Table of contents for 268 - September / October 2024 in AUTO & DESIGN

When automotive design starts to play around with materials and their huge range of expressive potential, it often finds itself focusing on interiors, on the multiplicity of surfaces capable of changing the relationship with the occupants, often by way of creating a warmer welcome and greater well-being. All that remains for the bodywork is to deck itself out in a new colour scheme, or in some cases to adorn itself with single recycled components. By contrast, with the “Sky is the limit” project, a BMW XM designed in Italy and displayed at the House of BMW in Milan, challenges traditional perceptions by redefining the way people interact with their car. Cloaked in a dark surface of surprising delicacy, soft to the touch and completely at odds with the notions of…

Looking to the future is never easy for a brand so firmly rooted in its history like Jeep. It is certainly necessary to evolve, but whilst respecting tradition: taking a leap into the future while remaining faithful to all those elements that have made the Toledo (Ohio) brand iconic over the years. This was the challenge that Jeep’s style centre was called to respond to in defining the lines of the new Wagoneer S, the brand’s first electric model. “It was a complex and very delicate job”, explains Vince Galante, Jeep’s vice president of exterior design. “Our history is rooted in the now distant 1949, and year after year we have always tried to develop the styling language, albeit in the name of continuity. With each new model we brought…

Drones that deliver all kinds of goods, including personalised drugs; industrial plants that print replacement organs; efficient vertical farming and ultra-short working weeks that can be completed from anywhere on the planet. These could be some glimpses of a hypothetical future that, with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and the availability of all related innovations, may not be that far away This scenario, hypothetically dated 2050, was the imaginative reference which the students of the Master in Transportation & Automobile Design at the Politecnico di Milano (directed by Prof. Fausto Brevi), organized in four teams and led by the professors of the Car Design Studio: Mario Antonelli (interiors), Marco Quamori Tanzi (exteriors) and Emilio Mario Favilla (coordination), used as a starting point to give form to an urban environment…

Don't make the mistake of saying that the latest addition to Lynk & Co, the Z10, is called Zee-ten. Oh, no: it’s called Zee-one-zero. Who knows, maybe it’s sexier. And perhaps it is better not to suggest to its designers that this Zee-one-zero is the straight commercial transposition of the splendid and innovative The Next Day concept presented two years ago (Auto&Design 256). The spirit is the same, they will admit, but the Z10 is a five-metre electric sedan (5.02, to be exact) while The Next Day was a compact and very sporty GT. “That one – says Stefan Rosén – was automotive haute couture, whereas this is an elegant sedan, whose style will last longer without that ‘wow’ effect that would have seemed too extreme to customers.” The Next…

With its latest lineup, including EVs, Kia has made significant progress in its quest to attain premium segment status. Renewal has mainly involved the top end of the range, with the launch of the EV9 that also inspired the recent update of the Sorento based on the "Opposites United" philosophy. In this vision, seemingly contrasting goals such as the pursuit of quality and sustainability, elegance and practicality blend with Kia's efforts to create a truly universal design language that cuts across markets, tastes and segments. A language that the new EV3 now aims to apply, along with the brand's ambitions, to the key compact SUV segment. Karim Habib, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Design at Kia since 2019 after filling top jobs at BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Infiniti, explained…

Hyundai Inster Design story “For us designers it is a dream come true: to work on a very compact model offering a comfortable interior that is larger than expected”. Nicola Danza, Hyundai's Exterior Design Manager, in describing the Inster - the Korean manufacturer's low-cost electric runabout - starts with its most stand-out quality: space. “It's like a Matryoshka doll in reverse. You start small and find yourself awash with content. After seeing it, you wonder if you can really call it a runabout”. Actually, the Inster is a lot more than a zero-emission restyling of the Casper, a citycar that went on sale in South Korea in 2021 in a petrol version. It has been redesigned and thoroughly updated content-wise to give it the fresher look that fits in with Hyundai's…

Not on the outskirts of Turin, but in a strip of Lombardy that few people associate with motoring creativity, there is a design haven that is solidly rooted in over fifty years of activity and as prolific as ever in terms of ideas and proposals. In Sondrio, in a serendipitous blend of territorial opportunities and personal ambitions, Pierangelo Andreani runs a studio whose expressive streams cause an astonished and involved admiration in any enthusiast. “I dreamt of designing cars ever since I was a little boy. Then, when I finished my military service in 1970, I had an interview at Pininfarina but the then director Franco Martinengo informed me that two other people had just been hired, Piero Stroppa and Giorgio Arcuri (later on well-known designers, ed.) At that point…

A return to the roots. For Robin Page, who took over as head of Bentley design last September, it really was a matter of picking up a thread that had been interrupted for ten years (responsible for interiors and then head of design at Volvo) but which he had already followed for 17 years, from the time Bentley and Rolls-Royce were one. Much has changed since then: “Because customer expectations have changed,” says Page: “There is more colour, more personalization. At Bentley there were many black or gray cars, when a splash of colour appeared it was probably on a car for California or the Middle East. Now, however, there is a bright colour palette and the level of craftsmanship has increased, as in the new Continental GT Speed.” It…

“We were true to our word, what we showed is on the way”. The Grande Panda has just been unveiled and François Leboine, Fiat's design chief, explains how the Dolce Virtual project is taking shape in the real world. We are at the Fiat Style Centre and, using the virtual reality visor, we immerse ourselves in a future space in which a family of concept cars that the Italian brand will translate into production models built on the Stellantis Smart Car platform, will be approachable. The first is a city car that precedes the Grande Panda, and this will be followed in the years to come by an SUV, a fastback crossover and a multifunctional vehicle capable of converting from pickup to camper van. “A concept usually focuses on one…

It would be hard to imagine a more appropriate location to celebrate the first century of a brand with England at its heart. MG blew out one hundred candles at Goodwood, celebrating its anniversary against the backdrop of the Festival of Speed where some of the most iconic models in its history were paraded. Charles Gordon-Lennox, Duke of Richmond and patron of the event, drove a C-Type, the same car in which his grandfather competed in the legendary Brooklands Double 12 in 1931. The public also enjoyed other “stars” of the British brand owned by the Chinese Saic group since 2007, such as the MGA Le Mans and Sebring or the 6R4. A parade of models that celebrated MG's typically “British” style, but with some important novelties. The Festival of…