Table of contents for No. 229 in AUTO & DESIGN

Showcasing the future of technology, consumer electronics and design. As in previous years, this January too there was no lack of news issuing from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, even though the sensation, wandering around the stands, was that of a general flat lining of the digital industry towards commodities or niche objects such as drones. Not to be missed, as is now traditional, cars, which these days can be looked on almost as devices given the masses of technology surrounding them, and today’s narrative made up of autonomous drive cars and improbable flying auto-drones. And it was precisely in automotive technology that the best design things were to be seen, understanding design as the graphic interface as well. And here Mercedes stands out with its Nevada which…

The most difficult challenge, says Shao Jingfeng, was to enter into the spirit of the British icon MG, the brand acquired by the Chinese giant SAIC a decade or so ago. While the first generation, presented in 2010, did not meet up to expectations, SAIC design chief Shao now feels very optimistic. The MG6 family, presented last November at the Guangzhou show, follows the same sedan format as its predecessor, albeit with substantially more imposing proportions, and is also offered as a plug-in hybrid variant, while an all-electric and an SUV inspired variant will follow shortly. The MG6 family sports a design language, which Shao himself describes as “emotional dynamism”, inspired by a number of European styling cues and which echoes certain distinctive traits of the original MGA and, in…

Head of Nissan’s European style centre and a company man for over thirty years, Mamoru Aoki speaks with the restrained precision and austere calmness typical of Japanese designers. Occasionally, however – in another typical trait of those harking from his extraordinary homeland – the discretion of his discourse is punctuated by an unexpected glimmer of the passion he feels for his job. The celebrations for the fifteenth anniversary of the London-based centre directed by him, held in January this year, offered a delightful chance to listen to him express this passion: “The Juke and the two generations of the Qashqai represent a huge win for us, three international successes of which we are truly proud – also because they have since inspired, albeit indirectly, many other products. Our different design…

“You feel surrounded by incredible energy, the liveliness of young people approaching creativity is captivating”. This is what Paola Zini, who has succeeded Riccardo Balbo as director of the IED of Turin, had to say about her first impressions a few days after her appointment. President-in-Office of the Consortium of Savoy Royal Residences, she has long-standing experience of the world of culture and art, together with an across the board passion for design. Founder, in 2010, of Bold, the company that produces Operæ - International Fair of Independent Design, from 2006 to 2009 she was also director of the organising committee of World Design Capital Torino under the aegis of the World Design Organisation. “I have often encountered the world of training in my career, but this is the first…

Innovation and tradition are the polarities that distinguish recent Brazilian design, where in fact the former should not be understood as nostalgia or folklore, but experimentation bound up with the correct use of raw materials, in the first place wood, and the environmental question. The figures seem to confirm a moment of general Brazilian resurgence on international markets (high exports to the U.S., UK and Argentina, and in the EU area with the UK as the main market and Italy growing compared to recent years) that combines with the recent promotion of the capital to Unesco creative city for design, with the corollary of initiatives such as the VIVA Design curatorial project of Objeto Brasil dedicated to all aspects of design: from jewelry to furniture. Through the Brazilian Furniture Project…

Turin’s design houses are returning to the Geneva Motor Show, some for the first time, others confirming an attendance that has lasted for decades. Italdesign, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2018, is showing two vehicles on the stands of the Swiss Motor Show: the Zerouno Roadster and a concept that evolves the Pop.Up, the four-wheeled drone presented in Geneva last year in collaboration with Airbus. Pininfarina is unveiling the production version of its H2 Speed prototype and the HK GT, the fourth concept car it has developed together with the Hybrid Kinetic Group. GFG Style with the Sybilla, a four-seater electric saloon designed to celebrate Giorgetto Giugiaro’s eightieth birthday, also confirms its presence for the second consecutive year. Going to Geneva for the first time, by contrast, is Icona,…

“We are not premium, we are luxury”. With this premise, Gorden Wagener tells us how the Daimler Group’s design strategies are evolving. We met up with him at the beginning of the year in Detroit, where the latest generation G-Class had just been launched, and a few weeks after the official presentation of the new A-Class. The Group has four luxury brands, he explains, Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Maybach and Mercedes-EQ. “Luxury is what is the most desired at any given moment. We want to distance ourselves from premium, which our products do already with their price positioning, but also thanks to their different style. We will soon be holding a workshop on this subject". Mercedes-Benz, he continues, "has converted from traditional luxury to Modern Luxury. The A-Class was the iconic car…

