Table of contents for No. 189 in AUTO & DESIGN

As a brand with over a century of history, the most recent two decades of which marked by one success after another, Škoda is now ready to capitalise on its heritage with a new formal language. A glimpse of what the future models in the range will look like is offered by the VisionD concept presented this year at Geneva, as explained by the brand’s director of design Josef Kaban. “While this car does not necessarily prefigure a production model, it is the manifesto of our new design direction and also conveys the consolidated values of the brand: simplicity, functionality, precision and generous interior space.” To embody these qualities and present the brand’s new design language, the designers opted for a five-door architecture “because it’s a Škoda, meaning that it…

Among Renault’s four electric vehicle projects, Twizy is the most specific and uncompromising. It is not a derivative of an existing model, nor a regular car (with electric traction) by traditional judgement. So from the outset, creating Twizy was a challenge from whatever angle it is seen. Not the least by those who were briefed to come up with an appropriate design for what is referred to as an urban vehicle: compact with real car features. “It was a challenge indeed,” says Eric Diemert, project leader of Twizy design. “We were asked to come up with the smallest car possible on a totally new architecture which included electric propulsion. Our target was to create a kind of vehicle concept between a scooter and a car. To achieve that, we wanted…

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Milan Furniture Show. Founded in 1961 as an initiative by the Federlegno Arredo furniture manufacturer association, it has been organised since then by Cosmit (‘Comitato organizzatore del Salone del Mobile italiano’ – the Italian Furniture Show Organising Committee). The driving idea for its creation was to provide the country’s furniture manufacturing system with an internationally visible showcase to present the design excellence of the sector and to generate economic, commercial and communication opportunities. Over the years, the Furniture Show has grown in both size and scope. Alongside the expo itself, two other significant events have also sprung up: Salone Satellite – which offers space to new generations of designers and international schools – and Fuori Salone, consisting of numerous initiatives in different…

The automotive brands taking part in the Milan Furniture Show chose the city to convey some of the most innovative concepts they are currently developing and to dialogue with the industrial design world through installations in which the most attentiong-rabbing element of all is light. After illuminating Via Spiga in February for the fashion week, Citroën called upon the French designer Ora Ito – renowned for his visionary approach and flair for communication – to adorn Via Montenapoleone with special light installations inspired by the brand’s logo. The brand also supported the organiser of the furniture show Cosmit in realising an open air exhibition dedicated to emerging designers, with objects on display in the windows of the shops along the street. BMW and Flos occupied the square adjacent to the…

Strategic design looks at a product system, namely the set of products, services and communication through which a business markets itself and shows its face in society. Transportation design abounds in constraints related to feasibility and sustainability. Combining these two subjects in a single design project can be an adventurous experience. And indeed a group of students from the first year of the Strategic Design course of Umea University took part in an exciting educational adventure during the 10 weeks of a project done in cooperation with Saab. Every student had to develop a vehicle concept that was a sort of compromise between the values of the Scandinavian car brand and the characteristics of the non-automotive brand that had been assigned to them from: Nespresso, Gillette, Quatar Airways, H&M, Apple,…

The Picanto has added “New” to its name. Kia is reaffirming its presence in segment A with a new generation of the Picanto (launched in 2004 and revisited in 2007) one of whose strongpoints is its styling. With its form developed by the European design team led by Peter Schreyer, the New Picanto faithfully copies the lines of the clay model seen last December at the Bologna Motorshow and comes to the market – now also in a 3-door version – with a strong personality that combines dynamism and brand image. The dimensions have grown: 3.6 metres long with a wheelbase of 2.4; the Cx, however, is down to 0.31 after its association with clean engine units: a new 1.0 three cylinder, petrol or GPL, and a 1.2 4-cylinder. The…

China figures increasingly often in the future plans of Western carmakers, not only because it is the world’s largest market, but also because it is a prime showcase for presenting new models. Launching new models here always makes the headlines, and there was a surprisingly large number of European and American cars making their first appearance at the 2011 edition of the Shanghai motor show. There has been a shift of focus away from the world’s more established motor shows, and there is no longer one single hub – as Volkswagen demonstrated by unveiling the third generation Beetle simultaneously in Shanghai, Berlin and New York. “We chose Shanghai because it is a city that looks to the future, a new centre of gravity for avantgarde trends and technologies” said president…

Audi has decided to add a decidedly sporty, high tech saloon variant to the forthcoming new A3 family. This is no derivative, however, but a model in its own right. Two concept versions – in other terms lower, wider and more exaggerated than the production model, in true showcar style – have already been revealed of the car: one at Geneva, with a 408 bhp petrol engine promising great things for the potential performance future of the car, and named simply ‘A3 concept’, and a hybrid variant at Shanghai, offering a glimpse into the four-ringed brand’s powertrain developments and tagged ‘A3 e-tron concept’. The latter differs from the former essentially in the grille (which has narrower and more numerous horizontal strakes), in the multispoke 20” rims (the A3 Concept has five-spoke…

