Table of contents for No. 248 in AUTO & DESIGN

“A new mobility experience for the next generation”. This is how SangYup Lee greets the birth of the electric SUV with which Hyundai kicks off the new brand: Ioniq, dedicated from now to the holy grail of zero emissions. Here, then, is the Ioniq 5, of which we already had a taste with the 45 concept presented at Frankfurt in 2019, before Covid-19 turned car manufacturers’ plans upside down. Next year, it will be time for Ioniq 6, the sporty sedan that is the heir to the Prophecy concept seen at the beginning of 2020 before the world went into lockdown. SangYup Lee is Head of Hyundai Global Design Center: “Without giving into the temptation of Retro”, he explains, “we have taken inspiration from the Pony, designed by Giugiaro with…

Compact SUVs have achieved a level of success to exceed the wildest dreams of even the pioneers of the segment. First conceived by Nissan in 2007, the Qashqai is now in its third generation, with sales of more than five million units since its launch, and a completely new look from the Nissan London style centre headed by Matthew Weaver. While there were no competitors at the time of its debut, there are now more than 20, enough to give the designers cause for concern: no mistakes allowed. So they started from the ground up: underlying the Qashqai is the new CMF-C platform of the Renault-Nissan alliance, which has allowed the designers to increase interior space without disrupting overall proportions, and the engineers to install hybrid-only powertrains. "We wanted the…

The EQS’s journey started long ago. Mercedes-Benz’s first electric flagship is the result of a synthesis of global ideas: “The study of the exterior began with the F015 concept car, which was unveiled at the Los Angeles Motor Show in 2015,” says Steffen Kohl, Director Advanced Exterior Design at Mercedes-Benz since 2008, speaking from the Stuttgart headquarters. “The goal of that project was the research of innovative and futuristic shapes in order to define a highly innovative, zero-emission flagship. An internal competition between all our design studios, including China, the United States and Europe, began immediately afterwards, leading to the final design.” The designers worked on EVA, an open platform reserved exclusively for electric models, which allowed them to achieve out-of-the-box proportions. The absence of the thermal combustion engine resulted…

On first leafing through this book published by ASI Service - the Automotoclub Storico Italiano publishing house - you’re almost inevitably struck by the temptation to go straight to the central pages, dedicated to a “Photographic Interlude” that gathers images of the era and splendid works by the protagonist. When it comes to Giorgetto Giugiaro, it’s always the drawings that speak first. The text, on the other hand, written by Giosuè Boetto Cohen will charm and surprise the reader; Cohen has collected the confidences of the protagonist, transforming them into a captivating novel. It’s a story of success told from the start, when the young Giorgetto of the title, and of the self-portrait on the cover, still had not started that exceptional career that would lead to his being recognised…

Changan races towards the future. It does so with the models of the UNI family, which focus on the latest technologies and a new stylistic language to make inroads into the hearts of Chinese drivers, increasingly immersed in an active and hi-tech lifestyle. The first car of the UNI family, the UNI-T presented at the beginning of 2020, is now joined by the UNI-K, a large SUV that aims to maintain a sleek and dynamic appearance. The car is designed to meet the needs of a family, without sacrificing its visual and driving appeal. In short, the UNI-K aims to combine versatility and emotions: key concepts for the Changan designers, as Chen Zheng, Chairman of Changan European Designing Center, COO and Spokesman of Chongqing Changan Automobile, explains: “What does UNI…

Electric spirit and sporty personality. The X Concept offers the sustainable luxury of Genesis in the guise of a high-performance 2+2 electric GT coupé embodying the Korean brand’s ideal of audacity and progress with dynamic proportions, crisp volumes and a muscularity that conveys sportiness and power. "The Genesis X can be described as the ultimate vision of 'athletic elegance', the Genesis design language", says SangYup Lee, Head of Genesis Global Design Center. "The distinctive 'two lines' theme that gives rise to the body and the sustainable luxury represented by this concept will be the blueprint for the design of our future models, as well as state-of-the-art technologies", he continues. The image of the Genesis X is sophisticated and neat, with its long bonnet, pulled-back cabin and short rear end displaying…

