Innehållsförteckning för No. 172 från AUTO & DESIGN

Carrying forward their brother’s vision Paolo Pininfarina, the new Chairman of the company, and vice chairman Lorenza Pininfarina will be continuing the work of their brother Andrea. This clear message of continuity is in keeping with the wishes of the family and was approved unanimously by the board of directors on August 12. Working alongside Paolo and Lorenza will be general manager Silvio Angori and finance manager Gianfranco Albertini, both of them coopted as board members. Angori has been delegated to head all operational activities, the implementation of the industrial plan and the management of subsidiary companies (with the exception of Pininfarina Extra), while Albertini will be in charge of finance and administration. Paolo Pininfarina (50, managing director of Pininfarina Extra since 1987 and group vice chairman for the past…

“Every car should be surprising”. To describe the inception of the latest product of Citroën’s Centre de Création, design director Jean Pierre Ploué starts from the very beginning of the project, leaving the car itself – hidden under a sheet in the middle of the great presentation room – until last. The sheet will only be lifted after he and Carlo Bonzanigo, director of design cooperation for Citroën and head of the project, have taken us through the concepts, brand values and choices that led to the definition of the car which, for the time being, they call A58. “At the base of it all is the concept of style”, continues Ploué with typical enthusiasm. “We wanted to create a very compact car that was more ‘volumic’ than a traditional…

Over a year ago, in an interview with Auto&Design, BMW design chief Chris Bangle described his vision of the automotive philosophy of the future in decidedly abstract terms. “The important thing”, he said, “is to start questioning dogmas: and sometimes, you need a big hammer to break them down. You just need to grasp the fact that everything is variable and that there are no fixed forms, so you can take a more flexible approach.” It is only now, however, with the presentation of the Gina Light – a revolutionary experimental car skinned not with metal, but with a silver coloured elastic fabric – that this concept has taken tangible form. Even then, Bangle was already using the term Gina: an acronym standing for ‘geometry in an infinite number n…

It’s not something that happens every day: a new creative studio has recently opened in Paris. The studio offers its services to carmakers, but is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Definitely not for the unadventurous. This spring, the inauguration of the new studio Bloom Room was held in the Marais district of Paris. The location was not chosen by chance - situated just a short distance from the Bastille, Marais has become one of the world’s art market centres. It has a subtle charm, due, no doubt, to its ability to reinvent itself without forgetting its past and to the way that it has become a place of sophisticated intellectualism without losing its down to earth roots. Faubourg Saint Antoine began to develop in the 17th Century after a…

Global evolution More power, presence and elegance. While the unmistakable overall shape and proportions of the Quattroporte presented in 2003 are still there, Maserati’s big saloon has been given a more contemporary and more appealing look with a successful restyling operation. Along with the revised appearance, the car has also benefited from a number of technical improvements, including the introduction of the 430 bhp, 4.7 litre powerplant from the GranTurismo coupé in the range. The new Quattroporte has borrowed a number of the cues defined for the GranTurismo by Pininfarina, which created both cars. The most notable of these is the grille, with its vertical slats, which has grown in size to feed more cooling air to the more powerful engine. The entire expression of the frontal aspect is different,…

Question the concept of the motor car to such a degree that it becomes something else, something beyond current canons. One could hardly have expected a less radical brief from a brand such as BMW, a pioneer in avant-garde studies such as the Gina Light (see page 31), especially when in relation to a design school. Thus, for their thesis projects at the conclusion of the three year course in Transportation Design, the students of the IED in Turin produced courageous proposals with original forms, set in imaginative future scenarios. To be precise, the brief assigned by the Bavarian marque in November 2007 was to “Design the BMW of 2015, interpreting the evolution of the language and essence of the brand in the light of the expectations of future society”.…