There is an almost universal tendency for popular public events to grow as they evolve, their organizers embracing the old idea that “if some is good, then more is better.” Unfortunately, that often leads to chaos as the expanded event becomes unwieldy, too grandiose to be apprehended easily. That has happened to many of the “elegance contests” for cars, where spectators are called upon to admire hundreds of different machines. But the oldest of them all, the Concorso d’Eleganza at the Villa d’Este, has been saved from that fate by simple, immutable physical limits. There is room for no more than fifty cars to be judged, and as no one has the least desire to cut down a centuries-old tree or bulldoze a terrace, the only way to advance is to…

Identifying a common theme among the many proposals from young designers at this year’s Milan Furniture Show is no easy task. One interesting indicator is the increase in proposals tackling the great questions of today’s lifestyle. There appears to be a conviction that good design may in some way offer a solution to a world in crisis – a world in which the damaging consequences of a development model based on constant growth have, in recent years, become apparent. The paths explored as a result of this belief range from collective and interactive projects, which make particular use of networks and open source technologies, to the definition of alternative production and distribution processes, such as combining self-production with on-demand, online sales, and from research into low environmental impact materials to…

With the Hansa Edition special tap collection for the Stuttgart-based manufacturer, Bruno Sacco – working with Reinhard Zetsche – has successfully breathed new life into a traditional technical object, turning it into a small, functional sculpture expressing the theme of water. Since 2001, the car design legend Sacco (he joined Daimler Benz in 1958, was head of Mercedes design from 1987 to 1999 and learnt the ropes working with Ghia and Pininfarina), has been a design consultant for the German company, which celebrates its centennial this year. Coincidentally, in its distant past, Hansa also produced components for Mercedes, such as the famous three pointed star. “As a young designer I maintained that design was a function of function! As an old designer, many decades later, I developed a much less…

The OGR (Officine Grandi Riparazioni - ‘Large Mechanical Repairs Workshops’) in Turin was the setting chosen by Anfia together with the president of the car coachbuilder’s association Leonardo Fioravanti to celebrate the centenary of the association itself – a day-long event coinciding with the larger scale celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. The initiative consisted of an exhibition dedicated to Italian car design, with some of the most recent concept cars created by the companies belonging to the association showcased during a convention titled “The weight of ideas: the unbearable lightness of being … creative. “This is an important and relevant celebration – especially in such a critical period for our sector and in an era in which the automotive industry is changing continuously, and in…

Dubbed the most important edition to date – not only because it coincides with the centenary of the brand but also for the sheer number of institutes (155 in all) taking part - this year’s Young Creative Chevrolet competition called on European applied arts schools to develop the theme of the brand’s birthday in the five disciplines Fashion, Video, Music, Photography and Visual Arts. From the 57 projects submitted, the Italian panel – with Eleonora Carisi (You Shop), Marta Cinti (Auto&Design), Alberto Coretti (Urban), Paolo Crespi (freelance journalist), Marco Danzi (Sonikawebradio), Graziano Espen (Carshow), Emiliano Fava (Truly Design), Giuseppe Gandolfo (Mediaset), Paolo Lavezzari (Vogue Italia), Luca Ponzi (RAI), Francesco Rapone (DJ) and Silvia Vada (Mediaset) – chose the following winners: for the Fashion category, Giulia Caserta from the Istituto Secoli,…

Lexus stands for luxury, technology and (with hybrid variants offered across almost the entire range) environmental awareness, with a distinct aesthetic personality for each model in the range. The most dramatic expression of this is the LFA (in photo above), a full-blooded 2 seat supercar with a bodyshell in carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP), a 530 bhp, 4.8 litre V10 engine, a sequential semi-automatic gearbox, rear wheel drive, a top speed of 325 Km/h and the ability to sprint from 0 to 100 Km/h in just 3.7 seconds. Lexus is only going to build 500 examples of the car – all of which are already booked by clients all over the world. Its designers have given it a strong and audacious personality, with flat surfaces, curved lines, sharp creases and…

This was one of the most popular concepts at the recent Shanghai show. If, as they say in Italy, you can tell it’s going to be a good day from the dawn, then the future looks bright for Icona – a joint venture created in Turin but with its operational headquarters in Shanghai, as the brand targets the burgeoning Chinese market and aims for a share of its projected capacity of 18 million cars a year. The dawn in question is called Fuselage, a name that speaks volumes about the aerodynamic ambitions and aeronautical inspiration for its design. Samuel Chuffart, who designed this electric supercar envisaged both with or without an internal combustion engine generator to increase range, speaks in terms of “a design language in which fluid, sensual forms are…

