who comment that the Qoros 3 Sedan – and now the Qoros 3 Hatch as well – looks a bit German, he replies cheerfully: “It’s a style that is very popular in China.” And in any case, he adds, “There are none of the…

A year ago, it was the Qoros 3 Sedan. Now, at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, it’s the Qoros 3 Hatch. One year on and Qoros is pushing forward with its ambitious development programme. Deliveries of the Qoros 3 Sedan are underway in China and these will soon be followed by deliveries of the dynamic Hatch which will be produced in the same Changshu plant about 80 kilometres north-west of Shanghai. The new car retains the same wheelbase as the Sedan, but with a significant 177mm reduction in the rear overhang, which cuts the overall length to a mere 4.44 metres. A loss of elegance? “No,” says an adamant Gert Hildebrand, Qoros’ Executive Director of Design. “The elegance remains because the car’s design language remains the same. It is simply…

An international brand located in Shanghai, Qoros broke on to the automative scene as something different right from the start, determined to stand out. “That’s why we have called our positioning concept ‘New Premium’”, says Jamie Ahn, head of Qoros Branding & Advertising: “Our aim was to offer vehicles whose engineering is on a par or superior to our competitors from every standpoint, starting with the Europeans who produce in China.” Other strong points are the perceived interior quality resulting from the generous space available, like a car from a higher segment, and the introduction of an advanced digital interface that is standard on all models. “We have identified the three cornerstones of our New Premium concept as a Relentless Pursuit of Quality, Enduring Elegance and Beyond Driving”, continues Ahn.…

Just imagine having a whole lot of little building blocks in your hands, like those that children play with in their early years. Don’t worry about the fact that these cubes are not made of wood or plastic but of aluminium and, above all, that they don’t have a regular geometric shape (like a cube should) but are all in varying dimensions. Now try to fit them all together, despite their different shapes and sizes. That’s what Qoros designers do for every new model. It’s the procedure they actually call “cubing”; and all told it’s the passport to quality. Because once these strange aluminium “cubes” have been assembled you have a complex part of the car. It is there that the real work starts, when design and function are evaluated…

Personalisation becomes an added value when it integrates harmoniously into the body of a vehicle, without altering forms or adding weight and, above all, without betraying the spirit and formal coherence of the model. The design work involved in a personalisation package like those displayed on the Qoros 3 Sedan “Style Accessories Concept” therefore means a major design effort, particularly for the exterior designers. “The enhancements give the car a more resolute, bolder look. The elements making up the personalisation package make the car different in terms of increased dynamism”, explains Philipp Eberl, head of Qoros exteriors. The most evident features are in the rear such as the pronounced spoiler and bumpers (with integrated exhausts at the rear), the noticeably reduced quantity of chrome surfaces at the front – particularly…

“A city that never sleeps, a bit like New York was fifty years ago.” That irrepressible drive is certainly one of the reasons behind Gert Hildebrand’s intense love affair with Shanghai. After arriving in the city three years ago to take the design helm of newly formed Qoros, this German who is universally considered a “force of nature” but who calls himself “a provincial from a serene rural background”, is carried away by the pace of everyday life in this corner of China, something he calls a succession of “days in the fast lane.” “What strikes you about Shanghai,” he explains, “is its enormous diversity of cultures and social classes, in addition to its ability to be truly international. You have the streets where ordinary people live and the small…

So young and already so famous. Qoros has received more than twenty awards in its first year of life, the Qoros 3 Sedan naturally banking the lion’s share. From design to innovation, from safety to value-for-money, the new brand has won trophies across the board, some of them illustrated on this page (here, Stefano Villanti, Executive Director of Sales and Marketing with the Auto World prize for The Most Elegant Design Model). Così giovane, e già così celebrata. Sono oltre venti i riconoscimenti assegnati a Qoros nel suo primo anno di vita, con la Qoros 3 Sedan, naturalmente, nel ruolo di protagonista. Dal design all’innovazione, dalla sicurezza al controvalore, il nuovo brand ha ricevuto trofei a tutto campo, alcuni dei quali illustrati in questa pagina (qui a lato, Stefano Villanti,…

Ever since its foundation, Qoros design has elected to work with design schools, stimulating a transfer of creativity with students. Last year the theme of the Talents programme, in collaboration with the Coventry School of Art and Design, was sportiness and two scale models, a saloon and a coupé, were developed. This year, the exercise was repeated with the University of Munich. The 15 students from the Transportation Design course led by Prof. Dr. Othmar Wickenheiser were asked to combine safety and comfort in a Qoros sedan with the “rude” look of a SUV, so giving birth to an energetic but linear off-road creation. Carried out during the first term of 2013/2014, the project put students to work on a 1:4 scale tape rendering to optimise the definition of the…