Table of contents for 267 - July / August 2024 in AUTO & DESIGN

“We sell emotions and there are many of them in a combustion engine, even if hybridized.” Thus Miles Nurnberger, Design Director of Aston Martin, explains why the electrification programs of the English company have been slowed down and why, instead, in a few weeks a car will be presented – Vanquish, the name is an open secret – which will show off a V12 with 824 horsepower, the most powerful produced so far, potentially enough to induce James Bond to replace his old DB5. While waiting, here is the new Vantage. It has fewer horsepower - 665 delivered by its V8 - but they are still enough to express what is changing in Gaydon, that is, the balance between luxury and performance is increasingly altered in favor of the latter.…

Opel Grandland Design story For Opel, every new beginning in recent years has been marked by a high-wheel model. With the Crossland, the collaboration with Peugeot began, followed by the entry into PSA and then Stellantis, and with the Mokka (and before that the GT X Experimental concept car) the new styling course began with the début of the Vizor and the current philosophy based on the principles of “Modern German”, “Detox” and “Greenovation”. Today, with the new Grandland, the next phase begins. Once again the origin is a sporty concept car, the Experimental of 2023 (to which we dedicated an in-depth article in A&D no. 263, November/December 2023) and once again the new styling elements, such as the evolved Vizor with horizontal daytime running lights, the illuminated logo and the…

Volvo Trucks VNL Trucks&Design Volvo Trucks FH Aero We wonder how many top designers there are who, in order to do – as he says – “something that has never been done before,” abandon the glory of premium cars to dedicate themselves to heavy vehicles. We met Jonathan Disley ten years ago, when he was responsible for interior design at Volvo. Which is no small thing. His name came to the fore in the following years for a series of notable concepts from the Swedish company, the latest - at the end of the seven years spent at the helm of the Volvo design studio in Shanghai - the EM90 people wagon. We find him again in Gothenburg, where Mikael Gordh has become leader of Volvo Group Design, responsible for all the…

School IED Torino/Pagani Alisea Il fascino dell'eleganza unita alla vocazione sportiva. Così Pagani Alisea rende omaggio ai 25 anni della Zonda, l'iconica biposto disegnata da Horacio Pagani. La vettura - realizzata come prototipo in scala 1:1 - è stata disegnata, in collaborazione con i designer della casa modenese, dai 24 studenti del Master in Transportation Design dello IED Torino guidati dal coordinatore del corso Michele Albera e dal docente Masato Inoue. Alisea incarna la filosofia di Horacio Pagani, una ricerca continua ispirata al pensiero di Leonardo da Vinci che vede arte e scienza come “discipline che devono camminare insieme mano nella mano”. Nell'ambito della tesi del Master i giovani designer hanno affrontato ogni fase di progettazione come un vero centro stile, dagli sketch a mano libera fino alla realizzazione del modello…

Lancia Ypsilon Cover story Passion, revenge and pride. Three feelings that are rarely associated with a car or a brand, but in the case of the new Ypsilon they are more than appropriate. When in early 2021 Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, asked Luca Napolitano, CEO of Lancia, to present him with a plan for the rebirth of this legendary Italian brand, the design team set off at the speed of light. And so Jean-Pierre Ploué, Chief Design Officer of Stellantis, took on the task of giving Lancia a new stylistic life and called a number of the group's designers to the project with the aim of creating a team (now numbering 11 people) that would soon be walking on its own two feet. “Many people came expressly to ask me…

Opulence, abundance, technology, sustainability. Interpretations of luxury can be multiple, and Neolun, Genesis’ latest concept car, is linked to formal minimalism: “We asked ourselves what luxury meant for our brand. The answer? Simplicity of form combined with ideas that will make our passengers’ travel unforgettable”. Il Hun Yoon, head of Genesis design, and his team collected suggestions from those who already drive or ride the brand's flagship and turned their requests into a large electric luxury SUV with an imposing presence. “Why an SUV? It was the missing piece in our product portfolio: the G90 needed a big brother with high wheels”, continues Il Hun Yoon, who has led Genesis design since last November and has previously worked for high-end brands such as Bentley and Mercedes-Benz. “We conceived the exterior…