One of the most intriguing designs we noted while wandering around this year’s Satellite Show was a project by the Belgian Sebastien Wierinck, a composition of flexible tubes to be used as a sofa and other items of furniture. The project is based on the plastic pipes used in construction and roadworks, a semi-finished industrial product cleverly transformed by the designer into a furniture system that changes to suit different contexts and differently sized interiors, adapting in response to the necessities of the desired results with modular, flexible components. Wierinck talks about ‘standard objects’ that only take on a definitive configuration once located in their final destination, as indeed hinted by the name ‘on site’. The finished effect is evocative of a ‘liveable structure’ that you can comfortably recline upon,…

From the dreams of the 1950s, when cars captured the imagination with futuristic, visionary forms, to today’s dreams for more evolved, more flexible and more eco-compatible vehicles. Dream, the dream car and concept car show held in Turin from September 19 to November 23, explores the more imaginative side of the motor car. The event is a part of the calendar of initiatives organised for Turin World Design Capital 2008 and is the third chapter in a trilogy inaugurated last year with Novecento, an anthology of automotive style from the last century, and continued this April with Velocità, a show dedicated to the legend of the racing car. Dream retraces the history of some of the most representative products of the research conducted by automotive style centres – from the…

A “global futuristic small car” with, as its chief strengths, a “stylish, dynamic” design offset by “a blend of versatility and traditional prestige”. Ford makes ambitious claims for the new Fiesta, which marks a radical departure in terms of image after 32 years and 12 million units sold. Very close to the Verve concept presented last year at Frankfurt, Cologne’s new challenger to the great names in the B segment draws its inspiration from the concepts of kinetic design – the styling language adopted by Ford for the past two years. “Full surfaces, bold graphics and dynamic lines combine coherently and harmoniously to create a dynamic spirit of fun and energy in motion, but also to offer a sensation of movement from every angle”, says executive design director for Ford…

To the eyes of the outside observer, including myself, who was recently offered the chance to witness the state of the art of design in Finland, with visits to a number of companies and research centres, design is clearly a strategically important factor in the development of any industrial venture. In recent years, Finland has also invested heavily in realising the full potential of industrial design to gain a market advantage. Today, over 25% of the nation’s exports are related directly to design, and this is an impressive achievement for a country with such a small population. The role played by design was consolidated and reinforced by making design a fundamental part in the overall modernisation of the entire country. Education was also strategic in this, with the involvement of…

“This has been a valuable journey and we hope to see some of you joining our design centres in future” was how Lorenzo Ramaciotti, styling chief for Fiat Group Automobiles and Maserati, concluded the presentation, held this June, of the results of the 2007-08 edition of the Master’s Course in Transportation Design offered by the Design School Polytechnic of Milan. Fifteen international students worked throughout the year to produce nine proposals for Alfa Romeo’s future flagship, developed with the support of designers from the Arese style centre (Milan) and under the supervision of Mario Favilla. Ramaciotti, who warmly praised the professional quality of the proposals, went on to say that conferring sports character to the luxury saloon – which was, in effect, the brief given to the students for the…

Founded on the work of the ADI permanent observatory of Italian design – which consists of over a hundred experts representing the entire country and has published three volumes of the ADI Design Index containing, to date, over 430 nominations – the selection for the XXI ADI Golden Compass was presided over by a prestigious panel of international judges. Ten prizes and 75 special mentions for products (which will enter the Historic Collection, a part of the nation’s arts heritage since 2004 and subject to strict regulations and state protection) were awarded, along with numerous achievement awards acknowledging companies and individuals in the design world. For the first time since its institution in 1954, the exhibition and prize-giving ceremony were held at the Court of Honour of the Venaria palace…

According to Volkswagen Who, at least once in their lives, has not wondered what our world will be like in the near future, say in twenty years’ time? With this idea in mind, the researchers and designers of the Volkswagen Research division have created a singular minisite, allowing car fans to journey into a hypothetical future in the year 2028, where cars communicate with traffic lights, where there are no more traffic jams, where drivers are assisted by dash-mounted holographic displays and where, perhaps, driving is more enjoyable and relaxing. www.volkswagen2028.com is the product of a fresh and exciting idea with which the German brand confirms its position as a pioneer in advanced research. The site opens with an interactive video offering access to the content, with the image of…