The automotive industry has been evolving for a while now. With the design paradigm changing to include electrified, shared, intelligent and autonomous vehicles, car companies must adapt. What they choose to implement will greatly affect their business in the future. Leading the charge into the next era of design at BMW are Group design director Adrian van Hooydonk and BMW brand design director Jozef Kaban. While van Hooydonk has risen through the ranks at BMW since joining in 1992, Kaban only started his new role in October 2017, having spent his entire career working for VW Group brands. Both see the next phase as an opportunity. “From a psychological point of view, the fun, or this experience you have with the car, we want to keep it,” says Kaban. “It…

The midsize pickup truck segment is a significant one for North America, which has seen sales rise a staggering 83 percent since 2014. With competitors such as GM’s Chevrolet Colorado (and GMC Canyon) taking a piece of the pie, the Ford Ranger puts the American automaker back in the market. Designed under the direction of Todd Willing, Ford’s Asia-Pacific design director based in Australia, the new NA-spec Ranger is a heavily revised design based on the current generation truck sold in 180 worldwide markets. “We’ve based the design on all of the successful hard points of the Ranger that we know work competently for those other markets,” says Willing. “In the other markets we don’t have the F-150 and customer attitudes are a little different. It’s a vehicle that serves…

The secret, says Gorden Wagener, lies in "removing a line". That’s how the head of Daimler design, speaking of Mercedes-Benz’s new A-class, explains how "sensual purity 2.5" was achieved. This concept has been part of Mercedes’s design development for years: a purity of lines and surfaces that, through the contrast of "hot and cool", leads to the goal of "modern luxury". And if the previous A-Class expressed "sensual purity 1.0", it will be readily understood how far they have come along the road to reach today’s 2.5. “It’s pure, clean, compact, very sexy, and therefore very modern”. “It represents the evolution of our philosophy”, continues Wagener, “and has the right cards to be able to start a new era in design. With clean shapes and sensual surfaces, we showcase hi-tech…

Instrumentation repositioned in line with the driver’s visual axis, small, contoured steering wheel, multi-function touch screen at your fingertips. These are the three elements that define the ergonomic approach of the iCockpit with which, since 2012, Peugeot has been rewriting the architecture around the driver in over four million cars. Today, the creative horizon shifts its attention to the water in an operation shared with Benetau, the French nautical leader, which has generated an unusually interesting hybridisation of skills: the driving seat for Sea Drive Concept boats. “We started from considerations relating to layout of the controls and the driver’s operational references", explains Cathal Loughnane, head of Peugeot Design Lab, the independent structure that in Vélizy, within the PSA Research and Development Centre, acts autonomously as a design studio for…

Reformulating the visual grammar of one of Europe’s historically most innovative brands is a far from easy task, especially if you are implicitly forced to distance yourself from the refined, opulent codes of one of the most significant icons of the Maison, the eternal DS, to whose allure an entire independent brand is dedicated. This is the complex, but also colourful and stimulating picture which in 2012 led the company to attempt new frontiers of creativity on the first C4 Cactus, embellished by the signature airbumps and bearer of a cockpit conception (as well as chromatic customisations) completely new for the Double Chevron. Almost six years on, the second phase of the project is moving towards a firm but calibrated normalisation of the formal assumptions. “The context has completely changed”,…

When you pay a visit to a company like Mario Levi, founded in 1946 and historically the creator of some of the most acclaimed leather upholstery in the automotive world, you are struck by how tradition walks hand in hand with an unprecedented confidence in innovation. In 2016, during a meeting with Auto&Design at which managers and creatives outlined the company’s prospects and styling vision, they hinted at great developments for the future, at the price, however, of some bold investment. Two years on, the strategy has borne fruit: "With the expansion of the Chiampo plant and the opening of a new site at Zermeghedo, both in the Vicenza area, the production cycle takes place entirely within the company. This allows us to have all processes under our direct control”,…