What better occasion than Milan Design Week to world premiere the new Audi Q6 e-tron SUV, a synonym of premium electric mobility, in one of the city's most accessible venues. The Audi House of Progress has returned to Portrait Milano's Piazza del Quadrilatero, completely redesigned by the ‘Reflaction’ installation of Danish architecture studio Bjarke Ingels Group. A reference to this done in scale, could be seen on Via Montenapoleone and at the University of Milan, in the context of Interni's Cross Vision exhibition-event. This renowned studio has transformed the square with a cross-shaped layout marking out four areas distinguished by function: a theatre for meetings, a lounge area, a zone to showcase research into the new generation of digital and segmented Oled lights, of particular relevance to the Audi Q6…

The world's leading car market, a strategic technology hub and home to dozens of new brands that have announced they are ready to expand abroad. China is now one of the key players in the automotive industry, and if at one time styling trends were almost the exclusive prerogative of Europe and the USA, today the People's Republic also has something to say. Strolling around the Beijing Auto Show 2024, it is clear that motor shows, a format that is struggling in the rest of the world, are thriving in China more than ever before. Countless young people live on WeChat, a Chinese social network with 1.2 billion users, reporting frantically on the latest products from brands that the rest of the world has often barely heard of. The variety…

“It's never less than exciting and inspiring to be able to examine these cars in detail and try to imagine what was going through the minds of the designers when they created them”. The Villa d'Este Concorso d'Eleganza is a must-attend event for car design enthusiasts and Adrian van Hooydonk, head of design at BMW Group, is no exception. “For the past ten years or so we have been creating concept cars for this event to make it even more exciting. We know that we have a very astute, very knowledgeable audience here who love cars and very probably have more than one in their garages”. The car unveiled this year is the Skytop Concept, a big roadster that van Hooydonk calls “a truly unique and exotic design that offers…

“A esthetic intelligence. This is how our philosophy can be defined, which blends innovative technology and progressive design, where aesthetics is never separated from functionality.” Mattijs van Tuijl, who is Studio Leader Internal Design at Audi, thus tries to explain what in his opinion is the biggest innovation of the latest addition to Ingolstadt, the Q6 e-tron, an electric SUV based on the PPE platform (Premium Platform Electric) developed in collaboration with Porsche. It is a platform, he explains, which has made it possible to design a car with a very long wheelbase (2.89 metres), short overhangs and good proportions, which Norbert Weber, Head of Interior Design, and Ulrich Beierlein, Team Leader Interior Design, needed in order to launch the new design philosophy which will also be adopted for other…

Founded in 1924, the now SAIC-owned British brand MG celebrates its centenary in 2024 with the MG EXE181 concept. This electric supercar was created by the Advanced Design Centre in London and the design team in Shanghai. The vision the car embodies is clear: while MG is focused on the future and electrification, it remains true to its heritage and DNA, forever synonymous with sportiness and speed. The very name of the concept, MG EXE181, conjures up the EX181, a car that in the late 1950s, at Bonneville, driven by champions of the calibre of Stirling Moss and Phil Hill, reached 410.5 km/h, setting a speed record that is still unbeaten 65 years later. The MG EXE181 also resembles the EX181 in appearance. It has in fact a raindrop shape…

The allure of elegance combined with a sporty vocation. This is how Pagani Alisea pays tribute to the 25th anniversary of the Zonda, the iconic two-seater designed by Horacio Pagani. Developed as a 1:1 scale prototype, the car was designed by the 24 students of the IED Turin Master course in Transportation Design led by course coordinator Michele Albera and lecturer Masato Inoue in collaboration with the designers of the Modena company. The Alisea is the epitome of Horacio Pagani's philosophy of constant research inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's idea that art and science are “disciplines that must walk hand in hand”. Within the context of the Master's course thesis, the young designers tackled each design phase as if they were part of a professional style centre, progressing from freehand…