It is in the most critical times in the market that manufacturers react to slumping sales by pulling old tricks out of the hat to reawaken the interest of buyers: new cars with broad appeal, research models and concept cars embodying varying degrees of innovation, in which aesthetics fuse with sophisticated new technology or future genres. This is what we’ll be seeing at this October’s Paris Motor Show, with the Europeans at the forefront. The most highly anticipated model is the sixth generation Volkswagen Golf, in which continuity is expressed through an all-new style and advanced technology. Other completely new production models of interest are the Citroën C3 Picasso, the project for which is described and analysed in this issue, and the new Ford Ka, which shares its platform with…

Never make promises you can’t deliver. This was the principle of aesthetic honesty guiding the Citröen design team in the definition of project A58 – a ‘monospace’ with unconventional styling to be based on the PSA group’s A1 platform, which also underpins the C3 and the Peugeot 207. It all started with a pilot ‘avant de phase’ study in 2004. “This is the stage in which we research architecture”, explains Jean-Pierre Ploué. “This produces a strong concept, which we then use as the basis of the project.” In the case of the future C3 Picasso, an initial full scale model, reflecting the future car quite closely in layout, was presented to Robert Peugeot and the group’s top brass, who approved the concept, officially launching project A58. This is when the…

The Eagle has landed – although with one surprise, as instead of the name everyone was expecting for this new mid-engined 2+2, Lotus, while maintaining the tradition of choosing names beginning with the letter E, has preferred the less adventurous moniker ‘Evora’. Boasting incredible visual presence, as with almost all cars from Hethel, class-leading performance and pioneering technology (for the platform in particular) together with sumptuous luxury, this car – presented at London and the first new production Lotus in 13 years since the debut of the Elise – not only makes a lot of promises, it actually seems capable of keeping them. “A milestone” is what the chief of Lotus calls the car, while head of design Russell Carr defines it “a fusion of aesthetics and technology, a combination…

Interpreting multitalent An SUV, but with the genes of a sports car is how Audi touts its new Q5, a car with which it hopes to take a chunk out of the premium segment of a category hitherto dominated by the BMW X3, Mercedes GLK and Volvo XC60. The Q5 has all the right attributes to woo buyers and fit in perfectly in what is a particularly voguish market. Featuring high among these is the car’s good looks, which remain faithful to the styling cues brought to Audi by Walter de’ Silva. More importantly, however, the brand from Ingosltadt has played the quality card with the Q5, as proven by the high and ultra-high strength steels used in its construction, which lighten the car while improving stiffness and vibration response,…

For once, the requisites of the environment, recycling and hybrid powertrains were put to one side to give young talents free creative reign. With complete freedom in their choice of theme, brand and target, the students of the Transportation Design course at Strate Collège of Paris set to work to develop unusual ideas on wheels, many of them envisaged in the context of far-fetched scenarios. The twelve proposals produced by the students at the conclusion of their studies embodied curious and often contradictory visions of the future. In addition to exploratory vehicles for oceanic tourism, ultrafast, ingenious cars worthy of a James Bond film and a few environmentally sustainable ideas, one student even proposed a concept for populating the abysses in mobile submarine pods. Another student conceived floating ultra-technological shuttles…

Is it possible to explore form without the results of this experimentation being reduced to mere decoration, providing, rather, a new expressive identity for design? One designer succeeding in this is Konstantin Grcic. For many years, he has followed his own ideals for simplicity and rationality, creating products that are perfectly compatible with production reality while gradually developing a unique language that takes every aspect of the development of an object into account. What strikes us as most innovative is the exploration of form created from drawings – often executed on the computer – and translated through ever changing processes that render existing techniques and, where possible, materials obsolete. As a consequence, a long-distance dialogue has been established between different projects which, however, explore a common language, a language of…