The fifth instalment in the story of the MILA (Magna Innovative Lightweight Auto) concept family by Magna Steyr encapsulates the spirit of the maxim ‘less is more’. Named Aerolight, it is a proposal for a four-seater car for the A segment with a clean methane-burning engine, fresh, sporty styling and built using aeronautically derived materials and technologies making it possible to keep the weight under 700 kilos. The concept sends a message and a challenge out to a segment that is growing rapidly in Europe and caters for an increasingly varied demographic with a progressively broader spectrum of needs. “The development of the car”, explains Magna Steyr chief designer Andreas Wolfsgruber, “began in summer 2010, and was organised as a competition between four of our designers. The concept chosen was by…

A new tradition. The 2011 edition of the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este included, for the first time in the history of the event (which was first hosted in 1929), a ‘Competition and Exhibition’ section dedicated to motorcycles. Over thirty models built from as early as 1910 paraded through the beautiful park of Villa Erba, drawing a large crowd of spectators. “Riding a motorcycle”, explained Karl Baumer of the BMW Group, “is associated with independence and freedom, so we would be making a mistake if we simplistically defined the function of this vehicle as a ‘means of transport’: very early on, motorcycle manufacturers were already combining style and engineering, creating fantastic examples of design.” And there were indeed a number of magnificent examples among the entries in the competition, which was…

A number of interesting examples of new research in design are coming out of Germany where, through small scale and self production, designers from both Germany itself and elsewhere are developing innovative and useful concepts. Most of the concepts address the issue of the environment and – above all – how to reuse organic material in industrial processes. Werner Aisslinger, for example, collaborated with the chemical giant BASF to develop a monobloc cantilever chair made almost entirely from natural fibres and a water based resin binder. The production process uses compression moulding technology – the same technique used in the automotive industry to manufacture internal components such as glove compartments, door panels and other parts – which lends rigidity and self-supporting structural strength to a simple sheet of material. The…

Without losing sight of the fact that design is also a part of the production process, and of the key role of the professional designer in the conception and improvement of objects, with Design Download, Droog proposes and establishes new approaches and business models for every player involved in the production and distribution chain. The Dutch company has developed a user-friendly web-based platform with a simple interface which – through a network of manufacturers chosen on the basis of the requisites of each case – allows users to create and personalise objects, home, fashion and food accessories, and even architecture. Simple IT tools compatible with all computers give users the opportunity to define their own projects, which may then be realised directly by local manufacturers in a choice of materials.…

The Maserati GranTurismo we know today was designed by Pininfarina to combine sportiness with comfort for four occupants. The result is a stunning twodoor coupé, with the bodywork stretched so tightly over the mechanicals that it almost looks like a close fitting garment. Taut lines and muscular volumes express the dynamism and performance of the car from every perspective. But what aesthetic innovations could be introduced by a redesign of the car a decade from now? And what aspects of the current design would be maintained? These and many other questions crossed the minds of the students of the Master’s in Transportation & Automobile Design at Milan Polytechnic as they set to work on a brief asking them to imagine new visions of the GranTurismo for 2020. The project, which…

The name stays the same, but everything else has changed. With the new Aveo, Chevrolet’s B segment offering has evolved in every aspect from style and interior to platform and powertrains. The car is initially offered with a 1.2 litre petrol (in 70 and 86 bhp variants) and a 1.4 litre, 100 bhp petrol, which will be joined later by a 1.3 litre turbodiesel. The composition of the range itself has also changed, and now consists of a 5 door hatchback measuring 4039 mm in length and a 4 door sedan measuring 360 mm longer. It is clear how the designers have worked hard to give the car a dynamic, almost sporty look and an unmistakable family resemblance with other models in the range. This was a path chosen right…

Saying “Cadillac” means evoking one of America’s most prestigious brands, one which since its very earliest days has pursued the loftiest of goals in terms of luxury, performance, comfort, and safety, binding everything together into a clear-cut styling imprint. This imprint we also find in the new AWD range aimed at European markets that is now being distributed by General Motors Europe. The range goes from the CTS Sedan, Station Wagon and Coupé (V6 3.0-3.6 and V8 6.2 engines) to the SRX crossover (V6 3.0 engine); there then comes the big Escalade SUV (V8 6.2 engine) that is also available in a hybrid variation with V8 6.0 and electric power units. Styling for all models has been done wholly in the USA while some of the production is being carried…