February 14, 2020: in a warehouse in the district of Fuchizaki, a few kilometres from the centre of Hiroshima, a big blue canvas is lifted to reveal a prototype with angular lines, a bit beaten up but basically intact. Nobuhiro Yamamoto, an engineer who has been with Mazda since 1973 and has been responsible for developing the MX-5 since the second generation, is over the moon: he has just rescued from oblivion a creation that fans have not been able to enjoy for almost forty years and which, after being restored in Italy by Superstile, will make a fitting conclusion to the brand’s centenary celebrations. Generating all the enthusiasm are not just dynamism and purity, conceptually in step with the stylistic canons of today’s production, that steers clear of the…

The goal isn’t a modest one: “We want ours to become a centre of excellence, capable of producing motorbikes that conquer the world. This is why we need talented designers to come knock on our door. Who wants to embark on this journey with us”? The door in question is that of the mythical Norton: and the invitation to designers passionate about two-wheelers comes from Simon Skinner who has been its head of design for twelve years, after seven with Triumph. “We’ve had a tempestuous year”, he says, “but now the future is on our side”. The storm, at the beginning of 2020, is called receivership. After some difficult years, and various changes of ownership, the company, which was launched in 1898 by James Lansdowne Norton and was a leader…

About himself he said: "For Citroën and Renault, I composed the score while conducting the orchestra". Robert Opron, never-to-be-forgotten creator of many historic icons of French motoring and of the aura of creativity that emanated from them, passed away on 29 March 2021 at the age of 89. Just thirteen days later, by a strange quirk of fate, the Double Chevron presented its intriguing new C5X flagship, inspired in its name and silhouette by certain features of Opron’s CX of 1974. Born on 22 February 1932 in Amiens, Opron’s career was closely tied up with a number of key milestones in the development of concepts for four-wheelers in Europe, well beyond his crucial relationship with Flaminio Bertoni (for whom he completed the famous restyling of the DS in 1967). After…

It would be extremely reductive to say that the Raptor is an American pick-up. It is much more: a pick-up, yes, but for racing, devised for competitions on the expanses of the Baja California Desert, perhaps also with the Dakar in mind. It is a desert racer, but one that Ehab Kaoud, head of pick-up design, claims is “in technical matters, ranged in the same class as a Ford GT or any other supercar”. A “beast” with very high performance, in short, the child of that Ford Performance that represents the crown jewel of the American manufacturer. With the third generation, which will go into production in the next few months, Ford intends to confirm, if not the uniqueness, its supremacy in this highly specialised slice of the market. “The…

Automotive technology is in a state of upheaval. In the field of human machine interface (HMI), the increasing interaction between vehicles, users, and the Internet results in an increment of controls needed, which ultimately has a negative impact on usability and overall car weight. An interdisciplinary team of researchers has been developing for the past two years more intuitive and lighter in-car user interfaces through smart textiles at Reutlingen University. With the newly developed operating and feedback properties, a 1:1 demonstrator was realized and then integrated into a car driving simulator (Figure 1). Within the team, industrial design was first responsible for providing a user-friendly human-machine link that combined optimal physical matching with intuitive information transfer, and second, it was in charge of developing a visually appealing product by assigning…

Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder, or are there actually clear rules behind a composition that visually satisfies us? Thus questioning the subjectivity of aesthetic judgement that is usually assumed, Carlo Bonzanigo, with his extensive experience and broad culture in car design, begins his essay dedicated to the importance that the perception of beauty has always held in the relationship between the human being and the car. The author immediately declares that he belongs to the school of thought according to which, excluding the parameters that can influence the observer’s judgement, “there is a nucleus of objective rules to which every aesthetic creation that provokes visual gratification in the observer refers”. Thus begins a journey analysing the role of emotions in the artistic act and in our…